Happy New Years!

General talk. News, religion, politics, your daily life, whatever, it goes here. Just keep it clean.
Post Reply
User avatar
Kizyr
Keeper of Knowledge (probationary)
Posts: 8315
jedwabna poszewka na poduszkę 70x80
Joined: Wed Dec 25, 2002 7:36 am
Location: Marius Zone
Contact:

Happy New Years!

Post by Kizyr »

Happy New Year's everyone! It's 2015! We are now in the future!

So... while I'm not much of a fan of Christmas, I actually love New Year's. I like the idea of milestones to mark the passage of time, since, well, as humans we kind of need place-markers to get our bearings sometimes. On a similar note, I actually enjoy making resolutions and trying to stick with them to give myself something to work towards. With that, what are everyone's resolutions? What resolutions from 2014 did you accomplish (or not)? Work, school, hobbies, personal, entertainment, whatever you feel like mentioning.

I'm going to give a few of mine to start...

Resolutions from 2014:
(1) Eliminate my gaming backlog -- mostly accomplished! I knocked out at least 10 major (i.e., >20hrs) games from my backlog, including Mass Effect, Grandia, Okami, and more.
(2) Continue Japanese studies and pass N1 -- maybe accomplished? I finished what I intended to cover and took the N1, but I don't have a good feeling about whether I passed.
(3) Post regularly on message boards -- fifty-fifty success! I'm posting again on LunarNET regularly (aside from that hiatus near the end...) but I didn't get back to posting regularly on other message boards I used to be a regular in
(4) Revise non-game sections of LunarNET -- failed! I haven't been able to update the site since the last game-related section (Silver Star Harmony) was finished.
(5) Pick back up a brush and calligraphy -- failed! My brush still sits neglected... though after playing Okami I'm feeling more of an urge to pick it up again.

...so, we'll say 3/5, so not bad! I always figure resolutions should be things just beyond what you think your reach is, so you can use them to push yourself a little.

Resolutions for 2015:
(1) Eliminate the rest of my gaming backlog, not counting anything new I pick up this year. (This is only about 10 games.)
(2) Find new venue to improve speaking/writing abilities in Japanese. (Reading/listening are less of an issue right now. I may have to seek help from the Japanese Embassy and see if they have any programs.)
(3) Post regularly on message boards. (Let's try this one again...)
(4) Revise non-game sections of LunarNET. (Same...)
(5) Tackle the unanswered emails in my inbox... all of them. (Lessee... 800 messages, so if I average clearing 16 a week then this becomes doable. And many of these are ones that don't even need a response.)

Along the way, I may make some more specific ones if I see opportunity (perhaps I will pick back up a brush, or maybe one of those emails will lead to another side-project... we'll have to see). KF
~Kizyr (they|them)
Image

User avatar
Werefrog
Dragonmaster
Posts: 2047
Joined: Sun Sep 18, 2005 5:58 pm
Location: Loch Tess, Winters

Re: Happy New Years!

Post by Werefrog »

Happy New Years!

Let's see resolutions:
Food related
1) Eat out one time a week at most. Corollary: Continue to improve familiarity with pressure cooker to make quick meals.
2) Continue to improve my cooking skills, especially focusing on bread-making and possibly some on pastry (it would be nice to be able to make a croissant). Let's make this measurable. I will bake at least one bread or bread-like product (pizza! croissant! danish! donuts!) week.
3) Make the time for breakfast!

Fitness related:
1) Continue cardio 3x/week indoors until I can go outside to bicycle. Then bicycle 2-3x/week.
2) Add a weights component to my exercises. 3x/week.
3) Lose 20 pounds fat. Gain 10 pounds muscle.

Finance related:
1) Get a job in my chosen field.
2) Start paying off student loans.
3) Establish a budget and stick to it.

And here's a big goal that's probably impossible:
1) Go on a 100 mile round-trip bicycle trip.

User avatar
Sonic#
Pao Tribe Chieftain
Posts: 4677
Joined: Thu Dec 26, 2002 3:27 am
Location: Here, there, everywhere
Contact:

Re: Happy New Years!

