2013-the year in progress
Dec. 19th, 2013 10:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drydemI am ready for 2013 to be done. It's been a year of middles, things that have gotten started but not yet resolved, things that are in progress, but nothing that is completed. I feel in some ways as if it is a year of nothing but middles.
Fitness- I've achieved a lot in terms of fitness, though I feel like it's just beginning a longer process. I've lost 10 percent of my bodyweight, greatly increased my muscle mass and lifting capabilities, gone down 2 belt sizes(3 if I can get around to punching a new hole in this belt) and gone from struggling to complete 20 minutes on the elliptical to being able to run a 5k in under 30 minutes on the track. But it feels like I'm only beginning. I want to lose another 10 percent of my bodyweight at least, I want running to get easier, and I want to keep up this process. Hopefully, at the end of 2014, I'll feel further along.
Games- The Chicago Changeling game seems to be off and running out of the gate, though it's not even to the midpoint. It's a finite game with a 2 year run and I think I'll feel more accomplished with it once we are into act 3, when things start truly building towards the climax. All this rising action is really tricky to manage. That said, I'm happy that our major problem currently is having many players. In terms of other games, I am glad to have a weekly game going and a LARP that I play in every other month, but I with the LARP ending this year and the game still in some flux, it feels unsettled.
School-This year wasn't the beginning or ending of library school. It didn't have the giddy excitement of new experience and new friends or the tearful relief of completion. I see the end on the horizon. I know that it will be done soon, but I am so ready that it makes it hard to get anything done. I am so looking forward to being done with this process. It takes up so much of my time and my previous grad school experience has left me deeply skeptical that it will change anything in my life.
Work-I am losing interest in my job. With the exception of the work starting soon doing shifts at the reference desk, I feel like I've learned all I can in this position. I feel underpaid and stuck until I finish school and something opens up. I'm also deeply nervous about the prospect of having to leave Chicago to find work. We've put in a lot of effort at community building here(see Changeling game) and it's a daunting prospect to think about repeating that(not to mention that I have a very short list of places I'm willing to live. Quality of life is a priority and I don't think that I will find things that make me happy in North Dakota or Arkansas or Utah). But the guy whose job I want just won't retire.
Creative Projects- Or the lack thereof. I don't have the time to work on anything. I have ideas sitting about, itching to be released. I have an excellent young adult book that I have fully outlined, chapter by chapter and even have act I written, but I just don't have time to finish it. I have a game that I want to design, a tabletop RPG based on doing a fairy tale pastiche world right, that I don't have time to work on. I want to play music. I want to do a hipster film version of Love's Labour's Lost. I want to do some creative academic work on reflexive masculinity. But I am so stuck in the middle of everything else that I just don't have the time.
Overall, I want 2014 to be a year of completions, a year when things actually resolve into something. I know that in some ways, a life lived right involves always becoming something new, always evolving to changing circumstances and learning to be who you are today, but I'm ready to actually finish something, to feel like I'm not stuck in the middle.
Fitness- I've achieved a lot in terms of fitness, though I feel like it's just beginning a longer process. I've lost 10 percent of my bodyweight, greatly increased my muscle mass and lifting capabilities, gone down 2 belt sizes(3 if I can get around to punching a new hole in this belt) and gone from struggling to complete 20 minutes on the elliptical to being able to run a 5k in under 30 minutes on the track. But it feels like I'm only beginning. I want to lose another 10 percent of my bodyweight at least, I want running to get easier, and I want to keep up this process. Hopefully, at the end of 2014, I'll feel further along.
Games- The Chicago Changeling game seems to be off and running out of the gate, though it's not even to the midpoint. It's a finite game with a 2 year run and I think I'll feel more accomplished with it once we are into act 3, when things start truly building towards the climax. All this rising action is really tricky to manage. That said, I'm happy that our major problem currently is having many players. In terms of other games, I am glad to have a weekly game going and a LARP that I play in every other month, but I with the LARP ending this year and the game still in some flux, it feels unsettled.
School-This year wasn't the beginning or ending of library school. It didn't have the giddy excitement of new experience and new friends or the tearful relief of completion. I see the end on the horizon. I know that it will be done soon, but I am so ready that it makes it hard to get anything done. I am so looking forward to being done with this process. It takes up so much of my time and my previous grad school experience has left me deeply skeptical that it will change anything in my life.
Work-I am losing interest in my job. With the exception of the work starting soon doing shifts at the reference desk, I feel like I've learned all I can in this position. I feel underpaid and stuck until I finish school and something opens up. I'm also deeply nervous about the prospect of having to leave Chicago to find work. We've put in a lot of effort at community building here(see Changeling game) and it's a daunting prospect to think about repeating that(not to mention that I have a very short list of places I'm willing to live. Quality of life is a priority and I don't think that I will find things that make me happy in North Dakota or Arkansas or Utah). But the guy whose job I want just won't retire.
Creative Projects- Or the lack thereof. I don't have the time to work on anything. I have ideas sitting about, itching to be released. I have an excellent young adult book that I have fully outlined, chapter by chapter and even have act I written, but I just don't have time to finish it. I have a game that I want to design, a tabletop RPG based on doing a fairy tale pastiche world right, that I don't have time to work on. I want to play music. I want to do a hipster film version of Love's Labour's Lost. I want to do some creative academic work on reflexive masculinity. But I am so stuck in the middle of everything else that I just don't have the time.
Overall, I want 2014 to be a year of completions, a year when things actually resolve into something. I know that in some ways, a life lived right involves always becoming something new, always evolving to changing circumstances and learning to be who you are today, but I'm ready to actually finish something, to feel like I'm not stuck in the middle.
