So much to do, so little motivation
Aargh. My A Levels were finished at the end of last November and I have a break until university starts much later this year. I'd been looking forward to this period SO MUCH last year, and planning what I'd do kept me going.
Now the months stretch ahead of me and I have so many things to do but just can't bring myself to finish them. Would the word ennui be appropriate? There are times when I just walk around the house, unable to motivate myself to finish any of my current projects or start a new one. None of them seem to appeal to me; sometimes they do but I don't feel like doing them anyway. When I'm on the computer, instead of writing or doing anything productive, I spend hours faffing about on Facebook or reading (in some cases, rereading) fanfiction.
Maybe a list will help. Things that are in progress will be italicised, things I've completed will be struck off.
Reading
[in almost all cases unless otherwise stated - eg 'Find and read' - the books are RIGHT THERE on my shelf]
- Reread Neil Gaiman's American Gods
- Reread Neil Gaiman's Odd and the Frost Giants
- Reread Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre
- Reread Dianne Hofmeyr's Eye of the Moon
- Reread Neil Gaiman's and Dave McKean's The Comical Tragedy or Tragical Comedy of Mr Punch
- Read the Hellblazer comics - I have the entire series; everything but the last graphic novel, Hellblazer: India, is in my computer, but I have that one as an actual book anyway. I'm barely a quarter through the series, but it's amazing so far.
- Reread the Lucifer and Sandman comics - I have the entirety of both in my computer and two graphic novels from each series on my shelf.
- Reread the Ramses series by Christian Jacq - at the time of typing this, I'm more than halfway through the second of five books.
- Reread the Harry Potter series
- Reread The Lord of the Rings
- Read The Lays of Beleriand, The Lost Road, The Shaping of Middle-Earth, and all those 'extra' Middle-Earth books written by Tolkien and his son - I already borrowed them from my dad's friend and they're sitting here waiting for me now.
- Read Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied - borrowed them from the same man who loaned me the other Tolkien books.
- Read Paradise Lost - I have the PDF
- Read the Book of Tobit - I have the PDF
- Read my Bible properly, beginning to end, instead of flipping through and reading the bits I fancy (my favourite is the Song of Solomon) and the bits I need for whatever I'm writing.
- Find and read A Song of Ice and Fire
- Find and read Rick Riordan's The Red Pyramid
- Find and read The Iliad and The Odyssey since I only have Roger Lancelyn Green's versions (and Geraldine McCaughrean's and Caroline B Cooney's versions). I want to read them in verse!
- Find and read The Aeneid.
- Read Titania Hardie's The Rose Labyrinth - the book's sitting here but it comes with a sheaf of parchments and clues and map fragments and undeciphered messages and cryptic bits of verse and things that you have to figure out before the protagonists do and I'm both looking forward to and dreading it.
- Read Jane Austen's Emma and Northanger Abbey
- Read The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection
- Find and read Dante's Paradiso - I've already read and enjoyed Inferno and Purgatorio
- Reread The Black Magician trilogy by Trudi Canavan
- Reread Thief of Time and Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
- Read Stephen Baxter's Behemoth
- Read Edward Rutherfurd's London and The Forest
- Read Michael Crichton's Next
- Reread Crichton's Jurassic Park
- Read Jaromir Malek's The Treasures of Ancient Egypt
- Read The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw
- Finish reading Robert Bauval's The Egypt Code
- Read George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four - I have the PDF
- Read RK Narayan's The Bachelor of Arts
That's all I can recall for now, but I'll be editing this list. I do remember that there are a lot more waiting for me, whether in real book or PDF form.
Edit: I went and bought more books today, so:
- Read Gilgamesh, translated by Stephen Mitchell
- Read A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
- Read Curse of the Pharaohs by Zahi Hawass (I bought this for my mum, but I'll be borrowing it from her eventually)
- And there are a lot of other books that were recommended to me by friends, but I have the links to those saved in my netbook (I'm on the desktop Mac right now) and I'm a bit too lazy to go hunt them down.
Movies/TV
- Have a The Lord of the Rings - Special Extended Edition marathon with my friends - this may involve a sleepover. :D I love those movies. By now I can practically recite the actors' lines with them, as can my sister.
- Watch all the Harry Potter movies again
- Watch Cleopatra, the one with Elizabeth Taylor. I saw about two thirds of it on the flight back to Singapore from Dubai and it was really nice! I want to finish watching it.
- Watch the entirety of Supernatural - I have the entirety of Seasons 1 to 5 and every episode of Season 6 that's been aired so far. This is taking a while as I'm watching it with my mother (who's a Dean Winchester fangirl!) and thus have to wait for the nights when we're both free and actually talking.
- Watch The Mentalist - I've seen the first two seasons and the first five episodes of the third season but haven't been watching since, although I have every episode.
- Watch Jurassic Park again
- Watch the entirety of Star Trek: The Original Series - I know my uncle has the full set but I've only seen a few episodes. Loved them, though. (I've seen the entirety of Voyager and bits of The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.)
