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On January 1st of this year, I posted a list of resolutions on my Blogger site. That post can be found here.
We are just under two months away from the new year and so I think it would be worthwhile to examine my resolutions and how (or even if) I have improved in the course of the year since making them. This is actually the first time I have gone back and looked over resolutions from the past. Other years I have made them, but they were usually on a looseleaf sheet of paper or buried in a journal or school notebook, and so I never found them again before the new year was upon us. Over the past month, I have stumbled across my New Year’s Resolutions post several times, and so I think it is important that I make some examination of it.
The reason I chose each resolution is listed in the original post. Here, I shall simply state the resolution and how I think I have or have not improved.
1. I will be more decisive.
Hmm. Well, as with anything else, it is a work in progress. But I have noticed that my conversation is moving in this direction. Rather than taking an “I don’t care, whatever” approach, I am more able to approve and forward a plan. I am also noticing a greater initiative taken in bringing plans to fruition. As well, I have become far more able to declare when I don’t approve a plan. In the past, it was often the case that I would shrug and say, “Well, whatever” if I really didn’t want to do something. And while that is sometimes the appropriate response, I am learning to be honest with my opinion and perspective, especially when the person I am talking with would genuinely like to know the truth behind where I am coming from. Unless I notice any serious changes that need to be made in the next two months, I think I can safely graduate this from the list. While it is something I need to keep working on, I think I can safely move my focus in the new year.
2. I will remember that physical activity helps with stress management.
I don’t think it has been a conscious decision, but I have adopted regular physical activity into my lifestyle. Let me modify that statement. I have adopted regular physical activity that I enjoy into my lifestyle. As you are probably completely aware, I have taken up swing dancing, something that I do at least twice a week. I attend a weekly dance and I have enrolled in weekly lessons. As I said, it wasn’t a purposeful move. My thought process wasn’t “I need physical activity to help with stress management”; it was more “I love dancing, how can I get more involved?”. As a result, I have noticed that my stress level is reduced. Granted, it probably helps that I have completed my undergrad degree, but there is more peace and more energy in my life now than before when the physical activity I chose was less purposeful and less enjoyable.
3. I will breathe Scripture.
I composed an email several nights ago and in the course of it, I did something I have not done in a very long time: I quoted Scripture. I unconsciously quoted Scripture. I mean, I knew it was from the Bible, but my thought process wasn’t, “Oh, I think a verse should go here, wait, let me find one.” No, it was something that had been on my mind and in my heart, and so it naturally came in the course of my writing.
This, however, is one area that I know I can continue improving on. I still do not spend enough time in Scripture. It is a lot more regular than it used to be, but I am not purposeful in it, and I do not dwell in it as I would like. I re-read emails, poetry and novels with a regularity that puts my Scripture reading to shame. I do not know it as I would like. This, I think, will be something I keep into the new year. But I would like to focus on it differently. I am not sure how, but I have two months to continue contemplating this.
4. I will find a stronger rein for my tongue.
Uh oh. Yea, FAIL. I haven’t been purposeful about this one at all. This I will keep on my list.
5. I will not be afraid to make mistakes.
Another fail.
It’s funny, I have a lot to say about the areas where I feel improvement, but not nearly as much in the areas where I haven’t improved as I would like to.
If anything, I have become more afraid of making mistakes. So, this will likely stay on the list.
6. I will choose to live joyfully and full of hope.
This is a hard-earned success, one that I think is still hesitant in its display. But I think it is very worth encouraging it to bloom. You can either choose to live clouded by despair and fear or you can choose to live guided by joy and hope. I am choosing the latter. This will probably stay on the list, but I am not sure in what form.
7. I will have fun.
Yay, big success. I have had a lot of fun this past year. I wrote in my original post,
There is much to be done, much to be excited for, much to plan and hope and dream.
And how right I was. This will probably stay on, not because I have failed, but because it is important to remember. It is easy to get caught up in all of the to-do’s and should-do’s, but it is really important to remember to have fun while doing them.
