Resolution round-up
Mar. 5th, 2007 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oxfordhackerI've realised that I didn't post a follow-up to most of my New Year's Resolutions, so here goes:
1. Job
I wrote an email to my lovely boss explaining that I was bored. Within a week, she'd arranged a meeting with me, herself and one of the directors to discuss my career. It was really positive. We discussed which bits I did and didn't like about my current job, they said that they wanted to keep me and were quite happy to help adapt my job to this end, and we ended up deciding that I should get more involved with another one of our software projects. Since then, I've been spending one or two days a week on it, and it's going really well.
The work is difficult (writing complicated reports in SQL), but it comes in bite-sized chunks and I'm finding it absorbing. I've found myself thinking about - and solving - tricky problems in the shower; and even doing work at the weekends, not out of panic about an approaching deadline (the only circumstance under which I have ever done something like this before), but just out of interest. I've also found that breaks from my regular work make it much more bearable, and also drift me into a role where I'm spending as much time helping the other people on my team as helping customers directly. Again, this has added variety, which is a Good Thing.
Status: Success.
2. Chin
Status: Success.
3. Journalism
Well, the plan was to post once for every week day in January, and it may look as if I failed miserably. In actual fact, I succeeded, though in a way which feels like cheating. If you check my calendar you'll see a lot of posts listed that you haven't actually seen. These are my first ever private posts, and were partially an attempt to meet my target, and partially an experiment to try documenting what I was actually doing and feeling, without the effort that attends writing something that anyone else could possibly be interested in. As I suspected, I found this fairly easy, but it all felt pretty pointless so I wasn't motivated to continue.
I was rather hoping that success in this resolution would build some momentum and keep me posting. Instead, I proceeded to spend the whole of February moping and writing nothing at all. So, a technical success only. That said, I still made more public posts in January than I had managed in the whole of 2006, and I'm posting now, so it hasn't worked out too badly either.
Status: Limited success.
4. Booze
Well, I made it through January without drinking any alcohol. I guess I'm pleased that I succeeded, but disappointed that it didn't seem to have much effect. I'm back to drinking about as much as before, and neither stopping nor starting again seemed to make any real difference. Maybe this is what the experience should teach me: that drink doesn't really have as much influence or significance as I might think or fear.
Status: Success.
Conclusion: I guess I win?
To be honest, I'm surprised I did so well, but somehow also underwhelmed. I feel like this should have engendered some pivotal revelatory moment to set my life on a different course; though if I'm honest I don't truly think it's reasonable to expect anything like that (especially given my cultivated jadedness). Still, I guess we all make choices every day that determine the path our lives will take, and the fact that they're rarely dramatic doesn't make them any less significant. As ever, I will have to wait and see...
1. Job
I wrote an email to my lovely boss explaining that I was bored. Within a week, she'd arranged a meeting with me, herself and one of the directors to discuss my career. It was really positive. We discussed which bits I did and didn't like about my current job, they said that they wanted to keep me and were quite happy to help adapt my job to this end, and we ended up deciding that I should get more involved with another one of our software projects. Since then, I've been spending one or two days a week on it, and it's going really well.
The work is difficult (writing complicated reports in SQL), but it comes in bite-sized chunks and I'm finding it absorbing. I've found myself thinking about - and solving - tricky problems in the shower; and even doing work at the weekends, not out of panic about an approaching deadline (the only circumstance under which I have ever done something like this before), but just out of interest. I've also found that breaks from my regular work make it much more bearable, and also drift me into a role where I'm spending as much time helping the other people on my team as helping customers directly. Again, this has added variety, which is a Good Thing.
Status: Success.
2. Chin
Status: Success.
3. Journalism
Well, the plan was to post once for every week day in January, and it may look as if I failed miserably. In actual fact, I succeeded, though in a way which feels like cheating. If you check my calendar you'll see a lot of posts listed that you haven't actually seen. These are my first ever private posts, and were partially an attempt to meet my target, and partially an experiment to try documenting what I was actually doing and feeling, without the effort that attends writing something that anyone else could possibly be interested in. As I suspected, I found this fairly easy, but it all felt pretty pointless so I wasn't motivated to continue.
I was rather hoping that success in this resolution would build some momentum and keep me posting. Instead, I proceeded to spend the whole of February moping and writing nothing at all. So, a technical success only. That said, I still made more public posts in January than I had managed in the whole of 2006, and I'm posting now, so it hasn't worked out too badly either.
Status: Limited success.
4. Booze
Well, I made it through January without drinking any alcohol. I guess I'm pleased that I succeeded, but disappointed that it didn't seem to have much effect. I'm back to drinking about as much as before, and neither stopping nor starting again seemed to make any real difference. Maybe this is what the experience should teach me: that drink doesn't really have as much influence or significance as I might think or fear.
Status: Success.
Conclusion: I guess I win?
To be honest, I'm surprised I did so well, but somehow also underwhelmed. I feel like this should have engendered some pivotal revelatory moment to set my life on a different course; though if I'm honest I don't truly think it's reasonable to expect anything like that (especially given my cultivated jadedness). Still, I guess we all make choices every day that determine the path our lives will take, and the fact that they're rarely dramatic doesn't make them any less significant. As ever, I will have to wait and see...
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-06 07:57 am (UTC)That last point is also, I guess, why I'm not great at remembering birthdays and buying presents and stuff.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-06 04:54 pm (UTC)This depends on the resolution, surely. If you resolved to sit up a pole for a year, or punch every tenth person you meet, I'm sure something significant would change.
I guess mine were all about changing my habits to see if they would have a significant effect. As I more-or-less concluded, the fact that some of them didn't seem to is in itself a useful lesson, just an underwhelming one.
...if I want, or ought, to do things, then waiting for one day a year to decide to do something about it seems essentially pointless.
True. Conversely, however, if you want, or ought, to do something, you will have to do it (or at least start it) on a particular day. If you've got no other basis for choice, you may as well pick a 'traditional' day. If nothing else, it gives you a dead-line...
no subject
Date: 2007-03-06 09:59 am (UTC)Econoline and National School are also playing, which suggests to me the Evenings will be on first (9pm?)
no subject
Date: 2007-03-06 02:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-06 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-06 10:58 am (UTC)SQL - rather you than me mate, if someone holds a gun to my head, or possibly recreates the scene from Swordfish, was it Swordfish?, then I may be pursuaded.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-06 05:02 pm (UTC)Thanks.
I am embroiled in a conflict with my boss at the moment
I am reading it with interest and sympathy. Fight the power!
possibly recreates the scene from Swordfish
That might be one request too far. I think I'll just have to be satisfied with Angelina Jolie Half-Hour... (http://oxfordslacker.livejournal.com/38375.html) ()
no subject
Date: 2007-03-06 02:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-06 04:33 pm (UTC)