(no subject)
I realized my posting in general has slowed down, and I'll probably stop cross posting to LJ very often because I don't see all that much point in it. I'm not closing it down, but I don't see too much point in retaining it. My journalling alternative is friends only, so if you're not already reading this on it, you can send me a message anywhere you talk to me and I'll probably just set you up. I'll even sporadically check it, if that's a concern.
Winter sucks for me; December's probably the most tolerable winter month in terms of weather, but it's the most densely packed with social obligations. There's a wedding, which I'm kind of looking forward to, but I'm otherwise probably going to dodge as many gatherings as possible because even like that, I'm looking at a reasonably full schedule of stuff I really couldn't get out of even if I wanted to. December typically is also when money runs low, and that's the case this year, too. So my only serious goal is to keep looking for work and otherwise holding down the fort at home.
I'm on course to hit 50 books this year, which is cool. I set the terms for it, and it's been largely a little arbitrary. Although I didn't really give '50' a particularly high conscious priority, as I've mentioned, the experiment heavily colored how I decided to prioritize stuff I was up to. I prioritized reading over video games or movies in a serious way. I prioritized academic work over fiction in many cases because I could find academic work that ran to the short side, because I wanted to lean towards 'functional' work. I heavily skewed towards shorter work to hit arbitrary quotas, and easier non-fiction that I'd put off reading to pad my list. I ended up listing C.S. Lewis's books as novels but Animorphs - which I'm reading for a friend's podcast - as long essays, but that caused me to skew Animorphs (despite how easy they are) towards the bottom of my to-do list. Lastly, and maybe most interestingly, I would often prioritize recreational or theory reading over writing because of the two, the latter is much more difficult and takes up a large amount of time. I can definitely say that I won't be attaching any kind of goals to my reading next year, thinking of 2018 at the year I focus mostly on creating instead of consuming.
Once again, another job prospect has popped up. I don't know how it'll go anymore because no matter how sure I am, it hasn't worked out yet - but unless I literally die before it happens, it's clearly just a matter of time. It's easy to forget near misses after you become employed and more interesting and meaningful issues take the place of opportunities that never were. It's been a frustrating ride, but even though I'm traditionally pretty negative about these kinds of things, it's hard for me to feel really discouraged so far.