New Year's Resolutions

I've never really made New Year's resolutions. I can't recall a single year when I made one, remembered it through the whole twelve months, and actually accomplished something about it by the end of December. Perhaps I didn't make resolutions because I was a little disillusioned, thinking that they didn't really work, and why do they have to be resolutions every new year? Why not just make resolutions throughout the year? Something like that. 
I still don't believe too much in New Year's resolutions--at least not as anything magical as I might be tempted to make them seem. Yes, I do believe that they can be useful, as in, the beginning of a new year is a convenient mark to begin implementing changes in one's life. But the changes can't happen all at once (though wouldn't that be nice?). It's slow. They'll take a while.

I am not articulating this as well as I hoped I would.

Anyway, I'm making New Year's resolutions and documenting them for the first time this year, because while they won't happen very quickly, at least it's a starting point. And starting points to slow change are better than not changing at all.

I want to draw closer to God.
This is my ultimate resolution for the year, the one that umbrellas over all the rest.
I had something of an emotional breakdown the other day, in which I basically realized that the way I'm living is all messed up--priorities, time management, and everything. It coincides with the fact that my spiritual life has been dry recently from neglecting to read the Word and neglecting to pray, among other things. I'm aiming to put my life back together in a structured way that optimizes my productivity for God's glory. And first things first, I need to put my Heavenly Father right in the middle of that structure. I need to know Him and learn to hear His voice, because without that, my soul will starve and search for fulfillment in all the wrong places.

In that vein, I want to read my Bible and pray every day.
The Bible is God's Word. The Bible is primarily how God speaks to me. Here, the living God is speaking, yet I so often forget to open these pages and listen to what He wants to say. If I want to know God, I've just gotta read my Bible! • THIS MEANS THAT ALL YOU READERS ARE GIVEN PERMISSION TO NAG ME AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE TO DO MY DEVOTIONS DAILY. IN FACT, I ASK YOU TO. PLEASE.
And as for prayer... I read a Desiring God blog post a while ago that dealt with being spiritually lukewarm, which is to be self-satisfied with your spiritual condition: essentially, complacent. Complacency is one of the most dangerous places to be. The opposite? Needy. How do I know if I'm needy? Well, how much do I pray? Praying consistently, praying like a beggar who desperately needs grace in everything, praying as a child learning to talk to her Father, praying for joy, holiness, boldness--without it, I don't know how I expect myself to grow in godliness at all.

I also want to manage my time well.
I don't. 
Procrastination--and its cousin, time-wasting--have not served me in my attempts to read my Bible regularly or bless my mom by doing housework or reach for excellence in playing piano. I feel like I've allowed school to swallow my life, and it really doesn't have to. 
Randy Pausch has an extremely insightful and helpful lecture on time management. I am hoping to implement his ideas in my scheduling and planning as 2012 begins. I recommend bookmarking that video and watching it when you have an hour or so to spare. It is really, really good. (Alternatively, it's also available as an mp3 download on iTunesU.)

I want to get organized.
Right now, my desk is in okay-shape, but I don't have any concrete filing system for my papers, nor a good place nearby to put all my textbooks. Woe is me. Did you know that when your necessary materials for an assignment are not within an accessible distance, it becomes incredibly easy to procrastinate and just not do the assignment? Maybe that only happens for me, but oh does it happen. This is probably one of the things I'll need to spend a lot of effort on early in the year, so I can be prepared for the rest of 2012.
The other thing that needs to get organized is my room, which currently looks like a junk-pile with an unmade bed in the corner. I'm probably going to need to throw a lot of things away and designate specific places for everything else. Keeping my room clean, or at least making a system that makes it very simple to clean, is one of my main goals this year. 

I want to take good care of my body.
Mostly meaning exercise more and sleep more. I've become a weak vegetable of a human lately from sitting around all day. I did two pushups a few days ago, and it made my arms sore. It's absolutely pathetic. That needs to change. Exercising my core muscles will also probably help with my back pain that comes when I stand up too long. I strengthened that before when I was actually doing physical therapy for my back, and it worked. So I'm gonna try to do it again. And more pushups. I hate how weak my arms are.
Sleeping is equally, if not more important. I know it's essential for any teenager, but I also know that fatigue triggers my epilepsy, so I think I have to be more conscientious and careful about my sleeping patterns than I have been for the past few years. Time management plays a lot into this!

I want to learn to be a joyful servant.
To family, friends, and community at large. 'Nuff said.

Aaaand that's all I can think of for now. 
Welcome, new year! 
I am gonna DO stuff. 
 

 

The Blog Challenge (and 2012)

Starting tomorrow, I will be participating in a challenge with these lovely people. In this challenge, we are supposed to post one blog post every day for an entire month. Whoopee! What motivation to post regularly here! I sincerely hope I don't fail.
You're all looking forward to the happiness of Rainstorms-posts that will flood your Google Readers and Blogger Dashboards soon, right? 

In other news, tomorrow also happens to be the first day of a new year.
2012 is the year of the dragon. My uncle is a dragon. His name is Dragan. I think that is so cool.
2012 marks the beginning of a year in which I want to change a lot. By that, I mean a lot. (More on that later.)
2012 is where the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar ends. Ohnowilltheworldend? We'll have to wait and see. I'd like to graduate, though, so I hope 2013 comes along.
2012 looks pretty. 2012 2012 2012 2012
And uh, yeah! Happy New Year everyone!

Observations of My Google Docs

• I have a document entitled "musings" that is completely empty. What happened there? o.0

• I shared my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel, Raedan's Heart, with NINE other people. O the shame. That was such a terrible piece of writing. All 33,000 words of it. 

