NEW YEAR’S

New Year’s Resolutions Recap

There’s a time when the New Year’s Resolutions we make really matter.

The turning point that made mine worth while occurred

at the end of 2006.

Going back  to that moment and counting my blessings, I am happy to say that by now my extended 2006 NYR not only came true in their entirety, but their number multiplied!

Next on the list…

2010 _ the first ALENS CD, working, working, working…
2009 _ development of ALENS, publishing of “The Incomplete Fantasy We Call Love” (ISBN: 978-83-7465-106-6)

2007 _ initiation of ALENS,  publishing opportunities research for “The Incomplete Fantasy We Call Love”

Extended NYR List for 2007

[from an email sent December 21st, 2006]

Hello, dear Krakow trainees!

Since Christmas is just a few days away, I want to make sure everyone gets my “Merry Christmas”, in case you decide to spend it in other cities, like me, for instance. I will leave Krakow no sooner than this Saturday, so we might still meet in the mean time – there is always Friday night…

The purpose of my message is to send you not only my best wishes, but also a a three-page long Christmas present wrapped up in the attached file.

Don’t read it if you are in a hurry, ’cause it will make you angry because of its length.

Don’t read it if you are hungry, because you’ll get hungrier, and also if you are very tired it is better not to rush into it.

You can leave it for a time when you are comfortably seated in a chair and ready to enjoy some ideas. It can wait.

In a year’s time I expect you to forward it back to me in an email.

You have by now guessed what my Christmas present for you is: my fresh New Year’s Resolutions.

They have a nice coffee smell from where I’m sitting.

Open it and check for yourselves!

In the attachment you’ll have my response/ objectives related to the 7 areas of interest for 2007 (learning, environment, time management, etc.)

The “assignment” I set upon myself and others was answering these questions:

1. How many of the NYR would make you materially successful? (number/percentage)

2. How many of the NYR would make you spiritually successful? (number/percentage)

3. What is it you search for in life? (percentage analysis)

There you go. Hope you’ll enjoy them!

Alina

NYR for 2007

or

A Possible Version of

My New Year’s Resolutions

[shorter version]

A long time ago, when I was a little girl, I took a chair, brought it close to the window, sat in it, and started waiting patiently for that moment when the day would melt into darkness, because I wanted to seize that precise moment when the day was just about to end and the night about to begin. After waiting for a while I wasan sad to discover that I could never tell when that moment occurred,  exactly, no matter how hard I tried to concentrate while looking at the sky. Darkness was approaching so subtly that I was always tricked into missing the end of the day.

As the little girl grew up, I remember her throwing away, year after year, agenda after agenda, memories or thoughts she did not want to own anymore. Even though she used to hold the pages under dripping water to make sure the ink on the pages was completely washed out before throwing them away, because what had once belonged to her was not supposed to be read by anybody else, past is not something one can drown with tap water. Maybe that is because the past did not belong only to her, because memories were always partly shared; but she refused to see it then.

The drowning of memories year after year and their reemerging to the surface again and again, like ghosts of the past, meant that I could never definitely tell how and when, at what moment exactly, this confused little girl grew into the person I am right now, the girl that has finally learnt how to laugh.

The last three years have almost made me forgot about the smile I used to have when I was a student, in five of  the best years in my life. My smile was literally shining during my University years and I loved learning more and more as time passed by. I was the one to say “Goodbye” for everybody in the end, as I graduated top of my year… But as all student years eventually have to come to an end, I had to start working. I was a good teacher, and got the same appreciation from my former professors. Strangely enough, I got less appreciation from my coworkers, the better my work became.

Things started shining again last year, when I joined Aiesec and started a second Masters in human resources, and they have been definitely shining more brightly since I started teaching at the Jagiellonian University Language Centre. Krakow seems to be the perfect environment for me to develop by doing what I know how to do best: communicating with, motivating,  entertaining, advising and helping people. This is what I have been looking for in my life all along, and my experience here confirms it. This is why, unlike before, I need to remember 2006, and use this year’s memories to set the right resolutions for 2007. These might be the best years in my life, and I don’t need to wait patiently in a chair to figure it out. I could not see it before, but now I know that waiting for “that special time” is not the right way to search for something in your life. We should live our lives as if they are always special, which is actually true, even if we refuse to see it sometimes.

If we remember that what is special about now is something we might never find again, then we will know how to create a special future for ourselves, and the memories we will gain day by day would make our past something that will always be worth remembering.

I know I started writing about the New Year’s resolutions against the rules that I set myself, by answering the last and hardest question. In doing this I have not neglected the previous two questions, not at all. As I see it, I don’t need to quantify the resolutions on spiritual and material success. These are just meant to provide me with the auxiliary answers that will guide me to the conclusion that I already know.  What I have been always looking for in my life is beauty, an  ever-changing beauty, just like the ever-changing colour of the sky – bringing together light and darkness into the sign of a storm or a wonderful day –, a beauty that is at times so misleading, but at other times so amazingly charming that you can only find it in the human soul. It is a beauty that likes to lie hidden in the innermost corners of our “children’s” hearts, and the ones who discover it succeed most of the times by putting together fragments of it which they have seen in many people they have managed to get to know throughout their life. I see fragments of this beauty in all of you, and day by day I am gathering new pieces to add to this infinite puzzle that is our life. The fact that I might never finish this puzzle does not worry me. What darkens the clear waters of my dream is the growing number of  “goodbyes” that I will have to receive before I will also give mine to the rest of you. Saying “goodbye” seems to be like drinking the same glass of water that instead of being crystal clear, as it is with every new beginning,  becomes darker and darker from one “goodbye” drop to another, and knowing that, the darker it gets, the sooner or later you will have to drink it. Luckily for us, there are always new glasses to fill with the water of fresh experiences, so we don’t grow only darker and wiser, but also brighter, so that we manage to shine in spite of the clouds.

