It seems like every New Years Eve is a little different for me. Last year my New Years Eve was spent with two of my friends, Sean and Becca at the waterfront in Jacksonville, Florida the night before the Gator Bowl. The year before that it was spent out with a bunch of my friends at Ohio State with a pre-party at my apartment. Two years before that I spent it in Orlando with my sister and some of her friends.
This year had all the same ingredients, lots of friends, a bar with televisions tuned to another stunt that will occur at midnight. Even with it seemingly the same as every other year, this year was different. For the first time in my life I was spending New Years Eve in the central time zone. In every other aspect the central time zone is no different from other time zones. Instead of turning on my favorite TV show at 8pm I tune in an hour early. Its not that big of a deal.
However, on New Years Ever everyone watches television to see the ball drop in New York City (someday I want to see it in person and this year two of my friends got to and I am pretty jealous). The problem with this is the ball drops at 11pm Central time and they don’t “re-drop it.” Now it may have just been the bar I was at but there was no countdown, and when it landed after the obligatory cheering there was no singing of Old Lang Syne. As a matter of fact it was arbitrary celebration, kissing and toasting somewhere around midnight according to everyone in the bar’s cell phone clocks. It just wasn’t the same.
I am not complaining about the night by any means, I still had a blast with all my friends and enjoyed every minute of it but I could tell something was missing. Maybe next year I will try to organize a countdown. Every year one of my resolutions is to learn the lyrics to Old Lang Syne and this year I still did not know the lyrics. I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t sing it in the bar.