New Year’s 2021: The Update
I haven’t added one of these blocks in a while, because it seems ineffective to repeat what I’m doing each post. That’s because addressing anti-Black racism as a white person requires not a couple one-time changes but long-term shifts in practice and thinking. I’m still working hard on making my course material and pedagogy equitable; on educating myself; and on dedicating money and attention each month to supporting Black writers/creators. Black Lives Matter.
Unfortunately, none of my goals for 2019 was to become psychic. That’s why, when I set these goals for 2020, I wasn’t aware that an unprecedented worldwide crisis would hit two months in.
Since it bears repeating, I’m not judging my worth or ability by how well I was able to meet my pre-pandemic goals, and you shouldn’t judge yourself by yours either. We’re here, we’re ourselves, and that’s enough for a year like 2020.
However, I do enjoy lists and endlessly analyzing my own accomplishments (or lack therefore). So, without judgement, but with much joy and relish, here’s exactly what 2020 made of my best-laid plans:
1. Enough German to pass the B1 level exam.
I’ve learned a lot of German since last year; I listen to my language podcasts at full speed, seldom grab for the dictionary or my Google app when reading German books, and only rarely switch the subtitles for Dark to English or stop Tatort to look up a word.
But I haven’t pursued the next level of certification. Online courses are super expensive, and in-person courses are, like most in-person activities, off the table right now. Also, work is already hard; it’s a challenge to find time to write and read, and I don’t think I can manage an intense language course on top of everything.
So instead, I’ll keep learning and try to get better and better.
2. Whether I can practice driving about once a week.
I started the year off pretty well. Then COVID-19 happened, so obviously I wasn’t going to go waste fuel or endanger my neighbours by using the elevators when I didn’t have to.
However, for a month or two of social isolation, I took on the chore of picking up the groceries each week. As more places opened up, I started driving to the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions, the service station to fill the tank with gas, and the library to return books from pre-lockdown.
I still get nervous about driving until I’m actually in the car with my foot on the pedal. I don’t think that will change any time soon. But I’m able to handle errands, and I can keep challenging myself to, for example, use the highways or drive to places mid-/downtown.
3. How to stop injuring myself at the gym.
Let’s do this by quarter:
March 2020: So far, so good.
June 2020: In April, I aggravated an old side-muscle injury doing a resistance-band ab exercise, but I rested it for a fortnight*, and it turned out fine.
September 2020: No injuries from the gym, although I did burn my arm on the iron, cut my wrist on the microwave door, and pull my aforementioned crappy side muscle sneezing. Listen, pandemic clumsiness is a thing, OK???
December 2020: I did something to my left hip. I’m pretty sure it was from following an online exercise video — like, I can remember the moment something happened to it, but I can’t remember exactly what I was doing, strength training or cardio. Since late October’s, it’s hurt like I tweaked the joint somehow. *sigh* I was so close…
4. How to deadlift 200+ lb.
I thought I wasn’t going to be able to try for this goal, let alone reach it by the end of the year. Lifting heavy is pretty difficult when you live in an upstairs condo with minimal space and very few things that are heavy enough to replace a loaded barbell without damaging yourself or your belongings. I looked half-heartedly at buying adjustable dumbbells or water-/sand-filled DIY weights, but, honestly, it didn’t seem worth it.
In the late summer, our building’s weight room opened up again. You had to book appointments, and the number of people per rec-centre facility was limited, but the whole centre is underground. Although the staff did their best, the ventilation is poor, and not everyone followed masking/booking/spacing recommendations.
Luckily, the women’s weight room was pretty much unused, so, over the last month of the summer, I was able to grab a barbell and some weight plates from the all-gender weight room, bring them to the women’s room, do my deadlifts all alone, and return the equipment to the all-gender room. It was win-win-win–the person using the all-gender room (usually it was just one other person) got a room to themselves, I got a room to myself, and I got the extra workout of walking heavy weights across the hall and back.
That was a pretty long story just to say that although I was worried about losing strength over the months of single-leg bodyweight deadlifts or resistance-band deadlifts, I smashed my old maximums within a couple weeks of getting to lift heavy again. I easily lifted 195lb before I decided the risk to go to the gym wasn’t worth the benefits. I’m looking forward to finally achieving this goal next year, but I’m pretty sure I’m strong enough already!
5. How to do 5 unassisted pull-ups in one rep.
I was over-ambitious on this one: I ended last year confident I could do a single unassisted pull-up. But then we got a pull-up bar with a fixed, wide grip, and I quickly learned that, actually, I can pull myself up with my palms facing away from me, but even with chin-ups (palms toward me, more help from my arm muscles), I can’t yet manage a full range of motion unassisted.
Having to re-assess my current abilities as being lesser than I thought is never fun, but I’ve been working on building up to one unassisted, from-a-dead-hang, wide-grip pull-up. I have a long, long way to go, but aiming for the next step and doing it well is way, way better than pretending everything’s all good and trying to skip ahead while ignoring good form.
6. How to squat 100+ lb.
I can squat without a gym, but I can’t do barbell squats without a gym. Over the pandemic, I’ve switched to bodyweight and resistance band squats instead.
