City born into this world with no knowledge and no regrets

I have a natural knack for planning. While I don't think of myself as the "planner" type when it comes to personalities (which in my mind conjures up an image of the tightly-wound, pencil-skirt-wearing killjoy who falls to pieces when someone steals her day planner), I seemingly always automatically know exactly what I'll be doing next. When new information, opportunities, or possibilities present themselves, I absorb them and rather quickly reorient myself to whatever prospective direction seems most fitting. As a result, I don't usually spend very much of my day in the anal-retentive throes of plan-making; my plans are always just there.

It's easy to get irritatingly self-congratulatory about such an ability. Others may compliment you on the fact that you seem to always know where you're going, cosmically speaking, and you may think to yourself, "Why, it seems that I do possess a superhuman ability; perhaps I should locate Stan Lee to alert him of my existence," and it's easy to forget that luck and luxury have a lot to do with it.

Right now, for the first time in my life, I have absolutely no idea where I'll be or what I'll be doing over the next year, and for the moment the answers to those questions are beyond my control. As I am a Person With Perpetual Plans, lacking the answers to the basic 5 W's of my life leaves me feeling uncomfortable in my own skin much of the time.

Nevertheless, I will consign to carrying on with my annual blog-tacular New Years predictions game:*

Predictions of Varying Certainty for 2010:
- I'll officially receive my research honors and will walk in IWU's May commencement.
- I (along with Sarah, Garrett, Alex, and Miranda) will move to Chicago, probably in August or September, in order to live with my seester and to provide GR with a new backdrop for hugs.
- I'll send out applications for English PhD programs for, ahem, Fall 2011.
- Megan and Brian will get married, and I'm guessing 1-4 other people I know will get engaged.
- I'll become passably adept at speaking, and hopefully reading, Spanish

How Prescient I Actually Was for 2010:
- Check.
- Alex didn't move to Chicago, but the rest of us did, with August as my first month's lease to boot. My implicit prediction that GR and I would still be together came through, too.
- Check.
- Check, although only barely with the latter half. My step-brother got engaged, but I think he's the only person I know who did. I'm not friends with the early-marrying kind, I guess.
- Fail. Epic fail. Languages are hard, man.

Predictions of Varying Certainty for 2011:
- By April, I will be working for a different company than the one I do now.
- I will visit a state that I have previously never been to.
- My parents, sister, and GR will patiently help me make a series of agonizing decisions over the course of the year.
- My student loans will finally be consolidated successfully.
- By the end of the year, I will become a better cook and expand my culinary skills beyond the rudimentary meals I make now, perhaps even learning to wield spices.
- I will attend at least two (2) weddings.



* While I don't believe in karma or jinxes, I don't not believe in them, either, so I'm making the executive decision to abstain from any predictions about the results of my grad school applications.