New Year Resolutions 2024

Looking back at my resolution posts over there years there are certainly some themes that have developed, be happier, do more things, go on adventures, move. They also feel like they’ve gotten a little less happy each year as the weight of everything piles up. So this year I’m going to try to be happy and well, I’ll be following on my themes because I don’t do these things as much as I’d like to.

So here are the things I’d like to work on this year:

• Choose happiness: I want to laugh more, and do light things and be light. I talked last year about finding happiness inside myself (as that’s the only place it can be found), and that’s a goal to continue for this year. There is pain in the world, I have fears that are justified, but I want to push back on the greyness that sits in my mind and find joy again.
• Be more intentional: This is something I’ve been working on for a while, but the way my brain works, I often find myself doing things that I didn’t mean to do. As part of my other resolutions, I want to do what I mean and mean what I do. So I’m going to try check in on myself regularly to see if I’m doing what I want to be doing.
• Do: On that note, I’m putting one of my old favourite resolutions back on the list. “Do” means I want to have a bias towards action. I often struggle to separate my sense of self and self worth from my productivity, but at the same time I feel better if I do things. 10 minutes of cleaning or half an hour of writing make me feel better and I want to remember that.
• Finish (small) things: As I mentioned in my review of last year’s resolutions, the big thing I ended up working on this year was another novel and I certainly didn’t finish it. Some of my projects are big, and they need to be finished. That being said, finishing the small things, like a scene or a chapter or a bit of a coding project or tidying part of a room or building a thing are all important too and I want to get in the habit of finishing. More importantly, is that I would like to get in the habit of finishing and feeling accomplished rather than just looking at all of the things I haven’t done.
• Read more non-fiction: I’ve read a ton of fiction in 2023 and I think it’s been good for me. I have a big pile of non-fiction books that have been sitting around and it’s time I developed the habit of reading those too.

So 2024 is certainly a follow on to my themes and I hope I’ll be able to use this post as a reminder when I’m feeling unsure about what I want to do.

 

Looking back at 2023's New Year's Resolutions

I liked how my 2023 started, and then I feel like I lost focus on the things that mattered to me. I think I made progress on a lot of things, but I also feel like I didn’t move the needle on some of the things that matter to me. Certainly ending the year getting flattened by COVID hasn’t been a really great experience.
 

I write a resolution post as part of finding focus and I don’t always do a *great* job of checking on my resolutions throughout the year, but writing a post to check in on what I wanted to do and where I’m at in my life now is helpful as part of that focus.
 

For 2023 I had six resolutions:

• Finish Projects: Specifically I said I’d like to “plan out reasonably sized projects and finish them”. Instead I started writing *another* novel and then got hung up and didn’t work on it. Still over the last couple of months I’ve been thinking about what I want out of my life next and hopefully some of that will translate into getting more things done.
  
  
• Read more text: I did this. I read a lot of text and felt good about it.
  
  
• Move: I’ve started moving more, but have a long way to go. Just going in to the office opens up how much I walk and I try to remember to get out of my chair. Still I'm no where near where I was at my fittest or even at the start of the pandemic, but I feel like I'm on the move.
  
  
• Adventure: I started on being more adventurous but I wasn’t very good at it. Similarly to moving, going into the office more has been a big help in seeing more of the world and we did actually take a trip all the way to Victoria and back. Still I've tended to opt towards staying home rather than getting out there and adventuring.
  
  
• Choose Happiness: This is probably going to be a life long goal. I’ve started to find ways to think that make me feel happier and I’m slowly untangling my sense of happiness and self worth from my productivity and the world around me.
  
  At the same time, one of my COVID symptoms was a prevailing sense of doom and as I write this I’m still finding it hard to feel any way other than “here and alive”.
  
  
• Sleep Better: I guess I’ve started on this, but I am still not a person who is awake and happy about it. On the plus side the quality of our bed is really good now.
  

So 2023 was a year, not one I was super intentional about, but I think it can stand as a launching point to do better.

New Year Resolutions 2023

I spend more time thinking about what I should do, compared to doing the things I want to do. That’s one of the things I’d like to do better about next year. Still I’ll put together some resolutions for 2023, so I have something to look back on in December. (I do like a good look back at the year, but a year is a big thing to hold in your head.)

