Editor’s note: The following is a continuing journal of a fictional college student. It is intended to be a humorous and enjoyable feature about an average Joe. Though written by Iowa State’s own Scott Jacobson, a Daily staff writer, people, places and events detailed below are not analogous to a real student.

January 15, 1999

So there I was, hanging out at People’s on New Year’s Eve, remembering the New Year’s resolution I had made minutes earlier to Eddie about keeping my love life simpler this year, when the ball dropped on 1999, the crowd rejoiced and I found myself smooching Melissa.

Oops.

A wise man once said, “Whatever you do, never get involved with your best friend’s cousin’s girlfriend’s best friend. Especially when she’s your roommate.”

Actually, that wise man was Eddie, about a week after the girls moved in with us and we saw Melissa running around in her flannel jammies for the first time.

Mmm … flannel.

But, with my usual disregard for all things logical, I had ignored my best friend’s advice and broke my only New Year’s resolution. And I had broken it five seconds after it went into effect.

I suck.

I’ve never had much luck with major changes in my lifestyle or disciplined attempts to make myself a better person.

When I was younger, everyone in my Sunday School class would ask me what I was going to give up for Lent. They were abstaining from material pleasures like chocolate, television or Totino’s Pizza Rolls, and I always gave up something like green beans or liver.

Then one year, I got excited for my Lenten promise, but my parents stepped in when they found out I had given up church for Lent, therefore making it impossible to know when I should ever go back.

When I was a sophomore in high school, my New Year’s resolution was to stop letting my homework interfere with my social life, but I soon found out that when you’re a sophomore in high school, you don’t really have a social life. So it was back to the books.

So as the clock struck 12:01 the first morning of 1999, I was without resolution. What I did have was one drunk roommate strung around my shoulders and three others shaking heads and fingers and champagne bottles at me.

One minute into the New Year and it was already more complicated than ’98 had ever been.

It’s not that I don’t like Melissa; she’s pretty cool, and she’s a damn fine looking lady. But she’s my roommate. And she’s Sydney’s best friend.

And I’ve seen her sitting in our living room smoking a cigarette while eating a turkey pot pie for breakfast with her hair in rollers and green stuff on her face after a night with some random she brought home from Tazzles.

But she is mighty fine most of the time.

Decisions, decisions.

If we were to hook up, we would have started where most couples end up — living together — and we would probably end up where most couples start out — acting like they don’t know each other.

However, if nothing were to happen after that night, then we would go through life laughing about the incident, punching each other in the shoulders every time we remember how sloppysilly we were on New Year’s, while each quietly wonders if the other enjoyed it.

Quickly, I came up with another resolution: No more kissing roommates unless they kiss first, and we both understand that it’s just a silly little thing that has absolutely no bearing on our futures.

That’s a pretty good one.

Then it was as if the floodgates to my self-discipline opened up, and I was thinking of resolutions as quickly as Eddie thinks of excuses when his boss calls him at home.

I resolve to only go out to the bars on nights when there’s a drink special and I’m going to know someone there.

I resolve to not oversleep for work or class unless I’m really, really tired or my health would be jeopardized by the weather.

I resolve to keep my stories to myself and not dump all of my problems on my roommates unless they really want to hear them and are just afraid to ask.

I resolve to believe a girl is breaking up with me simply because she just wants to be friends. Or she’s confused with our relationship. Or she just needs some time alone to think.

And finally, I resolve to figure something out that I want to do with the rest of my life and not blame my future unemployment on the millennium bug. Or the flu bug. Or the Love Bug.

And with those resolutions, I declare that I will lead a better life in 1999 and pave the way for all those that follow in my footsteps.

Even if they tend to stagger a bit.