New Year Resolutions

shinnen akemashite
omedetou gozaimasu

(Happy New Year)

Most people I meet don't bother with new year resolutions... more often than not, they've long since given up after numerous failed attempts. I can forgive that, but personally, I love nothing more than setting myself goals and tasks to accomplish. I've got a reasonably good track record of getting what I set out to accomplish, and so the act of putting things down on a list makes them all that bit more achievable.

Take for example, three of my goals for 2006 - (1) learn Spanish, (2) road trip across America, and finally (3) pass the entrance exam to get into the Masters of Law program at university here. I accomplished each of those.

2007 is definitely going to be my year. The keyword for 2007 is spontaneity.

So, in the spirit of spontaneity, I've just decided that I'm going to bugger off to Osaka for the long weekend with a bunch of people I barely know... leaving tomorrow... just after I book a flight to go back to Australia in two weeks time... and book a flight to Korea for the long weekend after I get back from my two week sojourn to Australia. I guess, strictly speaking, that the act of organising these trips weeks in advance doesn't count as spontaneous, but it is a better alternative to wasting my weekends doing the same thing week in, week out.

Something else I'm going to do is try and do some more salsa lessons - after Alice and I kicked arse in Cancun, Mexico in the salsa 'competition'. Of course, the competition only had 4 other couples, and each were more geriatric than the other.

Also, I'm going to make a conscientious effort to take more photos of random stuff. This will mean carrying my over sized camera in my jeans pocket, causing passers-by to look at me with an even more curious expression than they already use. I think that the longer I live in Japan, the more I become immune to its idiosyncrasies, but I'll try...



And I plan on writing more posts on my blog.

Definitely looking forward to this coming year.