freckles_and_doubt | Entries tagged with annual scorecard

I didn't actually blog at all in 2023; in retrospect, it's telling that my last post before the gap, in November 2022, was a brief and heart-felt complaint about post-COVID brain fog and fatigue. While this in the event was more than somewhat predictive, it means I missed both the 2022 retrospective, and, since I only started again this month, the 2023 one as well. As is traditional, I shall proceed to catch up both annual scorecards at once, hampered only slighty by the fact that I have no actual blog record of 2023 and am thus forced to rely on a memory which was already extremely dubious before COVID got its horrible little mitts on it. 2023, in particular, was A Year and needs to be memorialised.

Things achieved by me in 2022: COVID, thanks Obama. Significant techniques in dealing with the effectively doubled workload concomitant upon running parallel registration processes in person and online.

Things achieved by me in 2023: long COVID. Diabetes. Sufficient disinvestment from the demands of my job to be able to increasingly hand over my responsibilities in the face of incapacitating fatigue. A slim crowbar into the faculty's closed-minded inability to comprehend the amount of work I actually do for them in this role.

Things not achieved by me in 2022: Any sort of forward momentum in the greater life sense, especially in the areas of achieving a new job or fleeing the country.

Things not achieved by me in 2023: Any blog posts. Any sort of forward momentum in the greater life sense, especially in the areas of achieving a new job or fleeing the country. In retrospect, for once I actually have an excuse for this. Long COVID brain fog is a beast.

Losses in 2022: the Queen. Twitter, and, on a related note, the last pitiful dregs of Elon Musk's credibility. Noting for posterity that of the three, I only really mourn Twitter, and only slightly.

Losses in 2023: a significant chunk of my cognitive function.

Things discovered by me in 2022: bifocals, embittered cynicism about the efficacy of bifocals, Wordle, Waffle, Sudoku (extremely late to the party), JK Rowling disillusionment, TERF hatred, post-pandemic hermitting, burgeoning anti-monarchism, the Shivadh romances (despite my burgeoning anti-monarchism), breast abscesses (ouch), Merge Dragons (insert Gamer Shame here), feline senlility, Goncharov (Scorsese, 1973).

Things discovered by me in 2023: long COVID, brain fog, diabetes, disability benefits, insurance company hoop-jumping, evolving cultural critiques of the testing assumptions while taking cognitive assessments. Playing PC games on the TV with a controller, wrestling controller mods into submission despite the brain fog. My Time At Sandrock, Stray, the actually excellent Skyrim Switch port and the slightly less excellent Outer Worlds one. Growing ranunculus. Diabetes, acing the low-carb diet, adventures in diabetic baking, sugar-free chocolate.

Resolutions for 2024: kick this *(#%)&%* long COVID in its evil little teeth and resume a normal life.

My subject line is The Amazing Devil, again, one of my favourites of theirs.

A misty, moisty new year, which I think is a Good Omen in my personal lexicon of signs - it's raining very lightly, everything is cool and green. I have ceremonially tidied the house, mopped the kitchen floor and had a Healthy Breakfast, TM, which I think about does it in the "start as you mean to go on" department. Bugger resolutions, anyway.

2021 was... a weird sort of non-event, actually. Pandemics telescope time; some moments are stretched out interminably, and large chunks of days and weeks and months are suddenly gone when you blink. My Tumblr feed is all over people going "wait, that was this year?!", and some events - the Capitol insurrection, the Ever Given, Tiktok sea shanties - do feel as though they were aeons ago.

Things achieved by me in 2021: almost word-for-word the same as 2021: sanity, health, more or less functional work processes, all in the teeth of the odds. And increasingly accomplished remote skills - Teams, Vula, producing remote-format curriculum material comprehensible to the gazelles. I still love working at home. Working at home keeps me sane and more or less human.

Things not achieved by me in 2021: mercifully, COVID. Any sort of forward momentum in the greater life sense, especially in the areas of achieving a new job or fleeing the country. Pandemics, apparently, make one run in place. Unfortunately not literally, as "any sort of physical fitness or actual exercise" was firmly in the "not achieved" column this year.

Losses: Jyn, poor kitty, who I still miss on a daily basis. As does Pandora, whose Whinge Factor has increased materially.

Things discovered by me in 2021: TikTok sea shanties, Death Star metaphors for vaccination, vaccination evangelism, life as a tech support person, ridiculous amounts of overtime, Leigh Bardugo, Victoria Goddard (unqualified approval), geeking out about Naomi Novik with my niece, narrated powerpoints, prism lenses and how they don't work at all for me, Animal Crossing (extremely qualified approval), gluten sensitivity, rice noodles and pad kee mao, Terry's chocolate oranges as an acceptable replacement for Christmas.

Resolutions for 2022: since I achieved improvement on the teeth one from last year, although not complete victory (I now remember to brush them in the mornings about half the time, which is a noticeable improvement on last year) I shall try something similar with exercise. I should do some. Any at all would be more than I am currently achieving.

