18 Resolutions for 2018

So it's been a while. Last semester… last semester was tough for me. And while the holidays were a nice break, things were stressful in their own way. As it stands, I am wading in to the depths of my last semester as an undergraduate, and that is both terrifying and exciting. This semester I am taking five classes, volunteering, and I still have those two jobs, so I'm living a pretty busy life these days. A busy life, but (I hope) a happy one. As it stands, we're already a whole two weeks into the new year, but I have yet to share my resolutions. Now I know that 'New Year, New Me' rarely works, and I get that. Even so, I'm pasted below the changes big and small that I want to make to my life:

18 Resolutions for 2018 (in no particular order)

1. Start running again
2. Read at least one non-academic book a month
3. Read at least 18 non-academic books total
4. Exercise 4-6 days per week
5. Focus on learning more than grades
6. Complete all assignments on time
7. Set aside time to write every week
8. Eat a balanced diet
9. Buy ugly fruits and veggies
10. Follow a regular sleep schedule
11. Spend more time with friends and family
12. Save up money for a new computer
13. Take shorter showers
14. Improve time management
15. Write a minimum one blog post per month
16. Donate one third of my personal library
17. Reach out to those I disagree with
18. Do what I can to bring happiness to the world

Cheers,
Talia

Failure

Like most people, I make commitments that I don't always follow through on. If you have followed through with every single thing you have committed to do over the entirety of your life then congratulations, you are not like most people, are you even human because I think that failure is an intrinsic trait of humanity. No one is perfect, and as my favorite JK Rowling quote goes

"You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all―in which case, you fail by default."*

Not posting on the first Sunday after I said I would post every Sunday probably counts as a failure, but not as much as it would be if I failed Semantics for example. Which it is quite possible I could do considering I understand type theory about as much as I understand what it would be like to hate chocolate. All things considered I'm lactose intolerant and dark chocolate is definitely my least favorite desert, so there is some understanding, but mostly confusion. I'm being over dramatic of course, it is highly unlikely that I will fail Semantics. I do think my GPA might take a hit, but not an irreparable one.

To be honest, I spent most of my break reading. I read Swing Time by Zadie Smith, Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour, Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, The Grownup by Gillian Flynn and am halfway through The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. I'd like to think I could have read more books, but I was actually working throughout the break too.

Mostly I focused on my translations, because I have been struggling with them throughout the semester. At the beginning, it really was like pulling teeth, because for some reason the words just wouldn't flow. Now that we are closer to the end however, I feel like I am closer to the text, and one night mid semester I actually woke up wide awake at half past midnight only to start translating. I would have thought it was just a bizarre dream, but in the morning, I had 100 new lines of poetry. It was a distinctly unpolished work in the light of day, but I have been pecking at what I have translated ever since and now I think it is starting to be more cohesive.

Translating poetry is difficult, because on the one hand I feel like I am betraying the words, but on the other hand English isn't formed in the same way. I suppose this is something I will struggle with for the entirety of my life, but that prospect doesn't make it any better. I am very excited for this summer though because I will be going to Middlebury's Bread Loaf Translator's Conference, and that is something to get really excited over. You can bet I will make a blog post or two about that. I’ll also just write lots of posts about translation in general though, because that’s kind of the point of this blog.

Cheers,
Talia

*This quote is now the end quote for all my emails. Previously it was “We often just accept the things that we like and complain a lot about the things that we don’t like. But if we could, like, intensely dwell on the really great things in life the way we intensely dwell on the negative things in life. I think that would be fantastic.” ― Hank Green
But the aesthetic I am going for fits better with the JKR Quote, which is from her 2008 Commencement Address at Harvard. The printed version is called Very Good Lives and sales benefit her charity Lumos, as well as university-wide financial aid at Harvard.

Forgetting

I forgot how to write an essay. It's always like this, I get my sources, I prepare, and then it comes to the blinking line on a freshly opened word document, and I freeze. How do I write an essay? What are words? How do I form thoughts, oh my goodness seven whole pages I'll die. Shaking in my worn out sneakers, panic. Breathe, I have to breathe and focus because I actually know a fair bit about both Harry Potter and Mythology so what makes me so scared? It isn't the grade, because I was fine with the test last week and I haven't worried about it. I think it's the writing. Every time I sit down to write I remind myself that this is what I want to do, what I am good at, but another part of me screams that everything I put to paper is shit and I will fail out of life.

Okay maybe it is a little bit about the grade.

But that doesn't mean it isn't also more. It's the idea of commitment. Dedicating myself to a topic, weighing myself down. But what is a commitment?

It's much easier to say that you are going to do something than to actually do it. But is a commitment really a commitment if you don't see it through?

Sometimes I wonder.

And I think (I know) that I spend so much time in love with the idea of doing that I lose focus on the present. I am consumed by my future, constantly reaching for that fruit just out of my reach, I am holding up a world that doesn't need holding and with a hush I let go and nothing happens but I don't know, I can't know that everything will be alright. Nothing feels alright, it feels broken, I feel broken and that love I put into the present seeps into the future. My future. Don't give up what you want the most for what you want in the moment, but when is my moment? When will what I want arrive? Will I ever be satisfied?