No New Year's Resolutions for Me!

Instead of a New Year's resolution, I decided to make a really, really long list. I think that we all have things that we want to accomplish in our lives. I think everone has a list in their head of things that we each dream of doing. I decided to write my list down and add to the list as I grow older. I also want to write about accomplishing all of these things. Some of them I have already accomplished, and I have a feeling that some of them will never happen. Spending the last few months in medical school has left me with the realization that there is never enough time, so don't waste it. The list is in no particular order, and the things I want to do range from mundane to stupid, but they are what make me unique. The red items are ones that I have accomplished.

"Have a dream, make a plan, go for it. You'll get there, I promise."

1. Throw a huge party and invite everyone I know.
2. Swim with a dolphin
3. Skydive
4. Have your portrait painted (nude)
5. Learn to speak a foreign language and use it
6. Go skinny dipping in the south of France at night
7. Watch the launch of a space shuttle
8. Spend a whole day eating junk food and not feel guilty
9. Be an extra in a film
10. Tell someone my life story, sparing no details
11. Make love on a forest floor
12. Make love on a train while it is moving
13. Make love on a boat
14. Own a room with a view.
15. Brew my own beer.
16. Make my own wine
17. Learn how to take a compliment
18. Buy a round-the-world air ticket and a rucksack, and run away.
19. Give your mother a dozen red roses and tell her you love her.
20. Be a member of the audience in a TV show.
21. Send a message in a bottle.
22. Ride a camel into the desert.
23. Get to know your neighbors (July 2007)
24. Plant a tree.
25. Learn not to say yes when you really mean no.
26. Write a fan letter to your all-time favorite hero or heroine.
27. Visit the Senate and the House of Representatives to see how Congress really works.
28. Learn to ballroom dance properly.
29. Be the boss.
30. Ride the Trans-Siberian Express across Asia.
31. Sit on a jury.
32. Go to Walden Pond and read Thoreau while drifting in a canoe.
33. Stay out all night dancing and go to work the next day without having gone home (just once). 34. Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich.
