Happy New Year!

First, let me start off by saying that I am firmly in the camp that 2010 does not mark the beginning of the 2nd decade of the 2000s. That honor belongs to 2011. (Just as the year 2000 was not the new millennium, that was 2001.) I understand that puts me in a very small and annoying camp of people who choose ordinal numbering over cardinal. I'm ok with that.

Regardless, happy new year.

Usually here is where I would spout off a bit about how resolutions are ridiculous and I don't make them or that I resolve not to resolve and so forth. This year, however, I'm turning over a new leaf and actually making a few resolutions, though I am going to persist in calling them "Annual Goals". Why? Probably because I live in that camp of annoying people.

So, here are a few of my goals for 2010:

1. I will refer to the year as "two-thousand ten" not "twenty ten" and certainly not "two-thousand-AND-ten".
2. I will finish my PhD no later than the end of the fall 2010 semester. (I'm actually making slow and minor progress to that end, and will be starting with some data collection next week. w00t!)
   
3. I will finish one of my stories-in-progress. I even know which one, but as none of you have read any of them, it really doesn't matter to you. I'm contemplating having that done in time for a contest that I fantasize about every year, the deadline of which is October, but I'm not committing to that. I'm simply committing to finishing, rather than getting to about the 3/4 mark and then talking myself out of finishing it because it would mean I would have to actually decide if I was really going to try and get published or just continue to talk myself out of it due to an insanely deep seated fear of rejection. Because I know that rejection will happen on the way to acceptance. But the whole "1000 ways not to invent a light bulb" thing just makes me roll my eyes.
   
4. I will achieve my specific weight loss goal. The deadline for that is 8/12/10 - our 15th anniversary. It's aggressive, but not out of hand. And in this case, I can kind of subscribe to the "shoot for the moon and miss, you're still among the stars" philosophy. Though I really am motivated to actually meet my goal. Now it's just a matter of getting my body to cooperate.

That's it. Just 4. And really, they're all kind of big. Well, three of them are, the first one, I know, is silly (though I'm serious about it!) Anything else I'm going to consider gravy.