I wrote a list of big hairy audacious New Year’s goals last December, and wanted to reflect on these before I announce my list for next year. Although some of these are still things I’d like to work on, it seems that I can easily work them into my daily and weekly routines rather than having to relist them as goals for 2010. All in all, I’m pretty proud of the progress I’ve made. It’s nowhere near where I want to be but a lot farther than I was.
1. I need to get a new used car. My ‘84 Honda is running 205,000 miles, only sorta passed emissions and the AC just went out. The economy sucks so it’s a good time to buy and I think it’s been around seven years since I fucked my credit up. Target date: by summer
Status: I managed to score a really sweet ‘99 Honda with less than 60,000 miles on it for a really good price. And I didn’t have to take out money for it, either. Score!
2. I need a job that doesn’t suck for next year. I am finishing up my two years of indentured servitude on my teaching prep program certification. Teaching at-risk middle-schoolers in a public school, while obviously important (and rewarding), doesn’t seem to be a good fit for me. I’m hoping to teach juniors in a school that’s more diverse. Target date: ASAP but a lot is contingent on recommendation letters that were promised to me months and months ago
Status: I did manage to get a job in a charter school teaching middle school students, but let’s just say I’m no longer there. I also moved to a state where my teaching certification doesn’t work, and am pursuing a different line of work. Finding meaningful, paying work is a new goal of mine.
3. I need to keep my house clean. My boyfriend’s moving in come February (yeah!) and I have already ordered digital cable with a sports tier but will have to stop throwing my shit on the floor because he’s a bit, uh, neater than I am. I’m also hoping to finish filing/organizing everything this coming month so he’ll have space… Also included in this is keeping up with my budget, and my lovely garden. Need to get the compost going again too. Target date: end of January and onwards.
Status: I did manage to mostly keep my house clean, aside from a storage space I affectionately referred to as the closet of doom. However, we moved cross-country and now I have boxes of doom. I do still have work to do in this area, but it’s something I see as a given now, an ongoing task.
4. I need to fix my posture. This means I have to do all the exercises my PRI therapist is giving me whether I want to or not. I finally found someone I’m seeing results with so I need to stick with it. Target date: ongoing.
Status: My PRI guy said we probably did as much as I could. He thought I needed rolfing next. Unfortunately, there are no rolfers in the tiny town I moved to and I don’t have the money due to my employment situation. However, I did go to an awesome Gokhale Method workshop which I think will help fix things. I need to practice the exercises (and write an article I owe them!)
5. This leads into health and fitness… I know what I need to do. SLEEP, stop skipping meals, eat good quality food and less carbs, fish oil, CLO, lots of water, etc. New Rules of Lifting for Women with my switchplate dumbbell set that my boyfriend put together for me. Lifting goals are what… 120# clean, 220# dead, 125# bench, 170# squat, 85# press., real pullups where i don’t have to stand on my toes and bend my elbows to start. Of course limiting stress as much as possible is good too; switching jobs (see #2) will help with that… Health and wellness is more than just food and lifting… and sleeping…and acupuncture…and continuing to fall in love, and hiking…and gardening…and spending time with friends. It is all of those and then some. Target date: ongoing
Status: I did manage to get in the best shape I’ve ever been by participating in the Precision Nutrition Lean Eating For Women program (which included sleeping, meal quantity and quality, water, fish oil, some great workouts, etc.) combined with jiu jitsu, and I got my fair share of acupuncture, and had a nice garden plot, etc. So I’d say I accomplished this and just need to keep going.
6. Jiu jitsu. Someone posted an article on a site I’m on about needing to train 10,000 hours to become an expert at something… There are less than 9000 hours in a year and only 780 of classes at my gym, and I don’t want to set any numerical goals because it’s all about timing and recovery etc… but 500 hours would be nice. LOL. I want to get to Portland sometime too. Target date: ongoing
I did get to Portland, and I also found a really awesome gym, got a stripe on my belt and competed in my first ever jits tournament. I still have a ridiculously long way to go, but it was a good start.
7. Write. If only I could write for a living…This past year my stuff got printed in Bust, the Tucson Weekly, the fightergirls website, 8countnews.com, mmarated, plus my own site… and I have an interview coming out soon for the P-Menu… Year before I’d only been in 3 pubs so it was a step up! I want to keep doing what i’m doing and ideally get an internship somewhere… maybe over the summer. I tried to intern at the Weekly last summer but was rejected. :’( Would be nice to intern at Bitch and train at SBGi over the summer if I’m lucky. Of course this all depends on whether I get a teaching job lined up or not, which is the only way I’d get to travel. Target date: ongoing
2009 was a pretty good year for writing. I started freelancing for Demand Studios, which is a pretty sweet paying gig (mostly for ehow.com). I started getting paid for my MMA articles, interviews and women’s MMA column and my MMA writing appeared on a bunch of sites (like MMA Madness and the Bleacher Report, as well as regularly for MMA Opinion and the Savage Science and Wfighter). Had an interview in the P-Menu. And although I didn’t get to intern for the Tucson Weekly or Bitch magazine, I did get published in both and I have an internship lined up at Volume 1 for next year. And I went from making no money off of my writing to making some good supplemental income. Definitely a start. I am also particularly proud of writing (as a volunteer) for Spezzatino, a beautiful online food magazine which raises money for the Healthy Food Bank.
BONUS: If I can make myself do things I suck at this year, that would probably be good for me. So if anybody wants to send me things without instruction manuals so I could figure out how to do them, or really complicated puzzles, or geometry textbooks or help me work on my chess game or figure out how to actually win at minesweeper… that’d be great. I read somewhere that you can’t form new neural pathways after you turn 30, only create connections between ones you already have. I turn 30 at the end of March so I have 3 months to figure out how to be mathematical, visual and spatial. Oh and develop a sense of direction. This would be better for me than playing Scrabble… so let me know if you’ve got anything for me to try. Target date: March 25
Status: Dance of Shiva. Need I say more?
I laughed out loud when I read your one-line response to your final goal, because yeah, you pretty much nailed the exact description of Dance of Shiva! I go through love-hate swings with the Dance, and it really helps to remember that I’m supposed to totally and completely suck at it. So…have fun continuing to suck at it in 2010 :)