People for a Panda-Neutral Society - Ignite Boulder 14

I mentioned that I had submitted a spark for Ignite Boulder 14.

Though my spark wasn't voted in by the people of Boulder, one of the organizers decided to include it anyway. After stressing out about it for weeks, attending several practice sessions with the other presenters, and frantically finishing up the slides seconds before the deadline crunched down on our heads (my boyfriend and I were both presenting, there was some serious work-couch going on that night), I was slotted to be the first speaker at Ignite Boulder 14. Take THAT, voters!

Here's how things turned out:



It's something like 3 weeks later, and I'm still getting stopped in the street by strangers who need to compliment me on my talk. Item 1, I'm no good at compliments - not receiving them, anyway - so this is a pretty excellent exercise in how to be a real human, in that regard.

Item 2, I'm really, really proud of how this turned out. I researched the crap out of it (and half of what I learned didn't even make it in - there could almost be a Part 2.) and spent forever rehearsing it, so I'm glad it went over well.

Item 3, this was my first time being intentionally funny in a public setting. I was terrified. What if I wasn't, y'know, any good? If my idea of funny wasn't anyone else's idea of funny? I'm so relieved that people liked it.

More than that, I'm thrilled that people got it, that they get my sense of humor. That sense of accomplishment (and of acceptance) is huge. I've never felt anything like it before - and I'm not gonna lie, I like it. I want to keep feeling it.

I have no idea what the next step is in any of it, or where to go from here, but I'm moving forward, looking forward to finding out.

Following Through

Looking back on last month's brilliant (brilliant?) ideas for the new year, here's how things are progressing:

I bought my derby gear! Tried out for the Denver Roller Dolls soon after, and gobbled asphalt. Lesson learned: learn how to skate BEFORE trying out for a league. Luckily, there's no short supply of derby in Colorado, and I was able to find quite a few places that look pretty good. For now, I'm going to be practicing with the Wreckin' Rebel Rollers, a pickup league down in Denver. I like the women and the atmosphere - it's very laid back and focused on building skills, not competition. Once I get comfortable there/on skates, I'll start looking in to tryouts for leagues and such.

Here's the bruise I gave myself last week: Basically, I'm terrified of stopping. Falling down is way easier. Stopping results in falling down WITHOUT control.

Despite coming back bruised, sore, and wondering what I'd gotten myself in to, I am super super excited to being going back weekly (possibly twice a week, if I can stand to put my body through that sort of torture.)

BIFF volunteer orientation is tomorrow night! I'm excited to get my schedule locked down, and to meet the other volunteers.

Vacation semester: I gave myself a month to fuck around, and now that's over. I'm slowly getting back in to the grind of doing work, which stinks, but going at my own pace is nice. Working with my therapist, I've emailed my professors about how last term ended, and am working on getting myself on solid academic footing re: vacation semester. (So I'm actually on a hiatus instead of accidentally dropping out.)

Don't think I mentioned it on here, but I've been bandying about the idea of submitting a spark for Ignite Boulder for more than a few months. Ignite is a community speech event, where each presenter has 5 minutes (and an automatically advancing powerpoint presentation) to speak to the crowd about whatever they think is important. My spark, People for a Panda-Neutral Society, is currently up for vote at the Ignite website. I'm actually more terrified of the voting process than I am of speaking. And yes, this speech would effectively be a scientifically accurate version of my "Why I Hate Pandas" rant. I did some actual research on my usual sticking points the other day, and it tuns out that pandas are EVEN MORE USELESS than I'd originally thought. Hopefully, PETA-loving Boulder will be interested enough in this spark to let me actually talk. (If you'd like to vote and help convince them, that would be swell.)

Books: haven't actually been back to the library yet, mostly been catching up on books I have lying around the house. With a truly excellent used bookstore not a mile from my apartment, the stack of unread novels has grown near-Hoarders high over the last year. It's nice to start making a dent in it. Here's the damage so far:

1. Spider Robinson - Night Watch
2. Bentley Little - Dispatch
3. Frank Beddor - The Looking Glass Wars
4. Shreve Stockton - The Daily Coyote
5. Orson Scott Card - Treason
6. Robert Thurston - Robot Jox
7. Orson Scott Card - Ender in Exile

It's New Hoth City cold out there right now (the temp in Boulder fell 110 degrees (counting windchill) overnight the other night. Seriously. Right now it's -6. Ick.), so tonite seems like a good night to do some laundry, clean, watch movies under the covers, etc.

