A lot of people think New Year’s Resolutions are bogus. After all, what’s the point of making promises you can’t keep? Nothing changes overnight- not your diet, not your exercise regime, not your earnest intent to read War and Peace. Except that’s not really the point- at least not for me. Starting a new year with a fresh perspective gives me something to do in the remaining dark winter months, now stripped bare of festive cheer. Then at the end of the year, I get to reflect on how much I’ve actually done that year and usually, it’s more than I’ve given myself credit for. So, without further ado, my 2018 resolutions!
1. Make the most of my last semester at St Andrews
I could swear to god that my Freshers’ was last week, but somehow, it’s been three and a half years since I first set foot on my campus as an English, now Classical Studies with English student. Being at St Andrews is such a dense busy experience, that it can just whizz by and I don’t want to graduate this summer feeling like I haven’t made the most of it.
2. Have at least a vague plan for the year after graduation
I set this same goal back in my resolutions for the academic year post, but it’s suddenly becoming a major source of anxiety for me. Originally, I was planning on applying for my Masters, but I don’t think I can afford it and my dissertation took up so much time that it definitely looks like I will miss funding deadlines. I’m looking for something else to do, then, to fill the year after graduation, hopefully making a bit of money and not driving me completely up the wall with boredom.
3. Learn more about my political party.
Feeling energised by the progress they made in the General Election, I joined the Labour party this summer. However, since then, I’ve pretty much blanked on every e-mail the party has sent me (though, in my defence, my local leader opens every email with ‘Dear Comrades’) and have generally been every political party’s worst nightmare. This year I’d like to read up more on the history of the party and current policy, so I feel more confident throwing my voice into the discussion.
4. Finish some writing projects
I have loads of drafts that I’ve started- stories, TV specs, poems- even blog posts- but very few. if any, that I’ve finished. I want this year to be the year of finishing what I’ve started so that I can feel like I’ve really written something.
5. Exercise more consistently
I’m really good at going hard for about two months with my exercise and then falling off the wagon as soon as things get stressful at university or work, so I really want to hone my exercise regime this year so that I don’t end up feeling like garbage when things get tough.
6. Cook from a recipe at least once a month
I am Queen of the Meal Deal. Being consistently too busy for my own good, I rarely eat in the house and when I do, it’s going to be a microwave meal or straightforward pasta and tomato sauce out of a jar every time. Whilst I can’t see this changing hugely, just by virtue of my lifestyle and my house being as cold as proverbial balls, I would like to teach myself to cook better and healthier. I reckon I can do this best by cooking more often from cookbooks and blogs. I will let you know how this goes!
7. Take better care of my teeth
I had to get three fillings this spring and got slapped with a hefty bill. This goes hand in hand with the fact that I need to eat less chocolate! I’m trying to floss more and use mouthwash, but I really need to invest in a better toothbrush!
8. Learn to value stress less.
We live in a world that considers being busy to be a virtue. I have definitely fallen victim to the CV-building frenzy that comes with the final years of university and I tend to commit to too many things at one time. When I work hard, playing hard tends to follow, but sometimes I play too hard, resulting in a summer of getting a little too drunk every so often. This year I think I should go easier on myself, and expect less.
9. See all of the Oscars ‘Best Picture’ nominees
I really suck at seeing good movies when they come out and would love to go to the cinema more often, so I think this would be a good place to start!
10. Stop fearing long books
Internet reading culture, from Booktube to Goodreads reading goals, glorifies the idea of quantity over quality. This year I really benefited from not setting a reading goal, as it let me reread things more often and I rushed books less, but I’m still terrified of big books, maybe reading one a year. This year I’d like to tackle some of the big books on my shelf!
That’s it! Please tell me your resolutions because I LOVE hearing other people’s goals and, frankly, stealing your ideas.
I looked at my list last year, and the only resolution that I kept was the one about being less camera-shy. Which was kind of a big thing that’s dogged me all my life, so that pleases me.
I’m not going to beat myself up about the others, because I did try really hard at all of them. In some of them there were mitigating circumstances - that three months of terror in the spring when the school tried not to fund me played havoc with all of my resolutions that involved productivity, sleep, and leisure reading - and I’m at the point in my degree where I’ve done all I can at the moment and my finishing is just up to other people.
So: this year’s resolutions. Repeats in bold.
1) Finish the darned degree. That goes without saying.
2) Learn German. I was a naïve delicate flower when I resolved this last time. Now that I know what is involved, I will content myself with finishing the Duolingo skill tree and getting a broad idea of the alphabet, which looks almost identical to the alphabet used in English except that the letters correspond to entirely different sounds that may or may not change depending on the month, the phase of the moon, and barometric pressure. 2018 will be devoted to learning why there is an E on the end of “kein” sometimes. I will dedicate 2019 to learning what a genitive case is, and whether or not it is as dirty as it sounds. From 2020 through 2030, I will try to puzzle out plurals. And so forth. I will also try to do more leisure reading in the languages I have, and pick up more, less frustrating ones.
3) Work up six articles for publication. Need these for the job hunt. I am now told that the goal for most academics is one per year. Even with everything that happened last year, I was able to take one to the next stage, and that makes me very happy. Four more is probably a more realistic goal, but I would like to go into next year’s job hunt as strong as I can, and I do have a fair number of ideas.
4) Make some serious progress in turning my MA thesis into a book. My thesis was ruled to have made an original contribution to research in the field, something I wasn’t even supposed to do at that level, and the last time I did a search on the topic, it was also the last contribution. And I have some new material now that I can add, because even if the scholarly stuff has stood still, it’s still turning up in novels. So, let’s say, I do that extra reading, and send off a query letter to a press, and we will call that serious progress.
5) Read at least two novels a week. Trying again this year. I finished something like fourteen books shy of this, after getting really behind during crunch time at school (that month of two conference presentations, a two-hour lecture, and adding eighty pages to Chapter 1 of my dissertation) and the three bad months, and scrambling the rest of the year to catch up. I could have done it, too, except that whenever I open a book a) my beloved hears silence and knows that he needs to fill it with a detailed description of the differences between M.A.S.H. the movie and M.A.S.H. the TV show, with historical context, or b) I fall asleep on my gran’s couch and wake up four hours later. But I hope the latter stops being so much of a factor because...
6) Sleep more. I can be forgiven when I’m stressing out, or, I’m gonna say, when I’m sharing a leaky inflatable mattress with a snoring blanket-hog, but when I can, I need to work on this. I should be in bed by 6 AM, and it’s coming up on 9 now. (Granted, I did try to get some reading done, so I’ve had about four hours already...) But I still wake up at 1 or 2, and motor through my day, and I know I’m not as good as I could be that way.
7) Try one new recipe a week. I used to love to make this resolution when I lived alone, but when I had to stretch my food to feed two people, it had to go away. But my parents are extremely food-secure, and it helps them out when I cook, and they said to go for it. I’ll be limited as far was what I can get for ingredients in Northern Ontario, but there’s still plenty I should be able to do.
8) I’d also like to pick up a new skill. So much of this year is about staying the course, waiting for the things I’m already doing to bear fruit. But I want to do something new, too. Any suggestions?
Lowell, MI- I am looking forward to a healthy new year 2017 that begins with us. It’s not about what 2017 has in store for us, but what we have in store for 2017.
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