2016: Predictions, Goals, Resolutions and Whatnot

1234

In 2015 I ignored all my friends and family and I'm going to not do that this year (maybe I'll do it in 2017).
And somewhat counter-intuitively I'm going to be more selfish/proactive about how I want to spend my time.
I'm going to be a more active participant in my relationship.
At work I'm going to fight less for my own vision and embrace the collective vision of what we're working on.

I also have been working on a KmikeyM Year in Review and Plan for 2016 but it's a daunting task and I keep putting it off. So I should also resolve to attack my procrastination.

I want to read more. Which is as easy as just reading fiction.
I want to find a mentor, without really understanding what kind of relationship that is.

I want to accomplish more creative projects but focus less on whimsy and pure "fun" and more on projects that will benefit people (possibly financially).

I want to get my personal finances in order. It's never been a thing I worried about. I want to worry a little bit about it.

I want to host more intentional gatherings. I like a dinner party or whatever, but I miss Chip Party, NachOlympics, etc.

the_owls

this is nice and beautiful

the_owls

I will graduate from college (for the third time) and then my list is long....

Get a job
Find a place to live with my old man
Start cooking real meals again
Start exercising
Catch up on sleep (basically repair all the physical damage of grad school)
Read books that aren't theory or art history
Start brushing my cats teeth
Re-design my website
Give more/better attention to my friends
have some damn fun

Cherry_Pie

those are really nice resolutions.

I resolve to:
publish another article
keep exercising
take a chance professionally (new school? administration? maybe!)
cook more dinners
learn to bake a few go-to treats
take on a fun creative project
stay up later sometimes
perform a stand up set
have fun with my friends
stay in love

Cherry_Pie

ps I miss NachOlympics too!

MirandaJuly

I resolve to watch that standup set.

Cherry_Pie

Lol. I have about 90 seconds of material.

Schlabe

In a few weeks I'm going to move in with my lady after about 10 years of more or less consistently living alone (a few stints of ladies living with me notwithstanding). Much of my thinking about the new year is about embracing this change, that frankly, scares the heck out of me. It will be good though, and it is an important step for me. So I resolve to: 1. Handle cohabitation.
2. Continue trying to find balance re: hating my creative projects vs permitting myself to fail.
3. Not take the above so seriously.
4. Hang out with friends more often.

swamp_knobbler_mahan

- Skate more often
- Finish the cabin
- Get huge muscles
- Fuck up a fascist

marijke

START
loving and seeing myself and others better
dressing weirder
write a business plan
paint a cloud

KEEP
reading daily
playing piano daily
exercising

STOP
drinking too much
working too much at something I don't love

Death

Learn GO and Ember so I can be more useful at work
Buy a car
Train to dunk a basketball (hold over resolution since 2013)

MirandaJuly

I recently started doing transcendental meditation twice a day, and I'm going to keep that up. Does anyone else do tm or mantra meditation?

Death

I've been meditating with a couple different mantras regularly for a couple of years. It's been great. Isn't TM sorta a scam? I ask because I researched it for a minute because I wanted to get into it. I even picked up the David Lynch book, but it just sounded like mantra meditation +500-2000 bucks.

kdawg

I think it is either a scam or just another totally fine tradition of meditation depending on where you go. I am very dubious about people charging lots of money for *advanced* meditation classes. It's sort of like generic prescription drugs. The cheap stuff is just as helpful.

swamp_knobbler_mahan

Same with Scientology, you don't need to pay them all the $, just check the books out of the library and buy yourself an e-meter! http://www.ebay.com/sch/sis.html?_nkw=Mark+Super+VII+Quantum+E+Meter+Scientology&_itemId=221365404865&_trksid=p2047675.m4099

MirandaJuly

TM is definitely overpriced. I taught myself here: http://minet.org/checktoc.html

So, I might not be practicing perfectly, but I kind of think I am, since there isn't much to it.

YoursTruly

I love all these resolutions!!!!!