Trying to generate an Annual Scorecard for 2020 is really rather like surveying the shattered ruins and desecrated coastline where Great Cthulhu rampaged out of the ocean, and trying to award it points for formal landscape gardening. It feels both futile and hubristic. Which isn't going to stop me from doing it, because Tradition Must Be Observed, but if I'm carried off by nightgaunts tonight you'll know why.

It's not even as though 2020 has been, objectively, the worst year in my life: large tracts of its day-to-day have been placid, even pleasant, and I have some slightly epic bad stuff to which to compare it. I have survived, in the course of a life spent in a relatively small corner of southern Africa, one war, two regime changes, my parents' divorce, a home invasion, some unusually destructive romantic relationships, two graduate degrees, depression, injury, a DVT with pulmonary embolisms, two years of student protests, and the slow death by motor neurone disease of my incomeless father. I can't say that 2020 has been the worst year of my life, because (a) its manifest evils impacted me personally only at second hand, and (b) it's difficult to quantify across such disparate experiences, like the Professor Branestawm process of trying to do sums in apples and oranges and get the answer in lemon curd tarts. Both the protests and my dad's death were probably more savage in terms of actual psychological wear and tear on me personally.

But on a global scale 2020 has definitely been the most comprehensively befuckened, and has reshaped most dramatically the structure and tenor of my daily life. I was fortunate, in 2020, to have a guaranteed salary and the infrastructure to work at home, and to escape both COVID infection and the infection or death of anyone close to me. I am horribly, horribly conscious that huge numbers of others, both at home and globally, have been nothing like so lucky in either medical or financial terms: that kind of privilege is an empathic responsibility. It's also a testament to the clusterfuck that this year has been that America's BLM movement and increasing drift to a fascist state, and the UK's Brexit stupidities, have been eclipsed. In any other year they would be the top of everyone's worry list, not a couple of items down in a plethora of ills.

Things achieved by me in 2020: Survival with health and sanity more or less intact, which is in itself a commendable achievement under the circumstances. Sufficient self-discipline to be very, very careful and aware of COVID precautions. The successful and relatively painless translation of major faculty admin processes into remote formats. An ordered and increasingly comfortable home (being at home 24/7 is really good for noticing and remedying minor home decorating deficiencies, who knew?). Considerably advanced strategies in surviving endless Teams meeting while keeping the swearing and screaming firmly on mute.

Things not achieved by me: A new job, shaking the dust of the country off my booted feet, global political optimism. Since the epidemic kiboshed all of the above fairly comprehensively there isn't really much I could do about it, so I propose not, for once, to feel guilty.

Losses: respect for the US and UK's political systems; any desire to live in either. 1.8 million COVID deaths, which is staggering enough to be faintly unreal. It will only get worse.

Things discovered by me in 2020: mask-construction, mask-wearing, hand sanitiser, working from home, Teams, Zoom and their horrible ilk, robot vacuums, white chocolate in lemon cheesecake, The Amazing Devil, console ownership, Becky Chambers, Vitamin D, The Witcher in both book and game form and the inevitable fanfic (was that all only this year? good lord), even higher than the usual levels of apocalypse-anticipatory grocery hoarding, sharing memes with my niece (the Destiel meltdown was a gift), American and UK politics as a rather nastily tragicomic spectator sport.

Resolutions for 2021: remember to brush my teeth in the morning, working from home has screwed with my usual home-leaving routine and I keep forgetting. Any further commitment, resolution-wise, seems incautious. I am confidently expecting 2021 to be as much of a shitshow, if not more so, and it definitely will be COVID-wise; there's slightly more hope that the US political nastinesses will die down with sane incumbents in office, and with any luck the UK will break up so that sensible portions of it can rejoin the EU. However, I am not sanguine, and will therefore make no further resolutions other than to keep my head down, survive and remain healthy.

Apparently writing "2020" on umpteen student forms in the last two weeks was insufficient to make me accept that we're in a new year, but realising we're in February of that year brought it home quite handily. Where the hell did January go? Mostly down in fire and flood, actually. This orientation/reg season has been ungodly.

Things achieved by me in 2019: I survived. Specifically, a serious fatigue slump (re-reading 2019 posts has made me realise that I was barely functional from approximately March, I really resurfaced only towards the end of the year when I took to supplementing myself madly with Vitamin B) and another difficult campus semester (gender violence and more student demonstrations). Clinging to sanity by my eyebrow hairs amid increasing institutional and national disfunction on the home front, and growing global political fuckwittery. Sufficient momentum to apply for several overseas jobs, although none of them were successful.

Things not achieved by me: A new job, shaking the dust of the country off my booted feet, global political optimism. Or that fairy tale paper, actually, the fatigue slump was sufficient that I couldn't find the mental energy to actually finish writing it, and I withdrew from the volume.

Losses: jo&stv (not terminally, but they are now Very Far Away).

