Things I've learned this year:

- I still look forward to when Christmas is over, even when there are fun things to do with fun people. New Year's Eve still rocks solid.

- It is definitely not a good idea to have caffeine after 1pm. Or else I'll be awake, like I am right now when I really really want to sleep.

- I cannot live with my parents for an extended period of time and still maintain a healthy relationship with them.

- I have the confidence to take the RICA and think I can pass. Actually passing is a whole other story.

- I miss China.

- I miss my China teammates and other friends from T.

- I miss my brother. Weird.

- I would very much like to return abroad. Preferably in a teaching/learning capacity.

- I like teaching first grade.

- I would very much like to earn a Ph.d some day.

- I like someone. Who is already in a relationship. So I am also a coward/passive observer about it. But I think I can live with it if he is happy too.



Things I haven't learned yet:

- What exactly I'll do about my future.

- What exactly is going on with my spiritual life.

- The best way to format a lesson plan. At least for my own use, since there really is no "best" way.

- If I'm really a grown-up or still a kid.

- How not to be socially awkward with teenage girls. Teenage boys are ok. It's the girls I don't get. See next line.

- Why children are mesmerized by Hanna Montana.


I've only ever had one super-long term goal for myself, and only because a high school English teacher made us write about short and long term goals once. That is: to make the last year of my life the best. And since one never knows when one will up and smoke it, it seemed like just another way to say carpe diem without the latin.

However, that goal may not be quite as worthwhile after all. It is also very vague. What does "best" mean exactly? And what if the die just weren't rolling my way the year before I kick the bucket? So I've decided on a new, hopefully more concrete goal:

To learn more things than not in any given year.

One can say that one never learns more things than not. For instance, I will probably never learn the finer details and calculations associated with String Theory. Not an impossibility, just slim chances. But when this time of the year rolls around again and again, I would like to make a list similar to the above with which I can prove that I've been more productive with my life than not.

And that would make it a decently "best" year for me.