End Year Resolutions

My life, for the past few months now, have felt as if it's not going anywhere in many regards. On the one hand, I have many things looking up for me. I have a steady girlfriend of whom I absolutely adore; I have a steady job that should provide a nice, steady stream of income.

But my schooling seems to go nowhere. And steady girlfriends usually lead to that wonderful institution called marriage, of which is life changing and a huge decision. Both Dantzel and I favor eloping (or at least a quiet, small marriage ceremony) and eschewing the usual pomp and circumstance involved with elaborate and stressful marriage ceremonies. However, to do this would most undoubtedly incur the wrath of pretty much everyone else we know and have any relation to whatsoever. Thus, should marriage arise, I can only expect the utmost stress and planning involved, as well as not only one, but two equally (if not more) stressed out mothers who will eat me alive should I raise a voice of complaint or give any sign of slack.

School is easier to think about, but only a little bit. After thinking about the matter of majors very carefully, I've decided to major in Environmental Science and minor in Urban, Rural and Environmental Planning (an emphasis in the Geography major). I will be going down to campus on Monday to declare it. I have decided to stop waffling and just choose a major. Troy reassures me that the best thing to do is choose something you like and run with it. Well, I've decided that I can learn many things (such as art, English and so on) with very little formal training and mostly on my own. What I do want a stronger background in is the sciences, and urban, rural and environmental planning will allow an outlet for my creative side.

Universities are a rare chance (especially in the later years) to get some specialized learning in. Though I abhor the idea of learning to make money, I am confident that one will rarely get rich doing urban and rural planning with environmental conservation in mind. So I don't mind learning techniques in planning and environmental concepts at school - I doubt many students will be boasting about how much money they'll make once they graduate. They'd probably be openly debating whether or not they should cut out the soy milk or the organic granola out of their already cramped student budgets.

I will, however, be taking a semester off to realign. There are lots of things that I want to do that I haven't had the chance and (more importantly) the motivation to do. Reading lots of books, learning various art skills, tinkering with mechanical machines such as cars and bikes, building kites, hiking in the woods and learning to cook Asian cuisine are some of the things I'd like to devote a semester to doing without the nagging thought of homework lurking in the back of the mind.

After the mission - two years of never having a single vacation and working long 14 hours six days a week - the much needed relaxation never really came. I had work (and came home just in time for Black Friday and the Christmas season in retail) and then immediately shipped myself to school, where I studied for two terms, then took a term off to work a little bit and take an educational and enlightening, but ultimately exhasuting, trip to South Korea. Now more than a year after my mission (a little over 13 months, in fact), I am completely burned out and need to do more productive, less stressful things. Thus the break.

Life is complicated, and a lull in the educational bustle to plan and work and save up money and enrich my life in a more unofficial, self taught way should prevent me from losing all hope and typing /cut my wrists in World of Warcraft.

Thus far, here are the things I would like to do by the end of April (in other words, a course of six months, or half a year):

- Learn to make sushi proficiently
- Actually, learn to make lots of Korean and Japanese dishes proficiently
- Start teaching myself Korean and Japanese (through manga, no less!)
- Read fifty books
- Learn to make Asian style kites
- Hike and camp at least three to five times
- Learn Zen brush painting and caligraphy
- Go to an anime convention
- Make an independent movie (most likely about the anime convention)
- Attend a Magic: The Gathering pre-release (for old time's sake)
- Start an online comic
- Assemble, paint and play a small 1000 pt. Warhammer army
- Lose twenty pounds
- Go rock climbing
- Beat Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari, as well as finish Final Fantasy XII
- Do some kind of significant community service at least once a month
- Go to the temple once a week
- Be completely debt free
- Learn PHP and be able to make and manage my own website (notably, the Oklahoma Oklahoma City Mission website)
- Learn to play the piano
- Improve and re-learn how to play the guitar and the trumpet
- Learn how to perform basic car maintenance tasks, as well as fix common problems
- Learn to maintain a bicycle and ride it often for my main mode of transportation

Hmmm...we'll see how much I can manage to actually do.