Good morning!As I mentioned earlier, I'm trying to be a bit more adamant on making these blog posts. I think I'm going to stick to a bimonthly schedule on this and see how it works out!Reflecting on my resolutions last year, I feel like I did a decent job, but it also wasn't good enough to my standards. This year, I fully intend to complete all of these goals! By pacing and constantly reminding myself about some of these, I think I can knock these out fairly easily. Without further ado:1. Finish every game that I've bought, but haven't finished.Let's be honest. If you know about the Steam sale, you know how ridiculously easy it is to buy games. "Buy Fallout: New Vegas for $8! This bundle of indie games for $10! The whole world at your fingertips, just throw your wallet at it!" The previous year in particular had a flurry of great games that came out around the same time, and I never got to thoroughly explore each one. This year marks the year where I finish that queue of video games so I don't feel terrible for buying something, just to play it for a few weeks. This one's gonna be a tough one, since I know I have so many games that I haven't played...but I can do it!2. Finish the current queue of manga and books that I've bought, but haven't read.You can already start to see a pattern with this. I buy things, but I never get a chance to really get to them. Yeah, life gets in the way, but I also feel like I'm making excuses other times. I mean, look at this:
This is the current stack of books I haven't read, but bought. I'm a failure at life. Anyway, I'm knocking these out as well before I buy any other books. Promise!3. Lose 10 pounds in fat, gain 10 in muscle.I've just started a routine with my roommate where I'm hitting the gym four times a week. In between those days, I plan on running at least once. So for most of the week, I'll be active for at least an hour. Working out is half of the formula, though. Eating healthy and having smaller portions is something I plan on picking up as well.4. Produce videos more often.Now that I've had some experience with learning my way around After Effects and Premiere Pro, I feel like I should start utilizing a part of my time with creating video content. I really enjoyed everything I did with last year's project, but this year will consist of a series of videos, rather than one gigantic movie. I intend on producing some kind of small video series, and I have a few ideas that I'd like to get out, just for fun! My goal is not to somehow become viral and famous, but to produce something that someone might end up finding one day that may be helpful to them. And of course, I'd love to use this as much as possible:
5. Create programming libraries in Swift that will help others.I need to learn Swift, flat out. I've put it off for many reasons, the primary one being that it was in flux all last year. It seems to be pretty stable though, and I know that at some point in the iOS culture, Swift will be the successor to Objective-C. Plus, it looks to be a pretty fun language to learn. Using this, along with previous libraries I've created, I want to port them over and make them better, so other developers can simply include them into their projects and use them at will.6. Write a RESTful API in Python.I'm still pretty new to the whole back-end development world, and I want to get my hands dirty with it. I've had small experiences with using an existing Ruby library and hosting it on my own server, but I didn't really learn a whole bunch out of it. Rather, I want to take that project, make a comparable translation in Python, and deploy it myself. It'll give me a better idea of how communication works between servers and its consumers, and what strategies can be applied to make an API efficient and clean.7. Cook more often.I worked on this a bit last year, but I do want to increase my competency in cooking. The more I know, the less likely I'll resort to eating out...which will equate to spending less money.
These are the current resolutions for 2015, although I'm sure I'll come up with more as the year goes on. A month has already gone by, so I'll have to do some catching up on some of these! Let's see how well I do by the beginning of 2016. :)What are your New Year's Resolutions? List them below in the comments section! I'll be writing more often, so if you find my random thoughts to be entertaining (for some reason or another), feel free to like and share this post! Until next time,Corey