Things discovered by me in 2019: TERF hatred, Stardew Valley on the Ipad, crockpot cookery, making ice cream, the Grahamstown Arts Festival (again), My Time At Portia, tendon strain injuries and orthotics, the Good Omens adaptation and Michael Sheen generally (David Tennant in tight trousers was not actually a new discovery), The Mandalorian, B-complex supplements, Greedfall and The Outer Worlds (both with reservations), wingfic, the most recent Fratellis albums and Codeine Velvet Club, a Goblin Emperor fixation, mid-life crises, Nathan Pyle t-shirts, Gideon the Ninth, black bed linen.

Resolutions for 2020: flee the country. It's the only current goal I have.

I appear to have done the usual year-end shutdown, I have been noodling around the house doing not much, replaying Mass Effect: Andromeda and, by way of conceptual whiplash, Stardew Valley, in haphazard rotation. I have, at least, succeeded in resuscitating my early morning walking habit, which has been pleasant and is making me feel less blobby. I have petted the cats a lot, and instituted another book throw-out, which was pleasingly cathartic and has once more trimmed the collection to fit the available shelf space. I allowed New Year's Eve to pass unmarked and largely unnoticed, bar being rudely awoken at midnight by the usual outbreaks of fireworks and the traditional wrong number phone call just as I was drifting back off to sleep.

This has been a year in limbo: I have made gestures of marching onward while remaining firmly in place. This is possibly because I'm not sure which direction I should be marching in, and am generally mistrusting or fearing all visible and possible goals.

Things achieved by me in 2018: not a whole lot, actually. Survival of the faculty melt-down; a dignified detachment from the evil hell-boss, both her presence and her departure; management of a functioning unit with reasonably happy subordinates in the teeth of widespread dysfunction. Final proofread of one paper for publication (Nesbit fairy tale), an invitation to write another (20C fairy-tale adaptation). New curtains, new tyres on my car, a new haircut. Continuation with daily living in the face of ongoing global political fuckwittery. None of it seems particularly significant.

Things not achieved by me: A new job, or sufficient momentum to hoik myself by the bootstraps out of the existential issue-pit into which the contemplation of leaving academic has flung me. This is still a work in progress. I'm working on it.

Losses: Ursula Le Guin, Tumblr's identity, career change momentum.

Things discovered by me in 2018: 17776, Starship Iris, fibre internet, ineffectual druiding under conditions of extreme water restriction, Yonder: The Cloudcatcher Chronicles, the Fallout soundtrack, the Murderbot Diaries, cooking with artichokes, Naomi Novik fairy tales, commissioning oaths, Mass Effect tie-in novels by Cat Valente and NK Jemisin, Dappermouth artworks, wind farms up close.

Resolutions for 2019: survive another orientation/registration, write this paper, find another job. In that order.

Happy new year, all. By way of distraction from the inexorable march of time, I recommend Scenes from a Multiverse's take on it.

2017 was a bitch. Seriously, on both the global and the personal front it was an unmitigated clusterfuck. It has had unpleasant repercussions for me personally because all I can see around me is failing systems, and I am a creature of order whose sense of identity and calm is derived from instrumental participation in harmonious and effective systems, and none of the systems - educational, political, personal - in which I am involved are at present either harmonious or effective in any way at all. It's very eroding to the soul.

In the light of the above, the traditional annual scorecard looks something like this:

Things achieved by me: Enough managerial togetherness to maintain a functional unit within the greater breakdown of my faculty. Realisation that I need a new job, and determination to acquire same. Sufficient courage to actually communicate this, in a definite fashion, to select superiors and colleagues.

Things not achieved by me: Sufficient negotiation of the complete identity-crisis meltdown occasioned by realising I need a new job (and, in fact, the ongoing energy drain of my current one) to actually initiate the job search process in more than a vague and fluffy sort of way. This is a work in progress.

Losses: Faith in the SA university system, particularly that of my Cherished Institution. Faith in the ability of decency and moral evolution to overcome self-interest. Tracy and family, who have fled to the Netherlands in well-executed and pro-active realisation of the above in the local context. (Robert Mugabe is not a loss. His departure is a gain whether or not he's being replaced by actual Darth Vader, which I rather regretfully think he might be.)

Things discovered by me in 2017: Dreamwidth. Portal, Andromeda, Divinity. Jyn Erso, as in my small ginger-and-white kitten. Air B'n'B, Franschoek, Colmant champagne. Workplace political machination in sheer self-defence, I've never shopped someone to a higher authority before, it was weird. Slow release magnesium as a remedy for swollen ankles. The Invisible Library, and also K.J. Charles's Magpie Lord series. FFS. Teen Wolf and associated fanfic. Cooking with bourbon. Panic attacks.

Resolutions for 2017: GET A FUCKING NEW FUCKING JOB RIGHT FUCKING NOW! I feel that this is an integral first step in acquiring the necessary mental and emotional energy to start tackling my general sense of existential despair.

