Resolute

I never make New Years' Resolutions. I have always treated them like diets, ineffective and cliche. If you want to lose weight, change your lifestyle; don't go on some miracle diet. If you want to learn a language, just do it; don't wait for the new year. This year I realized that there is nothing wrong with using the new year as a marker. Lifestyle changes are no less important because they come under the resolution banner.

I have limited myself to three resolutions. When I started teaching, my mentor, John Kerley, suggested that I limit my classroom rules to just three maxims with a series of classroom procedures. Kids can't keep up with more than three rules. Each teacher has their own, sometimes conflicting, set of rules and students are expected to remember each of these. It is an impossible request to make. If you give them three rules and post them prominently, they have no problem keeping up with what is expected.

Here are my three rules/resolutions:

1) Learn Spanish
-I am committed to becoming proficient in Spanish. I will not set a time table for accomplishing this goal but 2009 will be ano nuevo for my Spanish.

2) Play more guitar
-I love playing guitar but never do it. I know the same chords and can play the same songs as six years ago. This will change in 2009. In addition to playing for myself, I will even learn songs by Jimmy Buffett and other insufferable musicians so that I can play for people with poor taste.

3) Run a marathon
-I lost a lot of weight in Holland and, while some of that has been regained, am now light enough that I should avoid some of the small ailments which plagued last year's attempt.

Cheers and good luck in the New Year.

Obamaclypse

I don’t understand the fuss. Driving through New York City may be difficult or frustrating if you are a girly man who still nurses at his mother’s teat and won’t go outside without his trusty pooch to protect him from the big, bad world. Jami had to move and had only one day in which to accomplish this task due to some thing called, work, so I took to the streets of Gotham in a U-Haul. It was not that bad. All you have to do is talk in a New York accent, honk a few times, and cuss public officials. Freakin’ Guiliani! Honk! Freakin’ Bloomberg! Honk!

It took all day but we moved her into a pre-war (WWII) art deco building, formerly a hotel. She and her roommate, Nicole, are sharing a studio apartment conveniently situated between the U.N. and Grand Central Station. Only U.N. diplomats may park on her street. It’s very New York.

Driving a U-Haul through the City was a piece of cake compared to road tripping across Europe. It is just like driving anywhere else in America except (as Jami so eloquently put it) in New York you are only responsible for what is ahead of you. It actually makes a lot of sense. You are responsible for what is in front of you. If someone hits you from behind, it is their fault and you are allowed to punch them in the face, man or woman, day or night. There are no lanes, and just that one rule. Red lights don’t matter. It gives hope to post Obamaclypse America. Yes we can live without rules.