Growing Up

As I prepare my end-of-the year budgeting audit for my parents, I have once again realized that I have spent way more money than I have made and must once again depend on my parents to settle everything. I hate that I cannot be self-sufficient, especially when my parents have already provided unlimited support for me. I used to be such a good kid. I always did what my parents told me to do, frugal, worked hard. I defined the typical Asian boy. Now fast forward even just a few years, on the brinks of growing up, graduating and being on my own, I still have yet to master the small things like how to talk to people, how to manage my finances or study hard on my own, let alone figure out a realistic future for myself. Furthermore, throughout the last two years, I have (mostly) freely skipped out on what my dad refers to as the number one social obligation of an Asian. While this is definitely a story for another time, I think in hindsight, he'd probably be glad, as that obligation comes at great costs, especially with the people I tend to meet it seems. Oh whoops semi-sidetracked.

Ok back to the original post topic. Sometimes it seems like I have spent the last three years regressing. On my own, I formed some pretty bad habits, that I spent much of this year fighting and "reprogramming". But despite these changes, I still find myself falling behind what I use to be and what I wanted myself to become. Perhaps, nothing hits as hard as looking at the college plans I had for myself when I entered freshman year. They were goals that were seemingly simple: run the Boston Marathon, do well in school/get into medical school, be happy and a few others. Through the last year, I knew that I would be sitting here today, not matching all of those goals. At least at that time, I had the delusion/plan to salvage parts of my plan/list of goals for college. Now a year later, I am more keen on the realities of my world and probable future.

This is generally not how you want to end things (research has shown that the emotion attached to the end of an experiences has an overwhelming effect its perception later), but I guess this is what I have. If you say I should look towards the future and a new year, I may never talk to you again. This is not being sad or depressed (clinical term, not to be used lightly), but a reality of what the last three years and a half years have been from an objective standpoint.

Plans and Expectations

For some reason I keep on coming back to this one one blog. It's the one that I started with during the beginning of college. It's also the that has all of the joys and pains from all three years catalogued in one consolidated place. Perhaps, I'll archive it one day soon, and start over during the summer when I (hopefully) go to graduate school. Speaking of social networks I also started a Tumblr account, which I had originally designed to post a picture of everyday remaining of senior year, but so far that I haven't been able to contribute to it as frequently as I liked. Unfortunately, Finals has taken a toll on my time even in general.

So for the deeper meaning part of the entry:

This has been one of the worst weeks in quite a while. From a psychological perspective, I should probably wait until the end of the week to write this, after I've had some time to unwind and hang out with friends (end-experience perception, first explained in pain psychology); however, as I sit and fix my friend's computer, I find myself wanting to express my self and the anger now.

During the last few years, I have really tried to learn to take things in strides; however, there are some moments that are just too overwhelming to not express. This week, especially today, was not one of those times that I could really easily stay at my normal calm. It just seemed like one bad decision or outcome was compounding onto the next. While I tried my best to allot the correct amount of time to studying for my health psychology final, my attempt to memorize as much as possible for my biochemistry final the same day just required too much time. Even though I had already decided to play grade defense as much as possible, I continued to study for biochemistry far longer than I should have. Even with this increased time allotted to studying for biochemistry, I still felt unprepared as always. After taking my 7:30am biochemistry final, I was just too tired to try and study again, so I napped between my classes, which killed off even more time, that I really should have just toughed out and studied through in hindsight. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, so realistically, I have no clue whether I would have studied the right material, but the chance that I could have deeply saddens me.

After an exhausting day, I took a rest, which ended with my inability to go back to studying for the night. This pushed writing a 10 page extra credit paper (that I ended up skipping in favor of studying for another test), to the day that it was due. After studying for microbiology for several hours, I decided that I should sit down and write the paper, but it just didn't happen. I continuously changed the topic that I wanted to focus on, partially due to research I was finding and partially due to my lack of desire to make any real progress. Regardless, when I finally went to bed at 4am on Wednesday morning, I felt like I was very well prepared for my final. While, I wish I could say that the exam the next morning went smoothly, the truth is that it was far from that. While I think I actually did pretty well on the exam, the circumstances surrounding the test were so stressful.

