Katydid's Life Goals

[Katydid]

I'm one of those people who too often spends more time dreaming about all the things I want to do with my life than actually doing them...which I suppose is exactly what I'm doing right now...uhm...Look over there, something shiny! >.>

 

...All the same, I hope that writing everything down in one place will give me something to keep coming back to and keep me motivated!  Putting things in the public eye always helps too.  Please watch me closely and poke me if you catch me looking like a lazy Netflix-watching blob, which is often.

 

This is just a starter list, and will probably be edited frequently, especially at first.

 

Global citizenship goals:

• Read a book about every country in the world.  Preferably written by a native of that country.  Approach: alphabetical.  Fiction and non-fiction both acceptable.  Recommendations much appreciated!  Also appreciated is advice about how to define "country"; right now I'm using Wikipedia's list of sovereign states.
  • ​Completed: none.
  • Next country: Afghanistan.  Book: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
• Become familiar with major world religions/belief systems.  Familiarization can come in the form of books, classes, conversations with practitioners, etc.

  • • Christianity:
      • Protestantism: Complete by way of being raised as a (non-denominational) Protestant and practicing that faith throughout adolescence.
      • Catholicism: Complete by way of attending a majorly (although not technically) Catholic high school and in-depth discussions with many Catholic friends.
      • Completed: Read the Old and New Testaments in their entirety.
      • Research Eastern Orthodoxy
    •  Islam: Took a college class, but it had mostly a historical focus. I'd still like to:
      • ​Read the Quran in its entirety
      • Read (a) book(s) about the beliefs and practices of modern Islam (recs?)
    • Mormonism (arguably a branch of Christianity, although a rather unique one): Met for several weeks with some Mormon missionaries, although we mostly talked about God and faith in general and not Mormonism in particular
      • ​Read the Book of Mormon
      • Explore Mormon websites (they appear to have quite useful ones)

​Become conversational in as many languages as possible

• Completed: English (fluent), Spanish (conversational, working on fluency)
• Next: Probably Arabic, which my BF speaks, although I might not get serious about it until after graduation.

Stay current (heh) with current events.  This requires finding one or more journalistic sources that I trust, and carving out a time of day to read them.

• ​First step: start reading NYT morning report (although my free trial expires in a couple of months, so I’ll have to find something else after that).

Athletic goals:

• Run a 5k (currently can run 2 mi/3.2 km)
  • ​Most recent running milestone: ran a 10-min mile on a flat treadmill (9/1/14)
  • Next running goal: run a 10-min mile outdoors
• Do 1 pushup (currently can do 5 incline pushups in a row)
• Do 1 pull-up (currently can bent-over row 25 lbs 9 times in a row)
• Complete the Advanced Body Weight Workout
• Achieve splits (front left, front right, and sideways)
• Master handstands
• Master rock-climbing
• Master yoga
• Learn aerial fabrics
• Learn parkour
• Learn a martial art

Musical goals:

• Have a memorized piano repertoire of 1 piece
• Learn to play Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on piano
• Learn to play guitar
• Learn to play violin

Adulting goals:

• Graduate with bachelor’s degree
• Get a Real Job.  Any real job.
• Get a job for a nonprofit working on urban poverty
• Get a job doing finances or logistics for a nonprofit working on urban poverty
• Have 5 go-to recipes.  Will add links if I have them; no links means it’s from a book, a friend, or I made it up.  Pancakes, grilled cheese, ramen and the like don’t count.
  • Spaghetti with veggie sauce (made it up)
  • Smoked salmon scramble (learned from a friend)
• Learn to bake 5 things not from a box
  • Chocolate chip cookies
  • Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins
• Live in non-college-campus apartment

Random goals:

• Knit 5 different objects:
  • Scarf (a striped scarf does not count as a separate object)
  • Coffee sleeve
  • In progress: baby poncho
• Have a garden

 

Last updated: 9/3/14

[Jakkals]

 

• Read a book about every country in the world.  Preferably written by a native of that country.  Approach: alphabetical.  Fiction and non-fiction both acceptable.  Recommendations much appreciated!  Also appreciated is advice about how to define "country"; right now I'm using Wikipedia's list of sovereign states.

 

 

You have got some great goals.

 

And I've got another bookshelf purge coming up, so you are welcome to any South African books I am purging. Just poke me sometimes to remind me, I am absentminded.

[NightWatcher13]

Fun - lots of great goals! I definitetly understand the problem of dreaming more than doing - which being on here has been super helpful to keep me motivated to actually get out IRL and accomplish what I want.

Let me know if you need any knitting ideas. I'd actually recommend reading books by C.S.Lewis also btw - being someone who was also raised Protestant, there was a lot of stuff I thought I understood until I started reading some of his adult literature. 

