New Year’s resolution 2012!

So here it is, I’m finally going to re-write what has so far been my favourite blog, something I was happy about to the point of saying “This is beautiful.” I posted it to blogger, and guess what? It got deleted. Eaten. Devoured. Erased. So here I am, attempt #2 (well, actually number 4, but I lost the other two within minutes of starting them).

The thing is, I know that this is going to be nowhere near as good as the first attempt. For starters, I’ve forgotten about 6 of my 10 resolutions, and I’m going to have to re-think them. I also wrote some pretty heavy shit about each one, and made it really nice. But alas, here we are. Back to square one and writing this in Microsoft fucking Word. Why, blogger, why did you have to delete all of my hard work; my awesome ramblings and perfectly structured mix of humour, inspiration and self-improvement techniques, only to leave me with this shitty organic brain that can’t retain information perfectly? Fuck you man. We could have changed the world.

Anyway, moving on… let’s get started on blog attempt number 4. Hopefully this one will be here for good.

So firstly, what is a “New Year’s Resolution”? Google defines “resolution” as “A firm decision to do or not to do something.” – This isn’t EXACTLY what I’m going for. See, I’m not going to just start doing things, or stop doing things. I’m going to take things I do too much of, and cut them back, or I’m going to take things I’m not doing enough of, and start doing them more. Too many people have vague conceptions of New Year’s Resolutions that set their goals too high, and end up being too much hassle to achieve. (Ref: “Stop smoking”, “Go on a diet”; how many of these do people stick to past January?) I am not perfect, and I will never become perfect. Hell, on a scale of 0 – 10, I’m a 2 or a 3. But if I can even get myself to a 4 or a 5, I’m making good progress, right? Right.

I don’t know what else to say to lead you into this other than I hope that you get some ideas from them. Remember; I’m going for realistic goals based around the idea of self-improvement. I’m not going to change the world, or even get acknowledgement for this, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s about making me happier with me. So here we go. Enjoy.

10.  Look after money more effectively.

So it’s not exactly a secret that I can’t look after money well, or even at all for that matter. I’m fucking awful with money. If there’s something I want, and I have the money, I’ll get it. And my mentality at the time is “Oh, I’ll deal with not having any money left when I don’t have any money left. Future me can deal with that.” And then when I run out of money, all I can think is “Fuck you, past me.” This is why past and future me can never be friends. Shit… what does that mean about present me? D:

Anyway, the solution I propose for my constant lack of money is actually something I’ve tried before, but various factors ended up ruining the planning. This is not simply “keep a budget”. That won’t work with someone of my stupid mentality. No, I propose something more fascist upon myself, and more frustrating for the future me that wants to spend that student loan coming in when I go back to Uni… I’m going to get all that money, pay off the rent and whatever bills I owe at the time, then all that other money? I’m going to work out all the bill money I’ll need (internet, seedbox, phone etc), subtract that from what I have left and then divide THAT number by the amount of weeks I have to live on. Then I put all of the money into a separate bank account, set up a weekly transfer and off I go.

EXAMPLE TIME:

Get paid £2000. -£1000 rent & bills. -£500 bills from Jan  - Apr, £500 left. 10 weeks to live on, £500/10 = £50. Every Friday: £50 into my bank account. So if I save some, I have that the next week too. If I stick to this (which I really hope I do), I will be a very happy man and any extra income is boss.

9. Sort out my sleeping pattern

So this is kind of a big thing for me, because in order for a lot of my other resolutions to work, this one should really be sorted out first. And at the time of writing this, my sleeping pattern is actually pretty fucking perfect. Going to bed at 2, getting up somewhere between 8 and 10. < All of these are AM, not PM. If you reverse that, so I go to bed at 2 in the afternoon and get up 8/10 at night, you have my uni sleeping pattern, which is fucked. The thing is, I’m missing so much because I just sleep through it. Yeah, it’s a “student” thing to do, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing to do. Students are notoriously lazy. I don’t want to be known as being lazy; I want to be known as being awesome.  

There’s not really many ways for me to fix this that I can think of, as there are always going to be all-nighters, or VERY late nights at uni, which of course won’t help with it. But here we go: If it’s a weekday in the morning, then my alarm goes off at 8, to get me out of bed for 9am. If I have a 9am lecture? My alarm’s going off at 07:30. If I can get my waking up time to some kind of social norm, I can get my sleeping pattern to hopefully match it, and if I’m awake at 9 with no one else to hang out with? I can get to work on a few of my other resolutions. It’s a win/win situation.

