Mostly, I’ve been planning for the new year, but I discovered I know Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It was a recollection under the influence that brought this to light. I also discovered I still suck at drawing, but I’m okay with that. I used to think I had to be good at everything, and I’ve realized that’s just not so.
Some friends and I recently hit up a local board game pub. It was a pretty fun night. The first game was Balderdash and I was terrible at it. Because I was the writer in the group, some of my friends thought I should be more embarrassed about it and hide the fact that I don’t spend all my free time learning advanced vocabulary. But I’m not upset about it. Why? Two reasons: 1. I now know what I don’t know. 2. If one takes a close look at the top selling novels on the market, the level of the language used is not the level of many of the words in Balderdash. Not that I’m comparing my own work to those, but audience is what matters in writing. To me, it is far better to ensure the reader gets most of what I am trying to convey. Unless I’m writing about glaciers, I probably don’t need to know the meaning of moraine, however, I do have an interest in geology, so it might be something I care to put time into knowing eventually.
We also played Secret Hitler and I do think that Secret Hitler is missing some nuance and trickery to be a truly excellent game. Imagine if your Secret Role card didn’t match your Party Identity and you could be a plant in the opposite party! It would be more realistic. It could also be more fun if the policies said something related to an actual party stance. Or maybe the whole game would devolve if it got too close to reality. I think it would be fun to play with my political meetup group. A number of them are hawkish and at an intellectual level I’m not sure I will ever reach no matter how many books I read.
I’ve also been firming up my goals. A number of people in a journaling group I belong to are doing a 20 in 20 goal list, so I jumped on that bandwagon. It’s given me something more concrete to measure against. I’ve come up with 20 goals that all have 20 involved in some way. More to come on that later in this post.
Speaking of goals, I can’t remember if I posted this at any point during the last year, but January 1st seems like a good time to post or repost it:
Assuming you sleep 8 hours each day and are awake the rest of the time, it means you have 112 hours each week to get everything done in. Now, maybe you work full-time at 40 hours, so you have something more around 72 hours available to you. What do you do with those 72 hours? How much of it is spent on Facebook? On Netflix? How many times have you said you would do something like write a book, get fit, learn to draw, learn a language, learn an instrument, or something else, but you ‘don’t have the time’? Yes, eating, chores, commuting, and other things like hygiene take up some time too, so it’s less than 72, which means it’s all the more important to choose how you spend it carefully. And yes, some of you have children and they take up some of that time, but you improving yourself is good for them too. Kids often idolize their parents. They’re watching you. A child that knows his or her parent is there for them while working on their own goals shows the child that each day is meant to be lived to the fullest.
MY 20 IN 2020
FINANCES
20 minutes of budgeting per week
FITNESS
20 home-cooked meal days per month (approx 60/91.5 meals per month)
20 workouts minimum per month
20 lbs lost
20 kata memorized
FRENCH
20 minutes of French per day
20 French words learned per month
HOME
20 minutes of chores per day
20 pages digitized per month
PIANO
20 minutes of piano per day
20 songs learned on piano
20 piano scales
20 minutes of theory per week
SELF-CARE
20 minutes of knitting per day
20 minutes of planning per day
20 minutes of meditation per day
WRITING
20 minutes of grammar per week
20 new English words per month
20 pages written per month (approx. 5000 wds)
20 books read this year
Well, I have a lot I’m aiming to accomplish this year. First up, brunch and then I think I’ll put away the Yule tree.
Rae-Rae
Some friends and I recently hit up a local board game pub. It was a pretty fun night. The first game was Balderdash and I was terrible at it. Because I was the writer in the group, some of my friends thought I should be more embarrassed about it and hide the fact that I don’t spend all my free time learning advanced vocabulary. But I’m not upset about it. Why? Two reasons: 1. I now know what I don’t know. 2. If one takes a close look at the top selling novels on the market, the level of the language used is not the level of many of the words in Balderdash. Not that I’m comparing my own work to those, but audience is what matters in writing. To me, it is far better to ensure the reader gets most of what I am trying to convey. Unless I’m writing about glaciers, I probably don’t need to know the meaning of moraine, however, I do have an interest in geology, so it might be something I care to put time into knowing eventually.
We also played Secret Hitler and I do think that Secret Hitler is missing some nuance and trickery to be a truly excellent game. Imagine if your Secret Role card didn’t match your Party Identity and you could be a plant in the opposite party! It would be more realistic. It could also be more fun if the policies said something related to an actual party stance. Or maybe the whole game would devolve if it got too close to reality. I think it would be fun to play with my political meetup group. A number of them are hawkish and at an intellectual level I’m not sure I will ever reach no matter how many books I read.
I’ve also been firming up my goals. A number of people in a journaling group I belong to are doing a 20 in 20 goal list, so I jumped on that bandwagon. It’s given me something more concrete to measure against. I’ve come up with 20 goals that all have 20 involved in some way. More to come on that later in this post.
Speaking of goals, I can’t remember if I posted this at any point during the last year, but January 1st seems like a good time to post or repost it:
Assuming you sleep 8 hours each day and are awake the rest of the time, it means you have 112 hours each week to get everything done in. Now, maybe you work full-time at 40 hours, so you have something more around 72 hours available to you. What do you do with those 72 hours? How much of it is spent on Facebook? On Netflix? How many times have you said you would do something like write a book, get fit, learn to draw, learn a language, learn an instrument, or something else, but you ‘don’t have the time’? Yes, eating, chores, commuting, and other things like hygiene take up some time too, so it’s less than 72, which means it’s all the more important to choose how you spend it carefully. And yes, some of you have children and they take up some of that time, but you improving yourself is good for them too. Kids often idolize their parents. They’re watching you. A child that knows his or her parent is there for them while working on their own goals shows the child that each day is meant to be lived to the fullest.
MY 20 IN 2020
FINANCES
20 minutes of budgeting per week
FITNESS
20 home-cooked meal days per month (approx 60/91.5 meals per month)
20 workouts minimum per month
20 lbs lost
20 kata memorized
FRENCH
20 minutes of French per day
20 French words learned per month
HOME
20 minutes of chores per day
20 pages digitized per month
PIANO
20 minutes of piano per day
20 songs learned on piano
20 piano scales
20 minutes of theory per week
SELF-CARE
20 minutes of knitting per day
20 minutes of planning per day
20 minutes of meditation per day
WRITING
20 minutes of grammar per week
20 new English words per month
20 pages written per month (approx. 5000 wds)
20 books read this year
Well, I have a lot I’m aiming to accomplish this year. First up, brunch and then I think I’ll put away the Yule tree.
Rae-Rae