Posts Tagged ‘goals’

Some more 101 things to check off

Monday, January 10th, 2011
40. Visit Jamberoo Action Park

Christmas Eve, 2010.

3. Make one new local offline friend

I think my coworkers count for this, particularly the accounts lady, Pam, that was sacked. Immediately before Xmas. :(

34. Spend a night out without having a panic attack

Hmm, if my work Xmas party counts, anyway.

47. Refrain from eating anything sugary on Christmas Day

Yes, I somehow managed this. Not to say I didn’t eat pavlova and lemon meringue pie after midnight… but…

59. Go on a waterslide

Jamberoo. Need I say more? Unfortunately, that wraps it up. There is a lot more to do, and quite a few of these last remaining ones are looking like they won’t happen at all. I’ll need to reassess those.

101 Things Update

Saturday, October 2nd, 2010

With a few days over 2 years left of my 101 goals, I have completed these since my last update:

17. Go on a road trip

In July, Allyson and I drove to Canberra and back. It was a small road trip, but we did do it. It was originally going to be a lot longer, but we decided to drive all the way south some other time. We just didn’t have enough time to do it, really.

33. Radically change my hair

I did this yonks ago but apparently never made it official.

36. Connect my computer to my TV to become a Media Centre.
51. Watch all Tom Baker Doctor Who episodes
55. Get my car’s headlight fixed
58. Go one month without seeing an insect or arachnid in the house

Good old borax insecticide + winter.

65. Bake fresh bread
66. Go to bed at 9:30pm
71. Brew stout beer

It’ll be ready in a few more weeks!

78. Feel financially secure

I now know that even if I’m unemployed, I can keep my head above water.

81. Make Irish soda bread
82. Make soda bread ice cream

It was truly sickening.

83. Go to Bowral
92. Visit Caringbah Shopping Village
94. Buy a deck of Uno cards
95. Visit the Southern Gateway Centre

In fact, my sister works there now.

96. Walk on the Sea Cliff Bridge
97. Stay awake for 35 hours straight

No hallucinations.

Phew! It’s the hard things remaining now.

Gigantic Update

Saturday, October 2nd, 2010

Well…. hello everyone. Been a while eh? You may have heard through Twitter or Facebook that I’ve got a new job. It’s great! Nothing like my last lot. I think I’m going to be staying with them for a while. The perks:

  • They’re in Albion Park Rail! This means I can drive there in 25 minutes. BIG DEAL, since my last job had me catching a train for 90-100 minutes, then hiking to Glebe from Central station.
  • They sell tangible products! Not NLP which I find highly dubious.
  • I get to be part of a team, instead of having everything IT resting on my shoulders so I feel like I’m constantly under massive amounts of pressure.
  • I’m treated with respect. That’s a key thing that seemed to be lacking before.
  • I’m making about the same as before, only I don’t have to spend $57 a week on a train ticket. It’s closer to $25 a week in petrol. Oh and I get more perks because I’m an employee instead of a contractor… and they’re already deducting tax, so I won’t have a nasty surprise at the end of this financial year!

OK, so what else do I have to report? Well, what don’t I?

God knows how many goals I’ve achieved. I’ll have to do a full rundown in another post as this one will get too long.

I’ve done tons of drawing with my Wacom Cintiq (have I blogged about that yet??). It’s made it SO EASY to make cool looking drawings. I love it to bits. Look in the sidebar on the right to see a few links to images I’ve created with it.

A couple of days ago I registered the domain www.atherandearth.com. This is where my comic will live. I am still working on it, but I’m confident I’ll be able to start getting things done with it once NaNoWriMo this year is over.

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, I will be participating again in one month’s time. It will be AWESOME. I already have a fully developed plot!

Site Flight Web Design is over. I just never could get the hang of running a business. Don’t worry though, I’m not sad about it. It’s just me, I’m not cut out to be self-employed. Not enough motivation for things like that. It’s a problem I’ve had since I was about 10. Started out as a distaste for homework. Now it’s a distaste for doing things for other people while I’m at home. It feels like my personal space is being crushed, I guess. I’m happy to work while at a workplace, but I just can’t take that work home with me. Hence why I couldn’t handle working from home.

So it’s been a funny old ride, this year. It started out with me as enormously cashed up, buying cameras and expensive graphics tablets, leaving my Woolworths job, moving house, working in Sydney, ending each day feeling more drained of my sanity than the day before… then, I was unemployed, enjoying all the sudden free time but feeling lazy and sluggish and kind of doing that thing that George Costanza in Seinfeld did during the “Summer of George” – spending all my time “decompressing” by sitting idly. It got to the point where my sister tried making me do things by giving me lists because she was so upset that I seemed to be doing nothing. But I found my way.

