New Year's Eve, A Diary

From a diary, New Year's Eve 1991-1992

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December 31, 1990* – New Year’s Eve

3:00PM – I should have started this diary a year sooner. 1990* was an eventful year. It opened with the United States about to go to war in Iraq, and has closed with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The world has changed radically during the last 3 years**, and the next three may prove as tumultuous. I’m not sure what we expected from the downfall of communism in Europe, but what we got was a range of effects, from economic turmoil to bloodshed. The patient was almost too far gone when the resuscitation was applied, and has come back choking spasmodically and still in serious condition. A rise in nationalism has led to fighting in some republics of the former USSR and Yugoslavia. Russia, which was fairly strong of old, and the center of the USSR, is doing surprisingly well. There is some apprehension concerning Yeltsin and whether he may yet prove to be a dictator, or conversely, whether he can control the military if the country revolts in the face of exploding prices.

10:00PM – It’s after midnight in Moscow and the Soviet Union is no more. Here in _____ it’s windy and rainy, after a cold and windy day.

11:15PM – I plan to take a photo of myself at midnight.

11:58PM – Bye bye 1991.

12:02AM – The first minutes of 1992. What will this year bring? I should do like _____ [a friend] and try to wonder where I’ll be this time next year. But for now I’m tired and I will go to bed.

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I did not continue the diary much past this point. I do still have the photo I took of myself.

-Neil

*These errors are in the original, both should read 1991.

**The length of time I had been living in the city in which I was writing this diary.