In the end, I think that this week will be acceptable. While I am already feeling better, thanks to my advisor's dinner for the my research group, I feel like I still have a long road ahead of me for the rest of the week.

So the week's discovery is this. Despite the best planning, life is all about tearing those plans up. Whether it is reality or yourself that tears those plans up, nothing is what you expect it to be.

Disappointment

We are constantly preparing for everything we do: school, personal lives, running, work, a musical solo, the list goes on. They say that practice makes perfect. While it definitely does make whatever we're doing easier, it definitely does not guarantee that everything goes right, according to plan or even produces an acceptable result. In light of these defeats, it is so important to consider what went wrong and what went right.

Last week, my club team and I went to the NIRCA Cross Country National Championships. The biggest cross country race of the year for club sports with over 1000 runners total and plenty of quality runners. In the weeks leading up to the race, I fell into a habit of running strong early in the week, only to be overwhelmed by school, work and trying to maintain a group of close friends during the end of the week. My long runs turned into non-existent runs, and my Thursday speed workouts turned into nap time. Looking back, I was thoroughly under prepared for Nationals. Perhaps the only thing that remotely helped me was the rowing class, I had started going to on Fridays.

During the actual race itself, I started strong and felt that I was very consistent pulling through the 5k mark in just over 18 minutes (I'm by no means fast, but I do like to think of myself as not slow). However, the last 3k resulted in a screeching halt as I got progressively slower, eventually walking, feeling sick to the stomach, with cramped abdominal muscles. For the first time in over a year and a half, I walked during a race. While, I ended up running a personal best in the 8k, I can positively say that it was a terrible race for me.

This entire season (summer and fall) has been a a rocky one for me. I set a personal record in both the 5k (early during my marathon training) and a personal record in the 8k. At the same time, I have been plagued by injury (late pull-out of the Columbus) and disappointing races. However, just like in life, the only thing you can do from the highs and lows is to take the lesson out of the journey and try not to make the same mistake again.

Originally posted here.

It's Almost November

In fact, it will be November tomorrow. Some other things that have happend are that I may be getting better at running/better than I thought, Washington DC is way more fun when you just go to eat (and do some work) and senior year is just never easy. I am pretty sure I've racked up more library hours this half quarter than an entire year out of the last three (though, it did take a long time to get over going to the library by myself, so that may be a confounding factor).

Even though I always say that I will write more on this blog, something always happens, I get busy, I end up wanting to write something else, etc. Anyway, I've decided that instead of doing homework before my next lecture, it would be better to write as much of this blog post as possible.

Mostly, I am still in the disbelief that tomorrow will be November. While this quarter always seems to go by fast, it seems super fast this year. I don't know whether it's because I'm spending time reminiscing about the last three years as I walk from building to building (realistically, probably not), or whether I've once again managed to overbook myself, even though I totally promised myself I wouldn't do that this year. Whoops! However, the fall does always bring about one wonderful thing. Despite my injury at the end of the summer, I have recovered mostly it seems, which makes fall all the more enjoyable. As I was running through the metropark yesterday on leaves-covered trails, I stopped worrying about my run and just had a great conversation with a friend. A couple of weeks ago, I even ran a sub 6:30 pace 8K. Last year, I was rather afraid that I had reached my peak, but it seems like a still have a few seconds left to take off. As the leaves continue to fall, I am reminded that my perfectly cool running days are numbered until next year.

Last week I also got a chance to go to AMIA (Informatics conference) last week. It was in Washington DC this year. So I flew out right after regionals to Reagan, nearly missing my outbound from Columbus because I couldn't find my keys. The next few days were filled with meetings, seminars and tourism-ing punctuated by fine dining (well fine dining to a college student). Since I'm definitely not a foodie, I definitely did not take pictures of the food, but I will say that it was expensive and delicious. Also important is that I was able to make some important contacts with professors at other university (graduate school applications :D ).

