End of Year Survey
2012 had a lot of extremes. Fannishly it was simply wonderful, more than I could ever hope for, and I'm still sort of blinking owlishly at my computer most of the time in amazement. In my other life, things were a little more up and down. The year started off awesome and then got crappy and then got really crappy and there was way too much cancer involved (not me, but several of people I know and love). Online, I would be happy to just live in this little bubble of time forever, because I love every minute of it, but offline I'm officially ready to move on to 2013 now and hope things get a little better.
(This isn't the fannish survey I've seen posted around, because the idea of deciding which story is my favorite and which one is under-appreciated makes me feel like I'm shriveling up inside GAH. )
1. What did you do in this year that you'd never done before?
I went up to the Nicolet Forest to see the blue herons roosting, which was awesome, and also impossible to take good pictures of without a super zoomy lense. But it was great. I also hung out with
artemis2050 in person! We watched The Avengers and The Bourne Legacy and The A-Team and ate cheese!
2. Did you achieve your goals, and will you make more for this year?
Goals for 2012 were:
-write at least five stories
FUCK YES I DID THIS.
I actually wrote ten stories and several Tumblr snippets! Which is probably a week's worth for some people, but for me that's a pretty big deal. And I also posted one story I'd written years ago and thought I'd lost forever.
-read at least five books
Back at the beginning of the year I actually had a copy of this survey saved where I was updating it as the year went along so this would be a whole lot easier come year end, and I know I had a list of the books in there, but now I can't find the document. (I had a computer crash, and I thought I'd retained everything, but I can't find it!)
I'm pretty sure I did read five books, though, even though I don't read nearly as many books as I used to, because most of them cost money, and many of them are not as good as the stuff I can get for free from fandom, and also all the writing I've been doing cuts into reading time. I'm okay with that.
Anyway, the ones I can remember are Stolen Prey and Mad River, both by John Sandford. I also read Wheat Belly by William Davis, and The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.
-create at least five fannish things that are not stories (graphics etc)
I did this! I made some icons for several people, and posted a couple simple graphics to Tumblr.
-finally do that damn elephant Pilates move without adding an extra spring
MOTHERFUCKING DONE. \o/
-200 Sit-Ups
Erm. Funny story here.
For the last several years I've tried to do 100 Push-Ups, and every year my shoulder would get so very angry, so I gave up on it, and decided to do 200 Sit-Ups instead. But instead of following the program I was sort of just winging it, doing as many as I could every time (I started off in January at 60) because my spine has good days and bad days, and for almost a whole month in there I couldn't really do any sit-ups at all. Anyway, somewhere along the line I started thinking it was 100 Sit-Ups instead of 200. I think this is because of the 100 Push-Ups thing.
Anyway, I was all proud of myself when I met that goal of 100, and then kept going and surpassed it, and so for the last few months or so I've slacked off because I've been so busy and I thought I'd gone above and beyond. And then I opened this document and realized: OH CRAP.
So I didn't meet this goal. I'm at 125. But not because I didn't try! I'm just an idiot. The good news is I should be able to meet it next year!
-Inbox Zero
Total, complete failure.
It's a really terrible idea to decide to do this when you've just gotten into a new fandom (Avengers, at the time, and now Teen Wolf), because naturally the number of emails you get in a day goes up. So many notifications! LiveJournal, Dreamwidth, Twitter, Tumblr, AO3.
Then, to make matters worse, early in the year I got an iPhone, which is awesome! I love my iPhone! But previously I had a Palm Pre that came with a free hotspot that had a 5GB data limit, which was how I got online (with my personal laptop) at work, where all the fun things are blocked by Web Washer. Except the new iPhone's hotspot is only 2GB, which is NOTHING. The first month I burned through 75% of it in two weeks. So I had to severely cut back on my online time during the day, which only made the backlog in my inbox grow and grow.
The short version is more email + less access to email account = recipe for failure. At this point I consider myself a hero if I can keep total unanswered emails below 400. And that's how it's going to stay.
Oh, well. I tried.
Goals for 2013
-write five stories
-hold the crow yoga pose for more than two seconds
-winter moonlight hiking
-200 Sit-Ups (for real this time)
-happiness jar!
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
I don't think so?
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Yes. My friend Marcia died in April, from lung cancer.
5. What countries did you visit?
Just the one I live in.
6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?
Answers from last year: New riding boots, snowshoes.
I got the riding boots a few months ago, finally. I'm glad I didn't get the snowshoes, because we had almost no show last winter, so that it would have been pointless.
