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[Caz]

Hey, good job on the progress Vector.

[Vector]

Thank you ... I really appreciate it. Grad school is kind of kicking my ass but it feels good to be making at least a little bit of progress.

[Caz]

i tried to add the list with colours but it wasnt working so i'm just gonna say i basically did nothing except exercised and kept my degree ticking. and almost broke even with the thing. but, not enough. three out of 12 isn't bad tho.

[None]

Getting by in itself can be an achievement, depending on how you're struggling. It's no laurels to rest on, but remember to be kind to yourselves as you improve yourselves, yeh?

[Caz]

Getting by in itself can be an achievement, depending on how you're struggling. It's no laurels to rest on, but remember to be kind to yourselves as you improve yourselves, yeh?

Kind?! Only with a faceful of gravel can we truly progress. Suffering is a virtue! Or so said some sort of dictator bent on exploiting others' pain.

But yea, you're quite right.

[None]

Kindness to self is stopping at one faceful of gravel for learning and growth. :U

[Vector]

Yeah, OK, so what I've done lately. I'm going to try to update this list a bit more regularly. I gave myself a pass on a lot of this because January sucked so hard, but last week I bought new talismans to assist me and sent the old ones off with my parents to be burned, so it's time to get back to paying attention to this.

Behemoths

1. Learn to make coffee.
- I have a small amount of coffee now and have spoken with people about the other required accoutrements.

2. Sort through belongings and downsize in preparation to move.
- I will probably sign a lease this Sunday, which will help me understand how much, and what, I should get rid of.
- I added a new habit on my Habitica for KonMari-ing (by the way, if anyone is looking for group, I'm Corselet on there).

3. Complete an editing project.
- Does copy-editing the textbook website count ... or not ...
- I haven't actually started, but it's a small, doable project and I have a habitica checklist for it now.

4. Go back to my full moon tea and solstice cleaning traditions.
- We just finished a full moon, so now is a good time to try again. I bought some good tea.
- Next step is figure out who on my friendslist I will ask to talk and drink tea this time.

5. Reading goals (see the Hot Fresh Reading Challenge)
6. Tithe 10% to mutual aid again this year.
- I have a couple of good new places bookmarked now, but I haven't actually given any money yet.

7. Study for the JLPT N1, and take the exam if it's offered this year.
- Haven't been studying, I'm kind of getting in the mood again though.
- When my parents came down I had them bring some of my books in Japanese. I'm probably ready to give them a try now.

8. Apply for [REDACTED] grant.
- This one won't be relevant until summer.

9. Work on starting a lesson study group at my present institution.
- People seem very interested in what I know about teaching.
- I am attending the weekly pedagogy hangout from time to time.

10. Pass algebra prelim
- Hmm, I am certainly taking courses on this topic.

11. Pass analysis prelim
- Hmm, I am certainly taking courses on this topic.
- I have a friend who is willing to talk to me about analysis once a week. We had our first session yesterday.

12. Actually sign up for the prisoner penpal project.
- OK, I haven't done anything for this one, either. I will start by making a to-do to set up a PO Box in my present city. To-Done.


I'm not color-coding anymore, I guess because I am letting go of the idea that I know what is good and bad or how far I have progressed. This year is like many other years; here are some of the things I am thinking about this year; here I am today observing my thinking.

[Vector]

Hello, May.

Behemoths

1. Learn to make coffee.
- I have a small amount of coffee now and have spoken with people about the other required accoutrements.
- I have set aside money to pay for said accoutrements from one of my stimulus checks.

2. Sort through belongings and downsize in preparation to move.
- Hahahahaha expecting to sign a lease for a different place on Sunday (tomorrow).
- Deleted KonMari thing on Habitica. Don't expect to need to get rid of much but I do need to sort through clothes, so that's the next piece.

3. Complete an editing project.
- "Does copy-editing the textbook website count ... or not ..."
- "I haven't actually started, but it's a small, doable project and I have a habitica checklist for it now."
- I still haven't actually started, but it's a good little Saturday project and I'm setting aside time on Saturdays for stuff like this.

4. Go back to my full moon tea and solstice cleaning traditions.
- Did a full moon hot cocoa with a grad school friend last week, it went great.
- Need to select a different friend to full moon with this time, but I've got my groove on.

5. Reading goals (see the Hot Fresh Reading Challenge)
- This is actually going pretty well, I think.

6. Tithe 10% to mutual aid again this year.
- Tried to get PO box using this earmarked money. Alas. See below.
- Gonna work on this a little bit more though, I have a better sense of the landscape.