Why Hello There?

So it has been quite a while since the last post. In fact, I have gone on several weekend trips, finished a summer quarter (but not in school) and run a lot of miles. At the same time, Apple is starting to ban sales of competing tablets, Google has bought Motorola Mobility, Nortel patents were purchased by a group of tech leaders, Steve Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple and DoJ is filing against the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile.

In other more meaningful news, I have had a wonderful summer! I was able to learn a lot from my internship, including what I kind of want to do with my life. Now that my summer internship is over (but I have elected to stay with the department indefinitely), I actually have some time to reflect. So a couple of things to reflect on:

1. I am not that special. While this may seem very depressing and against the current teachings of grade school, there is actually some solace in this. Since my path is not unique, there are many that I can rely on for advice and help. I was the oldest in my internship group this summer, two having just finished their freshmen year and one just starting college in the fall. Interestingly, I can sense a part of my life that mirrors every one of theirs. Whether it's a personal thing, a coming-of-age transition or trying to figure out a calling, I saw my life being repeated by them. Just as I gave them advice, I was able to receive advice from my friends who are older and wiser. Previously, I had just taken their stories and experiences as anecdotes, but really those stories were chances to analyze the decisions. The reason this blog is named Forked Path Life is not just that life is a series of paths (decisions) that people take (make), but it is also a history for ourselves and others to observe and reflect upon. Hopefully, my friends will find my advice as useful as I find theirs.
2. It doesn't take much for the future to hit you. The good thing about school is that everything is planned for you. You have to take X amount of classes in categories A, B and C. Generally, this leads to lots of planning, or in other words control. As an American student, life can become very much a series of wish years of plans. Junior high (low levels of planning) followed by high school (general awareness of the importance of planning) and then college (general awareness of the importance of planning multiple times). As my internship was wrapping up, the other interns and I started discussing plans for when school started. While discussing our classes was a relatively mundane task, my lack of a solid idea of what my next four or five years (if I get really lucky) after college would be like started to really sink in. Pelotonia is the annual charity bike ride for the James Cancer Hospital; a great experience that can definitely challenge the body. Since the department has many avid triathletes, this was something we (the interns) considered doing together next year. While discussing a training plan, it really started to sink in, that I may not be around Columbus at that time. That for the first time in a few years, I have no clue what will be happening after the second week of June. Needless to say for the next few minutes, I was lost in my own thoughts during that meeting. Even now, I continue to wonder what I will be doing in a year.

And (hopefully) all posts will end with a picture or video that I thought was pretty inspiring, interesting or moving.

This links to a video by Neil Pasricha, who created the blog 1000 Awesome Things. In the video you highlights the reason behind his blog and the life lessons he learned from it. http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_pasricha_the_3_a_s_of_awesome.html

A Crazy Weekend

Surprisingly, this weekend marked one of the few times that I was actually in the home for Independence Day (In the last 5 years, I was in Canada, China and Michigan.) Being rarely home for such an event, I tried to and successfully made the weekend very fun-packed, which is good except that I have a lot of work to do now :(

On Friday, one of my Mom's friend's family came over. It was great to see them again, since I haven't seen them since I was in 8th grade or so before I left Louisiana. His son has grown so much between the last time I seen him. Listening to his Chinese put me in shame. Unfortunately, they arrive quite late in the night, since traffic was really bad.

Saturday and Sunday were filled by another friend from the past. I finally reunited with one of my first friends in the United States (Wow! I haven't considered that until just now.). We haven't seen each other since I left Louisiana, too (such a nostalgic weekend). Even after all these years, we talked and caught up for hours on all the years that had passed us by (even though we're not that old). Since nothing I write can possibly express how glad/happy/ecstatic that we were able to see each other again after so many years apart, I'm not going to elaborate too much. But it was definitely two days very well spent.

