Showing posts with label Resolutions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Resolutions. Show all posts

Thursday, 6 January 2011

Resolutions

I have been at my parents' house for almost two weeks already. In that time, I have completely abandoned the sensible Polish and French literature that I brought with me and made serious inroads into my Dad's Robert Harris collection instead. I have not studied all that much for my exam next week (it's like deja vu all over again), but I have downloaded an RTBF 1ère app onto my new iPod touch, so that counts as practice, right?

I have been up to London and back several times on the train and am thinking of buying shares in Connex South Eastern, not to mention Caffè Nero. 

I have done far more shopping than my tremulous bank balance allows (which isn't all that much).

I am more than ready to go back to Brussels and was already itching to get back to work by Sunday afternoon: there are only so many re-runs of Midsomer Murders* one can take in a week.

My sister is coping by baking. There has been copious brownie consumption in the Pinocorp household over the past 48 hours. Incidentally, six of us (excluding dogs) managed to get through a tin of Cadbury's Roses by Boxing Day evening (opened on Christmas Day, in case anyone was still feeling peckish after lunch). That's nearly a kilo. Is that bad? Is anyone else's family that gluttonous?

To continue my ever-deeper slide down the literary slope, I ransacked the bookcase in my old bedroom and came up with a copy of Bridget Jones' Diary, bought when I was sixteen and had absolutely no idea what any of it was about. It now seems scarily, prophetically accurate and I hardly dare to turn the pages for fear of reading my life in minute detail on the next leaf. Sadly, my parents have yet to introduce me to any top human rights lawyers, but one can always live in hope. In future, when reading, I resolve to stay firmly away from romantic comedies and safely in the action/crime thriller zone, to prevent maudlin before bedtime (what is the verb form of 'maudlin'? Maudlin-in'?).

Ugh. Resolutions.

I Will Not:

- even pretend to give up drinking as this will only result in a terrible binge some time like next weekend and a lot of guilt. 
- buy a pair of scales. My jeans still fit (even after washing), so it can't be that bad.
- go near a boy ever again because they are all emotionally immature and a big waste of precious time, energy and emotional investment.
- go out with friends who coerce teenagers (well, more or less) into taking my phone number by lying about my real age to the tune of about seven years and get us all into trouble for not leaving the pub when it's clearly closing time already
- beat myself up over any of the following: 
  • drinking too much; 
  • eating too much; 
  • not eating enough; 
  • being single and alone and over the hill and unloved and unattractive and generally an utterly unappealing old hag;
  • not acting my age
  • f*cking up at work
  • not beating myself up enough for f*cking up at work, thus demonstrating lack of gravitas in professional context
I Will:

- cook regularly, like at least twice a week, with real vegetables and everything.
- stop wasting time on Facebook
- learn all the jazz scales, chord progressions and other technical piano thingies, since I now have all this free time as a single unattractive old hag, and become brilliant - albeit single and unattractive - jazz pianist (this has been my resolution for about the past ten years)
- start a turkey-baster fund, in case of emergency to be used by 2017 at the latest
- travel and do stuff outdoors and try to enjoy life in general
- buy some furniture already
- talk to people more and stop looking at the ground
- go to Italy more often because I love it but always forget how much
- speak Polish to strangers (who actually are Polish, obviously)
- write more on the blog (and possibly also off the blog)
- sort out my accounts, since I am a highly streamlined and professional twenty-first century businesswoman
- lie about my age: the teenager looked (almost) convinced
- fall in love. Probably with a puppy.


*That's Inspecteur Barnaby to all you francophonic types.


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...

Thursday, 1 January 2009

Resolutions for 2009

- I will ensure that I am always equipped with appropriate footwear for a '15-minute walk from the station' (nb, 4-inch heels do not constitute 'appropriate footwear')

- I will ensure that I leave the house in plenty of time: not an hour late, for example

- I will not get lost looking for my hosts' front door and I will avoid mistakenly shouting "Helloooooo?" outside their neighbours' window

- I will not only remember my contact lens case, but my glasses as well (for when the contact lenses are in the case)

- I will be careful to wear a skirt of an appropriate length to avoid embarrassment when performing routine operations such as walking down stairs, sitting on sofas, etc. I will ensure that I am in full control of the petticoats of said skirt at all times

- I will make sure that my camera is always fully charged, to avoid badly-lit, out-of-focus party shots

- I will not take pictures of sleeping fellow partygoers and subsequently post them on facebook

- I will not try to poison my friends and kind hosts with any of the following:
  • Rounds of Wyborowa wodka shots
  • Ogórki kiszone
  • Mysterious herbal spirits from Slovakia
- I will leave some toffee crisp for everyone else next time.