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.