Warning: lame personal post coming up.

For the past 19 years, I’ve led a pretty vanilla life. Everyday, y’know, just the usual.

And that, of course, means that I’m a pretty normal guy. I can’t say I’ve accomplished that much, though that is always the goal when I start yet another project. It’s unfortunate, really, I think some of my ideas are pretty good. At least, they would be if I put any effort into them. I’ve coasted for the last few years of my life. GCSE results were great, but that was to be expected given the school I went to. A-Levels should have been spectacular, but I didn’t put any effort in. Is it bad that I still got great results? Obviously, my A-Levels affected the university I got into. Interesting fact, if I had put in just 30 more UMS worth of effort into my A-Level subjects, I would be studying at UCL right now. In fact, with the results I got, I was lucky to get into Bath (I missed the requirements by a grade). What this has taught me is that I’m good enough to get by even without much effort. That probably sounds conceited, and it is. I haven’t yet had the experience of wanting something so much that I put all my effort into acheiving it, because I know I’ll be alright in the end. Knowing that has caused everything to taste like vanilla. Meh. Nothing special.

I don’t think that should be enough. I know I can do more, but I don’t. Am I scared of failing something? I don’t think so, I’ve messed up quite a few things… actually, all my failures have come from me not doing something. There’s that time I let down a friend by not fulfilling my promises and avoiding contact with him, there’s my educational defecits, and there’s the last week or so where I spent all my time not doing work. The last one is pretty standard for a student, I expect, but I don’t think of myself as a student at the moment, given that I don’t study. I may have watched over sixty episodes of Castle, I may have enjoyed it at the time, but it didn’t get me anywhere. I probably don’t remember what happened in half of them, apart from Castle and Beckett fumbling their relationships a lot.

I intend to change this year. 2011 may not have been the best year I’ve had (2009 was pretty good, what with that trip to Thailand; but I guess every year has been pretty much the same). I want to make 2012 the year where I achieve things. I want to be a better Rikki  by the end of the year. I’ve already ticked one thing off the list; I finally went to the doctor and and got a problem fixed (the operation I had last monday was the reason I had time to watch four seasons of Castle – housebound for a week, doctor’s orders).

I want to start running. For real this time. there’s a pretty nice 3km route near my house, and I’m going to run it at least once a week. I want to get serious with some of the projects I’ve started. Making a Windows Phone app is part of my university coursework anyway, so I’d like to make another one of my own. I’ve got two half baked website ideas with the domains just sitting unused and the sites half-finished, so I should do something about them. There’s also my* forum’s game development project, so I’d like to see that be successful. I’d like to be more open, in life and also when I write online. I want to ace my exams.

So, I guess I’d better get started. I’ll try and make 2012 a more interesting flavour.