A lot of where I’m at this year is also where I was at this time last year, so I think a lot of my resolutions will be similar, but I’ve tried to reframe them to help them be more meaningful for my life.

• Finish Projects: If you’ve been here for any length of time really, you’ll know that finishing things has never been my strength. Overall I’ve been struggling a bit with the meaning of productivity, how it ties into my feelings of self worth and where and how I want to value my time. Still, I’d like to improve the two-part habit, of planning out reasonable sized projects to do and then finishing them.
• Read more Text: I’m generally happy with how much I’ve read the last year and reading more seems like an excellent way to move away from mindless Social Media. Most of my reading has been in the form of audiobooks. That’s been great and allowed me to read regularly, but I have been missing text and after getting a Kobo for Christmas last year, I’ve been glad to read more written word. I also find it’s been good for thinking about how things are written in a way audiobooks don’t do.
• Move: This is the thing I feel like I really fell down on last year. I was fairly fit before the pandemic started, but it’s just been hard to pick up physical activity again. I don’t want to categorize this more, since that always leads to failure, but I do want to feel good in my skin and I’d like to feel like my body can do whatever I ask of it.
• Adventure: This year was pretty stressful and we didn’t do all we could to enjoy it. For the next year I want to join family and friends and do and see things that we haven’t seen, either ever or even just recently.
• Choose Happiness: One thing that came to me this year is that I spend a lot of time trying to clear out stress or obligations or mess to find happiness. I’d like to work on finding ways to feel happy, whatever else is going on and wherever I am in the world and my life. I’m not sure exactly how that works, and sometimes my brain just refuses, but I’d like to learn.
• Sleep Better: I’m tired. It seems like more sleep might help with that. At a minimum, if I’m tired I’d like it to be for a good reason.

Thanks for reading in 2022. I hope 2023 is good and kind to all of you.

“Fireworks” is copyright copyright 2014 Amir Kbah and made available under a
Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license

Looking back at 2022's New Year's Resolutions

 I like to look back at resolutions from last year to see how those things have gone. It’s not really so much about accountability as it is about checking in on what the shape of the year has been, compared to how I thought it would go.

Looking at my post for 2021, I feel like I have a lot of the same things to say, but I’m a doing a little bit better over all. Interestingly I had periods in both years where I felt down, but I’m starting to feel better overall now and I’m getting a bit better at managing my stress (not a lot better, but a bit).

I’m not quite sure what I need to make 2023 a year of comfortable growth, but I think doing resolutions is a little bit helpful. To be clear, I’m not sure that I *need* to make 2023 a year of growth, but I’m not quite “where I want to be” and so I guess there’s nothing to do but be intentional about the things I do and changing my habits for ones that make me happier. 

Last year, I had four resolutions:

1. Move: This has been a bit of a struggle. Specifically, I want to be stronger and fitter and less sore, but I also find it hard to dedicate the time. Being intentional about moving, either as exercise or just as not sitting on my ass, hasn’t been easy, even with the very nice sit/stand desk at work.
2. Read more non-fiction: This hasn’t been a roaring success either. Again in the time management area, I’m not great at creating time to read non-fiction. My fiction reading rate has been quite high and I’m on track to finish my 120 book challenge this year, but a lot of that is audiobooks and I don’t think that audiobooks and non-fiction mesh very well in my brain.
3. Do: Do, has been a little complicated. I think through the first half of the year I did okay at working on stuff. I find my relationship to the projects I want to do has changed, especially as they fit in as hobbies. The latter half of the year, especially after getting sick in October and having some other things come up has really derailed “Do,” but I’m also learning to choose where I want to spend my energy. I’m also connecting more to the projects I’m undertaking at work and getting satisfaction there as well.
4. Learn more about food: I have to confess this is the one I forgot about. To some extent I think I have learned more, having to get a new oven has been educational and we’ve been starting to adjust our diet to be healthier as well. I think this is a thing I’ve started doing, but I still have a lot of learning I’d like to do.