35. Be someone's mentor.
36. Shower in a waterfall.
37. Ask for a raise.
38. Learn to play a musical instrument with some degree of skill.
39. Teach someone illiterate to read.
40. Spend a night in a haunted house
41. See a lunar eclipse.
42. Spend New Year's in an exotic location.
43. Get passionate about a cause and spend time helping it, instead of just thinking about it.
44. Ask someone you've only just met to go on a date.
45. Drive across America from coast to coast.
46. Make a complete and utter fool of yourself.
47. Own one very expensive business suit.
48. Write your will.
49. Take a ride on the highest roller coaster in the country
50. Learn how to complain effectively
51. Go wild in Rio during Carnival
52. Spend a whole day reading a great novel.
53. Forgive your parents.
54. Learn to juggle with three balls.
55. Drive the Autobahn.
56. Find a job you love.
57. Spend Christmas on the beach drinking pina coladas.
58. Overcome your fear of failure
59. Raft through the Grand Canyon
60. Donate money and put your name on something: a college scholarship, a bench in the park.
61. Buy your own house and then spend time making it into exactly what you want
62. Spend three months getting your body into optimum shape
63. Drive a convertible with the top down and music blaring.
64. Accept yourself for who you are.
65. Learn to use a microphone and give a speech in public.
66. Scuba dive off Australia's Great Barrier Reef
67. Go up in a hot-air balloon
68. Attend one really huge rock concert.
69. Kiss someone you've just met on a blind date.
70. Give to a charity – anonymously
71. Lose more money than you can afford at roulette in Vegas.
72. Let someone feed you peeled, seedless grapes.
73. Kiss the Blarney stone
74. Fart in a crowded space.
75. Make love on the kitchen floor
76. Create your own web site.
77. Make yourself spend a half-day at a concentration camp and swear never to forget.
78. Run to the top of the Statue of Liberty.
79. Create your Family Tree.
80. Catch a ball in the stands of a major league baseball stadium.
81. Make a hole-in-one.
82. Ski a double-black diamond run.
83. Learn to bartend.
84. Run a marathon.
85. Look into your child's eyes, see yourself, and smile.
86. Reflect on your greatest weakness, and realize how it is your greatest strength.
87. Follow the Nile and see the pyramids.
88. Give Birth
89. See a baseball game at Yankee Stadium
90. Climb a mountain (maybe Mt. Everest)
91. Visit all 50 states
92. Go on a cruise
93. Find a four leaf clover
94. Smoke a cuban cigar in Cuba
95. See all the seven wonders of the world
96. See stone henge
97. Hike the Appalachian Trail
98. Participate in a Pow Wow with American Indians
99. See the Northern Lights
100. Get married
101. Read 1000 books
102. Own a t-shirt with a band name on it
103. Adopt an animal from the shelter
104. Get a massage
105. Do Yoga
106. Visit Antartica
107. Eat Sushi
108. Fly First Class
109. Visit all of the Disney Theme Parks
110. Hold a snake
111. Go camping
112. Go on a honeymoon
113. Learn how to cook
114. Visit Vietnam with my dad
115. Play a round of golf with my pop
116. Bunjee jump
117. Spend an entire day watching all three of the Lord of the Rings Extended Versions back-to-back
118. Plant a vegetable garden
119. Plant a flower garden
120. Ride a bike to work
121. Own a sports car
122. Win something
123. Sponser a child
124. Eat pizza in Italy
125. Make my own bread
126. Have a romantic candlelit dinner at home
127. Write a letter to the editor of a newspapaer or magazine about an issue that I feel passionately about
128. Skinny dip
129. Fly a kite as an adult
130. Have breakfast in bed
131. Walk down Abbey Road
132. Milk a cow
133. Float on the Dead Sea
134. Karaoke in Japan
135. Knit something
136. Go whale watching
137. Toilet paper a house
138. Have a picnic
139. Ride an elephant
140. Go on a road trip with no particular destination
141. Go on a safari
142. Climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge
143. Complete a video game as an adult
144. Teach a child to read
145. Ride in a helicopter
146. Go to a drive in theater
147. Lie in bed all day
148. Hold a tarantula
149. Break a bone
150. Attend a film premiere
151. Foster or adopt a child
152. Register as an organ donor
153. Stay in a 5 star hotel
154. Eat at a 5 star restaurant
155. Read a novel in a foreign language
156. Read every book in a series that has more than ten books in it
157. Sleep under the stars
158. Build a big snow man
159. Smash something on purpose
160. Go into a library, randomly select a book, check it out and read it
161. Donate blood 10 times in a row
162. Find an item I would never wear out in public, buy it and wear it for one full day
163. Attend or hold a surprise birthday party
164. Host a dinner party
165. Go to the Olympics
166. Go ice-skating without falling over
167. Make an origami zoo
168. Show up at the airport with a bag and a passport and take the first flight available.
169. Write a love letter
170. Be a vegetarian for a week
171. Share a plate of spaghetti like Lady and the Tramp
172. Visit 20 capital cities
173. See two movies at the cinema in one day while only paying for one
174. Experience a white Christmas
175. Run barefoot in the snow
176. Make a snow angel
177. Convince someone to join me in making a concrete angel
178. Go curling
179. Cover all three bases in one day (you know)
180. See a musical on Broadway
181. See an opera
182. Play DDR (13 Jan 2006)
183. Start my own strange holiday (“Happy Pink Underwear Day” or something)