Mine:
- publish something
- get a book proposal together so I can go see a writing coach
- get a weirder hairstyle
- continue working on being less selfish and seeing other people more clearly and sympathetically (a lifelong project I will never fully achieve but one must always struggle)
- start exercising again (?? seems impossible)
- drink just a little bit less, I'm not made of stone
- bring more calm and acceptance to struggles in my life I have no real control over (night sweats, hip dysplasia)
- clean the house once a week
- get on a good bread-baking schedule; stop buying bread
- plan out a garden and native-plant-based bee-friendly landscaping scheme for spring and then actually stick to the plan
- start calling my mother in law sometimes just to say hi
- observe all of my TAs in the classroom at least once a semester instead of constantly putting it off
- develop a more grownup and confident professional persona. Edit my shit instead of sheepishly sending it out knowing it's not good yet. Own that I am a qualified professional and my opinions and ideas are valid. Stop acting like an abject grad student and deferring to everyone and being afraid to ask a question in a conference Q&A or whatever. Stop being self-deprecating in my interactions with senior scholars. Stop accidentally cussing in class. Own my ideas and their validity. Just be a goddamn grown-ass professional woman
- become a bit more of a hardass w/r/t grading
- figure out an appropriate balance, in dealing with students, between being a compassionate human being and taking on too much affective labor because I am a woman and people unconsciously take advantage of women in this way and I don't have time to be a therapist to all 200 of my students when my male colleagues don't have to deal with this issue at all and are getting to spend hours and hours working on their tenure files while I am listening to 8,000 kids tell me about their daddy issues because I am "nice" and "non-threatening."
- be a bit more threatening
- buy a keyboard and develop a piano practice
- work more earnestly on French (see a tutor)
- continue developing the nascent friendships I am working on in my new milieu
- do the sun lamp every day no matter what
- get my teeth whitened
- get better at tarot cards
- start using the expensive night cream my mother insisted on buying me
- spend MANY HOURS every week close-listening to 18th- and 19th-century music (INCLUDING OPERA, don't wuss out) while following in a score
- buy shitloads of scores using startup funds
- learn some of the basics of music theory that I never actually learned and now have to constantly pretend I understand


I wonder how many of these I will actually do

swamp_knobbler_mahan

I have an idea to stop the kids telling you about their daddy issues. Just say "DADDY LIKEY" while making this face and they'll stop immediately

YoursTruly

but then i will be fired/arrested

MirandaJuly

I think you could maybe say "It's really not my place to discuss these topics with you." Then you're not really saying you don't care, you're just pointing out that it's not the appropriate forum for what they're saying...

Tarot: my friend recommended this course: http://tarotcourse.littleredtarot.com/

YoursTruly

that's what everyone says to do but it is actually pretty hard to put that into practice, at least for me. Imagine a kid crying in your office about how their cousin just overdosed on heroin and you are like "It is not my place to discuss this with you. Now, about your shitty grade in my class..." It's hard!!!!!!! This is why I have to construct a whole new personality for myself.

YoursTruly

also hard is the fact that there is usually a FOUR MONTH wait list to see a counselor on campus because universities are so under-funded and American college students are so epically in crisis all the time, for reasons both totally valid and garden-variety stupid-teen-based. So in the past I've tried to gently be like "I'm not trained to help you with this issue, but look, I can help you get an appointment with a counselor, it'll be so great, they can help you!" Then while the student is literally crying into the kleenex I keep on hand for this specific issue, I call the counseling office, and get a recording saying "our next available appointments are in the fall, 2017 semester" or whatever and I have to hang up and be like "hoo boy, that didn't work out, so anyway, when can you get your annotated bibliography to me"

you want to be there for your students, who you love, and some of whom are legit struggling with serious shit, but
(a) you truly AREN'T trained in dealing with such serious shit
(b) even though it's not the students' fault, due to it being totally unconscious, but it truly IS infuriating that your male colleagues are almost literally NEVER confronted with this dilemma, simply because of how society works
(c) you truly DO want to know when they think they can get their annotated bibliography done

YoursTruly

if you could boil my job down to its most basic elements it'd be

- emailing basically-suicidal students about their annotated bibliographies
- filling out the paperwork to get my classroom keys
- going to committee meetings and angrily yelling "GREAT LETS VOTE" every two seconds
- worrying I don't have enough blazers

MirandaJuly

Ugh, society.

