Here are your GIF-infused 2018 Resolutions!!!!!

HELLO, 2018 ENTHUSIASTS! How do I know you are a 2018-enthusiast, you ask? Well, you are a person who is alive in this year. That pretty much means you qualify. Anyway, since it is imperative that I avoid doing any real work this evening, let me flood you with a slew of nonsensical New Year's resolutions.

NUMBER THE FIRST: Buying a piano.

Spending a thousand dollars on an electronic piano (otherwise known as an expesive-ass keyboard) will ensure that I discipline myself enough to practice my scales every day. "C-dawg, you can't not practice tonight... you spent bloody ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS on this gadget!". It will work just as well as my 18-month membership to Gold's Gym! I mean, have you seen my muscles?!?!?!?

NUMBER THE SECOND: Beach body!!

Let me clarify: I do have a beached body. I would like a beach body. I will accomplish this by finally turning up at the gym two months before my 18-month contract expires, eating industrial amounts of protein, and then complaining that society is too focused on unattainable beauty standards that objectify women.

NUMERO TRES: Finding the positive everywhere.

That should be easy, right? Everyone is obviously doing it! I see it on all of your social media accounts, ya'll. You guys are turning herpes into beautiful unique stripes, like those of a majestic Bengal tiger, and diarrhea into organic fuel and eco-friendly flower food. I want to be like that. I want to leave this God-forsaken world where all these refugees drown and Donald Trump tweets at 3 in the morning and go hang out in gorgeous wheat fields and white-sanded beaches that are riddled with inspirational  #wordporn. I hereby declare that every time I am drowning in paper work at 6pm on a Friday night at a school where they turn off the A/C after 5, I will play some Tina Turner and dance around the room, praising life for a fulfilling job. 

FOUR OR WHATEVER: Be more compassionate and kind.

When another student asks me "what do you mean a verb?" or exclaims in disbelief as did the previous ten students that walked in before him, "we have a test today??!!" I will not clench my fists. I will not clench my jaw. I will not clench my arsehole. I will smile and nod and tell myself softly, "they are just little. This one just turned 16 last week". I will then levitate to my desk and do yoga for five minutes while they obediently do their warm ups. I will go home at 2:45 every day to meditate for two hours and will my head follicles to resurrect and produce lusciously thick Indian hair. 

FIVER: Open my heart and date!

Michael Phelps will have nothing on me because I will turn dating into an Olympic sport! I will finally listen to everyone around me and ditch my ridiculously impossible standards, loosen up, and be the little dainty lady I was always meant to be. It will be like being a newborn baby all over again, except with boobs and a moderate laugh. The creepers of the internet never had it so good! 

SIX: Lock it down, fam!

From the pool of men I meet after marathon-dating, I will choose the one who showers most often and marry that sucker. My momma ain't turning younger. She needs grandkids! Plus, someone has to pay for that ridiculously expensive piano I just bought!

LUCKY NUMBER SEVEN: Buy a house!!

I will stop worrying about crippling debt and a 30-year commitment to pay off ridiculous amount of money and just YOLO this shenanigans. There will be shutters, a picket fence, mold hidden behind the walls. I will not chicken out like the last time I was about to buy a house (oh yeah, I almost bought a house, ya'll... but I chicken out...not gonna happen again). This house will literally become the inspiration for me to go to work every morning and to never let my clean yet creepy husband touch me after the second kid (we are Catholic, people. That's how things work). I'll be living the dream.

So, 2018, I am coming for you! All of you, brace yourselves. I have clearly lost my GD mind. 

-Cris

All my unrealistic 2015 resolutions!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, MY DEARS!

2015, the number itself makes me shudder. I was born in the 80's, ya'll. Where did the last three decades go?!?!?!

But okay, if time must pass and if we are one more year closer to death (thanks Jesus Villegas for the upbeat remark), we should make the best of it. After all those beautifully stereotypical Facebook updates about 2014 and the challenging and exciting 2015 dawning on us (I swear I must be Grumpy Cat... I don't understand how people are so happy all the time-- look at my reflection of the past year), I decided to do some soul-searching and come up with some things that I need to change or improve in my life. Being the narcissist that I am, I felt the need to share that with you all.

1. The eternal and ever charming: WEIGHT LOSS.

 

I know, I know. It's one of those things we all have to do---except if you have a freakishly fast metabolism and you can eat a kilo of deep-fried cheesecake without gaining a gram (you have no idea how I loathe you if that's the case). I figured that if I can lose ONE pound every week of 2015, then I'll lose a whole 10 pounds (let's face it, this resolution will only last about 10 weeks.... tops).

Why am I doing this, you ask? No, despite the pressure exerted by every single adult female in my extended family, it is not to get a boyfriend. I want to be able to run again (not fat-run... also known to normal people as slow jogging), to chest the football (as opposed to boobing it), to be able to see my toes (how long has that red nail polish been on them toenails?), and to smile naturally without getting a triple chin. 

