Resolutely flexible

Happy new year, all!

I decided this year I'm not going to do the whole resolutions thing for a number of reasons, but the main reason was because I failed miserably the last time I did it: write 10,000 words a month? I think I barely wrote that much in the entire YEAR, and that's after the fact that I recycled at least 500 words in "Facing the Music." Even reading books turned out to be too difficult for me to accomplish; I didn't complete a single book in the month of December. (Not even The Scarlet Letter. Sorry, Ms. Russell.) And I think it's pretty clear how 4, 5, and 6 turned out...*cough*Facebook hiatus*cough*

So this year, to save me from tears, (I'll give it to someone special) I won't be making specific "new year's" resolutions. Why make resolutions on a yearly basis? Life's too volatile to wait for the first day of the new year to resolve to do something. Stop making excuses for when you're going to finally start taking action and just GO DO IT. Procrastination is a terrible, horrible idea, because it only gets worse. (Or maybe that's just junior year getting to me.)

School started today which means the end of waking up "late" and getting enough sleep for about...seven weeks. (I'll get to that in a bit.) Just when the dark circles underneath my eyes are starting to disappear...back to falling asleep in physics, designing yearbook pages, doodling outfits in APUSH, and seeing my friends again.

Speaking of friends: my social experiment/dare/forced-upon-myself-hiatus has been relatively successful for the four or five days so far. I've been spending less time on the internet, but not by too much. At least now I feel like the time I spend is more worthwhile, like watching community channel (SO FUNNY. I want to be Natalie when I grow up. If you don't already, you have to go watch. Now.) or watching movies I've been meaning to see, like (500) Days of Summer. (I'll blog about that soon--so good, it gets an entire post!) The emails from real people have, for the most part, stopped, and while no one is ever on Gchat/Messenger/etc. when I'm on, I can live without being in constant contact with the kids I'm going to be seeing the next day anyways.

Now that the first day back from break is done, I've resolved to study better and harder for the rest of the semester (and the next semester too, obviously). Sounds relatively easy in theory, but I also have debate tournaments every weekend for the next seven weeks...*dies from exhaustion* It'll be okay though--I'm already guaranteed to go to Berkeley and state, so at least there isn't any stress to debate anymore. I guess my partner and I have this mutual agreement where we try as hard as we can with minimal effort--it's worked out pretty well for us so far, hasn't it?

Laziness isn't a great habit to get into, but at the same time, I'm glad I just don't care about it as much. I can just show up to a tournament knowing that even if we lose this round, even if we don't break or place, I still got everything I really wanted out of it--Berkeley and state. Even though debate feels effortless as of late, I still know that I'm lucky to have gotten to where I am right now. Compared to where I was last year at this time...I guess I've really gotten better.

I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again: I don't think I'm going to go to debate camp again this summer. I used to wonder in my novice year how so few people stayed in debate all four years of it, but now, I've come to understand. It's rewarding, sure, but it's just so...so much. My "high school experience" is more than half over, and I still have so many other things to try my summer before senior year, like a foreign exchange program, or yearbook camp instead.

But who knows? The year has just begun.

xoxo, vivian