I applied for a fateful job in late August, I got an interview, and the following Wednesday I was offered the job. I was nervous on my first day, and a bit spooked by the whole ordeal in the first few hours, where I had a whole lot of tasks bounced off me, and I was left worried about what I’d got myself into. But now that I’ve settled in, I’ve learnt that these things are doable and it seems like I’m appreciated in that workplace.

Because of my unemployment coinciding with my car needing a bunch done to it, I’m still in a bit of debt, but my job will take care of that within this month, and that’ll be a big weight off my shoulders.

Thanks to working close by, I will be able to not only join the gym next to my workplace and work out every day, but also work on my comic AND do NaNoWriMo without any problems.

This is it! This is the point in my life where everything works for me!

New 101 Things

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

Well, because of moving, I have to replace two items on my 101 Things list. Those are:

  • Run home from the gym
  • Go in the Contours 6 week challenge

Because I am forced to close my membership with Contours, I can’t do them anymore, which is sad – but it does open up two places for different goals, which is rather exciting! So, I’ve been thinking about it and decided to change them to these:

  • Get a DSLR Camera
  • Settle into a smooth weekly routine

The second one is so whitebread, isn’t it? But, I rather miss the days as a kid where I didn’t have to think too hard about what I was going to do at any given time, because it was normally already decided. Of course it will never be THAT simple again, but I want to run my life as efficiently as I can, so I don’t have to think hard about the things I know I have to do. I know that when I do think hard…. I tend to procrastinate. As much as I HATE procrastination, it’s my default state…. to do nothing. To have fun over taking care of necessary evils. It’s only rewarding in the short term and I really need to break the habit! I think that a good routine should allow me to do that.

DSLR cameraAs for the camera- well, I do not currently own a camera. I use my sister’s point-and-shoot if I have to have one, but I want my own… and I thought, I really want to take GOOD photos for once. I can take decent ones with a P&S, but I really would like to get to know a manual focus. I much prefer the depth effect of a more professional photo than the flat image you get with a P&S camera. Hence, I’ve decided to buy a beginner’s DSLR. For those that don’t know, it’s the kind of camera professionals use (though the one I get will be on the cheaper end – I can’t spend thousands thanks!!), with removable lenses and all kinds of manual settings. I don’t know much about them yet, but I figure I will learn as I go. I am definitely interested in learning. Photography is something that will partner very well with my CG graphics. I can even write it off as a business expense.

Frustration-free

Sunday, February 7th, 2010
25. Have shift at Woolworths where I don’t want to scream

Well, I had but four remaining shifts to get this – yesterday I managed it. I don’t know how, but it probably had something to do with:

  1. I was sent on my break early enough that I wasn’t yet tired and pissed off
  2. For my last two and half hours I was cleaning, refilling bags and stocking the drinks fridges… i.e. not using a checkout.

Phew, I was beginning to think I would have to rewrite that goal.

Gym Junkie: Reloaded

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
12. Go to the gym every day from Monday-Saturday for at least one week

Yes, I’ve done it. So far, it is not showing on the scales.

Kmart and Sunrise

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
39. Visit 24 hour K-Mart between 1am and 4am, just ’cause
19. Get up early enough to watch the sun rise over the lake

What a long morning it’s been!


The staff at Kmart were quite baffled.

Taco

Monday, January 18th, 2010
70. Eat a taco

I’ll admit, I was running out of ideas when I thought of this. Nevertheless… my photographic evidence:


Dinner!

In other news, my hair looks good right now, because my sister received a GHD hair straightener in the mail that she ordered from the internet. We tried it out.

2 Litres

Saturday, January 9th, 2010
31. Drink 2 litres of water in one day

Well, I did it today. By gum, it was damn easy. Today was hot. Really, really hot. So hot I had to keep fanning myself at work, and it was air conditioned in there. I went through one and a half 1.5 litre bottles of water in the space of six hours.

Well, one down. Only 100 to go.

101 Things in 1001 Days

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Yeah, I’m a sucker for these things.

Also on Skippy’s blog was a reference to 101 things in 1001 days, a long-term goals project focusing on doing a set list of things in the ensuing 1001 days precisely. For me, the end date is going to be Friday, 5 October 2012 (calculated using this tool). That’s shortly before the Mayan apocalypse, right?

Anyway, I have finished my list and here it is! I’ll be ticking them off as I go. Currently uncompleted goals are bold.