Happy New Year to all, if such does not sound irredeemably sarky after all the above. I hope we all manage to achieve something like hope and forward momentum in the teeth of the general breakdown.

It's a bit tricky to do a Year In Review for a year which featured the collapse of the South African tertiary education system, America deliberately electing Jabba the Hutt and Britain trying to saw its own leg off in an effort to detach from the mainland. One's personal milestones and experiences seem somewhat irrelevant. On the other hand, Jabba the Hutt isn't in power yet so at least I don't have to write a Year In Review that has to include actual ~~rancors~~ nuclear war. I still think it was prescient of me to have discovered Fallout in the last couple of years.

2016 has been a complete bitch. Academia has become neither safe nor secure; nor, in fact, has the world at large, as the West's ugly underlying bigotries have leaped to the fore in a flurry of political and ideological regression. Some sort of weird demographic, possibly a complicated metric intersecting my age, the bleak political climate, the modern music and film industries and the spread of information in a media age, has absurdly concentrated the death of icons into the last year so that it feels as though 2016 has been prowling the ranks of the particularly beloved with a scythe. And my cats, past and present, keep dying. Looking back, it's the most that one can say that we've survived the year without actually retreating into a bunker or the foetal position under the bed.

In the more personal sense, the student protests, and the concomitant chaos and difficulty in campus administration and teaching, have crystallised my dissatisfaction with my job. Our faculty team has been in a state of flux, with my difficult boss driving change hard enough that people are leaving in droves; I like the team which is emerging (except aforementioned boss, who I still feel I have to placate), but the work is steadily becoming more difficult and demanding, as is the academic landscape as a whole. I don't think I can be here for much longer. In particular, I don't think I can continue to endure my job's drain on me personally: I am socialising less, am continually exhausted and avoiding groups of people, I dive back into my house at the end of every day and lock the door behind me with a palpable sense of relief. I miss my friends. I don't have energy to deal with them, but I miss them anyway. And I am feeling very Zimbabwean under the current university experience: it feels as though it could mean the kind of wholesale political crash which lost my parents everything. Change may mean a change of country, if I can possibly swing it. It may also mean a change out of academia. Academia has not been kind to me for a long time, but this year it's been actively cruel.

So the annual scorecard is a bit depressing, and looks as follows:

Things achieved by me: survival under difficult circumstances. Resolution for radical change in my work life. Increasing political skills in self-protection and boss-evasion.

Things not achieved by me: healthy social levels. Exercise. Job satisfaction. Change.

Losses: Hobbit. Todal. David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Sheri S. Tepper, Carrie Fisher, numerous others not quite so iconic to me. The ivory towerness of the ivory tower. The global plot.

Things discovered by me in 2016: Growing flame lilies. A proper phone, and, not unrelated to same, Avengers Academy, Uber and WhatsApp. Stranger Things. Fallout and Star Wars fanfic. MRI scans and cartilage tumours. KOTOR. Gougères (via Claire). Machete Order. Check, Please!, and ice hockey generally (!). Demisexuality. Cornbread. Reading on Kindle. Jessica Jones. OT3s. Feline kidney cancer diet restrictions. Political despair.

Things rediscovered by me in 2016: Star Wars. Drarry. Student protests. Postcolonial despair.

Resolutions for 2017: try to resist various flavours of despair. Change, adapt, survive. Socialise.

The year has been enough of a bitch that it's difficult to say "Happy New Year" without it sounding sarcastic. At the very least, may 2017 be less dreadful than we're all afraid it's going to be.

well, then. Happy new year. 2016. A year, as the Goon Show would have it, of months, and one which adds up to 9, a number of which I've always been fond for random aesthetic reasons. (Curvy. And three threes). I hope this is a good omen. I didn't do the annual scorecard retrospective last year, because I was submerged in depression at the start of 2015 and not really blogging, so as has become traditional, I'm going to catch up by doing them both at once.

2014 was about change, in a lot of ways: moving out of a 15-year shared space, a new boss at work who radically redefined both my working conditions and my sense of safety, and the opening of a lot of major cans of heavily suppressed worms in the therapy process. In fact, safety nets were removed in 2014 to rather dramatic extents. It's probably not surprising that 2014 was quite bad for the depression. I'm not good at change. It frightens me, and I tend to sit in a rut in order to avoid it, and I find it more stressful than energising. But if the two-year comparison has done anything, it's been to realise that I can do change if necessary (and if prodded properly, and I still owe Jo beyond belief for lending me the energy and direction to shepherd me through the move); and more importantly, it can be exciting and energising. At the beginning of 2014 I resolved, above all, to try and be happy, and while it's been a two-year process with patchy results, I think I'm starting to achieve that. If 2014 was about change, 2015 was about adapting, moving forward.

So, here's the scorecard, with its usual random set of juxtapositions.

