Skepticism

Afternoon Inquisition 11.4

Since it’s Election Day in the US, and there’s coverage EVERYWHERE, I’m going to take a turn off that well-trod path with today’s AI….kinda.

Both candidates have talked endlessly about their goals and strategies, outlined for months, but taking effect next year at the earliest.  The soon-to-be-POTUS has been making lots of promises, and now it’s a painful 78 days until there’s even the CHANCE we can see if he’ll put our money where his mouth has been.  It’s anticlimactic to be beholden to the calendar, and I’m veering off plan to make up for it.

January 1 is normally the day for goal setting and resolution making, but I’m asking you to think about it today:

What goals/plans/resolutions do you have for the next 12- 15 months?

A.real.girl

A B Kovacs is the Director of Døøm at Empty Set Entertainment, a publishing company she co-founded with critical thinker and fiction author Scott Sigler. She considers herself a “Creative Adjacent” — helping creative people be more productive and prolific by managing the logistics of Making for the masses. She's a science nerd, a rabid movie geek, and an unrepentantly voracious reader. She doesn't like chocolate all that much.

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37 Comments

  1. 2008 was the year I quit smoking (quit back in June). I hope to lose weight in ’09. I need to lose about 80 pounds (yes I know, I’m a fat slob)…but just 40 next year will make me feel better.

  2. @notreallyalice: Ditto, except for the part about the kitten. Hence:

    Plan A:
    1) Determine what sort of job I might actually be able to tolerate doing.

    2) Find a place where that job is available but where I could also afford to live alone and which is, preferably, a nice, relatively small place.

    3) Get that job and move to that place.

    or

    Plan B:
    Win the lottery and move someplace small and quiet, perhaps near a pond.

  3. I would like to learn french, launch my own clothing line and be Saskatoon’s best Roller Derby Jammer. Also, maybe go to grad school.

  4. Hmmm

    Get published
    Finish Project M (personal)
    Get a new job
    Maintain my weight and non-anemic status
    Prepare for 30
    Travel to a few new far away places
    Continue reading and learning
    Get over “it”
    Make a big dent in my debt.

    and yes actually, get kitten :) (or a cat… just some sort of feline pet)

  5. I’d like to be an adult…well a “real” adult anyway. I’ve been in post-secondary education for a while now. I’ll be finished my professional program by this summer which should be my last schooling until I eventually do my PhD (hopefully). I want to own actual things (like a car, and furniture/dishes that doesn’t look like “student” furniture/dishes), I want to marry my fiance, I want to put a dent in my student loans, etc.

    So, yeah. Boring stuff. :)

  6. We’re going to Hawaii in January for my cousin’s wedding.

    The wife and I are in the initial planning and production stages for our second offspring.

    I have been teaching myself to play guitar since June. My goal for the next year is to learn enough songs that I don’t feel embarrassed about pulling it out when we have company over. I might also think about spending some money on an electric model at some point.

  7. Turn 30.
    Fall into deep depression
    Get over it.
    Relapse.
    Finally get over.

    Write a novel in November.
    Write-up three scientific articles.
    Finish writing my thesis.
    Find a job.
    Graduate.
    Move.

    Marvel every day a little more at the wonders of the world around me.

    Eat a lot of pizza; drink too much coffee.

    The usual…

  8. Publish a paper.

    Live on my own for the first time (started that on Wednesday!)

    Improve my dancing, finish my first solo, start a second.

    Learn more about personal finances, how to manage and invest, etc.

    @Gabrielbrawley: LOL

  9. Work and save a buttload of money.
    Apply for postgrad in the UK and US.
    Travel around the US by train for a month or so on the way to said postgrad.

  10. Make a difference in someone’s life.

    Replenish my depleted wardrobe while practicing ventriloquism.

    Finally make it to Australia and new Zealand.

    Decide who my favorite blues guitarist is.

    Read the books on my shelf I have yet to get to.

    Cause an international incident involving Australia and New Zealand.

    Either engage in intense sessions of introspection, or experience several hallucinatory freak outs.

    Make a few people laugh.

    Find out what that smell is.

    Invent something.

    Pet @notreallyalice’s: kitten.

    Sue someone for stealing my invention.

    Be a pretty good guy. Sing like nobody’s watching; dance like I’ve never been hurt. Love like nobody’s listening; live like it’s Fresno on Earth. Or some variation thereof.

  11. @Rebecca: “[…] unless of course you’d need me to rock less hard”

    Like you’re even CAPABLE of doing that? The question is, “Can Rebecca rock SO hard that even she is utterly flummoxed by her own rocking?”

