Last Post of 2023

Property of Stormberry

 I'm finishing this year with:

1. A lot of plans for the next year,
2. Resolve to endure to get much closer to my goals throughout 2024,
3. COVID-19 for the first time in my life.

Yep, that last one is quite a thing. For me. I came down with what I thought was "flu" on Christmas day, but it wasn't until two days later, upon the insistence of my mother (she suspected it could be COVID), that I took the test (there was one kit at home) that I realized I, indeed, had COVID. Oh goodie. I managed to avoid it for three years, but in the end I became a member of the club.

I guess I have this new Eris variant, but if you ask me, it feels exactly the way flu feels like. The first two days were horrid, and now I'm stuck with the Runny-Nose-From-Hell. I'm pretty sure I've blown my weight in snot out of my nose by now. Isn't that lovely?

The advance on the thesis front is really slow, as the current task isn't very inspiring and quite time consuming. But it is, nontheless, moving forward. I just really hope I can finish it this year, as I'm aiming for that in one of my New Year Resolutions. I just want to be over with it, so I can start working on getting a PhD.

Both the MSc as the PhD are a matter of personal goals, and not a professional goal, as my current job hardly even recognized the actual work I do, much less my preparation I have for it, so the extra degrees are simply a way for me to accumulate and explore new knowledge. What can I say? Some people colect stuff, others like travel, others rather party or date or have sex, and I like knowledge. Now, this doesn't mean that I only read serious, scientific or philosophical things, as nothing could be farther from reality. I like stories, and my favoured type of readings are novels. I guess I like knowledge because I like the stories that come within the knowledge I seek: economics (my favored area) are full of stories.

I can't blame COVID for the slowing of the progress of my thesis, but I do intend to use the days of vacation (of which half is already gone) to work on it, and present my tutor with something of an advanced improvement by the begining of next year. I really need to get going, get all this small details hammered out so I can go on with the story behind my research: innovation policy's effect on labor.

By the end of this year I've made a couple of big decisions looking forward to 2024. I paid in advance the whole year at a gym, and so I intend so go, at least twice a week, to get in better shape. With that in mind I also ordered a new fitbit to keep myself motivated to exercise. My weight has been going up and I moved into the overweight zone, so I have to start making changes to get back to the normal weight, not only because that's healthier, but also because I want to fit back in my clothes again. It would be just too expensive to change my whole closet. And I like a lot of my clothes, so why change them?

Every year I also tend to make big budget plans to rid myself of debt - inspired mostly by the incredible success I had in 2011 when I whipped out  a staggering debt by the sheer power of my determination - and this year I have made that same decision with a small added trick: a more detailed plan and an actual commitment to get it done. I have two debts: the credit card and the loan from the FGA. The FGA loan works down in a constant fashion, but the credit card debt fluctuates as here and there I find myself in need of using the card. After much thinking I realized that the trigger for my card is always the same: vet expenses.

I've changed vets last year, as our old vet has become hideous with cats. The new vet is a place that actually specializes in cats, but I have been noticing that - under the guise of worry and care - they have been pumping out loads of money from me (my card, to be precise) for a lot of check ups and test my babies probably don't need. One of my cats -Woody - has costed me a fortune with citologies and a biopsy of an unhealing nose problem. It turns out that he has feline AIDS and on top of that a very serious skin cancer. The outlook for him is bleak and his chances to get cured are minimal, yet the vet was pushing for an appointoment with an oncologist and maybe start a chemotherapy treatment. That's where I hit the breaks. Goodness, no. I won't run myself into debt to torture my cat and make his last days a living hell.

I've decided to limit the vet visits to vaccines and that will be that. And to kill my credit card. So I sat down, mapped up all my forseeable expenses and laid out a detailed fortnight by forthnight plan. It came out quite a strick one, with nearly no wiggle room, but certainly one that needs to be implemented.

