I had made a couple of New Year Resolutions last year and posted it under the title “New Year Resolutions – A Blog Post for Self-reflection after One Year” . The resolutions were.
1. Read a minimum of 200 Non – fictions.
2. Learn to play Violin.
3. Restart my singing lessons.
4. Write 200 articles.
5. Finish writing my novel.
6. Learn to cook. [Really need to do something about it]
7. Clear the freaking IAS exams.
8. Travel to new places. [ A sub post coming on that]
9. Actually do something so that you will take 1 – 8 seriously.
10. Not to feel terrible if I don’t achieve 1 – 9.
So, here I am self-reflecting after nearly a year. Lets see how I fared.
1. Read a minimum 200 non-fictions
As I have said already in the Book Lists posts, I have read quite a lot of non-fictions and fictions this year. But they do not add up to 200. No.
There are many reasons – The cost of Books, Not thinking of joining a library, aversion to e-books etc. But now that I have overcome my discomfort towards the ebooks I am pretty sure I will be able to read some really insightful books from the reading list I made. Still, I must say that the books I have read have made significant changes in my perception, my outlook, the way I think and react and more importantly, has improved me as a human being. And I am happy for that.
2. Learn to play Violin
I did! Hi 5. In the month* of November 2013 I started my violin classes. I have not become really good,but still my progressive is impressive ( at least for me 😀 ) and I intend to become more dedicated to the art as the year proceeds.
3. Restart my singing lessons – Failure. No excuses.
4. Write 200 articles.
Please laugh out loud since I did not even write 20 articles. I wrote a few generic blog posts. I wrote a book review of Merchants of Tamilakam by Kanakalatha Mukund which got published in Centre Right India. Other than that, nothing much to write about in this front. But, I am going to make a sincere attempt to write more. May be setting an unrealistic goal of 200 was the problem. Or may be the fact that I expect my articles to be many pages long dampens my goal. None the less, I am going to set a realistic goal this year and am pretty confident will achieve the same.
5. Finish writing my novel.= Scoff at me. Please.
6. Learn to cook.
I learned to cook. And Appa likes the dishes I make, which is better than winning Master Chef. I can’t make the traditional kozhambu and rasams though. And fancy items, sweet items etc are out of my league. Still, I have made a decent start and I can cook a satisfying meal in case there is nothing. I thank the wonderful internet blogs for this. They have truly been my teachers!
7. Clear the freaking IAS exams. = Tragedy. No comments.
8. Travel to new places
I did not travel. Whichever new place I visited was purely due to unavoidable circumstance and had nothing to do with my personal goals. I visited Kalakkad, Tirunelveli where our Ancestral Temple dedicated to Dharma Shashta is situated. I visited the Napier Museum, Thiruvananthapuram only recently and was left impressed by the displays and sad at the same time due to the shabbiness of the interiors.
9. Actually do something so that you will take 1 – 8 seriously.
That’s not really a goal , is it?
10. Not to feel terrible if I don’t achieve 1 – 9.
Ok. Not feeling bad.
So let me see.
- I read a few books, not 200 though. So I will say that 1/4th of the goal was achieved – 0.25.
- I am learning to play Violin hence – 1.
- Singing Lessons – 0
- Write 200 articles – 0
- Novel – 0
- Learn to cook – 1
- IAS – 0
- Travel – 0
- 9th Goal – 0
- 10th Goal – I am doing it promptly – 1
4.25 / 10 – Just pass (in Indian standards you do not need 50% marks to pass. But I am a General Category student, hence I am not sure if 4.25 actually implies clearing the exam. But meh! Maa lyff Ma rulzz.)
I am sure 2015 self reflection will be more successful. Bye for now.
* Grammar Alert – Use of in/on before specifying a time period.
It’s in March 2009 but on June the 30th. Use in if you’re talking about a month or a year but on if you’re talking about a date or a day.
Rough Book 