184. Swim at 10 different beaches around the world
185. Solve a rubix cube
186. Complete a really, really large puzzle
187. Read a book in a day
188. Have a water balloon/water gun fight as an adult
189. sing New York, New York in the street in NYC
190. Own a “vote for pedro” or “save ferris” t-shirt
191. Be in a food fight
192. Have a yard sale
193. Play a game of monopoly until the end
194. Eat at a real American Diner
195. Give someone a “Happy 60th Birthday Card” who isn’t even close to 60!
196. Drive a car on a race track
197. Bake something for a bake sale
198. Go on a scavenger hunt
199. Witness a solar eclipse
200. Watch a Hayao Miyazaki film
201. Roll on your side down a grassy bank
202. Have a slumber party as an adult
203. Own a piece of gym equipment
204. Make Root Beer
205. Visit Easter Island
206. Ride in a Blimp
207. Drive to Prudhoe Bay
208. Drive the Extraterrestrial Highway in Nevada and see Area 51
209. Visit Roswell, New Mexico
210. Kick a field goal from the 30 yard line
211. Restore a classic car
212. Visit the northernmost point in the US
213. Visit the southernmost point in the US
214. Visit the easternmost point in the US
215. Visit the westernmost point in the US
216. Visit all 56 national parks in the US
217. Visit the Louvre and fight my way to see Mona Lisa
218. Tour the Hover Dam
219. Watch the tide come in at the Bay of Fundi
220. Visit Iceland
221. Ride a cable care in San Francisco
222. Bowl a 200 game
223. Visit the ruins of Pompeii
224. Visit Machu Picchu
225. Go to the top of the Sears Tower
226. Go to the top of the Space Needle
227. Go to the top of the Empire State Building
228. Ride a horse on the beach
229. Run a six minute mile
230. Do 50 push ups
231. Bench press my own weight
232. Do 2 pull ups
233. Fly faster than the speed of sound
234. Cross an ocean in a boat
235. Read War and Peace
236. Ride in a horse-drawn carriage
237. Visit Graceland
238. Go to a concert at Carnegie Hall
239. Go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans
240. Understand the stock market
241. See a Polar Bear in the wild
242. Have my palm read
243. Meet a US President in person
244. Visit the Liberty Bell
245. Visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa
246. Ride in a World War II era fighter or bomber
247. Ride a mechanical bull
248. Ride an airboat
249. Visit Meteor Crater in Arizona
250. Ride a paddleboat on the Mississippi River
251. 2 words: Pumpkin chuckin’
252. Tour Pearl Harbor
253. Fire a cannon
254. Cross the international date line
255. Learn to weld
256. Visit the Alamo
257. Walk the Great Wall of China
258. Visit the Amazon Rain Forest
259. See a giant tortoise in the Galapagos
260. Go white water rafting
261. Fire Walking
262. Run with the Bulls in Pamplona
263. Ride on the Orient Express
264. Watch the sunset over Ayers Rock
265. Cycle a leg of the Tour de France
266. Fly a fighter jet
267. Explore the New York Public Library
268. Visit the Hershey Chocolate Factory in Hershey, PA and gut a chocolate spa treatment
269. Visit a prison museum (June 2007 - Alcatraz)
270. Visit the Vietnam Wall and pencil a name of a soldier and learn something about him
271. Visit a former concentration camp
272. Visit the crazy horse monument in South Dakota
273. Visit the Athenian Acropolis
274. Participate in a Traditional Tet Celebrations
275. Celebrate the Day of the Dead in Mexico
276. Watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace
277. Tango in Buenos Aires
278. Take a swamp tour in Louisiana or Florida
279. Visit the migration of the monarch butterfly in Michoacan, Mexico
280. Visit a nude beach
281. Tour a vineyard and sample the wine
282. Take a guided tour of a Hollywood studio
283. Visit a temple
284. Visit the Blue Grotto in Capri
285. Bathe in the Blue Lagoon (Iceland)
286. Go to the Thaipusam Festival in Singapore
287. Drink a Mint Julep at the Kentucky Derby
288. See a NASCAR Race
289. And the Indy 500
290. Watch the Sumo wrestling in Japan
291. Ride a Gondola in Venice, Itlay
292. Ride a mule through the Grand Canyon
293. Test Drive a Ferrari
294. Walk the Golden Gate Bridge
295. See the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in person
296. See Wayne Newton in Las Vegas
297. Train like an astronaut at space camp
298. Parasail
299. Crowd surf
300. Save a life
301. Fly a plane
302. Drive some of Route 66 (June 2007)
303. Become a member of some form of government
304. Run for office
305. Own my own island
306. Read all the Harry Potter books (July 2007)
307. Go cliff diving in Acapulco
308. Go club hopping and dance until I can’t stand up
309. Surf
310. Buy everyone in the pub a drink
311. Touch an iceburg
312. Bet on a winning horse
313. Photocopy my butt on the office copier
314. Hold a lamb
315. Enact a favorite fantasy
316. Visit the birthplace of my ancestors
317. Dance with a stranger in a foreign place
318. Steal a street sign
319. Get it on to “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye
320. Crash a party
321. Go without food five days
322. Win first prize in a costume contest
323. Be on a television news program as an “expert”
324. Got so drunk that I don’t remember anything (Fat Tuesday, Feb 2006)
325. Perform in Rocky Horror
326. Called or written your Congress person
327. Pet a sting ray (June 2006 Monterey Aquarium)
328. Pierce a body part below my neck
329. Read The Iliad
330. Be arrested (October 2001)
331. Mosh Pit & Crowd Surf (Texas Lollapalooza 1995)

It is almost hard to imagine that I have done so few of these.