Oh, except I also decided that since derby practice is canceled (the warehouse we practice in isn't heated, so being there would've been pretty bad news bears all around), I'd join one of my twitter friends' Mah Jongg group for the night. I've never played before, but it's the first step towards becoming a proper old jewish lady. Excited!

Going In With a Bang

2011 is only a week old, and here's the list of dumb shit (awesome stuff) that I've already committed to:

- Signed up for the Colorado Warrior Dash on August 20th. Fuzzy viking helmets and fire pits at ~10,000 feet? I'm gonna die.
- Resolved to write at least 1 piece of handwritten correspondence every week. (Want to be the lucky recipient? Comment.)
- Read 50 books. Given how I've started off this year, I suspect that I'll win this one before the end of the semester.
- Related, make friends with the local library again.
- Also related, keep a running tally of those books here at this blog.
- Also related, actually document the number of times I read Treason in a year. I'm prepared to be mortified.
- Also related, read more short stories from internet-only (or mostly) publications. Clarkesworld, I look forward to being friends with you.
- While I'm at it, hell, let's keep a movie list, too. Netflix isn't particularly good at keep tabs on what I've watched. Maybe if I watch Mindwarp enough times, it'll magically appear on DVD.
- Create it Forward -- I'm going to send something handmade to the first 5 people who comment on this statement. I guess it was supposed to be a Facebook thing, but it's here now, too, so we'll see what happens w/ that.
- Submitted my volunteer registration for the Boulder International Film Festival this February.

Now I just need to keep up this momentum.

New Year, New Plan.

Welp, Reverb 2010 is over, and while I might still plug in a few entries from the prompts, I think it's time to face the cold hard reality that ReadAGoddamnBook cannot exist on Reverb prompts alone.

It's time to refocus, and figure out what the hell this blog is going to be all about. I don't want to turn it into a journaling space (lord knows that Livejournal sees more than enough of that from me), but I don't want to hide behind a stringent concept. Reverb has shown me that there's something... freeing in being publicly honest about how my brain functions, and I don't want to lose that in this space. But I'd like to hone it in.

So let's start with this:

I finally admitted to myself that I'm burnt out on grad school. To that end, I've committed to taking a vacation term next semester.

Now, when I tell people that this is a thing that's happening, the first question that gets asked tends to be "Well, what are you going to do instead?" There's no answer that makes them all happy. People want me to have a gameplan, a long-term goal. The truth of it is, the thing that's driven me to this vacation term is the fact that I don't. I've been on this path for so long, that I've lost track of what it is that I want. So long term plan? No fucking clue. It's not on the table. That's not what this is about.

I want to take this term to figure things out. Try new things, fail at a couple of jobs that I'm not totally in love with. Volunteer. Teach. Maybe even write. Do things that terrify me. Date. Address some issues and concepts that I've toyed with, but never faced headon. Talk to strangers. Not default to obscure minutia and snark as conversation points. Catch up on schoolwork. Proofread a paper. Recalibrate. Readjust.

I'm not sure how it's all going to pan out, but I'm pretty stoked to try.

Goddammit Bastian, Just Give the Empress a New Name.

Prompt 23 – New Name

Let’s meet again, for the first time. If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be and why?

(Author: Becca Wilcott)

I wouldn't. I love my name.

I just wish that people understood me when I said it.

My name makes total sense, once you know that it's a contraction, an abbreviation of my full name. (Clearly, we all know what a contraction is, I can't seem to help but be condescending today.) But when I try to introduce myself at a crowded bar, at a loud show, it's just not worth it. "Marsha? Misha? Chris?" Ugggh. So I start with my given name about 80% of the time, and pray that if we end up being friends, you'll catch on (not hard, since it's how I refer to myself in conversation) that I much prefer the abbreviated version to the full version.

M'ris is something I own. Something I created, something that's me. The version of me that exists in my head. She's cooler, smarter, funnier, more self confident, awesomer in every possible way. She probably has superpowers. She can totally kick your ass, intellectually, at least, and she's not afraid to do it. Introducing myself as such helps me manifest those things, helps me believe that she and I are the same person, that I'm actually as awesome as I'd like to think that I am.

There are absolutely people who never figure that out, who call me by my full name every time we interact. The longer it goes on, the more irritating it gets. Usually, though, it's a pretty good indicator that this person and I probably aren't meant to be very good friends. (In light of recent events, I should really pay more attention to that one in the future. If someone has been hanging out with me 24/7 for several weeks, and still doesn't get it, I should probably just abandon ship - they're never gonna.) I guess I could be up front about it, introduce myself as such 100% of the time - but the other part of it is that my given name is also a shield. It distances me from people I either don't know that well (and therefore don't trust, not with my name and certainly not with me), or people that I can't be close to (usually professional relationships - bosses, teachers, etc.)

