A Year Resolute (2012 Edition)
Last year I split my goals into professional and personal. This year, none of that. Let’s keep them simple and focused. Besides, my professional goals are fairly straight forward: get good grades in my Ph.D. program, network at conferences, and generally rock it like an aspiring academic. Here we have my goals for 2012. Sure I have a list, like resolutions, but they are more like goals to pursue, to keep me hungry for more.
Sound Body
This is a little tricky. It’s not so much about losing weight (although, that’s part of it) but about continuing habits that I built in 2011. It starts with staying up with CrossFit. Then, when time permits*, I need to explore activities to add into my schedule. Last year’s resolution to climb rocks and do more yoga remain the front runners, but I must add a few to that.
- Set new CrossFit Goals (weight loss, Oly Lift PRs, Pull-ups, etc).
- Climb Rocks
- Do more Yoga
- Surf more waves
- Paddle/SUP in Austin
- Ride my Longboard
Sound Mind
California: 8 Vols
If anything that I write about actually approaches the level of a resolution in the classical sense, Kevin Starr’s eight volume history of California is it. I had it on my list last year and failed to even begin. I’ve since begun the first volume to get a head start and build momentum. Quite simply, the more time that I spend away from California, the more I yearn to be home, to settle near the coast, to know her history and her culture and not simply live ignorant of that which has so greatly formed who I am.
- Americans and the California Dream, 1850-1915
- Inventing the Dream: California through the Progressive Era
- Material Dreams: Southern California through the 1920s
- Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California
- The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s
- Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace, 1940-1950
- Coast Of Dreams: California on the Edge, 1990-2002
- Golden dreams: California in an age of abundance, 1950-1963
Christian Theology
Short list here. Long on discipline. I really must finally get to A Grammar of Assent for both personal and professional reasons. And since I intend to make Augustine the them of my research, I ought make him a theme in my daily life.
- Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent
- Read a little Augustine every day
Sound Fun
- Travel to Europe Again
- Learn Spanish
- Go to a Buckeye game in the Fall
- Hone my Cooking Skills
- Keep a Food Log
- Pay off one Credit Card (Yes, this would be fun times if I could do it.)
* “time permitting” sound like a cop out that will only lead to failure. I know. But it’s impossible to predict what kind of schedule one will have each semester until it actually gets underway. I also have no idea what’s going on over the summer, if I’ll be studying Greek (i.e., no free time whatsoever) or if I’ll be power loafing in California (i.e., lots of free time). To compensate, I plan to focus on at least one of those activities per month, starting with the easy ones to fit into my schedule (Yoga and Longboarding). Then, I’ll evaluate regularly.
2011 Resolution Review:
I had some “pretty basic” resolutions for the year. So let’s see how I did:
climb rocks, do more yoga, andride my bike(ankle permitting).- Complete the CrossFit beginners routine.
- Keep a food journal.
- Read Books
Enchridion by EpictetusA Grammar of Assent by John Henry NewmanNicomacean Ethics by AristotleCommentary on the Ethics by Saint ThomasThomism and Aristotelianism by Harry Jaffa
Travel AbroadTake a photograph every dayLearn Spanish
My final comments were pretty spot on: it was too big a list to complete, but the journey is always more important than the destination. Often, when setting goals I prefer to pick one that’s too far out, or a few too many, to reasonably complete in the given time. It keeps me hungry. I get board if I set a goal and then cruise past it. But if I come just a hair shy, and nearly could have done it if I slacked off a little less here or there, that makes me eager to fire up and go at it again.
Even though far too many goals were not achieved, I did have some pretty good highlights. After making some progress on my ankle recovery, I picked up surfing, something that I’ve been wanting to do for ages. I successfully defended my thesis and was admitted to the University of Texas for my Ph.D., and I got serious about CrossFit. My general them of ‘sound mind, sound body’ was maintained and achieved in more ways than I could have anticipated.
In the next day or two, I’ll post my goals for the coming year, after I’ve had time to think about the successes and failures from this year’s goal list. The important thing is to give serious thought as to why or why not resolutions were successful so that I can make better ones in the future.
Winnowing the Field
From the Editors at National Review:
Just as heartening, the White House seems winnable next year, and with it a majority in both houses of Congress, so that much of this conservative consensus could actually become law. A conservative majority on the Supreme Court, a halt to the march of regulation, free-market health-care policies: All of them seem within our grasp. But none of them is assured, and the costs of failure — either a failure to win the election, or a failure to govern competently and purposefully afterward — are as large as the opportunity. We fear that to nominate former Speaker Newt Gingrich, the frontrunner in the polls, would be to blow this opportunity.
Client: “My computer is frozen!”
Me: “What screen is it frozen on?”
Client: “The first screen, where it says push ctrl+alt+del to log in. I can move the mouse around, but when I push those buttons it does nothing”
Me: “Is your keyboard plugged in?”
Client: “No, It’s a wireless keyboard”
Me: “Have you changed the batteries?”
Client: “This thing takes batteries!? I thought it ran off satellite power.”
File under “I fear the survival of civilization”
reblogged from clientsfromhell
Updates, soon.
Holy crap. I’ve really neglected not just this blog, but my other social outlets as well. Foursquare is down, Flickr Pro account is expired, and who knows what else. Some one remind me to get on that: stat.
No sex on campus?
there is an increasing phenomenon of unlikely bedfellows opting out: Catholic and Muslim women. These women of faith are increasingly allied in searching for a different way to live out their college tenure than from dorm room to dorm room. And they are finding that despite theological differences that run deep, shared perspectives about modesty, chastity, and dignity run deeper.
Interesting approach to genuine ecumenism that is bottom-up, ad hoc, and more genuine than the feigned platitudes that pass for dialogue these days in most circles.
Quality family time.
