planning, etc

[rivendellrose]

I am so very tired. Couldn't sleep last night (don't know why), got all the way out the door before I realized I didn't have my glasses on... but I have my keys again! I've never been so happy to see them, let me promise you.

Also, I'm pleased to say that some plans are starting to fall into shape for the coming years.


In the next month:
Apply to volunteer a few hours a week at the Burke museum.
Sign up at the YMCA, chose a class or two for the fall.
Start doing more with the Seattle Folklore Society.
Work on HTML skillz. A lot. ;)

Before October:
Get my passport.

In the next six months
Visit University of BC.
Study for the GREs.
Get my letters of recommendation set up for grad school.

Next spring:
Apply for a 2-week stint volunteering for this during the summer? That's one hell of a working vacation right there.

Fall/Winter 2007:
Send in grad school applications to UBC and at least three other schools.

September, 2008:
Graduate school, hopefully in Vancouver BC.
It's close, we think it has reciprocity with Washington state in terms of tuition, it's got a great anthro program, and with any luck maymargaret and I can stick together for a while. Also, it fulfills the 21st century liberal American dream - moving to Canada. :P

And of course somewhere in all of that I hope to find a group to sing with again, maybe a guitar teacher so I can actually make some damned progress on that front, and write. Maybe even - gasp! - write original stuff.

Comments

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

OMG, I love plans and goals. Beautiful! I wish you all the best as you accomplish these one by one! Keep us all posted, 'hear?

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I love them, too, although actually making them happen... that I'm less good at. :P I figure maybe posting them here will keep me accountable.

Thanks for the good wishes, and you bet I'll be keeping you all posted!

[shadawyn.livejournal.com]

Wow! That's a great list of plans. Good luck with them! Should we poke you to keep you on track? :D

I should do something like that as well... hrm... though I have 2-3 roads I could go down right now.

[shadawyn.livejournal.com]

And, inspired by you, I started something like this, though I'm keeping the post locked to me for now.

And except I have three routes:

-Go to grad school in June. (Which is when the low-res MFAs start... or in Jan, but I won't make that deadline.)
-Go to Clarion instead of grad school (because it's also in June).
-Keep working full-time and writing (but I've been floundering lately, so I need to make some hard goals about this).
-Or other route completely that still involves me writing and not working in tech support.

Fun stuff. I know what I want eventually... it's the road to getting there that's the problem. LoL

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Clarion is an interesting option for you - I'd love to hear what you think of the program if you do decide to go through with it!

And at least you know what you want... that's the part I'm still struggling with, in the long term vision.

[shadawyn.livejournal.com]

Clarion (or West) is a prestigous compromise to grad school (six weeks instead of 2 years), but it's short story-focused, which isn't my interest or my strength, so I keep rethinking whether I should do it or not.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've sat in on informational sessions and the like about it, back in the early days of Dragon's Pen - that's how we met Syne Mitchell, if you remember her. Her, Octavia Butler, Vonda McIntyre, and Ursula K LeGuin spoke about Clarion at the UW... wow, four years ago, now? And we made our initial contacts with all of them there.

I'm still sad that we never managed to work out having Octavia over to speak. She'd tentatively accepted the offer, if we could work out transportation and all that, but it got lost in the process after that.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Should we poke you to keep you on track? :D

In a word? YES.

I do, too, to some extent, but this is the stuff that's fairly certain. At least I hope it is. :/

[reve-lucide.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's quite the list! I hope you're not like me and you'll actually do everything on it eventually. :P

Oh yeah, and I just had to mention that "The Shape of Things to Come" is my favorite track on the BSG s1 soundtrack. Is it a quote from somewhere, or did you just come up with something witty for your lj-cut? In any case -- EERIE. XD

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I'll do some of it... I'm awful about good intentions and failed results. :P

Huh. You know, I had a feeling that I was quoting something when I wrote that, but I have no idea what it's originally from. It might just be one of those common phrases? That is kind of eerie, though. XD

[reve-lucide.livejournal.com]

See, that's the good thing about lists like this -- at least you'll get some of it done, and it probably gives you better odds of completing things than if you hadn't made a list at all.

Well, it's actually a quote from the show that got turned into a song title.
Gaius Baltar: But I don't understand what you're talking about. Really, I don't understand-
Number Six: Come. See the face of the shape of things to come.

Interesting, in any case. They probably ripped it off of whatever you were thinking of, actually. XD

*uses Gaius/Six icon just for you*

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Exactly! Especially if other people can see the list, too.

Huh. I like the sound of that dialogue. And it's probably not so much ripping off as it's just one of those turns of phrase that's out there in the ether, so to speak.

Ooo. Not a bad-looking couple by a long stretch! *Uses Scully just because*

[reve-lucide.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. Six is very mysterious and quotable. But Farscape first!

*uses Aeryn icon to distract you from BSG*

XD

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

*Laughs* I have to wait til September! The other sci-fi-tv geek roommate will be back on the 16th, and after we've burned through the last remaining season of B5 (finally!!!) I'll see if I can't coax her into watching Farscape with me. It's more fun if I have someone in the house to squee with. XD

[reve-lucide.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, TV shows are always better when you've got someone to share your squee. I didn't necessarily mean you should start it ASAP -- I just didn't want you to get distracted by Gaius and Six and all the other BSG pretties. XD

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't worry about that too much - I find the little bits you've told/shown me about Aeryn entirely too intriguing to be distracted!

[reve-lucide.livejournal.com]

XD

[shoeless-girl.livejournal.com]

Goals are grand! I totally hear you on the singing front :)

All the best with these ♥

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

It's so sad - in highschool, I took private voice lessons as training for musical theatre, and I was actually making progress. Then early in college I was in an a capella choir to keep up with it. ...And then it all faded away, and damned if I haven't lost my whole upper soprano register and what little confidence I'd managed to work up, to boot. :P

♥ Thanks muchly!

[fourseat.livejournal.com]

UBC has good anthro, you say?

I'm looking for places to do anthro and ling-anthro for next year. Maybe I'll give UBC a gander.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

If you're looking at ling-anthro I'd definitely give them a look - that's the program one of my housemates is looking at them for, and she's quite impressed.

To be fair, our requirements have run something on the order of "it doesn't mean relocating to the other side of the country!" and "we can stay near the coast!" with a side order, for her, of the fact that she's focused on the interactions between Pacific Rim cultural groups. So we may be significantly biased. ;) But if you're looking at anything to do with native Northwest coast cultures, I get the impression you can't really do much better.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

School loyalty compels me to add that the UW also has a stellar Northwest coast program, or so I am told. But because of the strange incest-avoidance taboos practiced by graduate schools, neither my housemate or I can seriously consider our own alma mater.