Well. It’s almost 2006. I have survived a full year in the real world, and six months in the City. That right there is pretty damn good. This year is kind of a blur in a way 2004 wasn’t, because so much happened, but it doesn’t feel like it. Because I feel as if it’s been this way forever, and I say that in an entirely neutral way.
Anyway, I’m not big on New Year’s Eve, nor do I believe in New Year’s Resolutions, but these are things that I would like to commit to or work on or whatever. It is more of a “To Do” list then anything else, but it is purposeful. Starting January 3rd, I will re-dedicate myself to self-improvement. Or smtg.
-Drink less.
-Figure out the living situation by January 15
-Finish my grad school applications by January 15
-Commit to the 50 Books a Year thing and be hardcore about it. I’m already doing the “Three Books a Month: One serious non-fiction, one serious fiction, fiction/non-serious non-fiction.” I definitely read 50 Books a Year, but this is if you count things like re-reading The Little House on the Prairie box set and mass market chick-lit. Some book bloggers say these would count, but some don’t so I don’t know if they should be included in the total. Wow, I’m really neurotic. Maybe I should try and do 100 books? I don’t know. I want to read everything. Whenever I go to The Strand and look at the tables full of cheap Oxford World classics I think that I should read them all. Like, I think I should go to The Strand after work and purchase several of them. Which I won’t do, because I’m moving and the last thing I need is MORE books to move. But then I want the entire history section in my living room. And then I have this fear of not being well-read or educated enough for grad school, because I’ve still never read The Republic all the way through. But now I have the Bloom translation. So I have to read it. And continue to refer to one of the speakers as “That Thrashy guy”
-Stop going on rants about reading books and intellectual insecurity because I will be fine in grad school because I’m going to get a fully-funded ride at Rutgers, and study with a Tocqueville scholar and write about the ways in which women in an aristocracy were better off than women in democracies. Sebastian will get credit, since he gave me the idea last December at the Parting Glass gathering.
-Read the Economist more often. Each one of those should count as a book. There are so many words! You couldn’t get away with that in an American magazine. Oh the Brits!
-Commit to doing more stuff in The City. This month it’s the Museum of Natural History. I’m going on Sunday. Anyone who wants to join is welcome.
-Eat actual meals, maybe even meals with Nutritional Value. Doritos are not a meal. Salsa is a condiment, not a food.
And that’s all I can think of right now. And I get out of work in twenty minutes anyway. So Happy New Year and all that nonsense.