Stay tuned come January 2009 for a brand new list of resolutions, and I would encourage you to think of some yourself. I think there are always ways that we can improve and by writing them down, it does then beg an examination of them later on. If you choose to write them on a public forum, send me a link, and we can see how we all are doing in the months to come.
God bless!
After being away for a week (weddings galore!) I returned… to this:
Which is exactly what I asked for.
“Please don’t unpack anything in my room,” I told my parents, for a couple of reasons. First, I’m a little, how shall we say it? in possession of very specific personal preferences? At least when it comes to the set up of my room. Also, in a slightly more altruistic vein, I am perfectly aware of how much stuff I have and I didn’t want my folks to have to deal with it while I was gone.
So, even though I knew what I was going to be walking into, there was still some initial shock, mostly because, having been removed from the process for a very full week, I’d sort of forgotten what moving was like. It only took me a moment to recover and form a plan, which I have been working on since.
Phase I: unpack and put away books (can you tell I’m an English student?)
Phase II: unpack and put away clothes
Phase III: make bed (because sleep is good 
)
Phase IV: fix various storage boxes in their new homes
Phase V: rearrange small pieces of furniture
Phase VI: arrange knickknacks.
And then I should be done. Hopefully. I’m on phase III right now. We can’t seem to locate my sheets, which makes life interesting. But that’s okay. Just happy to see some order being restored.
A friend asked if I was satisfied with my iPod touch. He is thinking of purchasing one. I told him that, yes, I most certainly was. And here are some of the reasons why:
- Calendar: My iPod touch calendar happily syncs with the calendar on my MacBook, requiring no set-up. Any alerts that I ask it to make on my iPod will carry over to the computer. For example, a couple of weeks ago, it was a friend’s birthday. I had already entered it into my iPod calendar. I didn’t check that calendar in the morning, but when I turned on my computer, iCal popped a reminder on my screen so that I could remember to wish this friend a happy birthday.
- Photos: I love that you can transfer photos to the iPod. I have a folder on my computer with pictures specifically for the touch. You can use them as wallpaper for when you turn on your touch, you can scroll through them easily, and you can assign them to contacts. The images display quite well on the screen and rotate depending on the orientation you hold your touch.
- Contacts: It has a very intuitive input interface. It pops up a keyboard, one that changes slightly depending on what you are entering. In the Safari browser, for example, when you are typing in a web address, there is a “.com” key that isn’t there for other instances. It is easy to enter contact information, and Contacts are also something you can sync with your computer. I have become (un)fortunately dependent on my iPod touch in a very short period mostly because of this. I have been to my University town many times this summer and have found myself in need of a phone number almost every time, a phone number that, conveniently enough, was stored on my iPod.
- Notes: As a writer this application is great. It, again, has the very user-friendly keyboard and it is very easy to punch in quick reminders, transient thoughts, shopping lists, to do lists, directions, etc.
- Maps: I haven’t been terribly impressed with the Maps application, mostly because the one convenient feature of it (“where are you?”) never seems to work. Theoretically, when you are connected to the internet, you can hit that button and it will find your location, making it really easy to hit the “Directions” button and get directions from your current location to your destination, wherever that may be. As we have established, it never seems to work for me. Also, I’ve found the screen too small to easily read the map. [Later edit: Just recently I was out walking with a friend when she suddenly stopped. "Wait, are we going in the right direction?" she asked and started rifling through her purse. "I don't have my map here," she said. "Ooh, wait!" I exclaimed and grabbed for my iPod. I didn't try the "where am I?" function, but I did search for an open wireless network, and finding one, I clicked to the Waterloo area in the maps application, found the major street we were beside and confirmed that we were, in fact, going in the wrong direction. We turned around, got back on track and were saved from many minutes of indecision by something so convenient as a handheld, WiFi capable device.
