Resolutions, old and new

It's time to come to terms with my resolutions for 2008, and how I did or didn't do. Then to launch the new ones.

Last year at this time I wrote as follows:

1. Set my feet down in some far Eastern city at some point this year
2. Learn some Cantonese and/or Mandarin
3. Weigh no more than 180 at some point this year
4. Forget about agents, pitch my novel outline directly to book editors
5. The Met. In a Tux.

I can credit myself with success on points 1 and 5 on that list.

As to (2), I bought Cantonese-language tapes and listened to them prior to my travels. But the only but that has stuck in my mind is the word for "thank you," which I used liberally in Hong Kong. But I don't thing "dah-jay" (a more-or-less phonetic rendition of that word) by itself warrants a claim of success for (2)! I'm going to make it a carry-over.

Numbers (3) and (4) are even more abject failures. Further, I went backwards this year in one crucial respect. I've lost the habit of taking daily morning walks. I want to reacquire that one.

Also, I should mention here that I lost my prescriptionglasses well traveling in mid-December. I've been using drugstore glasses since. I've got to re-acquire new proper eyeglasses and resolve to get through a year without losing them.

The new list of resolutions is as follows:

1. Resume my morning walk.
2. Be more frugal in general, this year. Pay down debts.
3. More specifically, don't leave the US this year (travelling is my most expensive indulgence).
4. Forget about the novel. Focus on production/sale of a non-fiction work on the criminal prosecution of insider trading.
5. Learn some Cantonese.
6. Don't lose glasses.