Another set of the annual birthday questions!
1) What are you proudest of from this year?
My BMI 1st year final project. Basically the main things I have to say on it are that I think it’s legitimately the best thing I’ve ever written. And it was received SUPER well. It was such a fulfilling, amazing, fantastic moment. And it was about domestic violence – which is really the main subject I’ve been wanting to write about since I was writing at like 9 or 10 years old (or some young age).
So, to return to the main thing I’ve always been passionate about writing (the reason I started writing in the first place) in a year when it was suuuuuper relevant for me, at a place where it was suuuuuuuuper relevant for me – and to have people cry, and really be moved, and enjoy it, and to get great feedback – and as the cherry on top, to get to experience it with B, my high school theater teacher being there (just as she was for the audition)… It was a really precious day, a fantastic memory, and definitely something I’m super proud of.
2) – the opposite of that question in a way in which you choose to look at it (e.g. your biggest failure, regret, lesson etc.)?
Oooooh goodness. How much time do you have? haha I felt like I continued to have a lot of failure and regret this year. So, I’m not even sure what one tops it out.
I think project 882 was not a smart idea.So, that was probably a regret. (However, I started the project outside of the birthday year, and I can’t regret working to finish what I started.) But! I will say, one lesson from that is that I sprained my ankle sort of early on. I went to a foot doctor. He just moved my foot and was like “well, it isn’t broken! Just maybe consider inserts. You’ll be fine.” No MRI. No real help. And I should’ve either pushed him to do more, or gone to get a second opinion [because had I actually just taken care of my sprained ankle, it wouldn’t have turned into more and more issues, and I think the year would’ve been much easier].
(I was supposed to learn this lesson 9 years ago when I went to Urgent Care and they shrugged their shoulders with practically no tests and were like “you’re an overworked college student. You’re fine.” And the next day I was in the hospital and found out I had a rare and potentially fatal congenital heart defect. But apparently I forgot that lesson? Or do we ever learn lessons? I don’t know.)
But yeah, I don’t think the lesson there is “don’t trust doctors.” Of course I trust doctors! Doctors have saved my life and been super helpful. But, maybe if you know something is wrong and a doctor does basically no work, pick a different doctor. Get a second opinion.
[My ankle thing really spiraled out of control and then became a knee thing, and derailed a bunch of races I was supposed to do, and cost a lot of money and time and energy and effort to fix. And yeah, a small thing that could’ve easily been fixed early on became this random giant obstacle and a problem WAY bigger than it should’ve been.] So, there’s that.
[Also, I would maybe have listed this as the true “official” answer, but I don’t know that I’m super ready to like delve into my job at The Daily Show ending, on the blog here. But! The way it all happened was definitely a bummer for the year. I’m sure eveeeeentually, someday you’ll get the full story. But for now, I’ll just say one goal (again that I should’ve already known based on previous jobs!), if someone offers you an unfair deal (rate/benefits/etc.), don’t take it…. I mean, unless you reeeeeeeally have to. But if you don’t have to, don’t convince yourself to do it. It’ll be incredibly hard to ever truly feel good/appreciated there – no matter how hard you try. Fight for what you’re worth and if they won’t get close (and you’re in a spot in life where you have the freedom to not take the job), then walk away.]
3) What’s your biggest goal for the upcoming year?
This is a tough one, because there are a lot of things I’d like to do.
I suppose if I really had to boil it down to *one*, I’d say, I want to get accepted to 3rd year of BMI.
That’s really the big one.
But, if I’m allowed to add a couple of secondary goals in here, for one thing, I’d like to be less angry – on a macro and micro level.
Like, I’ve just felt so angry so often the last couple of years – angry at sexual assault dude, angry at poor bystanders in my life who really didn’t do anything “wrong,” per se, but if they weren’t supportive in ways I thought they “should” be, oof.
I also get more angry online (twitter, etc.). (I mean, come on, Tr*mp is president.) And there’s residue anger that then gets on other people, I think.
Like, I’m mad at members of my original BMI class for, as far as I can tell, not caring what happened to me. And it’s fine. They have their own lives (and probably a number of them still don’t know). I wasn’t super close with any of them anyway. But anyway, me mentioning them here is not about them. It’s the fact that I sometimes then feel anger toward people in my new class [because I guess I just sort of weirdly in some way in my head lump everyone in the same group of “BMI students,” even though it’s totally different people].
And what on earth could I expect from my new class?! I want them to get into a time machine, and make what happened un-happen? To my knowledge, none of them are even really buddy-buddy with sexual assault guy. A lot of them don’t even know him.
And in reality, they’ve all been more than supportive. They were supportive of my final project about domestic violence. Some have really lended a friendly, helpful ear. So, the point is, weird anger residue is getting on people who do not deserve it. And so, I’d like to just generally be less angry/argumentative/rude/reactionary.
I suppose kind of along the same lines, I’d love to be a better friend and person in general. One example to me that encapsulates that a little is that I used to be overall pretty great at thank you cards – always gave them on the last day of classes, last day of work, all that jazz.
I have not been doing that anymore. I haven’t been remembering the names of strangers/new people as well. Etc. etc.
And I think I’m generally – even though I do focus now better than before, I think I still am not always as present as I can be, or as attentive, or as thoughtful etc. Like, it’s not *just* about names and thank you cards, it’s about really cultivating human-being-ship and connecting with people. Those are just some specific examples of that.
So, I think there’s a lot of room to be a better person/friend/acquaintance – but realistically, that probably at least begins with not being so freaking angry all the time.
I also want to get back to the fitness level I was before. But eesh. These are a lot of goals haha. I know I can focus on multiple things throughout the year, but this feels like a little more than what is supposed to be the answer to the birthday question…
But I guess the point is, at this point next year, I gotta be accepted to 3rd year BMI… Everything else will still be changeable if I’m not where I want to be yet, but the decision of 3rd year or not won’t be. So, while I definitely will (and want to) work on the other stuff, if I have to pick one, that’s it. 3rd year, baby!
So, there you have it! We’ll revisit these questions again in 2019!