Goal review (8-14 June)

I kind of forgot to specifically look at this list during the week this time! (Hence the late entry, technically!) Hopefully I’ll get used again to accomplishing the goals here.

1. Tidy or organize something, anything! (My sister and I are still working on organizing our room; two 23-year-olds squeezed back into one bedroom with too much stuff makes it quite hard to organize around our things! Hopefully soon I’ll get all my things ready on my desk to work there again with the drawers organized too.)
Happily, I did do this, although technically it was yesterday, Sunday, so it didn’t really count for that week. 😛 It means I’m absolutely shattered and sore today, but we’re making progress. Soon we’ll get new curtains, and we’re hoping to put up a wall cupboard in the bedroom, a shelf inside the cupboard, and possibly another shelf on the wall. We plan to paint the walls fairly basic and put up photos and pictures, and as for a new carpet… Bit too expensive while we’re saving for postgraduate study!

2. Do some physio. (Because of my recent flare, everything’s pretty much been at a standstill. I’m going to volunteering for just 2 or so hours a week to build back up, and not doing my walks–least of all because I’ve been using the wheelchair a lot, so I’m not really able to do daily walks! In time, I’m going to build up a bit more indoors or in my garden so I can simply stop when I need to and not have to somehow make it home!)
I didn’t do any physio, unfortunately, but I’m hoping to make more explicit plans that are approachable through the week, along with my sister making her exercise plans so we can do it somewhat together.

3. Work more on the Animals 2 lessons on my language blog. (If anyone’s interested, it’s polyglotscot.wordpress.com.)
I did some of these. I’ve got quite a few to go, but they don’t take long. It’s collecting the vocabulary in the first place and the coding for the pages that takes long.

4. Work on my novel! (It’s been at a standstill for a bit–this seems to happen with each project. I think it’s a combination of not wanting to finish and not having things laid out enough for the next project.)
While my mum was working on the garden, I sat outside to watch my nephew and wrote a bit, which was nice.

5. Reach five translations on each of my X–>English. (I had this one already but haven’t done it yet; I’ve been too busy working on other combinations. I have left to reach 5: 1 Dutch, 3 Czech, and 1 Slovenian.)
I haven’t really worked on translating lyrics for a while, but rather on the books I’m translating.

Goal review (20-26 April)

Well, this week was a write-off! 😛 I only completed one goal, which was number 2. I completed a Czech and a Swedish translation. For number 1, I forgot to take note, but anyway I think I only worked on my Polish project. Ah, well, I have been not very well this week, and hopefully I’m better at the coming week’s goals.

1. Work on three separate translation projects.

2. Work on lyrics translations to bring X–>English up to at least 5 each. (Dutch: 2 remaining, Czech: 4; Slovenian: 3; Swedish: 2; Latin: 5. All other languages have more than 5 complete.)

3. Register for PIP! And also phone my doctor in Glasgow to rearrange an appointment that I missed, and so I can meet up with a friend! 🙂 (And cry when I see how much I miss living there!)

4. Work on music theory.

5. Sort through some clothes and donate those unwanted to make space.

Goal review (13 – 19 April)

This is technically a day late as I didn’t really do much on the computer yesterday; in fact for a while I’ve only really switched on to listen to music and access my translation projects. I have felt rather “meh” for a while about interacting with the online world, so I’m still on a sort of break, just concentrating on my hobbies for the moment, and I’m sure I’ll get back on checking Twitter etc. in time, as usually happens eventually. The tendinitis in my right hand is flaring up anyway, making typing rather annoying just now!

1. Complete and actually make a record of each part of “Stage 0″ of my fitness plan, i.e. walking to and from the nearby shop each second day, completing one set of my core physio every day, and volunteer once a week. (In the run-up so far, I’ve just been doing as much as I can, but not necessarily taking a record.)
I did well in the first half of the week, when I did my walks, kept up to date on my pills, and went volunteering; alas, the day volunteering on Wednesday was strenuous enough that I’m still recovering! I’m hoping tomorrow to get a walk in before volunteering again on the Wednesday, on which I also have the dentist. Progress is slower than I hoped, and it doesn’t help that the occupational therapist has moved my appointment forward by a few weeks; in any case, I’m just trying to keep it up as much as I can, trying to remember that it’s not just a means to some end goal, but to remember that any level of fitness I can achieve is an improvement to my life.

2. Work on my novel – I have to get this one in every week, haha!
I didn’t get much done, but it was something! More time was spent on reading to confirm details for an upcoming scene.

3. Make the phone calls I need to, i.e. register for PIP (disability benefit) application, make an appointment at the optician’s, and cancel this “free trial” thing for my mum before they take a payment!
I made the phone call to cancel the free trial – although it was meant to be a local UK number, I seem to have reached a women in the US so we’re not looking forward to the next phone bill! I went in person to make the optician’s appointment, and still didn’t register for PIP yet.

4. Finish and hand in job applications for part-time jobs. (I’ll post about it separately.)
My sister handed in the applications today – and she herself got a phone call for interview merely half an hour later! I’m still hoping to hear back myself but will keep a look out for other low hour jobs.

