The Beginning of Something Better

Historically I've hated goal setting. I'm pretty much going to chalk that up to poor follow-through on my part. When it came down to it I didn't want to change as much as I wanted to avoid the discomfort of change. I've been thinking a lot lately about what I really want out of life. Accordingly, I've created a list of New Year's resolutions. I'm almost positive that this is the first time in my life that I've ever actually made such a list. It is as follows:

1. Spend time every day learning how to write, and by extension edit better
2. Learn to play the guitar
3. Help my roommate train for his triathlon

I enjoy writing, I enjoy editing. That's what I've said, but by and large my actions have not supported such a theory. I bought a MacBook recently that will go with me all over campus to be used to just that end. I also recently bought two new books with authors totally unknown to me (I'm halfway through the first). I made it a goal a while back to read a new book every two weeks. At the time the goal was realistic. Now, I will not have such luxury of time, but such reading will count towards my roughly hour or so spent daily writing, reading, or editing.

I took a guitar class during last spring semester and learned nothing. I didn't practice which meant I didn't want to go to class, which meant I didn't learn anything there either. It's absurd really. I paid to take the class "for fun" and I didn't do much of anything in it. My brother sent me a guitar tuner for my birthday. My birthday is in March, but he thought it was in January. Serendipitous if you ask me. Any time that I thought about practicing the thought of tuning the guitar, with a cd and listening, was too much for me. I did it a couple times only to ask Clark if it sounded right and wait the ten minutes why he undid the damage I had done. Again, I've been saying I want to learn guitar for a long time, but haven't done anything about it. That needs to change.

To clarify, I'm not going to be in the triathlon, but I am going to train with my roommate for it. I know he needs the extra motivation of exercising with a friend and I just need the exercise.

My goals are rather lofty in my own estimation. My reticence to set goals in the past has been driven by a fear that I wouldn't complete them. If I don't try at all though I'm certainly not going to make such changes. Here's hoping for something better with the new year.

Facebook is Useless...

I'm not real sure where I want to put this when I'm finished. That is assuming I finish it at all. That is assuming I figure out what it is. I think it's about time I rant a little about something that makes no sense to me, namely facebook. It doesn't serve any discernible purpose that I'm aware of beyond allowing you let friends of friends look at your pictures in a sort of stalker-lite fashion. It's not going to get you put in jail or slapped with a restraining order, but I'm guessing it's not quite the same, just guessing. I thought, okay, I've already got a blog, why would I need a facebook page?

The answer is that a ridiculous amount of BYU has registered on facebook. Short of the pseudo-stalking I can't figure out why. I've imported some 51 posts from my blog, but I don't think anyone has read them. I don't think people really go on facebook to write things. I've checked my friends “walls” and the latest comments are about a month old or they're a one liner like “Merry Christmas.” So I ask again, what is the point? How is it that a totally useless activity like facebook can draw in so many people, while blogging finds itself largely tossed by the wayside. Is it that people really hate to write that much? Is it that not enough happens in their lives that they view as extraordinary? I suppose, in all fairness, that I haven't updated my blog now for a month so I don't have much room to talk. But at least the page that I don't have updated serves some purpose. I'd post a short story or two I wrote, but blogger jacks up my formatting.