Thursday 1 January 2009

Last Year, This Year

2008 was a big turning point for me. Deciding to do 101/1001 was one of the best things I've decided to do, and since starting it I haven't regretted doing it. Halfway through the year I read "Yes Man" by Danny Wallace, and that started to change my perspective on how I approach things, being open to chances.

I've not said yes to everything that's come my way over the last six months, but I've said yes to more than I think I would have before. A friend took a look at the blog I've been keeping a few days ago and said, "You've been doing this for eight months and you've only crossed off nine things on the list??? How are you going to get the 92 in the next two years???"

With a bit of work, a bit of luck and a bit of fun...

Ten Things I Will Definitely Have Achieved In 2009
1). 12. Fill Terramundi
2). 15. Write 101 haiku
3). 19. Complete a ScriptFrenzy
4). 26. Make my Christmas cards one year
5). 41. Visit five US states
6). 64. Buy a domain name
7). 75. Re-read "Calvin & Hobbes"
8). 78. Re-read Scott McCloud's books on comics
9). 89. See a Shakespeare play
10). 95. Release five books into the wild with BookCrossing

Ten Things I Hope To Have Done/Completed In 2009
1). 1. Read entire Bible
2). 20. Enter the SFX Pulp Idol competition
3). 36. Create a webcomic
4). 42. Spend a long weekend in London (including a West End show)
5). 62. Confirm the number of stacked 4-tangles
6). 67. Sell five things on eBay
7). 73. Re-read "The Sandman"
8). 87. Buy a Nintendo Wii or Xbox 360
9). 91. Attend a live opera
10). 100. Send a Valentine

Five Things I Might Do In 2009
1). 2. Keep a diary regularly for at least six months
2). 31. Learn to juggle three balls
3). 34. Bake a cake for a present
4). 93. Complete a crossword (seriously, I've never been able to complete a crossword)
5). Various: replay about six of the games!

I got about three quarters of the way through Shadow of the Colossus a few weeks back, and then preparing for Christmas, work and Nanowrimo intervened... I wonder if I can finish it on New Year's Day, start the year off with a bang? Let's see.

Say yes.

7 comments:

Amanda said...

You wouldn't believe it. I finally finished my list of 101 things, left it safely here on my laptop while I went to Australia in September. Now that I've returned to Palembang, I find that the hard disk crashed and my husband replaced it without attempting to salvage any files. :(

I think I'm just going to give up on 101 things in 1001 days for now. I'll just keep reading about yours to build up my motivation.

NathanRyder said...

Well, I hope that your motivation builds up soon Amanda! :)

Anonymous said...

If you need a recipient for the cake I am happy to oblige

NathanRyder said...

@Rosie: I don't remember you being helpful before... What on earth could be motivating you??? ;)

Latharia said...

Good luck on your list of 101 things!!!! And I'll have to check out some the games you've mentioned. We've only got an Xbox platform, but we also play games on PC. My sweetie's switching between World of Warcraft, Fallout3, Crysis and Bioshock. :)

Unknown said...

I would love to create a webcomic.

How have you never completed a crossword? I bought a book of them a few weeks back that has about 50 of them, and I completed nearly 20 in a single day....

NathanRyder said...

@Matt: I don't know what it is, but no matter where I get the crossword from (and I mean a proper one, not one that is designed to be easy, or a themed one like in a film magazine) there are always clues that I never get. I'm not even talking cryptic ones here, just regular... But I will do one!

Am seriously generating some ideas and stuff for the webcomic too. I think that is going to be generated from some kind of constrained comics philosophy...