Things achieved by me in 2014: a break-up with my Evil Landlord, in the domicile rather than the friendship sense; an autonomous home filled with the basic furniture and appliances for daily life; an autonomous life in which I control all my own adult-related decisions; a chapter in a major book on fairy-tale film; something resembling a start on a theoretical engagement with the existence of African fairy tale within my personal academic paradigm (this is actually rather major); some crowbars applied to crack open deep-seated problems in therapy.

Things achieved by me in 2015: a new cat. A refinement of my home space beyond the basics, in a way that has made it feel particularly mine. A new set of work responsibilities (I now head a student engagement cluster, for what that's worth) and, after careful manipulation, a working relationship with my new boss. A negotiation of a major political melt-down on campus, during which I think I helped students measurably and was able to give free rein to my organisational bent. An emergence from the chrysalis of therapy and anti-depressants into a more stand-alone existence, although I suspect my wings are still drying.

Losses: Philip&Jo, who fled the country, and who are not an absolute loss because the internet, but whom I miss. My sweet and mentally disabled Aunt Jane, sadly, from cancer, but also mercifully quickly and while she was with my mother in the UK rather than being in Zim. Golux, about whom I am still sad. (Also, I discover, Ounce, who was never technically mine, but with whom I lived for a decade or so, and for whose shadowy, flighty insecurities I had a fondness not untinged with guilt. He had the same thing Fish did, cancer on the roof of his mouth; the EL had to have him put down just before Christmas. It's been a bad year for kitties chez EL, they're down to Todal, who remains in reasonable health, albeit very skinny, despite some sort of fairly major kidney problem.)

Things discovered by me in 2014: Inquisition, Death Cab for Cutie, living alone, really loving living alone, mocha cheesecake, Bed On Bricks, morally ambiguous honey badgers, Agents of Shield, comparative chocolate digestive anthropology, memory-scrambling anaesthetic drugs, 2048 with Sherlock and otters, building bookshelves with Jo, Moxibay side-effects, Parade's End.

Things discovered by me in 2015: Fallout, Sunless Seas, epic container gardening, growing things from bulbs and seed, Dragon Age fanfic, office politicking skills, makeshift racerback bras, the corrosive properties of lemon juice, electric toothbrushes, hipster cats-eye spectacle frames, reading the service agreement properly, Amelia Peabody, the limitations of the therapy process, Mallory Ortberg, Frère's, cauliflower and sweetcorn soup, Daredevil, clipping my cats' claws myself, Wellbutrin side-effects, Flow, Windows 10.

Things rediscovered by me in 2015: my brain not on drugs; long hair; dreaming; being happy.

If I'm making resolutions, which I don't think I am in any formal way, it's to try and continue being happy; to look for positive ways to change. Because apparently it's possible.

(My subject line is quoting ABBA, unashamedly, because new year always earworms me with that song for days).

I didn't do the official year retrospective post last year, possibly as a result of the major fit of pique which resulted from those bastards nicking the television last New Year's Eve while we were off partying. Since it's quite a nice exercise in stock-taking I am hereby resuscitating the retrospective tradition, pausing only to note with some pleasure that no actual bastards robbed the house last night while we were off having civilised six-course dinners for eleven at jo&stv's. (Memo to self, post that recipe I invented for the mushroom salad thingy). I shall also, by way of comparison, briefly survey 2012, because the gap is irritating me like a missing tooth. Can you tell that I'm the kind of computer gamer who absolutely has to visit every corner of a map and pick up all the loot? You probably can.

Weirdly enough given that this year was characterised by a giant month-long depressive slump somewhere in the middle of it, I think it's generally been a more positive than negative year in my personal universe. It's been mostly blissfully free of massive personal or medical disasters, and I'm certainly feeling more functional and on-track in basic life issues than I was a year ago - some unresolved things that were hanging over my head have finally been resolved, like cars and house agents. There's some evidence that fairly intense therapy may actually have some utility: while I can't say I've solved all my self-sabotaging tendencies, I'm far more aware of them than I was, and generally less likely to be destructively hard on myself. I feel slightly more confident, slightly more open, and rather more likely to do things I want and need to do without feeling that other people's needs should come first. Yay therapy.

