New Year’s Resolutions

Firstly a quick note – thanks to everyone that entered the photo competition. Once I’ve compiled all the entires I’ll put up some sort of voting page, hopefully before the week is out. Until then there’s still time for any last minute entries… but otherwise, stay tuned!

I’ve never been one for New Year’s Resolutions, but I heard a quote from someone (may have been Kristy) saying “any opportunity to improve yourself is a good one”. So with that attitude, this is what I’m going for in 2006:

• Be bold. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from being in America, its this: If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Typically, Americans aren’t shy about speaking their mind, and often it leads to favourable outcomes for them. Unfortunately, the whole mentality in New York is you don’t get anything without some sort of an argument. I certainly don’t want to become that bold, just a few shades darker than my current level of boldness.
• More genuine. One more thing I also admire about Americans as a whole – you can ask them anything, and they’ll rarely make fun of your ignorance. I derive far too much pleasure from feigning absolute shock that people don’t know something that to me is strikingly obvious. (“You’ve never used Ajax to pop a mail server dynamically?! Where have you been?! What do they teach you in primary school these days?!”, etc). Less of this in 2006.
• Less nagging. I’m a huge nagger, especially to Kristy who is kind enough to barely ever point it out to me . Though I’m very rarely serious about it, I can understand how it may get on people’s nerves.
• Stand tall. I slouch. Hard to believe I know, but I’m a big sloucher. I’m trying my best to keep my shoulders back, and more imporantly, my neck straight. Feel free to nag me about this if you see me slumping around like I normally do.
• One touch policy. Kristy and I are hopeless at keeping the house tidy. Mainly because (for example), we come home, take our jackets off, chuck them over a chair. We check out what mail we have, and flick anything that doesn’t look exciting onto the table. We take off our shoes, and leave them (as well as the socks) under the coffee table. Etcetera, etcetera – by Saturday, the place is a dump and we have to clean everything. So I’m trying a “one touch” policy, which says you have to deal with something as soon as you first touch it. The jacket gets hung up. The mail gets opened and dealt with. The shoes go in the closet, and socks into the washing basket. Hopefully it will keep the place tidier with only a little bit of extra effort.

So what are your resolutions? And do you think there’s any more I should adopt?