2013 in 12 Sentences
Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, why not.
- January: Super obnoxious depression hits just as the semester starts, ‘cause my brain is just awesome like that!
- February: “Hey, these Achievement Hunter guys look funny…” *50 videos later* “….aaaaaaaaaaaaand I’m addicted.”
- March: Cue incredible amounts of frustration regarding everything school-related (mainly CS 120).
- April: Decide to write about my time in Vancouver for my long essay in Nonfic because I feel like torturing myself.
- May: Yaaaaaay, the semester from hell is over and I get a 4.0 and oh hey it’s time for calc III.
- June: Teach in the morning, calculus in the afternoon, walk in the evening…rinse and repeat.
- July: LEIBNIZ LEIBNIZ LEIBNIZ LEIBNIZ!
- August: I get one week of “doing nothing” and then school starts again.
- September: I write a lot of short stories, most of them horrible.
- October: Kloktober!!
- November: I hit 1,000 miles on my shoes and have multiple freakouts over my second Proofs midterm.
- December: Cold snap and finals and goodbyes, oh my!
2014!
Greetings from 2014! I hope this year goes well. 2013 wasn’t horrible (at least, May – December wasn’t horrible), but I still hope this year is better.
Anyway.
In true Claudia spirit, let’s start the blogging year off with one of my failures* from last year: my walking** data!
From January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013…
- I walked a total of 1,361.2 miles, taking a total of 2,870,552 steps
- I went walking on 246 of the 365 days (67.4% of the days)
- My average walk was 5.53 miles long
- Graph of miles by month:
- Graph of miles by day of the week:
1,361.2 miles is approximately the same distance as…
Moscow, ID to Tucson, AZ
or…
Madrid, Spain to Prague, Czech Republic
Yaaay.
* I say “failures” because my goal mileage for the year was 1,500 and I didn’t hit it
** “Walking” is defined by the times I have my pedometer turned on and am walking for recreation. This excludes walking to/from classes on campus, walking to campus from the car, walking around in the grocery store, walking around at home, etc.
Resolutions Review (Alternate Title: Claudia Sucks)
So I pretty much failed at everything this year.
Punishment: going through all of this year’s resolutions and seeing exactly how many I failed.
Let’s do this!
FAILED: Walk 1,500 miles. NOPE! I’ll be about 150 miles short of 1,500. No excuse for that other than I suck.
ACCOMPLISHED: Blog daily. Pfft, big deal.
FAILED: Win NaNoWriMo 2013. I DIDN’T EVEN START WOW I’M SUCH AN AWESOME PERSON
ACCOMPLISHED: Continue my 365 Days of Music project. This is like automatic for me now, so this doesn’t count.
FAILED: Draw at least two new thingies a month. Ha.
SORT OF ACCOMPLISHED: Do something with my writing. I actually made substantial progress on this, so I guess this is a “sort of.”
FAILED: Study for the GRE this time before I take the damn thing. Didn’t take the GRE. Got waaaaaaay too busy to study for it.
FAILED: Learn as much as possible. I learned a lot, but I don’t think I learned enough to say I learned “as much as possible” for the year.
ACCOMPLISHED: Revamp and start over with my book list. I actually did this one! Granted, I’ve only read 3.5 books on the list as of now, but as I said above, I got waaaaaaay too busy to do pretty much anything but school.
ACCOMPLISHED: Uh…try not to die? Like this one even counts, either.
This year’s:
Ugh, jeez. I don’t even know.
- Blog daily (a standard).
- Continue my 365 Days of Music project (another standard).
- Continue working on my writing project thingy.
- Win NaNoWriMo 2014.
- I’m not setting a walking distance goal ‘cause I’m not sure what’s going down this year in terms of “big super happy life plans.” I’d explain further, but I don’t want to.
- Graduate.
- Try not to be such a horrible freaking failure at everything I do.
Yay.
End of the Year Survey
1. What did you do in 2013 that you’d never done before?
Took a 400-level math class (this is also something I never thought I’d do).
2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
That’s coming up in a later blog!
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Matt and Lindsey had two itty bitties!
4. Did anyone close to you die?
I don’t think so.
5. What countries did you visit?
I actually stayed in the freaking States for the first time in 4 years.
6. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?
A more consistent year.
7. What date from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I don’t think there’s any particular date that stuck out this year. It’s been up and down, but there weren’t any extremes.
