NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

HELLO EVERYONE AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Have you got any New Year's Resolutions? A 'resolution' is a promise to make a change in your life.

Read the following extracts taken from the books 'The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4', by S. Townsend and 'Bridget Jones's Diary', by H. Fielding. Then answer the questions that follow.

This is what Adrian Mole wrote down:

Thursday January 1^st

Bank Holiday in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales

These are my New Year’s resolutions:

1. I will help the blind across the road.
2. I will hang my trousers up.
3. I will put the sleeves back on my records.
4. I will not start smoking.
5. I will stop squeezing my spots.
6. I will be kind to the dog.
7. I will help the poor and ignorant.
8. After hearing the disgusting noises from downstairs last night, I have also vowed never to drink alcohol.

(From Townsend, S. (1988) The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾. Methuen, London. p. 11).

Here are some New Year’s resolutions Bridget Jones wrote down in her diary:

New Year’s Resolutions

I WILL NOT

• Drink more than fourteen alcohol units a week.
• Smoke.
• Waste money on: pasta-makers, ice-cream machines or other culinary devices which will never use; books by unreadable literary authors to put impressively on shelves; exotic underwear, since pointless as have no boyfriend.
• Spend more than earn.
• Get annoyed with Mum…
• Bitch about anyone behind their backs, but be positive about everyone.
• Sulk about having no boyfriend, but develop inner poise and authority and sense of self as woman of substance, complete without boyfriend, as best way to obtain boyfriend.

I WILL

• Stop smoking.
• Drink no more than fourteen alcohol units a week.
• Reduce circumference of thighs by 3 inches (i.e. 1½  inches each), using anti-cellulite diet.
• Give all clothes which have not worn for two years or more to homeless.
• Improve career and find new job with potential.
• Save up money in form of savings. Poss start pension also.
• Be more confident.
• Be more assertive.
• Make better use of time.
• Not go out every night but stay in and read books and listen to classical music.
• Give proportion of earnings to charity.
• Be kinder and help others more.
• Eat more pulses.
• Get up straight away when wake up in mornings.
• Go to gym three times a week not merely to buy sandwich.
• Put photographs in photograph albums.
• Learn to program video.

(From FIELDING, H.(2001). Bridget Jones’s Diary. Picador. pp. 2-3)

QUESTIONS:

1. Have you made any New Year's Resolutions? Which ones?
2. Are they similar to the ones made by Adrian Mole and Bridget Jones?
3. Did you stick to the resolutions you made last year?
4. Do your resolutios have to do with personal appearance, behaviour, school, home, hobbies, voluntary work or any other aspects? Which ones?
5. When do you make your resolutions: at the beginning of the school year or when the New Year begins?