For 2013 I'm gonna say financial stability. I had to buy a new car and it's been really tough to keep my bank balance in the black since I got it in June.
I still want those snowshoes, though.
7. What date from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Avengers opening weekend, man. So awesome!
musesfool and
chicklet_girl and
girlinthetrilby came to town and we went to see the movie three times and ate cupcakes and it was also Free Comic Book Day and it was all around just awesome.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
TEN STORIES HOLY SHIT.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Probably not writing that Clint/Darcy story for
musesfool. Sorry, Vic! I got distracted by werewolves!
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had two colds this year, one in May and one in December. Which is a vast improvement. Up until a few years ago when I stopped eating wheat, I was sick all the time. Constantly. And now I get sick just a few times a year, usually due to a combination of stress, interrupted sleep, and being around a lot of people. You can almost set your watch by it, actually.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
My car! A lovely little Toyota RAV4. I love it. (It's bankrupting me, but I love it.) I've wanted a little SUV for years, and I finally feel like I got a car that fits my lifestyle, for hiking and horse stuff, and driving 30 miles to my crappy job in shit weather and everything. I just adore it.
It's named the Quinjet. (LIKE YOU'RE SURPRISED.)
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My horse. You guys, he has just been AMAZING since we moved to a new barn that's a lot smaller and quieter. He is just so happy and doing so many great things during our riding lessons. <3 <3
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Every male politician who said something horrifying about rape. Fuck you all.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Horse, car. The usual.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Avengers! And it delivered!
16. What song will always remind you of 2012
Avengers theme. (I saw it twelve times in the theater. >_<)
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? sadder
ii. thinner or fatter? same
iii. richer or poorer? poorer
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Meditating. Totally fell off the wagon.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Fucking around on Tumblr as a stalling mechanism when I got stuck on a story. There's taking a break and mulling something, and then there's just plain goofing off. Goofing off doesn't get stories finished.
20. How will you be spending New Year's Eve?
Home alone, which is my tradition. (Start as you intend to go on, and all that.)
22. Did you fall in love in 2012?
HELLO DEREK HALE AND STILES STILINSKI
23. How many one-night stands?
Every year I say I'm gonna replace this question...
24. What was your favorite TV program?
Teen Wolf, Walking Dead, Leverage (R.I.P.), White Collar.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
RAPE SENATORS.
26. What was the best book you read?
This is hard because when I think about things I read this year that just blew me away...they're all works of fan fiction rather than books.
27. What was your greatest musical (re)discovery?
Probably Florence + the Machine, who I knew about but holy shit soundtrack of Derek Hale's life.
28. What did you want and get?
A fucking amazing Avengers movie. A fucking amazing Spider-Man movie (see what I did there?!?).
29. What did you want and not get?
I still have not figured out a way to stop leaving my flash drive plugged into my work computer when I leave for the day. In fact, I had to go back to work today to get it in order to be able to post this tonight, and work on some stories tomorrow. So much wasted time and gas!
I've tried putting my car keys with it, leaving notes on my jacket, setting an alarm on my phone to remind me to grab it before I leave, etc etc. But today was a perfect storm of failure of the failsafes (different set of keys because garage door is broken, left work early due to holiday, didn't wear a jacket because it wasn't that cold) and I ended up driving back to get it AGAIN.
(I can't use any online stuff like Dropbox or Google Docs to access stuff I'm working on, because it's all blocked by the office Web Washer. Thus I've resorted to flash drives.)
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Avengers!! Second would be Amazing Spider-Man. Honorable mention to The Bourne Legacy.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 41, and celebrated early on Avengers weekend with my BFFGs (Best Friend Fangirls) <3 <3 On my actual birthday, which was a Saturday, I had the best day. I rode my horse in the morning, and went for a short hike, and ate strawberries and cream on the patio, and then went to see The Avengers, and then went out to dinner with my immediate family and had raw oysters and creme brulee and it RULED.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Less cancer. WAY LESS CANCER.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?
Black and made by LL Bean or Old Navy.
34. What kept you sane?
My horse, assorted fansquishies online.
35. Which celebrity/public figure/fictional character did you fancy the most?
Oh, Derek Hale. You suffer so prettily.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
RAPE SENATORS.
37. Who did you miss?
My friend Marcia. :(
38. Who was the best new person you met?
There are so many! I've met so many awesome people via Avengers and Teen Wolf fandoms, many of them on Tumblr.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012
Don't keep the bottle of nail polish remover next to the bottle of eye makeup remover.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
I want love to walk right up and bite me
Grab a hold of me and fight me, leave me dying on the ground
I guess if you've read any of my Teen Wolf stories that makes a lot of sense.
