New Year's Reflections

Where was I a year ago? At my parents' home in Cedar City, UT. I was still determined to become the USMC's top intel officer, the plan of which was completely crushed half-way through 2005. I had no sweetheart to call my own and I was doing fairly crappy in school. Oh, and most importantly, I was a mere three months and 26 days from being fully initated as a Roman Catholic.

And here I am. Still at my parents' home (although hopefully they'll be moving - for real- soon). I'm doing much better in school and I do have a wonderful man I can call "honey". I can say that, for the first time in my adult life, I'm happy with myself and at peace with the world in general. I can also say that there is no recipe for this profound state of being, and I'm still trying to figure out how I got here.

I have a vague idea of what I want to do with my life, career-wise. In August it was work for the NSA. In early October it was "creative" writing or journalism. In late December it's "I have no fucking clue".

My favorite professor told me to do some soul searching during my exile in Utah, and through all my prayers and telling myself to get with the program and "figure it out", nothing.

I still toy with the idea that war corresponding would be fascinating and "fun" work, although I doubt my sweetheart would agree. He's been suspiciously quiet whenever I bring up the idea.

No one ever keeps their New Year's Resolutions. Thus, I've decided to make some goals for Spring Semester 2006, as keeping a goal for 20 weeks (if you count the couple weeks before the semester starts and a couple weeks after it ends) is probably more-doable than keeping a goal for 56. I think I've made some fairly modest goals for this next semester:

1. To earn a 4.0 GPA for this last semester at Montana Tech, which I believe is (barely) doable.
2. To keep my apartment in a relative state of saneness, which may or may not be doable if I'm trying to accomplish goal #1.
3. To get at least 30 minutes of physical activity done a day, which may or may not be doable. Of course, my definition of "physical activity" is fairly broad. And made easier because of Coach Green's Racquetball 101 class. I can also try that walking-to-class thing again, which will put in 40 minutes of "physical activity" in.
   
4. (This ties in with goal #3) To start running again. I want to be running 20 miles a week by June.

I'm not really concerned with the fact my big life-plan has changed dramatically in the past year. "Correct and Redirect" was the advice I found in January's issue of Runner's World, as applied to running programs. I know my life has changed dramatically in the past couple of years, and that it's probably going to change dramatically in the next year (nay, in the next six months!). I think I have the "correcting" part of the advice down, because life as I know it has intensely improved over the past year. It's the "redirecting" I need to get.