Happy New Year!

Hello blogosphere! Long time no see! I've been rather busy this past month: winter break provided a seriously needed chance to rest and recoup from the insanity of last semester. I went into the fall semester wanting to busy and constantly distracted. Well, clearly I got what I wished for! Having work to do all day every day was great, but I was ready for a break. Now classes have begun, and I'm feeling refreshed and ready to squeeze in as much learning as possible before my life as a college student ends! Because, come May 13, 2011, I will officially be a college graduate! So crazy!

But in the meantime, I've got a lot of work to do. Classwork, obviously, but research, networking, and getting myself ready for the next big step. It's intimidating but I'm keeping optimistic. That's the only way to go!

I've never been one for New Year's resolutions--if there are changes that need to be made, I just make them whenever. But for this year, I've made a number of goals. Not traditional resolutions, exactly, but changes I want to make to live a more fulfilling life:

1) Value my time more and use it better. I'm tired of wasting my time on pointless activities (IE: excessive amounts of time on the computer!) or participating in organizations that don't value my time as much as I do (IE: many of the performance-related activities I've been part of). Time is money. I want to use it more productively, give myself the opportunity to get more sleep, and end each day feeling accomplished. It's only been a week since I've been at school, but so far I've kept it up fairly well. We shall see if this continues as the semester progresses.
2) Write more. For example, blog posts. I am a decent writer, but I shall certainly lose all writing skills if I don't write at all! Of course, blog-writing is far and away a different type of writing than analytical or article-writing, but it's something. So (hopefully) expect more posts on a regular basis, and a larger variety of posts: anything from mini-editorials to reviews to short stories! (I shall try to post a couple of times a week, but I make no promises. Yes, Mom, that one's for you ;).)
3) Don't sweat the small stuff. I do a decent job at that, but there are certain aspects of life that drive me crazy--and it shouldn't! So I'm attempting to not let it bug me as much, and be more assertive when it does.
4) Have more confidence! This is a big one, especially for anyone in the acting field. I'm tired of walking into class/party/etc feeling weak and stupid. It is something I worked a lot on last semester, and I've improved a lot over the last six months, but there's always room to grow. So my new mantra that I'm trying out is "Act the way you want to feel. Eventually, you'll start feeling it for real." Good mantra, right? Plus it rhymes! Always a plus! :) So we shall see how that goes.
5) ...and then a bunch of other little goals, like go to dance classes, watch more movies, etc. Not worth listing out now.

So what kinds of resolutions do you have for the new year? What kinds of goals do you have to make 2011 great?