(no subject)
My end-of-the-year summary: On a personal level, 2005 was one of the most boring and nondescript years ever. The end.
I want 2006 to be an interesting year, not interesting in the "may you live in interesting times" sense, though I have a bad feeling there may be a good bit of that in 2006. No, I want it to be interesting in an "I got off my butt and did interesting and satisfying things" sort of way. My resolutions for 2006:
1) Learn to sleep. I have the worst sleep habits ever. Well, no. Soldiers at the front during the Great War probably had the worst sleeping habits ever, but I bet mine come next. I sleep about 2 hours at a time, wake up, stay up for an hour or two, sleep another hour or two. I'm lucky if I get 3 hours of sleep a night. It's catching up with me fast, though, now that I'm older. I'm tired all the time. Must...learn...to...sleep.
2) Exercise more, so I can get back into doing all those things I used to enjoy, like caving, climbing, hiking (okay, I never actually enjoyed hiking...I have to be going somewhere. That's probaby a caver trait, as my sister, husband, and friends have it, too. My sister and I once wandered around in Denali at a total loss on a 3-day hiking pass: "But where are we going?" "I don't know. How about over there?" "But why? What are we going to do over there?" We once finished a 5-day canoe trip in 15 hours. Too goal-oriented.)
3) Learn to be more succinct. I am the Queen of Tangents. I have a story for almost everything. I even have one about a drag queen, a midget, a crack addict, and an angry cook with a big knife. I have a weird life, and I suck in strange people like a black hole. In public, you can actually see weird people veer off-course and head straight for me, a peculiarity that amuses my friends no end. They're like bird spotters: "Here comes another one. Homeless guy quoting Shakespeare at 2 o'clock!". Anyway, I used to beat myself up about all the tangents I go off on in the classroom---all the books say not to do that--- until I realized that that's how my students are actually remembering the stuff they need to know: "Oh, the xiphoid process...like in the story about your husband and his Evil Twin!" But there! See what I mean about needing to be more succinct.
4) Clean my office, so I don't have to climb into it while risking being crushed in an avalanche. (As I have not put "stop using hyperbole" on my list, you'll know my description of my office is accurate.) Oh, who am I kidding? I'm not going to clean my office.
5) Pay down as much debt as I can. I've recovered from the habit of sitting down in front of Ebay in the wee hours of the morning with an adult beverage in one hand and a credit card in the other, so I'm on my way there.
6) Win the lottery. A big one. That way I could take care of number 5, hire someone to do number 4, not worry about number 3 because rich people can prattle on self-importantly without social censure, and have all the time in the world to work on numbers 1 and 2.
I want 2006 to be an interesting year, not interesting in the "may you live in interesting times" sense, though I have a bad feeling there may be a good bit of that in 2006. No, I want it to be interesting in an "I got off my butt and did interesting and satisfying things" sort of way. My resolutions for 2006:
1) Learn to sleep. I have the worst sleep habits ever. Well, no. Soldiers at the front during the Great War probably had the worst sleeping habits ever, but I bet mine come next. I sleep about 2 hours at a time, wake up, stay up for an hour or two, sleep another hour or two. I'm lucky if I get 3 hours of sleep a night. It's catching up with me fast, though, now that I'm older. I'm tired all the time. Must...learn...to...sleep.
2) Exercise more, so I can get back into doing all those things I used to enjoy, like caving, climbing, hiking (okay, I never actually enjoyed hiking...I have to be going somewhere. That's probaby a caver trait, as my sister, husband, and friends have it, too. My sister and I once wandered around in Denali at a total loss on a 3-day hiking pass: "But where are we going?" "I don't know. How about over there?" "But why? What are we going to do over there?" We once finished a 5-day canoe trip in 15 hours. Too goal-oriented.)
3) Learn to be more succinct. I am the Queen of Tangents. I have a story for almost everything. I even have one about a drag queen, a midget, a crack addict, and an angry cook with a big knife. I have a weird life, and I suck in strange people like a black hole. In public, you can actually see weird people veer off-course and head straight for me, a peculiarity that amuses my friends no end. They're like bird spotters: "Here comes another one. Homeless guy quoting Shakespeare at 2 o'clock!". Anyway, I used to beat myself up about all the tangents I go off on in the classroom---all the books say not to do that--- until I realized that that's how my students are actually remembering the stuff they need to know: "Oh, the xiphoid process...like in the story about your husband and his Evil Twin!" But there! See what I mean about needing to be more succinct.
4) Clean my office, so I don't have to climb into it while risking being crushed in an avalanche. (As I have not put "stop using hyperbole" on my list, you'll know my description of my office is accurate.) Oh, who am I kidding? I'm not going to clean my office.
5) Pay down as much debt as I can. I've recovered from the habit of sitting down in front of Ebay in the wee hours of the morning with an adult beverage in one hand and a credit card in the other, so I'm on my way there.
6) Win the lottery. A big one. That way I could take care of number 5, hire someone to do number 4, not worry about number 3 because rich people can prattle on self-importantly without social censure, and have all the time in the world to work on numbers 1 and 2.