I’ve always done whatever I felt like doing in life. People may try to stop me, and convince me I’m wrong, but I won’t change.
– Haruki Murakami (via loveyourchaos)
I’ve always done whatever I felt like doing in life. People may try to stop me, and convince me I’m wrong, but I won’t change.
– Haruki Murakami (via loveyourchaos)
(via loveyourchaos)
(via loveyourchaos)
17. Regain a modicum of self-respect - Part 1
This item pisses me off a little, since it’s not intrinsically humorous and thus doesn’t lend itself to a short, vaguely amusing post. Boo. But really, it’s the crux of this whole project, even if it’s not as easily quantifiable as the others (“Developed a healthy sense of self-esteem - check!”).
A couple of weeks ago I went to the optometrist for the first time in three years because I was having trouble reading the lecture notes at uni. My eyesight has worsened by a truly medal-worthy 2 dioptres, taking my eyesight to a peachy minus-9.5.
“Do they actually make contact lenses in that script?” I asked my doctor.
“Yes,” he replied, “…in some brands.”
He asked why it had been so long since my last appointment. And honestly? I have NO. FRIGGIN’. CLUE. I have expensive, kick-ass health insurance. I have no particular animosity towards eye tests. There’s no shortage of optometrists in the city for me to visit. I just hadn’t thought to make an appointment.
My reasons for avoiding other doctors are probably more relatable. At 22, I still haven’t visited a gynecologist. Even though my retainer has come a little loose, I’ve been giving the orthodontist a wide berth. Much as I enjoy being half-naked and examined closely with a magnifying glass, it’s been awhile since I caught up with a skin cancer specialist.
But this is all bullshit. If there’s one thing to take away from all the media regarding the US healthcare reforms (and the coverage in Australia was pretty heavy), it’s that we’re really bloody lucky to be able to call up a local women’s health centre to make an appointment without worrying that we won’t be able to pay for it (or that there might be a picket line of born-agains outside). Hell, my skin cancer doctor bulk-bills! This is about us - well, specifically ME (my Tumblr, my rules) - saying that me and my wellbeing are important enough to spend a couple of uncomfortable minutes in the company of a speculum.
And this isn’t just about healthcare. It’s about all the other little things I neglect - seemingly insignificant things, like washing up the dishes. Or ironing. Or doing something (anything!) with my hair. I’m important enough to take the time to make me and my house look as fabulous as we can. My boyfriend deserves to spend time with someone who cares about herself as well as him. And my eyes are enjoying being able to read subtitles.
6. Learn to save money - Part 1
“My willingness to buy crap increases with the amount of hard-earned cash I have available.”
I’m calling it Jayne’s Law, and I’m expecting a call from the Nobel committee any day now. It is my greatest contribution to mankind thus far. You’re welcome.
Seriously, this never ceases to boggle my tiny little mind. Even when my boyfriend and I were both working full-time and earning six figures between us, the balance in our savings account never shifted. Not a bit. Every hour I spend at a desk is, invariably, an hour’s pay I feel compelled to spend on shoes or handbags or a cheeky croissant for lunch.
So this goal isn’t about saving $10,000 or $1,000 or tomorrow’s bus fare. It’s about consistently putting aside an amount. Every. Single. Week. Even if it’s just ten dollars to begin with.
I actually have made a start on this - we sat down and listed every little thing in our weekly budget. So far I’ve downgraded our health insurance (for reasons unbeknownst to me, I was paying for obstetric coverage), switched to a cheaper phone provider, and this weekend we’re setting up a joint account to cut down on our bank fees. We’re planning to cook from scratch more often (read: “at all”) and find a cheaper electricity provider.
We’re also developing a machine that will transport us to next financial year so I can collect my tax return already. If we can steal Doctor Who’s Tardis that would be particularly helpful, so do let me know if you see it hanging about. Ta.
(via loveyourchaos)
Yeah, I probably should have warned you: I will reblog anything with an owl, or a deer, or a Teabagger holding a mis-spelled protest sign (SOCIALISUM, indeed).
Carry on.
10. Knit a scarf - Part 1
Specifically, a big thick winter-white scarf, and possibly a matching hat, in the style of Ali MacGraw circa Love Story.
