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Saturday, 31 December 2011

Another Year, Another List

Well, here we are again. The end of yet another year, and if you believe some of the street people, we are at the end of time! Sadly, I’m not here to make further prophecies on how the world’s coming to an end in 2012 because there’s already plenty of material floating around, and I don’t care too much for the mass contemplation of the end of life going on as well. If you want to live life differently just because it’s the last year, then I don’t really think you understand how fickle life is.

The end of the year does bring along with it a unique set of events; celebration, overdrinking, insane traffic, fireworks, increased death tolls, and for me, making my new year’s resolutions which, to be honest, I have completely forgotten about until just now. So, if you sense a little scrambling going on, it’s because there is since I will be, for once, working against the clock to get this post up before the year comes to a close.

As per tradition (which I had to look up since I had completely forgotten all about it), we shall begin the festivities with a look at how I fared with the list of resolutions I made exactly a year ago.

MonkeyJ’s 2011 New Year Resolutions
  1. Better manage my schedule to balance work, studies, and friends in a more sensible manner – Well, not really a success on my whole work-study-friends balance because the first two have been kicking the latter’s ass from the get go up until today. It’s just when you have a full course workload and two days of work as well, there is rarely any time left for anything else. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t go out occasionally. So, I guess this one was a win.
  2. Maintain grades - Done and done. While the stink of Time Series did not stick with my long term performance, it did experience consistent drops from the semester before that. (More on that later, hopefully.) But bottom line is that CGPA was maintained and I have graduated with what could be comparable to a summa cum laude. Mission accomplished, for now.
  3. Improve living situation – Sadly, due to my crippling laziness, I am still staying at the same place although I have been looking intermittently for a new place, so that’s something, I guess?
  4. Get cracking on post-degree opportunities, either scholarships and schools – Secured a scholarship for my Honours year and I have been told too many times that one for a PhD is easy enough to come by due to the low numbers of people willing to submit themselves to the torture. So, check! My brain is officially headed to be mush-ville.
  5. Pick up the enthusiasm for my studies (and work) especially after the Time Series Analysis blow – Well, considering how I spent almost all my waking hours dedicated to my studies and work, I would say this was definitely accomplished. And I am still pretty enthusiastic about work, so that’s good. Just need to feel the same for my studies (which is actually the more important of the two).
  6. Improve literacy skills (Write [more and] better, read more, learn French final-freaking-ly, and speak more [stupid stutter]) – Sadly, I can only report mild improvements in this resolution. I still can’t speak French, except for a few words I picked up when my colleague went there, but I do speak more normally nowadays. I have not been reading as much as I did in previous years, but I still pick up books from time to time, which is better than nothing.
  7. Maintain my newly made friendships (as I have a tendency to just drop of the radar) or make new friends. Either way, work on social skills – Seeing as how most my time has been devoted to studying or working, I have surprisingly been able to keep up with my friendships. Granted most of them are work/study-related, but it still counts right?
  8. Improve on fitness and grow taller – Well, I know people are not going to agree with me on this, but I feel like my fitness has been doing pretty well considering what I put my body through this year. Sadly, I can’t say I have grown height-wise,quite the contrary in fact (I’m not sure how. Is it too young to have osteoporosis?). Sad face...
  9. Be more optimistic? I’m not too sure on this one but definitely for my writing as it is so easy to drift from dark humour and sarcasm to cruel, sad and/or pathetic whining. – I think I can chalk this up in the win column just based on a quick recollection of my life this past year compared with the last. I don’t really have a yardstick to measure it by, but definitely less suicidal thoughts this time around. Not even my annual birthday post (I had to double check twice, because even I couldn’t believe it) but then again, exams were too close to the date this year as well...
  10. Continue the hunt for Mr. Cupid – Well, no luck with the hunt. But it’s alright because I am no longer interested.
So, all of this gives me a final tally of say... 75%? I took an extra 5% off due to the fact that most of the resolutions were only partially completed, but that’s still a 5% increase from the previous year. Good going, I guess, even though I had completely forgotten about this the whole year.
Since that’s done, I suppose it’s time for a new list for the upcoming year:

MonkeyJ’s 2012 New Year Resolutions
  1. Find and maintain motivation for my studies and work, especially studies! (Considering my next year will be the hell of all the student academia years [according to various PhD grads], getting motivated for my studies is a top priority!)
  2. Maintain my grades, hence my scholarship (Can’t slip up here, bar is set pretty darn high due to all the strings I had to pull to get the scholarship so hopefully this motivates me more)
  3. Plan for my doctorate future (Will needs to get my ducks all lined up for my PhD, and there is still quite a bit left to do, especially if the rumours of a certain person’s retirement comes true)
  4. Try to keep some contact with my friends, close and far (I will be frank, I know I won’t have much [if any] time next year for myself and judging from my past performances when I had a sliver of additional time, the emphasis is on the word try)
  5. Life a relatively healthy life (for a Honours student anyways) ,i.e. don’t die of malnutrition.
  6. Network, network, network (Is sort of related to 3, but I’m running out of things to put on my list)
  7. Control my television addiction (It’s getting pretty bad at the moment)
  8. Minimise procrastination! (Wasted time is a big no-no next year)
  9. Find a new accommodation (Unlikely, but maybe just putting it on the list might help)
  10. Get some quality me time (At this moment, just wishful thinking but who knows?)
With that, I have my ten resolutions for the new year. And yes, I was kind of padding the list with the last few items to reach ten. It’s just that next year has a very specific focus (to survive Honours with a good enough grade to enter the PhD program) hence everything else will have to officially take a back seat, but you all can probably read about my (hopefully comedic) struggles in the new year.

Till then, go and be merry, and all that. Happy New Year!

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Monkey J
20:23
0 commented

Myself

    Monkey J
    new template because old one was getting too annoying with its small fonts

Thank you

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