Looking forward to trying for this one next year as well!
7. How to rework a manuscript I love that hasn’t worked out.
Sometimes, when I go to rework manuscripts from yesteryear, I find that I can’t recapture the motivation that powered me through them in the first place. I’m no longer the person who found this emotional heart so compelling. That can be a good thing — as when I get to rewrite an “enh” story about superspies to be closer to the X-Files-y story I wanted to write in the first place.
I’m lucky that the heart of this manuscript hasn’t lost its hold on me. Quite the opposite: I’ve grown more, and I can dig deeper into these characters. I can give them more complicated feelings, and I can build a more detailed world around them based on my new life experiences.
For instance, I used to know universities only as a student; now I understand them from a faculty perspective as well. I’ve learned more about how my Judaism informs how I interpret the world, and I can give more of that viewpoint to my Jewish MC. I understand more about my own politics and more about others’ too.
I’m really happy with how this story has turned out, and even though pandemic-brain/workload is making it take way, way longer than usual to get through, I’m glad I got it to this stage.
8. How to make hot lobster rolls.
OK, I cheated, and I’m not sorry. When I saw that Seafood Crate offered fresh seafood, including high-quality cooked lobster, I was like, “Why cook my own lobster when, for the same price, I can get perfectly done lobster meat, not have to crack open the shell, and not have to dispose of the rest of the lobster?” (Let’s be real, I’m probably not saving the shells to make broth when lobster is a very-sometimes treat, and I am the only one in my household who likes it.)
Anyway, so after a VERY difficult cooking process (melt a whole bunch of butter in a pan, toast a hotdog bun in the butter, then warm the lobster in more butter), here’s the result:
It’s making me drool just posting it.
9. How to use a text expander, for real this time.
It turns out, Breevy is fantastic. What I’m not so fantastic at is remembering the short forms I use, but luckily, it’s easy to keep a window open at the corner of my screen.
Seriously, I don’t know how I would have made it through marking literally hundreds of papers and presentations every week of last semester without this. My bad arm is kinda stiff and painful, but it would have been utterly destroyed if I had to keep typing similar feedback comments entirely from scratch every time instead of letting Breevy do the heavy lifting and typing in just the necessary specific details.
10. How to finish a difficult MG manuscript.
Ugh. In this manuscript, I experiment with a protagonist and plot style that don’t come as naturally to me, and it has been a challenge.
When I was about 10K words away from the end, I knew I needed a break. So I switched over to the other manuscript from #7, which honestly felt like dumping out all the packing peanuts clogging up my mind. After gaining some brain-breathing-room, I think I’m ready to come back to this one.
For 2021:
I think this year has taught us all that life is unpredictable. However, I like setting goals. So, without any idea of what life will be like during and post-vaccine rollout, here’s what I’m hoping to learn.
These first five are all continuations of things I was hoping to accomplish in 2020. They’re still my goals, and I can’t wait to achieve them.
1. How to deadlift 200+ lb. I’m ready to blast this goal out of the water!
2. How to squat 100+ lb. I’m ready to… work really hard — for a long time — and then blast this goal out of the water!
3. How to do at least one chin-up and one wide-grip pull-up with full arm extension at the bottom. OK, this one’s a little less ambitious than the 2020 version, because I realized I need to work on the basics of form before I can start pushing myself for more reps.
4. How to finish both novel MSs I was working on through 2020. I’m really excited to recharge and keep working on these.
5. How to keep driving places I need to go. I’ll start out with the local ones, and maybe eventually I can get comfortable driving to other places in the city/even using the highways.
These next five are more new stuff to try out.
6. Enough tae kwon do to (re-)earn my orange belt. I took tae kwon do lessons as a kid but had to stop when I broke a bone playing a different sport at summer camp. I’ve been following along with YouTube karate and tae kwon do classes for fun, and there’s still something I find motivating about the structure of a belt system. So I’m hoping to sign up for the paid version of these tae kwon do classes (which I’ve enjoyed so far through their YouTube channel free samples) and try to reach the level I attained as a nine-year-old (… by bribing myself with a promise that I’ll buy what I wanted so bad then, my own brand-new gi, as a reward for passing my first video test). If I can surpass my younger self, bonus!
(And, no, I don’t really care if online classes teach me enough to “defend” myself or compete. I’m in this for fun and challenge!)
7. How to revise and submit the short story I already wrote. It’s just been sitting there in my notebook, fully formed but rough.
8. How to write at least one new short story. I have a couple plotted out but just… never wrote them.
9. Enough Spanish to pass an online level A1 test. I started Spanish on Duolingo juuust before the pandemic started, when we were still planning to go to Ecuador for my cousin’s wedding. Compared to German, Spanish is more similar to French (which I already speak), and I did take half a semester of the language in high school, so I feel like I’m on stronger footing. We’ll see!
10. Enough German to understand most of what I hear on Tatort instead of just the general gist. Maybe it will help that Duolingo just added a crapton of new German lessons, which I’m going to work through to practice my vocabulary and verb conjugation.
* Remember when you found out what “fortnight” meant but never had a reason to use it in a sentence? Achievement unlocked: dorky childhood goal!