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[theinevitable]

Maybe it is too early for this thread. I figure, you know, this shit comes real in 6 days.

This year, I want to:
write words to some of the songs I have banging around in my head. I am pretty down on my skills at playing guitar, but goddamn, I think that some of these things I've come up with could be damn good songs. It's not like I want to be able to be John Lennon or whatever... I want to be able to play a song on the guitar and sing it in front of people. A song I wrote. My problem is that I'm too critical of my lyrics... I always throw them away as too lame and obvious after 2 lines.

Get some sort of girlfriend-type-situation going on, but, you know. It's not something I'm planning like D-Day, it's just something I would like to happen, and I am going to try to be my usual charming self when meeting new people, etc.

find something to do this summer. Right now I am about to start an application to be a counselor at summer camp, the camp I went to for... I think 4 summers? Anyway, every time I go there to drop my sister off I completely flip out and get all emotional, I loved it there so much. On the negative side: no AC, no electric guitar, no CDs, no iPod, no computer, no internet, no cell phone, no good food, no peers except a bunch of hippies, a bunch of 12-year-old boys, long hikes, nature, rain, probably cruddy pay
on the plus side: no AC, no electric guitar, no CDs, no iPod, no computer, no internet, no cell phone, a bunch of 12 year old boys, nature, long hikes, rain, happiness, acoustic guitar playing.
Otherwise maybe I will get some kind of intern-y thing. I will be working on my options.

I want to say get healthier, but I don't know if that's realistic. I would like to gain some upper-body muscle, but otherwise I am pretty content with where I am.

Read more great books, hear more great music, keep finding new books to read and music to listen to, read comics, read the news... learn. There is little danger I will stop doing these things, but it's nice to have something on this list I know I'll be able to check off. I would like to be better about keeping up with new music that comes out this year, especially since that is kind of a responsibility I have at the radio station. Actually, no, that is my exact responsibility, and I want to do better at it.

Lately I have been being more conscious about wasting things-- remembering to recycle, remembering leftovers before they go bad, turning off the faucet when brushing my teeth, taking shorter showers-- and I know it's just little things, but I'd like to think that every little bit helps. Good habits, regardless.

Oh, and finally, college and more specifically my college friends have been turning me into kind of a snob, and certain of my friends, while awesome, are making me turn Mean in a way that I don't like. I am not a mean person, I am a nice person by nature. I know this is true. I am just judgemental about weird things, and lately I am not as generous with my assessments of other people as I should be. I am going to be nice. My mom was telling me about meeting my little toddler cousin, and how he's so sweet-- she said he reminds her of me. This made me sad, thinking about needlessly cruel things I've said lately, especially things that I didn't even really mean. I can beat this thing. Most specifically, I am going to try to be better about accepting things that other people are enthusiastic about. It takes all kinds and all that jazz.

Resolutions? Goals? Thoughts?

[pmcd9]

I like your last one.  Stay nice man.

[littlefallsmets]

Oh, man, summer camp. Thank Christ my parents never pawned me off onto a summer camp.

John Varney's ribald adventures notwithstanding, I always had the distinct feeling that camp was actually summer prison for children. Why the hell would I want to go somewhere else for the summer, there was an entire library and a summer of televised baseball to enjoy!

Why would I... want to hang out with too many other kids? I hated most of the other kids, I was trying to prove I was as smart as the adults and smarter, you know.

Granted, had I been more socially acclimated, maybe I would be generally more successful at being a person but... I would probably also be applying my skills in life to fitting in more instead of coming up with ideas that... never go anywhere because I... have a hard time dealing with structured situations with other people and...

Fuck, one of them Catch-22s again.

Back to my original premise, I was definitely more comfortable in the short term without summers at children's prison. I was definitely more comfortable and that has to count for something.

Or, at least, it did.

FUCK, ANOTHER CATCH-22. I'll... I'll get back to you on this one.

[AugustWest]

Oh, man, summer camp. Thank Christ my parents never pawned me off onto a summer camp.

John Varney's ribald adventures notwithstanding, I always had the distinct feeling that camp was actually summer prison for children. Why the hell would I want to go somewhere else for the summer, there was an entire library and a summer of televised baseball to enjoy!

Why would I... want to hang out with too many other kids? I hated most of the other kids, I was trying to prove I was as smart as the adults and smarter, you know.

Granted, had I been more socially acclimated, maybe I would be generally more successful at being a person but... I would probably also be applying my skills in life to fitting in more instead of coming up with ideas that... never go anywhere because I... have a hard time dealing with structured situations with other people and...

Fuck, one of them Catch-22s again.

Back to my original premise, I was definitely more comfortable in the short term without summers at children's prison. I was definitely more comfortable and that has to count for something.

Or, at least, it did.

FUCK, ANOTHER CATCH-22. I'll... I'll get back to you on this one.

Oh HELLS No.

Summer camps rocked.  It was an opportunity to get the hell out of your hometown and hang out with dozens (or hundreds) of like minded people of your same age for a week and do activities.  I went to hell of summer camps and extra weeks when I could.  You could do shit, meet people and make things at summer camp.

Plus, I liked sleeping in a tent.

[AugustWest]

Sort of on topic now.

I'm vaguely certain that we've had a New Year's Resolution topic every year thus far.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet that on virtually all message boards that have a long-term existence this topic turns up every December.

Where's CJ when you need him?

P.S.  I have some resolutions, but I'm not telling you what they fuck*ng are.  It's too personal. Screw you, imaginary internet pals.   

