Ornata Pounces on Opportunities

[Ornata]

Hello, I'm Ornata. In order to avoid getting overwhelmed by my own life goals, I'm going to divide my Life Quest into two sections: things I'm actively working toward and planning right now, and things I'm just dreaming about at the moment but hope to be able to work toward in the future. The list of dreams is perpetually incomplete.

 

Note: I'm prone to taking unanticipated opportunities. These opportunities might not have been included in this list, but I'll still get credit from them because they're really beneficial. My active Epic Quests are for things I'm deliberately pursuing.

 

Ornata's Level: 4 (40% to next level)

 

Each quest or opportunity is worth 20% experience.

Master Quests are worth 100% experience. Some of them may not seem like much, but they're things I've been dreaming about doing for a very long time. "Master Opportunities" are also possible, but I've never come across one yet.

 

Completed Quests (in reverse chronological order):

 

Perform 10 consecutive push-ups with good form (Fitness, Nov 2014)

Do a real bird survey (Career, Nov 2014)

 

Hold crow for 30 seconds (Fitness, Oct 2014)

Hike to Frary Peak, the highest point on Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake (Fitness, Oct 2014)

Do a real pushup (Fitness, Oct 2014)

Hike to the peak of Mt. Naomi, the tallest mountain near me (Fitness, Oct 2014)

Do a one-legged squat! (Fitness, Oct 2014)

 

Hold crow pose (Fitness, Sep 2014)

Live in the mountains (Travel, August 2014)

Work for a state government (Career, August 2014)

 

MASTER QUEST: Graduate magna cum laude from a university (Career, May 2014)

 

Learn how to use radiotelemetry (Career, April 2014)

Live in the neotropics again (Travel, November 2013 - January 2014)

Learn how to stand-up paddleboard (Skills, July 2013)

Go on a backcountry research trip lasting more than 7 days (Career, September 2012)

Backpack in Glacier National Park (Travel, July 2012)

Work for a major NGO (Career, May - August 2011)

Live in/near the endangered tallgrass prairie ecosystem (Travel, September 2010 - May 2014)

 

Fitness

 

Body Fat Percentage Quest

 

Reach 22% body fat according to my calipers. (Current: 28.4%)

 

Every 26th of the month, I take a picture of myself to visually assess my body fat percentage. Starting in November, I also have calipers to estimate my percentage. I would like to have visible muscles and a considerable reduction in the fat on my thighs. To accomplish this goal, I need to steadily improve my diet. Right now I'm working on reducing how much I eat -- improving what I eat will come later.

 

Push-Up Quest

 

This is a quest chain. Currently working on the following stage:

Perform 3 sets of 10 push-ups with good form.

 

I can currently perform 10, 5, 5 pushups.

 

Pull-Up Quest

 

This is a quest chain. Currently working on the following stage:

Perform 10 consecutive inverted rows (legs straight) with good form.

 

I can currently perform about 6 consecutive inverted rows with good form.

 

Pistol Squat Quest

 

This is a quest chain. Currently working on the following stage:

Perform 10 consecutive assisted one-legged squats with good form.

 

I can currently perform about 7 consecutive assisted one-legged squats with good form.

 

 

 

 

Career and Finances

Student Debt Quest

 

My student debt is not as bad as some, but it's a major worry of mine. I want to demolish it in a fraction of the time it would normally take to repay (10 years). As Mr. Money Mustache says, this debt is an emergency worth my full attention!

 

I am going to attack my debt in two questlines:

• Pay off $4,500 student loan in 2 years or less. (MASTER OPTION: Pay it off before it goes into repayment on Feb 7, 2015!)
• MASTER QUEST: Pay off $25,000 student loan in 5 years or less. (I have just begun repayment for this loan).

 

 

Skills

Drawing Quest

 

I'm hellbent on learning how to draw people and everything that entails: draping fabric for clothing, movement, facial expressions, hair, the whole thing. I'll know when I've accomplished this goal when I can create a variety of drawings of people with minimal use of reference images.

 

To accomplish this goal, I've been putting in deliberate practice for 10-30 minutes every day.

 

Novel Quest

 

Write a freaking novel all the way from Chapter 1 to The End. It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be complete.

 

To accomplish this goal, I've been participating actively in National Novel Writing Month. As of this writing, I'm about 3/5ths of the way done with my novel and it's part of my current 6-Week Challenge.

 

 

 

List of Dreams

 

These are Epic Quest goals I would like to accomplish at some point in my life, but I'm not actively planning how to pull them off. Yet.

 

Constantly WIP and listed in no particular order.

 

The list:

 

Fitness

 

Do a freestanding handstand

Do a muscle-up

Do a dragon flag

Do an L-sit

Hike to the peak of Mt. Logan

 

Career and Finances

 

Work for the federal government

Get into graduate school

Earn my Master's Degree

 

Skills

 

Learn how to band birds

Re-learn how to ride a horse

Learn how to shoot and maintain handguns and rifles

Learn how to box

 

Travel

 

MASTER QUEST: Return to the Bahamas, where I spent my childhood

Visit all the nearby national parks (Yellowstone, Grand Teton, the Moab circuit, etc)

Live in a hot desert

Experience the Arctic

[Ornata]

I took a new opportunity! Hung out with a biologist all day, helping him perform a waterbird/raptor survey of a huge wetland area. Learned a ton and even got volunteer hours out of it!

 

Added a new Completed Quest: Do a real bird survey. +20% experience.

[Ornata]

Yesterday I managed 9 consecutive push-ups with good form. So close!

 

Once I knock out that last good push-up, the next quest in the Push-Up chain will be: Perform 3 sets of 10 push-ups with good form.

 

Still struggling with inverted rows, though.

[Ornata]

Performed 10 consecutive push-ups with good form today. +20% experience.

 

Last time I was able to do that was probably my freshman year of college. Nice.

 

I also shelved my Wyoming National Parks Quest and put it in my List of Dreams for now. It conflicts with my much more important Student Debt quest -- I can't in good faith dump a bunch of money into a road trip when I'm still this heavily in debt.

[Ornata]

Today is Picture Day for me. Visually speaking, I look like I'm losing body fat. November is my best month so far, looking quite a bit different from my worst photographed month (September). I ramble more about this in my 6-Week Challenge here.

 

I also have my calipers now, which means I can bust a new quest out from my List of Dreams: my body fat quest, now in the Fitness category. In this quest, I'd like to reach 22% body fat according to my calipers. My starting percentage is 28.4%. To reduce body fat, I'm going to progressively improve my diet in different ways. This quest is pretty low-maintenance compared to others on my list; it's something I'm going to work on in my 6-Week Challenges and actually tabulate once a month, on the 26th as usual. I hope I can continue to improve!