Tag: learning

consuming versus creating

// Friday, September 19, 2014

This summer has been the summer of travel for me. As I’ve mentioned (in this terribly organized post), I went to Minnesota/Bayfield, WI; Washington, D.C.; Old Orchard Beach, ME; and Quebec City, Canada. When I travel, I try to limit my cell phone use – I want to be in the moment, experiencing, laughing, photographing, enjoying the company of the person or people with whom I’m traveling. Limiting my phone use has an odd way of simultaneously making me realize (a) how little I need my smartphone most of the time and (b) how much I use my smartphone almost all of the time, something I especially noticed this summer. I noticed it the most in D.C., when there was downtime at a coffee shop or in a restaurant, and I found myself absentmindedly taking out my phone and opening up Facebook/Twitter/etc. even though I had no desire or intention to read through any sort of newsfeed. It was a weird realization. Was there really anything I needed to know about anyone’s day or life highlights right then? Nope. Not even a little. So: why?

It was after I noticed my unconscious Facebook skimming that I realized how much I’m primed to consume on my phone. As I increased my efforts to go off the grid social-media wise, I noticed that I spent more time browsing blogs, the New York Times website, and miscellaneous other online news sites. I realized that within the the context of ‘normal life’ (because though DC was a vacation, it felt a lot like home and it was just…hanging out with an old friend, versus like “Here is an itinerary of places to see on vacation and other Things To Do”), I don’t let myself have much downtime anymore. My time frequently is spent reading or working or watching tv while also catching up on online news. And that’s not the way I want to be. It was a good reality check, and one I didn’t get with my other, more “vacation-y” vacations. In MN/WI, I didn’t get much cell service, nor did I want to (sailing!). In Quebec, I couldn’t use my phone, because Verizon is Verizon and I didn’t want to pay for data or fees for texting or calling. So given that it essentially wasn’t available, I just put it out of my mind, which was a very welcome and relaxing break, but didn’t make me rethink my daily habits in the way that I needed.

After said realizations, I sent out, in small ways, to make this summer the summer I spent outdoors (last summer I wasn’t so great at that), and while I’ve been good at that, somehow that has also translated to consuming much more online than I am creating. I would spend weekend days outside, walking around, and nights either with friends or on the internet, reading about everything I didn’t read during the day. In part because of all of the above, I’ve been lax about posting on here, which I’m working to fix, because god help me, I love this blog even though it isn’t much yet. In true-to-me form, I’ve gotten caught up in the idea of perfecting this site (fixing categories and tags, of which I have far too many; purchasing a domain and switching to self-hosted WordPress; developing a logo; etc.) that I’ve somehow rationalized neglecting it until it can be Right.

That’s not how life works, though, and it’s easy for me to lose sight of that. I need to remember to focus forward more, constantly striving towards something. Life is more, I think, about the forward: You work and you fix as you go, and if you’re lucky, you end up with something that’s as close to almost perfect as it’ll ever be, and you continually improve and maintain. That’s my goal for the fall: maintain and continually improve, both in the personal sense and in the sense of this blog. The plus of all the content-consuming I’ve been doing this summer is that I’ve discovered some wonderful, well-written, inspiring, beautiful blogs (dear former English teachers and professors: sorry for all those adjectives). I now regularly read (and check almost daily) numerous blogs (my two favorites at the moment are C’est Christine, which has a little bit of everything and offers me a wonderful perspective on life (and also makes me want to live in NYC), and where my heart resides, which I love because it’s so different from where I’m at life-stage-wise, but the writing is gorgeous and somehow very relatable).

September is always more like the New Year for me than January is, so here’s to channeling content consuming into content creating and adhering to goals and personal growth. On that note, expect to soon see a post about attending my first and second ever yoga classes. Here’s to improvement and moving forward.

on (mostly) buying nothing for a month

// Thursday, May 1, 2014

My buy nothing month (inspired by this post, among others,  over at Our Little Apartment) has gone quite well for me. I made two non-food related purchases, excluding the plane tickets I had to buy recently for a summer trip (the costs kept going up, and it didn’t make sense to wait; I’m stupidly excited for July): pens at the very beginning of the month when I hadn’t really accepted I was going to succeed yet and the iTunes version of the MTV Presents Unplugged 2012: Florence + the Machine album. I shouldn’t have done the iTunes purchase, probably, but (1) one slip up won’t kill me and (2) it (I’m rationalizing, I know) made sense because I had a deal through my AmEx card that if I spent $5 on iTunes I would get a $5 statement credit, so I bought the entire album for essentially $5, and I’ve been wanting it for a while. A fifty percent savings seemed too good to pass up, rightly or wrongly. But overall, I’m quite pleased with how well I did, though I think I might have spent more on food than normal? But I’m okay with that right now.

It also made notice some things about my other spending habits. I’m going to keep along a similar vein for May, but instead of Buy Nothing, it’s going to be a “Buy Only Necessary Things and Don’t Buy Non-Social Coffee” (I need a new pair of sneakers, a lightweight jacket I can run in, and maybe but not definitely a new pair of sandals). I’m also going to do my damnedest to limit myself to purchasing coffee only as a social thing (when I’ve made a coffee date, etc.) – that is, no treats because I know it will be a long work day, or because I’m extra tired, or because I don’t feel well. I have perfectly delicious coffee at home (truth: Tonx is the best), and spending $4 a cup for no particular reason is both absurd and a habit I need to break. I’m also going to cut down on how much I eat out. I by no means eat out excessively or expensively, but it is definitely something on which I need to work.

