Not To Be Trusted With Knives

Day 1001 – A Recap

October 10, 2011 by Beth

Today marks the end of my 1001 days in which I set out to accomplish 101 things. Hard to believe that it was just 1001 days ago – seems like only yesterday! So let’s take a look at how I did, shall we?

• Number of items accomplished: 39 (38.6%)
• Number of items not accomplished: 62 (61.4%)

Completed Items

I’ve broken this down into two categories: A. Stuff I did that I figured I’d be likely to do and B. Stuff I did that I was surprised I managed to accomplish.

A. Stuff I Did That I Figured I’d Be Likely To Do

4. run another half marathon [I’ve done a few, actually]
7. give something a cool name (i.e., not just adding the letter “y” to the end of what the thing is a la “froggy” or “puppy”) [See Zaphod Beeblebrox the Car, Chloe the MacBookPro and Bellatrix the iPhone]
8. get my blog onto WordPress.org
14. write something creative (e.g., a story, a script or a poem)
27. write a computer program
30. write a blog entry entitled Word to Your Moms, I Came to Drop Bombs
37. teach the same course at UBC twice
38. participate in the “365 Day Challenge”. This involves taking a self-portrait every day for 365 days and posting it to the 365 Day Flickr group.
39. make a list of 100 things that make me happy
41. buy an iPhone
43. take Tod to a Vancouver Canucks game
45. go to a BC Lions game
47. see a Vancouver White Caps game
58. write 10 friends real letters, on paper, with a pen and snail mail them
60. go to a Bikram yoga class
61. go to a spa for a facial
68. do a 24 hr blogathon
72. determine my net worth
73. buy a bike
77. participate in five research projects (as a subject/participant, not as a researcher)
78. sell counter top dishwasher on Craig’s List
80. put up a Christmas tree and decorate it with chili peppers
81. live blog something [Accomplished  22 September 2011].
82. go to bed every night for a week with all the dishes cleaned
83. achieve inbox zero and maintain for one full week (where “maintain” = by the time I go to bed each night)
86. write a blog posting about the Car Co-op
92. devise some sort of proper back up system for my computer files
94. buy a pair of brown dress pants
99. recycle my old Sony Vaio desktop and my old Palm Pilot that are now just taking up space in my apartment!

B. Stuff I Did That I Was Surprised I Managed To Accomplish

13. publish a paper in a scholarly journal on the training program that I [used to] run
15. change a life
17. teach a course at a college
23. skate at GM Place
36. beat my current record of 10 points in a hockey season
40. buy a Smart Car
49. keep a plant alive for a whole month
65. visit New Brunswick
85. break my current record of 460 blog views in a day
98. go on a polar bear swim

Incomplete Items

I’ve broken this down into three categories: A. Abject failures, B. Stuff I never thought I’d do anyways, and C. Stuff I no longer even care about.

A. Abject Failures

1. go to New York City
2. leave the continent
3. live above ground
6. assemble my last 7 years worth of photos into scrapbooks
18. ski at Whistler
19. ski at Big White
20. ski on Grouse Mountain
21. learn to snowboard (or at least try it)
22. go surfing & actually stay up on the board
31. read something by Salman Rushdie [I bought the book. It’s sitting on my nightstand. I’ve started reading it, yet I’ve not gotten very far.]
33. for one week, go to bed at 9 and read non-work related books
34. read The Last Spike by Pierre Berton [Sarah *gave* me this book and I still haven’t finished it. FAIL!]
35. take pole dancing lessons. Like, a whole set of them, not just the intro class.
44. take Tod to a Vancouver Giants game
46. go to a Vancouver Canadians game
48. start composting
50. write in my journal every day for a month
51. go kayaking
52. camp at Joffre Lake
53. visit Galiano Island
54. visit Salt Spring Island
55. visit Bowen Island
56. save $500 in coins
57. deposit that $500 worth of coins into my 40th birthday savings account
62. visit 5 new American states
63. visit Newfoundland
64. visit Nova Scotia
66. visit the Yukon
67. visit Nunavit
69. do 15 minutes of yoga every morning for a month
70. sort through my many boxes of papers (most of which contain papers from my thesis), recycling the papers I don’t need and filing the ones I do need
75. record a cooking show (at least 5 episodes)
76. publish said cooking show online
79. see at least one Bard on the Beach performance
84. up my blog readership to an average of 200 readers a day
87. go sky diving
91. see a show at Richard’s on Richards before it closes down (FAIL! Dick’s on Dicks closed. I attended nothing there. I suck.)
93. get my ring from my great Auntie Bernice re-sized to actually fit my finger
95. bake at least one thing per month for 12 months in a row, without baking the same thing two months in a row
96. go zip cording
97. make homemade vegetarian marshmallows
100. scan all the photos from my pre-digital camera days
101. publish a blog posting for each of the next 1001 days!

B. Stuff I Never Thought I’d Do Anyway

5. run the full marathon in Sacramento (i.e., the net downhill one!)
16. write a book [But funnily enough, this one is actually in progress! It’s not done, so I can’t knock it off the list just yet and I can’t say more than that at the moment, but you’ll hear about it in due course.]
24. coach a hockey team
25. hike Black Task
26. hike the West Coast Trail
28. start a business [While I didn’t technically start a business, I have done some freelancing. So that’s kind of partway there.]
29. learn French (at least a little bit. Like more than just what’s on the cereal box)
32. visit Macchu Picchu [My sister wants to do this with me. I think we can get ‘er done!]
42. skate on the Rideau Canal [This one requires being in Ottawa early in the New Year, when the canal is actually frozen. Which is when I never seem to be in Ottawa. But a girl can hope!]
89. see the Dresdan Dolls in concert
90. see Groove Coverage in concert

C. Stuff I No Longer Even Care About

9. participate in a political campaign
10. attend Women’s Campaign School
11. conduct some kind of education research project
12. conduct another systematic review for the Cochrane Collaboration
59. follow Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating every day for 1 month
71. find out my credit rating [I obtained a copy of my credit report – wondering if I really need get the credit rating, which costs money!]
74. bike to work every day for two months [This just isn’t practical, as I need to drive all to meetings and events around the Lower Mainland and the Fraser Valley for work, and can’t imagine I’ll even have two months straight where I just work in my office without needing my car to go somewhere]
88. resurrect my teaching blog [I don’t do all that much teaching anymore anyway]

In my defence, I’d like to point out that I accomplished a bunch of stuff in the last 1001 days that I never even thought to put on the list. Things like:

• set a world record
• raised more than $4,400 for charity
• received my first research grant
• earned a major scholarship
• paid off about $40,000 in student loans ((I’m too lazy to look up the example total right now, but it’s pretty close to that much that I’ve paid off in the last 1001 days)).
• run not only one half marathon, but ___ half marathons, including a personal best! (Scotiabank 2011, Victoria 2010, Scotiabank 2010, Vancouver BMO 2009)
• gotten braces
• been on TV (both this and for the world record hockey game)
• invented the gang symbol for pi
• made the best Halloween costume ever
• set a personal best on the Grouse Grind
• bought a kick ass bedroom suite ((I should actually write a posting with photos of it all set up. It’s kick ass)).
• attended four Olympic events ((two women’s hockey games, a sledge hockey game, and a rehearsal of the Opening Ceremonies))
• dyed my hair Canadian flag red
• went to the Dominican Republic
• received my PhD in Horribleness AND I’m in the process of being ordained by the Church of the FSM (blog posting to follow)
• got a kick ass new job
• went snowshoeing

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