Word...

...to your mother.

I'm still here. Just embroiled in a never-ending battle with Typepad who are certain I'm not paying my monthly fee, while my credit card company insists that I am. It is annoying, not to mention boring now it's happened 2 months in a row. Anyway, since I seem to be able to post today, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

There is a long held new year tradition of the Senior Triangle but I can't be bothered to explain it. Instead I shall lazily copy and paste a a post from January 2006 that sums it up nicely. In my defense I only slept till midday today and then exhausted myself by walking to Star bucks to drink lattes and read a book. Poor me.

This weekend is Chinese New Year and so starts 'The Year of the Dog'. Two of my best friends and I have adopted the tradition of declaring each year to be whatever we want it to be. A kind of new year’s resolution where you start new habits instead of breaking old ones. Last year saw 'The Year of Snoggage' and 'The Year of Intellectualism'. I decided to concentrate on a far more important aspect of my life. I'm not very good at being a girl.

In certain respects I display typical girl behaviour. I have no sense of direction, love cocktails, believe Seth Cohen to be the definition of the perfect man and delight in discussing the intricacies of penis size. In other areas of girlieness I fail miserably. My make up bag consists of only 2 self-bought items, the rest being donated by women who shriek in horror at the sight of no.17 cosmetics circa 1994. I don’t get the Brad Pitt thing, I cant stand Purple Ronnie Cards and despite many attempts, am unable to master the fine art of walking in heels.

So in an effort to rectify this, my 2005 was designated 'The Year of High Heels'. It didn't go to plan. By New Years Eve the only non-flat shoes I'd acquired were a pair of kitten heels and a pair of wedge boots. This year is 'The Year of Accessories'. My friends are having 'A Year of being Bold' and 'A Year of Mini-Adventures', which makes me feel more than a little materialistic. But you see what I've done there? I have managed to engineer that for two consecutive years I can buy as many pairs of shoes as I like. This goes totally against my socialist sensibilities, but then every heroine has to have a fatal flaw. I promise to deprive myself of other luxuries to compensate, I just haven't figured out what they'll be yet.

I've started off the year by buying some necklaces, earrings etc. (accessories is an all encompassing word you know). The trouble is that whenever I put on jewelery I feel like I'm dressing up as my Nan. I just don’t feel comfortable in it. As aversion therapy I've taken to walking round the house at night wearing as much of it as possible, like some kind of bedtime BA Baracus. Not quite the glamorous girly look I was after but small steps people, small steps.

As I recall The Year of Accessories was quite a success. I now have a decent collection of trinkets, although I still can't stand wearing necklaces and my tastes run more to Accessorize than Tiffany's. My make-up bag is less of a horror show and I own at least 3 pairs of heels. Oooooooo get me, a veritable flounce of femininity. A trawl through the blog archives reveals no mention of what the years 2007 or 2008 were deemed and since I can't remember them we can assume they weren't a resounding triumph.

2009 has been officially designated (drum roll please) The Year of Immunity and Decisiveness. Immunity because I am sick of getting ill and am determined to ward off the germs that the small people I work with persist in wiping all over me. This will be done by cutting out caffeine and sugar and adding in 7 hours of sleep, eating proper dinners and taking echinacea. So far I've remembered to take the echinacea once and last night I had cereal for tea. Did I mention the resolutions start in February this year?

The decisiveness is because I am the kind of person who when in a restaurant, takes longer to decide what to order than to eat. When I ask the waiter to take your order first it is not because I have impeccable manners, it is because there is a frantic battle going on my head as to whether to order to sea bass or the beef carpaccio. When the waiter finally gets to me I will inexplicably blurt out toad in the hole, despite sausages making me want to hurl, and will then spend the reminder of the meal staring enviously at your plate and cursing my inability to choose. This year there will be none of that because my dithering days are done. The big decision that needs to be made in the next few months is whether I stay in Hull for the good of my career or move to London for the good of my social life. More on that another time.

The other points of the Senior Triangle have settled on The Year of Mixing it Up (which is code for something much funnier but I won't risk my neck by disclosing it here) and The Year of Sorting Things Out.

Hope your resolutions are going to plan, even though, if I may say so, you're being a little predictable starting them in January. Everyone knows the cool kids are always late to the party. And that January demands copious amounts of chocolate, coffee and alcohol before it will let you into February alive.

Comments

[Jane]

My resolutions always start after Chinese NY...which also means I have a couple of weeks left to try achieve the resolutions I set myself last year - learn Chinese and set up a website. I doubt I will get that done though! I hope you end up choosing London, socialising > work.