It is also probably worth noting that I saw Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which I thoroughly enjoyed. While it didn't bring the awe of the first movie (Original concepts can only be original once right?), I must say that this movie was substantially better than the second one. While the opening was a bit lacking, the rest of the story line definitely made up for the opening.

Then today, I went to a work party, which was lots of fun as always, filled with funny conversation. I also learned that while the rest of the interns are generally pretty fun-loving and calm, one of my co-workers is very competitive.

Under the Mild Heat of Summer

     So unfortunately I haven't found a way to spruce up the blog, but I have started my internship, marathon training and being much busier than before.
     The internship is going rather well. The major difficulty that the other interns and I are facing is IRB approval. For those of you who don't do a lot of research, IRB is the acronym for the Institutional Review Board, which is in charge of overseeing the ethical issues that arise in research projects, especially those that involve human or animal subjects. While this makes work a bit boring, the people are great! I have learned so much even about myself from them. I am the oldest in my intern team (two freshman and another entering college). There are also a couple of graduate students on another team, and another high school student on yet another team. Talking to each of them has made me realize how much I have changed since my high school days, but I'll save those details for another time, probably towards the end of the summer.
     Marathon training has been going well except for the long runs, which have been suffering due to weekend trips to anywhere other than Columbus. I really need to focus on sticking to the plan regardless of where I am. Hopefully, I'll be able to take some pictures of the beautiful woods that I do my long run trainings on.
     Also thoughts about post-college are starting to get serious now, which is kind of scary. I can't believe that I have been at OSU for three years now. All the experiences that I have had have changed me so much, but luckily I think that they have prepared me well in being ready for life afterwards, whatever it may be. I just can't believe that it's here now.

Complete with 180's

In the past couple of weeks, I was able to pull of or see quite a few complete 180's from either earlier this quarter or really in the past. For instance, this blog is being written at 8 am, instead of the usual 2 am reflection time.

In a showing finally befitting of the reason I got into Ohio State, I manage to pull off remarkably good finals grades, something I feel like I haven't done in a while, which is quite sad. In other news, I am actually attempting to clean my room this week, instead of letting it clutter up like during the school year. I also went from highly unemployed to highly employed for the summer last week, too. Hopefully, it'll stay clean for a few days at least. Also, the Dallas Mavericks are 2011 NBA Champions.

Actually I think that's about it for complete 180's. Maybe I haven't changed as much as I had thought.

Other things on my mind: I really need to spruce up this blog somehow, need to figure out what I'm doing after the summer (story of my life), find a summer vacation or two and figure out how to run faster.

The Uncertainty of Endings

Being week 10, the end of the quarter is staring me down with all of its weight. Over the past few weeks, I have mysteriously accumulated a lot of work to do. Besides my two day anatomy final, I still have to read about a hundred pages for classics class. Also as usual, I decided to put myself in charge of my grades, or in other words, I managed to sneak myself into several borderline grades meaning I better whip myself into mental shape for these crucial exams. However, at least I can think that I am in charge of my own grade? One can always hope at least. 


Then there is always the question of what are you doing this summer? Well unfortunately, the question is still I have no idea. Yes the quarter is ending in a week for me, and I still have no idea what I'm doing, which is freaking me out. Now given that I have no idea what I am doing, I can say that I will hopefully be working a lot on improving/focusing on this blog. I have no idea what I'm going to do to add to the blog, but I will hopefully think of something. Also I know for sure that I will be training for my first marathon (and hopefully qualifying for Boston).


AH! I just want to know what I'm going to do this summer! (And that my hard work will pay off and I will get A's in my classes)

Pleasant Little Surprises

Since my mind has been buzzing way too fast to do any homework since about 6:30, I thought I'd take this time to do something mildly constructive. How do you measure life?

