Once A Year, Every Year

I am actually typing this at 11am, but I am going to set the time options so that it's actually posted at 8.10pm for the simple, geeky reason that if I do so, the first post of the 2010 (and suddenly a part of me wants to comment on my own post and scream "FIRST!!!!!!!!1111onetwothree") will be posted at 20:10, 1/1/2010; I suddenly also wish to post date this to gain the 10:20, 1/1/2010 timestamp just for the symmetry.

At any rate, it's the New Year, and suddenly I'm realising that I didn't make very many resolutions. Maybe it's my old habit of not liking to be definite about random stuff, or maybe I'm just unwilling to commit to any particular mode of behaviour; at any rate it's nearly half the first day of the new year gone by and I've still no resolutions. Of course the rational bit of me says it's ridiculous to imagine that we've really got a chance of being all new and different now that the old year's past; but at any rate this is a chance to get a new calendar and so I can begin planning out the year, at least as much of it as I can think of.

This therefore is what I think I will have done by this time next year.

-Internship from 11th January to sometime in June, at Wyeth; the job description is something about logging and processing complaints.

-Sometime in July/August, I plan to spend at least two weeks in Sabah, but this is still going to have to go through the parents; I'll most likely be spending that time with the Pig. Maybe I'll drag him along to climb Killer Mountain.

-I want to have enough physical stamina to run the 42k marathon, even if I don't really plan to actually sign up for it. I'll probably start with learning to jog, though, which means I'll have to find somebody to go jogging with or I'll get sick of it after the first night.

-I will have learnt either some Japanese or some Lojban, or both, and I will have learnt enough to more or less hold a conversation at least semi-fluently.

...I don't know what else I'll have done next year that I haven't ever done before.

The past three days were spent at a Campus Crusade camp, which was very tiring, mostly because I haven't done such intensive learning since the last lectures, and naturally I fell asleep during some of the... lectures?sermons?speeches?, though I did at least wake up within the next ten minutes or so. Mostly due to prodding from my neighbours, admittedly. But it was very enjoyable, very educational. Naturally the application of knowledge is more difficult than the acquisition thereof, but that's what I've got the entire rest of the year to work with, eh? At any rate I'm still recovering from the camp; the relative silence around me is new, but... refreshing, in a way. Peaceful.

I like peace, and too often it's only to be found in solitude; I've seen very few people who look like they're the kind to just sit beside one and be quiet. I read this article online some days ago, and it contained the line "I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. Now please shush." which I thought was a pretty good way to sum up the way I feel sometimes. Then again, of course, I do have a dash of extrovertedness in me, which tends to show up in an overbearingly jolly manner and probably is what I exude when meeting new people, because that's a social situation where being quiet and unassuming brings up all sorts of misunderstandings (in fact almost all social situations are like that). The world is unfairly dominated by extroverts, though admittedly without them the world would be a lot less entertaining.

...I shall be returning to So Hour tomorrow, leaving in the morning and hopefully arriving by evening, if the jam at the Customs is not too egregious. So far my plans to visit the grandfolks have been continually thwarted by meetings and outings and such; of course I could skip the outings, but the meetings! they're placed in such a way that I've never yet had four days go by without heading out of the room to travel; in fact I think so far I've only spent one full day really alone in the room. Given that so far I've had about 21 days of holidays, that's saying something. Of course, I haven't announced it; the grandparents are relaxed enough that I can announce my arrival 5 minutes before turning up on the doorstep and they'll just smile, because the arrangements are already made.

There's a meeting later, and I shall leave the room at 5pm. I shall probably get very tired and then I shall probably have to take a taxi back; I shall need to withdraw money from the bank afterwards to prepare for that. But I think I'll enjoy it, and besides I shall be in a little village from the 2nd to the 6th, uncontactable except by the Internet and by the phone (for those who want to call me there); and I shall eat a lot and be cheerful and be more or less left to my own devices when the cousins are away, and I shall take long walks in the evening and I shall wake up very late and spend lots of time reading.

I shall, I think, be quite happy with that.