Something we sometimes forget to see is our own reality. By turning a blind eye, by not making a plan, not looking at our balance, we try to pretend that things are much better, much easier, or running much better than they are. I did not delude myself, these are my expenses, these are the things I spend on, and my only "wiggle room" are my groceries, where sometimes I run amok packing up the cart with things I end up throwing out as they rot on my shelves or my fridge (my waste basket eats more veggies than I do).

2024 is a year for me to take a hard look at things, work for my goals, carve a path for the future I want from here on and get on with the program. It's not going to be easy, I know that, but it's nothing I can't deal with. I have proven myself time and again that I can adapt and I can flourish in any situation. I am resilient, creative and I can stick to my own plans with astonishing stubbornness, as my recent Mock Lottery Project showed me this year. If I want it, I can make it happen, and I will make it happen.

2024 will be the year I'll step on the gas on to reach my goal to become the Aunt March of my story.

New Year Resolutions

Isn't it exciting? It's January 1st, an actually very normal day, nothing truly special from any other day, but it's yet something fantastic! It's the begining of a a new year and with it the chance to set to ourselves new goals, review the year that has passed (though some did all that yesterday and today are nursing a mother of hangovers), and so on. ^_^ It's very invigorating! Yes, haters and trolls will go around mulling and bitching on how "it's a day like any other day" and "there's nothing special about it" and "the world hasn't changed because it's a new year" and so on. It's ok, take a moment to pity them, but then go on and be happy and excited! I mean, "Friday" doesn't exist as such exactly, but don't we love it when it comes? Let bitter people be bitter, and concentrate on being awesome. :-)

Our lives are a long chain of cycles, and these cycles help us improve and move ahead. Something that motivates us are our goals. They are like little hopes and promises we set to ourselves, like a candle we set to light the path to were we want to go. Like what? Well, our big goals are like getting a degree, or finally opening our own business, raising kids, buy a house and so on. A lot of our goals take quite some time to achieve, and when we fulfill them, we usually feel really good about them. Smaller goals can also be set, which we can achieve in shorter periods of time. Resolutions are like these. This custom is about taking this date to set goals for the year to start, with the finality of fulfilling them within it. The good thing about this is that the New Year Resolutions give you a foreseeable time frame to fulfill them.

Several articles and posts talk about how New Year Resolutions can be positive or negative, or how they are good for nothing or very valuable. I guess it depends on your attitude towards it. These resolutions are as good or as bad as To-Do lists, not holier not any more evil.

Last year I set myself 18 goals for 2015, from which I completed 8, and one... somehow. This year I decided to go with 13 goals, which are the following:

1. Keep track of my finances, along with improving my accounting system and making a bigger effort to follow a budget.

2. Save money

3. Get fit. I no longer need to lose weight, but I'd like to start improving the shape of my body.

4. Complete the scrapbook project for my Mom.

5. Blog weekly in here, monthly in my Hungarian blog.

6. Make new friends

7. Write more

8. Read 24 books

9. Journal more

10. Spend less (this will be tricky)

11. Meditate

12. Work on my BoS

13. Have an art ot nature experience monthly

:-) Like a yearly, wonderful List of 13.

Happy 2016, and may the odds be ever in your favor!

Resolutions - An Errand Thought

Well, these are slowly the last posts of the year. As usual, my first thought with them is to start them with "I ran late again with the posting, didn't I?", but I'm trying to refrain from that (and failing miserably). Of course, it's not like I've an actual commitment to you, lovely, dark, silent, anonymous Readers of Mine, but because that was one of my 2015 New Year Resolutions. Of course, I also decided to post at least monthly in my Hungarian blog but only managed to get it going well until August. Not like that's so bad, mind you. You see, like a friend of mine says: "the good thing about unfulfilled New Year Resolutions is that you can recycle them for the next year". So I'll be recycling that one. ^_^ Well, those two.

