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Summer Resolutions

I don't really do New Year's resolutions. A new semester isn't as much of a fresh start when you're on an academic calendar. I think of Fall and Summer as being times of potentially great, life improving change.

My life has changed in various, mostly positive ways already. Moving three times in 1.5 years has made me eschew any tchotkes and knick knackery, and has me going to libraries for fiction/pleasure reading and to school libraries for trial runs of research books. If I really like that novel or really need that book, I'll buy it. But now I have less stuff than before, and I like having less stuff. Actually, I want to keep getting rid of stuff.

While I like to look polished and don't believe that my selectively buying into the beauty industrial complex is a betrayal of feminism, I've given up perfume and most makeup. And no more heels. Well, I still wear a little makeup, I just don't look like a reject from an '80s music video. I also don't wear jewelry much, and certainly not on a daily basis. Whether this is a product of living in a crunchy granola city where fashion goes to die and polar fleece swims up the river and spawns, or being with TD, who seems to prefer me unadorned and unpainted, I don't know, but I kind of like it. So long as I still define my eyebrows and warm up my cheeks with blush, that is. Powder/lipstick is optional, although if I am going anywhere of importance, it helps me not to look like a corpse. This is going to shock my high school and college friends, who remember me as a glittering magpie in red lipstick and heels and swishy skirts.

So I've simplified my life a little, and I'm happy about the above changes. But here are more resolutions. I wish that I could do what Jeremy does and promise to donate $25 to the Bush Memorial Library for every day that he fails to meet his target of working out 200/365 days in 2008, but I can't afford that. Still, privacy considerations notwithstanding (since when do I have that high a standard of privacy anyway), here are some public resolutions:

1. Stop surfing the internet so much. This is my biggest problem. A post on how I am going to control this later.
2. Stop emailing so much. This is going to be harder to control.
3. Run 10-15 miles a week again. I was down to 0-5 for the past couple of months. Bad. I need to not get winded on easy hiking trails.
4. Cross-train to avoid injuries. I hate, hate doing muscle work. I don't know how to do this.
5. Cook 2-3 times a week during the week. Saves money, relaxes me, dinner is ready for us at the end of a working day, and it makes going out on weekends feel special. Also, leftovers are better than bowls of cereal for lunch.
6. Do more fun things in the area on the weekends. I have no idea what this means to me or TD, but I am sure we'll figure it out, especially since I haven't been anywhere, really. But it'll be quality time.
7. Write at least two pages a day, whether it's dissertation prospectus, lit review, an article, anything academic work related.
8. Read at least an article a day, dissertation related or not, but definitely legal/organizational/sociological.
9. Read least two books a month, one work related, one for pleasure.
10. Sleep 6-7 hours a night.

Those are my summer resolutions. I have no accountability system other than public shaming. We impoverished grad students have it tough.

Full post as published by Law and Letters on May 27, 2008 (boomark / email).