8. Smoke less

So I’m sick of something. I’m sick of all these people saying “OMG I’M GONNA STOP SMOKING IN THE NEAR YEAR LOLOLOLOLOL”. Shut up. None of you people ever quit by just stopping. You end up wanting one more than anything. And the thing is, the only reason I want to quit is because of the money. I like smoking (To paraphrase Bill Hicks: “Shit, if I get to look cooler for my entire life I’ll die 10 years younger”), and I don’t want to stop smoking. So I’m just going to cut down to something manageable: 5 Smokes a day. 10 if I’m going out. It still sounds like quite a lot, but any smokers out there will know what I mean when I say that Alcohol makes people smoke much more.

How am I going to enforce this? Well it’s NOT going to be a midnight to midnight day, it’s going to be from waking up to going to sleep. So that’ll help me out a bit. I have an old cigarette case, in which I will take 5 smokes from a pack and put them in there when I have my first smoke of the day. If I decide to go out? +5 to the pack. I will be unstoppable in my slowing of smoking. Also, if I don’t smoke 5 in the day, I’ll stack them for the next day. I’m not quitting, I’m just trying to save money. This will regulate it well enough for me.

Oh, and I’m going to start buying packs from Spain (via proxy) to get pretty much 50% off. So there’s that too. Come at me, haters.

7. Stop getting walked all over

This is a pretty big one, and anyone close to me will know exactly what I mean and why I’m putting this in here. The thing is, 2 years or so ago, I was a pretty big voice, a force to be reckoned with and someone who can’t be pushed around. I wouldn’t take shit like I do now without putting up a fight. I mean, I’m intelligent; I’m witty when I want to be and I’m not a pushover in arguments. Well, recently I am, but that’s what this is about. Getting back to the level I was at. I never used to lose arguments, I used to keep a cool head and make a fully-reasoned, logical argument. I was reasonable and never got angry. Now, I’m getting angry at the time and clutching at straws instead of reason.

There’s not really a direct fix to this one other than to say that I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. My life has value, and people need to learn to treat me accordingly. I’m not going to hide behind a screen anymore. I’m going to be something worth respecting.

NOTE: This does NOT mean I’m going to get violent, rather the opposite. If people resort to violence, I’ve the moral high-ground. Hell, hit me all you fucking want. I’m not going to hit you back. Who’s more of the man now? The guy who’s hitting someone who’s already said he’d never hit them back, or the man getting hit in the face and waiting for a chance to speak?

6. Go out more!

So, there’s this thing that I like to moan about, hell, there are a lot of things that I like to moan about. And the thing is, the more I moan, the more depressed I get and the less I want to go out. This goes in DIRECT contradiction of the solution for the subject I’m moaning about. That’s right: Being “forever alone”, or single. Who gives a fuck. I’m actually starting to care less and less about this now. The more women I think “oooh la la, you’re pretty nice” about, the more I realise that I’m just going for any woman who talks to me. Fuck that, women can come to me now. My life is great as I write this, and the optimism I have from writing this blog is just making me happier and I realise, a girlfriend would probably hinder me more than help me. So, instead of saying “GET A GORRAM WOMAN”, I say “go out more!” When I eventually get a womanfriend (and mark my words: it’ll happen), I won’t be out as much, so now’s my chance.

Also, I’ll meet more people! More friends = more awesome. More awesome = more happy. See how this goes?

So, once a week, on a Friday or a Saturday night, I will be going to the pub, and if there are any parties I get the opportunity to attend, I’m going to that shit too! Also, I’ll be having a hell of a lot more people visit me at Uni. So that’s that one sorted.

5. Exercise more FUCKING EXERCISE!!!

Oh dear, this is another generic one, isn’t it? :/

HAVE NO FEAR THOUGH! For I’m not going to do over 9000 whatever’s a day, I’m going to do something different, build it up and make myself a boss. Firstly, something really simple: Every day, hell, maybe not every day, but at least 4 times a week, I’m going to get into the habit of going for walks. Not jogs, not sprints, not marathons; walks. And I don’t mean I’m going to walk the Coventry ring road 4 times a night, I mean just walk about for at least half an hour. Listen to some music, bring someone along for company. Just get some fresh air and stretch my legs for a bit. I’m a computer geek, and I NEVER leave the house unless I have to. I was at Morrisons last week and I needed to spend two of those days walking constantly for 2 days. My legs killed afterwards; I want to get to a state where I won’t even notice that. I’m so unfit it’s terrifying.

Secondly, I’m going to do some push-ups. But I’m going to ease myself into it. Either when I wake up, or just before I go to bed (hell, maybe both); 5 a day, progressing onto 10 a day for week 2, 15 for week 3 and so on, so forth; all until I get to week 10, when I’ll hit 50 a day. When I get to that level, I’ll stick at that.  50 push-ups a day is a LOT, but not so much that it’ll take all day and not so little that there’s not much point to it. Something like this can make a huge difference to me with very little effort and if I build up to it, it’ll become like second nature to me.