Count von Count would like you to know that over at Dreamwidth this post has
comments! Ah ha ha ha ha!
(This isn't the fannish survey I've seen posted around, because the idea of deciding which story is my favorite and which one is under-appreciated makes me feel like I'm shriveling up inside GAH. )
1. What did you do in this year that you'd never done before?
I went up to the Nicolet Forest to see the blue herons roosting, which was awesome, and also impossible to take good pictures of without a super zoomy lense. But it was great. I also hung out with
artemis2050 in person! We watched The Avengers and The Bourne Legacy and The A-Team and ate cheese!
2. Did you achieve your goals, and will you make more for this year?
Goals for 2012 were:
-write at least five stories
FUCK YES I DID THIS.
I actually wrote ten stories and several Tumblr snippets! Which is probably a week's worth for some people, but for me that's a pretty big deal. And I also posted one story I'd written years ago and thought I'd lost forever.
-read at least five books
Back at the beginning of the year I actually had a copy of this survey saved where I was updating it as the year went along so this would be a whole lot easier come year end, and I know I had a list of the books in there, but now I can't find the document. (I had a computer crash, and I thought I'd retained everything, but I can't find it!)
I'm pretty sure I did read five books, though, even though I don't read nearly as many books as I used to, because most of them cost money, and many of them are not as good as the stuff I can get for free from fandom, and also all the writing I've been doing cuts into reading time. I'm okay with that.
Anyway, the ones I can remember are Stolen Prey and Mad River, both by John Sandford. I also read Wheat Belly by William Davis, and The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.
-create at least five fannish things that are not stories (graphics etc)
I did this! I made some icons for several people, and posted a couple simple graphics to Tumblr.
-finally do that damn elephant Pilates move without adding an extra spring
MOTHERFUCKING DONE. \o/
-200 Sit-Ups
Erm. Funny story here.
For the last several years I've tried to do 100 Push-Ups, and every year my shoulder would get so very angry, so I gave up on it, and decided to do 200 Sit-Ups instead. But instead of following the program I was sort of just winging it, doing as many as I could every time (I started off in January at 60) because my spine has good days and bad days, and for almost a whole month in there I couldn't really do any sit-ups at all. Anyway, somewhere along the line I started thinking it was 100 Sit-Ups instead of 200. I think this is because of the 100 Push-Ups thing.
Anyway, I was all proud of myself when I met that goal of 100, and then kept going and surpassed it, and so for the last few months or so I've slacked off because I've been so busy and I thought I'd gone above and beyond. And then I opened this document and realized: OH CRAP.
So I didn't meet this goal. I'm at 125. But not because I didn't try! I'm just an idiot. The good news is I should be able to meet it next year!
-Inbox Zero
Total, complete failure.
It's a really terrible idea to decide to do this when you've just gotten into a new fandom (Avengers, at the time, and now Teen Wolf), because naturally the number of emails you get in a day goes up. So many notifications! LiveJournal, Dreamwidth, Twitter, Tumblr, AO3.
Then, to make matters worse, early in the year I got an iPhone, which is awesome! I love my iPhone! But previously I had a Palm Pre that came with a free hotspot that had a 5GB data limit, which was how I got online (with my personal laptop) at work, where all the fun things are blocked by Web Washer. Except the new iPhone's hotspot is only 2GB, which is NOTHING. The first month I burned through 75% of it in two weeks. So I had to severely cut back on my online time during the day, which only made the backlog in my inbox grow and grow.
The short version is more email + less access to email account = recipe for failure. At this point I consider myself a hero if I can keep total unanswered emails below 400. And that's how it's going to stay.
Oh, well. I tried.
Goals for 2013
-write five stories
-hold the crow yoga pose for more than two seconds
-winter moonlight hiking
-200 Sit-Ups (for real this time)
-happiness jar!
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
I don't think so?
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Yes. My friend Marcia died in April, from lung cancer.
5. What countries did you visit?
Just the one I live in.
6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?
Answers from last year: New riding boots, snowshoes.
I got the riding boots a few months ago, finally. I'm glad I didn't get the snowshoes, because we had almost no show last winter, so that it would have been pointless.
For 2013 I'm gonna say financial stability. I had to buy a new car and it's been really tough to keep my bank balance in the black since I got it in June.
I still want those snowshoes, though.