For me life is measured by the little things. So in the last week or so, I've had a pretty good time. Last Saturday I ran my fastest half-marathon. That made me pretty happy since running is such a big part of my life. Sunday was a pretty average day, filled with lots of studying and homework. On Monday I took my anatomy quiz and got a 9/10. While that might not cut it for me in most other classes, I can say that this class does require quite a bit of work, and I am quite proud of my score. I also managed to finish my homework quite early, which was a huge score. While yesterday was definitely very average, today was far from average. I managed to not only do very well in my Denman Poster presentation today, but I also got interview for a summer internship that I am very interested in. Hopefully, I will get to spend the summer studying two things that I love (medicine and computers/technology)! So needless to say, this has been quite a good week so far. Hopefully, this will continue?

Edit: I must not forget to admit that I felt like a little kid winning the science fair today. The reason I make this reference is because in fourth grade I actually won the science fair for studying how acids corroded the shine of copper pennies away (this project would actually later take me to the State Science Fair in 7th grade). Today's Denman brought about a similar feeling, but with less ecstatic fist pumping and more professional response :p

And the Journey Starts Again

Since the year is almost halfway over, I figured it was a good time to think about my new years resolutions again. So resolutions 2 and 3, I have done pretty well in, which is really good. Unfortunately, resolution 1 will have to be altered a little, but that ok. I'm still pretty realistically optimistic about it.

Resolution 4 though. Boston. For runners, especially middle and long distances, this name carries the upmost meaning. The Boston Marathon is the world's oldest and one of the most prestigious marathons. It is probably the goal or dream of every runner to qualify for at one of the top 5 marathons in the world. To qualify for the 2012 Boston, I need to finish 26.2 miles (42.16 km) in under 03:10:59. However, it seems that the best chance to get a registration spot is to finish under 03:00:00. 

Today marked the 8th annual Capital City Half-marathon. It was 52 weekends ago that I ran my first half-marathon. I ended with an official time of 1:49:30 and the mindset that I would never qualify for Boston. Fast forward a year, one half-marathon, one 5K and several track competitions later, I woke up to a (rare) perfect Spring Saturday morning in Columbus. The temperature was hovering around the 50's, and the sun was out with just a few clouds in sight. My seed time placed in the first corral, well ahead of most of the runners. At 8 am, the horn sounded, and I started my fastest half-marathon yet.

The training with the team propelled me to the front. By no intention did I run my fastest mile during the start, a sub-6 minute mile that set much of the mentality for the rest of the race. Counting on the flat, fast course, my teammates waiting for me around campus and familiarity with the course, I bolted ahead, wrapped around campus and headed back downtown in no time. After another 6.5 miles, I crossed the finish line at 1:29:56. In just one year, with the help of teammates, training and some new found self-confidence, I went from being on the outside looking in, to planning out my next big race and hopefully an even bigger race after that.

Accidental Run-Ins

On Thursday Wong Fu Productions released a new short based on a simple idea about a couple who goes through a relationship. The beginning of every relationship starts with a meeting. A simple acknowledgment of another's existence is the seed for a new adventure. However, it is also at this moment when we learn so much about the person and make so many decisions about this person.

This past week, I spent several nights at the library as usual with my roommate. On one of those nights, I had a simple interaction. Step 1: Meeting. While I use to try really hard to avoid caffeine as a way of staying awake, I have started straying from that path when college really began to develop the habit. Since getting coffee is quite expensive (reasons to be a doctor :D), I try to limit myself. Anyway, back to the story. I casually let a girl behind me order her coffee first since my wallet was stuck somewhere in the middle of my backpack. When I finally found it and waited in line, I took an inconspicuous look. I was quite surprised. The girl who stood in front of me was an exact resemblance of Mulan. This little surprise caught me so off guard.

Step 1: Meeting. Done

Update!

Hi everyone. As you may know, running is a big part of my life and serves several important purposes. Not only does it keep my healthy, but it almost calms me, challenges me to do things I would have never thought possible, allows me to make lots of new friends and much more. So I have created another blog (go figure) that I will hopefully be update more regularly (weekly). Hopefully, it will inspire you to pursue something that changes your life.

http://runningangles.blogspot.com

The Final Countdown

Unlike millions (probably right?) of other college students who were/are spending their Spring Break under the sun with friends somewhere far from where they spend the majority of their year, I have elected to take some time and spend it, well… not with everyone else. However, this time alone has allowed me to delude myself into thinking that I am studying, working on running a bit and catching up on sleep. In order to properly describe the mood this past week, I must first introduce a little climate analysis for Toledo, OH during late March. Simplest put, it can be described as cold, harsh and windy with a chance of spring teasing.

