New Year Dawns
Christmas is over and New Year's Eve is upon us, which will, for all intents and purposes, draw the curtain on what has been, to say the least, a rather lackluster year. Minor achievements in the face of monumental disappointments have served to cast a cloud over 2004, and I for one am ready to greet 2005 as a chance to start off on a new foot.

Let it be said that 2004 wasn't a total wash. I have a lot to be thankful for going into the end of the year and into the next, but what seems to happen, and it's occurred to me that this is just a fact of life, are numerous peaks and valleys, and the valleys seem to always outnumber the peaks. Of course, this could also just be a natural human reaction to adversity. Tough times are just that, tough, and they are so for a reason. You wouldn't have anything to complain about if it was just smooth sailing from the get go. Seriously, the tough times are there for a reason, I suspect, and there's probably something to be said about how one confronts adversity. All that jazz about becoming a better person probably has some sort of truth to it, although it's never obvious when it occurs.

I've never been big on New Year's Resolutions, so, in an effort to set some sort of agenda for myself, here's a few things I'd like to accomplish in 2005.

1. Lose even more weight. It's a cliche, but losing weight has been one of the better things to happen to me in 2004, and I didn't do it by abiding by that Subway crap. A little will power, a changed diet, and a lot of exercise will do.
2. As for exercise, I want to increase my running to around 10 miles a day. Right now, I'm around 8.
3. Continuing what I thought was a phase, I'd like to continue to read nonfiction in an effort to learn about subjects I'm interested in.
4. Speaking of learning, I'd like to take some more classes towards a degree of my choosing. I'm not sure what that would be, but I'm interested in numerous fields.

I'm sure this will keep me busy and occupied in mind, body, and spirit for the better part of 2005.