A Bug's Life

Can I do another 101 Things in 101 Days?

But the other way round? Starting with a big blank list, and seeing what I can fill it with before 101 days are up on 9 Jan. Mu ha ha.

( A list )

( A wish list )

http://bugshaw.livejournal.com/672962.html

I fell ill around Day 60 and stopped counting some things (like walking hours and days with no computer) but carried on walking etc. Work had got very busy and hectic, and I realise in an effort to maintain a work-life balance I unwittingly ramped up the goals in life to match those of work. Since then I have been chilling out a bit more.

29 Things Done! Good at reading stuff and going out to things. ( Read more... )

10 things made good progress. ( Read more... )

13 Barely tickled. It appears that I don't draw. ( Read more... )

49 Not even started. And some have been on the list for years. ( Read more... )

http://bugshaw.livejournal.com/672962.html

26. Make Secrit Project #2. DONE.
I made it, and it was all fabulous until the last stage. Bath bombs! In the shape of a cat head, using these treat tubs as moulds! I mixed everything up, pressed it into the moulds, and tapped them out to get perfect crisp shapes. Then put them in a large bowl to dry out in air for 3-4 hours, but when I went to check they had swelled up and softened, and spread to fill the bowl. You can tell there used to be two of them by the crease down the middle, but not what shape they were. I'm so glad I put them in a bowl, not on a table! tamaranth will bravely try a scoop of goop anyway, in her bath.

91. Something I don't know about yet but which will have to be done #1. Drag self kicking and screaming into the age of the smartphone. DONE.
I don't know how, but T managed to get Gmail working on my new/her old phone. So now it's not just LJ and Twitter I can do from it, but email, and download apps. And make calls of course. Hurrah!

Game Over. I've had a good time doing this - of course I was never going to complete everything, but it's had the desired effect of stirring me into doing more things that I purport to enjoy. "I'm particularly keen on things that take me away from the computer and involve social activity and/or different sorts of thinking from the analytics of work." I said; and I see I've been waaaaaay more successful on things that don't involve sitting in front of the computer.

I feel good when I can get in an hour of exercise a day, ideally walking. There were maybe 20 days of the 101 when I couldn't walk due to back/cold/snow/whatever, which I should perhaps factor in to future challenges. And why is it so hard to start on Tai Chi and Pilates when I feel so much better for them? Screen free days are good, I shall endeavour to keep on with that.

I've done a lot of fun stuff here, and the things I've not completed I have still to look forwards to :-) And there's still space for six more things...

44 Successes ( Read more... )

16 Partially completed ( Read more... )

35 Not done at all ( Read more... )

I dropped in at Kettle's Yard on the way back from a lovely cup of tea with I. Hurrah for days off!

The current exhibition is by Helena Almeida, who describes herself as a painter but much of her work is photography, specifically of herself. She seems to have an uneasy relationship with paint - it covers her in photographs, you see her as the subject paint on herself. Paint consumes her, or she consumes it? Here, she crouches on the floor. Is she ingesting the pigment or regurgitating it as she retreats across the room? Other works are choreographed/posed photos. In some, draped in black and hunched on the floor, she turns her body into a sculptural object, like a black boulder.

It's on till Nov 15 if you're interested, and I found it quite a quick visit.

101.41 Visit three art exhibitions

Waay back in the 90s, I used to enjoy drawing occasionally. I rather got stuck at a certain point in style and never moved on, partly because I didn't know how or couldn't see why there were problems (other people could!), and the style suited my purposes adequately for cartoony line drawings that would have to survive a couple of iterations of photocopying, or Pictionary.

The first sort of drawing I had any competence in was lab diagrams for school science lessons - plants, glassware apparatus, internal organs, all in glorious black and white line drawing, no sense of perspective or composition required, no shading of contours or shadows, no expression, and you got to label every component. My diagrams were clear and precise, and did their job of communicating an experimental setup or identifying parts. This, I find, is what has stuck with me (right down to an unfortunate tendency to label things on drawings in case you can't tell what they are), and I've never worked at developing the other aspects.

Time for a change, eh? "If you can write, you can draw;" "Drawing is just a matter of seeing in a certain way." "Practice, practice, practice." With a borrowed copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (ooh, now available on the Internet!), a commitment to practice, and an embarrassingly untouched 400+ pages of sketchbook paper (the clean white pages, I cannot resist buying them), I shall see where I get.

The obvious choice for a first attempt, given my familiarity with the laboratory world, was a conical flask of boiling water drawn with 2B pencil and trying to avoid just drawing an outline. In hindsight, I could have picked something easier than something transparent and roiling with bubbles inside something else transparent. Doh! And thinking hard about perspective and shading doesn't make them happen. Apparently. Yet. And it might have been easier to do from life instead of 1987's memories, what with the emphasis on seeing feeding into drawing. If I've not looked at a flask differently in the last 20 years, why should I be able to draw it differently? Still, it'll do to show me where I've come from...

It seems like that time again - for 101 Things in 101 Days. 14.5 weeks. Starting November 1st, it takes me up to February 9th. I'm particularly keen on things that take me away from the computer and involve social activity and/or different sorts of thinking from the analytics of work. Health and fitness are also good, I really want to be able to get out more. The list is a work in progress - suggestions are welcome! And don't be worried that I'm overcommitting and will get upset if I don't complete it, this is more by way of a delicious buffet of tasty activities (with a wafer thin chance of completion :-)

( These are a few of my favourite Things To Do )

Some people have been listing 101 things they'd like to do in 1001 days.
With the confidence born of someone who is really bad at project planning, I want to do 101 things in 101 days - my Summer Holiday of Fri 1 Jun to Sun 9 Sep. And then go to Edinburgh and do an MSc for a year. 101 days is circa 14 weeks.

I'll update the list as I go. If you think I've forgotten anything, or you'd like to suggest anything, leave a comment :-)

Last updated: Day 101.

( List )

101 Things in 101 Days

Day 93 already! I have finished a couple more things: ( Read more... )

101 Things in 101 Days update.

14 days to go until Day 101, which puts me on Day 87 already.
The summer has flown by, with some unexpected good things and unexpected less good things happening. Quotidian tasks spiral in complexity as the act of completing one creates several follow-up actions in its place; I admit I've not had the atmosphere of quiet focus that I had anticipated, but hope I will find that place in September.

That said, I have been busy and done a lot of things, some of which I'm pleased with.
( My list - let me show you it )