That freaking Proofs study session was hilarious, though. That entire Tuesday, December 17th, was a fun day, now that I think back.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Teaching in Spring, Summer, and Fall, and then being told I get TWO sections this coming semester. WOO!
9. What was your biggest failure?
Haha, everything else?
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
NEVER I AM ZEUS
11. What was the best thing you bought?
The best thing I bought? Probably my replacement Hume shirt (my other one was really old and was getting holey).
14. Where did most of your money go?
Towards school.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The European Enlightenment. I mean, even more so than before. The Clockwork Universe helped with that.
16. What song will always remind you of 2013?
Definitely Daft Punk’s Doin’ It Right, just ‘cause I’ve listened to it SO MUCH.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Learned.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Procrastinated.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I spent Christmas with my mom and my cat, opening presents and playing Geometry Wars.
21. Did you fall in love in 2013?
No.
23. How many one-night stands?
Zero!
24. What was your favourite TV program?
I still love Metalocalypse, man. DOOMSTAR REQUIEM!
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nopers.
26. What was the best book you read?
Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography. It’s an incredibly thorough account of a remarkable human being. I highly recommend it (of course).
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I really, really, really love this song. You’ll hear more about this year’s music on the 31st, so I’m going to leave it at that for now.
28. What did you want and get?
A 4.0 for spring semester and a 4.0 for fall semester.
29. What did you want and not get?
I was hoping to get hired as a permanent employee at UI, but that’s not going to happen for several reasons (though I’m still hopeful!).
30. What was your favourite film of this year?
I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen a “new” movie this year (that is, a movie I haven’t seen before). So I’m saying Sunshine.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 25 and I honestly can’t remember what I did. I think I was still freaking out over my first calc II test and so I didn’t do anything exciting.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably satisfying?
Going to RTX would have been awesome. But I was teaching during that time anyway, so it wouldn’t have worked out even if I could have afforded it.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?
COLORZ!
34. What kept you sane?
Ha. “Sane.”
35. Which celebrity/public figure(s) did you fancy the most?
Does AH count? AH, definitely.
37. Who did you miss?
I miss my old Moscow friends.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
Man, I can’t choose! All of the awesome people in Linear and Proofs.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013:
Math majors are the dorkiest, most hilarious people ever.
RESOLVE
It’s time for the annual “did I do what I said I’d do at the beginning of the year?” rundown. Get ready for failure!
Last year’s:
SORT OF ACCOMPLISHED: Fix the “issues.” They’re “fixed” insofar as they’re not disrupting my life as much as they were last year. They’re still there, but being busy really, really helps with keeping them at bay.
ACCOMPLISHED: Get a job. Not only did I get a job, I got the best damn job possible for my situation right now. I now know that teaching stats is pretty much what I want to do.
ACCOMPLISHED: Return to acquiring knowledge in a formal setting. Not only did I return to school, but I’m able to take classes while working my awesome job! I really couldn’t ask for more here.
FAILED: Start and maintain a stats blog. I started and maintained a stats class, can I substitute that?
ACCOMPLISHED: Improve with R. All my stupid data analyses have paid off! I’ve also gotten substantially better with SAS thanks to the class I took.
FAILED: Go without dairy for a week. I don’t know why I keep this on as a New Year’s resolution. I love cheese.
FAILED: Go without electricity for a week. See above, but replace “cheese” with “internet.”
MOST LIKELY FAILED: Walk 2,500 miles. I have no damn idea how far I walked this year. Job + school + other job really got in the way of things, but I still booked it around Moscow quite a bit.
ACCOMPLISHED: Continue my 365 Days of Music project. Woo! Three years down!
ACCOMPLISHED: Blog daily. You knew this one’d keep, admit it.
ACCOMPLISHED: Win NaNoWriMo 2012. Not the best story in the world, but not nearly as bad as last year’s.
ACCOMPLISHED: Complete the 5,000 question survey. Finally! Bet you’re all glad to see that one gone, eh?
And this year’s:
- Blog daily.
- Win NaNoWriMo 2013
- Continue my 365 Days of Music project
- Draw at least two new thingies a month.
- Do something with my writing (I’m extending this past Prime because there are a few non-fic doohickeys I’ve got)
- Study for the GRE this time before I take the damn thing (old scores are defunct now)
- Get applyin’ for grad schools again (while simultaneously trying not to have a panic attack)
- Learn as much as possible.
- Revamp and start over with my book list.
- Uh…try not to die? Haha. I don’t have many 2013 resolutions.
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