Happy New Year

Many of the blogs I read have shunned New Year’s resolutions this year. I personally like them. I like to take the time to ponder my goals for the coming year. What do I want to accomplish? What do I hope to achieve?

I just looked at my post from last year. Talk about prophetic. I wrote, I feel some huge change is coming that will likely impact any plans I make, any goals I set. Wow.

It’s been an incredible year. My husband finished law school, passed the Colorado Bar and the Patent Bar exams and began work as a patent attorney. I applied for and ultimately won my dream job. Tomorrow I begin a new career. I feel so excited, nervous, hopeful, driven, overwhelmed and exuberant all at the same time. I hope that I will sleep. It is like the night before Christmas morning. Tomorrow I get to open presents.

I have spent the holiday week tidying up details related to my old job as the acting director of my research institute. We are in the process of closing a 50,000 square foot facility and moving the research laboratories to the main University campus. Our last biotech tenant moved out last week. We will probably move our own laboratories in the next two weeks. I almost got everything done that I hoped to before leaving. Today I sent numerous memos out to the affected people for those last details on so very many work(s) in progress.

It took some serious negotiating by I am remaining as the principal investigator on my research grant at my old institution, retaining my research faculty appointment there. I have been so incredibly fortunately in my supervisors. My former boss who stepped down as Dean over the summer has agreed to serve as my co-principal investigator and oversee the day to day operations of the project. His replacement, who started on September 1, requested that I give her (and my current institution) my Saturdays for the duration of the research grant. She rightfully reminded me of my need to finish what I had started, to complete and publish the work. My new boss, Dean of the Business School at a different institution, has agreed to all of this. I am truly blessed. I won’t sleep much in the coming year but it’s the right thing. Thankfully the NIH has approved these changes in principal and several folks helped me get all of the appropriate paperwork filed before the holiday.

So what does 2008 hold? I have no idea. I am heading into the unknown, leaving that well worn path.

However, there are some things, beyond work, that I plan to focus on.

(1) Fitness. With all of the other changes over the last year, fitness fell off of my list of priorities. It’s time. I’ve found a plan that I think I can stick with. I mentioned a few days ago that I had recently invested in Turbulence Training. I’m not sure whether I will sign up for the 12 week challenge (but the lure of prizes does tempt me), but I will start doing the workouts 3 days a week. Of course the first one I tried, workout A from the 500 workout, left me virtually crippled for 3 days. I need to start with the beginner program or perhaps the intermediate. I was reading through one of the e-books and he recommended that for the first week you just do one set of everything. I think that would have been much smarter for me.

(2) Spanish. Living in Colorado it’s somewhat embarrassing that I know absolutely NO Spanish. I took French and Latin in high school with more Latin in college. I ordered Learning Spanish Like Crazy last year but have not get gotten past lesson 5. When I ordered it, from learningspanishlikecrazy.com, it came with FSI Programmatic Spanish Level 1 and Level 2 as well. Like with fitness, this is surely something that I commit to regularly. I even have some of the CDs in my car, I just don’t listen to them. Partly this is just because I learn best in the classroom. Partly just laziness. And perhaps a bit of avoidance of an activity that is challenging. It does not come naturally. I may need to actually sign up for a graded class just to get over the hump. My husband is going to be taking a few more classes this spring so I should have some time and a great role model.