Schlabe

Let's Go Blazers!

1234

I wrote up a little review of the past year:

http://k5m.today/2015-in-review/

Schlabe

That is a very honest review! I'm impressed. +1 to seeing a shrink, having someone to bounce your madness off of is so important. I've made a lot of progress on my addition to busy and mindfulness in general. If you want a referral, lmk.

1234

Thanks Abe. I think my mantra for 2916 us "work on it". It's the practical side of Make It Happen.

MirandaJuly

Mike, I haven't made my formal announcement yet (waiting on business cards), but in 2016 I am making a go of it at being a Metaphysical Counselor. I would love to schedule an appointment with you soon.

1234

If this involves staring at myself in your obsidian mirror I'm in. :)

MirandaJuly

The obsidian mirror is definitely involved down the line.

the_owls

scrying is dangerous! well, maybe not dangerous, but just sayin... I keep mine covered...

http://www.shamanscave.com/practices/mirror-scrying

the_owls

YT I am starting to experience these teacher situations and have similar concrns about being a female professor. Trying to find my feet and figure out how to be: authoritative, kind, serious, fun, approachable, respected, etc,

MirandaJuly

SCRY TIL I DIE

Schlabe

"As a first step, you can work with scrying on the surface of the mirror to look at things. A second step (once a certain expertise is acquired and verified) is to move through the mirror. And, of course, then there's shape shifting and disappearing..."

MirandaJuly

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/illusory-scenes-fade-in-out-view/?page=1

swamp_knobbler_mahan

I'd get stoned and fuck with a scry. Or any other spiritual/religious/metaphysical object for that matter.

Would also get high and burn a bible. Lemme know!

MirandaJuly

My practice is taking off!

flossy_log_lady

I am also down. Are you up for the challenge of counseling a counselor?

MirandaJuly

For sure

the_owls

For a new year's treat, I broke the shit out of my wrist.
Starting 2016 with an extra challenge \:D/

YoursTruly

My tarot business has really faltered of late even though I'm getting much better at it!
I want to restart it.
Also I want people to write to my advice blog.
Also Sarah I forgot to respond to your text I just realized!!! But I'm sorry about your little limb!!!

I've already kept one resolution and broken another

the_owls

I'd like a reading about the future of my arm- not joking

the_owls

Last night someone broke into the house while we were sleeping- another weird start to the fresh new year. Came in through a window and was walking around until one of us woke and yelled. Called cops, the whole thing.

Am starting to feel dread r.e. 2016.

1234

Ugh, that's fucking terrifying!

the_owls

it was AWFUL, no thank you do not come again

Cherry_Pie

Are you fucking KIDDING me?? That is terrible, Owly!! I hate hate hate this!!

the_owls

Someone suggested to me that maybe I'm just getting the bad out of the way all in one go, and I'm gonna roll with this idea.

Neither of these things was THAT BAD, I'm still healthy, loved, privileged, so nbd. Hopefully it stops here tho cuz I'd like to get on with my own plans and things.

1234

Okay, let's move from resolutions to PREDICTIONS!

Who is gonna be President?
What's going to happen to the economy?
What new technology is going to BLOW UP?
What scandal will the 24 hour news system over-report on and force us to try our best to ignore?
Other stuff?

swamp_knobbler_mahan

- Hillary
- China will be a drag on stock prices
- VR
- Those fuckin' right-wing militant/terrorist gun nut idiots in Burns. Something will have to give there, eventually.

Death

- Trump
- Capitalism will collapse
- Drones with guns
- Turns out the Illuminati actually do run everything and this presidential election is all a clever misdirection by Hagbard Celine to bring about enough chaotic energy to summon Our Lady Dischord and lead us all into a golden age where jokes become the new universal religion.
- The emerging splat ball market.