The only problem is that I can't do any drastic exercise routine like CrossFit because 1)I don't want to turn into a douche and 2) My body is too broken for that. Every time I start working out, I eventually get injured after a couple weeks. So, if you know of any workout that won't hurt my knee, big toe, hip, back, or neck, let me know. Oh, and I can't do swimming, because my arm comes out of its socket.

Now let me get to my second ration of flan.

2. The hopeful and life-changing: WRITE MORE.

I have been pretty bad at keeping up with this blog ever since I came back from Durham (which would explain to you all the vlogs--- I really didn't feel like writing!). But it seems that at least a couple people get a kick out of my self-centereness, so I mean to keep rambling in the written form! The idea is to at least publish something once a week, even if brief and rambly and GIF-less (you wouldn't believe how long it takes me to find the appropriate gifs).

I also need to start thinking about more "formal" writing projects... but I think the biggest obstacle for me is not so much lack of creativity as is lack of confidence. I doubt my abilities as a writer greatly and in fact revising my writing is one of the most straight up horrible things for me:

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME, THAT IS GRAMMATICALLY INCORRECT?"

" UGH, CLICHE, CLICHE, CLICHE, CLICHE, CLICHE, CLICHE."

"PREDICTABLE. PREDICTABLE."

"NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO."

"I CAN'T WRITE... I SHOULD HAVE BEEN A DOCTOR!"
"I AM TERRIFIED OF BLOOD AND GUTS... I SHOULD HAVE BEEN A STRIPPER!!!"

" I AM TOO FAT TO BE A STRIPPERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!" 

(This is how resolution number one came about)

So, this will be a matter of just letting go and writing, reminding myself there's Stephanie Meyer and that idiot who wrote Fifty Shades of Lame out there, making millions...

3. That one boring thing you studied: READ MORE!

I must admit that when I studied Literature I wasn't in it for the reading. WHAT? I know, shocking. I like analyzing books, but for some reason the part where you actually have to read the books? Not so much. Or maybe it's just that I've grown tired of so. much. reading. But  I have decided that I will track how many books I read in the year and I want to read at least 15. Not very ambitious, it seems, but it's definitely more books that I read in all of last year... and I was doing an M.A. in literature....

I want to read Les Miserables. Some C.S. Lewis. Chesterton. and a whole lot of Catholic books. I hope work and writing will give me enough time. Because...

4. Newsflash: BE A GREAT TEACHER!

If you know me, you know I don't do half-assed things. I go 100%, all the way in (yiiiikessssthat'swhatshesaidsorrynotsorryI'mgrossIknow). So, now that the teaching gig is on, I want to really do this right. I am terrified, I have no teaching game... but I am going to do my best!

Hopefully this is a thing for me... if not, then I'll go down in flames, and I'll take all those bratty kids down too! Just kidding, it's going to be okay.... worst-case scenario I quit at the end of the school year (Note to self: pessimism is not a good trait). Hopefully I won't lose the last remnants of my sanity... 

5. Mission Impossible: Worry Less.

I am a worrier, a walking nerve-ending, Edvard Munch's Scream. I worry so much about things that I worry about my worrying:

"If I am worried maybe it's just my gut telling me things will go terribly wrong".

"If I don't worry it must be because I don't care--how dare I not caring!!!!!"

"Why am I not worried? SOMETHING MUST BE WRONG WITH ME!"

You get the picture. I love to worry for free. 

I know I have to really trust that God will get me through and that whatever he has for me is good--not life-ending. I need to let go at times and understand that I don't have to have it together at all times and that I won't have control of everything all the time. I need to just enjoy the ride. And all that Pinterest bullcrap.

I will try. I will. It's part of my faith journey and I know I have to at least try... but chances are I won't be able to stop worrying. It's what I do! The best thing I could do would be to trust God in the midst of my worry--but stop worrying all together? 

Please keep me all up in yo prayers, cuz. I need all the help I can get. Don't believe in God Almighty? Send me pictures of cute puppies, then. That helps too.

6. The forever idealistic LEARN TO DO SOMETHING NEW.

Play guitar, knit, become a gamer. You get it. Pushing myself to do something new and getting good at it. What pastime will I pick up? I have not the slightest idea.

So this resolution is kind of a lie.... let's just be honest.

7. Eat, Pray, Love. Minus the first one. 

That's self-explanatory. Harassing God even for longer periods of time until I can figure out what on earth it is I'm supposed to be doing o'er here?! Love more? Yes, I don't mean love in the sense of creepy Filipino guy:

but in the "universal love for all people" type of way. Sigh, you know, the harder stuff. Am I being kind of ridiculous and cliche with this resolution? Yes. I'll stop now.

So, happy new year, ya'll. May it be whatever you want it to be. God-willing I'll be around to make sarcastic comments and judgmental remarks for you.

xx Cris