2015 Resolutions

I'm going back to Vanuatu today. I had planned to write a really deep, heartfelt post that would talk about how I felt about leaving America, again. But, as usual, it's 7 in the morning and I just finished packing, so ... New Year's Resolution.

I don't want to do resolutions like lose 15 pounds or jog 4 days a week, because I'd rather be all loosey-goosey about it. In Peace Corps, we talk a lot about monitoring and evaluating, and how you can either see results quantitatively or qualitatively. As a volunteer, you want to only say qualitative things--the girls in my youth group know more about goal setting than they did before!--but everyone else wants hard numbers. If you do a workshop on hand washing, say, someone's going to want to read phrases like "25 adult women learned the 3 important times you wash your hands," not just "the mamas attended a workshop." But since this is my life, no quantitative resolutions. Only qualitative ones.

Resolution 1. Stay island. I love Vanuatu, and I don't want to fall out of love with it over the course of this next year. I want to keep having fun in Vanuatu and enjoy it for what it is, not get mad about what it isn't. In one of our volunteer newsletters, our former nurse discussed a vol who said he grew up in Vanuatu. I get that.

Resolution 2. Get my house nice, and keep it nice. I don't count my last house as really being a real house, because it had a gravel floor and mold and a million rats and cockroaches. In fact, now that I've moved out of Chez Nakahu, I've realized just how gross and horrible it was. (I guess that's proof my head was in the game ... or that I'm just really, really lax about things I shouldn't be lax about.) Anyway, my new house is much nicer--running water, cement floors, you know, the  basics. I just want to get it really nice. I bought a fridge, a rice cooker, a toaster, a stove, going to buy a fan ... Just want it to be good. I don't want to be sitting on my floor bemoaning my existence because of material goods this next year. I think you would start to laugh if you realized just how much of my attention, over two years in Tongariki, went towards thinking about what I needed to buy in Au Bon Marche, and how frequently I talked myself out of buying "unnecessary" things like jam and soup mix. Especially after coming back to America for this past month, it's clear that I was starting to get a bit too ascetic and probably could try to live it up a little bit. You know, like by owning more than two sets of silverware.

Resolution 3. Treat myself the way Kanye treats Kanye. Self explanatory.