Ok, ok, a list of New Year's resolutions. But I really can't afford to make resolutions like: I will finish my thesis by June 1... or I will study Greek every day... or I will have a reasonable abstract prepared by the 26th. The reason for this being that if I mold these into resolutions, that leaves open the possiblity that they may not come to fruition, something that I absolutely CANNOT afford. If I don't do all of that, I may as well go to Serbia and join the mafia... or go to Mt. Athos and become a monk, because my Western life is over.

So, I will write resolutions of self-indulgence (bearing in mind my parameters for resolutions):

1) Eat at St. Elmo's. Everyone in my family... everone I KNOW has been there. I don't care if it's overpriced steak.

2) Learn to ride a motorcycle. I may not get one...I may not ride it from Lisbon to Vladivostok...

3) Read a novel in Spanish. I've never done this... It may take awhile. (Ok, I'll fess up.. I bought the biography of Mineko Iwasaki...the woman whom Golding slandered in "Memiors of a Geisha"... these are her actual memiors...in Spanish...well that makes it not a novel...but it counts)

4) Learn all the Mandarin words in the vocab cards I bought. This is pointless, but I like to follow a trend.

5) Go to a major monastery or church on a major feastday. Decani on Dormition. Athos on Annunciaion. Petcherskaya Lavra on Pentecost. I AM in Europe.

6) Go to winter Olympics. I don't know if I can swing this. We'll see how work goes.

7) Watch all the Kurosawa and Tarkovsky movies I haven't seen.

8) Read a novel in Russian (yeah right! well.. I AM going to be doing quite a bit of reading in Russian... so we'll see if maybe this becomes more realistic than Omar becoming dentist to the stars within a few months)

9) Go to the major clubs: The End, Fabric, MOS, Pacha, etc.

10) In the UK:

a) Go to Scotland

b) Climb Mt. Snowdonia

c) Go out to Land's End and see all the King Arthur stuff on the way there. Run around Merlin's cave making SUPER nerdy Dungeons and Dragons comments: "I cast a level 3 levitation spell... ON MYSELF"

d) Go to the rest of the major cathedral cities: Ely, Lincoln, Winchester, York... speaking of York... also go to where Constantine was crowned Augustus on July 15, 306 AD... daydream there for at least 2 hours...alzheimer's be damned.

e) Oxford

??.??.? The one who loved China 0rz