Should Old Resolutions Be Forgot…

Happy 2010, all! Now is the time to consider our futures and our pasts, our successes and our failures, our resolutions past and present.

Okay, now may be a bit late. After all, I rang in the New Year some two weeks ago, but I’ve been spending the past two weeks considering the fact that I can no longer fit into my pants. I’ve also been spending the last two weeks considering how on Earth I’m going to fit all those pants (that I no longer fit into) into the boxes I need to ship home. Additionally, I’ve been considering how many boxes I need to ship home, how I’m going to afford shipping them home, and if I can’t just ship myself home in one of those boxes. (I’ve always wanted to be able to put “stow-away” on my resume… and two to three months in a dark box on an ocean liner sounds pretty relaxing right about now). As you can imagine, all of this has been a lot to consider. So I hope you can understand why it’s taken me so long to get around to this whole resolution-considering thing.

Not that I haven’t made any resolutions yet. I’ve made dozens of resolutions, and I’ve even managed to keep a few… okay, one.

Maybe you’ve noticed the new entries in my blog? What’s that? You haven’t? Well, then, let me tell you all about it! If you’ll notice I have lots of new entries entitled “unbrave eats.” The idea is very simple: I eat something and I write about it.
Genius, right?! I’m pretty sure I’m the only person to think this one up. I’m already preparing myself for the big movie deal! I mean everyone loves a good movie about a blogger, right?! Just remember how riveting the Julie section of the Julie and Julia movie was! Remember that pivotal moment when Amy Adams’ character (the blogger) pressed the delete button?! Wow! That was some moving cinema! I really hope whoever plays me in my movie (oh let it be Angelina Jolie… pretty, pretty please!) can capture the fine balance I try to keep between taut realism and witty banter. I hope she can also capture the fine balance I try to keep between my laptop, glass of wine and bowl of popcorn all balanced on the same desk. It is quite the juggling act, let me tell you! There are some days I’m pretty sure the popcorn won’t make it.

Of course, my new food blog entry resolution has been slightly counter-productive to my new daily workout and fit-back-into-my-pants resolution. But, alas, if it’s fame and fortune that I want (and I do want it, oh yes, I do! Fame, fortune and Angelina Jolie as my new BFF! Is that too much to ask?!) than blogging is the way to go. After all, when’s the last time you watched a movie about someone who was able to fit back into their pants?! Where’s the plot twist in that? How about the pivotal delete button moment? Yep, fitting back into my pants will definitely not help me meet Angelina Jolie, but eating weird flavored potato chips and blogging about it definitely will. I’m certain of it!

My other resolution is a doozy, a real biggie, the ridiculous-possibly-going to-get-me-killed-or-at-least-give-me-a-really-bad-case-of-dysentary resolution. Now if I was smarter I probably wouldn’t bother telling you about it. That way if I fail, you’d never have to know. Heck, I wouldn’t even have to attempt this resolution. I could just forget about it and no one would be the wiser. Just like that resolution I made to only think positive thoughts (stupid, dumb, loser resolution, that was!) or that resolution I made to stop eating popcorn at my desk because the popcorn grease keeps messing up my keyboard (guess what I’m eating right now as I type this!). But, just to show you how much I like you (and possibly so you’ll hold me accountable), I’m going to tell you my big crazy resolution…. in a minute (good thing I didn’t make a resolution to get to the point… or maybe I did and I just never told you about it).

When I was training for my marathon last year, one of the tips I read was to tell as many people as possible that you have decided to do this incredibly ridiculous (and possibly crippling) task. The purpose of this was to make you feel like you had to do the marathon since you had told all these people you would. Additionally, because you had told all these people you were going to do the marathon, they might then hold you accountable and expect you to actually do it.

So I did exactly that. I told everyone who wanted to listen (and more than a few people who probably would have rather not) that I was going to run a marathon. But the thing is the people who I was telling this to had also heard me promise I’d do a whole bunch of other things. To be honest, I’m surprised these people even listened to me rattle on about that marathon (or even pretended to listen).

After telling my mother, she promptly replied, “You can’t run a marathon.” She should know. After all, I’m the same person who told her I wanted to be a cheerleader in the eighth grade (that lasted half of basketball season… just a word of advice to future pom-pom girls, if you can’t do a cartwheel, you really aren’t cheerleader material). I’ve also told her I wanted to play viola (that lasted less than 5 months) and study to become an architect (one semester in technical drawing and I was a goner). Most recently, I begged her to haul my bike with her to Japan when she visited last February. I was convinced that once I had my bike I’d start doing long cycling rides in the Japanese countryside. I could imagine myself cycling past blooming cherry blossoms in the spring and overflowing persimmon trees in the Fall. What I didn’t imagine was that the bike would arrive in a box… and that I’d actually have to open the box and put the bike together. Well, the bike remained in the box until last month when I begged a friend of mine to come to my apartment, put the bike together and ride away with it, no questions asked. If I can’t even open a box, I really can’t blame the woman for thinking I wouldn’t be capable of running 26.2 miles.

