Reaching for the Stars: 2017 Recap & 2018 Resolutions

"reach for the stars."

One of my favorite methods to remain organized and relax is maintaining my agenda. I adore lists, and writing things down ensures I remember and accomplish them. No matter how small the task, recognizing that I have completed something and reviewing my progress reaffirms my efforts and inspires me to tackle that essay, run those miles, mind map that test, plan that meeting.

Like my weekly agenda spreads, the new year offers an opportunity to reflect and look to the future. Setting goals while appreciating the change, work, and guidance I've encountered allows me to keep striving. Here are my memories of 2017 and the stars I hope to reach in 2018.

2017 recap

i. finished my sophomore year of high school, and began my junior year. 

Completing and starting school years might seem mundane, but my second and third years of high school have each hosted unique experiences and markers in my personal growth. My sophomore year encapsulated my two favorite classes, English and human geography, and trying new things. Junior year, so far, has involved classes that continue to make me think, solidifying my friendships, discovering my interests, lots of mind-mapping, and of course, lots of extracurriculars. In both years, I have challenged myself, and learned to love learning again.

ii. created.

Academic essays. Blog posts. Mind maps. Personal narratives. Videos, lots and lots of videos. Quick jots in the margins of notes and agenda headers and on index cards. Pictures and wall displays. 

iii. used sparklers for the first time.

While filming a summer video project with friends, I finally held these miniature fireworks. Seeing the sparks fly that night invigorated something in me. 

iv. walked in a parade with my local library.

v. started running again, even if slow.

Throughout moving and change, running has always been my anchor. Until, suddenly, it wasn't.

My sophomore year, I encountered a relentless mental block after tearing my hamstring during track season. For a long time, I couldn't walk. The tiniest steps became excruciating, and even after several months provided my physical recovery, I couldn't stop comparing myself to my previous times and ability. I still struggle, sometimes, but to start this year I wanted to acknowledge that I ran again, however slow, to remind myself why I loved running so and to keep persisting. 

vi. sang at Disneyworld. 

vii. explored through extracurriculars.

In 2017, I delved into Model UN, attending my first two conferences and a wonderful summer camp. I coordinated volunteers, designed graphics, created origami cactus flowers, and a lot of other assorted tasks for my school's musical production team. I competed with my best friend in a public forum debate competition for the first time. I wrote for MissHeard Media and Best Delegate. Chorus reminded me of my love of music in times light and dark. 

viii. got a domain name for clairefy!

2018 resolutions

i. read 100 books.

This is something I have aimed to do every year since I started high school! When I was much younger, I was a voracious reader, clearing 200-400 books a year. Now, I pleasure read a lot less, often blaming schoolwork for this change, but I want to make more time to read this year. Reading is a gateway to new words, new lessons, new adventures, and new worlds I want to be a part of again.

ii. on that note, log completed reads.

Although I admittedly read little last year, I was awful about recording the few books I did read. After January I abandoned my Goodreads account, the platform I was using to track my progress for the year, so I ended with the six books I logged, even though I read more (maybe not many more, but more).

iii. like the sparklers, try something new and exciting.

iv. stay active on clairefy.

I love this blog. It displays my growth since I started writing online at the end of eighth grade. Still, I fall in and out of repetitive hiatuses, celebrating a return just to disappear. I hope this will be the year I remain consistent (and the new domain name serves as an exciting motivator)! I plan to accomplish this through yes, a lot of scheduling, but also writing about what I am interested in and enjoy.

v. take more time for me.

vi. but also conquer grades and the SAT.

vii. keep creating.

The best way to improve writing is to write, a lot. I want to keep writing, taking pictures, creating elaborate wall collages, organizing agendas, adoring multi-colored pens, making videos I fondly edit for hours, and scribbling tiny notes on index cards.

viii. hanon it up.

I started playing piano at a young age, but as I have grown older, I play less (and, I again, blame schoolwork often). Piano is my paradox: it is there, always, to comfort me when I am stressed, to captivate me with clear notes that ring above bright staccato or conflicted dissonance, but it is also absent, hesitant from my now unpracticed fingers, my left hand especially. Over winter break, I returned to playing some warm-up exercises from my Hanon book, and recognized that I have room to grow, but these exercises that burn my forearms and stretch my fingers help me make the music I miss. The Hanon book instructs players to repeat the exercises in an unbroken chain when mastered to "achieve perfect evenness of the fingers". This year, I am going to achieve perfect evenness of the fingers.

viiii. stay in touch with friends old and new.

x. run happy.

I used to collect all my race bibs and write little messages about my race highlights on them. I stopped after I tore my hamstring last year. I want to start collecting my bibs again, and more importantly, taking pride in what I have done and enjoying what I run. A quote from my resolutions list last year, that encompasses my aims for this year:

I want to rediscover the love of running I found in my first cross country season-- bold, fearless, covered in mud and sweat and tears and satisfied.

xi. stay kind. stay thoughtful. stay curious. stay imaginative. stay driven.

what goals do you have for the new year?