7. Study for the JLPT N1, and take the exam if it's offered this year.
- .-.
- Yeah, when I'm a bit less depressed.

8. Apply for [REDACTED] grant.
- This one won't be relevant until summer.

9. Work on starting a lesson study group at my present institution.
- "People seem very interested in what I know about teaching."
- "I am attending the weekly pedagogy hangout from time to time."
- Nominated for a club officer position relevant to this project, it might be helpful to get some leverage going.

10. Pass algebra prelim
- fuck

11. Pass analysis prelim
- double-fuck

12. Actually sign up for the prisoner penpal project.
- Tried to get a PO box, they wouldn't let me have it if I didn't bring car registration or lease papers. Will try again in my new city. This one is on hold until July/August.


If I were going to add some bonuses (ARGH) it would definitely be

• Get my driver's license
• Stick with martial arts course

Well, some of it is going well. I could actually cross a few of these off this month (May) and then move on to work on the other stuff.

[Vector]

Lease is signed, did a full moon tea, who knows what I will do for the next one because I may have just moved around June 24. I did also Konmari most of my clothing.

Very depressed. Seem to be failing ALL of my coursework this quarter. Planning to give more regular updates as I try to get back on my feet.

[Vector]

Would you look at that, it's July.

I have moved but otherwise not made a lot of progress. However, this is technically a Behemoth down (though I will continue to downsize). Hooray!

[None]

Hooray!

I'm trying not to think too hard on the fact that 2021 is six months through. I'm not sure how much I can blame the pandemic on not getting things done any longer. Would be best to set goals myself, hm.

[Vector]

Would be best to set goals myself, hm.

Well, and you happen to be in the Behemoths thread. Hm. How 'bout that.

[None]

Well, all right. I can't promise they're behemoths, and I'm gonna cheat again since we're halfway done with the year, so I propose six 'behemoths' for a full and productive year for the remainder of said year.

1) Get a job.
Part time, full time, professional, side gig, something. Quit hemorrhaging savings, earn some keep I can buy all the treats I tell myself not to given unemployment. Whether or not this includes revising my career plan remains to be determined, but I suppose that'd be a behemoth unto its own. Given life's uncertainty, maybe I'll let a career change be something I fall into instead of throw myself into. I can't blame the pandemic for this any more.

2) Get three certifications. Not one, not two, three. I could probably nail one out in three weeks if I put my nose down and actually scheduled the damn test, and if the aforementioned career change does happen, having a professional mark of merit is probably only a good thing. Worst case, it's leverage in case point one keeps coming up dry.

3) Finish that stack of books on my nightstand. So much for the reading challenge. There's a few dry ones I may skim, like, uh, 'Mathematics and Computers in Soviet Economic Planning' (the computers bit is more my interest, given this book fell out of the eighties), and a big ol' lunker like Gravity's Rainbow. Call it triage, call it a return to gobbling books the way I did back in school. I'll go park myself on the beach and consume literature if that's what it takes, and get some lovely tan while I'm doing it.

4) Get thirty followers on Twitch. I have seven: six are friends, one's some rando. I feel like twenty could be swung with a little pull in some communities I'm in, so thirty would indicate some kind of growth. It's purely a vanity goal, of course, nobody 'needs' followers, but it'd be at least an indicator that I could be the entertainer that I liken myself to be. Plus, it'd make my sister proud. I'll need some lifestyle scheduling to get growth here anyways, so with a little luck this'll feed a habit of discipline.

5) Learn Python. If I'm computering, I ought to know this. Infosec tools tend to use it, home projects tend to use it, it's a regular for Linux tools. I've told myself historically that I'm no good at programming. or perhaps I just have no vision to utilize programming, but reality is I can grok it if I just put more work into it. I have no excuses not to except a lack of elbow grease, and the way my elbow's been hurting, it seems to me I need to load up on that grease. Hard to say when this one's 'done,' per se.

6) Go on six metal detecting forays, counting from none from today. It was a gift from my folks to the kid that decided that pulling scrapnel out of rivers was cool. It's sat idly in my closet since the last trip in March to pull garbage out of the nearby lakebed. There's maps of the town from a hundred years prior, farmlands aplenty to ask permission to sweep, public parks to seek loose change in. It'd make my folks happy to know their hobby gift is being well-worked. This one's only good while the weather holds, so I gotta make good on this before October's out.

Half/half split of future success goals and vanity/self-importance/self-worth goals seems all right. It'll be punctuated with survival strategy and The Hot Girl Summer, but, well, it's a start. Thanks for the prodding, Vec, and good luck to yours.

