New Year, New Adventures!

Hopefully, I will be able to settle back into some kind of more regular blogging routine after my rather lengthy hiatus. When school struck last fall, blogging was never the same. Perhaps it was because homework competed with my attention, or perhaps with summer ending, I had fewer exciting things to post. In the near future, I may go back to chronicle some of the things I have done since I stopped blogging semi-weekly, but for now I want to get the obligatory "New Years" post out of the way while it is still January.

2010 was the first year that I made resolutions that I took deeply to heart and they ended up shaping my entire year. I ended up succeeding with most of them, and that made for a very satisfying year. I wanted the same kind of direction this year, so I spent a lot of time pondering about what would be the most important to me throughout 2011. Only 2 goals really stuck out to me, that I knew would be of paramount importance, but I wanted a more meaningful year so naturally I made up several other goals and dubbed them resolutions. As you may be able to predict, the other goals did not make through even the first couple weeks of January. I know I have rambled on goal setting before, but I realized this month that it does not matter how many goals you set at new years or any given time, but rather how important success in meeting those goals is to you. It is like a quote I read once. "Self discipline is remembering what you really want."

I think many goals are made more meaningful when made at times of your life when you are undergoing big changes. Here are a few changes that I have made since I last posted in order to achieve some goals that are important to me.

1. New home. Having transferred to BYU, I now live on my own in Provo, which was one of my goals of last year, moving me further towards independence.

2. New job. (kind of) I still work for the same company, but now I can work from home, which is a very convenient job for a college student like myself, and in order to be more financially independent, I am trying to work more hours and perhaps even get another job to supplement my income. Hopefully that works out.

3. New friends. This one is pretty hard. I love and miss my Salt Lake friends very much, and have no intention of ceasing to play with them. However, since it is not logical to drive 50 miles every day to hang out with them, I obviously have to leave my shell and make new friends here as well, which can be fun but is also kind of stressful in a way; sometimes afraid to just be myself because relationships are still fragile until people really get to know you, and then I can be my weird, crazy, opinionated self. It just takes time.

4. New school. I realize that I already covered this one, but there are other differences than just location. I know the work load will be greater and teaching styles much different. I am, however looking forward to it.

5. New lifestyle. Last year my physical focus was to become a triathlete. This year it is slightly different. Rather than the more exercise-intensive focus of 2010, I have started out this year with a new diet. Put simply, I eat vegetables, protein, and legumes for every meal and go nuts eating whatever I want one day a week. It is from a book called "The 4-Hour Body" by Tim Ferriss, which [don't worry!] I will not give an extensive review of at this time. But given my obsession with health and nutrition, I look forward to seeing how this works out. I may give occasional updates or insights from my experiences with it, but rest assured I am not going to turn this blog into a food journal or show weekly photos of my topless self in a mirror or anything. (Although you can find before pictures of me here.)

So there you have it. I am going to try my hand at blogging every week again, and see how that works out. If it doesn't, I apologize in advance. Have a great weekend!