The New Year is here, along with it comes new thoughts, challenges, and resolutions. The time for goals and reforming our life is now.

There are going to be many things coming in 2018, from the Marvel Movie “Infinity Wars” to midterm elections, and everything in the middle. With all of these exciting things, we will have an extremely busy year.

With each new year that passes us by, we attempt to make new goals being that we want this year to be better than last, this is true for me.

This past year has been very challenging, the new school year and everything that is associated with that. For me, the seventh grade is the grade transitioning from middle school to intermediate and then high school. The workload has increased and so has the extracurricular activities.

I am very politically involved and so this is another big year for me. Whatever political side you are on you must admit that thoroughly depressing stories about terrorism, natural disasters, and other events have come up in the news and, as a divided nation, it is hard to understand and find common ground in these times.  

With the new year upon us, we can not forget the positives as we move forward in the year.

There have been many personal and little victories over the last year; youth violence is down and everyone hopes for a better and more productive year.

There have been a quite a bit of different thoughts on this mid-term year; for the Democratic party, this is a chance to get into and capitalize on the fact that approval ratings are down for President Trump giving them the ability to be a stronger force in Washington DC.

For conservatives this year is a threat, with all of the controversies, there is a high chance that many of the Democrats running will be supported very well.

However, this year will hold more than politics like I said there is going to be the release of

Marvel’s “Infinity War.” I know I sound like a nerd (nerd in this context is not a derogative), but as a supporter of this franchise, this is one of my personal highlights this year.

There are quite a few different ways to organize these highlights. As always it is good to prioritize before you even begin marking the calendar.

Priorities may include family gatherings and holidays, mandatory work and school events, even Dungeons and Dragons activities with your friends.

The next step is to prioritize these priorities, if you place work and school events before family you might want to consider checking your priorities.  

Now you can prepare and see if there are any problems and conflicts in your schedule. For example, there may be a conflict in your schedule with the Dungeon Master for Dungeons and Dragons, meaning that someone will either have to step up to be DM or the game will reschedule.

With this information, you are now able to input in a calendar as a map for this year. You can usefully factor in any resolution. For instance, if I wanted to get fit I might schedule myself 30 minutes of jogging a day.

The first few weeks of the new year has come and now as we get used to writing 2018 as the year rather than 2017 we hope for a better year and more chances for growth.

So may your year be welcomed with open arms and happiness, while we remember what now can be considered the past.