Did I accomplish all of my goals for this year? Did I accomplish any?
This past year I stopped making 18 resolutions because I kept forgetting them and had less than a .500 batting average. I went down to seven in accordance with this post.
So here we go:
- Issue (and meet) a Creative Challenge every week (to be announced here)
FAIL! And miserably so. I got past January and was plowing through February when Hourly Comic Day came up and bit me in the ass. I spent two solid weeks coloring and editing the comics, which left me drained for the rest of the month and unmotivated for the rest of the year.
Still, I was creative enough this year. I held a No Prospie Week series of celebrations, I drew comics every hour for a day, I started a podcast (To be announced and advertised later), I wrote some stories, I learned to design trophies, I shot and edited countless hours of video, and I made no less than three new websites. Among these was a website I designed for my best friend to help her on the job market and a full remodeling of this blog.
Still, I failed at my stated goal. - Get back to the point where I can do a full four sets of 12 pull ups.
Ambivalent! I say ambivalent because it’s not ambiguous. I unambiguously failed, but I got back into shape in a bad way. I started playing basketball several times a week until I broke a finger and a rib. Then I switched to the less violent sport of Mixed Martial Arts until a very fat man sat on me and tore (or sprained) several “nondescript ligaments.” I started running 5k every day until the semester started. And I started swimming or riding my bike regularly until it got too cold. Above all, I started going to the gym regularly. I improved my bench press and squat by 60% and 400% respectively. I never got to the point where I could do four full sets of pull ups, but I did improve greatly. I even lost 20 pounds at one point!
Since I only chose that particular goal for the sake of improving my general fitness, I still consider myself a winner this year. - Pass my Future Research Statement and begin to work on my dissertation reading
FTW. I passed my FRS, which is our third year exam, though one of my advisers did not show up. It was an ego blow, but it worked. I began to work on my dissertation reading, but not anywhere near the rate at which I want to continue a goal similar to this in 2011. - Give good presents
FTW!! I made a concentrated effort to give good presents this year and am proud of my selection. Of course, I only ended up getting presents for a handful of people (6 or so), which is less than almost any other year. But I made them count, damn it! 1
- Continue posting on constrainedwriting.com at least every week
… *ahem!* I failed pretty badly, but I’m going to fix this before the end of the year, so… maybe a success? - Organize my files digitally and the other way
FTW. I have some stray PDFs to label and some papers left to file that have accumulated in the past few months, but other than that I met this goal. - Continue writing a sentence every day
Fail? Don’t bother making sense of this one. I’ve never posted about it and not really told anyone. But I’ve been writing a sentence every day in the hopes that at the end of five years I will have a workable autobiographical novel.
… It’s pretty much the biggest fail project yet. But I’m only halfway through, so… we’ll see?
- I also had a secret resolution here that I accomplished. It was to date a worthwhile person. And— though it didn’t work out because I’m a complete moron at relationships and life— it was pretty wonderful. [↩]
