December – 2009

2010

Thoughts | December 31, 2009

I’ve always thought New Year’s resolutions were cliched and inconsequential. Nearly everyone makes them, and nearly all of them sound the same: Lose weight, find happiness, be a better person, blah blah blah. And nearly none of them get accomplished, at least not to the degree that people intended when they made them. I personally remember my resolutions until about January 10 and then shove them aside and never look at them again. This fake-philosophical paragraph is probably just as cliched as New Year’s resolutions, though, and definitely more pointless because I’m going to make resolutions anyway:

Be more positive. I’ve always thought I was a pretty positive person, but it’s all thought and no action. I think about being positive, but then I see the negative in a lot of things, and that makes me unhappy. For example, recently I’ve noticed that I’ve been quick to criticize people and develop a dislike for them because they’re annoying, even though I have little reason to be annoyed. I need to accept people for who they are despite their flaws, instead of placing them on a pedestal and expecting them to be perfect.
Don’t let perfectionism be a burden. I’ve always believed that “perfect” works only as a verb, not a noun, because perfection is a good thing to strive for despite its unattainability. I’m much too much of perfectionist, though, and it makes me hypercritical and inefficient. I need to understand that neither I nor anyone else can make everything perfect, so I should be a little less critical and stop trying so hard. This will be hard for me because I value hard work and excellence so much, but I’ll keep reminding myself that excellent is not the same as perfect, and settling for good enough isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Go to sleep before midnight on school nights. Especially since I have 9-o’clock classes four days of the week this quarter. Toward the end of last quarter, I just stopped going to my morning econ classes… bad, bad idea. I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll save late-night debauchery for weekends.
Get a 3.9 GPA. I want a 4.0, but I’m not so sure that’s possible. It’s a little unfair that people going to some colleges have a much easier time getting a 4.0 than people at my school getting even a 3.5, but I won’t dwell on that. A 3.9 allows me to get an A- in one of my classes, I think? I’m not going to do the calculations; I’ll just give myself the leeway to get an A- in my hardest class. This goes along with #2, I suppose — attaining good enough is not settling. Maybe I’m still being too perfectionistic? It’s hard to find that balance.
Go to the gym at least once every two weeks. I said to mi madre the other day that I would go every week, but realistically speaking, that will probably never happen. Oh, who am I kidding, this will probably never happen either, but I thought five resolutions was a good number, so I’m keeping it on here. I guess this is really only resolution number four-and-a-half.

I was going for 7 resolutions, but that was just overkill. I am going to keep my resolutions this year, damnit. I’m going to bookmark this page and keep track of my progress.

On second thought, this goes completely against my philosophy of taking life as it comes. Like I said, it’s hard to find balance in anything! Ahh! Maybe my New Year’s resolution should just be to become more assertive and decisive. But some things never change…

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My new best friend for 2010

Photos | December 27, 2009

Yeah, that’s right. I have a new best friend every year. It’s my planner. For 2010, I bought myself a a large hardcover Moleskine notebook planner:

Isn’t Moley beautiful?

This is the page after the inside cover and the “in case of loss, please return to… as a reward:” page. I still haven’t figured out what to put as a reward yet. “TBD”? “Lots of love and gratitude and baked goods”?

First week begins tomorrow! Woot.

On the left is the first week that I’ll be back at school. I’ve colorcoded my classes and written what I know of my schedule thus far. On the right is the second week; I only took a picture because of the cupcake.

I’ve probably already inconsiderately picture-spammed you (sorry!), but there’s more! Keep on reading for pictures of my old planner from senior year of high school… this is sort of like a “looking back on 2009 (and a little of 2008)” post.

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