Things I Have Done This Year

So we’ve established I’m lazy.  In a paltry attempt to save some face, here’s what I have done in the last four months:

1. I started Level 3 of The IT Course.

As usual I was the only person in the class with the ability to pay attention.  So most lessons were spent like this:

Only then I got a temp job and had to put the course on hiatus, which means that these people...

...have a qualification that I don’t.

2. I read a novel by someone I know and respect. 

I have long wished to read some of their work. 

So, what did I think of what I read?

3. I watched all eight Harry Potter films in one weekend. 

4. I got over The Melancholy. 

Admittedly I made a fool of myself and said a lot of total nonsense along the way, but sometimes that’s just what you have to do. 

I want this bubble out of you.  …  I touched a nerve, something burst.  All that talk of yours was simply a draining process.  We’ll never get to what’s important until you’re done.

~ Marathon Man by William Goldman.

I feel a lot better.  I’ve learnt the lesson that nothing important can be said in a text message.  And I’ve got a forty page short story out of it.

5. I got a temp job. 

This was a lot easier than the months of unemployment had led me to believe.

And turns out I was really good at it.

6. I got promoted after three weeks. 

7. I got an extension on my job. 

8. I got another extension on my job. 

9. I didn’t get another extension on my job.

10. I reedited my World War II MS Working Title: The Road To Confidence. 

It’s shaping up well, I think.  I just have one major scene missing, which I can’t work out at all.  Pretty dumb, writing the characters into a situation I can’t think how to write them out of.  Of course, I did know how to write them out of it; it just wasn’t a very good solution, so I’ve axed it. 

I feel uncomfortable having this hole in my novel, as if next time I open it up, the characters will have been caught because I didn’t give them a way out.

That makes me insane, right, I know.

11. I went to the cinema twice on the same day. 

This is like the double bills of the old days, so I could pretend to be in the 1940s.

12. I watched all nine series of Dad’s Army.  

13. I walked up a hill. 

14. ...So I joined a gym. 

Well, I visited one anyway.  A whole THREE times.

15. I babysat. 

16. I read Marathon Man in one day. 

17. I cleaned and tidied the kitchen. 

18. I made an apple and rhubarb crumble. 

19. I started writing The Blog again.