There are at least seven new empty glasses that I plan to drink from in 2007:

1. The glass of learning

I would like to learn more about myself, about how to adjust to different situations. Improving the way I learn will help me improve the way of learning of other people, which will make me very happy, so I should tick this for the years to come.

There are a few languages that I can understand more than 50% of, like German, Italian, Spanish and French, so it would be a pity not to improve my knowledge of them next year(s). I should also add Polish to the list, especially the Polish phrases the students wrote in my copybook.

I would like to continue designing and delivering trainings, and it would be great if I could start working part-time in a training company. Combining training and teaching, the experience that I am building here in Krakow as a teacher will be the basis for the book for the young teaching professionals worldwide that I plan to write by next summer on the ways to improve the quality of teaching. In order to do this it is important to finish reading all the books that I have already started and start reading new ones. There’s no end to learning.

Learning to play the piano would be another accomplishment to have in my 2007 learning glass, and also taking dancing classes just for the fun of it.

Keeping in touch with all my old and new teachers, professors, mentors, students and friends is another learning priority for me.

The outcome of all of the above would be that, one day, I could say “I have found my signature”, which would be more than being able to write down my name in a particular way. It would mean that I have learnt how to act, talk, move, smile, work, play, dance and interact in a way that I will be proud to recognize as my own.

2. The health glass

I’ll always search for sights, sounds, and other such “ingredients” that will help me and the people I know to fight off the stress, tiredness and boredom that at times inevitably creeps into our lives. Sometime in the future, for instance,  I may start attending yoga classes.

An advice I give to everyone is one I should follow myself: allow yourself to find the best ways of expressing yourself, whether it is by dancing, writing, composing, or playing a sport. This is so beneficial for your health that you should always have this in mind, and be open for similar experiences.

One thing that I sometimes have even too much of is energy. My main concern should be to harness this energy into the right direction, and towards good ends. That will be really healthy!

3. The time management glass

At the end of each day I should give myself some moments’ rest in which I would remember all the good things that have happened to me during that day. I would like to live each day fully aware of  what I have to do and enjoy it. In case I won’t enjoy it, I’d like to have the energy to find out that enjoyable something and pursue it. I’d also like to have at least one project growing in my mind constantly, and I’d like to wake up in the morning with a big smile on my face at the thought of the new things that are just waiting to happen in my life. What I won’t like to do is wasting my time frowning or being angry at things I cannot control. That’s why it would be very helpful to have a “smile” ready for everybody and also to keep my “smile” pocket full, just in case.

What I should always try to do is improving the quality of my time, so that I could turn ordinary weekdays into quality-time days.

4. Relationships’ glass

Everyone would like this glass to be full. However, the most difficult thing is not to fill it, but to keep the contents clear. Here is where the mistakes of  the past come in handy, and I’d like to think that I won’t stumble over my old mistakes all over again.

Using every opportunity that may arise, I’d like to make new friends from all over the world and learn a world from them.

At the end of the next year I would also like to be able to say that I have made positive changes in the lives of at least 107 people: ninety-three students and about fourteen Krakow trainees.

5. Environment glass

In my environment I’d like to feel like a fish in the water: safe, not bothered by anything around me that I shouldn’t worry about – the cost of living, peeling wallpaper, screeching tram wheels, monthly tickets, registration queues and so on. Since I arrived in Krakow I have been pretty good at ignoring these aspects of reality, and I can say that I’ll be glad to continue in the same line next year. (This definitely was impossible in my country, where this reality is the first thing that greets you in the morning.)

As a result, I sometimes get the feeling of walking or rather floating a few centimeters above the ground, weightless, which also gives me much more speed in thinking and “seeing” ahead. I hope I won’t forget this feeling, because when you do, it is my opinion, that is when you become yet another hunchback under a pile of worries that really weigh much less than you think.

6. Financial situation glass

First, there are two things that will make me happy: a piano and a new laptop. Second, there will be my own house, and everything that goes with it.  I’m still reversing the order of these two material signs of success in my mind. In stead of this, my concern should really be with monthly earnings, which I should constantly try to increase. Somehow, I may be able to do that, but a 2006 “may” is weaker than a 2006 “must.” I may only hope that 2007 will be no worse.

7. Setting priorities glass

I should have here a café latte glass with six different layers that would look so nice if you only think about it: the two lightest layers on the top, the “learning” layer with a sweet soft cream of “relationships” over it, supported by the heavier layers of  “time management”,  “health”, and “environment”, and finally, at the bottom, the heaviest of all, the “financial” layer.

I hope the drinks I prepared for me in 2007 were light enough for you to enjoy.

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