Full disclosure: I did not watch the entirety of this film because I get creepy Nicholas Sparks overtones from any movie in the “yay they’re in love and now EVERYONE MUST DIE” genre. (See also: Lurlene McDaniel.) But I watched enough to know that Jenny has bitchin’ hat-and-scarf sets. DO WANT. Seriously, I have knitting needles and everything, I just need to track down the right wool. My goal is to have this project complete by the beginning of our winter - June 1st. Thereafter, I shall be known as The Girl In The White Scarf as I skip merrily through my days (until I invariably spill marinara sauce on it. Oh yes).
What’s the point of the list?
I’m twenty-two and a half years old (my birthday is October 2, which makes my starsign Libra. The indecisive one, yes). In the four and a half years since I finished high school, I’ve worked at least a dozen different jobs, enrolled in no less than 6 tertiary programs (from apprenticeships to Bachelor’s degrees), and gained something in the neighbourhood of 25 kilograms (around 50 pounds, for those playing stateside). This is, frankly, not the direction my (academically-inclined, steadily-employed, reasonably-athletic) eighteen-year-old self would have liked to see herself heading.
Also, my eighteen-year-old self did not yet have a grating dependency on parentheses. Curious, that.
Certainly, some good things have emerged from my wanderings off the beaten path. I moved to the very nicest part of a city I love. I live with my (adorable!) boyfriend, who I’m quite willing to admit is far better than I deserve. I finally tracked down a pair of decent mid-heel black pumps in my size. Life is good. But I’m wasting it on crappy jobs and half-finished degrees; too many hours watching TV and eating food that arrives via telephone rather than my kitchen. I am the living, breathing incarnation of this phrase: “youth is wasted on the young.”
Not long ago, I realised that one day very soon I’ll wake up, and I’ll be thirty, and I’ll be doing exactly what I’m doing now - except I’ll be another 50 pounds heavier, most likely. To put it bluntly, this realisation scared the living bejeesus out of me.
I’d had enough of living my days on repeat. And so I came up with this list of everything I want to achieve in the next two and a half years. It’s not exhaustive - I’d like to have a degree well underway, and maybe have bought a home or gotten married. And I want a puppy, goddamnit. But the list is more about the little things I tell myself I’ll do “when I have the time” - because right now, I have nothing but time. I have four months before I can join the mid-year intake of the degree I’ve refused to apply for for the past two years because I thought I wasn’t smart enough. (And I’m applying for that degree tomorrow.) So that’s four months to get a head-start on all my little projects, and another two years to see them through.
Here we go.
21. Read every book on the ALA list of banned and challenged classics - Part 1
The full list of novels can be found here. These are the titles which have been banned or challenged, and the novels I’ve read are crossed off.
I added this task to my list because I’ve already read many of the books on the ALA list, and they’re some of the awesomest (shut up, it is a word) novels I’ve ever come across. You’ll have a hell of a lot more fun reading The Catcher in the Rye than trying to slog through Twilight (I gave up after 50 pages, breaking my previous Peter-Carey-induced record). Hell, I’d recommend American Psycho to schoolkids before I’d let them get their paws on anything Stephenie Meyer has shat out.
Although, I’d recommend American Psycho to everyone, just for the chapter-length discussions of the discography of various eighties pop singers. It seriously broadened my appreciation of Phil Collins.
1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding9. 1984 by George Orwell11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
23. Their Eyes are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
38. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair48. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence49. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
55. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
64. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
66. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
73. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
75. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
80. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
84. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
88. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
I’m planning to work through the books roughly in numerical order, depending on what the library has on shelf - so The Great Gatsby is first on my list. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank my high school English teacher for assigning us Brave New World (instead of the infinitely superior 1984) in Year 11, so now I don’t have to waste time reading the damn thing again.
There are around 35 unread novels on the list as I write this. I have 30 months to complete my list before I turn 25, so my goal is two per month (since I’m also planning to work my way through the Booker-prize-winning novels).
I realise this may sound ambitious, but hear ye: I EAT BOOKS. I can read 1000 pages in a day (especially if they’re Stephen King pages. No, I have no shame). If reading were a career option, I would be on the Fortune 500. I FEAR NO READING LIST, particularly this one, with its admirable lack of Peter Carey doorstops novels.
Seriously, fuck Peter Carey.
