101 things

[waiting4beckett]

I've copied Lauren and Jason and created a list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days. For more info, see mission101. It took days to write this, but I'm pretty pleased with the motivation it's given me. So I'll probably be posting updates on my progress here in my journal. Here's hopin'.

I know it looks like I've picked a bunch of really easy goals, but when motivation is so often hard to find, even the littlest things are good things.

Start date: August 30, 2006
End date: May 27, 2009
Progress:





27 / 101
(26.7%)

The List

Life/Career
1. Get a job. May include part-time jobs, temporary jobs or jobs not in my field. Yeah, I guess by those criteria, working for your mom can count. 11/30/06
2. Get a steady, full-time job in my field.
3. Move out of Mom's house.
4. Move to the Ann Arbor area. These are two separate items because I'm not sure my next move will necessarily be to A2.
5. Update my portfolio. 2/6/07
6. Redesign my Web site. 2/6/07
7. Add a new, complete section to my Web site.
8. Get a cat (or two). Turns out I already had one! 11/30/06
9. Find a "special someone." Whether the relationship works out in the end is irrelevant to this list. In other words, no backsies.
10. Pay off my credit card. 7/15/07
11. Pay off at least half of my student loans.
12. Complete at least one freelance project and add it to my portfolio. 2/6/07
13. Go through the stack of Echoes I saved and decide what to clip as writing and design samples. Add to portfolio. 2/6/07


Fun/Friends/Family/Travel
14. Go visit Monica in Boston.
15. Play a game of Scrabble with Jason, fully accepting the inevitability of my defeat.
16. Make, and keep in touch with, a new friend.
17. Go to Stratford, Ontario, to see a Shakespeare play.
18. See the musical "Wicked."
19. Visit New Orleans.
20. Meet at least one member of my Louisiana family.
21. Visit my grandma and grandpa in Illinois. Thanksgiving 2006.
22. Get in touch with the cousin everyone thinks I'd get along so well with.
23. Make a family tree extending at least as far back as my great-grandparents and including my mother's cousins (second cousins?).
24. Chill with Sarah, Kurt and baby in Ann Arbor.
25. Cook dinner for a group of friends.
26. Go to a gay bar. "Why?" you ask. Why not?
27. Lend Lauren a TVD for a change. Dead Like Me, 9/8/06
28. Visit my aunt and cousins in California. 10/15/06
29. Create a photo album (digital or otherwise) of friends and fun. 2/6/07
30. Go to a comedy show. (This one had to be revised due to the untimely closing of Improv Inferno.)
31. Hang out with Debra in Ypsi.
32. Go to a film festival.
33. Make a "Best of 2006" CD and share it with my friends. 2/6/07
34. Make cookies or some other baked good for someone. Just 'cause. 7/15/07
35. Take a 20-minute walk every day (unless the weather's really nasty) for a month.


Books/Education
36. Get my freakin' degree already. 4/20/07
37. Read "Lolita." 7/15/07
38. Read at least one other book by a Russian novelist.
39. Read something by Virginia Woolf.
40. Read a book about world history and/or geography to fill in some of the gaps in my education.
41. Read at least one book about writing.
42. Read at least one about graphic design or photography.
43. Read at least one other nonfiction book that grabs my interest. Julie & Julia, 7/14/07
44. Brush up on my Spanish or German skills, and practice at least every other day for two months.
45. Read a children's novel in one of the aforementioned languages.
46. Start on my master's, or at least have a solid plan for when, where and how I'm going to start on my master's.
47. Read at least five library books, or books I've borrowed from someone else. ("We've been livin' in hovels, spendin' all the money on brand-new novels!") Middlesex, Memoirs of a Geisha, Interpreter of Maladies


Hobbies
48. Get a digital SLR-style camera.
49. Send Monica some photos for her apartment.
50. Set up my old electronic keyboard in a comfortable spot. 9/5/06
51. Learn at least three new songs.
52. Write (and FINISH) at least three short stories.
53. Choose one and edit it (AFTER it's finished) until I'm actually satisfied with it. Have someone else read it.
54. Attempt to get it published, knowing and accepting that I'll surely get some rejections.
55. Complete NaNoWriMo.
56. Allow at least one other person to read my NaNo novel, no matter how terrible and embarrassing I think it is.
57. Pick up my clarinet or saxophone and try to play it again. Sax, 8/30/06
58. Practice at least one song to the point where I'm no longer appalled at how rusty I've undoubtedly become.
59. Attempt a recipe using a main ingredient I've never used before.
60. Attempt at least one of the recipes I see on the Food Network that make me go, "mmmMMMMmmm!"
61. "Discover" at least one band that I like well enough to buy their CD. The Shins, 9/9/06
62. See a foreign film. (DVDs count. Canada doesn't.)
63. Catalog all my books on LibraryThing.
64. Learn a new trick in Photoshop or InDesign.
65. Organize my LJ using tags.
66. Get some kind of recipe book and organize my recipes.
67. Attempt a traditional recipe of some other nationality or ethnicity.
68. Restore at least five of Mom's grimy old family photos in Photoshop. Make prints.
69. Attempt to make hummus. 11/27/06
70. Settle on a new design for my LJ.
71. Acquire at least 10 more Moxy Fruvous songs. Courtesy of Lauren, 9/9/06
72. Write a nonfiction article and publish it, if only on my Web site.


Health/Appearance
73. Buy a cute dress that I'm not self-conscious about wearing.
74. Find an occasion to wear said dress. And... wear it.
75. Buy a T-shirt with a design that amuses me, just for fun.
76. Do 20 minutes of yoga (or something similar) twice a week for a month.
77. Go to the dentist. (Yeah, I'm overdue.)
78. Get a bed that's better for my back.
79. Get my hair cut shortish again. 9/6/06
80. Get my hair highlighted or something.
81. Go swimming, and actually swim instead of just bobbing around and talking.
82. Try five new health-food recipes. (I'll decide what constitutes health food.)


Misc.
83. Clear enough space in my room that I can walk from the door to my desk without carefully stepping around things.9/5/06
84. Get all of my apartment stuff out of the front hallway. 9/5/06
85. Do enough research before a general election that I can confidently vote for at least five candidates without relying solely on their political party.
86. Keep a dream diary every morning for a month. See what happens.
87. Go through my old CDs and get rid of the ones I don't listen to anymore.
88. Decorate my room with some new pictures.
89. Get caught up on "Lost." 9/23/06
90. Clean out my car.
91. Get an oil change. (Yeah, I'm overdue.) 11/18/06
92. Organize my random collection of magazine articles and short stories that I like into a binder.
93. Stake my claim on the barstools by the kitchen. (Easy, I know, but hey, I like sitting there, and they're always covered with stuff.) 9/5/06
94. Get rid of my old collection of nick-nacks that don't mean anything to me.
95. Empty all three of my inboxes (which means handling all the responses I've been putting off).
96. Replace the grody sun sticker on my car.
97. Donate at least $40 to charity. (Gotta start small when you're flat broke.)
98. Replenish my LJ icon supply.
99. Get a new coffee maker.
100. Scan my favorite marginal doodles so I can finally get rid of all my high-school notebooks.



101. Write a new 101 list.