new year's eve essay

Thanksgiving's over and it's time to start thinking about the next big holiday — and we could use your help to get into the spirit. Or is that spirits? Our annual New Year's Eve Guide, which will be inserted in the December 17 issue of Westword and also posted at westword.com, will be full of information on activities* around town on December 31. But it will also overflow with memories of binges past, and we're asking you to spill, too.Yes, we're bringing back our My Best/Worst New Year's Eve Essay Contest! All you need to do is share your best or worst New Year's Eve experience in an essay that's between 100 and 1,000 words, and send it to editorial@westword.com no later than midnight Sunday, December 6. The winning essay will be rewarded with 0 and publication in our 2015 New Year's Eve Guide. (Runners-up will each receive .)So put your couch time today to good use, and start remembering.if you can!*We're also looking for suggestions of events that should be included in our New Year's Eve Guide. If you know of an offbeat event or a great party where you really need to be when the clock strikes twelve, send all the details to editorial@westword.com by 9 a.m. Monday, December 7.
New Year’s Eve customs vary depending on where you are in the world, and each country and city has their own way of celebrating.  There are countless places all over this massive world that would be great to celebrate the New Year.The following are a collection of photos chronicling New Year’s celebrations, from one of the first to ring in the New Year in Auckland to one of the last in Alaska.Auckland, New Zealand – GMT +12The first major city to celebrate New Year’s Eve, New Zealand’s capital has plenty of options for flipping the calendar to 2011.  Make sure to check out the biggest party, Hot in the City, New Year’s Eve at Sky City in downtown.Sydney, Australia – GMT +10Sydney is no stranger to New Year’s Eve parties as over a million people flock to the harbor for one of the world’s largest fireworks displays.Singapore - GMT +8What better place to celebrate than in one of the most diverse and interesting cities in the world, Singapore.  Marina Bay is the place to be, but make sure you arrive early for a good view.Taipei, Taiwan – GMT +8The top Taiwanese singers and performers put on a spectacular show at Citizen Square before the sky explodes at the stroke of midnight.Kodai, India - GMT +5.5Maybe massive crowds and fireworks aren’t your thing.  If not, then consider heading off into one of India’s hill stations and watch the first sunrise of the New Year in peace and tranquility.Vilnius, Lithuania - GMT +2Lithuania’s capital city offers all types of New Year’s celebrations.  The city has a multitude of gathering places, including Cathedral Square, Vingis and Kalnu Parks, and the banks of the Neris River.Helsinki, Finland - GMT +2Though still a large city, Helsinki’s New Year’s celebrations are typically tamer than others around the world.  Despite that, it’s still a gorgeous city to watch the fireworks explode while celebrating in a more low key manner.Zurich.
click to enlarge New Year's Eve is always a bright and shining celebration, whether we're talking neon in New York's Times Square or a lap on cross-country skis beneath Antarctica's midnight sun. Actually, at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station — a collection of dormitories, laboratories, Quonset hut garages and massive telescopes hunched against drifting snow — the holiday is so relentlessly glittery you'd have to watch a ball drop through a pair of tinted goggles. That is, if there were a ball. As I found out a few winters ago, there's not. There is instead a two-mile-thick ice cap upon which even extremophile bacteria can't survive and katabatic winds rushing over sastrugi wastelands. There are dozens of revving snowmobiles and more mugs of hot chocolate than a child's thirsty fantasy could absorb. There are 250 scientists and laborers from all across the globe, each in desperate need of a break from the never-ending workload that defines life in Antarctica. And, on that note, there's one other thing: a crazy party. In the parlance of my high school days at Champlain Valley Union, we would call it a friggin' rager. I secured my passage to the Great White South — the bottom of the world — as any self-respecting Vermonter would: I took a job shoveling snow. Boy jeezum, talk about never ending. It was a four-month stint with the U.S. Antarctic Program, and only 10 of us were hired for this minimum-wage honor from more than a thousand applicants. My uncle, a pragmatic Yankee with an achy lumbar spine, laughed when he heard of my post-college career choice, saying, That's what plows are for, aren't they? To which I responded, Nah, it's what philosophy degrees are for, duh. The endeavor was Sisyphean and then some: 60-hour weeks, physical exhaustion, a numbness of the toes that threatened to rise into my very brain cells. Nevertheless, I did find the occasional moment.