I am bothered by this post because it is not the New Year yet and because I associate resolutions with exhortations to discipline and austerity, which I do not lack. Still I am compelled to think about it and this is the current draft of my resolutions:
1. Get comfortable tying the kayak onto the car by myself.
2. Increase income. Renewed efforts in this direction are to include court interpreting during the year, NEH seminars, and grants for visits to collections, but I need a windfall, like a really good consulting gig.
3. Keep negotiating with the powers which are at work, about teaching assignment(s).
4. Visit California and Mexico. Negotiate plans with Mexico City area contacts. Make a list and do not forget John Mraz although he appears to be in Puebla. Try to start going to Mexican conferences. I cannot afford high level conferences held in the United States but Mexican ones may serve me better, anyway. Call Brazil and Peru.
5. Pursue my research and teaching goals and do not be dissuaded. In the same vein, really learn to run, and increase upper body strength.
6. At work be serious and confident, have authority and be vigente. Set high standards in ceramics and use this as a model for everything. Be relaxed but be in charge.
7. That last applies to the prison work. Do not allow lawyers, or prisoners to run me. Do as I see fit and be active. Say no with confidence to all manipulative requests. Be in touch with other workers like myself.
8. Stop ignoring my CSA just because I do not like the products enough or the area, and because the pickup times are inconvenient! Not to ignore my CSA, like not to slack in ceramics, will be a really good form of meditation and yoga.
Mainly, though, my goals are simply to increase levels of sleep, self determination, and pleasure. As I say, there is a discourse of drudgery in the tradition of resolutions that I do not like at all, and that got to me at last in Reeducation.
The idea that it had been so selfish of me to go to a public, research oriented undergraduate program and not to a private SLAC, and then to have gone to graduate school. The idea that my having done this had hurt so many people so much, and that I needed to feel this pain.
Sacrifice and penitence on my part did nobody any good and I believe one needs sleep, authority over one’s own life, and pleasure to get anything done, whether the task is creative or onerous.
A specific goal: do work on the inside of the house and the deck every day, finishing by sunset December 23. Clean and set up for new guests December 26. Begin other outside work December 27. Do a big push on this outside work December 27, 28, 29, 30.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
http://www.neh.gov/divisions/education/other-opportunities/brazilian-literature-twentieth-century-urban-fiction
Thank you, S P!
Email me if you have questions. Been there, done that
On resolutions: it is the exhausting self improvement aspect of them that I dislike. I declare all resolutions by me to be self protection resolutions.
I will e-mail you. DWF used to keep applying to my father’s department, because of his asthma, it was a good climate for him. Finally got to AZ but I feel as though he were a childhood friend. I remember you went on this and I remember your comments. I am not convinced I am competitive for this on paper at the moment, but I think I could be immune to flakiness at this point and be good team member.
This may help loosen the obligatory sense of “resolve”:
word origin: 1325–75; Middle English resolven (v.) < Latin resolvere to unfasten, loosen, release, equivalent to re- + solvere to loosen; see solve
That is brilliant! 🙂