Things achieved by me this year: The writing up and submission of two papers, plus various encyclopaedia entry updates and a couple of new ones (one submitted already, the other to be submitted really soon now since the final deadline was yesterday). An invitation to contribute a chapter to a rather prestigious fairy-tale film anthology. A driver's licence and a spanky new car. The start of an actual exercise routine, in a small but so far reasonably consistent way. A sense of improved management of fatigue and associated bodily ills. The gradual re-focus of my job towards more interesting policy-setting rather than administrivia. General validation of my work achievements by various Deans and other superiors. Ongoing relationships with lovely and essential friends.
(Things achieved in 2012: more international travel on (a) my Cherished Institution's dime (two fairy-tale conferences) and (b) as a keynote speaker partially funded by the conference (that Harry Potter one). After really rather a lot of HR wrangling, the upgrading of my post and job description to bump it up a payclass and include a 10% research/teaching component. A learner's licence. A new agent for the French house. A therapist.)
Things discovered by me this year: Ipads, Nimona, truffle oil, the reality of depression, taxis, fresh broad beans, Blu-Ray, subject line footnote refs, Sherlock fanfic, evening constitutionals, Captain Marvel, mole mapping, freeform LARP-writing, social self-preservation, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Benedict Cumberbatch, Vampire Weekend.
(Things discovered by me in 2012: Veronica Mars, Tamora Pierce, Tumblr, Goats, WordPress, subject line reference posts, Phryne Fisher, Avengers fanfic, Kingdoms of Amalur, Scotland, the Lake District, Ghent, Kristen Cashore, madly ordering internet art, Chrome, Kickstarter, Sherlock.)
Things achieved by other people this year which affect me: the Evil Landlord's acquisition of a girlfriend.
Things not achieved by me: as usual, fleeing the country, crushing academia beneath my booted heel, enough writing, enough exercise. Although I think I have failed to meet many of these goals rather less catastrophically than some previous years.
Resolutions for the new year: continue upward trends wherever possible in writing, exercising, socialising, self-management. Try to move out of ruts and comfort zones. Be, wherever possible, happy.

A ceremonial happy new year to all of you lot. I hope it exceeds all positive expectations.

Subject line from "Auld lang syne", for fairly obvious reasons.

I have to say, along with Hoban "Wash" Washburne, that with 2011 we experienced "a little problem with our entry sequence". The last few years have not been kind to me and mine: 2009 was father's illness, 2010 was father's death, and I'd hoped that by 2011 the cosmic wossnames would have shot their bolt and we'd experience an upward trend. Instead, the pitch of entry has caused the outer casing to overheat and the wings to fall off. 2011 was a complete bugger, marked both by my increasing lack of happiness in this job, and by a new and interesting chapter in Things My Body Inflicts On Me Out Of Perverse Sadistic Glee. I am not leaping joyously into 2012 so much as crawling over the finish line while 2011 sits panting behind me, the bloodied scraps of fabric in its jaws all that remains of the seat of my pants. (Bizarrely mixed metaphors in this paragraph brought to you at no additional cost).

Thus, the usual scorecard is somewhat unbalanced in its 2011 iteration. It also completely ignores global trends and disasters to focus, as usual, on the purely personal. Thusly:

Things achieved by me this year: international travel on my Cherished Institution's dime. Survival of life-threatening illness. Survival of concomitant post-illness chronic fatigue. Invitation to give a keynote paper at a conference next year, albeit a small conference. Invitation to submit paper to special edition of journal, on Miyazaki, so score. Relative success at doing my job despite being absent from it for about three months, and validation from superiors in proof of same. With assistance of therapist and my, as usual, incredibly wonderful friends both real and virtual, something vaguely approaching mental health in endurance of all of the above.
Things discovered this year: Dragon Age, Eureka, Lillian Jackson Braun, She Wants Revenge, retro Golden Age superhero comics, the Avengers, Skyrim, buying a new computer specifically for gaming, Dark Angel, Melbourne, the reality of deep vein thrombosis on long haul flights, compression socks, anti-depressants, Questionable Content, bras that fit, Lego, Dollhouse, growing out my fringe.
Things not achieved by me: as usual, fleeing the country, crushing academia beneath my booted heel, enough writing, enough exercise. Any of the end-2010 resolutions about having a better year. Most importantly, the actual writing any of the above papers owing to aforementioned fatigue. Possibly as a result of all the therapy, I am bizarrely inclined to actually cut myself some slack for this.
Resolutions for the new year: attempt to continue the process of cutting myself slack on the fatigue, while simultaneously resolving both to cautiously exercise towards actual health, and not to use fatigue and Skyrim as excuses for protcrastination. Writing of kick-butt papers variously for the journal special issue, for the May Harry Potter conference, and for two additional fairy-tale conferences in August/September. Fiendish political strategising to bend the structure and expectations of this job to my inflexible will. More socialising with all the lovely friends I've hardly seen owing to fatigue and inexorable hedgehogginess.

I spurn 2011 as the dust beneath my chariot wheels, and look sternly at 2012. Shape up, dammit. In the global sense, but particularly in the particular.

Current Mood: grim determination

That was 2010, that was. Now it's old and grey and tottering towards the finish line while 2011 sits in the wings and plots. At the end of last year I said that 2009 had made me sad, and politely requested 2010 to pull its socks up. In a weird sort of way it's sort of complied. Given that my major resolution for 2010 was "survive", I can pretty much say "mission accomplished", but it wasn't much of a mission.

I lost my father this year and, however merciful his release was from his horrible illness, losing a parent is something of a major life event. His death has freed me to start getting my life and finances back on track, but I think I'm still trying to absorb the implications of his absence; it all feels strangely distant and unreal, as though he's actually live and well and pottering around France somewhere. I suppose that's almost inevitable, when the relationship I've had with him for the last ten years has been across distance and with infrequent contact. Loss takes a while to sink in.

