I'm writing this post from my now-empty bedroom in Provo, about to leave and move the last of my things up to Alpine. It's been a while since my last post, so let me do some catching up.
I had originally planned on making a post every day in November with each post being something I'm thankful for. I started off okay, but stopped for a couple reasons. First, by the time of day that I was getting some of the posts in, it felt like I was doing it more to check off that I did it instead of actually writing meaningful things about each topic. (And, admittedly, I was planning on having these posts count towards one of my new year's resolutions, which I'll get to in a bit.) Second, a lot of friends of mine on Facebook did almost the exactly the same thing. Props to them, I'm glad that they're grateful for things as well, and gratitude is something the world could use more of. However... eh. I don't know, it almost felt like it cheapened my experience with it. My blog posts are things I consider special, meaningful, and unique. But in doing the same thing that everyone else was, I didn't feel like my list was going to be as special.
So while I have a list of things I'm grateful for, with one item for every day of the month, I'm holding off on publishing it until I have time to turn it into a video. That's something I feel like will be more unique, more personal, and just more fun overall. I need more experience making videos anyway.
That brings me to the next big thing that's happened in the last few months. I didn't end up getting into the film program at BYU, and what's disappointing to me is that they give zero feedback on what went wrong, what could have been improved, what my chances were of how many people applied and how many got in, etc. I get why they don't go over all that for every applicant, but still, it's not the best experience in the world to read a rejection letter, especially when you get it via email and regular mail, both saying the exact same scripted thing. And the rest of school hasn't been so great for me either; I won't go into detail about how bad, but I will say that I'm taking a break for a while. I'm moving up to my parents' home in Alpine and will be working to save up some money as a way to kinda get back on my feet and figure out what to do next in life. Not getting into two different programs at one school doesn't exactly make me want to keep attending school, if I'm being honest.
With the end of the year having arrived, the time has arrived to go over the resolutions that I made for 2014. I'll start by saying that it definitely helped by writing them all down in a place I couldn't lose it – I know how many times I wrote down resolutions in the past or paper or something and lost them soon after. So keeping them on here was certainly a plus. Here we go!
1. Exercise a little every day, even if it means taking a walk for 30 minutes on a treadmill. Didn't happen. I thought about it a lot, but I wasn't self-disciplined enough to follow through with it. HOWEVER. I can guarantee that this will pass on as a resolution for next year, and I already know how I'm going to improve on it. (This will be detailed in my next blog post, which will go up tomorrow.)
2. Unless I'm specifically out with friends, stop eating so much late at night. I got better at this one, but it still happened more than I feel like it should. I did start getting into the habit of making food for myself, rather than going out for many of my meals, so there's that.
3. Read at least one new book a month. Definitely got started on this one, didn't go all the way though. I have a list of books that I will read, though, so like #1, this will continue to the new year.
4. Start up a media production of some kind. Still hasn't happened yet. I've made a few videos, but I'm waiting for "just the right time" to get things going. (That last part is in quotes because it's me telling myself that that's the excuse – I just need to start and not stop.) Something that was kind of interesting this last month that was successful was when I posted this. Imgur (pronounced "im'-a-jer") is a site that's basically meant for picture hosting, with a way to upvote or downvote pictures based on whatever the picture is about. Usually the funny or cool things get upvoted, and if you have enough upvotes your submission can make it to the "front page," which is known on the site as being notoriously good. My submission was about a care package (for lack of a better term) that I received from Old Spice for Christmas. (Really cool package, by the way, and I also made a video of me unboxing it.) I think because of the time of day that I submitted it, there was a high amount of traffic on the site, and enough people started upvoting it that it did in fact make it to the front page. If I were to submit it at some time like around midnight tonight, I doubt that many people would see it among all the other submissions (there are multiple images being uploaded every minute) and that it would have been successful in reaching the amount of upvotes it did. So while I haven't gotten to making a YouTube channel like I've wanted to, I have been studying how viralness and reach works. This video from Game Theory actually talks a lot about it as well, and confirmed a lot of what I've suspected for a while as far as how making a successful channel works. Enough on that topic for now, though.
5. Do my best to enter into a relationship that is leading towards marriage. I'm gonna count this one as a success. I feel like I've been a lot more confident about dating and can definitely see where I've been successful and where I haven't been. And while I am still single, I have a lot better feeling about my dating life and how to go about it in the future. (And I have people I'm interested in, with some visible potential in each on, so I have that going for me.)
6. Write at least one blog post per week. Didn't happen, obviously. I mentioned at the beginning of this post that I wanted to count my thankful posts towards my end-of-the-year goal of a post per week. While I might have had 52 by the end of the year (I haven't bothered to do the math for it, probably won't bother doing so), I'd have known that I'd be cheating myself on that total. This will be a resolution to keep for next year.
7. Watch the movies in my library that I haven't seen yet. While I've slowed down how many movies I've been collecting, I still didn't get this one done. And honestly, even though I enjoy having a ton of movies, it feels like there are some that I have just for the sake of having, knowing that I'll probably never watch them again. So that's something I need to tweak for next year.
8. Go to a convention of some sort. Success! Through a connection of my brother's, I was able to work at FantasyCon during the week of 4th of July. I helped with sales of autograph and picture vouchers; basically, you had to buy one of the vouchers from us before you could get whatever it is you wanted from the various celebrities that were there. And they had some awesome people in attendance, too! John Rhys-Davies, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Mark Sheppard, Simon Pegg (who I even got a picture with!!), and a whole slew of others. While I worked for the most part of each day, there was some time they gave us each day to roam around and check things out. Definitely a fun experience, and one I'd do again if given the opportunity. Though maybe not for a while, as FantasyCon won't happen again until 2016, and I'd rather go to a convention just for my own purposes now...
9. Be more outgoing. I feel like this goes a lot with #5, as I've definitely improved. Being social in my ward hasn't been too hard, as the last few callings I've had have required me to know just about everyone in the ward. And working as an EFY counselor over the summer really pulled me out of my comfort zone and had me working with teens, teaching them and helping them to be more social, which in turn had the same effect on me. I'd really like to continue that trend.
And finally, 10. Be happy with myself. I'd say I improved on this. I've had some trials this year, and I've had some successes. I want to learn from the trials and celebrate the successes. I want to keep moving forward and improving myself. I want to make sure that everything I do helps me be who I enjoy being, and who I want to become. Because every one is always changing, some faster than others, some for the better, some for worse, some in completely different ways than others. If you feel like you're doing nothing with your life, that's technically a form of change, though not really in any positive direction. I want to be moving in a positive direction, because I know how it feels to not go that way, and frankly I don't really enjoy it. I'm happier than I have been, maybe not by a huge margin, but like I said with the last resolution it's a trend I want to continue.
So there are my resolutions from this year. I think what I'm most satisfied with is that I was able to go over them at all; again, with the lack of maintaining a record of resolutions in the past, I've never really been able to do this. Tomorrow I'll have a list of new resolutions for 2015, more detailed and improved on than this year's. (Maybe. I'm hoping so.)
Also, as a note of coincidence, I mentioned that I saw Saving Mr. Banks on Christmas last year in my original 2014 resolutions post. We actually bought it and watched it as a family on Christmas Eve this year! I doubt that we'll make it a tradition, but I did find it funny that it was the same time of year that we watched it.
