HAPPY NEW YEAR

2010 is here. Alas, it is time to say cheers to another year of-more often than not-unfulfilled resolutions (eg: better grades, get a job, eat more vegetables, etc.). But resolutions and trivial pursuits aside, I cannot help but wonder at the start of each new year just how amazing it is that life is still being lived, that mankind is still surviving, and civilization just got another year older. The fact that our earth has just completed a full orbit around the sun safe and sound is already astounding to say the least, and that our planet has been doing so for the past 65 million years since the end of the dinosaurs is nothing short of a miracle.

Before we start filling those glasses with tequila to celebrate the new year by waking up on the toilet covered in vomit and other questionable bodily fluids, I think it would be worth the time to reflect and appreciate the astronomical factors and probabilities of how we're still here and why we need a planetary call for celebration every time a new year arrives.

• There is 1 chance in 140 trillion that the Earth should exist.
• There is 1 chance in 795 billion that life should have evolved on earth.

• There is 1 chance in 89 billion that life should have evolved into mankind.
• There is 1 chance 12 billion that mankind should have created the alphabet and thus civilization.
• There is 1 chance in 6 billion that our parents should ever have met and got together.
• There is 1 chance in 90 million that we should have been the lucky sperm that fertilized your mother's egg.
• Overall we're pretty lucky to be here.

(source: Carey, B., Delehag, H., (2009), 'This Book Will Change Your Life', pp.96)

But anyway, what is the start of the new year without resolutions right? Below are my resolutions for 2010:

Get better grades

Eat more fruits

Grow more hair on my axilla, thus making it look more manly than the hairless and sissy looking monstrosity it is now

Purchase a slave

Get the Pope and the Dalai Lama drunk (they apparently wore the costumes above 'sober')

Frankly I think I have a higher chance with the last one compared to the rest. But anyway, have fun, love life, and enjoy 2010 to the fullest. Happy New Year people!