And let me know if you'd like a couple of books on Japanese culture - I don't have a ton, but do have a few and they're really good for getting a basic grasp of the culture - they were actually for a J. Culture class in college.

Yay for the music too - let us know what song you memorize!

(Tambien, que bueno que hablas espanol - es muy util en muchas lugares por el mundo! Hablas mexicano o castellano? O otra?)

[Katydid]

You have got some great goals.

 

And I've got another bookshelf purge coming up, so you are welcome to any South African books I am purging. Just poke me sometimes to remind me, I am absentminded.

 

Thanks!  If I go alphabetically it'll be a while before I get to South Africa, but I bet stocking up books now would motivate me to actually read them.

 

Fun - lots of great goals! I definitetly understand the problem of dreaming more than doing - which being on here has been super helpful to keep me motivated to actually get out IRL and accomplish what I want.

Let me know if you need any knitting ideas. I'd actually recommend reading books by C.S.Lewis also btw - being someone who was also raised Protestant, there was a lot of stuff I thought I understood until I started reading some of his adult literature. 

And let me know if you'd like a couple of books on Japanese culture - I don't have a ton, but do have a few and they're really good for getting a basic grasp of the culture - they were actually for a J. Culture class in college.

Yay for the music too - let us know what song you memorize!

(Tambien, que bueno que hablas espanol - es muy util en muchas lugares por el mundo! Hablas mexicano o castellano? O otra?)

 

No sé seguramente, pero pienso que hablo más o menos mexicano, o latinoamericano generalmente.  He tenido una variedad de profesores de países diferentes, incluyendo España, Argentina y Chile.

 

I'm going out today to buy supplies to make a baby poncho for my stuffed monkey - she wears a baby shirt that's more than 20 years old and is basically a giant hole.  I figure I can practice a more complex project on her before I inflict one on anyone else.

 

CS Lewis is great!  I've read a few of his shorter works and enjoyed them; I'd like to read more.  The Japanese books sound cool - I'm really interested in Japan since some of my dad's family is Japanese.

[Raze]

some great goals and quite lofty! For an Afghan book i would suggest The Bear that Went Over the Mountain it is a military based book that covers the soviet campaign in the late 80's and there are quite a few parralells between then and the current conflict in the country which being a Marine I found very interesting.

 

Also if you are interested a religious familiarization book as well as a regional one which is mainly based in northern Europe and Scandinavia would be Our Troth. This covers the various forms of Asatru (norse paganism) that existed from the Stone Age through the Viking age and onto the rebirth in the mid 1900's.

[Carly Rae Jepsens Warlock]

This is too epic!!

Holla at me when you need Pakistani boos/learn about Islam/take up Urdu as language. :L

"This message was brought to you by my fingers which were activated by the electrical signals sent from my brain through a network of nerves and ganglia".

[Katydid]

some great goals and quite lofty! For an Afghan book i would suggest The Bear that Went Over the Mountain it is a military based book that covers the soviet campaign in the late 80's and there are quite a few parralells between then and the current conflict in the country which being a Marine I found very interesting.

 

Also if you are interested a religious familiarization book as well as a regional one which is mainly based in northern Europe and Scandinavia would be Our Troth. This covers the various forms of Asatru (norse paganism) that existed from the Stone Age through the Viking age and onto the rebirth in the mid 1900's.

 

Thanks for the suggestions!  I really want to try and get native authors for my country books, but I'll definitely look into Our Troth next time I'm looking for a religion book.

 

This is too epic!!

Holla at me when you need Pakistani boos/learn about Islam/take up Urdu as language. :L

"This message was brought to you by my fingers which were activated by the electrical signals sent from my brain through a network of nerves and ganglia".

 

Thanks!  I'm going alphabetically so Pakistan is probably several years down the list...Urdu sounds like such a cool language!  I'm still trying to figure out how to push myself on the languages thing; right now I'm focused on improving Spanish proficiency and am taking a literature class in full Spanish next term.

[Carly Rae Jepsens Warlock]

Thanks for the suggestions! I really want to try and get native authors for my country books, but I'll definitely look into Our Troth next time I'm looking for a religion book.

Thanks! I'm going alphabetically so Pakistan is probably several years down the list...Urdu sounds like such a cool language! I'm still trying to figure out how to push myself on the languages thing; right now I'm focused on improving Spanish proficiency and am taking a literature class in full Spanish next term.

Oh yeah! Focus on Spanish, then. Urdu isn't world renowned so it isn't that important.

HAAT DANG! P IN THE ALPHABET. DANG IT

D'awwwww.

"This message was brought to you by my fingers which were activated by the electrical signals sent from my brain through a network of nerves and ganglia".