whim: an odd or capricious notion or desire; a sudden or freakish fancy

Monday, May 20, 2013

new ideas, new goals

I'm encouraged to know that despite all the work I did in grad school, I still have the desire to write things. Here are some essay ideas I've been throwing around in my head:

1. Diving horses: when I was a young one, I saw a delightfully cheesy movie called Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken, which is about a runaway teen who gets into diving horses. Interesting concept, rendered more interesting by the fact that diving horses WAS A REAL THING. Oh yes. Performers would ride a horse to the top of a tall platform (as high as 60 feet), and they would dive into a pool of water. Sound intriguing, and dangerous to the health of both horse and rider. The act was popular in Buffalo Bill-type shows. A few years ago some people wanted to reinvent it, but PETA got involved. The whole thing would make a marvelous essay, and I intend to write it.

2. Book buying: I've actually had this one marinating for a year or so. I'm interested by the of owning books as well as reading them––I have multiple copies of my favorite books, and I'm completely seduced by beautiful book covers. This essay would dive into my habit (obsession?) of book buying, and hopefully make some sort of complaint about ebooks and such. Not that I'm completely opposed to ebooks, but I do have qualms.

3. London nostalgia: I've been craving my favorite city lately. I'm not as traveled as I would love to be, but I don't see any places dethroning this one anytime soon. I may write about St. Paul's (that gorgeous, glorious building), or Borough Market, or even Jack the Ripper. I also need to write more about Charles and Mary Lamb.


Also, I wanted to record a few goals that I've been trying to set for myself lately. School has robbed me of a lot of good habits and other things I had previously established, so I'm hoping to return to some sort of normalcy. I realized that I've written about goals recently, and probably the same goals, so I don't want to be redundant, but I'm rewriting them for my benefit. Indulge me one more time:

1. SLEEP. And not just sleep, but at appropriate hours. I'm writing this blog post at 4:45am, which is completely ridiculous, but it demonstrates my inability to go to bed at night. I'd like to go to bed around midnight and have around 8 hours of sleep. This is going to be a tough one.

2. Take care of my body. This is big. I want to exercise (4-5 days a week) and eat healthier foods (less sugar). I suppose I could include sleep here as well. I don't want to think about health in terms of pounds or clothing size, but I do want to measure it according to how I feel. I want to regain some of the confidence I've lost the past couple of years.

3. Less media: In school, I tried desperately to find distractions, mindnumbing things to give my brain a break after writing and reading and grading and lesson planning. This led to a lot of TV watching and internet surfing. Don't get me wrong––I'm still going to be faithful to Doctor Who, Downton, Sherlock, and a couple others, but I want to make any TV time I take be (what I consider to be) worth it. And as far as internet goes, I don't get sucked into Facebook or Pinterest much, but I have been wasting so much time on Buzzfeed. It's a black hole, a delightful black hole, so don't get sucked in, people. Approach with caution.

4. Spirituality: Attend temple regularly, have more meaningful scripture study and prayer, and try not to complain about boring Relief Society or Sunday School meetings.


Slow and steady, folks. At some point I have to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life, but that's for another post.