2022 may have kicked me as hard as 2021 did, but in slightly different ways. I will probably always have a lot of growing I want to do and things I want to learn. I’m trying to adopt a stronger growth mindset and also to be more centred in myself so I can take on challenges and surprises more easily.

Blog Post: New Year's Resolutions 2022

I usually start off by being a little reticent to make resolutions since I want to pay attention to my habits and decisions each day.  However, I'm finding maybe just by the nature of a break in December that this is the easiest time to breath and reset. 

I realized all my old year end pictures break after a while. So I made my own.

As I said in my reflections on last year's resolutions, I've been struggling a bit and and feel like some of my habits aren't leaving me the way I'd like to be.

So here's what I want to remember and think about during 2022:

1. Move - I've discovered that while I was never super fit, I've become profoundly weak this last year. So it's time to move again and get back to a place where I feel comfortable moving and being in my body.
2. Read more non-fiction - I'm really happy with how much I read in 2021 and I'd like to keep that up. The one place I struggled a bit was making the time to sit down with non-fiction and read intentionally. So in 2022, I want to prioritize that reading.
3. Do - I've been keeping a journal consistently since the beginning of the pandemic and one of the regular themes there is "Do".  Last year I had a resolution to "Do More" but this year my goal is just to "Do".
4. Learn more about food - in the last little bit I've been thinking a lot about how to find the best food, grow the best food, enjoy food more and cook better.

Blog Post: Looking Back at 2021's New Year Resolutions

I'm not sure how to think about 2021. I started a new position as a Learning Technology Specialist and that's forced me to think about my identity as an academic and a creator. The pandemic has also gone on and on and while that's profoundly wearing, it has also offered me a lot to be thankful for. My life is good and getting better, but it's not the easiest time.

Naively, I wrote some resolutions last year and I have a tradition of checking in on them the following year, so I guess it's time to do that:

1. Relax - Uh... fuck. The entirety of the year didn't lead towards relaxing. I certainly struggled both with the pandemic and personally to really get to a place I felt good. I think I'm starting to build some resilience in my mind now, but it's been a journey to get here.
2. Go on More Adventures - Uh... double fuck. Truth be told I did choose not to adventure as much as I could have, but still this year was not conducive to seeing new things.
3. Read More - Ok, something positive! I read a lot more and I read more broadly (certainly a lot more mystery). After several years of trying to read more I finally feel like I've shifted the reading bar in my head.
4. Write More - I didn't do nearly as much of this as I wanted to, but I did write more than I have in the past. I think I've found a direction and a way I want to go forward with my rather eclectic creative work, so I'm happy. I'm also more focused on the blog than I have been in a long time and that's making me feel good. The future feels bright.
5. Do More - I certainly found my way towards getting things done by small steps. As I said, I've found a way forward, in just prioritizing what I want to have done. I think I can still do better here at finding ways to do things, but *generally* I'm happy.

I'll be honest, 2021 kicked me in the ass in a lot of ways. I feel disconnected from myself in the past and I find it a bit hard to keep a thread constant through my life for more than a few months. There are touch-points of happiness and I think, if nothing else coming out of the darkness I felt a few months ago, I'm much readier to take an active role in my life going forward.

The best light in what's been my 2020 view.

New Year's Resolutions 2021

I'm always a little hesitant to do new year's resolutions, since really thinking about what I've accomplished and what I want to do is really a thing I do all the time. That being said, I get a little bit of breathing room each December, so it's a nice time to think about life and it's pretty fun to look back at these a year later*.

via GIPHY

With that being said, here are some things I want to work on in 2021:

1. Relax - I'm realizing just how badly my own stress is sitting on me and making my life harder, so I'm hoping by the end of 2021 that I'm able to get chill a little better than I am right now.
2. Go on More Adventures - This was one of my resolutions for last year, but then 2020 happened so now most of my adventures are trips as far away as my local coffee shop once or twice a month. Hopefully by the end of next year I'll be able to go more places and see and do more things that are a little out of the ordinary.
3. Read More - I read more in 2020 and I want to keep reading more and more types of things in 2021.
4. Write More - A lot of the projects I'm working on involve writing and certainly writing more would help get those done. Additionally I've been writing a journal since the beginning of pandemic and it's caused me to spend a lot more time thinking about the written word and now good it feels to craft sentences well.
5. Do More - This is a bit of an expansion on my resolution to Move Projects Forward last year. There's a ton of little things in my life that I'd like to get done and so I just want to remind myself that I can do a little bit each day and make really great progress.