I’m not sure whether there’s a correlation between buying less and doing more enriching things, but this past month I’ve liked myself more. I’ve spent more time outside; I’ve started running again; I’ve finished one book and started two more; I’ve made progress on knitting (did I mention I’m learning to knit?! I’m learning to knit. I’m making a scarf, currently, which I realize is the most seasonally appropriate thing I could make, I know, but it’s helping me get used to the motions of knitting); I’ve been better about writing posts, even if I haven’t been better about posting them. I think the last month has just made me more aware of how I spend my time; when wandering around the target or the mall isn’t something I want to do, I have to tangibly come up with things, versus passively fall back on shopping for lack of anything better to do. I think it’s been healthy for me. I didn’t shop often anyways, but it definitely became a habit; I’d be bored and not want to clean or sort paperwork, so I’d go to Target instead. I feel like I’m much less inclined to do that now, and I’m pleased. So, yes. Continuing the spirit of Buy Nothing Month for May, though I’m definitely tweaking it a little this month. I’m enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would, honestly. It’s nice.

Anyone else want to do a Buy Nothing month with me in the future? Alternatively, if you’ve done one in the past, did you have trouble? What, if anything, was your biggest problem area?

on reading and goals in 2014

// Friday, January 31, 2014

A week ago, I read a New York Times article/opinion piece, “Reading Books is Fundamental” by Charles M. Blow, that cites a recent Pew study regarding Americans and reading in 2013. The study is primarily examining the growth of e-reading and its relationship to how books are consumed, but the study also provides telling information about the amount Americans read. According to the study, the ‘typical American’ read five books last year, but what’s more interesting is the breakdown of people who read a certain number of books [p. 12 of the report]:

PIAL2. During the past 12 months, about how many BOOKS did you read either all or part of the way through? Please include any print, electronic, or audiobooks you may have read or listened to.

None – 23%
1 book – 5%
2-3 books – 14%
4-5 books – 12%
6-10 books – 17%
11-20 books – 13%
More than 20 books – 15%
Don’t Know – 2%

The fact that twenty-three percent of the Americans surveyed did read even one book all the way through is depressing. Only thirty-one percent of those surveyed read between one and five books, and the survey doesn’t even ask them to specify if they read them through to completion. I think we should do better than that.

That said, in 2013,  I didn’t do much better, honestly, than the majority of Americans, now that I’m thinking back on it. I read The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman in its entirety, but I’m not actually sure if I completely read anything else that I previously hadn’t read. I’ve read and reread bits and pieces of books I love (Good Omens, also by Neil Gaimen, is the first that comes to mind, but there was also The Monkey’s Raincoat by Robert Crais and Free Fall by Robert Crais, and others that I can’t think of).  I started The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver back in March, but I’ve still yet to finish it. I’m in the middle of a super simplified introduction to statistics book, because I’ve realized that’s an area in which my knowledge is lacking. That said, though, the amount of serious books I read has diminished considerably. There are too many other things able to distract me: the internet, largely, but also an ever changing social life and figuring out how to better distribute my time (which is to say, the shift to working full time and a frequently changing commute (I moved twice in 2013) made it such that it took me longer than it should have to develop a routine).

I’ve set a lot of tangible goals for 2014 without specifics to which I need to adhere: for instance, I am determined that I’m going to use this blog (and purchase this domain one of these days, as well as decide if it makes sense to move to self-hosted or just purchase the custom design upgrade), but I haven’t set an “x post per month” rule or guideline. I am trying to be realistic about it, because I think if I do set an “x posts per week” rule, it’s too easy to feel like I’ve fallen hopelessly behind, which can end up spiraling downward. (See: a few failed blog attempts in the past, the fact that my daily journaling is now 21 days behind.)

Reading more books falls under that same category of ‘goals set without specifics’. Reading in general does as well. Because my grandma is wonderful, I now have unlimited access to the New York Times website and apps, so I’ve been at least marginally better about reading articles daily. I’m not reading varied enough articles yet, but it’s a habit that had fallen by the wayside; it takes a little time to redevelop the discipline. Academic reading is on that list as well, and thanks to Coursera and edX, I’m inspired to do more. I’ve signed up for two free* courses, a counterterrorism course through Coursera and a introductory computer programming course through edX. I love my job, but in some ways I miss taking classes (for the learning aspect; I have no desire to still be in college), so essentially free, relatively self-paced courses are a great way for me to start using that part of my brain again.
  [* While both courses are free, I’m taking the Coursera course as a Verified Certificate Course, which means it costs $50. I think it’ll be worth it.]

In spite of the lack of specifics re: the goals I’ve set, however, a friend and I have decided to hold each other accountable for our writing; as such, starting February 1st, I’m committing to writing for at least half an hour every day with one skip day allowed each week. Provided that goes well, I’m going to up it to an hour. I’m looking forward to this. I know there’s some author that said writing is a muscle; said muscle is something I’m working on strengthening again. (In related things, one of my best friends is planning to be in the best shape of his life by age 25, and I’m inspired to work out physically more as well. His goal is a good one, and I’m latching onto that momentum a little.)

Point being, basically: here’s to getting in all different kinds of shape this year. 2014 is going to be a good year.