The new year always brings on new challenges and adventures. Whether it is the year you will graduate high school and move on to college, or the year you will first walk through the doors of Ames High, we all have big steps to look forward to. Some of us bring in the new year differently than others. We set new goals and try so hard to reach them. That time is back, and as we take a look back at the past month, we’ll see just how many of us are really sticking with our New Year’s Resolutions. It’s that time of year when the parking lot at the fitness center is full. The time when you have to wait ten minutes just to get on a treadmill. Fast food lines are shorter as people try to make healthier choices. Year after year we see the same trends, the gym parking lot slowly develops more open spaces, and treadmills become available again. Fewer people set their alarm clocks for 5 a.m to get that early morning jog in before work and hectic schedules put more people in the drive-through lane. Junior Umnia Mahgoub did not set any specific resolutions this year. "I haven’t been very successful with them before, so I kind of stopped making them," she said. Senior Calvin Song had set some goals for himself at the beginning of the year, which included winning the tennis state tournament again, being nicer to people, and getting accepted into a nice college. It is still early to see how these resolutions will turn out for Song, but right now he is working hard to accomplish them. In general, Song feels that New Year’s Resolutions are "not that important." He added, "People may just say they will do [something] but not really do anything about it." Then there is the question of, why do we wait for the new year to make big changes to our lives? "I don’t think people need to wait until the new year to make new goals," said Mahgoub. "I guess it should be a continuous process." This year let’s try to keep the fitness centers busy and the fast food lines short, all year long, setting new trends one step at a time.