Accomplishments and objectives

A year ago I posted a list of things I had done in 2007 and things I hoped to accomplish in 2008. There's not much point in recording such things if you don't go back and compare them to what did happen, so here's my review of 2008 and forecast for 2009. To start, this is the list from that entry a year ago, with successful accomplishments in green, failed accomplishments in red, and black being partial or incomplete:

Things I would like to accomplish in 2008:

1. Break out of my patterns of procrastination.
   
2. Be more proactive about dating.
3. Make more of an effort to write new poems, without getting away from the good revision work that I've been doing.
4. Find out why my brother gets under my skin and learn to be at peace with him.
5. Commit the time to write an academic paper that represents my very best work.
6. Make more connections among the department's faculty and graduate students.
7. Restore the university's chapter of Sigma Tau Delta to viability with undergraduate leadership.
8. Find ways to travel without screwing up my budget (my upcoming trip to NYC will be a good start).
9. Learn more about teaching methods, effective classroom skills, and good pedagogy so that I'm more prepared to teach college-level courses.
10. Embrace the fantastic path I'm on without closing myself off to unexpected opportunities.

I've also done a lot of cool things in the last year that weren't a part of that list.

Things I accomplished in 2008

• Visited New York City for the first time, and I had an absolutely fantastic time.
  
• Kept up my quasi-regular correspondence of hand-written letters with a dear friend.
• Was an alternate delegate to the country convention for Barack Obama. I didn't get a chance to participate, but it was a great cherry on top of the very inspiring caucus process.
• My awesome trip to Germany and the Czech Republic.
• Developed a topic for my masters thesis that I'm genuinely excited about.
• Applied to PhD programs.
• Made significant quantities of fruits and veggies a regular part of my diet.
  

I feel pretty good about where I stand right now, so major, life-changing resolutions don't feel particularly neccessary. Of course, the next stage in my life will be shaped considerably by which PhD programs I get into, if any, but for now I just need to concentrate on reaching a positive finish to my masters program and writing a thesis I can be proud of.

Goals and Resolutions for 2009

1. Write my thesis and defend it in time to participate in the June graduation ceremony.
2. Build a new computer from scratch.
3. Take another big trip. (California?)
4. Buy a more adult set of clothing.
5. Go on a date.
6. Maintain my level of political awareness and engagement.
7. Change my own oil.
8. Write the play I've been thinking about.
9. Keep in touch with people in Denver after I move away.
10. Get better about procrastination.
    

Driving in the middle of a two-way street

As if our foreign policy wasn't dysfunctional enough already, the Bush Administration is trying to use visa-free travel to the United States to bludgeon the European Union into accepting new "security" measures. It's one thing when American citizens are frightened enough to exchange their privacy for the illusion of security, but pitting the EU member-states against each other in order to extract their citizens' personal information (including details about people who aren't even entering the US) is a good way to add to the already impressive quantity of ill-will that exists towards the United States.

Children are edible

One of the things I love about grad school is the fact that I'm able to sit down in classes full of creative people and create things like the following anti-Strunk & White revision of a sentence from Swift's "A Modest Proposal":

I have the awareness that the flesh of young humans, ideally humans within the age range typically defined as infancy, is indeed capable of being processed by the gastrointestinal tract, in ergo facto providing the necessary je ne sais quoi of a meal more delicious than the love of Baby Jesus.

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When I travel, it is important to me that my tourism provides me with valuable experiences and helps to make me a better person. It's encouraging to learn that Henry James also felt that sightseeing is serious business.