“Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!” Every year the chant is the same, ushering in a period of new beginnings and renewed resolutions. You might have been at the scene of the ball drop, watched the live television shows at home, enjoyed late-night snacks with your family, or were sleeping when the new year came. When the second hand turned from 11:59:59 to 12 A.M., members of the Choate Rosemary Hall community started to work on accomplishing their New Year’s resolutions, hoping to attain their goals and to better perform this year than last year.
Amy Hagan-Brown ’18, a four-year student from Kazakhstan, celebrated 2018 by dedicating herself to her resolutions. She explained, “This year, I have written down my goals, whereas in the previous years I only verbally said some vague, unattainable goals like writing essays and plays every week. I plan to read more books and to write 15 minutes every day. ”
By recording her resolutions, Hagan-Brown has found it easier to stick to them: “So far, the writing has been going well, and I am looking for specific prompts so that the writing exercise doesn’t end up simply being a diary. I am working on implementing meditation, like the breathing exercise we did during the school meeting, in my life as well.”
Kwan Sirisakunngam ’18, a postgraduate currently enjoying her first year at Choate, has a resolution with a more academic origin: enhancing her own knowledge of Korean language and culture. Sirisakunngam explained, “My goal is to learn more Korean this year for two reasons. First, I enjoy watching K-Pop videos, and I want to practice watching them without subtitles to understand what the song says. Second, my close friends in the archery team are from Korea, so I want to learn Korean to understand more about their culture and their language.”
Unlike others, PJ Sethbhakdi ’19 has not created a new set of resolutions at all; instead, he has decided to continue his goals from 2017. He said, “My first goal is to not procrastinate. At Choate when I get assignments, I am the type of person who waits until the last day to complete them. This habit is bad for both producing good academic work and having a solid work ethic, so I hope to get rid of it. The second goal is to listen to my parents more. Because my home is far away, I do not communicate as frequently with my parents and have gotten more distanced from them. I want to connect to them more this year and take their helpful advice.”
In the same vein of self-improvement, Nil Gulal ’20 hopes to improve her relationships with friends. Gulal said, “Here at Choate, I am surrounded by my friends who are caring, nice, and empathetic. I am inspired by their positive attitude and cheerful spirit. This year, I want to work on being more patient, nicer, and more understanding towards the people around me, like my friends.”
Abraham Goodman ’20 has a much more focused New Year’s resolution: optimizing his video game experience. He said, “I enjoy practicing a speedrun of video games, which is completing games as fast as possible. It is a hobby that I enjoy and use to relieve stress. My goal this year is to play a speedrun of more video games to improve my skills and to enjoy more of my favorite hobby.”
While many Choate students enjoy making resolutions at the start of the new year, there are also others who avoid the tradition. Luis Romero ’20, for instance, believes that the beginning of a new year warrants routine, not special resolutions.
He questioned, “Why should the New Year’s Day be special from every other day? For me, the New Year’s Day is just another ordinary day. I don’t try to change my lifestyle because that is who I am, and I kind of give up improving by setting up resolutions for myself.”
Xavier Shattuck ’21 described, “Generally, New Year’s resolutions aren’t pleasant because they aren’t something that I want to do and tend to be things that I don’t normally do. Either I will not follow through with the resolutions, or I will be displeased with myself because I have less fun by following through them.”
Moe Janneh ’18, a four-year senior, agreed, “I don’t have New Year’s resolutions because I don’t celebrate the New Year’s Day. I figured that if I want to continue improving myself as a person, I should just do what I want to do continuously, instead of setting a specific date to start improving.”
