Last year, Julie and I completed this “year compass” thing. I was just looking at it, and I’ve decided that tonight I’m going to look at my “your next year will be about” page to see how I did.
So my personal life and family box just mentions my mother, Julie, and our doggie family. We did well this year, other than sadly having to say goodbye to one of our own. Other than Dobson passing, we’ve had a great year as a unit, I think.
The next box is job, studies, profession. I had two goals: to get my job converted from “you’re out of time” to “Assistant Professor.” Did that. I also wanted to get my book from “let’s work on revisions” to “in press.” I did that, too. Go me.
For belongings, I jokingly put “more Pops” because I felt like I had everything I needed in terms of possessions. I did. And I got more Pops. So go me 3-for-3.
For hobbies, I set a goal to spend more creative time. I’ve been writing here every day and I’ve made so many create-a-wrestlers in WWE 2K18 that I have to delete one if I want to make another (and I am probably going to do that tonight).
Under friends/community, I wrote “nah, thanks,” because I’m hilarious. I did strengthen my community ties this year, particularly in the Esports world and with the CCA faculty who are my new colleagues on campus. That’s 5-for-5 if you’re counting.
For health, I had gym, walk, paleo diet. We did paleo over half the year, though we had a budget problem with it in late summer and a holiday problem with it because paleo holidays are lame. I’ve been more active this year than I had since before grad school, but the gym was a huge fucking fail.
Under intellectual I put “read more.” I still don’t get to do much pleasure reading in terms of novels and creative work, but I plowed through some academic stuff this year (and a number of graphic novels). I’m going to call that 6-of-7.
Under emotional, I put “let shit go.” That’s a process, but I think I’m doing better with it than I was. You can see how I do– good and bad– with some of the posts here. Calling that 7-of-8.
Under finances, I just put “do better.” In spite of a maelstrom of shit this year with summer pay, I only overdrafted once and I didn’t miss a single bill I had to pay. My student loans jumped to like $900 in November, so we’re negotiating right now (they can’t have a quarter of my pay every month), but otherwise, I did well. I only overdrafted once (well, six times, but over one thing) and that was because I didn’t realize I had something set to auto withdraw. I’m going to give myself a .5 here, so it’s 7.5-of-9
For my bucket list, all I listed was “turn 40,” which I did with ease early in the year. I hit a few other bucket list goals this year, though. I got accepted to talk at GDC. One of the teams I direct won a National Championship. I got to pitch in the room to a college athletic commission. I hosted an international scholar. I successfully nominated a former student for a major award that he won.
So that’s 8.5-of-10 for the year.
I should do the same categories here, now, for this year:
Personal life: keep family going strong, protect furry charges.
Job, studies, profession: publish two things other than my book (coming soon!), successfully hire three new colleagues, build both of my new courses into something awesome, graduate all my senior advisees.
Belongings: I’m going to just come out and say it– I need more sneakers.
Hobbies: I want to make one thing a month. I don’t care what sort of thing, just a thing that isn’t part of my actual work or chores.
Friends/community: I want to mend the fences with all the various people involved with Esports at Miami and turn them into the happy family I know they can be. And I want to make at least 3 new friends that I could comfortably call “bro.”
Health: drop 50 pounds.
Intellectual: read more seems like a good enough goal. I’m picking up a huge cache of used books from a friend who left academia. I will try to read all of them instead of just sticking them on my shelf.
Emotional: find a better way to communicate to people when they are doing me harm so that I don’t sit on it and then make something small into something big. I’m bad about letting things fester. I need to stop that. I need to stop telling the bad stories about my time in grad school, too. No one cares but me.
Finances: improve on what didn’t go well last year and maintain. I’d like to never go into a payday broke, but I know I will at the end of this month, so…
Bucket list: I want to meet someone so famous that telling people I met them results in shock and awe. I haven’t done that in years. I need a new celeb friend.
Happy 2018, everyone. Wubba lubba dub dub!