by liberal japonicus
I love the fact that 'I am resolved to the fact' gets the word resolved away from the notion of being resolute, and doing whatever it takes to get something done, to a "well, I guess there's nothing that can be done", which sort of exemplifies my policy on New Year's resolutions.
Here in Japan, they aren't much on resolutions, but New Year's cleaning is rather big, which is a good thing, except that I hate cleaning up when it's cold. But, in the spirit of the post, below the fold are of my resolutions
- Everyday stretching Status: This one might not count cause it didn't even get started. I was really impressed by Kit Laughlin's Youtube vids for stretching, but Japanese houses tend to be on the chilly side, so it was just too tough to spend 30 minutes stretching in a cold room. Maybe when it gets warmer.
- Doing a short Tabata style cardio workout every evening before taking the evening bath (Japanese style bath here). Not quite the full on 4 minutes, but it's 15 squat thrusts or burpees, followed by 15 kettlebell swings, then 14 and 14, 13 and 13, etc. Status: haven't missed yet and already seeing it get easier
- No snacking, more veggies Status: not giving up yet, but this looks like the first one I'll bail on. Perhaps revising it to less snacks might be the way to go
- Take another run at learning Chinese, this time thru pinyin.Status: been using this iphone app every nite, and starting to look over materials in pinyin, so that's good
- Work on my formal Japanese Status: hard to tell how that is going, but I should find out soon, I suppose
- a weekly post on something newsworthy, whether I'm ready or not. Status: pretty good, especially on the ready or not point.
So how about y'all?
When I was about 12 or 13, I made a New Year’s resolution never to make another New Year’s resolution. I’ve stuck with it for 30 or so years.
I’ve never done Tabata, but I have dabbled in HIIT, which is based on the same general principle. But I still have a very hard time getting over the traditional 20-minute (at least) rule for cardio workouts, even in the face of empirical evidence. It’s just stuck in the lizard-brain core of my human brain. I hate not being rational. That is, I have to tell you, I’m afraid, even I really am not entirely rational.
I have an inner filibuster that sets in immediately after I make my New Year’s resolutions which prevents anything from ever getting done.
Just like America.
Those pushups? A veritable death panel.
Consume less alcohol? An assault on fundamental freedoms bestowed on us by God and the Founding Fathers.
Start running again in the baseball/softball off season? My legs and lungs accuse me of a Maoist nanny-state plot to violate my body’s 10th Amendment.
I occasionally manage during the ensuing year after months of self-disgust to make a sort of recess appointment in favor of better habits, more exercise etc, as I begin to dread the pain and soreness of those first games.
Then I de-fund the entire infrastructure of whatever the goal is and accuse my better nature of bureaucratic do-goodism, if not outright tyranny.
Regarding exercise (I bought a bicycle before Christmas and then the weather turned and it promptly snowed; the bike looks great though leaning against the wall), because of my build I’ve always been able to maintain my physical stamina with a minimum of work during the winter, counting on being able to get in shape quickly with just a few weeks of pain in the Spring.
As the years go by, though, and I lose my energy and will to do even a minimal amount of work during the off-season, the weeks of pain and nagging injury once the season start lengthen well into the summer. I still achieve pretty good conditioning by the time Fall comes around, but now once the games end, it takes, oh, 45 minutes to lose muscle tone.
O.K., today I start on a regimen.
After some pie.
P.S. Years ago, I took Chinese lessons in the Philippines and for a time continued after my return to the States. I remember making resolutions to plunge head-on with at least 90 minutes a day of study, but after two weeks, I congratulated myself on my efforts and rewarded me with a week off.
It’s now 32 years and a week.
But… the phrase is “resigned to the fact,” not “resolved to the fact.”
I resolve to never divide by zero again. The results are just too much for the human mind.
In a prescriptive sense, you’re right FuzzyFace, but (and I guess I should have made it clear) the language drift evident when you can find ‘I am resolved to the fact’ appearing in place of ‘I am resigned to the fact’ is what I was liking. I double checked on Google before writing it, to see how many pages it appeared in and it appeared in enough to note it, though when I just checked now, while there were 11.9 million pages with that phrase, this post was number 4. To paraphrase the Bhagavad Gita: “Now, I am become [language] Death, the destroyer of words.”…
So, lj, you’ll be aiming for Weds and Fri (=open thread) updates? more or less? I’m going to try to aim for Monday morning; any other days you guys think are good?
That sounds fine if it fits your schedule. Since I’m up at night, which is morning for the majority of the folks around here, I can go with whatever fits your schedule better.
Ah, an opening for language-usage talk! I could just let FuzzyFace’s correction stand, but when you said you Googled “resolved to the fact”, I had to try it myself. The horrifying thing is that the 11 million hits for “resolved to the fact” vastly outweigh the 3 million hits for “resigned to the fact”. I haven’t noticed anyone using “resolved to the fact” before now, but evidently it’s rampant.
It happens because people go groping for “resigned” and miss, and what helps is that “resolved” has a sense of “settled” that comes close to fitting the sense of “resigned”. It’s not a real good fit: people don’t say they’re “settled to the fact”, but it’s a close enough fit to push the resigned/resolved mixup along.
Re my earlier comment, yipes, people do say they’re “settled to the fact”. Okay, I am resolved to the fact that people talk this way.
Has anyone noticed Brett Bellmore around lately — here or elsewhere?
Phil?
Being a statist, bleeding heart liberal, I worry.
So shoot me.
America, the only civilization in human history to hold clown auditions to choose who gets to carry out genocide:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/new-hampshire-debate-january-7-6634202
Meanwhile, Gary Busey, Secretary of State and Federal Reserve Chairman under President Donald Trump, ans Ted Haggard, Secretary of The Secretarial Pool under just about anyone he begs to be under, not that there is anything wrong with that, swap wives.
They have wives. Just so you know.
Both are up for Commandant of Healthcare Auschwitz under any number of Republican Presidents, probably Romney, who doesn’t believe a word he his ownself says, so you have his insincerity to fall back on when the filth kills you.
Speaking of learning a language, I thought lj would enjoy this (turn screen away from your boos at work):
http://gawker.com/5874304
via DKos
Thanks, I’ve been trying to figure out how to share that with everyone, Count, I saw it originally as a facebook post. I’m not sure if it makes any difference, but that picture is from Shinsaibashi in Osaka, and Osaka folks are famous for being a bit over the top. I loved one of the comments on the facebook post (probably by a long term Japanese resident ex-pat, so it gives you an idea of the kind of blasé attitude one gets when dealing with this stuff) was something like
“20%? That doesn’t sound like a “f**kin’” sale.”
My colleagues would ask ‘so, when they use an apostrophe like that, is that correct?’
I’ve just seen somewhere in the internet a picture with two dogs sitting and one is asking the other: “So what is a New Year’s resolution actually is?” and the other replies: “basically it is a “to do” list for the first week of January”))