]
- Clock: Nerd that I am, I’ve been using this religiously as my alarm clock. I like it. It is easy to set several alarms for different days and different times. You can create a seemingly endless amount of alarms for whatever purposes you may have.
- Music: This is an iPod, after all. I should probably talk about my experience with its music playing capabilities. As expected, Apple has created a very aesthetically pleasing viewing experience for the music. When held normally, you can scroll through your choice of song, album, artist, genre, etc., the same categories as in iTunes. When you turn it sideways, you can scroll through albums in the iTunes Cover Flow view. When you tap an album cover, it flips over and lists the songs on the back. You can then tap one to start it playing.
Basically, I thoroughly enjoy the iPod touch, and I have found many more uses for it beyond just listening to music. It’s become my personal organizer . And all of this is before the purchase of the App Store. I haven’t even tried any of those additions yet. They will, no doubt, increase the iPod’s ability to entertain with games and further methods of distraction.
Dr. Gary Draper was an excellent professor of mine. From what I understand, this past was his last year before retirement. This is what one student had to say about him:
Dr Draper has a one of a kind personality and truly enjoys what he is teaching. It is up to the students if they want to join him in his wonderful world of english or not. He is a hard marker which makes one really feel as if they are earning something in university. Awesome sense of humour and helpful to the fullest.
I’ve always loved writing. From the time I was old enough to hold a pen, I wrote, even before I could form letters. I’ve been telling stories on paper for as long as I could remember, and all of my old notebooks (when they don’t contain the silly “Dear Diary” scribbles of young girls) hold short stories and story ideas. I have easily an entire box of writing on paper, and a lot more in electronic form, but this professor was the first “outsider” (someone who wasn’t family or a close friend) who recognized me as a writer.
The very first class I walked into in my first term of my first year of University was his, and I still remember his opening speech. He walked up to the board and wrote “PLEASURE” in big letters across it, and then turned to us saying that this was why he wanted us to read. Not to analyze it, not to glean some truth from the text (although he hoped we would be able to do that, too). His primary goal in what we were reading was that we would enjoy it. It was a breath of fresh air, because that, after all, is why writers write. There are many who write to make a point, and who have all sorts of hidden messages and meanings, but primarily, writers write to put words to their emotions, and bring enjoyment to their audiences. As an avid reader and an even more avid writer, hearing these sentiments expressed by this professor assured me that it was going to be an excellent term.
I went on to take two more classes from him, and I enjoyed all three, even the Canadian literature class (coming eventually ), and most of the material we covered. And through his courses, I became a better writer, mostly because he came to expect it of me. I didn’t even realize that he did. I just remember speaking up in class, which I had never done before. His classes were often discussion style. He would take our opinions and ideas and pursue them further, pushing us, seeing what we could come up with. He seemed to learn almost as much as we did in a term, and his appreciation for our contributions encouraged me to contribute more.
The next year, I went to speak with him about a scholarship writing contest. It took him a moment to recall who I was. He asked my name and what class I took with him, and immediately recognition came.
“That’s right!” he exclaimed. “Yes, I certainly do remember you. It’s funny, as soon as I saw you, my first thought was ’she’s a writer’.”
He recognized the distinctness of my narrative voice, and in an assignment where we were given creative license to choose our own topic, I attempted to rewrite the ending of a narrative poem we were studying. He complimented my efforts, but said he had hoped to see more of an adoption of the original author’s tone. I spoke with him after class, and said that I had tried. I complained that I had found it very difficult to silence my own voice.
He said, “Yes, I can understand that. You have a very strong narrative voice.”
High compliments for a writer.
Anyway, the long and short of this post is to say that Gary Draper was an excellent professor; I haven’t spoken with anyone who didn’t enjoy a class with him, and I would highly recommend attending any lecture he might give in the future.
Yes, admittedly, the summer is half-over (for those of you operating under the three-term University system), but for those operating by the public school system, the summer is just beginning! Besides, I am getting close to starting book number two, meaning I’ll need to add book number four to my list.
- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
- The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
I have about ~200 pages left, which actually is getting close, believe it or not—the book is ~850 pages long. When that happens and I begin reading Dumas’ killer Monte Cristo, I will be looking for another book to add to my list. Please, no suggestions just yet. I feel the addition of another title would be simply too much, even for an avid reader such as myself. They are all monstrously long books. But keep in mind the next classic you think I should dig into. I will announce when I am finished Gone with the Wind (I won’t be able to help it; I’ll be so excited), and you can make suggestions then.
I began reading Gone with the Wind when I was probably ten or eleven years old. I was a very ambitious child, choosing it off the shelf primarily because it was so thick. I’d probably heard adults talking about it at one time, because the title was familiar, and despite any doubts in my ability to finish it, I staunchly maintained that I wanted to read it.
Well, big surprise, I did not finish it. I probably made it about 300 pages in, surprisingly enough, but I know that I didn’t actually process most of it. It is a delightful book because it meanders so. It begins by stating it is a story about Scarlett O’Hara, but as it continues, the plot will pause and tell other people’s stories as well. It told the story of Scarlett’s mother and father, how they came to be in Georgia and how they came to be married to one another. It also meanders to philosophize about the happenings in the book, sometimes taking Scarlett’s perspective, sometimes departing entirely from its heroine and her story. As a child, I must have skipped these parts or read without comprehending, because I don’t remember them at all. But I did remember the plot as I was reading. I also remember trusting Scarlett too much as I read. I remember not liking Melanie much at all, and thinking Ashley felt nothing for Scarlett, mostly because Scarlett said she did not like Melanie, and because, despite Scarlett’s obvious feelings for Ashley, he chose to marry someone else. But as an adult reading it, I can detect the nuances of character that Mitchell put in this story, and the meanderings were some of my favourite parts. I would come to the end of one, be pulled back into Scarlett’s story and be surprised as I was reminded that she was the character I was reading about, not the person the text meandered to. In my first reading, I was Scarlett, resolving whatever dissonance I experienced when her actions or thoughts were completely different from what my own would be by ignoring them, and promptly forgetting about them once the narrative moved past them. Now, I am fully aware of what I don’t like about Scarlett, of what I disagree with and of what I would do differently. But even still, I am held to the narrative, wanting to know what happens next and really hoping that things work out in the end for her, despite her selfishness. Instead of experiencing the tale, I am watching it. And thoroughly enjoying it.
A friend and I were having a debate a couple of weekends ago. It is only now that I feel I can articulate more clearly the point I was trying to make, and since the debate occurred in the presence of most of our friends, I feel no qualms about raising it again in this public forum (However, if he would rather I not, then read quickly, folks, for the post will be down as soon as he says the word).
The debate was about engagement rings. Two couples in our group of friends are engaged to be married, both at the end of the summer, so naturally, the topic of engagement and marriage have been coming up more frequently. I was speaking with another girl about the topic of rings and discussing our preferences (both of us are single, but again, the topic almost can’t help but come up ), and in the course of the conversation, another friend spoke up.
“Well, what if the guy doesn’t have a ring?” he asked.
I turned to my female friend, T–, and teased, “He’d better get one soon!” T– and I both laughed, but my male friend pushed a little bit.
“So are you saying you wouldn’t get engaged to a guy, just because he doesn’t have a ring?
I began defending myself, saying that the ring was a symbol of his commitment, and in a sense an “investment” in the relationship, and shows that he is serious and willing and able to back it up financially.
“So that’s what’s important?” my friend asked, teasing. “The money?”
By that point, I was so concerned with defending myself that I lost track of my line of reasoning. But now, a couple of weeks later, here it is.