However, running depends so much on these cold, harsh and windy days. As one of the members in the club put it, you’re a “fake runner” until you run when it's less than 50 degrees Fahrenheit (or as I like to think about it, when there’s no life outside). For me, running on these days usually means running alone. I use to be a huge listen-to-music-while-running kind of person, but over the years, I’ve largely given that up since road running is already dangerous enough. So nowadays, I tend to mostly just contemplate about my life while I get my 6 miles in for training. It’s actually surprising how much you can think about in just 40 minutes.

After spending many days idling away and making lame excuses to not run, I decided that going for a run would probably help my upcoming half-marathon. Also running is the best (no, you are not allowed to argue with me on this point) stress relief. So I set up for a very punishing run (34 degrees with 10 mph wind). As always, the hardest part of the run was getting out there. After finish my first 1.5 miles, I thought back to when I started running again (early May during junior year of high school). I was so different then. During the last 4 years, my life has transformed so much. My typical, most generic, average day run is around 6 miles. Four years ago, I struggled to run 5 miles. Luckily, the last four years brought much more than just running, but also a new life and a new group of friends. While I still have parts of my old life and my closest friends from high school, I have come to realize that I have changed so much. While I have wanted to be a doctor since high school, I am actually facing that dream in the face right now (I take my MCAT tomorrow morning). Despite it being the hardest test I have ever taken in my entire life (essentially every science, math and literature test I have taken since sophomore year of high school combined into one), I know that I will take it with confidence to do the best I can. I know that I would have passed out, maybe even have a heart attack, if I were told to take the MCAT during high school. Even the simplest accomplishments over the last few years have helped me get to the stage that I am at now.

Whoops, Time Goes By Really Fast

What a busy quarter!

So I was going to put this up before last weekend… (so the date referencing is a little off…) Looking back, I’ve only blogged twice so far, but at least I got a lot done right? Since January, I ran in a track competition and basically just hung out with the club (running) all the time. Last weekend (02.25.11-02.27.11), was lots of fun mixed with a little bit of sadness. So Friday night, I went to one of my friend’s acoustic night. Besides listening to some pretty good acoustic music, I realized that I really did miss music a lot. So now I have something else to fill my increasingly small amount of free time. I am definitely planning on a cover, but there are so many good songs to choose from. I have no idea which one to pick. Then Saturday morning, I woke up and went on a 9.5 mile run with some members of the club. It felt so good during the run. I felt really energized especially as the run continued and with the soft sun beating shining down on me. After my run, I felt so good and focused and got a lot done. Unsurprisingly, Sunday was a great day. While it was a more stress filled homework day, I at least got everything done and a good whole body workout in. This is great since I for no apparent reason, decided that I really wanted to do 2 half-marathons this spring.

In other news, my roommate Jonny and I have decided to start a new channel on Youtube. This is going to be really interesting because it is something that has rarely been done before. We are currently attempting to have a variety show channel, where the two of us, along with some of Jonny’s friends, are going to release a variety of videos, ranging from let’s plays, music covers, skits and even vlogs (currently, I think that I will be keeping my own vlogs on the current channel, but others might put their vlogs there). 

Winter Blues Makes Time Go By Fast

While I catch a slight break watching Tom and Jerry, I'll catch you guys up on what's been happening lately. School has started for a couple of weeks now. The time has gone by so quickly, I can't believe that half of January is already over. It totally feels like the new year just started.

This quarter I'm taking two psychology classes, physics and my last organic chemistry class. They're going well for now, but it's too early to say anything definitely except that most of them are very fun and interesting (I'm looking directly at you advanced behavioral neuroscience). Other than taking classes, I've mostly been spending my time running, studying, volunteering, in the lab or sleeping. Ah winter quarter, how you promote laziness/sleep. Mostly importantly, I decided to move my MCAT test date back so that I could have more time to study for it. Hopefully it pays off.