* I like when podcasts do a predictions / predictions review show, but I really have no interest in predicting anything.

Looking Back at 2020's New Year Resolutions

 Uh. So. 2020. That happened ... a lot.

Back in the normal times of December 2019, I wrote down some resolutions. How'd those go?

1. Accept Life as It Is - The thrust of this was to try to be better about finding happiness internally rather than relying on outside factors or waiting for particular conditions to be met. In the first half of the year, I did okay with this, I think but I really fell off. I had some disappointments and ended up feeling very out of control. It's certainly the worst I've felt since the darkest days of my PhD.
2. Go on More Adventures - Uh ... fuck.
3. Read More - I did this. It was pretty good. I'd still like to read more and with a little more grace and control, but I read a lot more and a lot of cool things too.
4. Move Projects Forward - I almost did this, but by equal measure my Fall semester completely beat most of the project thinking out of my mind. Hopefully I'll be able to be more on track in 2021.

At the end of the day I'm not unhappy with 2020. 

I think I made some choices that held me back as the year went on. I got hung up on "need to" and "should" and struggled keeping with the day-to-day and finding my own happiness. I also struggled with my identity quite a lot and how to balance that with things that need to be done and what I want to do or be (and how what I want to do affects who I want to be). 

Still I learn a huge amount, about myself, about teaching, about making do and how done is so much better than perfect. So even even though 2020 was a pretty rocky year, I think I'm coming out of it stronger.

via GIPHY - and now for a 2020 nap.

New Year's Resolutions 2020

In 2019 I finished my PhD which has been a goal for a very, very long time. I’m finding myself in a space right now where I feel a little frustrated that everything hasn’t fit perfectly together. To some extent I feel like there’s a lot of things I should do right now, but also I’m slowly realizing that happiness is going to be a mental state I put effort into achieving and not a “thing I’ll get to when my PhD is done”.

via GIPHY

Other than that I have some general things I want to do next year:

1. Finish the thesis - Waaaait a minute.


2. Accept life as it is - As I said, I spent a lot of the end of my PhD feeling like I’d be “happy” once I finished my PhD. And then I did and then realized that my mental state was going to be something I had to manage on my own. So I want to try to take a bit of time and a bit of energy each day to being happy.


3. Go on more adventures - Big or small I want to have a stream of interesting things I’m doing and planning to do. I want to organize my life and work in such a way that I have the flexibility and freedom to see things and people that are important to me.


4. Read more - I gave my students advice to read more at the end of a System Administration class and I should take that up myself. I want to schedule time each day to read.


5. Move Projects Forward - I want to get things done for my personal projects and my home and I want basically to try to work on one or the other of those each day. I’m also not quite sure how yet, but I need to find a way to handle those projects that have stumbling blocks that need to be moved past. I set numbers to this last year, and didn't really follow through, so I'm just going to do my best to keep moving.

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Looking back at 2019’s New Years Resolutions

Hey, it’s that time of year where I think about thinking things. So It’s probably a good time to see if I did anything with my resolutions for 2019.

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General Goals

1. Be Slower - I think (unsurprisingly) my results were mixed. The idea here was to focus my energy towards one thing at a time. I think I managed to do this moderately well when I wasn’t stressed. When I was stressed, I think I fell back to my old patterns.
2. Finish Things - Well, this still isn’t my strength. I did give a lecture on finishing things, which I did finish. I think I’ve generally gotten better at getting stuff done and especially doing things as soon as they come up so that they don’t land on my to-do list at all.
3. Be Comfortable - This one’s gonna be a long process. I spent a little time thinking the other day that I have an urge for “this to be done” so that I can be happy. Finding that way to seperate my mental state from everything else in the world is going to be some work.

