[No cycling sign at Queens Warf in Brisbane, Australia. Credit]
I began this new year with a sure determination to make it a good one. The first week and a bit of January saw me achieving my goals and happily moving through my rigorous to-do list (I am a great one for making lists and I had January carefully mapped out). At this point severe flash flooding hit my home state of Queensland, Australia. The Brisbane River broke its banks and the flat I share with my partner, was all-but cut off and without power. While we were counting our blessings (we’d just moved in a month or two prior and our previous residence went under) it was somewhat unpleasant to be stuck in the middle of the Queensland summer with no fans or air-conditioning and a fridge and freezer full of deteriorating food. We ended up managing to flee to my partner’s parents’ home in the outer suburbs and stayed with them for a few days.
On Sunday the 16th of January (a day after we’d gotten home), I woke at 1am with severe abdominal pain. I assumed it was the most severe case of trapped gas I’d ever experienced but at 4:30am the pain had only increased and we called the ambulance. I spent the day in emergency and was diagnosed with gallstones (both my mum and maternal grandma have had their gallbladders out but this was my first and only attack). The basics of my hospital stay were that I was on the list for emergency surgery, which I got on the 19th and was discharged on the 20th. I turned 23 in the 23 Hour Ward on the 18th.
Since then I have done almost nothing all day, every day.
I’m recovered from the surgery, I was recovering extremely quickly the day after, but I seem to have lost my ability to get things done. In an effort to motivate myself I’ve taken a good look at what is important to me this year and what I hope to accomplish.
Second Life Work: I run my own business in the 3D virtual world of Second Life. This generally gives me great pleasure - I'm earning an income by indulging my passions for fashion, design and art - but it's also a great deal of work. In the constantly evolving user-generated environment skills, vision and good marketing are extremely important. I have an employee for the latter and as for skills and vision, my goals for this year mostly centre around them. On this blog I will probably mostly look at Second Life and SL fashion from a more academic perspective. Of Deer & Dogs is the blog used for my brand, Whippet & Buck.
University: I want to get the most out of this year at school. I'm doing a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Creative Writing Production) and while I love the course I haven't been doing as well as I would have liked (for various reasons). I want to rediscover my love and passion for uni this year and over-all just get things done.
Health: Both mental and physical. One of my health goals is to drink a cup of tea every day. This goal is mainly to improve mental health - drinking tea from pretty cups is something I enjoy and can feel relaxed by.
Writing: Like many creative writing students, I've actually found myself getting burnt out on writing in the past few years. Before uni I was very keen and enjoyed reading and writing on a regular basis and I want to rediscover both these passions in 2011.
Fashion & Style: This is not something I need to improve my passion for, it's there, on other people at least. For my final goals section I chose things to improve my confidence in my personal style - on my own person. I'm a plus sized lady and have managed to get myself into an attitude where I love to style myself but don't want to do too much because I don't want people to notice me. It's a terrible and ridiculous attitude to have and I've had quite enough of it.
With this blog I intend to write about things relating to all these seemingly mis-matched subjects. With everything from Fatshion LOTD's to musings on writing life, organisation and virtual fashion I believe it will be almost impossible for this blog to find a niche - but I'm hoping I'll find the process cathartic anyway.
NB: If you're reading this and are interested in a full list of my goals/resolutions for the year, let me know in a comment.