It's still early to make the recount of how I have fared with my other resolutions, but just let it be said that most of them have been fulfilled quite well, and I'm very pleased. Perhaps for 2016 I'll choose to give some continuation to them by resetting those unachieved, and for those achieved setting further goals or next steps. I think the point of Resolutions isn't to feel bad about making promises to ourselves that we don't keep (or don't intend to really keep), but rather to set an aspiration clearly before us, something to inspire us through the year, to feel good when we achieve it, and also to measure up ourselves, and see how close we've got to achieve it. It's kind of sad or pathetic to think of people who don't keep the promises they make to themselves. Pathetic when they don't keep them to themselves or to others. What worths a person who's word worths nothing?

But a Resolution isn't a promise, it's a goal, and as such, there are chances that you may achieve it or that you may not, and both of them are ok if you understand well the nature of the resolution and the underlying wisdom of it. The point of them - in my personal opinion - is to always be inspired to improve. It's like running a marathon: if you don't make it the first time, worry not. Take account of what happened, your strenghts, your shortcomings, your feelings, your impressions, and work on them, include them in your calclations, make your plans accordingly and reset your goals.

The problem, however, is when your goals strive for something you have no power upon. Resolutions like "winning the lotto" are quite set for failure, because aside from buying the lotto tickets there's really nothing you can do to ensure you achieve the goal. Well, of course that people hardly actually set goals like that, BUT they do set similar goals, like "open a successful business", or "make a lot of money", or "get married" (when they have no significant other at the moment, or the one they have have not shown any interest in getting married), or "become a super model" and stuff like that. So let's get real, there are things you can set as Resolutions because their achievement depends entirely of you. Saving up money for a trip, spending more time with the kids (assuming the kids have more time to spend with you), do more charity work, reduce your carbon footprint, lose or gain weight, get in shape, become more fit, get on track with your studies... those are all things where, if you apply yourself you can really achieve them, buut things like getting liked by the kind of people you want to date, or opening a successful business are not because they depend on other people. Let me explain this: say you want to be liked by girls and get married to a girl. You could study what girls like, learn how to be more likable, modify your behavior and all that in order to be more pleasing to girls and that's alright, but all you get is maybe attention. You don't command the liking of girls to be focused on you. It doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you, or that there's something you can fix about yourself, it simply means that the people you meet are not into you.

With the business is a tad more complicated, because there where one might want to make one person fall in love with them, or convince their long standing significant other to tie the knot, with a business you need to convince and keep a segment of the market interested in your product. Bookstores are filled with a bunch of garbage literature about "how to make a successful business", which are a large heap of bullshit. Again, it's not a matter of having the "keys of success" at your disposal, or sending the "right kind of energy to the universe", it's about demand and supply and what the fickle whims of the market want to grab on or not.

Some things need to be worked on and even with heaps of time and energy invested in them they may not achieve the dreamed business success or the dreamlike wedding. Disappointment ensues, as expected, but never the realization that the expectation was outside the realm of what was manageable.

Bottomline: when you plan out your Resolutions, think them in terms of what you can actually achieve by yourself (what you have control upon), in the alotted timeframe.

Getting Ready

I'm a few hours away from starting my new work year. New Work Year at the old place, the company for which I've worked already eleven years. Wow, that feels good. :-) I know that, for some people, spending more than four years at the same company is synonymous of stagnating, being caught, swamped, but I'm from that old school of thinking that values stability, thus a long term job, years invested in the same company are meaningful. You don't want to be a job-hopper, after all, a high-churning-rate worker, someone in whom the employer can't trust because you might take off any time, wasting all the invested time and money of the company in further education. However, be it as it may - and allow me a moment to remind you again how grateful I am that I've a job, and such a good one - I really feel that two weeks off were short. I still want to be on vacation, I still want time to be lazy and stay at home, wake up late and wear comfy clothes. Oh well, I guess I'm only human.

