Altered Goals

I thought I would be posting a lot this month with an in-depth discussion about my goals for 2014.  As I've struggled to get almost anything done this moth I've realized that I need to make my goals very, very limited.

Things that are important to me include a lot of things, but I just can't do everything.  In fact, I can't really do very much since I am pretty slow in developing skills / learning and reading.  I also do not have very much time to myself.

I'm interested in (in no particular order):

• Archaeology
• Anthropology
• Sports (watching)
• Hockey
• Rugby
• Football
• Sports (participating)
• Swimming
• In-line skating
• Rugby
• Hockey (wish I could)
• Joining some sort of team
• Sailing
• Short fiction writing
• Horror
• Fantasy
• Mystery
• Sci-Fi
• Comedy
• Audio Drama
• Novel writing (same genres as my short fiction)
• Bike commuting
• Podcasting
• Old Time Radio
• Pets
• Getting another Bearded Dragon
• Getting a dog
• Pond fish
• Gardening
• Camping
• Boy Scouts, specifically Commissioning
• Girl Scouting
• Deism
• Forestry
• Staying healthy and doing things that will help me prolong my life
• Romance
• Family
• Music
• Ukulele
• Bass (wish I could play)
• Sax
• Wish I could join a band
• History
• Military in general
• WWII era
• Chicago
• Greece
• Astronomy and star gazing
• Greek and Greece
• Family vacation
• Reading

So you can see that there are a lot of things.  A lot of these things have additional expansions below them.  A lot either need a huge investment of time, money or both.  Some of these things are very personal, some are charitable and some are involved with others in a mutual nature.

Even when I start to narrow down the list or prioritize it so that I can develop goals I end up adding more and more.

Previously I listed five areas for goals:

1. Greek
2. Archaeology
3. Writing
4. New Job
5. Commissioning

I left off a health oriented goal, but two weeks ago I weighed myself and clearly I need to exercise on a regular basis.  You can see that the goals keep getting scope creep. If I want to change these six to areas of importance rather than goals it might help, but I'm not completely convinced.

I think I need to tighten this very much, man up and focus.

My will make just two goals:

1. Learn Greek
2. Get published

However I will measure everything I do against 7 priority levels:

1. Staying healthy
2. Learning Greek
3. Staying employed
4. Family support (things my family needs me to do)
5. Commissioning
6. Getting published
7. Archaeology

I'm going to talk about my priorities more on Flowers of Mundelein.  I'll track my Greek goal on Flowers and my publishing goals here.

2012 Goals One by One - Mental (Music and Writing)

I gave myself the following goals for 2012:

Mental (Music and Writing)

Make at least 4 novel submissions this year

This is problematic because of two things. 

I really need to set a goal for myself to learn Greek.  The older my in-laws get the more I need to learn it to help understand what they need and to help my wife.  As they get older and they have a harder time remembering things the easier it gets for them to speak Greek and the more essential it is for me to understand and help them.

The other thing is this.  As morbid as it sounds, my Dad had always said that all the men in his family died in their 50s and 60s.  We thought that might have been because they were all firemen (that's right, fireMEN) and the smoke and stress may have gotten to them, but when my Dad died a couple of years ago, after having been a Police Officer and having the benefit of modern medicine, I became concerned. If I've only got 60something years in total then I only have 20something more years to go.  At the rate I expect to take it, it will probably take me close to 20 years to get a doctorate.  That and my GI Bill will run out in another 6 years or so mean that I'd better get on that horse sooner than later.

So that means I have three things that I HAVE to do because of WHO I am:

Writing Books

Learning Greek

Getting Back to School

I'd better wait on School though since we still have to figure out how to put kids through school.  I guess that votes that down for this year.

The nice thing about writing is that I can do it at any age and in any physical condition.  There is no time limit.

Greek is somewhat time limited.  I need that skill now and the longer it goes the more I need it and the better I need to be at it.

That sets it then.  As much as my psyche and muse hammer at me, as much as it's a part of who I am and what I can't stop myself from doing all the time, writing will just have to take a back seat to Greek.  Setting it as a goal is the only way I'll be able to give it enough weight to overtake the writing urges.  I will keep the novel goals as sub-resolutions, that is, the parts of it will be shorter term goals of certain months, but I can't make that my Resolution for 2012.