Specific Goals

1. Finish the Thesis - Goddamnit :-D
   
   
   
   
   
2. Make Something Everyday - Uh, where the hell did 2019 go? I started strong, lost it a little in the middle and then have picked up a bit at the end. Taking a really motivating art class has helped for sure.
3. Finish a Project a Month - Uuuuh, where did 2019 go? I bombed this one pretty hard, but at least I have moved most of my projects along a little.
4. Enjoy Good Stuff - I think I did okay. Not great, but okay. I’ve read a ton this year and watched a lot of shows I’ve been interested in. I’ve played more games and enjoyed them.
5. See More things - I don’t know that I did this as well as I should have, but I definitely took myself on some little adventures and think I’ll have space for a lot more.

2019 was okay. It was a transitional year and the year in which I moved from being a guy who hadn’t finished his PhD to a guy who did finish his PhD. The bit where the world didn’t suddenly change around me was to be expected I guess, but I’m still trying to figure out how to be out on my own. It’s been easy for years to blame the PhD for the things I’m not happy with, but that’s a crutch I have to give up now, and more to the point, maybe turn it into a nice cane and use it to hook the world into where I want it.

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Tradition now dictates that these posts end with a dancing cat

New Year’s Resolutions 2019

I guess this is a thing I do now. So, here are a few things I thought about working on in 2019:

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General Resolutions

1. Be Slower - I don’t know that I would describe myself as hastey (especially because that’s not a word anybody uses), but I’ve found myself several times over the last year reacting in a way that wasn’t that helpful and that could have been avoided if I’d just slowed down. That way I can get more information, or I can react in a way that actually makes sense based on how I’d really like to react.
   
   Similarly, I think this extends my monotasking goal of last year. I want to slow down and do a thing until the thing is done (or done enough) and not keep jumping to something else every time I don’t want to do the thing.
   
   So the goal for 2019 is to go slower, think more deeply and keep in mind that whatever it is will still be there when I get to it.
2. Finish Things - In addition to going slower, I need to get stuff done. For a long time I was really bad at even starting things (and I’m still not *very* good at it), but I’m also really bad at finishing things.
   
   For 2019 I’d like to get better at finishing things in two ways. One if a job can be finished, I want to finish it as quickly as I can. For another, as an aspect of being slower, if a job can’t be finished I want to focus my energy on moving it forward so it can get done.
3. Be Comfortable - I think this is a bit of an aspect of being slower as well. I’ve found, in this last year especially that I allow myself to get very stressed, and so instead of being slow, I freeze. Instead of that this year, I want to relax in my own skin. So that even if things aren’t the way I want, I can keep moving.

Specific Resolutions

1. Finish The Thesis - Goddamnit.
2. Make Something Everyday - Partly freezing from stress, partly freezing from not wanting to distract myself from the thesis, but I haven't made nearly as much as I want to in 2018. In 2019 I want set myself a don’t break the chain challenge of making something cool and/or creative every day. It should be a tiny thing, but it should be a little bit of creative practice.
3. Finish A Project Each Month - As a concrete instance of finishing stuff, I want to give myself a goal of finishing a project every month.
4. Enjoy Good Stuff - Read more books, watch more movies, watch more tv, play more games, seem more art, listen to more music, look at more trees (and mountains and stuff). I want to push myself when I’m making a decision about my time, to lean towards enjoying something good.
5. See More Things - As with 2018, I have a lot of flexibility and I really ought to be putting it to good use. So I want to try at least once a week to do something unusual, so that I get to see more things.

And with that I hope we all have a wonderful 2019 in which we all get ourselves to the places we want to be.

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Looking Back at 2018 New Year’s Resolutions

Doing a resolutions post was a new thing for me, and I think the exercise was generally a good idea. I thought I’d take a moment to look back at my resolutions for this year.

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General Goals

1. Monotask - Mixed results on this one. It’s something I’m going to have to keep working on. I find especially as I get tired and overwhelmed by the stuff that needs to be done that it’s easy to lose focus and so I do more stuff, less well. I keep a pocket moleskin and write out my todos each day and as often as not I tend to fill a whole page with stuff that needs doing. Ideally I think i’d do fewer things but focus on them to get them done. (Also I’m editing two posts right now, so clearly Monotasking hasn’t quite taken yet.) 
2. Hold Fewer Opinions - I … think I succeeded? This feels like a thing that I’m going to work on for the rest of my life. 
3. Act more - Again I feel like this is a bit of a lifetime project. Generally I don’t think I did as well as I did at holding fewer opinions, but I have been trying to break stuff down into smaller pieces so that it’s easier to get them done. 

