New year's resolutions

[Alunnite]

So new years is a pretty big deal for a lot of people, and traditionally everyone makes at least one new year's resolution. It's been over a month since new years, which means 1/12 of the year has already gone. I was wondering what your new year's resolution(s) where and have you stuck to it/them so far?

Normally I go to a party and write down my resolution in a book. We get to see each others previous resolution and laugh about people's failures. This year the book got to be quite late at night and in a drunken mess I filled in my 2013 resolution as #YOLO.

This is the only resolution I've stuck to ever, and I've never had more fun over such a long period of time. To clarify my YOLO isn't the trashy, white girl, "Let's drink another bottle of vodka and play chicken on the M1!", sort of YOLO. I've been going about the whole thing with the mindset of "Why the fuck not?" and as long as there isn't a good reason not to, I do do. I've made so many more friends, having more fun, and becoming more me than I ever was before. I've also been forcing my new personal motto onto my friends and they seem to be having a good time.

#YOLO

[miffy495]

Yeah, I think I decided to just give up on impressing people around age 19, and it's worked well. Of course, six years ago we hadn't yet evolved to the philosophical heights of the #YOLO mindset, so I didn't have a name for it beyond "stopping giving a fuck" (dear internet: this is a sarcastic statement). I like it though. It's made the last 6 years a lot more fun for me than they seem to have been for a lot of my contemporaries, plus I get to wear neon dinosaur hoodies at the university and people just have to accept that. Last week I got stuck halfway through demonstrating a problem on the board in class and just drew a kitty to illustrate that I'd run out of ideas. I probably couldn't get away with that if I weren't a straight A student, but whatever. I have fun.

My main resolution this year has been to not give up on the guitar that I started playing for the hell of it last summer. So far I've played for at least an hour a night every night this year, so I'm feeling pretty good. Picking up Rocksmith on PC has helped with this as well, as it gives me a bit of motivation to play around when I don't feel like looking for new tabs online. I haven't used the game for a few nights now, but I've kept playing on my acoustic and I can see the ebb and flow as I get more enthusiastic about strumming or lead stuff in turn. Haven't made so much progress with an instrument since I was a little kid taking formal lessons. Feels good.

[Erkki]

My resolution is to upgrade my monitor to WUXGA. And also to upgrade my mouse & keyboard. Really, I've lived with this old 19" 4:3 monitor for way too long. And the broken-buttoned mouse and keyboard which doesn't allow me to press W+D+Shift at the same time. I doubt I will keep my resolution, but if I do, it's a contradiction.

[tegan]

Erkki I like that your New Year's Resolution is literally a new year's resolution.

I'm trying to do the usual things: eat healthier, exercise more, do better at my job, improve my mental health situation, and try to meet new people and do things.

Thus far I have succeeded in cutting juice out of my diet.

Last year's resolutions went better than anticipated. I didn't get any dates, but I succeeded in getting a decent job, moving to a new city, finding a bigger apartment, and getting over some of my anxiety. That's a win.

[Roderick]

My resolution is to upgrade my monitor to WUXTRY

Fixed.

[Gormongous]

I really only have two resolutions this new year, and both are career-related.

First, I need to stop being so introverted in my professional life. I'm actually a pretty social person in private, thanks to years of trying at it, but I can't ignore anymore that I've been blowing off conference presentations and making excuses not to publish because dealing with my academic peers stresses me out so much. It's only a little bit odd never to have given a paper by the time you finish your masters, but once on your Ph.D they should be a yearly fixture for you. Ugh, and I'm going to hate it so much. I just need to remind myself that everyone else's ideas suck just as much as mine, but we each possess only the knowledge to perceive our own suck.

Second, I need to learn Italian. I've got basic reading competency, like with German and French, but my dissertation is primarily about updating a hundred-year-old monograph in Italian, which will involve close reading and archive visits. I don't really know how this is going to go over either, since my institution doesn't have Italian courses and I don't do well with immersion programs like Rosetta Stone, so I'll probably have to cajole the other aspiring Italianists into a reading group or something. Yay, more professional interaction! Hopefully they'll feed into each other just like that.