  12. @Rebecca:

    …unless of course you’d need me to rock less hard.

    I would neither suggest, nor appreciate that. I like the challenge.

    I am a Hedge

  13. I’m a big fan of goals/resolutions, so I like this question.

    My list is kinda long. From short- to long-term:

    – Learn to tie about 30 (useful) knots.
    – Learn to play Go.
    – Get ranked in Chess.
    – Learn to fire a pistol.
    – Buy/Learn a handful of other games. I talk about this a bit on my blog.
    – Learn the innards of Rails.
    – Memorize something remarkable.
    – Be able to name, explain, and (if possible) demonstrate the commonly-recognized forms of cognitive bias.
    – Develop a skill of planting suggestions in weak-minded fools.
    – Become confident in “everyday” German.
    – Discover what aspects of Zen it is that attract me, and extract those things from the bunk that comes with them.
    – Learn PHP.
    – Start a role-playing “play-testing” group in my area.
    – Fill a sketchbook with human figures.
    – Finish another album (of music)… but I’m waiting for the mood to really strike before starting.
    – Cut the absurd amounts of debt I owe (over half my annual salary!) in half.

    …And probably a whole bunch of other stuff, but–again–I’m waiting for the mood to strike for most of them.

  14. Also, as a shorter term goal:

    Discover who is responsible for causing the Cranberry Almond Macroon I just ate to taste like bathroom cleanser, and put the question to them, Inquisition style.

  15. @notreallyalice: I have four different Shelties that you can adopt…

    @kaylia_marie & simon39759: 30 is just a number. It only means whatever you want it to mean. The same applies to all “milestone” birthdays.

    I want to find a better job, preferably in my own field (aviation).

    I like challenges that I actually have a chance to achieve. Therefore, I will not even attempt to rock as much as Rebecca.

  16. I hope to survive another year of cut-throat academia. Without having a nervous breakdown of course. (But then, if I do, that could be interesting as well…)

  17. To those of you who have a goal of changing jobs:

    Do it.

    About four years ago, I took a 30% pay-cut in order to get out of the business I was in (web-hosting) to get into science.

    Now I’m earning more than I was before, and I have a job that I love doing something that really matters.

    It put me in a lot of debt, and it was very difficult making the transition… but I don’t regret any of it.

    Highly recommended.

  18. @Augustus: Could you please expand on step 2. You are a little vauge there. Also I live in Wichita Falls, if you do show up for the HHH let me know.

  19. @Sam Ogden: We remember the hits, but not the misses… how many times have you read a post espousing the rocky virtues of Rebecca and not been listening to that song? How often are you rockin’ out to TMBG when you’re blogging about how you’re feeling all the time? (Or even guys in the sky who make you, make you want to sigh?)

    How many times have you been curled in the fetal position on a cold ceramic-tile floor, sobbing about growing old and cold women when Pink Floyd’s “One of my Turns” cropped up on the radio? Huh?!? HUH?!?

  20. @JRice:

    It put me in a lot of debt, and it was very difficult making the transition

    A lot of debt and very difficult?. Count me in.

    I am a Hedge

  21. @JRice:

    How many times have you been curled in the fetal position on a cold ceramic-tile floor, sobbing about growing old and cold women when Pink Floyd’s “One of my Turns” cropped up on the radio? Huh?!? HUH?!?

    Sniff . . . So this is what it sounds like when doves cry.

  22. Continue the 9/11 cover-up.
    Recruit more members to my atheist cell.
    Falsify evolution.
    Domesticate the octopus.
    Buy an iPod.

  23. @JRice: Been trying for about15 months. Still have resumes out everywhere – but it’s hard when you’re over 50. Everyone that does the hiring thinks you’re obsolete. Even if your degree was freshly minted in 2003 like mine was. I’ll even consider a different IT job at this point, though I don’t like it. Aviation tech writing jobs are few and far between these days, especially on the commercial side where all my experience is.

    Presently doing IT documentation for the US Army…when I have something to do. I doubt that I have 15 hours of real work in a week, and most of that is NOT technical writing…but taking minutes for meetings. And for this I spent (read “went into debt”) $30k?

    I suppose that I should be happy that I’m paying the mortgage. Many aren’t right now…

  24. Figure out why I’m not happy with my life and decide what to do about that.
    And get a kitten.

    As any good atheist can tell you, a kitten will definitely make you happier … especially if served with pasta and tomato sauce.

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