1.  Goal

Be able to hold a conversation in Greek and be able to read a newspaper in Greek by the end of the year.

2.  Benefit of meeting the goal =

"…be able to write your mother-in-law a letter?"  My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  This isn't far from the truth.  The benefit, as I said is better communication with my in-laws.

3.  Reminder of this benefit =

I need to put Greek labels on things.

4.  Anti-benefit, the benefit of not accomplishing this goal =

More time for writing. 

Less reminder that I'm a big dummy that can't learn languages very well.

5.  Alternate means of achieving the anti-benefit =

Short term writing goals.

Rewards for each Greek language accomplishment I reach.

6.  Task list (or milestones, or intermediate goals) =

Get books on learning Greek

Posting labels

Schedule time to study

FIND my copy of Rosetta Stone or buy a new copy on eBay

Complete Margarita Greek learning software

Attend Greek school classes at church and enroll next year

Do ALL exercises through Greek school

Get extra assignments from Greek school teacher

Find on-line Greek classes

Get Greek books from the library (this should be a pre-cursor to buying the books)

Speak Greek as often as possible

Find a learning partner

7.  Next Step =

Schedule time

8.  Who do I have to be to be able to make this goal (or who will I be when I make it) =

A Greek speaker

To remind myself I should get a subscription to a Greek newscast

9.  Accountability =

Ask my wife for a Greek only day a week

Schedule

Buy books (put my money where my mouth is, or should be)

Reading vs Doing

I realized today that I have certain things that I just can't stand reading about but I love. There are other things that I love to read about but don't like doing, and there are things that I like reading about AND doing.

I like camping and I would read about it or do it, but too much reading with no doing would be frustrating.

I like reading about history. I also like reading about strange and sometimes frightening people that I don't care if I never meet. The list of things I like to read about and not do is pretty short though.

But the list of things that I can't stand to read about and not do is, if not longer, much stronger. Archaeology, swimming and Rugby are things that I can't stand to read about if I can't do them. I've tried. I have books on Rugby, I've taken books out of the library about swimming and Archaeology (and Anthropology) but I just can't read them. I'm trying to get back into the swing of Anthropology, I'd LOVE to go back to school to get my doctorate in it, but I just can't stand to read it.

Maybe there is some other way to interest myself in reading about it. I do like to WATCH shows about it, but shows tend not to have the cutting edge information and are not detailed enough to make me satisfied.

I'm like that with learning Greek. I really can't sit there and try to learn it from a book. I want a class and tests and teachers being disappointed in me for not doing well. I want to earn a good grade.

Do you think there is a correlation?

Joining Archaeology Fieldwork.com

I'm joining a forum called Archaeologyfieldwork.com. I want to get my hand back into the Anthopological game again.

Mrs. Prop and I decided when we decided to get married, that I could continue my education and work on my doctorate in Anthropology when we retire.

I want to keep Anthropology very much alive in our thoughts plus there have been quite a few "developments" in Paleoarchaeology since I left school (good God!) eighteen years ago.

Which image do you think I should use as my avatar on that forum? I posted a couple of choices I like.

Poll #1 Results - What You Want Illini6 to Be

The results are in. I have a few points I want to make after I give you the raw data.

Here it is in popularity order:

Military and Deployment Issues = 9 (69%)
Inner Prop's Inner Thoughts = 6 (46%)
Inner Prop's Family Life = 6 (46%)
Anthropology = 6 (46%)
Inner Prop Writing Exclusively = 5 (38%)
Rugby = 5 (38%)
Scouting = 5 (38%)
ConCultures and ConLangs = 4 (30%)
Exercise Log and Discussion = 4 (30%)

Thirteen people voted, with the last one sneaking in a vote for Anthropology on the last day. Not one topic got no votes at all.

I need to say that I have created a blog specifically for family issues of the Inner Prop. It is called Flowers of Mundelein. So that is out of the running.

