Resolutely into the New Year

New Year’s Resolutions are always tricky. I am reminded by my high school friend Gina’s advice of “aim low to avoid disappointment”. Like all good advice, I wish I followed it more often. Instead, I’ve generally focused on tangible tasks (“finish my thesis”) or process-oriented resolutions (“to eat more healthy food” or “to exercise more”). Those ones are easy (well, finishing my thesis wasn’t, but that was due to powers out of my grasp at the end). Generally, you just eat more vegetables, and go for an occasional run, and you feel like you’ve accomplished your task by the end of January. I’ve always felt like I was almost cheating when I made those resolutions.

Due to this darned influenza, I’ve had an entire evening to come up with some good ones. And, needless to say, I am no closer to coming up with some grand, over-arching concept with which to frame my 2008 than I was this morning. There are the obvious ones, but since I do intend to start playing soccer again and possibly joining a swim team, that’s cheating. Same with publishing another paper or two. Turning 30 will happen no matter what I resolve, and taking it with dignity is perhaps so unlikely as to be out of the question and not worth my breath resolving. In general, I’d like to be a nicer and better person – but, again, that shouldn’t require a resolution. It requires me keeping the snark to myself. Which sounds easier than it is. Particularly early in the morning.

And my crowning thought of reducing my carbon footprint seems next to impossible, considering I’m flying to Manaus via Sao Paulo in a week or so. It requires an awful lot of compact fluorescent lights to compensate for that one.

So I give up on the resolutions. When asked, I will lapse to the answer of ‘I couldn’t come up with anything particularly brilliant or witty’. Which is true. Instead I hope to ring in the New Year asleep, allowing my immune system to finish off the last remnants of the flu virus. It gives me the chance to start 2008 well-rested and with a freshly-energized set of antibodies. Free of cheap resolutions and bad hangovers. (And with a lame social life that, really, can only get better... hmmm... there might be a resolution in that...)

Good night, happy new year and all the best,
Delphine.