Friday 1 January 2010

Obligatory New Year's Resolutions Post

I seem to recall we originally learnt the future tense (niedokonany) in Polish by writing out our New Year's resolutions, for example:- w przyszłym roku będę uprawiać częściej sport, nie będę pić piwa, nie będę palić papierosów, będę się uczyć polskiego codziennie itp.

I'm not going to do it in Polish.

But I am going to do the very obvious start of the year list of resolutions post because my creativity is sapped and I'm low on imagination, at least for the next few days.

- I will start lying about my age. I'm getting fed up with the shocked looks, and with being asked what I'm studying (and referred to as 'jeune fille' or 'Mademoiselle'). If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I reckon I can get away with about twenty-four.

- I will stop complaining about terrible dates and join Meetic already. I will also find a use for the three Durex Avanti in my bathroom that are due to expire in March 2010. Even if it's just filling them with helium and releasing them from the balcony into the sunset. Or stretching them over a phonebox. Did you know you can stretch a condom over a phonebox? I think the tough part is probably making sure that the caller inside doesn't notice. Or finding a caller who still uses phoneboxes and hasn't succumbed to the now ubiquitous iPhone.

- I will concentrate more on the pretty sunshine and not worry about pension plans until I am actually in a position to start one.

- I will pay as little tax as I can reasonably get away with. If I were a British MP, I would definitely have claimed my mortgage on expenses and I bet you would've too.

- I will resist the temptation to try to learn Dutch and/or German for as long as humanly (or rather language-geekily) possible.

- I will eat chocolate and drink beer and find a place to go rollerblading in Brussels.

- I will go away for weekends more (credit card and Easyjet allowing), and visit friends who live in exciting places.

- I will learn to improvise on the piano, for the purposes of Career Plan B (move to Paris, become jazz pianist, live in garret).

- I will stop being shy. It's just inconvenient. I will also talk to strangers more and not look at the ground all the time.

- I will accept that my life will probably always be more of the hippy studenty vagrant variety rather than the get a proper job, get married, buy a house variety and I will stop feeling bad and admit that secretly I prefer it that way.

Ok, your turn now...

7 comments:

Laura said...

A phone box? No way! Prove it!!!

They have a strange rollerblading party every Friday (?) night in the summer. I think it starts at Place Poelart.

My resolutions are quite boring this year. Stop wasting money, cook, exercise, speak fluent French by the time the year is out (hmm...).

I have already completed another one - learn to spell exercise! Hurrah! That's only taken 25 3/4 years. Now on to neccessarry.

Anonymous said...

That post put a smile on my face (od ucha do ucha). Career option C, become a writer ;).

pinolona said...

Laura, yes I've heard of this rollerblading thingy. They have similar thingies in London and Paris. Will have to look into that one.
You will speak French, just keep practising and reading stuff (and watching bad soaps on tv). And talk to absolutely everyone, in shops and everywhere, even if it means they think you're totally weird. It works I promise, and you feel really proud of yourself afterwards.
Congratulations on exercise, I still can't spell accomodation... or anything that ends in -ent in English and -ant in French. Or is it -ant in English and -ent in French?? Like independent/ant.

Anon, thanks, glad it raised a smile! thanks but I think writing may be even harder to get in to than interpreting :(

Norman said...

Pino, a gdzie jest "pojadę do Krakowa i spróbuję miodu od Normana"?

Unknown said...

Luckily "pojadę do Krakowa" lies within the EasyJet part :)

Make sure someone takes a photo of you prophylactating (?) that phone booth :) and send to Christo and Jeanne-Claude... maybe the three of you do the Reichstag next time?

My New Year's resolution compared to yours is pathetic: start using ogonki while writing in Polish, as their lack makes people furious, and start using capitals to begin sentences... but that's the plain me.

Why do you want to make yourself older and say you are 24?

To prove that I am 42, this time I won't use anonymous ;)

Anonymous said...

wow, this is quite a list! hopefully the winter will go away soon and travelling to nice places will prove easier and less costly than you think -- there's a lot of them just 2 hours from Brux. Pozdrowienia i wszystkiego najlepszego w nowym roku! ewa

pinolona said...

Norman: oooh damn, yes, I forgot that one!

Piotr: ahh but you keep a certain amount of anonymity in the sense that Piotrs are hardly thin on the ground in Poland :)
Pojadę do Krakowa comes under Brussels airlines, no? I don't think there's an Easyjet connection from here. I think Wizzair does one to Katowice though.
I'm not sure that prophylactating is the right word... I could be wrong though.

Ewa, thanks! I'm making travel plans already :) and I've already got the chocolate and beer resolution well under control, as well as the one about not learning Dutch.
Zyczę szczęśliwego nowego roku!

Laura! I forgot! apparently you definitely can get them over a phone box and when I was at St Andrews we *nearly* got one over a bin but it was Fetherlite so it broke. Maybe if we'd used Extra Safe it would have been ok.