Culturally Aware in 2012

My New Year's resolution is to become more culturally aware. I'll admit, this title comes as an attempt to glorify a silly challenge I'm putting myself through in the year.

This year, I want to build my vocabulary and develop my abilities to explore, analyze, and conclude from what I see, hear, and learn. (Be on the lookout for a 101 things in 1001 days sort of deal in the next week or so--I assure you it will appear from somewhere... I just have to sit down and think through what.)

Essentially, I heard my brother talking about participating in the 50 books challenge where participants try to read 50 books before December 31st comes to an end (~a book a week) and decided I wanted to do something like it. Over the past few weeks, though, I've decided that I wanted to change this a little bit to span more than just books. I want to cover stories of people real and not, descriptions of the world near and far, and views I agree and disagree with currently. I want to gain as much as possible from this experience as well. Unfortunately, studies and money might come into conflict with the completion of this challenge but I will try my best to complete it. Here are the challenges:


1. 30 new books in the year
2. 20 new movies in the year
3. 10 new friends in the year (which I must have some interesting story with) Note: if I'm friends but don't have an interesting story, acquisition of a story counts towards this.
4. 10 new museums or art galleries in the year (which I must see at least one full exhibit in)
5. 5 new cities visited in the year (which I must eat in and see something exciting or thrilling in)


I might be editing this list over the next week or so. I will also try to blog my "accomplishments" as they come - book reviews, movie reviews, interesting stories with friends, thoughts on museums, thoughts on cities.

If you are interested in joining me in this challenge, I would love to have you! Please let me know if you are going to participate, and maybe we can do some stuff together. I would love the company.