Standing Still and Looking in Both Directions

As we all usher in the New Year, I think this is an excellent time to reflect on last year and the coming year. So here goes

2010 was a year where I accomplished so much and so little at the same time. This was a year of many firsts. I finished my first half-marathon, first 100 mile bike ride and first triathlon. More importantly, I made some new friends and found myself some more. Despite some doubts early on, I discovered truly how much I was doing what I wanted to do. While this year was far from perfect, I found myself very happy with how this year turned out. Even though I didn't get an A in every single class, nor finish my research project, I was still able to gain a lot of experiences.

Looking back, I think I made my greatest changes during the summer. For the first time, I was truly taking care of myself. I had finally moved out of the dorms and into a house with one of my close friends. Furthermore, I started my first full time 9-5 job. On top of that, I had to take care of all of my own cooking. For the first time, it seemed like I was truly an independent adult. Before, I had alway relied on school food and my parents to pay for my ... well basically life. This summer, however, I took care of it all for the first time. The lessons that I learned have made me more confident in myself. On top of these life lessons, I managed to have a lot of fun whether with my friends or my running club. I would say that it was a very good summer.

However, 2010 was not without its problems. With this in mind, here are some goals/resolutions/improvements that I hope to make in 2011 (psychology says that the more people who know of what we do, the more we try to reach our goals).

1. Get into medical school. So this one is pretty self-explanatory. While I will not actually find out whether or not I actually get accepted, I should at least get my interviews done by the time 2012 comes around. So yet to be determined are: my MCAT score (January 29th, starting to freak out now), 4 more science classes and my personal statement (hopefully some publications, though that is out of my hands).
2. Kick the habit. No I do not mean smoking, but this year I somehow developed the really bad habit of watching TV while studying. As one can guess, this basically results in me watching TV a lot instead of studying; however, I have high hopes that I can get rid of this habit as demonstrated by my recent attempts at studying for the MCAT.
3. Work as hard as possible. The last few years, I feel like I have worked quite hard, but never had I forced myself to be perfect or stay up all night studying (I've come close). While I'm not going to demand myself to be perfect the entire year (that is just not possible, for me at least), I am going to set a resolution to just try as hard as I can for an entire week. So this means, for a week, I am not going to give up on a quiz or test, nor let myself go easy during a practice when I should be pushing myself. While this might not seem very much, one week at OSU can somehow make the difference between a letter grade in a class. Perhaps, if I really do end up pulling this one off, I'll try to go longer. 
4. Qualify for Boston (Big B). On one of the last days of summer going into freshmen year, I made a list of all the things that I wanted to do in college. While I've forgotten most of them, there are a few that I remember: run the Boston Marathon, get good grades (that one is now down the drain) and really get to know at least one professor (kind of achieved that). While I have definitely improved in running, especially in the last year and a half, I still have yet to run the ultimate race. Like most big, city marathons, there is a qualification time in order to apply for a spot for the Boston Marathon. Previously, the qualifying time was 3 hours and 10 minutes (or around 7 minutes and 15 seconds per mile). While the new rules for qualifying and apply have not been announced yet, I am going to try to run a qualifying marathon in Columbus this fall.
5. Be happy. While this seems like something really simple, I think that it is something that is perhaps even more important than anything else on this list. True, there are many ways to be happy, but regardless of where that happiness comes from, I just want to be able to look back a year from now and still be at least equally proud of the past year as I am now. I think that one of the significant contributors to why I was so satisfied with this year was the happiness that accompanied my overall growth.

So while this year's list is not very long, I do think that these are some mostly realistic goals for myself. I do have numbers that I want to hit for the MCAT and my GPA, but I'll keep those to myself for now. Unfortunately, I am not that confident in myself. So with this, I look forward to 2011 and all the good, bad and unexpected that it will bring.