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Jan. 1st, 2010 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccastareyesHope all of you had a nice New Year's Eve. Ours was spent trying to stay awake and trying to figure out if any of the New Years programming was worth watching. Well, that and watching Fox and the local cable company square off -- they didn't get the contract renewed in time, so it was likely that Fox would go off the air at midnight*. Fox is using the fact that the local college team is playing in a bowl game in the evening as a bit of leverage, as people will be upset if they can't see the Gators play.
Plus, there was arguing over when the decade starts -- I kind of like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
swan_tower's suggestion based on Mesoamerican calendars. The last day of the month is the 'seating' of the next. The last five days of the year** -- which tended to annoy ancient people because 365 was hard to split up evenly, while 360 was so easy -- were the seating of the next year. So any XXX0 year would be the last year of the decade, and the seating year of the next decade.
It also seems like my caffeine tolerance has progressed enough that I can have tea after dinner when tired, as long as I don't overdo it. There were fireworks on the beach, as well. Earlier, during daylight, we walked along the beach to look at the birds and stuff. There was supposed to be a manatee handing out by the pier, but he had left. I did see sea turtles, though.
As for 2009, I'll do a retrospective later. As is, it seems like a year. I gave my first DPS talk, and went to Puerto Rico and one state I hadn't been before. My health remained constant, for the most part***. I got back a bit of my art muse, and did a bunch of writing, even if I did skip NaNo and default on Yuletide (I turned in a Pinch-hit, and intend on making it up to my assigned writer). Sadly, a lot of my friends seem to have had rough 2009s, so I hope they have a better year.
For 2010, I should set some goals -- not quite resolutions, but things I have a tangible milestone for.
I'm going to forget these by February, I bet.
Speaking of interesting milestones, Spirit the rover is coming up on six years on Mars on the 3rd. Though it's still stuck in a sand dune and two wheels are broken. Its sister-rover, Opportunity will have its six-year milestone later in January, and is currently cruising south to look at another crater. The New Horizons mission crossed the distance halfway mark on the 29th -- it is now closer to Pluto than it is to Earth, though its time halfway mark is later. (It slows down as it coasts away from the Sun, just like a ball thrown upward -- except this ball got a kick from Jupiter, so it's never coming back down towards the Sun.)
--
* Turns out that they decided to let it sit for a couple of hours.
** Or six, for leap years.
*** Though right now, my shoulder has been unhappy with me -- I must have did something on Tuesday to it. If it's still hurting when I get back to New York, I'm going to have to call into the Health Center and have someone check to rule out anything I need to be in a cast for, or need set.
Plus, there was arguing over when the decade starts -- I kind of like
swan_tower's suggestion based on Mesoamerican calendars. The last day of the month is the 'seating' of the next. The last five days of the year** -- which tended to annoy ancient people because 365 was hard to split up evenly, while 360 was so easy -- were the seating of the next year. So any XXX0 year would be the last year of the decade, and the seating year of the next decade. It also seems like my caffeine tolerance has progressed enough that I can have tea after dinner when tired, as long as I don't overdo it. There were fireworks on the beach, as well. Earlier, during daylight, we walked along the beach to look at the birds and stuff. There was supposed to be a manatee handing out by the pier, but he had left. I did see sea turtles, though.
As for 2009, I'll do a retrospective later. As is, it seems like a year. I gave my first DPS talk, and went to Puerto Rico and one state I hadn't been before. My health remained constant, for the most part***. I got back a bit of my art muse, and did a bunch of writing, even if I did skip NaNo and default on Yuletide (I turned in a Pinch-hit, and intend on making it up to my assigned writer). Sadly, a lot of my friends seem to have had rough 2009s, so I hope they have a better year.
For 2010, I should set some goals -- not quite resolutions, but things I have a tangible milestone for.
- I want to submit a paper (at least). My research on particle sizes in the rings could probably go out, and I want to ask my adviser about what more needs to be done on my Hyperion stuff.
- I want to finish my Ph. D. by August of 2011, which means having a job lined up after the fact. As a result, that means in the fall I should apply for postdocs and postdoctoral fellowships. Heck, I might even try for a faculty position, even if I'm very unlikely to get one straight out of grad school.
- I want to do some more drawing and crafts for me, rather than MAX/
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mrcaex work and gifts. (Not that I don't love gift work). I don't know if I want to set a goal here, or what a good goal would be. - I want to finish another long work of fiction -- write and polish. Something novella length or longer.
- I want to write more original fiction -- have at least one piece out and polished. Either the story of my webcomic (it's easier to write it as a serial novel), finish the thing I wrote in '08 using webcomic characters, or get a short story done.
- I want to start exercising several times a week and cooking again, rather than eating 'stuff from a box' most days. Which means I need to clean out my kitchen when I get back. I'd like to be able to climb the stairs to my office without being winded -- that's a nice goal -- and have homemade (or reheated-homemade) dinner six nights a week.
I'm going to forget these by February, I bet.
Speaking of interesting milestones, Spirit the rover is coming up on six years on Mars on the 3rd. Though it's still stuck in a sand dune and two wheels are broken. Its sister-rover, Opportunity will have its six-year milestone later in January, and is currently cruising south to look at another crater. The New Horizons mission crossed the distance halfway mark on the 29th -- it is now closer to Pluto than it is to Earth, though its time halfway mark is later. (It slows down as it coasts away from the Sun, just like a ball thrown upward -- except this ball got a kick from Jupiter, so it's never coming back down towards the Sun.)
--
* Turns out that they decided to let it sit for a couple of hours.
** Or six, for leap years.
*** Though right now, my shoulder has been unhappy with me -- I must have did something on Tuesday to it. If it's still hurting when I get back to New York, I'm going to have to call into the Health Center and have someone check to rule out anything I need to be in a cast for, or need set.
