Monday, 31 December 2012

The Year The World Did Not End

EDIT 15/01: So, I have attempted to revise my new year resolultions list for 2013 as after going through a few other people’s lists, I felt that mine lacked specificity. I realised that in order for them to actually materialise, I would not only have to try to remember I made this list but also I have to be able to cross them off as set goals, which arguably a lot of the items on my list aren’t. They are more of long term life goals hence the need to repeat them year after year. So with that in mind, here’s my new revised list (I don’t think I have changed any of the original motives of the items, rather just made them more tangible to be able to account for the accomplishment, or lack thereof).

You know when I know it’s time to write again, regardless of what other responsibilities/commitments I have? If you have followed me for a while, I’m sure that there’s no surprise in the answer. It’s when my heads gets so filled with writing ideas (and now my phone/cyber brain as well) and motivation that it is just impossible to have extended concentration on any other matters. Especially when other matters have primarily to do with my short and long term future, as well as current employment, which is going dismally otherwise I wouldn’t be here, would I?

So, it’s the end of the year again. And with that, everyone will surely be on their way with the end-of-year rituals, be it drinking, celebrating, list-making, contemplating what the year that passed has amounted to or just plain nothing. As for me, I have a list to review and a new one to make. And as per tradition, it seems, I have once again forgotten about the list I had exactly a year ago so let’s start…

MonkeyJ’s 2012 New Year Resolutions

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!) – Motivation was hard to get and maintain for a whole year especially considering the stress of the Honours year but the year is winding down and I was still pretty interested. Note the tense, since I’m hear writing instead of writing about my work. But hopefully I will be able to muster enough motivation (or fear and dread) to last the next two weeks and finish off my work so I can enjoy my month long “vacation”. [10%]
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) - Well, this was the main goal, and I survived! So I guess this is a success. Finished with first class Honours so that’s that. [10%]
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) – Took a while to get my ducks lined up, or gathered actually, and the trigger was finally only pulled a few weeks ago. Timing is rather poor considering I will have to get most of the application process done back home instead but hopefully it wouldn’t be too bad (or take up too much time when I’m supposed to be on break). [8%]
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) – Looks like I was right to emphasis the word try as I think I was more off the grid than ever. Good thing I don’t have a cabin in the woods, I suppose. Actually, I kind of wished I did. Oh, how I wish I had a fortress of solitude… [0%]
Live a relatively healthy life (for a Honours student anyways) ,i.e. don’t die of malnutrition. – considering I’m still typing at the moment and I think I have gained weight, I would say that this is a success, sort of. Now on the way to obesity! [6%]
Network, network, network (Is sort of related to 3, but I’m running out of things to put on my list) – Well, this was a sort of a fluff item so wasn’t too hard to guess how it turned out, especially since I didn’t have an award ceremony to attend this year (because it was not held due to administrative issues and not because I sucked... I hope they give me that two or three awards already. My CV looks pretty barren with that year gap.) However, I did manage to meet a few people that I had no idea who they were before so there was some success there I suppose. Granted some of them I have no intention or chance to meet up again but still I met them. The list include a French statistician, biomarine specialist, German and American exchange students, and friends of new friends. So actually, this wasn’t that big a failure…[7%]
Control my television addiction (It’s getting pretty bad at the moment) – Well, I managed to show some self-restrain but it might have also be due to the stress of completing my Honours project. Seeing as I have managed to finally catch up on almost all my shows and am currently on a guilty pleasure binge (which of course I won’t be telling you which it is), I would say my addiction hasn’t gotten better but at least it didn’t get worse. Actually, I’m not so sure about that as I might have substituted it with another but that’s for another post to dissect. [5%]
Minimise procrastination! (Wasted time is a big no-no next year) – Hmm, hard to tell with this one. The stress of weekly meetings with my supervisor made me more focused but also more prone to procrastination afterwards and the early mornings and late nights just made it easier to justify the extra little procrastination here and there. The fact that I got an add-on for my browser to limit my time on certain sites probably shows that I haven’t quite improved in this aspect yet. And I believe I am procrastinating at the very minute as well…[5%]
Find a new accommodation (Unlikely, but maybe just putting it on the list might help) – Actually, this finally happened. I have moved out of that god forsaken backward company of people I used to call housemates and gotten a new place with someone who’s native language is English so I’m happy about that. Just not too thrilled with her cleanliness levels but still a vast improvement over my previous predicament. I’m going to chalk this one up to a win as I think I’m starting to do really poorly on this year’s score. [10%]
Get some quality me time (At this moment, just wishful thinking but who knows?) – “Hah! I wished” is probably what you would expect to see my type but actually I did managed to get some me time, in fact, I had to get some in order to just avoid being checked into the local looney bin (which I still have no idea where it is). Granted some of the me time were obtained through rather odd methods (which I fully intend to delve into sometime soon), I still got them so I would give this a win as well.[9%]

A final tally of 70%; slightly lower than my previous year’s score but still respectable enough considering (once again) I have forgotten about my list for the whole year, and apparently the same score as in 2011. Considering the most important goal was to survive Honours with my health and sanity, I think overall it was a success. With that done and dusted, let’s start another one that I would hopefully remember to keep in mind from time to time in the new year:

MonkeyJ’s 2013 New Year Resolutions

Gain renewed focus for my PhD programme which starts in February as it will be at least a three year investment of my time, but likely more. This is the main thing I hope to get from my month-long break in January.
Increase my fitness regime by having at least 5 sessions of light exercise, preferably in the morning, for better energy and focus throughout the day
Set up (and constantly review) an organisational plan for graduate studies and follow through with it for at least 6 months, incorporating ideas such as top-heavy weeks, daily (3 items) list preferably split into day sections, daily writing sessions of at least 3 hours (see 5), evening daily planning for the next day, and work logs to track progress and time sinks.
Learning French and/or Spanish (through duolingo) in order to be able to at least write a paragraph (or two) here in a foreign language learnt this year.
Write a substantial post here at least once every two months as well as maintaining academic writing throughout the year. Hopefully the former would help with my goal of finding myself again as well.
Go somewhere or do something that I have not done before (and of course report it here). [this is actually more of a cheat because I know that this is an almost certainty]
Find a new place, preferably just for myself [ditto self-comment for 6]
Try to keep better contact with friends in some way – Sorry, can’t think of a specific aim to tie this to…
Get to know at least 5 new people professional this year and write about them
write about the experience of first entering the PhD jungle and hopefully surviving, unless there is a good séance someone could recommend)

So, that’s my list for 2013 and I hope that it would be a better year than this one was (honestly, it still doesn’t feel like a whole year has passed already considering the very few things that I have done in the past 366 days). Whether you are out celebrating, toasting the year that passed with your close ones or sitting in front of your computer by yourself like I am, tomorrow is a new day, a new year and a new chance to start…

Labels: friends, me, my life

Monkey J
19:05
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Monday, 31 December 2012

The Year The World Did Not End

Myself

Thank you

Past Times