2011 New Year's Resolutions
One of the many blogs I read regularly is Matthew Dicks’. He’s the author of Something Missing and Unexpectedly, Milo. His blog, Grin & Bare It, for the most part is discussion about daily life, his family, his writing, and responses to different conversations or articles he stumbles across. It’s pretty entertaining.
The thing he does on his blog that I like most is this: every year, Dicks makes a handful of New Year’s Resolutions and then follows up on their progress, month to month. It’s pretty neat to see how the list evolves - while he doesn’t add or subtract his goals, as the year wears on some get crossed off because they’re completed or Dicks admits they’ll never be completed by December 31st.
Anyway.
So I thought I’d try to do the same thing as Dicks; not only will I make resolutions, but each month I’ll do a follow-up on them and see how I’m doing. (Yeah, I’m a little late getting these written down. I was a little busy on New Year’s Eve!!)
2011 New Year’s Resolutions
1. Set up a regular fitness routine.
Ever since I started working at RHA, my weight has been oh-so-slowly creeping upward. Turns out all that sitting at my desk with little physical activity is having an effect…who’d have guessed? (Ha.) The problem only escalated when I left Lush - at least when I was working retail part time, I was moving around and on my feet. So now I need to make a commitment to long term health and set up a fitness routine. Ugh.
2. Visit another country.
It’s been a couple of years since my trip to England, and I’m feeling the traveling bug. Sure, I went a lot of cool places last year - Ashland, Washington DC, and Orlando - but I feel like I could use a little international flavor in my wanderings.
3. Get a 4.0.
I haven’t done this Fall 2008. Now that I’m at a “for reals” university, I’d like to change my pattern and go for straight A’s.
4. Set up a school/career map.
So whenever I talk to my family or friends, the big fear about my degree choice (Art History) is “What are you going to do with that degree?” My usual response is “Art restoration!” or “Museum curator!” but if questioned beyond that my answers become vague. So this year, I’ll need to talk to some professionals in the restoration/curator biz and see how they got there, what they look for in their replacements, and plan out the rest of my time at SJSU and what schools I want to aim for, grad-wise.
5. Complete an epic art piece.
I want to make at least one painting/sculpture/fabric arts/THING that I can hold up and say, “Behold! I made this in 2011 and it’s pretty f*cking awesome.”
6. Move out.
I feel like my growth as a person is somewhat stunted, because I still live at home with my parents. I mean, I don’t know how to cook, but I don’t get many chances to practice at home because my mom’s always making buckets of food. I need to purge some books from my collection, but I can’t spread them out so I don’t know what I have. I don’t have any studio space to work on art. Unfortunately, rent rates have only skyrocketed around here in the past few years, and even at dramatically reduced prices decent housing is still unaffordable. But I’ll keep my eyes open and hope for the best.