Finish Dystopolis. For those new to this website, Dystopolis is a series of six short stories that I started writing in 2009. That should tell you how much of a fucking millstone it’s become around my neck, especially considering that as of now only the first few paragraphs of the first story are done. It’s not lack of interest, it’s not lack of ideas - I have plenty of both - but more to do with a big dollop of security and the fact that literature degrees make you constantly critically analyse every single word you utter. Now that the latter’s over and I’m not doing so awfully with the former, and there’s the clichéd symbol of renewal minutes away, now’s a good time to start. If you want to read more about this, have a look here.
Watch more films. This year was aggressively focused on video games, in part because I was catching up - I got a gaming laptop at the end of 2011, and have purchased over two hundred (largely with my student loan) since then. And they’re fun! Some are even really life-affirming and redefine what’s possible in a creative medium (most aren’t, but the knowledge that they could transcend the power of films and books if they really tried gives me shivers). Unfortunately, I kind of left films by the wayside - I got through a few this year, but not nearly enough. While I don’t think I’ll ever match Andrew or Sarah, but I want to reclaim it as a geeky obsession. I’ll be posting about them in the same vein as stuff like this.
Read more. As above. I’m very inventive with these, aren’t I?
Keep the momentum going when I get to the US. This is something I haven’t really given much thought to. Right now, Arden and I are planning for my emigration, which will take a while, and then there’ll be a period of a few months where I won’t legally be able to work and will be a little limited in terms of my capacity to get settled, but there’ll come a point when I will - and the idea of setting up my life in another country, even with all the financial and emotional safeguards in place, is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. I only see this becoming a pressing concern in the latter half of the year, but it’s one that deserves some consideration. By the end of 2013, I will be in a drastically different environment.
Don’t leave a mess behind. My best friend’s going to miss me, even though he thinks that this is going to be good for me. My parents are more cautious - in part because they don’t know enough, and in part because so much of this - a wholly secular interpretation of marriage, and the potential for a relationship formed online - is alien to them, but they’ll miss me too. Regardless of their opinions, I want to leave behind a connection that’s as stable as possible. The last year’s big emotional points of tension have been external, but moving to another country is cause for strengthening bonds rather than testing them. We can grapple over ideological differences in the future; right now, a bitten tongue goes further than a loose one.
Get fitter. Shed everything I no longer use. Be a good husband. Keep improving my confidence around strangers, and be better to my friends. Keep an eye on the little things.

These get shorter each year, and I think that has to be a good thing. I might be growing up. I’m not sure yet.