5. Work on any translation project.
I really went for it a few days ago and did 1500 words of Russian in one day as I was approaching the end of the short story I was working on, one of the longest in the book. I also did a bit of Polish which is a lot slower going!

Goal review (6 – 12 April)

Already it’s another Sunday! I try not to find myself discouraged, even though I still haven’t had a week where I easily managed all the goals. I’ve also had to pull back the fitness plan to a “Stage 0” as I mentioned last time, so it’d be easy for me to think this is never going to work! But giving up and going to square one would be worse than the little bit I’m managing, even if it isn’t as much as I’d hoped. I have to learn that although, yes, I am stubborn, I can’t make things happen just by wanting them to – I have to let my body catch up. 🙂 I always believed in the “little and often” approach!

1. Translate from/to a new combination of languages for lyrics. (Because I am learning so many languages, there is a possible 156 combinations! I’ve done at least one translation in 27 of them, though I don’t think I’ll be doing something like Finnish–>Slovenian any time soon!)
Happily I did this even though I had used up most of the “easier” combinations! I did an English to Dutch text, and also a Russian to Finnish for new combinations; on top of that I did some others, such as Italian to English, German to Russian, German to English. I do translate books as well, but having a set of lyrics to translate is also good for various reasons; being able to finish quickly and get feedback online from native speakers; to sometimes discover new music; and to feel good in helping people with their requests.

2. Work on my novel.
I didn’t do much, but I did it! I always freeze up toward the end of my novels, for some reason. I think I’m just afraid to let my beloveds go! I’m just over 170,000 words at the moment, and should finish up at the most in the next 30K, and more probably closer to 15K. My first novel needs a lot of work to finalize it, as I started at 18 or 19, but this one I’m almost 100% happy with the way it is. It’s so important to me.

3. Write some entries to Lang 8 in my languages.
I wrote a little blurb mainly about family, and chickening out somewhat, I posted it first in German with few issues before finding the courage to post it in Italian. Hopefully in the next week or so I can work through the other languages for this piece. I sometimes wonder why I learn so many, thinking how good would I be if I just focused on a few! I sacrificed French when I was learning German, with the result of being reasonably fluent only in one foreign language, but I can’t bring myself to abandon some for others; I have to force myself not to take on new ones as it is!

4. Work on gesture drawings on Quickposes.com
I didn’t get round to this as I just never felt like drawing. I don’t really get round to drawing very often, least of all because it’s physically exhausting after filling in large areas of tone and so on! I bought watercolor pencils recently so I’m hoping soon to venture into color. Again, I would love in a way to devote myself to art and become more proficient, but as it stands, it’s just a side hobby. 🙂

5. Choose a recipe to try and buy in ingredients.
This is another I didn’t go, mainly because I never got to a store this week! My sister has recipes collected though, and she will buy in some ingredients when she goes shopping. I’m probably going to choose a nice dessert too, even if it’s just more sponge cakes!

Goal review (30 March – 5 April)

Wow, nothing much happened for me this week. However, I did go out on Wednesday (woohoo!) and wore myself out for the next few days; I was at the dentist, and so took the opportunity to drop books off at the library and did a bit of volunteering as I’ve only been to each store once this year. This meant I wasn’t amazingly productive for the few days after that, and certainly not yesterday as I was dealing with the hunger of a liquid diet. So most of these were not achieved!

1. Work on planning more explicitly for any of my forthcoming novel projects.
If I remove “explicitly” then sure! But the point was to commit more to paper, which I didn’t get around to doing unfortunately. At least things still percolate around my head; that’s still some level of progress!

2. Transfer miscellaneous bags of yarn to the new box my sister bought me.
Not much to say here; it didn’t happen!

3. Work on finishing the Family vocabulary sheets for my folder.
The only ones I had left were to finish the Swedish sheet and write the Finnish one; I did neither! But I did do some translation on Lyricstranslate.com which I haven’t done for a while, including a German–>Swedish and an English–>Finnish so at least I did something of those languages.

4. Phone the library about a job opportunity (I need to confirm if it’s closed) and pick up an application for a local supermarket.
I didn’t call the library, but I asked while I was in there and the woman I spoke to thought yes, it was closed, as they were interviewing that week. I haven’t been to the supermarket yet, but Mum and my twin forgot to pick up a form when they were there, so I’m thinking that one’s closed too!

5. Work on any translation project.
I worked on Italian a little early in the week, but lately was focusing my translation less on my book projects and more on lyrics.

Goal review (23-29 March)

With these weekly lists, I notice how fast the weeks are going by! Along with it is a disappointment that already it’s April next week, and yet weeks go by and I’m not getting much done. But! The point of these lists is to encourage myself slowly, and I want to focus on what I have done rather than get bitter about what I haven’t. There will always be something more that we could have done each week, each day, but this is the case even for non-disabled people! With the lists, I want to remember not to only complete them and then stop for the week, but if it inspires me further, then that’s good, but in learning to pace myself (even after eight years with the disease) I must stop viewing every little thing as obligatory. Even hobby-wise, I have so many of them that it’s hard to devote time to some of them, such as keyboard and songwriting, art too, but it will never work for me to feel obliged to regularly work on them all within a short space of time, say a month, because I will stretch myself too thin. It’s simply a case of prioritizing certain hobbies above others, and working on others more occasionally; I did do a sketch of my cup of tea yesterday, so I’m chuffed! Not bad for a relative beginner who has little time to devote to art, I don’t think. 🙂

Anyway, onto last week’s goals!

