While it might not be that hard to keep track, it might be easier right now if you went back and read this piece that I wrote a year ago about my New Years Resolutions for 1998. It was my first year ever doing such a thing, and now it's time to look back and see just how well I did at keeping them.

The first category that I talked about dealt with the personal side of things. One of the things that I wanted to do was not simply make as many stupid simple mistakes. While it was a very general statement, and it's hard to judge such things, I think that I did pretty well in that area. Although I had one big, dumb slip, even that wasn't my fault, and in the long run it hasn't affected me that much. If anything, it's made me even more aware (when I'm biking at least).

Another part of my personal assessment is fortunately just as vague. I stated that I felt that I was too impersonal most of the time and was very conservative with my compliments, even though they're merited. Although I think I'm still pretty impersonal (it's just one of my personality traits and quite hard to overcome), I do think that I've gotten better at complimenting people. I don't try to overdue it (as I also think that fake compliments really don't do anyone good), but I have gotten better at acknowledging people when it's needed.

I put the second grouping of my goals into a category that I simply labeled "social." One of my complaints of myself when I wrote my goals was that I was too introverted, but after a bit of trying, and looking back over the course of the year, it's really something that I don't think I want to change. By nature, I'm just not cut out to be extroverted and I think that it was silly of me to really try to change it. I have an excellent group of friends anyway.

Oh yeah, and I ended up going out on a date after all.

The category that is probably easiest to measure how well I did in 1998 is the one that I called "output/input." I stated that I wanted to write at least 630 pages worth in 1998, and I unfortunately have to admit that I didn't reach that goal. Looking back, it was pretty lofty to begin with, but if I add in my journal, my dream journal, and the writing that I've done for the site, it does come out to almost 600 pages worth, so I was pretty close. Another thing that I didn't at all do was get back into photography. After majoring in photography in college, I guess I completely burned out on it and picked up on other things more (like writing). Who knows, maybe at some point it will all start again. One thing I did manage to do was kick out a couple neat drawings.

On the input side of things, I did a very good job being more informed. As well as reading a paper (almost) every day, I kept up very well on current events and even knew what was going on in the news during the year of turmoil and could hold an intelligent conversation about things with people. I also wrote that I wanted to read at least 9,000 pages worth of books during the year, but I managed to do 13,552. That averages out to just about 37 pages per day. Yeah, I'm a dork.

The fourth and final category that I discussed in last years goals was that of health. My big goal was to ride 2000 miles on my bike during the course of the year, but I didn't really get too close to that. Even though I helped myself out by getting a new bike (a slick 1998 Specialized Rockhopper FS), two things happened that put a damper on my riding time. One of these was surgery and the other was getting hit by a car. Between the two, about 2 months of time was lost in recouperation. I still ended up biking 1200 miles, so I'm not too upset. Another thing that affected my riding was buying a pass to the Rec center on campus. Not only did I get hooked on racquetball again, but I've been playing some basketball as well (and I can still dunk-whee!). I even managed a bit of yoga for awhile, but haven't had the time lately. Maybe I'll get back into it again this year.

That's the basic rundown, supplimented with bits of writing that corresponded to certain events. Stay tuned to next weeks installment when I set forth my goals for 1999 and try to keep my pre-millenium tension to a minimum.

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