It’s a little late, given I had my first exam yesterday, but here they are:
I have decided to give myself some belated New Year’s resolutions (an idea stolen from inspired by Sean and James R). Here they are:
1. Keep a diary in my Moleskine
Moleskines are beautiful. I probably won’t live up to that with my scribblings, but they’ll be valuable to me in years to come. I look back on the half-dozen diary entries I have left from previous years and regret not having written more. I aim to write something for every day, written on that day if possible, the next if not. A few more notes about my Moleskine seem to fit here nicely – I’ve followed the advice of a commenter on this wonderful page about moleskines and scribbled on the first page to prevent myself getting hung up on mistakes within – I’ve had it since a little before Christmas and not written in it before now (this blog post is a slightly modified version of my scribblings in it, as all will be in future – but more of that later.)
2. Blog more
I haven’t posted since August, and I want to change that, so I’m setting myself a target of one written-for-blog post a week. I’ll probably also post diary excerpts and maybe a few other things not written specifically for this here, but I want to have a proper post once a week. This one may fall by the wayside, but it’s worth a try, and unlike Sean I think my moleskine will help, not hinder, as I’m using it for drafting these and the joy of writing in a moleskine is a big temptation to do so.
3. Keep up with homework
I fell behind last year. I don’t want to go into details, but I got myself into a mess. I don’t want to repeat it, so this is pretty common-sense. It shouldn’t be hard, and hopefully setting it as a resolution will help me resist the temptation to procrastinate.
4. Walk more
I don’t walk as much as I’d like to, or as I used to (largely due to family not forcing me out on walks at weekends), so I’m setting myself a target of at least 1 one-hour walk per week. Even if it’s just into town (with a detour around the botanical gardens) it’ll do me some good and get me in the habit.
5. Get more involved with Amnesty
I’ve become almost apathetic when it comes to actually getting anything to do with Amnesty International done at school. I’ve accepted responsibility for organising our campaigns, and hopefully this will spur me on rather than giving me more wok to ignore.
6. Be productive with free lessons
I have five free lessons a fortnight, which all too often i use to catch up with feeds on Google Reader and check emails. I want to do something more. Whether it’s reading a book, writing or typing up a blog post, doing homework or working on D2, Google Reader can wait ’til after school.
There are probably others I haven’t thought of – I have the amazing ability to fail to remember even the most important moments of my day when I sit down to record them – but I’ll add them when i think of them. Resolutions don’t just have to be for new year.
It’s the half-term holidays, so I’ve been on holiday with my family from Saturday (24th) to Thursday (29th). We were camping in the Lake District on a very nice campsite just above Keswick. For the first couple of full days it was pretty windy, but we managed to get a couple of walks in, going up to 600-700 metres. It was pretty unpleasantly windy on top, but overall enjoyable. Tuesday and Wednesday were rainy, so we got very little done, although my mother and I got up Catbells on Tuesday, having seen the ospreys in Dodd Wood.
Wednesday was spent looking around Keswick’s four or so decent gear shops (and avoiding the dozen or so rubbish touristy ones) in search of rock shoes for my mother. I also got a new pair of waterproof overtrousers, since the old ones were halfway up my shins, and my dad got a new pan which is supposed to be about a third quicker for boiling water, which is perhaps a little exaggerated, but not by a long way. (An aside to those of you who aren’t outdoors nuts. Boil time is an important factor in camping, since the longer it takes, the more fuel it uses, and fuel is heavy, so minimizing fuel use is important for lightweight camping. We fill a Ford Focus estate and roofbox when we go camping, so you couldn’t exactly call us lightweight, but faster tea in the mornings is a very good thing.)
On Thursday we climbed Helvellyn, the third (or second, depending on whether you count Scafell and Scafell Pike as the same mountain or not) highest mountain in the Lakes (and, since the lakes are the only serious mountain area, England). We climbed up Swirrel Edge (to the right as you look from Red Tarn) and down Striding Edge (to the left). The scrambling wasn’t hard, but at that sort of height, it doesn’t have to be to get a decent adrenalin rush. Swirrel Edge was great, but Striding Edge was very busy, longer than you’d like it to be, and easier, so it wasn’t as interesting.
We drove home on Thursday evening, stopping in Catterick to wait half an hour in a small chippie for greasy fish and chips – not the greatest meal out I’ve ever had.
All in all, a great holiday.