My holidays have been spent quite fruitfully. I didn't go anywhere, as I usually do on my vacations, but rather stayed at home, slept - which is the best and most efficient way of spending any free time, if you ask me - got in touch a little with the more alternative side of my spirituality (yes, I've been dabbling into the Pagan, but in a way that maybe Pagans wouldn't approve, as I call in God), read a some very good books (from my Goodreads 2014 challenge, I've got to read 23 out of the 24 books I intended to read), and also did some cleaning and arranging in my room. That was funny. actually. Did I mention it already? That I dusted the whole room, because I wanted to change my bedclothes, and since I was dusting I rearranged my shelves? Yeah, one small thing becomes a big one.

I also made my monthly budget for 2015 and was quite... surprised at actually how tight my budget is for this coming year. Yep, lots of new expenses I didn't have last year (since I have a new car, Nate), but also due to the savings plan I committed to for this year. Well, I'm happy I can do it, so I'll do my best and try to stick to the plan. I'm trying to take these things more seriously, keep a tighter control on my wallet than what I have shown so far, so I don't face unpleasant surprises. I can tell you that I definitively hated receiving my credit card's balance every month and see it grow just because I always ended up spending my money on other things rather than paying my debt. Well, that was in 2014, and I won't let that happen in 2015. I want to be happy when I check my bank balances, I want to be happy at the end of the year, not horrified because I have to spend my saved up money on paying the results of my uncontrolled spending.

My desk.
After I took the picture I still changed a few things, got a new desk calendar on which I can write, perfect for penpalling.

One other thing I did was tackle my accumulated mail-pile. I'm proud of myself, because I managed to pretty much get back on track with all my letters. I've only four letters to answer, though these are from my chattier friends, so they might take a while. However, I no longer have a pile of unopened letters with accusing date stamps on them staring at me and making me feel guilty. I don't know how many of those penpals are going to still want me as their friend (I know of those who still do, and I'm so grateful for that!), but finally I'm going back to it. To each of them, in the very tone and spirit of our conversation, I explained to them what happened, and then answered their letters according to what I deemed still relevant. Lord, I had letters unanswered since 2013! But I'm reclaiming my life and the things I love to do, and hope this never happens again. or at least not again in the medium run.

Welcoming A New Year

Well, here it is 2014, and I haven't even been able to catch up with my new filofax, the segments and all the new plans and ideas one has as soon as December 31st becomes January 1st. I'm still on vacations, which is a big, big plus right now as I need time and patience to map out this new year. Already have some Resolutions, to call them somehow (wrote more in depth about them in my Hungarian blog), which could be quickly resumed as it follows:

1. Continue my studies to get my degree in Accounting.

2. Work harder at the office, which in this particular case is a Resolution more oriented to the organizing of my work, which I haven't been able to figure out just quite yet.

3. Keep working on my Filofax. Basically, it means to make it more functional to my needs, and this time add two (maybe three) definitive sections: Work and University (and Finances).

4. Keep practincing archery. My goal hear is to get to 2015 shooting at 70 meters.

5. Read 24 books.

6. Keep doing the List of 13.

Yes, it would have been magical to make 13 of them, but 6 is quite enough, wouldn't you agree?

In this spirit, I have spend my whole day trying to organize in some fashion the files I keep in my computer and erase everything I don't need... and the work isn't even finished yet! To my horror, I realized I had created similar folders for the same thing in different locations and none of them made any particular sense. That's also something I want to tackle, but I won't make it into a Resolution, because it could take years and years of my life. I just know the way I do things. Then worked on some templates and some inserts for my filofax, and haven't even finished and already realized that I've planned so much this new binder would be again bursting at the seams. Hopefully the paper I purchased from filofax will be thin enought to make it manageable.

January is pretty much a month of hope, of dreams, of energy, of plans, where the year seems full of attainable possibilities. Hopefully we won't forget about that. It is, indeed a chance to make things better, to try harder, to make something different, to change something, to get rid of something or gain something. As we have artificially created these cycles, we have in our hands a way to measure our actions and our efforts. What can we manage in a year? Well, let's try it out. It didn't work last year? Well, it could very well work this year! Who knows? Now we at least have the experience we gained in 2013, right? So let's use it!