[theinevitable]

yeah man, Summer Camp was like the one time where I remember really enjoying being Outside and Active and all that shit. During Free Time, I'd go read a science fiction book under a tree. Maybe I wasn't like mr Super Fit In-y. But we went on long hikes and identified trees and looked for deer and went into caves, it was awesome.
I mean, granted, this was basically smart-kid summer camp where the hikes were led by people with biology degrees who were taking a few years off before grad school, in the middle of basically a forest in the mountains of NC...
it is like heaven, people. It is so nice.

[V-Adore]

I loved the hell out of summer camp, man.

Anyway, my resolutions basically sum to "get my shit together." Maybe I'll formalize those later.

[littlefallsmets]

Doing shit, seeing things and meeting people were all things that I did definitely not want to do as a kid at all. Meeting people, I like now that I am an adult, much as we like jerks less the older we get but...

I still don't like doing even that out of doors.

Compulsory activities, man, that's why I hated school so much. That's why I was your standard hybrid goof-off/know-it-all, getting good grades meant I could get away with being insular and surly and basically only participating when it was about getting a grade.

They couldn't call you on... mostly doodling, really, and counting down the minutes... if you were the top of the class.

I'm not saying that this turned out well for me in the long run.

I fell into a pattern of structure avoidance that I've been fighting against my entire life. There's a part of me that's still thinking "well, I got good grades, everything else should be voluntary".

It would'a felt like "children's prison" to me but maybe I'd'a been trapped there and forced to adapt.

Maybe I'd be a better adult for it but I swear, the whole thing sounds just exceedingly unpleasant.

Summer was the time when there were no teachers to tell you what to do, man. Especially not teachers who were basically teenagers trotting you out onto forced marches.

That is what I thought about when my peers told me of summer camps, forced marches from war documentaries. I pitied the hell out of them. I was eating cremesicles and catching up on my Press Your Luck re-runs.

I was living as unto a god-king.

As I say, in hindsight, I am deeply ambivalent and concede that forced interaction with strangers and forced activity might've done me good in some sort of intangible kind of way.

But I spent those summers rooting for The Whammy to steal those suckers money because I was smarter than them and I was a fuck*ng kid, for God's sake, and my inner-child regrets nothing.

[KeithHernandez]

Wait, what's happening?  Is someone attacking your summer camp hate?  Creamesickles and war marches?  I am so confused.  Forced interaction with kids in some intangible way?  This is soo much too much.  Seriously.  If you are happy, then you will be happy.  It isn't that hard.  Have fun and do stuff instead of thinking about shit you hate all the time. 

Seriously, read this thread again.  I know you are losing a job and all, but it is a job.  Read this thread again.  What is happening?




As for resolutions:  leave oklahoma, get in super great shape (like mainly raw food vegan ish+drugs and alcohol.)  That is something you got to work to, I think.

[Golfhaus]

I didn't do summer camps ever, and I'm glad that I didn't. I don't think I would've liked the experience. It was a time to get outdoors and hang out with other kids, neither of which I particularly enjoyed doing. I was really bad at making friends in school, and I don't think it would've changed at all in a camp environment. I was a loner, whose best friend for a long time was his Apple IIc. I know they have computer camps now and shit like that, but 1) AFAIK, they didn't in 1987, and 2) I don't think I've have like the kids there either.

I didn't become a social person until about halfway through the 10th grade.

Resolutions... I don't really do them anymore. No one ever sticks with them, what's the point. I want to work out and get in shape, but I can't afford a gym membership. I'd like to eat better, but after doing the math, I determined that we can afford to spend $3 a day for each of us on food. I'd like to do some more traveling, because I haven't gotten to take Mrs. Haus many places, but again... maybe my resolution should be to get a part-time job - that way, the problem won't be that I have the time but not the money, it'll be that I have the money but not the time.

[AlohaDawg]

My first resolution will be to lock this thread with extreme prejudice if there are any more PRO or CON summer camp posts. People, take your ADD Meds and stay on topic.

Further resolutions include:

Getting a job on the mainland in Q1 2008. Could involve transferring to a PO there in June if nothing breaks before that. God forbid.

Getting back to the gym with some regularity.

Spending fewer hours in the Post Office.

Getting money back into my retirement accounts.

Paying all my debts off while I have minimal living expenses for a couple of months.

[AugustWest]

...stay on topic.

On TOUAMB?  What now?  Are you kidding?

If you lock a thread solely because it went off topic I'm afraid El Guapo might fly out to Hawaii and kick you square in the nuts.  We have a heritage of tangential discussions to preserve here, y'know!

[AlohaDawg]

Plan an achecon here and I will make myself available for kicks square in the nuts. Better hurry, this offer expires Jan 1st, 2008.

[side_show]

My resolutions last year were deeply complex and I undertook them quite seriously.  A lot of shit went down at the end of 2006 that required me to reexamine my life.  I can say without a doubt that I am a different person now than I was this time last year.  It was, as I have said earlier, the hardest year of my life (so far).  I think it had a lot to do with seeing the other side of the world, followed by the SO and I almost spitting up.  I was thinking about it, and this year I want to keep it simple - something doable, measurable and not necessarily life changing.

My resolution for 2008 is to practice better oral hygiene.  I am actually pretty bad at taking care of my teeth. I am considering buying something like this to help me out, but maybe it's unnecessary?

[theinevitable]

oh, um, better oral hygiene is something I forgot about and which is important for me to do this year.