1. Move laundry to other room for sorting.
We did more than just move the laundry, happily! We sorted it on the same day, and one load was done here at the house; we just need to wait on a nice weather day and get the rest done at the launderette. And when the backlog is done, I must must must keep on it regularly and never let it pile up like that again!

2. Get back into taking pills regularly and keep weekly pill box filled. (I’ve been rather lazy about sorting my pills and so haven’t been taking each day’s pills for definite.)
I did fill the box, didn’t take them as much. I need to make it a more regular point in my day so I actually remember. My occupational therapist suggested keeping them downstairs but I barely make it downstairs on some days. I think I need to start making sure I take them with dinner, which I do have more regularly because my sister cooks with me.

3. Work on my novel.
I wrote around three pages yesterday, which amounts to somewhere around 900-1000 words (I won’t know until I type it up, as usual). I stopped only because I was interrupted to play with my niece and baby nephew. I’m getting scarily close to the end of this novel, so I think I need to specifically devote time to more thorough planning before that happens, because I hate being stuck in between projects while I work on the planning.

4. Start on a new translation for a language I’m learning but I don’t have a project for (i.e. Latin, Slovenian). (My sister is still in the process of convincing me to start Ancient Greek! I’m learning 12 languages, plus I’m an absolute beginner in Japanese and haven’t done much at all for it, and I’m still tempted to add more!)
I failed this one! In fact, I didn’t work on any translations all week, otherwise I would have chosen Slovenian, I think. I think I should make a deal with myself not to add any more languages (specifically Romanian and Hungarian are the ones I’m closely considering, as I have some Romanian knowledge already and am tempted to put in another Uralic other than Finnish) until I complete a substantial part of the translations I have already!

5. Work on a current crochet project (i.e. either the baby cardigan or the Granny squares for my niece’s Scooby Doo characters!)
Unfortunately another failure. Yesterday my niece stayed overnight as usual on the weekend, and she inquired about them, but because I had done the drawing that day, it massively flared up the tendinitis in my hand so there was no chance of working on crochet! I feel like a rotten uncle. 😦

Goal review (16-23 March)

I was moderately successful with the first week of mini-goals! I didn’t do them all, which is a bit disappointing, but I also have to remember everything else I’ve done in this week that didn’t appear in the list. I was particularly proud this week of managing to get out to the cinema with my sister, and then the next day, my guilt was eating away at me enough to sort out the bookshelf, because it was in my goal list!

1. Sort out my bookshelf of “permanent books” and put the unwanted ones in the donate pile; move the temporary books to this shelf, and replace temporary bookshelves with my yarn boxes.
I took all the “permanent books” away to be taken to charity; I don’t like to keep many books at all now because I’m not much of a re-reader – because I have far too many on my to-read list! We also put all of my sister’s classics (ancient Greek and Latin texts) separately so it’s more organized, and our multilingual Harry Potter collection more separately. Some books I will read once more and then donate, such as the Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles that I own – I would donate them now but I want to re-read the first ones before continuing with the series. There wasn’t as much space as I had anticipated, so I couldn’t move too many “to-read” books, but I moved enough to clear a small shelf for one yarn box, as planned.

2. Prepare one bag of laundry for the launderette.
I filled half a bag with black clothes only, although technically I’m sure this was before last Sunday. 😛 We are so overrun with dirty laundry, it’s astonishing, so we plan to move it all into another room to properly organize it for washing. It’s so ridiculous but combining the winter and me not being able to do a lot has made it spiral out of control. I am very much hoping to have made a lot of progress by my appointment with my occupational therapist, as I won’t be able to stand telling her it’s still a problem!

3. Work on my novel.
I didn’t write much, maybe a page’s worth in my notebook; I don’t know how many words yet as I write longhand and then type up, and as I haven’t typed it yet, I haven’t counted. Anyway, the word count isn’t the important bit for this goal! I’m getting close to the end of this novel, my second.

4. Work on at least four of my translations.
The week before I made this goal, I was mainly focusing on my Russian translation, and so this week was a nice variety due to this goal. I worked on the Russian, but also Italian, Spanish, and Dutch.

5. Complete my core physiotherapy at least three days. (10 stretches)
Considering I went from not having much physio at all for months, I thought I didn’t do too badly by only doing my core work once this week. Although gentle and low-energy for most people, these stretches are painful and exhausting for me. I was at the point before of doing them most days, and I want to work back up slowly to this again, before phasing in some of my other stretches, such as hip strengthening. I did less than intended, but I still managed once on top of being quite active by getting out this week, so I’m not too disappointed!