so about this whole resolutions business

So I don't really do New Year's Resolutions, but I think it's a good habit to get into. Even if I ultimately break 90% of them, that 10% is still a gain, am I right? I have a couple for 2011, but please bear with me if they sound a little strange...


1) Refill my Brita water pitcher every morning. Shut up, I heard drinking water was good for you. Usually what prevents me from proper hydration is that I'm too lazy to fill the damn pitcher, so I should probably just get on that. My pitcher holds 40 fl. oz., or about 5 8-oz. glasses, but I think jumping on the whole 8 glasses a day thing is a little much. If it becomes a regular thing to check every day, that should remind me to keep up my water intake. Oh, and hopefully this will reduce my consumption of sweet beverages. :|

2) Review all my class notes within 24 hours of having attended lecture. I always say that I'll do this, and I usually keep it up for approximately two weeks at maximum. But no, I'm going to do this. I think one way to help me is to take hand-written notes and then type them up when I get home. Although I type much more quickly (and legibly) than I scrawl, I think any performance loss will be more than balanced by not having Facebook to browse to whenever the professor so much as stops for breath. Plus I suspect that carrying my computer everywhere is damaging somehow, so maybe this will help extend its lifespan, poor thing.

2a) Attend all my lectures.

3) Pretend that all my deadlines are one day before they actually are. No, really. I swear this is going to work.

4) Write at least one Firefox add-on, Chrome extension, or mobile app for either iPhone or Android. Except probably not the latter because I don't have an iPhone or Android (donations happily accepted). Not that I have any ideas right now, but it's just one of those things where if someone asks you, "Can you now or have you ever programmed one of these apps?" and your answer is some awkward silence, then you're probably going to have to hand back your CS badge, and no one wants that.

5) Meet the physical fitness requirements to become an FBI agent. Ahaha okay, I know that sounds pretty silly, especially since I have no intention of joining the FBI even once I do become eligible in two years. But in my job search I stumbled across their PFT guidelines, and a) it seems like something anyone should be able to do, and b) I feel like I'm too young to be so out of shape. Having some concrete goal, I think, might keep me on track better than, "Don't be such a disgusting slob." Haha but we'll just have to see about that.

A quote from their FAQ:

17. I want to be an FBI "Profiler" - where do I begin the application process?
You first need to realize the FBI does not have a job called "Profiler." The tasks commonly associated with "profiling" are performed by Supervisory Special Agents assigned to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) at Quantico, Virginia. Despite popular depictions, these FBI Special Agents don't get "vibes" or experience "psychic flashes" while walking around fresh crime scenes. It is an exciting world of investigation and research — a world of inductive and deductive reasoning; crime-solving experience; and knowledge of criminal behavior, facts, and statistical probabilities.

6) And then typical stuff like: write a novel, get employed, back up my hard drive, and finally cut my freaking hair. But none of these things is going to happen, so that's all right.


I swear I will have an interesting entry up one day. Probably about hacking. Or Scrabble.