I know I sound down about all this, but my New Year's resolutions are usually about personal self-improvement, which I handle quite well. I'd resolve to correct others less or be more generous around others and accomplish enough by next year that I'm satisfied. So it's better to start doing things outside my comfort zone that I know will be good for me.

[JonCole]

Mine is to go back to school and genuinely return to the path of earning my Bachelor's Degree. And for a gaming-related one, I'm trying once again to do my "complete two backlog games for every new game I buy" for this year, in a vain attempt to knock that down a bit.

[Erkki]

So how did fulfilling the resolutions go? I upgraded mine to 1920x1080 so it isn't exactly WUXTRY as I planned. I did get a new mouse and keyboard as well. So I kept my resolution, but also I didn't.

[dibs]

I'm going to get less fat. Today i didn't get chesse on my wrap. i did get a lion bar.

[JonCole]

I failed both of my resolutions. I've determined that all of my resolutions for the past handful of years have been too ambitious. So, I'm instead trying to think of a short list of easily attainable goals instead of one or two goals that are quite difficult. So far I have:

 

• Read at least one book a month (tried two books per month a couple years ago, failed by April)
• Watch at least one of the AFI Top 100 per month (tried to watch all of the AFI Top 100 in a year, got through about 40 of them before I gave up)
• Try out one positive lifestyle change per month (rather than say "go on a diet and lose 30 lbs", I'm aiming for "try out a diet for a month and see how it goes", "cut x food from your diet and see if you can live with it" or "revisit the whole yoga thing")

[dibs]

Start a podcast, call it Idle Filums.

• Watch at least one of the AFI Top 100 per month (tried to watch all of the AFI Top 100 in a year, got through about 40 of them before I gave up)

[subbes]

Start a podcast about going to water parks, call it Idle Flumes.

[dibs]

Start a podcast about exotic birds, call it Idle Plumes.

[elmuerte]

Start a podcast about utilitarian clothes, call it Idle Jumps

[subbes]

Start one about American actors known for their work in Jurassic Park and Independence Day, call it Idle Goldblums.

[elmuerte]

Start a postcast about cartography, call it Idle Rhumbs

[shammack]

Start a podcast about bread, call it Idle Crumbs

[dibs]

Start a pod cast about porn stars after they give up the business, call it Idle Cums.

 

 

(Srsly though, i think Idle Golblums won it).

[dibs]

Start a podcast about your friends in the video game industry, call it Tone Control Idle Chums.

[subbes]

Start a podcast where you mock your fans, call it Idle Dum-Dums.

[elmuerte]

Start a podcast where you mock your fans, call it Idle Dum-Dums.

tsk tsk.. you could have called it Idle Chumps

[dibs]

Start a podcast about malcontents who hate rhyming, call it Idle Curmudgeons.

[Dewar]

Back to the subject of this thread, last year I made a resolution to try and beat as many games as I purchased. I was well ahead of the line until I got my PS3 (and subsequently bought all of the Uncharted and Infmaous games) and enrolled in PS+. With a little bit of jiggering to seperate games that I got for free versus games that I paid for, I was able to hit my goal exactly by beating the new Zelda a few days before the end of the year. Unfortunately, my backlog still grew by around 30 games due to presents, contests, and PS+/Games with Gold, but at least the resolution had me thinking about purchases rather than just impulse buying all the time.

 

I plan on keeping up the same resolution for the new year, as well as trying to cut down the soda intake again. High Fructose Corn Syrup is my constant enemy. I think the wording of my resolution this year will be "I won't buy soda from the vending machine at work" that way if I'm really desperate for a pick-me-up, I can walk to the store, but it will hopefully cut down on the "just because" soda intake.

[subbes]

Start a podcast about malcontents who hate rhyming, call it Idle Curmudgeons.

 

A dental podcast called Idle Gums.

[Erkki]

Actually my new resolution was to quit smoking, so far I've succeeded. If tomorrow goes well the hardest will be behind me and I'll be happy. I also have a secret second resolution and I'm not telling.