“New year, new me,” that’s all I’ve been hearing. Let’s be honest, just because the last digit of the year changes overnight, doesn’t mean you will.
For some reason most people always use the New Year as an excuse to become a “better” person than they were last year. They make all these New Year’s resolutions that they usually have a hard time keeping.
The most popular is getting in shape and hitting the gym on a regular basis. Even with the strongest willpower, this is only going to last for a couple weeks. After those days pass you’re back to midnight snacking, afternoon naps, eating out every night and saying “I’ll go to the gym tomorrow” and it never happens.
Everyone has something that they want to change for the New Year, but the most interesting resolutions are those of a college student, which are based on incidents that occurred the semester prior. Mistakes were made and these college goers would prefer not to repeat them.
For instance, my resolutions consist of not putting so much energy arguing over petty issues, making more time with friends I had the tendency to neglect and the ever so popular effort to stop procrastinating. These seem pretty basic and doable, but I know there are college students out there that have a much different approach to what they are planning to change for the new year.
Warning: The following resolutions are merely predictions based off the observation of my fellow classmates.
The party girl a.k.a. “The drunkest girl at the party” will make the resolution not to make a fool of herself at the parties she attends. She will make an effort not to be drunk before 9 p.m. so that she will be coherent enough to acknowledge that just because her friends are invited to a room to pre-game, doesn’t mean she was. She’ll be able to realize that there are people that genuinely do not like her and nor do they want her in their room.
Consequently preventing her from going back to her room a shoeless, drunken, emotional mess and risk further embarrassment as she faces her sober roommates.
The angry frat guy will learn to pace himself when he drinks so that he can actually realize when is he beginning to get drunk. That way, if his frat brothers play a prank on him (and they will) his equilibrium won’t be completely out of whack and he won’t miss when he tries to hit one of them.
Then there’s the “inconsiderate dorm slut”. Everybody knows her name, where her room is, doesn’t actually like her, but will sleep with her in a heartbeat. She will make an effort to wear the proper underwear beneath her already extremely short skirt in the hopes that she can keep some of her goodies under wraps. She probably won’t change her “snuggling” habits and will continue to bring questionably attractive guys back to her dorm room, but this time she will actually remember their names in the morning.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, there is the quiet, shy college student who has been fortunate enough not to have any drunken stories or “I wish I didn’t do that” experiences. They seem to be on the right track, however, they are sick of being the spectator and they want to have an experience that’s worthy of talking about. Sadly, they’ll pick a night to get drunk, find out they are a lightweight, throw up and won’t even make it out their dorm room to the actual party.
Obviously this isn’t the life of every college student. There are students that make goals that will actually help them strive to do better. They vow to do better in school, find a job and do more productive activities as opposed to partying, however some would rather vow not to show up to class hung over, not drink on Tic Toc Tuesdays and not lose their shoes after a long night of partying.
The problem with college resolutions, or resolutions in general, is actually keeping them. Once the New Year begins, most people are under this notion that they will miraculously become this different person overnight; it doesn’t happen that way.
If you’re going to make a real resolution, do it when you’re ready to actually commit and put forth the effort, not because it’s a New Year. Nine times out of 10, things will never go as planned. So when the New Year starts, be the one person that watches the other nine people around you relapse from their “new self” back into their old habits.
Dominique Barchus can be reached at dominique.barchus@spartans.ut.edu