4. Become more self-confident. Possibly even a little arrogant?

I know arrogance isn’t an attractive on anyone, but I think it’s something I need. Too much am I telling myself that I’m a “hideous wreck of a man” or “not worth anything to anyone.” How’s that going to change anything? This resolution is more of a backing to everything else on this blog, but it’s still something important. If I smoke less, go out more and exercise more, of course I’m going to feel better about myself, so as I say, this is kind of moot. But I need to remind myself that I AM awesome, I AM loved and I AM intelligent. Things will pick up: that much is certain. The only person who can change my life is me.

3. Stop being such a moody cunt – no, seriously.

So, when I get down about all the shit in my life (that isn’t even that bad, I just love to moan), what do I do? I get in a little strop. Hell, more of a stop, I have a full on spazz attack, being a massive cunt to everyone around me, bringing down their moods and pushing the people who actually care away from me. So to all those people (you know who you are) I apologise. Seriously. I’m sorry.

But how the dick am I gonna fix this? I can’t just STOP getting depressed, can I? No. Of course I can’t. But what I CAN do it take my mind off whatever’s getting me down, and channel that energy into something not only much more useful, but make me feel a lot better about myself, and make me feel better. I’m talking about the next two resolutions, reading some books; hell: even getting a better gamer score will keep me occupied and something to feel proud about.

I also need to stop putting so much effort into making other people feel better and focus on my own damn problems. I know I unload a lot, and I’ve not problem with unloading onto me. But there have been a lot of times recently where I’ve not even had time to do something for myself because I’ve been so invested in helping other people. There’s a lot of emotional baggage that I’m carrying, and a lot of it isn’t mine. So if people want to talk to me, they can go ahead. But unless I genuinely care about the person I’m listening to from now on, I’m not going to pretend to. If I know they won’t be there for me, I won’t care. I reckon this will make me feel more of a dick, and look like a cunt, maybe even get rid of a lot of my current friend pool. But hell, I need to be selfish about this at the moment.

2. Work more outside of Uni

Haha! Now we’re getting to the important stuff, the fun stuff, the HARD stuff. So, as I’m sure 90% of you know, I’m on a course called “Ethical Hacking”. Now the problem is, a LOT of the stuff on this course is very, very interesting. But there’s so much to cover on this course, even if I do all of it to a first level grade, I still don’t think I’ll be good enough. Now that might be academically true, or it might just be me wanting to be the best I can and make my friends, family and lecturers proud. But either way, where’s the harm in learning? Seriously. You can never learn too much.

How am I going to do this? Simple. I’m going to give myself some objectives; right now I want to know how to do a lot more with Java, Jscript and JQuery. After I’ve gotten the hang of at least a little is these, I’ll move on to leaning more HTTP, some PHP and then look at SSL, SFTP and others. There are so many things I just want to learn, but don’t. 2 hours a day (during the week) at least will be dedicated to all of this.

I’m also going to make a MUCH better effort with the CompSec Society and DC4420. There’s so many out of class things I can be doing to learn stuff, but I’m just too lazy. No more skipping meetings or trips to London. I’m fucking Spudguy and I’m giving 100%.   

1. Get more involved in my course.

So, last year I was at the same Uni, doing a different course. But the thing is, I HATED it. Completely detested it. So fucking much. It was the worst thing I’ve ever done, and I hated everything about it (except of course the people). I had no idea what I was doing and I didn’t want to go. But here’s the thing: Some of the modules were really good. And the computing ones that I did last year, I have on this course this year and don’t need to do as I passed them.

So now I have all these free periods, less coursework and less exams this year. This is perfect for getting ahead in class, right? I mean, I should be ruling the roost right now. I mean, I’m damned high up on the course at the moment, and top in one of my modules. But not doing as well as I should. So in my spare time, along with doing 2 hours out-of-uni work, I’ll be doing 2 hours+ a day of work FOR uni. If I don’t have any, I’ll look ahead to other things I might need to do. Such as my Propositional Calculus, or C++ programming.

Hell, I NEED to learn Subnetting still as that shit confuses the hell out of me. There’s a lot I can and should be doing to get on top. I’m just… not. :/

The mixture of my free time from lectures completed and a decent sleeping pattern should help me get further ahead than anyone else. I’m going for it, and I’m going to work my arse off for it.

So there it is, my 2012 resolutions. It’s not as good as the first one I wrote, I know this because I don’t feel as proud as I did. But it’s in the open now and I’m really hoping I can stick to it. I hope you got at least ONE idea from this.

So fuck it, email me, tweet me, facebook me, phone me, text me…  contact me however you can to check on me. Just ask me if I’m doing X like I said in Y. I’m going to need you to help push me. If I’m not doing it, shout at me, swear at me and ask my why.

We’re in this together now.

Happy 2012.

-          Spuddykins. <3