My Triumphant Return and First Failures

It's been a good long while since I last posted, but I've been periodically updating my list.

My progress has been pretty slow as of late, but I've continued working on a lot of my 'continuing goals'. I did finish the "try pilates" goal. I finish the class in two weeks. It's really got me in better shape. I haven't lost a lot of weight numberwise (and I don't have a scale at school, so I haven't been weighing myself), but I can see the physical difference in my body, and I've dropped a pants size. I don't love pilates like I love yoga (yoga makes me feel good... pilates makes me look good), but I really like the results, so if I can swing it I might try and take the class again next semester.

Also, my first failure: I've decided not to apply to the Yale MA program. I think I need a year off from school or I'll burn out and I think I wanted to apply to the program for the wrong reasons (it was a good placeholder while I figured out what I really wanted). I'm not taking it too hard, and I use the word "failure" loosely. Obviously, my goals and priorities are going to change over the next few years, and the list needs to be flexible. Part of the point is to track my growth anyway.

I did, however, take the Praxis. I get my scores back in a few weeks, so hopefully, I'll be able to tick off that goal, even if I (probably) won't be needing the test score for anything.

Some more progress: I've read more books. Minus the erotica ones, they've all been for school. The titles are listed on the page for that goal (47). I've purchased more non-necessary books, but I need a count, so I'll be back to update that soon. I applied for a promotional scholarship on Zinch--it's more of a sweepstakes, so I don't know my chances, but it's worth a shot.

Upcoming: D and I are going on a cruise in March--it's all booked and everything. And I'll be getting a passport for it, so that's two goals down (I also might go parasailing while we're there, so we'll see). In February, we're going to the Fetish Fair Flea Market in Providence. We're attending the Masquerade, and I'm dressing in fetishwear. So, depending, this may or may not count as public play and that weekend we may or may not do slave training. Next year, I'm signed up for a CPR class, so I'll be registered in April, I believe.

Finals are coming up, so I can't make any promises about posting habits, but I plan to schedule an hour during the week during which I can blog.

Small Progress.

So, over the course of my road trip I worked on a couple of my other goals:

Number 48--Wear no make-up in public. I did this on Sunday, the day after we got super high. I feel like it was almost a cop-out given the circumstances, but we did go out to eat and I did see people other than D so I decided to count it. A bigger step will be going without make-up to class one day (or days). I'd like to wait til my skin is particularly clear (which admittedly, sort of defeats the purpose of this task). Maybe I'll slowly wean myself off.

Also, I finished another book. Lost Tribe: Jewish Fiction from the Edge ed. by Paul Zakrzewski. It was a collection of short stories. I'm particularly interested in Jewish fiction (particularly in magical realism in Jewish fiction), so this collection of contemporary stories was great (post-Portnoy, they called it) to see where dialogue is headed. I made a few new discoveries--I love Myla Goldberg (she's not just an awesome Decemberists song), and even though I loved Everything is Illuminated, I'm willing to accept the Jonathan Safran Foer is kind of a douche. Lots of new stuff to look into, as well as some food for thought when it comes to possible graduate study.

Technicalities, and another book

So, I finished another book for goal 47. Another book that I had started before the 1st (and hence, before my challenge). 2666 by Roberto Bolaño. Really, this is one book broken down into 5 thematic parts (also called books, so this might get a bit confusing), but then contained in 3 physical books. In the first physical book (total of 350 pages), are housed the first 3 thematic books--The Part About the Critics, The Part about Amalfitano, and The Part About Fate. This is the book I just finished, so I'm counting it as one, and then I'll count the other two physical books (housing parts 4 and 5, respectively) as one each as well. I don't think this is cheating, but obviously I wouldn't count War and Peace as more than one book (or Infinite Jest, which is actually on my to read list, for that matter).

So to the story: Ostensibly, 2666 centers around a series of murders that take place in Santa Teresa, a small town just across the Mexican boarder. I say "Ostensibly" because, so far, these murders (numbering in the hundreds, all of young women) seem to only float in the background, until the very end of the 3rd part (where some of the characters go to interview a man who has been arrested for the murders. The narrative structure disintegrates and the writing takes on a phantasmagoric quality).

So far, the first three parts seem to link up only in the most tenuous of ways, but the plot is interesting enough, and the writing engaging enough for me to slog on another 5 hundred pages and find out if it all comes together in the end.


Other continuing goals: Goal 42, donating to Freerice.com. So far I've donated 10,000 grains of rice. I've decided to do them in 5,000 grain increments, because it will be easier to keep track. I need to play 200 times total to complete this goal (198 to go!)


Still telling D I love him everyday. Last night he "reminded" me (I hadn't forgotten, just hadn't said it yet. It was about 11:30) which annoyed me, but probably won't be a bad thing later down the road when I actually might forget or lose track of time.


Oh, and for goal 30--saving a dollar a day--I've decided to get ahead of myself. I plucked out all the quarters from my change jar and rolled $10 dollars of them, so I'm set for the next 10 days. I figure since it's the final number (1001) that's important, rather than the daily ritual of sticking a dollar in a jar, this is the path of least resistance.

And They're Off!

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47. Read at least a book a week

What is it: A book a week may sound like a lot--over 1001 days, it comes out to be about 143 books--but really, I don't think it's going to be that difficult. I'm a bookworm and a fast reader, besides which I read more than a book a week with classes anyhow. In this case, its not so much the book a week thing that's important, so much as that it averages out to be a book a week.




Status: In Progress (24/143)

The Writing Class by Jincy Willet
2666 (1) by Roberto Bolaño
Lost Tribe: Jewish Fiction from the Edge ed. by Paul Zakrzewski
Silence by Shusaku Endo
My Antonia by Willa Cather
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers by Henry David Thoreau
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
A Feather on the Breath of God by Sigrid Nunez
Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Call it Sleep by Henry Roth
How to Write a Dirty Story by Susie Bright
The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
The Best of the Best American Erotica 2008 ed. by Susie Bright
War Trash by Ha Jin
A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul
Frauds, Myths and Mysteries by Kenneth Feder
Fables: Legends in Exile (graphic novel)
Fables: Animal Farm (graphic novel)
Live Nude Elf by Reverend Jen
Morphology of the Folktale by Vladimir Propp
The Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille