clementine | Entries tagged with nanowrimo

Mirrored from Oh Clementine. You can leave any comments there.

Last post of 2009! *wipes tear off cheek* I don't normally make resolutions because I know I'm going to break them, but why not push myself this year? Looking back on 2009, I didn't get much accomplished, so I want to make 2010 awesome!

Here is a short recap of my year, and then my resolutions.

2009 in Review

January 2: We got the cats! I can't even remember a time before them. They've honestly brought so much joy into my household, and I'm so glad to have them… even if Hank is mentally defective.
January 20: I watched Barack Obama's inauguration on TV during school hours and had a mini party in my school library. Definitely a good moment!
January 21: I was nominated for the Bloggies and subsequently lost. However, I was never expecting to win, and just being nominated was such a happy shock!
January 29: I lost my cell phone and got a new¹ one. (I'm getting a new one in 2 weeks, though! Yay!)
February 11: Jet ran away, but we found him.
February 11: My friend's grandmother died after a long battle with cancer. She was like a third grandmother to me, so this was devastating. It's been nearly a year.
May 3: I took a break from my blog and came back two months later.
May 25: I had a huge fight with a friend over a school project and didn't talk to her for five months. To put this into perspective, she was DEFINITELY the one being immature. She tried to blame her low mark on me.
June: I passed all my exams and finished the year on the honour roll!
July: I discovered the most amazing book I've ever read.
August 23: I lost my new phone, but found it in a Pictionary box. (Not a huge event, but it was funny so I had to include it.)
September: I won the Community of Learners award at my school. To this day, I'm not sure why.
September: I voted 1500 times for Aisling's cousin to win The Next Star. (This is a big event, okay? Do you know how much energy I put into that?)
September and October: Both the kitties had their first birthdays. (I only blogged about Hank's, though!)
October 22: I got contacts and was amazed by my awesome vision.
October 28: I deactivated my Facebook account, but had to cave and reactivate it shortly thereafter. I am weak. (But really, I had to reactivate it so I could give my friend directions to my house!)
November 3: I figured out what I want to do after I graduate from high school.
November 10: I got braces and was not amused by the fact that my mouth was in excruciating pain for four days.
November 14: I got a job as a cashier at a big chain of grocery stores.
November: I came thisclose to failing math!
December 17: I got a new laptop, after my (also fairly new) one completely died. This one is amazing and shiny and it makes me so happy. It's white with swirls! And the volume control looks like a light, but it's touch sensitive! And you can turn off the touchpad²!
December 22: I went to visit my relatives and met the little girl who's staying with my aunt and uncle. I fell in love with her sweet, adorable nature.
December 29: I lost my iPod! D: This is horrible, because I rely on it A LOT. I had notes on there that I reallllly need.
Best of all, I didn't die!

Goals for 2010, somewhat ordered by importance

Pull my average up by 5%³ – First term was not great for me in terms of grades, and my average dropped 5% from last year, 9% from the year before. (Notice a trend here?) Ideally I would raise it back up to where it was 2 years ago, but since my math mark is SO LOW (I missed a week of school and nearly failed the big test), chances of that happening are slim. This is going to be my main goal, since it will require a lot of work.
Get bank account balance up to $2000 – With my job, this shouldn't be too hard, and I'll probably earn more. This is my minimum, though. I need to save up for lots of big things I'm planning!
Get my blog post count up to 200 – That's 66 more posts in one year, which is definitely doable! I'm going to try to post more often than that, though. I really want to post 3-4 times a week, but sometimes I lack in motivation and inspiration.
Comment on more blogs – I'm such a serial lurker, it's not even funny. Along with Aisling, I'm going to try to comment on more blogs. My goal is 21 blogs a week⁴, and I'm going to keep track with a handy dandy spreadsheet. (Because seriously, I just love any excuse to make a spreadsheet.)
Write more – I have my NaNo novel, which I'm definitely going to have to scrap and rewrite from scratch for the 900th time⁵, and a new idea. I don't know how I'm going to balance the two, but I'm definitely going to make some time to write.
Clean my room – I've probably needed to do this for the past year, so I'm going to get around to this in chunks: realphabetise books⁶, organise clothes/donate old ones to charity⁷, clean desk (even though I just did that this summer), redo horrible disgusting closet⁸, clean/vaccuum floor, organise bedside table. I will most likely be documenting this journey on my Dreamwidth account.
Create at least three new designs and use them – I'm not great with Photoshop, but I figure I should make myself practice. This is going to average out to one design every four months, so hopefully I can keep it up. This means that I should probably get working on something soon!
Buy more clothes – I have very few clothes that actually fit me, due to wearing a uniform most days. I got some gift cards for Christmas, so I should be able to get a few things!
Figure out electives for next year – I'm going to be doing this within the next few weeks anyway, but it seems big to me. Universities will see next year's report card, so this is pretty important!
Keep track of money spent – I have an application on my iPod for this⁹, and I used to do it. I just stopped suddenly, so I'm going to start again. This will help me with my main monetary goal too!
Use an agenda – I stopped partway through this school year. I have no idea why. I just suck like that.
Pay the library – I've owed them $40 for a year. Enough said. (It would also let me get my card back, heh…)
Get my braces off – This doesn't really depend on me, more on my teeth, but it's possible. My dentist said 9-18 months when I got them in October, and they're going really fast so far. With any luck I might have them off before next school year!
Get my hair cut – Last time I had it cut was June 18, 2008. It's probably high time for a trim.

Happy new year to everyone! I hope 2010 brings everything you hope for. If you set any resolutions, I hope you achieve them.

and nearly as crappy [↩]
which admittedly has no real use, but it's cool [↩]
which is where it should be [↩]
3 a day [↩]
seriously, I've gone through at least 10 drafts of this stupid novel [↩]
I haven't been good about putting them in order in ages [↩]
I have so many clothes that don't fit, and I want to reorganise them; colour coding was a stupid idea [↩]
seriously, it's a nightmare [↩]
first I'll have to, you know, retrieve my iPod from the depths of rental car hell [↩]

Mirrored from Oh Clementine. You can leave any comments there.

I have not been having a great week. I won't go into details about much, but I will mention that I am having huge problems with a certain teacher. I have mentioned him before; I had him last year for two courses, and was a little on the dismayed side to find that I had him again for World Religions this year. Last year, he made a point of pushing his beliefs on us by saying things like (and I quote), "I'm not going to tell you to not eat meat – no, wait, I am. DON'T EAT MEAT," showing us videos about a slaughter house, and generally ignoring the curriculum in favour of these things; this year, he has insulted people who don't care about religion either way by saying that they are "ignorant, boring, and uninformed" and that he "hopes to change their opinions by the end of the year", as well as creationists, saying that they "don't display a sophisticated level of thinking". This makes me extremely uncomfortable to be in his class. If any class should be a safe space, it should be World Religions. It isn't a class about his personal opinion; it is a class where we're supposed to be learning about, you know, the religions of the world.

Yesterday, we had presentations. One group was missing a member due to H1N1; he said that they would have to present anyway. That's fair enough… what isn't fair is the fact that he told them that he expected them to present their partners' information. Apparently, we should all memorise every group member's part on the off chance that they're away. That definitely is not how a group project works; the point of doing it in a group is to split up the work.

That was the last straw for a friend and me. We decided to see the guidance counsellor about switching or dropping the class. Unfortunately, it's too late in the year to do anything about it. We can't even enroll for an online course instead. The guidance counsellor did allow us to voice our concerns, and she advised us to talk to the principal about him.

Today, I was helping out a grade 9 class. (They were learning to make websites, and I'm the head of the web team at my school.) My World Religions teacher came into the room and asked if he could see me after school. I immediately got freaked out, although I told him yes. The teacher whose class I was in¹ asked me what he was talking to me about. I told him most of what I told the guidance counsellor, and he said that he understood and that if I had any problems I should definitely talk to him. I think it's interesting that none of the other teachers seem to be very fond of my World Religions teacher, and are not quick to defend him.

Anyway, I was already having a really bad day, so my best friend ended up finding the World Religions teacher and telling him that I was sick and needed to go home right away. He probably didn't buy it, but I don't think it's appropriate to corner a student and ask to speak to them about something that you had discussed in confidence with someone else.

This entry has gone completely off base from where I was originally going, which was to discuss how people hold back emotions. Because of the way this week has been so far, I've had a lot of strong emotions. My natural reaction to strong emotions? Crying. It's embarrassing, and I don't like it, but that's just how I apparently have to deal with my emotions. This is especially a problem when I'm mad. When I'm angry with someone and trying to express that, the last thing I need is to cry.

When I was about 10, I read Ender's Game. I remember virtually nothing about the book, but one thing that has stuck with me was the brief description of what Ender does when he feels like he is going to cry: he starts at 1, then doubles it, then doubles that.

Since then, that's always what I've done when I'm feeling upset. It helps me concentrate on something else, and it's also a good way to gauge how upset I'm feeling. I've memorised a lot of the sequence, so if it gets so bad that I actually have to do math in my head to figure out what the next number will be, I know that I am extremely close to tears.

Now I'm curious: do you try to hold back your emotions? If you do, how?

(And, because this post wasn't already all over the place, I'm doing NaNoWriMo! I've made a lot of progress so far, and I can afford to take around 2 days off since I'm so ahead.)

who is in charge of the tech group, and who is awesome [↩]

je voudrais être un yeti

i am clem

Entries tagged with nanowrimo

New Year's Resolutions

2009 in Review

Goals for 2010, somewhat ordered by importance

Holding back emotions

Profile

Expand Cut Tags