this is the year.

so I realize this post about the new year is a bit delayed – after all, it’s already the first day of February.  what can I say?  it took me a month to sort through my thoughts on the idea of 2013 and everything that I’m hoping it holds.  I’m not really much of a new year’s resolutions-type persons; I’ve thought about making them in the past, but always in sort of a half-hearted kind of way.  like I recognize that it’s just a pretense or something.

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this year I’ve been feeling particularly inspired to stare 2013 in the face and address it like an ally. I love Carly’s and Elizabeth’s plans to break up the year into one goal/month, and for a while I thought about doing something similar; then I came to the realization that all of this impending uncertainty in my life makes me a bit wary to try out this plan. I have no idea what’s happening to me after the beginning of August; how can I possibly try to map out the year in January? so I’m taking a different approach, inspired partly by Carly and also by the idea of a thematic word for the new year. I’ve picked 5 verbs to represent the course I want to 2013 to take; 5 themes for 2013.  I was really tempted to just steal Liz’s blog name for this purpose, as it describes my goals fairly succinctly, but instead I settled on these five words.

so, here’s my plans for 2013 in a nutshell:

ACHIEVE is the theme that’s more goal-oriented.  that list of actual events I want to make happen this year.  it’s about getting things done.  a lot of this is scholastic-related, as I’m counting down the days left in my undergraduate career.  for starters:

-finish this semester with a 4.0.

-retake biochemistry this summer, and make at least a B [please oh please].

-retake the MCAT in May and score at least a 33 [doable?  I hope so].

I want to look back at 2013 a year from now and see it as the year that I started growing into adulthood.  it’s rather strange to think about how I’ve reached this point in life, of kinda-but-not-really being an adult [à la Britney Spears?].  I want to start having more control over my own decisions, instead of [reluctantly] letting my parents run the show.  I know that they have a hard time with transitions like this because I’m the oldest and the family guinea pig for growing up, but at some point I’m going to have to start running my own life.  I think “some point” might be starting this year.

ACT is about the art of making things happen [slightly different from getting things done].  ACT is about taking the initiative in life, about seeking out opportunities instead of just waiting for them to arise.  I need to figure what I’m doing during this next year of life, that gap between finishing undergrad and [hopefully] starting medical school.  I need to make everything with my application come together.  I also want to apply this on a more personal level.  confession: I haven’t had a date in a year and a half.  I feel bored and a bit lonely and itchy to for some romance to re-enter my life.  especially when so many people I know my age are getting engaged and/or married and/or pregnant [too soon, guys!  too soon!], it just makes me think about my life has pretty much stalled in the department.  enough is enough.  ACT also applies to physical activity – leave behind the comfort of your sedentary lifestyle, Kaity, and move around more!  I really want to try doing yoga [or something else low-impact] in hopes that it might help my crazy old lady knees [which may or may not have an autoimmune problem – hopefully my follow-up visit to the rheumatologist will have a more definitive answer to this question].                                 
ADAPT is about recognizing what is beyond my control and accepting it.  about recognizing what I can change and what I should change, and then making it happen [oh, hey there, ACT].  this also includes  a major organizational overhaul, especially in regards to my closet.  I have so many clothes that I no longer wear, and it’s time to just bite the bullet and get rid of things, no matter how much I want to be a packrat.  also, good grief, iTunes.  I need to go through it.  and my Facebook photos.  basically, my whole life just needs a good cleaning.  additionally, I need to get a better handle on how I apportion my time.  my time management skills are very much lacking.                                         
CREATE partly applies to my life on the internet.  I want to get a better handle on my blog and to start implementing some of these ideas that have been floating around in my brain for AGES [maybe that’s why I made that D in biochem – too many ideas clogging up my brain space, not enough room for enzyme names and ATP yields?].  so yeah.  blogging.  I want to try to setup and editorial schedule and to introduce some new series on this blog.  I would love to try to expand the style aspect just because it’s something I love so much and something that doesn’t get appreciated much in real life – largely because most of my peers are lazy and sloppy and think the way I dress is really fancy when it’s not.  so what if I choose to wear real clothes to class in place of sweatpants?  sorry not sorry.  I also want to dip my toe back into writing.  which is not to say that I’m about to join the very large crowd of bloggers who dream of writing books, because no.  instead, I want to get back to the casual writer I was in high school.  the one who jotted down poems and stories and what not as a means of expression and of relieving the logjam of thoughts and emotions that tended to accumulate inside.  I won a bunch of writing awards between 8th grade and 12th grade – bet you didn’t know that.  [probably because my writing on this blog is more stream-of-consciousness rambling than eloquent prose].   
EXPLORE encompasses a lot of those rather cliché things that tend to pop up in association with resolutions: take chances.  try things.  learn.  visit new places.  read more.  meet people.  and so on and so forth.  I want to explore Kaity-behind-the-camera a bit better.  I want to learn [and practice] more Spanish outside of the classroom.  I want to watch more foreign films and listen to more music.  I really do want to see new places, especially within the US.  I’ve been living over here on the east for going on 8 years now, and have yet to take much advantage.  EXPLORE is about just that - exploring.  both myself and my world.

and if I had to distill my hopes for 2013 into one word? “optimism.”  as I’ve said previously, I have a good feeling about 2013.  I can’t remember ever staring down the new year with such positive anticipation for what it holds.  2013 and I are going to be good friends, I can tell.