Music
- Get Voltaire's latest two albums, Hate Lives In A Small Town and Spooky Songs for Creepy Kids. I listened to songs from both albums on his FB page and liked them but somehow still haven't got around to downloading them.
- Go through my iTunes! While fitting up this new Mac for me, my uncle also set up my iTunes. I've already listened to the '2009 hits' and '2010 hits' playlists and weeded out those I didn't like (and added 'Voltaire', 'Adam Lambert', 'The Prince of Egypt soundtrack' and other playlists) but I'm only now listening to the '1990s hits' playlist and deleting those I don't like (man, I head these songs as a really small kid. They bring back memories :D). I still have to tackle the 'Oldies' playlist, which contains nearly a hundred Tamil songs from the 30s or 40s all the way to the 60s. D:
Writing/role-play
- Complete my fanfic100 challenge for Gabriel, Memos from the Messenger! I'm still stuck near the end of the second chapter, though I have most of it planned out in a notebook. ><
- Write that Good Omens fanfic that will be a spoof of Bollywood/Kollywood movies, and also poke fun at some GO fic cliches. It will feature Aziraphale and Gabriel as the heroines, Hastur as the villainous uncle (and Metatron as the strict father you want to smack sense into), and Crowley and Michael as the heroes. Complete with song-and-dance numbers and unbelievable fight scenes.
- Write that angel spoof of this bodice-ripper. It will feature Gabriel as the princess and Michael as a roguish gentleman pirate, and will also feature an abundance of purple prose and UST.
- Rewrite that prompt from a 26-prompt musebysentence set for Gabriel (focusing on Gabriel and Michael) that I was having trouble with. Once I get that done I can post it. ><
- Write the story of how Gabriel met Bast in ancient Egypt - I have their very long friendship mapped out in my head. Gabriel's also good friends with the goddess Seshat.
- Complete the second musebysentence set I'm working on, focusing on Gabriel and Uriel
- Complete that story about the Fallen versions of Gabriel and Uriel having fun torturing an angel in Hell
- Write that musebysentence set for Belial
- Complete that story about Gabriel during the Plagues of Egypt
- Figure out why and how Gabriel Fell in the Fallen 'verse I occasionally poke at with Uri-mun
- Write that story of female!Belial in action (as a dancer) in a desert in the olden Middle East - I have these very clear images in my head, and some parts are ready-to-write.
- Write that NSFW story featuring Gabri, Belial, Uri and Lucifer
- Type up and polish that Hybrid story I plan to submit for publication in the Singaporean Speculative Fiction sampler
- Send aforementioned story, despite the nerves
- Write that sci-fi story featuring pop icons and an alien race in the future whose civilisation was started by humans - I have it planned out and there are a few rough drafts written in my notebook.
- Write something for this month's writing challenge at mad_prophecies - the prompt is Silk and Feathers and it'll most likely feature Belial
Craft Projects
- Finish knitting that damn scarf. I've been working on it since July 2009!
- Finish that Baby Aziraphale stuffed toy for steadfast . It's nearly done. All I need to do is glue on his eyes, finish cutting out his yellow curls, glue those onto his head, and then sew his head to his body. It's just that the hair is taking me forever.
- Make a baby elephant stuffed toy as a gift for my grandmother
- Make myself an Archangel Michael stuffed toy to cuddle. He'll be based on steadfast 's version. <3
- Make a minion (from Despicable Me) stuffed toy for Alvie. I may make myself one as well.
- Knit myself a little shoulder bag with that nice bright red wool my sister got me
Miscellaneous
- Learn German - norseloki is teaching me German via AIM and I'm also planning to sign up for lessons at the Goethe-Institut Singapore (I'll definitely still need those lessons with Ricky though, as things usually need repeating once or twice before they stick in my mind).
- Learn Old Norse -nevermore_1106 taught me a bit of it - mostly the grammar rules - a couple of years ago but hasn't sent me the vocabulary lists yet, we've both been busy. When she's free, though, I'll ask her if we can continue. :D
- Have a bake-a-thon with Alvie and Gena - we've already got a bunch of recipes planned!
- Get a job. I've called the local library and Books Kinokuniya; they said they'd call me back if I was shortlisted for an interview, but neither have called back. So tomorrow - or rather today, it's way past midnight - I'm going to go down to Borders, as they're hiring and their website says to either e-mail them a resume or walk in. I have a Borders gift card which I need to spend anyway.
Edit: Sadly, I did not get hired by any bookstores. ;_; Borders said they'd call me back by Tuesday at the latest and by now it's Thursday. However, I have managed to get a part-time job as a retail assistant in a little store and more details can be found in the last paragraph of this post.
- Cleanse the new crystals I bought on Tuesday
- Mend that green robe of mine - it's old and really comfy and huge but there are a couple of holes along the side where the seam has come apart.
*stares at list* This is going to end up like that post-O Level list of mine, isn't it? Lakshmi and I wrote up a nice long list and we only did a few things on it. Sigh.