A New Year, A New Beginning

It is the beginning of a new year and with it comes the obligatory resolutions made. This year, I resolve to:

Update my blog regularly. I haven’t updated my blog in a long while. It isn’t because I haven’t felt like it or that I haven’t had anything to say. I have, on both counts. I have had a lot of interesting (to me at least) issues/topics/randomness I have wanted to blog about. If nothing else, I still have the majority of the 26 things I listed when I started this blog. Usually, these ideas come to me at work and I don’t want to blog at work. Somehow, I don’t remember or don’t feel like it when I get home. This year, I am going to be better. I am going to be aiming for at least one post a week. Maybe more if I am inspired.

This year, I am trying to be vegetarian, more precisely, Lacto-Ova vegetarian. I am eating dairy products and eggs. Since I moved to soy milk a few years back, milk products are included here because I want to allow myself to eat cheese, mainly pizza. And I eat eggs, usually used in baking but I do like a good omelette every once in a while. This decision is a part of my bigger goal of living a healthier lifestyle. Let’s see how long I will last. I am fairly certain I will be fine doing this. A couple of years ago, I tried this. However, I craved meat so much during that time that after that year, I went back to eating meat. Maybe this time, I will do better. So far, it has been about 21 days and counting.

And a few other random resolutions like:
- I won’t let people who don’t matter get to me.
- I will get out more and meet new people.
- I will be a better graduate student – work harder, longer, be more motivated and dedicated.
- I am taking charge of my own happiness. I can’t/refuse to let others determine/control my happiness. It is all about me.

And finally, I resolve to keep my resolutions this year. Like most people, I always make resolutions at the beginning of each year. Like most people, these resolutions don’t last past the first month. I will keep you (you know, you, the lone reader of my blog) updated on how these resolutions are holding up.

Here’s to a wonderful new year. A year filled with joy and happiness, love and laughter, successes and accomplishments, wonderful research and great results, papers written/read and theses written, graduations and jobs found. And even a few bruises and tears, because it is only when we experience all the ups plus the downs too of life can we fully appreciate all the good. Here is to being happy.

Go, have a drink on me.

ABECEDARIAN

Where do I start? I have read a lot of blogs these last few months. Everybody raves about the therapeutic effects of writing your thoughts and feelings and experiences down. To help you clarify your thoughts. To have a record of events. For posterity. Whatever. For now, I simply think it is a fun thing to do.

Too often I let people label me. I let people tell me what I am and what I am not; what to be and what not to be; how to behave and how not to. I am tired of that. I am tired of trying to be the way other people want me to be. I don’t want to get upset when I don’t meet the standards other people set for me. I want to be me. In all my glories, with all my imperfections, in all my strengths, with all my inadequacies.

So I picked my own labels (before someone else does), words that count, to me. Most of these adjectives describe some aspect of me. Some of them are characteristics I have had for a long time, qualities I understand and am happy with. A few are words that I am embarrassed to use to describe myself, traits that I don’t necessarily want or want to improve on. A few of these are things I want to be, and a few persona randomly thrown in just because. Together, they are all me.

I am African, Bisexual and Christian, a foreigner in a strange land trying to reconcile my sexuality with my faith. I Dream, of a time when everyone has Equal rights and privileges and when Females are treated as they deserve. I spend my days as a Graduate student, but I really want to be a Humanitarian, with very Idealist views about changing the world. In Joy, I share my Kindness with the people I am Loyal to. Although I may come of as Maladjusted sometimes, my Nerdy Optimism wishes for a Plural society. In my Quest for knowledge, my Redeemed soul is sometimes at odds with the Science I study. I am Tall, Unique, Voluptuous, and all Woman. I may seem to be a Xenophile but I am really Yearning to live a life full of Zest.

Here goes nothing.