My forays into cheerleading and cross-country cycling aren’t the only resolutions that have ended in defeat. This past weekend, I went through my closets to take photos of everything I didn’t need and would have to sell before leaving Japan. After reviewing the photos I had taken, I realized together they composed a summary of my failures and other half-hearted attempts to better myself made over the past couple years.

There was the sleeping bag I had bought for my new camping hobby. It really came in handy the one time I went camping in Japan.

There were also the gaiters I had bought for my new snow-shoeing addiction. I spent 3 hours on the Internet researching what gaiters were, spent two weeks looking for a pair that would fit my impossible man-calves and shelled out almost $40 on a pair. They were quite nice for that one time I went snow-shoeing.

There were also all the board games I had brought over from the States for all those fun house parties I was going to have at my place. In the three years I’ve lived here, I’ve had three parties. I think we used the games once.

There were also free weights (used for three months and never again), the electric mixer (that I actually forgot I owned it until I spotted it in my drawer), and the pile of Japanese textbooks (hardly even cracked open!).

I’m sure I told a whole bunch of people about my new camping or snow-shoeing or party-throwing hobbies, but telling them never spurred me into action before. Announcing I was going to climb up snow-covered mountains while wearing tennis rackets on my feet never actually made me do it (more than that first time… when I found out climbing up snow-covered mountains with tennis rackets on your feet is freaking hard). So why did telling everyone I was going to run a marathon actually inspire me to do it? Maybe I had become more responsible with age? Maybe I’m now more likely to follow through now? Or maybe I just thought running a marathon would make for a very good blog entry (which it did!).

So if telling everyone about my crazy, ridiculous, possibly-going-to-kill-or-cripple-me idea spurred me into action once, maybe it will work again. Maybe telling all of you will make me feel like I have to do it. Maybe all of you can hold me accountable so I actually do it. Maybe all of you will chip in and pay for my dysentery medicine and possibly a wheelchair should I need it about this time next year…. after all, you’re the ones who practically made me do what I’m about to do.

So, here goes, here’s my plan: I’m writing a book!

Okay, chances are you haven’t fallen off your seat just yet. Yes, I know this is not a shocking revelation… this may not even be a new revelation for some of you. Chances are you may have already heard me utter this phrase a few times and you filed it in your mind back there with my plans to raise ponies for the poor or knit sweaters for stray kittens. But, to be honest, up until this year I really didn’t have an actual story for this book I was going to write. Last year, I had toyed with the idea of writing a book about my various romantic relationship misadventures (kind of like Sex and the City without the expensive shoes… or really that much, ummm, sex…. or even a city, to speak of). It wasn’t until a couple months into the project, that I realized I really didn’t have enough material for a book. Sure, most of my relationships have ended mis-adventurously. Yet, admittedly, I haven’t been in all that many relationships. My book would be more like an informational pamphlet.

But now I finally have a book idea! My idea is to spend the next year traveling through Asia, but rather than doing the backpacking thing, I’ll be spending about two to three months in each country. Rather than doing the group tour thing or the jungle safari thing or the sit-on-a-beach-and-actually-enjoy-myself thing, I will be volunteering or learning or working. I’ll be avoiding hotels; instead, I’ll be house-sitting or home-staying or couch-surfing or whatever else I can do to stay on the cheap. And then when I’ve finished, I’ll write a book. I figure everyone loves a good travel-around-the-world-for-a-year-and-discover-yourself book. I’m not exactly one of those people that enjoys traveling cheap or sleeping on some strangers’ couch or building wells for lepers, but maybe I’ll be able to discover a part of me that’s capable of doing all those things. Or maybe I’ll come down with leprosy. Either way, it will make for a good book, right?!

So now is the time for you to help! (I know you were waiting for this chance, right?!) Of course, there’s the whole holding me accountable thing… but you could also, say, help me find a free place to stay in Vietnam! Doesn’t that sound fun for you?! Yes, I knew you’d be happy to get involved in my little project! Anyway, my plan is to start out in Northern Thailand, where I already have a two-month cat-sitting position (thanks, Heather!). Then I will fly to Singapore, where I have a free weekend stay at the Hilton (thanks, Mary!). I’d then like to travel overland from Singapore, stopping in Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam and finally China. I’ve already been looking into potential volunteer or work opportunities in these countries, but maybe you know someone who needs a dog-walker in Penang? Or possibly your friend needs a baby-sitter in Hanoi? Maybe you know of a good volunteer program or charity in one of these countries (preferably one that won’t charge me $1,000 to participate)? Or, hey, I do actually teach English for a living (I even have my degree in it!), maybe you know of a school in one of these areas that takes on short-term contract teachers? Or maybe you’d just like to send me words of encouragement and any stray foreign currency you happen to find floating around your house? Or maybe you work for a book publishing company that would like to publish my book? Or maybe you’re Angelina Jolie and you’d like to be my new BFF?

Really, any way you can help…