Nothing new

With 2011 quickly coming to a close I figure I should start turning my attention to 2012. I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot this year – finished grad school, moved to New York, got a job – and I’d like to keep that momentum going in to next year. I’ve never really been one for New Year’s Resolutions – I’ve half-heartedly attempted them in the past but I always lost focus after about March and anything I’d achieved by the end of the year was purely by chance. It’s just seemed like every year my main goals were to avoid being broke and get good grades in school; any other good things that I did were a bonus. But now that I’m out of school and more concerned about things like vision coverage and good car insurance rates instead of drinking and doing homework (usually in that order), I feel like I should really set some concrete goals for the next 365 days and keep tabs on them throughout the year. And so I present my New Year’s Resolutions for 2012:

1. Write more – I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a blog solely on the local history of my newly adopted hometown of Troy, New York. There’s certainly enough to write about and I figure it will give me a nice opportunity to write something else besides the self-indulgent drivel I post here.

2. Run more - Since I moved here I’ve been averaging about 100-120 miles a month, which isn’t terrible for someone who isn’t really running for anything much besides personal fitness. Granted, in the summer of 2008 I was averaging 95 miles a week, but nowadays I don’t see the point in running that much. Most of my routes are 4-4.5 miles, and I think it wouldn’t be too unreasonable to bump those up to a solid 5 miles.

3. Get a new car - I just did this in 2011, but as is with my luck with cars, I seem to have bought one that has a transmission on the verge of giving out. I have stipulated that I would like a car with air conditioning and four seats – and I’m just going to leave it at that and let Ella pick one for me.

4. Try podcasting - I know a few bloggers who do this and I’d like to give it a shot, even though my speaking voice sounds a little like Mickey Mouse.

5. Spend more quality time with Ella - We now live together, which is a big improvement over the situation when I was living in Chicago, but our schedules are so vastly different that we mostly see each other for a few minutes in the morning and a couple of hours before bed, most of which are spent making/eating dinner. I’d like to change that.

There are lots of other things I’d like to do, like practice guitar more often and eat more cookies, but I think that five goals is a reasonable number to start out with. What are your plans for 2012?