  1. Get a full-time job that I don’t hate
  2. Read the Hitchhiker’s Guide series
  3. Make one new local offline friend
  4. Quit Woolworths (in conjunction with #1)
  5. If I can’t buy a house yet, at least save up $10,000+
  6. Get down to 85kg or lighter, and keep it that way
  7. Get the matching tattoos my sister and I have been planning since we were in England
  8. Actually edit a NaNoWriMo novel
  9. Try to get novel published
  10. Hold the “plank” exercise for 60 seconds or more
  11. Go to the gym twice in one day
  12. Go to the gym every day from Monday-Saturday (it’s closed Sundays) for at least one week
  13. See a psychiatrist about my anxiety
  14. Have my gonadectomy
  15. Release the first issue of Ather & Earth
  16. Visit New Zealand
  17. Go on a road trip
  18. Go to the beach and go in the water (you’d think this would be an easy one, considering I live right by a beach… but I just never go)
  19. Get up early enough to watch the sun rise over the lake
  20. Pay off my Barter Card balance and close my account
  21. Learn to use a Javascript library
  22. Own a smart phone, preferably a Google one
  23. Visit the Blue Mountains
  24. Find out if I’m allergic to any food
  25. Have a shift at Woolworths where I do not want to scream in frustration
  26. Go one day without coffee
  27. Go two days without using a computer or video game of any kind
  28. Go one month where I work on Ather & Earth every single day.
  29. Go a month without buying anything made of chocolate or chocolate flavoured or containing chocolate
  30. Settle into a smooth weekly routine
  31. Drink 2 litres of water in one day
  32. Earn over $40k in one year
  33. Radically change my hair
  34. Spend a night out without having a panic attack
  35. Cook a gourmet meal on my own
  36. Connect my computer to my TV to become a Media Centre
  37. Buy better wheels for my rollerskates
  38. Quit playing Bejeweled
  39. Visit 24 hour K-Mart between 1am and 4am, just ’cause
  40. Visit Jamberoo Action Park
  41. Buy a DSLR camera
  42. Move to a bigger house
  43. Be complimented on my home by a visitor
  44. Drink a large Boost Juice
  45. Catch and eat a fish
  46. Get a perfect score on Rhythm Kung Fu (Advanced) in Wii Fit Plus
  47. Refrain from eating anything sugary on Christmas Day
  48. Buy that Beatles collection on the USB flash drive in the green apple
  49. Make delicious cocktails at home
  50. Roast green coffee beans in a popcorn maker
  51. Watch all Tom Baker Doctor Who episodes
  52. Buy a block of chocolate and eat it over the space of a week rather than all at once
  53. Win something. Anything.
  54. Finish at least the first draft of at least two novels
  55. Get my car’s headlights fixed
  56. Build a new shoe rack
  57. Learn how to use the washer-dryer properly
  58. Go one month without seeing an insect or arachnid in the house
  59. Go on a waterslide
  60. Get a kitten
  61. Meet three people in person that I met online
  62. Clean up my Gmail and keep up with all the emails instead of just looking at them all, sighing, and closing the tab
  63. Visit Uluru
  64. Get revenge on someone
  65. Bake fresh bread
  66. Go to bed at 9:30pm
  67. Spend a full day exclusively in bed except for using the bathroom
  68. Make a really horribly designed website for fun
  69. Live in the Greater Wollongong area
  70. Eat a taco
  71. Brew stout beer
  72. Make tiramisu
  73. Find a cake wreck and submit it to Cake Wrecks
  74. Make steak and stout pot pies
  75. Consider myself a responsible adult
  76. See Melbourne when it’s sunny
  77. Finish Final Fantasy V
  78. Feel financially secure
  79. Skate backwards for three laps at the skating rink
  80. Make scouse
  81. Make Irish soda bread
  82. Make soda bread ice cream
  83. Go to Bowral
  84. Borrow a book from the local library
  85. Make real buttermilk pancakes topped with sliced strawberries and pure maple syrup
  86. See the New Years fireworks in Sydney Harbour
  87. Have a picnic on the grass
  88. Wander the Haywards Bay home display village
  89. Take my parents out to dinner
  90. Learn how to take care of my car properly
  91. Make a sand sculpture
  92. Visit Caringbah Shopping Village for the first time since 2007
  93. Eat at Outback Steakhouse
  94. Buy a deck of Uno cards
  95. Visit the Southern Gateway Centre
  96. Walk on the Sea Cliff Bridge
  97. Stay awake for 35 hours straight, and see if I start hallucinating
  98. Get some new bedroom décor
  99. Make an animated short
  100. Eat at the Nan Tien Temple
  101. Go hang-gliding