7. What date from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Avengers opening weekend, man. So awesome!
musesfool and
chicklet_girl and
girlinthetrilby came to town and we went to see the movie three times and ate cupcakes and it was also Free Comic Book Day and it was all around just awesome.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
TEN STORIES HOLY SHIT.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Probably not writing that Clint/Darcy story for
musesfool. Sorry, Vic! I got distracted by werewolves!
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had two colds this year, one in May and one in December. Which is a vast improvement. Up until a few years ago when I stopped eating wheat, I was sick all the time. Constantly. And now I get sick just a few times a year, usually due to a combination of stress, interrupted sleep, and being around a lot of people. You can almost set your watch by it, actually.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
My car! A lovely little Toyota RAV4. I love it. (It's bankrupting me, but I love it.) I've wanted a little SUV for years, and I finally feel like I got a car that fits my lifestyle, for hiking and horse stuff, and driving 30 miles to my crappy job in shit weather and everything. I just adore it.
It's named the Quinjet. (LIKE YOU'RE SURPRISED.)
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My horse. You guys, he has just been AMAZING since we moved to a new barn that's a lot smaller and quieter. He is just so happy and doing so many great things during our riding lessons. <3 <3
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Every male politician who said something horrifying about rape. Fuck you all.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Horse, car. The usual.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Avengers! And it delivered!
16. What song will always remind you of 2012
Avengers theme. (I saw it twelve times in the theater. >_<)
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? sadder
ii. thinner or fatter? same
iii. richer or poorer? poorer
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Meditating. Totally fell off the wagon.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Fucking around on Tumblr as a stalling mechanism when I got stuck on a story. There's taking a break and mulling something, and then there's just plain goofing off. Goofing off doesn't get stories finished.
20. How will you be spending New Year's Eve?
Home alone, which is my tradition. (Start as you intend to go on, and all that.)
22. Did you fall in love in 2012?
HELLO DEREK HALE AND STILES STILINSKI
23. How many one-night stands?
Every year I say I'm gonna replace this question...
24. What was your favorite TV program?
Teen Wolf, Walking Dead, Leverage (R.I.P.), White Collar.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
RAPE SENATORS.
26. What was the best book you read?
This is hard because when I think about things I read this year that just blew me away...they're all works of fan fiction rather than books.
27. What was your greatest musical (re)discovery?
Probably Florence + the Machine, who I knew about but holy shit soundtrack of Derek Hale's life.
28. What did you want and get?
A fucking amazing Avengers movie. A fucking amazing Spider-Man movie (see what I did there?!?).
29. What did you want and not get?
I still have not figured out a way to stop leaving my flash drive plugged into my work computer when I leave for the day. In fact, I had to go back to work today to get it in order to be able to post this tonight, and work on some stories tomorrow. So much wasted time and gas!
I've tried putting my car keys with it, leaving notes on my jacket, setting an alarm on my phone to remind me to grab it before I leave, etc etc. But today was a perfect storm of failure of the failsafes (different set of keys because garage door is broken, left work early due to holiday, didn't wear a jacket because it wasn't that cold) and I ended up driving back to get it AGAIN.
(I can't use any online stuff like Dropbox or Google Docs to access stuff I'm working on, because it's all blocked by the office Web Washer. Thus I've resorted to flash drives.)
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Avengers!! Second would be Amazing Spider-Man. Honorable mention to The Bourne Legacy.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 41, and celebrated early on Avengers weekend with my BFFGs (Best Friend Fangirls) <3 <3 On my actual birthday, which was a Saturday, I had the best day. I rode my horse in the morning, and went for a short hike, and ate strawberries and cream on the patio, and then went to see The Avengers, and then went out to dinner with my immediate family and had raw oysters and creme brulee and it RULED.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Less cancer. WAY LESS CANCER.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?
Black and made by LL Bean or Old Navy.
34. What kept you sane?
My horse, assorted fansquishies online.
35. Which celebrity/public figure/fictional character did you fancy the most?
Oh, Derek Hale. You suffer so prettily.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
RAPE SENATORS.
37. Who did you miss?
My friend Marcia. :(
38. Who was the best new person you met?
There are so many! I've met so many awesome people via Avengers and Teen Wolf fandoms, many of them on Tumblr.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012
Don't keep the bottle of nail polish remover next to the bottle of eye makeup remover.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
I want love to walk right up and bite me
Grab a hold of me and fight me, leave me dying on the ground
I guess if you've read any of my Teen Wolf stories that makes a lot of sense.
Count von Count would like you to know that over at Dreamwidth this post has
comments! Ah ha ha ha ha!