Resolutions for 2013

It's early evening on the 1st of January, the golden light of sunset is dappling the walls of our apartment, and I'm recovering from our very long walk around MacRitchie Reservoir. It's the time of the year when I set out my resolutions. 2013 is going to be the year of the Snake, and funnily enough, six of these resolutions sssstart with a ssssSssss. Sssspooky, eh?

S is for being able to Shuffle cards

As that video should demonstrate, my ability to shuffle a pack of cards is practically non-existent. It's an embarassment to me, like so many other examples of my appalling dexterity. However, this is one that I think, with the unforgiving tutelage of my wife, I should be able to fix. Hopefully by the end of the year you'll see some incredible examples of my shuffling. (And the sound quality on the video should be improved too.)

S is for Swimming
I live in an island nation, and yet I've avoided going anywhere near the water.  I had assumed this was entirely sensible, because I can't swim, but it turns out that I can.  It's just that I do so very badly.  This year I'm going to rectify this, if only slightly, by going for a swim at least once a month.  That might not sound like much, but it's going to be getting on for an improvement of around 12 times. S is for

Speaking Spanish
It's time that I stretched some other parts of my brain again: this year, I'd like to get at least the rudiments of one language mastered.  I've made small steps already (well, I've changed the localisation settings on my Facebook account to Chilean Spanish) but perhaps now we'll move onto something a bit more tangible.

S is for Statistics
All of 2012, I had a nagging feeling that I should be improving my skills in some way that might benefit my profession.  R seemed to be the obvious thing to learn, and yet I didn't do anything with it until the last week of the year.  This year, I'd like to be able to demonstrate some proficiency.  And make some cool looking graphs.

S is for Salsa 
My wife loves that delicious condiment, but I've never been that taken by it.  Ah well, life is made up of compromises and this year I'm going to try to get more accustomed to ... no, not really.  I'm going to try to be able to dance at least slightly better than a (badly) trained bear.

S is for Speed
Something tells me that a marathon is going to be overambitious this year.  I want to hammer it in 2014 though, and so this year I'm going to concentrate on running faster over shorter distances.  I've already got five races booked in for the first five months of this year, and I don't see a reason yet why I can't keep fitting them in every month.  I'm hoping that at the end of 2013, I'm showing a faster average speed than for 2012. As a consequence, I need to work on some of the gaps: I'm going to try to be relentless with the Xbox (using Kinect, not wasting endless hours dicking around with shoot-em-ups) and see how that helps. And so that's the Ss drawn to a close. There's a few other things that I want to try, much the same as last year:

Comedy - I need to be more regular than I was in 2012.  I'm not sure quite how to do that, but I think the opportunities are there.  I just need to be more disciplined: write more, rehearse more, push myself to go out more.
Don't leave things incomplete - there's quite a few books in the apartment that need to be read.  There's also a novel that requires finishing.
Make more time for my friends - by frittering away less time on an endless series of webpages producing information I'm only reading as a placebo for doing something meaningful.
Remember to meditate more often

I've got a few other projects that I'm beginning, but I'd rather not mention them until they're more properly developed.