When a guy asks a girl to marry him, he isn’t just asking her to spend the rest of her life with him (a huge ask to begin with), he is asking for her heart. The thing is, a woman’s heart is a very valuable and powerful part of who she is. The heart is the centre of the being, and it is from the heart that speech, life, love, etc. spring out of. It is also incredibly powerful. It often takes a woman a long time to fall in love with someone (I am generalizing, and I also don’t mean crush-y, lovey-dovey feelings. I mean actual love, the love that sacrifices self for the sake of the other), but when she does, it is complete and exclusive to that man alone. And a woman’s love is a powerful driving force behind their man. If the woman believes he can do something, the man will be unstoppable. (Do clothe this romanticism in reality in order for it to ring completely true). And that is often all the man needs in order to make it through a tough day, or survive trials: the knowledge that his woman is somewhere waiting for him, trusting him, believing in him.
When a man is asking for a woman to marry him, he is asking for her undivided love, undivided belief, undivided trust. He is asking her to walk with him for the rest of his life, to be joyful with him, to cry with him, to worship with him, to work alongside him, to treasure him, to honour him, to respect him, to love him, to be patient with him (when he is struggling), to forgive him (when he fails), to build him up (to his face and to others, whether he can or cannot hear her)… and much more.
He is asking her to do all of this and to open her heart to him and make it over to him alone, and he, in turn, is promising to protect her heart and return all of what he is asking for in his request. I think, considering the commitment he is asking of her, and considering the promise and commitment he is making for her, all of it, for the rest of both of their lives, I think it only makes sense that this commitment is marked with a symbol, which is, in our society, an engagement ring.
Feel free to continue the debate.
7:30 in the morning, I roll out of bed and dive at my alarm clock to make the ringing stop. I groggily register the time and briefly consider getting back into bed. However, (usually) my better judgment overwhelms me, and I stay awake to get an early start on the day.
At 7:45, I head over to the chapel attached to the residence building next door. In second year, a small group of us began meeting to start off the day in prayer. It’s continued all the way until our fourth year. This year, the group is quite different than it was, but it is still good.
8:00(ish) rolls around and I start breakfast. If I’m feeling leisurely, I might go all out and make eggs (scrambled, fried, omelette, eggs-in-a-basket, or if I’m feeling really creative, french toast, which, p.s. is made perfect by adding a little bit of nutmeg and cinnamon to the egg mixture just before dipping the bread in it). If I’m not, I usually just stick to tea and toast.
8:30, I bid my roommates goodbye as they head off to class and work. At 9, after checking my email and catching up on the blogs I read, I usually decide it’s time to get ready for the day. 10am sees me showered and dressed, and by 10:30, I could be doing anything from reading for class, to catching up on essays that need to be written, making another cup of tea or relaxing.
At 11:15, I am ready to go to class. Sometimes I stop by at my neighbours’ place. Two of them have class at the same time as I do, but whether I stop really depends on whether or not I’ve thought about how much snow is on the ground. When there is a lot and I’ve thought about it, I usually skip stopping in next door
By 12:30, I’ve enjoyed an entertaining class with one of my favourite professors, and have walked home with a friend, chatting about the details and what our responses to the discussion have been. I arrive home, ready to make lunch. And then after that, I spend the afternoon much the same way I spent the morning: reading, writing, chatting with friends, surfing the net, etc.
However, today I was sick, so my day looked something more like this:
At 8:45, I managed to convince myself that it was time to get up. After a slow breakfast, I finished an essay I was working on this weekend, taking me to about 10:30, 11:00. I edited and submitted that essay, and deciding I wasn’t feeling up for class, I hibernated. Then I had a meeting at 2:15 that I felt I couldn’t cancel. Finished that by around 4:00. Then I chatted with a friend for about a half hour, came back to my apartment and chatted with my roommate (who has been gone practically since Thursday). And now I am making supper. It’s funny how being sick changes my day. Or well, waking up later than I want changes my routine, but being sick naturally lends to waking up later. Oh well. It’s good to take it easy sometimes.
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