[Vector]

July's on the way out. I'm doing my B12 writeup a little early this month.

Behemoths

1. Learn to make coffee. - VICTORY !
- There are many details that I don't understand yet, but I can make better coffee than I can buy at almost any coffee shop now, for far less money.

2. Sort through belongings and downsize in preparation to move.
- I moved cities but am not on my own side of the duplex yet. I'm going to start properly moving in the next couple of days.
- I want to keep downsizing. Most of that is books so I have put some serious restrictions on how many tomes I'll permit myself to borrow each month from the public library.
- I also finally have access to a garage here, so I'm doing a semi-Konmari: move things into the house that I have place for and am sure I want to keep, leave everything else tucked away for now.

3. Complete an editing project.
- Still haven't started, but I still feel good about this one. I could knock it out in about a month if I tried. Maybe this month.

4. Go back to my full moon tea and solstice cleaning traditions.
- Missed this month because I was feeling sick from a medicine change and don't have my kitchen set up for reasons beyond my control.
- However, I did actually invite someone to attend and bought supplies. I just had to cancel at the last minute.
- I have someone set up for the other side of the country this month; I'm emailing her today to get her address & so on.

5. Reading goals (see the Hot Fresh Reading Challenge)
- This is going very well in most respects.
- I really want to start a regular reading habit for the most difficult categories on my list: the Chinese Classics, math books, and foreign language books.

6. Tithe 10% again this year.
- I have the PO box.
- I need to unfuck my finances a little bit more before I can actually give money, but I have a few places where I plan to give.

7. Study for the JLPT N1, and take the exam if it's offered this year.
- I'm doing daily vocabulary drills again. We'll see if I'm ready to sit the exam in time, but I am working on this.

8. Apply for [REDACTED] grant--> apply for 3 - 5 similar opportunities that I'm equally unsure of achieving.
- I'm not likely to get this specific grant because I'm on academic probation.
- I applied for a program pairing mathematicians with classrooms in underserved communities.
- I am going to apply for a special directed reading program next. It has a due date in August.
- I would like to apply for an opportunity more directly related to research.

9. Work on starting a lesson study group at my present institution.
- Nominated for a club officer position relevant to this project and ran unopposed.
- Received absolutely stellar teaching reviews in the past two quarters.
- New goal: attend pedagogy hangouts regularly, get to know the professor who seems to be working on the calculus sequence better.

10. Pass algebra prelim
- Well, I have an actual study plan for this now, so that's good.

11. Pass analysis OR geometry prelim
- They added a geometry prelim, which I'm much more likely to pass. So that's good.

12. Actually sign up for the prisoner penpal project.
- I have the PO box now. My agreement with myself is that I won't fully sign up until I've made more progress with mathematics and the whole academic failure thing in general, but I feel good about the progress that I've made so far.

[None]

Checking in. Not great.

Days without meaningful contributions to goals: 13. Excluding days prior to goals being set, that's 9. It's been too hot some days to do anything meaningful, and then cooler evenings tend to be spent in some collaboration with friends. Productivity? Falling.

1) Get a job: Currently no job. Most of my efforts have gone here, camping out at the coffee shop and scouring job boards while it gets too hot to do anything outside. Dozen or so phone/video interviews with no meaningful ground covered. Really might just throw my name in at one of the bars and learn to tend for a month before all the college kids filter back in. Definitely have covid concerns, but the vaccines hold for now and since I'm living on my own, I don't have to worry about passing it along to someone I care for.


2) Get three certifications: Nominal progress studying, nothing scheduled. The damned test is not yet on my calendar, but it'll need to be if I want to chunk these out in two-month spans.


3) Finish that stack of books on my nightstand: I put progress here when I haven't the will to progress in the other tracks. I think The End of War is smaller at the end than it is larger at this point, but the rest of the stack still looms. Gulp.


4) Get thirty followers on Twitch: lmao i didn't even stream this month


5) Learn Python: lmao i didn't even touch it this month


6) Go on six metal detecting forays, counting from none from today: 1/6. Barely a trip, but still counts- it was the premise of a date and we spent maybe five minutes combing before choosing to just enjoy the beach instead, but I'll count it. It was blissfully cool today, so I stayed in and cleaned the place instead of going metal detecting like a reasonable hobbyist. Alas. Unrelated, but I should find a pinpointer so digging around is easier.

Edit: Bonus seventh behemoth, materialize!

7) Get a little bit fit so that I don't throw the everloving fuck out of my back again. Seriously, fuckin' ow.