Be it hereby resolved...

For years, I was opposed to New Year's resolutions. I thought they were stupid and basically a way to set oneself up for failure by setting goals that would never be met. In college I made New Year's resolutions a few times, but at Samhain, not January 1, as I hung with the pagans at that time. Somehow doing it at a different time of year than most people made it more real to me. Also, Samhain was in the fall semester, the start of a new school year and a good time to set new goals.

This year, I made some real New Year's resolutions again. I felt that after the fall semester and before the spring, after good times seeing friends and family for the holidays, and after all the Christmas/end of semester craziness, it was a good time to take stock and fix things I had let slide during the crazy times.

I ended up with two main resolutions:
1. To exercise more.
-- For awhile I was really good at going to the gym a couple of times during the week and taking the free exercises classes my university offers from time to time. However as I got busier, this really fell off. So for 2006 I am making it a priority. So far I have made it to the gym at least once most weeks. Right now I am being thwarted by the fact that my bad knees mean I can only use the elliptical machine or treadmill for cardio, and lately these are full every time I try to go.

I've also paid for 8 yoga classes at a local yoga studio. I used to go once a week, and really loved it, but got busy and let that go as well. I have only missed one week so far, and I am totally loving it. Yoga is just my kind of exercise. It is interesting, so I don't get bored, and basically everything in it can be done at so many levels. I always leave class feeling good and like I was challenged.

2. To become more interesting.
-- I know this may seem like a shocking resolution, as I am a totally fascinating person, but I find grad school is slowing sucking away my social skills. I spend so much time thinking about anthropology and talking to other anthropologists, that I think I am forgetting how to relate to anyone else. I am really trying to get better at conversation, especially the kind of small talk party conversation that is so necessary when chatting with acquaintances. My concrete steps towards being more interesting were to do stuff not related to anthro. So yoga counted for this, as did seeing experimental films at the art museum, reading books that I maybe wouldn't normally read, and going to talks in other disciplines.

I was doing pretty well with this for awhile (I even went to a sociology talk!), but I have slowed up some lately. The last grant I wrote was a big problem for a few weeks. I am getting back into it, though. I am counting the Olympics as adding to my interestingness, and I have been crocheting more. I need to step up the getting out of the house, so will be alert for more outside the apartment activities in order to increase my interestingness.