Venkat Koduru’s Blog

Action. Take six. Start Act One. I check Facebook and notice that the dates above previous wall posts are accompanied by a year. Instead of saying “12/20″ as they did five days ago, they now say “12/20/08″. Cut, it’s time to begin Act Two. I look at an ATM receipt that was printed last night. Above the stars representing the digits of my card, with the last four plainly printed, are the date and time: “01/03/09 21:17″. Alright, alright …. break time everyone! (5 minutes) And it’s lights …. camera …. action. We’re on Act Three now. The iChat icon is right next to the Calendar one. I accidentally clicked the Calendar icon. Naturally a calendar pops up informing me that the month is now “January 2009″. Pardon my French. Act Quatre. My mom writes a check. I can’t help but notice that at the top right she inks in “1/4/2009″. Okay, Mark head over to that corner… no, not there; move to the rrr-wait you got it! Perfect. Right over there. Onto Act Six. While writing this blog post, I can’t help but notice the title I’ve selected. Wait, what’s that after “Resolutions”. Oh, wow; it reads “‘09″.

Six signs. It’s ‘09.

“Well done.” The curtain starts to close. Welcome to ‘09! ; ) Now, the director shuffles through the closing curtains, and walks onto stage. “Winks are hot now,” he says. He proceeds to wink, bow, and then exit just as the right half of the curtain meets the left.

1. Use a To-Do list. Honestly, I have to do this or else I’m gonna die of sleep-deprivation and insomnia. It’s 11PM. I have an essay due tomorrow. Most sensible people would grab a Red Bull, waffle or two, and get cracking. Instead, I watch Arrested Development on Hulu and then at 2 in the morning, I grab a Steaz Organic Soda, Vermont Bread Honey Wheat English Muffin, and finally, after all that, get started. I’m up working ’till 6. And ya know what? That’s tough when this routine is an every-other-day ordeal.

2. Don’t do nothing. Anything is better than nothing. I spend about *hmmm* 15% of my life doing nothing. And by that, I mean sitting at my desk, thinking about what to do… or lying in bed ’cause I don’t know what else to do. Okay? It’s not that I don’t have anything to do. I have lots to do. In fact, I have so much to do, that I could forfeit a whole week’s sleep and still have more left to do. From now on, when I find myself sitting at my desk pondering what to do, I’m gonna do one of three things: A) Work on Depity, B) Read something (preferably for English class or see Resolution 6), C) Watch a video on Hulu (at least I’d be having fun). What I’m not going to do is stalk random people on Facebook.

3. Break up assignments into chunks. This fits in quite well with the To-Do list. Instead of keeping that Chem Packet for the Thursday before it’s due, I’ll start on Monday. I have work on Mondays, so maybe I’d do 7 questions that day if it’s a 50-question packet. But I must write exactly how many questions I’m gonna do on the To Do list or else I’m not gonna do anything.

4. Close unneeded windows/programs on my computer. This might seem silly… but it helps. Whenever I have too many things open, I end up off task. If I’m doing an essay, I should have Word open to type, and Firefox open to look up synonyms in a thesaurus (that way I can use “big words” and sound “sophisticated”). Exception: AIM, Skype, etc, etc, are okay, because without them I feel totally disconnected… but CLOSE Facebook. Facebook and Hulu are the two top reasons I’m so bad at getting things done… and my favorite scapegoats. ; )

5. Go on the elliptical once a day for 30 minutes. I better put this one on the To-Do List too, ’cause like everything else, it’s not happening otherwise. Dude, I gotta work off the bad food I’ve been eating.

6. Learn about one new thing each day. Okay, this one’s the “extra”. (EXTRA EXTRA) Everyday, I’m gonna teach myself something. It could be about a certain country, person, exotic vacation destination, or catchy pickup line(s)… anything really.

And that’s it for New Year’s Resolutions ‘09. Stay tuned for next year’s show…. Oh, and please leave a tip. The producer/director/actor would greatly appreciate it. Send an e-mail over and I’ll give you the address.

Happy, happy, happy 2009! Most importantly, remember winks are HOT in ‘09. ; )