Jellyn’s Collection of Curiosities

Learning 1945 kanji. Ummm.. not so much. I started out strong, but petered out around the couple hundred mark. But I started taking an ASL class, so I didn’t give up learning a language altogether. Just, um, Japanese.

Read the HP books in Spanish. Well… no, didn’t get very far with Spanish either. Though a couple of the HP books in Spanish hit the library book sale shelves, so I actually bought some. That counts for something!

Read 250 books? Nope. I gave up on that early on. I do wish I’d beaten last year’s total though. Last year, I cheated with a bunch of kids books and manga, but had 6 weeks where I finished 1 book. This year, though, I was gainfully employed the entire time and fulltime for half of that. Apparently it does cut into one’s reading time. (I totally forgot non-English books counted double though! If only I’d read some…)

12 movies in French? Only 3, and that’s if you count Triplets of Belleville, which has very little dialogue.

Score 100 in the Clarion submission game. Our year for that runs differently, so it may’ve been about 3 or 4.

Lose weight. I said be 1*0 pounds. I really should’ve kept track for myself what the * was, shouldn’t I? I’m at least 10 pounds lighter than when I got back from Clarion, but I don’t know that that was all 2008 pounds.

Martial art? We’ll chalk that up to one of my many whims. Sometimes they resurface.

Tickets to Japan. Nope, don’t have any of them lying around. Alas.

Make $100,000 in non-wage income. Really need to work on that….

Volunteer? Not for any sort of do-gooding charity, no.

Go to 3 cons. Doh, I think I only went to two! I could’ve sworn this was the one goal I met.

Learn shorthand. Ah, one of those whims again. I got further with that than the martial art, but I can’t say I remember anything now. I bought a netbook though. Who needs shorthand when you have a small computer with you?

Take a drawing class. Nope. One class at a time may be my limit. Maybe I shouldn’t have committed myself to completing a program, and then I could’ve mixed and matched every few months.

So, that all was rather depressing, despite all my justifications. Legitimate ones!

I should probably be positive and do a post focussing on what I did accomplish in 2008.

Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:

The lack of ALT tags is really bugging me, but not so much that I want to keep typing alt tags for all these stars. So I may switch to colored asterisks.

Sunday:
Monday:

Mostly laundry there. I need to try to get my printer working again so I can get my loan deferred. They’ve started calling. I haven’t put phone calls in my star list. They should be worth at least two.

Saturday:

Flurry of activity on Saturday, for what little good it does. I think the total is 29.5 stars for the week, which is far short of 100.

What I failed to do was write a story to submit to a workshop. But hey, my room’s a bit cleaner.

Wednesday:
Thursday:
Friday:

Monday:

Tuesday:

So far today (and let’s face it, what are the odds I’ll accomplish more now that it’s 7:30 and it’s a Sunday?)

(Update: I forgot to add in something I did when I first got up.)

So I’m going to start awarding myself gold stars for being productive. I have a list of things and what they’re worth. Paying a bill is 1 point, because I do that online and it’s relatively quick. Doing a load of laundry is 5 points, because it takes awhile and it’s annoying. Writing a story is 100 points, because I need to be doing that. There’s other things on the list too, of course.

For a reward, I’m thinking that if I get 100 points in a week, I can order delivery or spend approximately 25$ on books or random stuff. If I get 200 points, then that gets up to 35$, and so on, but only for every 100 points. 299 doesn’t help. Points don’t roll over.

Here’s what the stars represent:

= .5 points
= 1 point
= 5 points
= 10 points
= 50 points

I totally forgot I was going to post an update around the end/beginning of the month. Now’s as good a time as any, right?

This is just the highlights. You can keep track of my progress in more detail if you want.

* Be able to recognize all 1945 Joyo kanji so I can read a manga in Japanese.
I got up to a little over 300 and stalled a bit.

* Read 250 books, at least 10% of which are nonfiction.
I’ve read 10 nonfiction already, so only 15 more of those to go. I’m falling behind in overall total though. Or rather, I started out behind and I haven’t caught up yet!

* Watch 12 movies in French without subtitles.
I’ve watched 2 so far. It would’ve been 3, but Triplets of Belleville is mostly lacking in any language at all and was only available in English or Spanish on the DVD I got from the library. Still not sure what’s up with that.

Most of the rest of the goals are hit and miss. A little bit done, or nothing at all done.

Basically, check out my 2008 Books list and my 2008 Goals list.

In a week, it’s time to vote in the primary! I better do some more research so I know who I’m voting for! Only one more year of Bushy!

Uggggh. One more year of Bushy….

Rather than a list of resolutions, here is a list of 2008 goals.

In no particular order:

* Be able to recognize all 1945 Joyo kanji so I can read a manga in Japanese.
First step: Buy Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig because the library doesn’t have it.

* Read books 1-6 of Harry Potter in Spanish. (As I can’t find book 7 at the library)
First step: Borrow the Spanish Reader I found from the library.

* Read 250 books, at least 10% of which are nonfiction. Non-English books count double though.
First step: Start reading on Tuesday!

* Watch 12 movies in French without subtitles.
First step: Find a good movie in French to start with.

* Score 100 in the Clarion Submission game.
First step: Write a story.

* Be 1*0 pounds by December 31st. (Which means 5 pounds leeway for Christmas fudge. ;) )
First step: Find a class.

* Get a yellow belt in a martial art.
First step: Make some phone calls.

* Acquire tickets to Japan. (Note, not necessarily buy, and not necessarily for 2008.)
First step: ?????

* Make $100,000.
First step: Make $1,000 in non-wage income.

* Volunteer for an organization.
First step: See if Room to Read has anyone local to hook up with.

* Go to 3 cons.
First step: Pre-register for Readercon and Albacon.

* Learn shorthand.
First step: Pick up the library book on my floor and open it. :)

* Take a drawing class.
First step: Find a drawing class.

Edit: Fixed the categories for this post. And created a goals page.