I reserve the right, as the blog owner to lock in a subject. Since the original purpose of this blog was and is to share my writing I am going to continue to do that. I think it didn't get more votes because it said "Exclusively." Next time I will watch my wording better.

Clearly the voters want Military and Deployment issues discussed here. I will certainly do that.

The next top vote-getters were Anthropology and Inner Prop's Inner Thoughts. I will keep those and try to expand my Anthropology and Archaeology discussions.

I will also keep Rugby and Scouting in, but limit the discussion of them.

I will go ahead and drop Exercise discussion (never really started that) and Conlang / ConCultures off the blog for the most part. I'll keep ConLang / ConCulture in if it partains to a specific story, but not on its own.

With this list in mind I propose a new schedule (that I will try to stick with):

Monday is Fiction Day
Tuesday is Guest Star Day
Wednesday is Anything Can Happen Day
Thursday is Anthropology Day
Friday is Military / Deployement Day.

What Makes an Expert?

My Dad used to always say, “This is what an expert is: ex is the unknown factor and a spert is a drip under pressure.”

I’ve been doing research to improve this blog and I’ve been looking at other people’s blogs. They all seem to know so much.

I give a run down on the topics I put on the poll to see how I stack up as an “expert” in these topics:


· WRITING FICTION - While I have been studying this topic more fervently in the last twenty years than any other (except maybe Excel) I hesitate to claim to be an expert since I have made a grand total of $10 on my writing. It’s all about the art though, right.

· DEPLOYMENT – I am an expert on Illinois Army National Guard Deployment to Afghanistan 2004-2005. That is a fairly limited topic (understatement). I don’t know how many people would really be interested or how many articles I could really get out of that. However I am currently the Family Readiness Group leader for the 108th Sustainment Brigade who are being deployed to Iraq soon. I will have a pretty good insight to what those soldiers and their families are going through.

· RUGBY - I do consider myself to be one of the most knowledgeable people that I know in this topic. I could easily become THE font of knowledge about the subject in the Chicago Area Rugby Football Union (CARFU), but first I want to watch the DVDs I have of the recent RWC. I want to watch them as if they are live and I don’t want the end to be spoiled. Give me a couple of months and I am right there.

· SCOUTING - I am an Eagle Scout and I was a District Executive for four years in the Chicago Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. I was an active scouter from age eight until age twenty eight. Trouble is, I’ve been out of the BSA all those years. I’ve been involved with the Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) for the past six years, but I’m no expert there.

· ANTHROPOLOGY - I thought, “I have a BA in Anthropology, maybe I can write about Anthropology” but there are some really intense Anthropology and Archaeology blogs out there, and some of them are amateurs. I don’t know if I could add anything useful.

Then I remembered that part of the reason I wanted to study Anthropology is because I wanted to be an expert on Native Americans for our Boy Scout troop. I wanted to make the costumes we used in ceremonies and the actions of the actors more authentic. But I recently found out that there is already a blog about Scouting and Native Americans. It may be all anyone needs on the subject. Maybe I’m a little too late on this topic.

· CONCULTURES AND CONLANGS – ConCultures means Constructed Cultures. These are made up cultures and peoples. They are a combination of anthropology and fiction and I feel I have at least a good background in both of these. ConLang means Constructed Languages. I wrote a previous post on this subject. It goes hand in hand with ConCultures, but I have had less training in linguistics.

· MICROSOFT EXCEL. This wasn’t one of the choices in the poll, but I am definitely at expert level on Excel. In fact I would go so far as to say, if there is anyone out there reading this that is having a problem with Excel they can send me an email at innerprop@sbcglobal.net and I will help them.


So I guess I do have some expertise in some subjects. I’ve been thinking of taking the approach of the original Mickey Mouse Club and have a different theme each day. The MMC had the following schedule:

· Monday is Fun with Music
· Tuesday is Guest Star Day
· Wednesday is Anything Can Happen Day
· Thursday is Circus
· Friday is Talent Round-up

I could go with:

· Monday is Fiction Day
· Tuesday is Guest Star Day
· Wednesday is Anything Can Happen Day
· Thursday is Rugby Day
· Friday is ConCulture Day.

What do you think?