Specific Goals

1. Finish my Thesis - Goddamint. I am closer though. 
2. Be More Engaged on Twitter - This didn’t really take. I still stand by my feelings last year, that the only way to actually improve Twitter is be be good on Twitter (or whichever social network). I found it hard to engage partly due to stress about all the other stuff I hadn’t got done and I think a bit because the community I want isn’t really there any more. 
3. Read More - I did that. 
4. Make More Stuff - I didn’t do that. 
5. See More Stuff - Another mixed result. I certainly didn’t take advantage of my flexibility as much as I’d hoped, but I did do a little. I also feel like I’ve managed to organize myself so that in the future I will be able to see more stuff.

My 2018 wasn't great, I wanted my thesis done, but teaching got in the way (sort of) and I got in my own way. That being said, I'm pretty close to being done, and, more importantly, I think I'm getting more comfortable being a person who has things to do.

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I have no idea who this cat is, but lets dance anyway.

Project 1: Project Octoseason Blog*

Happy Blog End and Start Day!

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Yes, it’s time for that annual celebration where I remember that I started the Blog on August 1 (a long time ago) and should probably figure out what I’m doing with it. It’s also your annual reminder that not all things last forever, but this blog still might for another year.

Ahem, first, as tradition dictates, I’d like to remind you that the “Blog” here comes in two parts, the Blog as Project Report, and the Blog as Blog (which is itself a project). Effectively, my intention here has always been to get excited and make things - even if that’s not always as evident as I’d like it - and one of those things I’m excited to make, is a Blog where I talk about - well mostly the media I’ve consumed, but you get the idea.

Tradition further suggests that now is the time that I tell you I’m not done my PhD, but I’m close - and folks I’m getting ever closer to actually finishing the damn thing - and given that, that I haven’t done quite as much work on my own creations as I’d hoped last August. Still, here we are, I’m not going to beat myself up, I’m just going to celebrate what I have done.

In terms of projects in the last year, I’ve worked on four and I’m generally, pretty happy with how they came out. I started messing around generating floor plans for a game I’d like to make at some point. That only managed two posts, but I still had fun - and I’m still thinking about it, the Flurpins will be back “soon”. I pushed myself to read more, and set myself the goal of reading 12 books in 21 weeks. That was a nice project, in that it had a set end date, and ended at the end for 2017. I actually made it all the way to 18 books - what a stunner. I started on a program to help me with game tracking, and also to just get some general programming practice in. Finally I tackled #NaFYoFuThMo an effort to get me pushed across that finish line of that ever looming PhD.

A Flurpin ... an odd side effect of generating floor plans.

As far as the Blog as Blog goes, in the last year I’ve kept up with tracking my video game playing, which I continue to find interesting, even if it probably seems a bit repetitive. I dropped a little behind in the monthly posts, partly because I was fairly overwhelmed in the Winter managing teaching and the PhD. I’ve mostly caught up now, and you can expect to see the June and July posts in the next few days. 

Following on from the success I had in boosting my reading in 2017, I’ve tracked all of the books I’ve read so far in 2018. I think It’s been worthwhile, and I’ve boosted my goal for the year on Good Reads from 32 to 40 (but that’s mostly to accommodate the fact that I can read a volume of Saga in a morning, and I hadn’t planned to read Saga at such a rate).

I only wrote one “thoughts on” post this year. That was Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, last August. I haven’t really finished another game this year that I’ve had that many thoughts about - while I loved Into The Breach, I found I didn’t have a lot to say other than, It’s really good. I suspect that in the next little while I may write a “thoughts on” piece for Paper Mario: Colour Splash - where you can enjoy my chants of “The WiiU is not a 3D system!” - and I may write a follow up to Breath of the Wild, another hundred hours on.

