Resolutions 2013

Realized I should probably post these where I can find/see them, instead of lost to the Tumblr back pages.

• Exercise twice a week. Once gym, once something else. (Figure out the something else — Igloofest will do for the next few weeks, but some sort of dance or yoga class thereafter.) UPDATE: have actually been keeping up with this, due to Igloofest, that great improver of my Januaries. Really need to find a dance class. The goal is not so much to lose weight (though that'd be nice -- the 15lbs I'm not sure is even visible to anyone else is throwing my posture out, with deleterious effects on my lower back) as to break the vicious cycle whereby the more I don't exercise, the lower my energy level/metabolism/mood fall, the more I don't exercise, etc. Higher energy makes me more productive so I'm not actually losing time by exercising.
  
• For summer, though summer is hard to imagine right now: get a Bixi subscription and use it. Do the south river canal bike path like you’ve been meaning to for two years (this will require a proper bike rental). UPDATE: still to do of course.
  
• Read one book every two weeks and watch one movie every week from the paid-up backlog, until there is no more paid-up backlog. Make a two-sentence post just to prove you’ve done it. Seems generous time-wise, doesn’t it? Haaaa. UPDATE: several ppl I know are doing a weekly reading meme so I may as well jump on that. Did not watch any new movies in the past week but did rewatch the LotR extended editions, whatever, they are technically backlog and more to the point IT TOOK FOREVER (though a more than intermittently thrilling forever).
  
• Write something every week. Doesn’t much matter what, as long as you expend some effort to knock it into shape. Don’t passively react to deadlines (or the lack thereof, rather). UPDATE: oops did not finish anything last week, other than a few Singles Jukebox Blurbs Of Historical Importance. In the early weeks of January I... guess I wrote reams of Tolkien meta? And did a super-long writing meme haaaaa.

Bonus resolution: try to bullshit less on the Internet. No one likes a know-it-all. (Leaving high school behind is a forever-ongoing process.)

Weekly reading/watching meme

Adapted to my own purpose.

What are you reading/watching now?

D&D game is cancelled so going to watch Beasts of the Southern Wild at the Dollar Cinema tonight, methinks. Haven't picked next book yet (see below).

What did you just finish reading/watching?

Finished Beowulf on Saturday, during a four-hour hairdresser's appointment. (Felt really pretentious, which is not something I normally care about, but well.) Wrapping that up with some critical essays. I've been advised to look up the Seamus Heaney translation for comparison, which is serendipitous because I coincidentally fetched a Heaney lecture series from the house (one of the pieces is on Dylan Thomas; the other book I bought in the same lot as Beowulf is a Dylan Thomas collection). Will keep an eye out for that.

Brief thoughts: strong open, strong close. Arguably gives the lie to the chestnut that English passive tense is weak (how much of that is the original?). Recognizably British sense of humour (unexpected but disarming). Do not much care if something is defined as an epic or not and why, possibly because I do not have the value system of a classics translator. No leopard print bikinis. Tumblr thanks you, anonymous 8th century author, for indirectly causing there to be thirteen dwarves in The Hobbit, and also for Smaug, who really is fanfiction with the serial number filed off.

Speaking of Tolkien -- rewatched The Two Towers and Return of the King, extended editions, plus some of the featurettes. Am not convinced I have ever watched the extended RotK, actually. Have mellowed with age and am not actively enraged at the changes anymore, but they still disagree with me. (I don't think -- nor have ever thought -- that PJ & co. didn't have the right to make said artistic decisions in translating the novel to cinema; only that I didn't happen to agree; whereas eg. I agreed with almost all the changes to FotR.)

What will you read/watch next?

Good question? Will decide and update later tonight.