The usual scorecard:

Things achieved by me this year: a conference, a published paper, a serious amount of academic validation from complete strangers. Paid-off debts to bank and sister. A house in France, and an actual tenant in it. Survival of giant renovations. A far more vicious stranglehold on this job, it's starting to become routine, and to give me something approaching headspace, making it vaguely possible that I will be able, in the near future, to think of it as a day job and do more interesting things around its edges. A reasonably effective management plan for life with chronic sinusitis/glandular fever, although I'm still working on the "while not whinging about it" part.
Things discovered this year: Star Trek, Smallville, Plants vs. Zombies, Catherynne M. Valente, tempura batter, Death Cab for Cutie, Echo Bazaar, Scott Pilgrim, Transmetropolitan, Fiasco!, netbooks, how to cook fillet, Microfiction.
Things not achieved by me: as usual, fleeing the country, crushing academia beneath my booted heel, enough writing, enough exercise. In addition, I have not seen enough of all my friends; I've retreated into a sort of exhausted hermitage thing where I socialise only if someone actively pulls me out with hook and line. I've missed everyone.
Resolutions for the new year: trample job under my booted heel and find more energy for more interesting things, including headspace in which to write. Do some bloody exercise. See my friends far more actively and often. Travel more.

2010 had extremely horrible moments, but I think its overall arc has been slightly upwards. I am cautiously hopeful about 2011. Tonight a small gang of us see in the New Year in our traditional fashion, which is to cook giant, elaborate meals on the distributed plan while imbibing alcohol freely and allowing the conversation to wander hither and thither at will. I hope that you all have equally pleasant prospects for the evening, and that 2011 will bring you wonderful things.

Current Mood: retrospective

My body (She Is Skraatched) has celebrated the end of the year by coming up with a new slant on random reactions, allergies or diseases: the dry eyelids have spread inexorably downwards to infect my face, neck and shoulders with a sort of itching, blotchy tightness which declines to respond to any treatment in anything but the most negative terms. This is (a) causing my mother to drift around the house bemoaning the fact that I didn't inherit her immune system (she's not allergic to anything, I'm probably a changeling), and (b) making me slightly suspect I'm in the process of turning into something scaly, draconine and inappropriate. Either that, or I've been watching waaaaay too much Roswell (which I have - interesting teenage-groping Max dreams last night, and dissolving into dust in swimming pools) and have convinced myself I'm a Skin. Giant tracts of sloughed-off epidermis coming soon to a beleaguered form near you. Can't wait. In the meantime, I suggest anyone meeting me stick to air-kisses, I may be contagious, and please be kind and don't stare at my blotching. Also, the antihistamine tablets are making me even more spacey than usual, conversations void where prohibited by logic.

I am slightly copping out of large New Year parties this year, owing to sudden people-surfeit; we're doing dinner with jo&stv and have pledged to finish early if we're all tired and go to bed instead of sticking it grimly out for midnight. The plan is for vaguely larney three-course meal - starter, fillet of beef chasseur, crepes suzette. Because, of course, the Christmas season really needs another giant blow-out to populate its foodless wastes. Memo to self, tell the EL to lay in champagne. (I cannot sufficiently stress how much easier my life would be if I could simply persuade the EL to read this bloody blog, but he won't. Sigh. For a programmer he's a total techno-luddite, and besides, declines to get into blog-reading on the grounds of actual work or something. Pshaw. Feeble excuse.)

I'm declining to go all retrospective on 2008. Despite giving me more work validation, actual money and indulgence of my book, music and DVD habit than any other year heretofore, 2008 has made me cross. I hereby resolve to kick 2009's butt and make it behave.

Current Mood: itchy

The nice lady at the gym has randomly given me the same locker key for three sessions in a row now. It's number 133. If I was the kind of person who bought lottery tickets, I'd see this as a Sign or Portent of somethingorother, but fortunately I class lottery tickets under numerology, and numerology under Pure Exploitative Hokum.

I am wimping out on New Year festivities tonight, owing to heatstress, headache, being severely mauled by the gym this morning (exhausted, no idea why), random antisociability, and the fact that I have to take my mother to the airport at 5.30 tomorrow morning. I shall, however, pause to do the Obligatory Year-End Assessory-Type Post.

Things achieved by me this year: approval of the book updates; a sustained and serious gym routine resulting in fitness improvement in leaps and bounds, occasionally literally; an actual job with an actual salary, albeit not quite the job I was looking for (insert mystic Jedi hand gesture here). Given that last year's "not achieved" list listed "a permanent job, an actual salary as opposed to a pittance, a romance, any form of physical fitness, an updated book", I actually have to say that four out of five ain't half bad.
Things discovered this year: Farscape, Facebook, Morrowind, knitting, David Bowie, fake fur, Judith Butler, motivational bunnies.
Things not achieved by me: fleeing the country, crushing academia beneath my booted heel, enough writing.
Resolutions for the new year: I have only one. Regardless of the outcome or upshot, I will not publicly angst about this new job.