It's ok, you just have to trust the game not to smack you in the face with a hammer ... which you can't.

For the first time I wrote a New Years Resolution post. I think it was good for me to write down what I wanted to do better, or differently, this year. Generally, I’ve been more successful than not: I’m *slightly* better at monotasking and much better if I don’t let stress build up. I think I’ve done an okay job of holding fewer opinions, although that also varies with stress. I do think it’s helped while teaching introductory computer science, where many people hold a number of *very* strong opinions which may not matter very much. I think I’ve also been better at acting and getting stuff done just by standing up and doing it - it’s easier than I think it is.

I’m going to finish my thesis, sooner rather than later. I think in a small way I’ve been better on Twitter and happier with how I’ve been on Twitter. I’ve definitely read more and enjoyed a lot of what I’ve read - and then there’s Eats, Shoots and Leaves. I’m not sure I’ve made more stuff, but I’ve done a lot of stuff around the house that feels similar. I’ve seen more things, but I’d like to see more and keep pushing past the boundaries of inertia. 

More or less, I’m happy with the Blog as Blog in its seventh season. It has mostly been bits of media I’ve consumed. I didn’t really mean for it to work out that way, but at the moment I’m feeling fairly happy with that. My favourite YouTube videos have fallen off, but I think given the state of that platform generally, I'm okay with that. I may bring them back in a different form in the future.

I’m going to do an Eighth Season of the Blog - surprise! I suspect it will look very similar to the seventh. Tracking media keeps me interested, and if I find I have something I want to write about in relation to that, then I’ll have a good space to do that. I am hoping that as I finally finish the PhD, I’ll be able to add in a few more projects - I have several in mind, which should be fun.

Thanks to all of you who read, I hope the fun I have here is at least a little fun for you as well.

via GIPHY

*Yes, yes I did make a stupid reference to Octopath Traveller in the title, what of it?

2018 Resolutions

I haven’t made a post like this before, because I usually feel like how I’m going to live my life is really my own business. This year, I feel like I’d like to be a bit more public since, as I’ll talk about later, I feel like the way we’re making use of social media needs some improvement. I also think as a university instructor and a grad student we often keep quiet about how we’re doing, and I think being a little more open we can all make our lives a little better.

via GIPHY

So here are three general resolutions I’d like to work on for next year:

1. Monotask More - I don’t multitask well and inevitably when I set out to do several things at the same time, I don’t get any of them done the way I’d like. My goal for next year is to do that less, I want to pick one thing, do it as well as I can and then go on to something else. In particular I’m going to try to set aside specific time for twitter and email so I don’t interrupt myself. 
2. Hold Fewer Opinions - At some point this year John and Hank Green decided that we all hold too many useless opinions and I think I agree with them. I think I’m already alright at this, there are often times when I feel like it’s not worth getting excited on a particular topic. At the same time, there are points where I get upset over things that don’t really matter and I’d be happier if I could just move on. My goal for next year is to see when I don’t need to hold a strong opinion and if I don’t need one, I’ll try not to have one. 
3. Act More - I think this ties in with both of the previous resolutions, but I often avoid getting stuff done, even when there’s nothing really holding me back from doing it. I’m going to try to cut down on the size of my todo list to make it easier to see what needs doing and to push myself to get more stuff done. 

And I have a few specific things too:

1. Finish my Thesis - this is the year.
2. Be more Engaged on Twitter - I like Twitter, or at least I like how Twitter was in the early days. I don’t know how to fix all of the problems that Twitter has now, but I think trying to talk more with cool people about cool things is a decent way to go. I’m going to try to reply more and retweet less. 
3. Read More - I don’t read enough, so next year I want to buff that up. (And I’ll be making a project to that end soon). 
4. Make More Stuff - I want to write more, draw more, sculpt more, program more. I think I feel best about myself when I’m getting something made, so I want to do that. 
5. See More Things - I have an amazing flexibility in where I work right now and I should make better use of that to go and see cool places even while I’m working. 