Post by Sonic# »

My primary goals this year include finishing a dissertation and finding paid work. Last year, I made less progress on my dissertation than I'd hoped. It's difficult to manage my own time and be as productive as I could want when the deadlines are so few and far between. At this point I need to just sit down and pump out at least a couple of pages a day. I'm going to try an earlier morning routine and stick to that, and I'm also thinking of getting some friends to check in on my writing yesterday.

Fitness-wise, I fence and I bowl, but neither are a really balanced workout. Jokes about onanism aside, my right arm gets more work than my left. I want to get significant work done three times a week. I'm going to get a locker at my school gym, and complement it with my current home free-weight regimen and take some walks. (The bonus with walks - they help me with seasonal depression.)

I also hope to be happily married! My resolution there is to be engaged in the planning by taking on regular tasks like designing the invitations and picking my dancing music. I am a bit stereotypical in my attention. It's not that I'm inattentive to wedding details, but little things like the color of plates and the music (!) aren't details that I have strong opinions about. I'm pretty easy-going, but I want to make my fiancee happy too.
Sonic#

"Than seyde Merlion, "Whethir lyke ye bettir the swerde othir the scawberde?" "I lyke bettir the swerde," seyde Arthure. "Ye ar the more unwyse, for the scawberde ys worth ten of the swerde; for whyles ye have the scawberde uppon you, ye shall lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded. Therefore kepe well the scawberde allweyes with you." --- Le Morte Darthur, Sir Thomas Malory

"Just as you touch the energy of every life form you meet, so, too, will will their energy strengthen you. Fail to live up to your potential, and you will never win. " --- The Old Man at the End of Time

User avatar
Alunissage
Goddess
Posts: 7353
Joined: Thu Dec 26, 2002 10:31 am

Re: Happy New Years!

Post by Alunissage »

I trust your fiancee loves a man with a big vocabulary. =) If you're at all interested in what my relatively low-key but very enjoyable wedding was like I'll be glad to share with you. It was, er, rather less elaborate than Kizyr and Jenner's (which was awesome!). Also, if you catch me at a time when I'm not totally overwhelmed (or else am trying to procrastinate), I'm happy to cast a proofreading eye over your thesis if you think that would help.

I don't generally do the New Year's Resolution thing, but rereading some of these threads has reminded me of my own massive backlog of Lunar-related materials to work with and hopefully get to Kizyr in a state of usability. Maybe I can try for something modest like a thing a month. Might help if I could find my scanner or get a better one...

One exciting thing for me this year is that in a couple of weeks I'll be taking my first Japanese class! There's definitely a limit to how much I can learn from books, and I do much better with a class structure. And hopefully the radical difference between Japanese and Romance languages will help curb my tendency to speak in French whenever I try some language that isn't English. (My sister mocks me for saying Spanish words with a French accent, to the amusement of her Mexican gentleman friend.)

Kizyr, now that you've played Okami, is Okamiden on your radar? Being a DS game, it's definitely scaled down in many ways (mainly geographically), but I found it to be very well done in that constraint. They had to play fast and loose with some of the background (like the relationship between Shiranui and Amaterasu), but it ties in well and carefully to Okami. I was playing them simultaneously last year and need to (re) finish both, but if you pick up Okamiden while Okami is fresh in your mind you'll probably get most of the references. Also, Chibiterasu is adorable.

Werefrog, baking sounds awesome. I can't really comment on the rest (although I do hope to attempt a Pilates class sometime this year, that's as close as I'm willing to get to exercise), but I wish you much baking success. My skill is mostly limited to my great-grandmother's spice cookies, which my mom made a couple days ago while she was visiting. Amazingly, there are still cookies that are uneaten, but I may not be able to say that tomorrow.

User avatar
Werefrog
Dragonmaster
Posts: 2047
Joined: Sun Sep 18, 2005 5:58 pm
Location: Loch Tess, Winters

Re: Happy New Years!

Post by Werefrog »

Thinking bagels this week for my bread making. My grandma loves bagels, so I'll freeze some for her.

Edit: Welp. My professional goals are taking off. I take my board certification in occupational therapy tomorrow. I got a job offer contingent on passing this exam. No pressure though.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 20 guests