It even lends itself to other situations. When I play Rock Paper Scissors, my stage name is Mr. Is. Which has turned out to be awesome, and Mr. Is is a cheerful curmudgeon who can't stop smiling. The highlight of that name was actually my dad: When he came out to a match 2 summers ago, he played under Mr. Isn't. I couldn't be prouder.

Try v. 1.2

What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it?

Roller derby is tangible (tho, bad news, due to inventory delays I don't get my gear til January. Rats.), let's try getting a bit more esoteric, here.

Next year, I want to try failing. Not the self-sabotage sort of failing that I'm so damn good at, but rather, trying things and not liking them. Walking away from situations. Making decisions knowing that whatever I decide, it's not the end of the world.

See, I have this issue with fatalism. In my head, every decision ever made is the final one. There's no going back, no changing my mind. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.

This results in things like sticking with a job I hate, even though I'm miserable there and no good at it. Holding on to friendships even when they're not healthy for me, or stubbornly refusing to speak to old friends because of past differences, even if enough time has passed that we could, conceivably, be civil to each other. Refusing to stray from my chosen career path because, it's a path, I can't wander off of it.

Doorways don't represent possibilities to me, they lead into rooms with no windows and no way out, and the door that led me there slams shut behind me. Every decision I make, I agonize over, because there's something in me that makes me believe that I'll never have a chance to reverse it.

So, next year, I want to try failing. I want to see what it's like to not hold myself to a life choice, to walk back through an open door and try something different.

I don't particularly know how to manifest this. I just want to be able to do new things (or change old things) without them being a decision that will lock me in for the rest of my life. I want to be free from the weight of the world that has rested on my shoulders for as long as I can remember.

I'm seriously toying with the idea of a vacation semester. I've never taken time off from school (outside of breaks and graduation, anyway), I've never transferred programs. Education has always been a strictly linear engagement, and not finishing the things you start with it - I've never perceived that as an option. It's never been presented to me as one. I spent 13 years at a private school that I hated, did my undergrad in 4 years straight. (2 of those years, I hated my school and desperately wanted to leave. Did I? No. Did it work out for the best? Yes. I ended up loving it. In retrospect, I even liked my private school, and would like to send my future children somewhere similar, though not for 13 years.)

I know what the arguments against such a thing are. Just get it done. Muscle through it, crank it out, put it behind me, move on. I've been struggling so much the past few semesters, though, that I can't see how that's a good idea. I think I need to take some time off (even though the possibility of doing "nothing" terrifies me) so that I can regroup, rethink, reassess. Fail a little bit now, so I can do something spectacular later.

I don't like the feeling of not finishing something - yet when I self-sabotage, that's exactly what happens. What if, instead of backing myself into a corner, and consequently feeling awful about my inability to follow through with things, I opt-out? Take the time to finish things at my own pace, try new things, do something different?

I don't know. That route, it's new. It's foreign. It's scary. But I'm thinking, the old routes haven't been working out so well. So maybe it's time to try something different.

Do or Do Not, There is No Try

Prompt #18 – Try
What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it? (Author: Kaileen Elise)

I'm going to try not to Bucket List.

This year, last year, and basically every year since I've been out of college, I've been super in to the idea of Roller Derby. My record label even sponsored one of the Philly teams, the Heavy Metal Hookers - and yet, somehow, I'd never gone to a derby match before this year.

(In my defense, they just never synched up with my schedule. Derby tends to be on Saturday nights, which makes it kind of hard to commit to, especially when there are concerts that need to be attended. (Back then, they were "work functions".))

Anyway, this past October, I finally went to my first bout, with the Denver Roller Dolls.

Unsurprisingly, it was love at first jam.

Tomorrow, hopefully, I'll be heading down to Denver to buy skates and pads. I'll practice while I'm home (we've got a big old basement that's gonna be great to skate around), and DRD tryouts are the weekend after I get back to Colorado. With any luck, I won't have to try out TOO many times til I make the cut - and until then, I can still attend drop-in derby.

I'm totally stoked about it. I'm looking forward to exercising more, challenging myself, and hanging out with what appears to be a group of dynamic, interesting women. I also took mom and dad to their first bout while they were here in November - hopefully, since it is actually a sport, I'll be able to get my dad and my little brother interested in it, which would give us something to talk about. (My brother LOVES sports - I really hope he gels to derby the way I have.)