I hope 2018 rises to meet us all as we rise to meet it.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 36) - ZeFrank Special

This volume of my favourite YouTube videos is a bit special, first of all it marks the point in time where ZeFrank had just started doing a show. This is special in and of itself, and caused me to have several of his videos in my favourites in a row, but somehow I managed not to favourite "An Invocation for Beginnings" which is possibly my favourite ZeFrank video of all time. So I decided to slip that one in and add in one extra to give us a totally ZeFrank focused volume.

I'm going to let each of these stand alone.

• "An Invocation for Beginnings"
• "Thinks Like Me"
• "Make. Beleive."
• "TMMTO :: Comfort"
• "2601 People Wrote This Song"

Project 1: Third Season of The Blog

Happy Birthday!

Well, not birthday. Happy Project Ending Day and Happy Project Start Day. More precisely, Happy Blog Start and End Day!

Today is the last day of the Second Season of the Blog. Today is also first day of the Third Season of the Blog.

The Second Season of the Blog was not all I'd hoped it would be. I wanted to be really good about regular updating, which I haven't really been. I've managed to post in every month of the second season, ranging from 1 post to 11, but not as regularly as I'd hoped.

By far and away I've been best about posting my "favourite YouTube videos", managing 27 of them in total. I've also managed to post 5 "Thoughts on Games", which is fewer than I'd hoped. Finally I tested out "Cool Things of the Week", before deciding that it would be better served living on twitter.

I'm glad I've managed to post as much as I have, although I would like to write more and more regularly. I did manage to finish my PhD coursework and my candidacy during that time, which certainly has more priority.

That being said, I've managed to keep up with the blog for a whole year and for that much at least I'm pretty happy.

The Third Season of the Blog starts now. I'm not planning to change my content that much although I'm hoping to change my schedule/quantity and improve my quality.

Ideally I want to post twice a week for the foreseeable future. This would mean one favourite YouTube videos post, probably on Friday and one other post sometime during the week (hopefully on Tuesdays, but no promises). This other post will be thoughts on video games or something else, if I happen to have a project update (and ideally I'll have more of these than I have so far) then that will count too.

As far as quality, I'm hoping to spend a bit more time writing each post. I also hope that my quality will naturally improve simply by getting more practice.

Hopefully I can keep this up for another year. So the third season will last until August 1, 2014.

Thanks for reading, and keep getting excited and making things.

Blog Post: Derek K. Miller

This post is my thanks to Derek K. Miller. Derek was an amazing blogger, podcaster, musician, photographer, citizen of the web, husband, father and most of all human being.

Derek K. Miller

Many years ago, when I was just starting my Masters, I decided that while I seemed to be spending a lot of time on the internet, I certainly wasn't experiencing the best parts of it. Conveniently around that time Tod Maffin (CBC's then resident expert on the internet) was talking about good blogs that people should be following, and amongst the ones he mentioned I started following Derek's penmachine.com.

In early May 2011, Derek died. It wasn't a surprise, he'd been battling, and later living with cancer for more than four years. I followed his blog from his wait for his first biopsy results, though to his last post. I was immersed in his many informative posts, elated when good news came and saddened when the bad news came.

Derek's death was heart breaking, far too soon, with his family too young and with too many awesome things that will never be done. I am glad, that at least he and his family had some time together, to take off and do the important things, like go to Disney world, and to plan for what comes next.

This post, as you may have noticed, is late. It has been many months since Derek died and while I should have got off my ass and written something right away, but I didn't and since then I've wondered a lot about what I should write. After all, I didn't know Derek in real life, he didn't know me from Adam and his death is really the business of his family and friends. I can extend my sympathy, but really what does that do for their grief and their pain.

What I've come to is this: I am inspired by Derek. He lived his life well, did things he was interested in and excited and passionate about. He loved his family and was good to them. He made decisions that made his family's lives better. He never bogged down, even when his pain was at its worst, when the cancer or the chemo was ravaging him he kept going and when he reached the end of the road he took his rest.

I am inspired by Derek and can only say in his death that I will try to follow in his footsteps. I will try to be a good person and a good citizen of the web. I will try to produce creative things that I enjoy making. I make no guarantees beyond that, but looking at the happiness he had in his too-short life, I don't know what else someone could wish for.

Derek and his wife Air. Stylin'. That's most of what you need to know.