• "AP Euro Midterm Study Guide," last modified in April, is still marked unread.

• There is a spreadsheet called "the lees" that contains all our ideas for what my brothers should name their children. (Ginger Lee, Actual Lee, Incredib Lee, Pai Shen Lee, etc.)

• HOW MANY STORIES HAVE I STARTED AND NOT FINISHED!? D:

• I have about four "Untitled document"s in my list. They're all different and really should warrant titles. I guess I'm just too lazy.

• My longest title is "River blindness is most common in Afr..." Inside that document is a lovely short paragraph or two about the parasite on a parasite on a blood-sucking fly that causes river blindness.

• "fairy tale 2," a collaborative effort between me and my brother to write a fairytale, was sadly abandoned more than a year ago. There were some pretty awesome similes in there.

"They would often take much joy in riding through the villages of the land and slicing through the people as one cuts through fruit in an angry orchard."

"Suddenly, like a penguin slipping into the frigid waters of the North Sea, a massive dust cloud appeared upon the horizon."

"Within the cloud rode a dark mass of horsemen. With flags and shields they rode, like a raging iguana that frantically scampers across twigs and leaves to dine upon a colony of ants."

"As he reached the fifty stones' throw mark with a pace like that of a terrified ant that hysterically rushes away from a raging iguana, Xeliyn looked behind him and beheld the multitude of Raiders quickly overtaking him."

•  The oldest document in my list is "The Epic Conversation." This was called epic rightly. Not in the way that epic seems to be used most commonly nowadays ("That was an epic dive-catch!") but in the older way. As in, really, really, really long.
  It was born of a chat between my good friend Ellie and myself some two years ago, where we each impersonated a character and um, roleplayed? for hours. And that chat, I think, was born of our excitement over how OK is a stick-man when you turn your head to the left. We created two of the OK men, named them, and made them talk to each other.
  A choice snippet:
  

  Tom walks a few steps away from Billy after smelling him
  
  Billy: Hey! Whadidya sniff me for??!!
  Tom: I didn't 'sniff' you.I simply took notice of your...er...odor...I suggest a nice warm bath...
  
  Tom plugs his nose and gets out his man-perfume
  Tom starts squirting it everywhere

Conclusion: Um, I don't really...have one.

Typical Conversation #2

NATHAN: Mom, I want boar. Can we eat boar tonight?
MOM: Boar is a bore.
NATHAN & JEREMY: Hahaha!
ME: Has missed the joke. What? What just happened?
NATHAN: You didn't hear it 'cause you were trying to hog the conversation.
NATHAN & JEREMY: Hahaha!
ME: Hey, snort funny!
MOM: Yeah, stop pigging on your sister.
NATHAN: I ham dying of laughter.
JEREMY: Man, keeping up with you guys is such a hard tusk.

Typical Conversation #1

MOM: Holding a loaf of sliced bread. If I eat this whole thing, will I get fat?
ME: Um...yes.
MOM: Throwing down the bread and whining. Don't say that! You're so mean! Pouts like small child.

Hunted

The prisoner's sitting on the floor, her ear pressed intently against the wall as I walk onto the second-floor balcony.
"What are you doing?"
"Listening to the wall," she replies, as if it's a perfectly normal thing to do.
"Why?"
She looks up, surprised. "Don't you know? The walls see everything, remember everything."
I lean against the railing and stare at her, wondering what could have possessed the master to think we should let the prisoner roam free through the house. What’s up with our having a prisoner, anyway? No one will tell me.
"And what are the walls saying?"
"They’ve watched for many years," she says seriously, almost wistfully. "When this house was first built, there was happiness here, and lots of people. Then one by one they went out and never came back. I don’t know what happened, but it was terrible. The walls absorbed the sorrow of those few left behind here." The prisoner stands up, running her hand over the wall. She wanders over next to me and places her elbows on the railing with a sigh. "If the house wasn't so big, it wouldn't be so hard to erase the sorrow, replace it with laughter again."
I wonder how she found out. Did the walls really tell her all that?
I've only looked away for a second, but when I glance back she's gone.
Her head pops back up over the railing for a moment. I forgot, she likes to climb around on the stairs, though I can never figure out why.
"There's so much sadness here," she says, "Take care it doesn't swallow you whole."

~~~

Not exactly sure what inspired this. I wrote it a long time ago, and I can't remember the circumstances surrounding it.

Biology

I've been doing quite well in my AP Biology course so far this year. I think this academic success can be attributed, among other things, to my notes that I take in class.
Because these notes are not just copying down whatever's on the PowerPoint. No, these are notes with annotated illustrations.
I'm sorry, that sounded really pretentious. It's really not that impressive, and I don't annotate everything. I only illustrate the concepts that strike my imagination.

Here are a few examples:

Archaea: prokaryotes that can live in extremely cold, salty, or hot habitats

Lysosomes destroy nonfunctioning organelles by digesting them

Stoma: leaf-pores | Stroma: the fluid-filled space between grana in chloroplasts

In Photosystem II, the carotenoid pigments pass excited electrons to the main pigment, chlorophyll a.

Energy transfers from sunlight to glucose through photosynthesis, which is ingested by other organisms like us, where our cells convert it to ATP through cellular respiration, which is then available to facilitate cell work. And so we live.

Apoptosis: programmed cell death when something goes wrong. The cell pulls itself apart, and the fragments are digested by little...thingies.

These pictures have helped me remember so much. I definitely advocate doodling in the margins while taking notes, because it actually does help (if you're drawing things related to the course matter). Especially if it's a little silly. Hehe.