2012

2012 saw past December 21,  it is an old year now, with the remaining 10 days in a frenzy build-up for the next dated new year, 2013.


2012 saw in this Blogger 19 blogs -  from Thoughts on the new year to short expositions about osteoarthritis, gout, rheumatoid arthritis,  alternative medicine, back pain, sleep and inflammation, meetings in Jordan, and thoughts on aging.







                   




2012 saw Chikungunya fever outbreak in the Philippines and in my home, the "break bone" fever becoming real break bone (fracture) of my daughter with the Chikungunya arthritis severe enough to cause her to fall one day.

2012  saw my mother turn 90, outlasting friends (and perhaps foes alike), continuing to serve as auditor of the local association of senior citizens, getting crankier as her sharp mind blunts away and her quick body ever slower.


2012 meted out a personal warning, with two falls, only 10 days apart, for me to be more careful.




2012 saw a protracted Arab spring in Syria (dragging through summer, autumn and winter of 2011 and 2012) and the possibility that Damascus, the longest living city which has not been sacked or destroyed through all waves of empires it rode, may actually lay flat in ruins, desolate; and elsewhere in the Middle East, wars and rumors of wars.

2012 saw Europe do balancing acts for the teetering economies within, London's success as host of the Olympic games, a royal wedding; America re-electing Obama and hoping to survive the "fiscal cliff" and the burden of a wave of gun-related violence that killed innocents; Latin America preparing for another World Cup; African countries holding fast despite its cauldron of famine and share of wars; the "awakened" giant of Asia asserting its numbers, and the hermit kingdom handing power over  - nuclear at that, to a young progeny.

2012 saw earthquakes everywhere, storms, tornadoes and floods of "strange" dimensions.

Then I smile as 2012 saw hope - Aung San Suu Kyi, ever poised, with flowers in her hair, finally fly and take to wings. This phenomenon has shown how transformation is possible in unexpected places, like the rigid, inflexible mold of a military junta. A generation of leaders pass, the new generation decides to change for the greater good and for their own sakes.



The world will continue till its set time so 2012 is able to fold in its arms the bits of history it has collected. It will then add them to the Library of Man that contains what has been known since the beginning of time.