Friday, January 1, 2016

New Year's Resolutions: 2016, Recap of 2015 Resolutions

Missed the mid-year birthday post, oh wells. Let's recap last year's resolutions!

  • Start volunteering / donating. Made a donation at the end of the year to Khan Academy. Now looking to start volunteering at places in SF. It's important to remember to give back. I've always been of the mindset that you have to help yourself before you can truly help others, more for optimization. I'm pretty lucky at the age of 25 to be fairly stable financially and decided it's time. I don't want to be a person that keeps saying "I need to do better before giving back" because that time will never come.

    Failure!!!! Surprised at this one. This should have been easy. Other than giving some food to the homeless this wasn't accomplished at all =(. Not even about not being well off enough to give back, this is too lazy to give back.... I even remember looking up volunteering services, I could have even volunteered for events at work that did non profit work.

    I did donate ad dollars to cancer association to bring more attention to their cause. It's still not the same as being their in person. 

  • Do a stand up comedy show. This got pushed back for far too long, finally did it at Redwood City Underground last week. Woot! Even got some laughs =D

    Haven't done stand up again. Laziness to blame. 
  • Deciding to move to a larger city. This one was pretty easy since my rent is up at the end of this month anyways. Signed the lease today, moving to SF, which I wasn't particulary happy about. Been in cities before (Boston/NYC), don't really take advantage of what it has to offer (don't drink so bars aren't a plus). But there should be lots to do and it's an easy way to force myself to be more active.

    Biggest mistake of the year. Commute totaled 3-4 hrs a day. Didn't do much in the city as I thought. 
  • Six-pack, yea... vain, was so close several times, darn you school and actual jobs!! California now, no hibernation weight and work/life balance is pretty good. This year!!! Come on!!

    Failure!!! Started actually exercising mid-year. Still 175lbs, but big difference in strength. 0 pull ups -> 5 rep max, bicep curls from 1 rep max of 30lb -> 50lb. 
  • Getting rid of car. Sending this back east next week. Was never one of those kids that needed a car when they turned legal driving age. Just a liability, and several accidents later...(worst asian ever!!...or most typcial asian ever!! you decide).

    Great decision here. Life without a car totally doable. 
  • Build a mobile/web application. Putting this one off for way too long. This is more skill building than anything else. Job doesn't require it, but learning in itself is good, can't let that bootcamp money go to waste.

    Failure. Kinda saw this one coming. Motivation not there anymore for this one. Knowing myself, if there's not a need for it, it ain't happening. 
  • Dating, cause relationships are a thing.

    Burned out on dating in the beginning of my move. Went from 1 a week to ~1 month after the first 2 months.

2016 Resolutions: 

  • 6 pack..still want those abs. Getting a personal trainer now. Goal is to keep muscle gain and lose the fat. Hoping for abs around 160-165lb. When I was close to having them before I was at 155lb (lanky asian).
  • Write a novel. Working on it, mix of Gulliver's Travel + Gattica + Brave New World. Nanowrimo failed. 
  • Move back Penninsula/Southbay by end of Feb. Looking at you Palo Alto!!! 
  • Career, I'm so mixed on this. Have been for the last 1-2 years now. Life goals and accomplishments. Meaning of life stuff. 
  • Become a Let's Player. VR is coming and I want to be apart of that!