Hi, everybody.
I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend. I know I did. The gifts have been opened and stacked into a neat little pile to be properly inspected. The wrapping paper lies strewn about the floor – a forgotten casualty that stands as a testament to the orgy of commercialism that now is over. Your dear friends and family have gladly received your gifts and either broken or exchanged them by now. The tree looks less magical and more like a large plant dying slowly in your living room. There are no more Christmas songs on the radio, and thank heavens too because if you heard “Christmas Shoes” one more time you were going to barf. All this can mean only one thing: Christmas is over. And that can only mean one other thing: time to look forward to a new year! 2006 is almost here, but before we say goodbye to good old 2005 I thought we'd look back at the events of the past year in a brief and fairly reductive sort of way.
This year: I graduated from college. I experienced the real world work force first hand and found it to stink. I was in six plays and had three jobs. I went to Vegas and Disneyland once each. I moved to Orem, and so did my family. I began to worry about things I had never worried about before: insurance, my weight, car problems, graduate school applications, US foreign policy, etc. etc.
In broader news, the year was full of events: the Iraqi consititution and general elections, the London bombings, Hurricane Katrina and the mess that followed it. In entertainment, a number of big movies were released this year, not the least of which was Star Wars Episode III, which finally, after twenty eight years, brought George Lucas' science fiction epic to its final conclusion with a resounding “eh” from audiences worldwide. In sports, a number of teams played a number of other teams, and about half won and half lost. In weather, it started cold, got much much warmer, then got cold again. Thats about it.
Actually, I got curious earlier today about how I had spent my time this year. I crunched some numbers and came up with this graph:
As you can see, an overwhelming amount of time was placed into the category “Other,” which means I have no idea what the heck I was doing. This is over 3,000 hours worth of unaccounted time. A big chunk of that is probably video games, some of it is movies, reading books, and hanging out with friends, some is vacation and weekends, not to mention household chores, errands, grocery shopping and the like. It is the filler time, the little stuff you do in between the major things. It all adds up to about one third of my over-all time. I find this a bit surprising. I know some of it was necessary fact-of-life type stuff, but still: I had 3,000 hours worth of free time, and what do I have show for it? What did I really accomplish this year?
New Year's resolutions are fast approaching, and that means last year's resolution (not to make any resolutions) has nearly reached its expiration date. At that time, I'll be free to make a new resolution, to start fresh and really take control of my own destiny. And this time I'll do it, I really will. I feel charged with a new sense of purpose and motivation. I swear by all that I love that in 2006 the number of wasted hours will be changed!
I think I'll shoot for 4,000. Its nice to have goals.
I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend. I know I did. The gifts have been opened and stacked into a neat little pile to be properly inspected. The wrapping paper lies strewn about the floor – a forgotten casualty that stands as a testament to the orgy of commercialism that now is over. Your dear friends and family have gladly received your gifts and either broken or exchanged them by now. The tree looks less magical and more like a large plant dying slowly in your living room. There are no more Christmas songs on the radio, and thank heavens too because if you heard “Christmas Shoes” one more time you were going to barf. All this can mean only one thing: Christmas is over. And that can only mean one other thing: time to look forward to a new year! 2006 is almost here, but before we say goodbye to good old 2005 I thought we'd look back at the events of the past year in a brief and fairly reductive sort of way.
This year: I graduated from college. I experienced the real world work force first hand and found it to stink. I was in six plays and had three jobs. I went to Vegas and Disneyland once each. I moved to Orem, and so did my family. I began to worry about things I had never worried about before: insurance, my weight, car problems, graduate school applications, US foreign policy, etc. etc.
In broader news, the year was full of events: the Iraqi consititution and general elections, the London bombings, Hurricane Katrina and the mess that followed it. In entertainment, a number of big movies were released this year, not the least of which was Star Wars Episode III, which finally, after twenty eight years, brought George Lucas' science fiction epic to its final conclusion with a resounding “eh” from audiences worldwide. In sports, a number of teams played a number of other teams, and about half won and half lost. In weather, it started cold, got much much warmer, then got cold again. Thats about it.
Actually, I got curious earlier today about how I had spent my time this year. I crunched some numbers and came up with this graph:
As you can see, an overwhelming amount of time was placed into the category “Other,” which means I have no idea what the heck I was doing. This is over 3,000 hours worth of unaccounted time. A big chunk of that is probably video games, some of it is movies, reading books, and hanging out with friends, some is vacation and weekends, not to mention household chores, errands, grocery shopping and the like. It is the filler time, the little stuff you do in between the major things. It all adds up to about one third of my over-all time. I find this a bit surprising. I know some of it was necessary fact-of-life type stuff, but still: I had 3,000 hours worth of free time, and what do I have show for it? What did I really accomplish this year?
New Year's resolutions are fast approaching, and that means last year's resolution (not to make any resolutions) has nearly reached its expiration date. At that time, I'll be free to make a new resolution, to start fresh and really take control of my own destiny. And this time I'll do it, I really will. I feel charged with a new sense of purpose and motivation. I swear by all that I love that in 2006 the number of wasted hours will be changed!
I think I'll shoot for 4,000. Its nice to have goals.
Comments