Now, there's something I would like to take from last year, a little something, a comment really, that could work as a warning for all of us. By the end of the year I came across some people with whom I've had a sort of disagreement years ago - and whom I haven't seen since then. The dispute had been unpleasant, but nothing nearly mortal, or so I thought. They were - how should I say this - well, determinated to ignore my presence, but in a way that came a bit... childish. I was taken aback by their actual effforts to ignore me in a group where the rest of the people wasn't doing so, which, well, came out quite awkward. I did greet, did smile - don't like them at all, but you know, there's a certain level of "hypocrisy obligued by politeness" you must exercise from time to time - but they didn't. Oh well, that's them, life goes on, and everyone behaves the way that makes them feel better. More power to them. Anyway, the next day they talked to someone who was in the previous event and apologized to them (weird, right? Because that person wasn't even the host!), and said that they behaved the way they did because they couldn't forget what I posted about them maybe some five or ten years ago in one of my many, many blogs (actually, not in this, but in one that's hardly read).

Now, I'll be generous and assume that they came up with the first thing that came to mind to cover up some other, shameful reason for their behavior (got into a fight and didn't want to admit to it, had a terrible setback, are under a lot of stress, etc.). However, I must say that my first reaction was disbelief. Could it be that my simple, subjective, humble opinion is so powerful that it actually has the power to mark other people's lives? Because in order to do that, it would mean that my opinion has much more strenght than the opinion people have of themselves. Am I perceived as a sort of Guru of Life? Am I an Oracle of Personality? Or perhaps a Conjurer of Tempers? Actually, no, I am not, but you all know that. Nobody can simply talk someone into change, or alter their selves by simply speaking words. Some words can be hurtful at time, or astonishing, or flattering, or even surprising, but the effect they have on you depend only on you. People only have the power you give them.

They made me think of the Moron Lady, you know, the terrible Director I had in my previous department, the one that harrassed us all. When I was under duress, I did send all politeness out of the window and ignored her as much as I could, even refused to look in her direction when I wasn't speaking or spoken to, basically to be able to keep my composure, and got to the point where stress went to my jaw and I couldn't open it to talk or eat. However, now that I moved on and happy at my new department, I see no reason why not to greet her or smile at her politely. It doesn't mean I like her or that I agree with the way she manages her team - and as a unionist, I plan to work forward to help people under her and other bosses like her to get free of their reign of terror. You don't have to agree with some people or the ideas some people uphold, and you don't have to ignore the damage done to you, but that doesn't mean you must let that harm, those words or that episode take over your whole life. If you do, then that event, those words, that opinion, those actions will become your reality, and you will make them more true than they were ever meant to be.

Well, thing is that this happens all the time: we let publicity convince us and shape our lives in ways that take it out of our hands to become something that suits the needs of a company that leeches on us. We let magazines tell us what to think about our body, let them rearrange our priorities to their convenience, often going against what would be best for our own lives and our plans for it. Sometimes we hold so much and get hung up on something someone said and dwell in it. How many times had it hurt us when some acquintance or just anyone tells us something like "you are fat" or "your hair is quite messy" or "those clothes make you look ugly" or "your nose is too big"? Someone says we are stupid and we fall for it. Then person we have a crush on says we are not attractive (or start dating someone else) and we believe we are no good and nobody will ever love us. We tend to make opinions into inmutable, absolute truths, when they are not. They are simply a point of view of a person. Not true or false, simply a subjective, personal appreciation. Think of the following: just because I say blue is an ugly color, it doesn't make blue an ugly color. Blue is a color, just as lovely as any other color in the chromatic scheme, so my opinion of blue doesn't define the truth about it. Same with everything else. Same with everybody else.

In this sense, I'd like to call upon this curious situation for all of us to reflect on, to take a moment to analize those elements that seem to define us so much, and think of them, determinate if they are really such milestones, or if we have blown them out of proportion, giving them a power taht do not belong to them.

2014, sounds like a good year to recover our power over ourselves and our lives.