Last Night I Dreamed: I was co-ordinating a mass attack by cats, riding chariots drawn by goats, on a herd of donkeys. The confusion was indescribable.

Current Mood: braced
Current Music: David Bowie, Heathen

'Tis the obligatory end-of-year post! Despite having had the designated 365 days of 2006, I still feel we're not really acquainted. And now it's this ancient, crone-like thing breathing out its last few hours. Time. Weird stuff.

As years go, it hasn't really been vintage: as

wolverine_nun has pointed out with uncomfortable perspicacity, I've been marking time. The tally sheet is uncomfortably close to last year's, and thus looks rather like this:

Things achieved by me this year: a bunch more encyclopedia entries, a sort of vaguely-extended semi-contract, actual progress on the book updates (although not enough), a bunch of reading, movie-watching and random web-surfing, a bunch of really good friends, another year of blogging.
Things discovered this year: Moscow Mules, Belle & Sebastian, Alias, Spaced, Michael Marshall Smith.
Things not achieved by me: a permanent job, an actual salary as opposed to a pittance, a romance, any form of physical fitness, an updated book.
Realisations arrived at: (1) I shouldn't be here. My love for CT and friends and sister/niece notwithstanding, I don't have a career in this country and probably never will. (2) Not that it matters, as I suspect wide-scale social chaos and redefinition to result from global warming any time in the next decade, so all bets are off.
Resolutions for the new year (almost identical to last year, i.e. not actually achieved much): work harder, write more, bum around a lot less on Teh Interwebs, go to the gym, and, most importantly, make a concerted and good-faith attempt to leave the country. NB do not allow self to be cowed or distracted by the epic and horrible task of relocating my book collection.

Bother. Have now worked self into introspective depression. Shall distract self satisfactorily from general downer conclusions by having a hell of a good party tonight, and wishing all and sundry a madly wonderful New Year. Also, thanks for hanging out here, either virtually or in reality. You're important.

Current Mood: depressed, determined
Current Music: Belle & Sebastian, Push Barman To Open Old Wounds

That was the year flying by, that was. Too weird. I'm barely used to it being 2005, and now it's over. The end of the year always does strange things to me: it's very odd, to think that it won't be 2005 again, ever, for any of us (unless major upheavals happen to our world, culture and calendar, which I suppose there's an off chance they might). I find myself doing strange rituals at new year: cleaning obsessively, finishing projects, making resolutions. Symbolic wossname. It's important.

Things achieved by me this year: a book publishing contract, two journal articles, a bunch of encyclopedia entries, a bunch of reading and movie-watching, a bunch of really good friends, a blog, a Pelican. Things achieved by other people that affect me: a niece, the Evil Landlord's garage. Things not achieved by me: a permanent job, an actual salary as opposed to a pittance, a romance, any form of physical fitness. Resolutions for the new year: work harder, write more, play less ShadowMagic, go to the gym. Simple, really.

Tonight is our semi-formal new year's party, at which I'm expecting 20-30 people, dressed to the nines, and clutching the makings of their favourite cocktail. The house is full of balloons, champagne, fairy lights, cocktail umbrellas, streamer guns and sparklers. I am uneasily aware that the amount of alcohol in the house is going to be perfectly ridiculous, which means that we shall not so much see the Old Year out as take it out back and shoot it before prancing upon its recumbent corpse. Probably while singing, drunkenly. As plans go, I've seen worse.

Happy New Year, all you witterers, and it's been a pleasure hanging out with you. Stick around, there's another year coming.

Current Mood: nostalgic and forward-looking

Profile

December 2024

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

Syndicate

Page Summary

knowing where my marbles went
a year of months
that was definitely one of the years I've ever had
somewhat belated year in review
if it doesn't end I'm going to kill it with knives
take it out back and shoot it
annus horribilis
our hopes, our will to try
we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit
... we may experience some slight turbulence and then explode.
retrospective
take me to your lizard
never look back; walk tall; act fine
another gentle whooshing sound
gentle whooshing sound

Style Credit

Base style: Modular by branchandroot
Theme: Purple Haze by timeasmymeasure

Freckles & Doubt

With my mastery of narrative structure I should be ruling the cosmos by now.

Entries tagged with annual scorecard

knowing where my marbles went

a year of months

that was definitely one of the years I've ever had

somewhat belated year in review

if it doesn't end I'm going to kill it with knives

take it out back and shoot it

annus horribilis

our hopes, our will to try

we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit

... we may experience some slight turbulence and then explode.

retrospective

take me to your lizard

never look back; walk tall; act fine

another gentle whooshing sound

gentle whooshing sound

Profile

December 2024

Syndicate

Page Summary

Tags

Style Credit