New Year’s Hopes: 2010 Edition

Welcome to 2010; I hope 2009 didn’t leave a bad taste in your mouth. For some of you, I’m hoping that reading my New Year’s Hopes has become a something of a tradition for you. And as usual, I will pretend that my readership is growing and explain why these are Hopes. They’re basically like New Year’s Resolutions, except called something different. Nowadays, resolutions have picked up a connotation for automatic failure, I think. And I myself am not really resolved to do any of it, though would be happy to see them accomplished.

Before I put down my newest resolutions, let me take a look at how I did on last year’s.

1) Beat Tom at Racquetball once

Success! Though I should probably qualify that. Yes, I did beat Tom at racquetball by getting to 15 points before he did. Other notable facts include:

• Tom, to the best of my knowledge, hadn’t played racquetball for at least 5 months before
• I had
• I was playing with my own racquet
• Tom was playing with a racquet that really requires a glove to use correctly
• I had a glove
• Tom didn’t

Still, I’m much better than when I started and certainly wouldn’t have been able to beat him a few months before. Count it.

2) Pick up my own project for fun

Also success. It wasn’t what I had originally intended, but teaching this Magic class was definitely something that no one else was making me do, and I learned a ton doing it. I naturally learned a lot about Magic, but I also got to find some really cool applications for a lot of topics, put together a syllabus and course and lecture materials, and even host a podcast. And on the side, it was just downright fun holding office hours and working with Tom on it. Huge win.

So that was a major hit this past year, though I had honestly forgotten about both of those Hopes. Keep it up this year with the following?

1) Watch more than 50 movies.

My draw groups talks a lot about movies, and will probably talk even more about movies now that we’re almost out of college football season. Although I’m familiar with a lot of movies and actors, I actually haven’t seen many of them. I am going to guess that there are about 100 movies on this list that I have called “To Do – Movies,” and those are just the ones that I’ve thought to put down. With new movies constantly coming out, the list will keep growing, but I should start catching up.

The easiest way to achieve this, I think, will be to set aside one evening after dinner each week to watch a movie. It’ll take some discipline to keep it up, but I’ll keep at it.

2) Have less stuff than I did last year.

Over the past couple months, I’ve realized that I have a lot of stuff. When it’s all squirreled away and at use, it doesn’t look like much, but when it’s all in your roommate’s brother’s pickup truck, it looks like a lot. And looking around the house and how bare some parts look, I can’t believe how much stuff was filling up that space. When I look around at things, though, it always seems so difficult to get rid of it, even when it’s been sitting in a box on top of my closet for several months completely unmissed.

I’m not sure what my tactic is here, but I think it involves a lot of using things up and passing on items to people who can put them to better use. Not only will it make moving in and out of dorms a lot easier, maybe I’ll learn a lesson about material possessions along the way.

Best of luck with your hopes, and I’ll check back in in another year.