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End of Year Post, 2011
Jan. 4th, 2012 04:11 pmI would have posted this earlier, but I was in Chicago and didn’t have much time to write. So when I refer to ‘this year’ I mean 2011, and when I refer to ‘next year’ I mean 2012.
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It’s been a rather heady year, I suppose, both in a political sense and a personal sense. I’ve joined new communities, strengthened my social links, improved my grades a bit, created quite a few intellectual accomplishments, dedicated more spare time to various communities and causes, and got rather excited about the growing protests. I’ve felt, I suppose, slightly more optimistic about the state of the world, or at least its future state. At the same time, I’m not blind. I know very well that with Section D of the NDAA, the indefinite detention of whistleblowers, Citizen’s United, etc. we of the United States live in a country that is and has been for too long on the brink. And other countries aren’t always doing better, at least not that much better. Corporations continue to rake in monstrous profits, legislators continue to attach horrible things to budget bills (and not just Section D, look at wolf delisting), the media still only cares about ratings... it’s awful here, take it from me. And part of the reason it’s so awful is that so many people are blindly convinced that we’re exceptional, or yak about how the fact that we have it better than, say, the DRC means we shouldn’t still strive to do better.
But there’s hope, and I’m rather pleased to state that my more in-depth involvement with the online community, especially the therian/otherkin one and the friends I have here, tell me that I’m not alone. Even if many of the people who agree with me are on the other side of the Pacific or Atlantic, it gives me some hope.
It’s been a good year for writing. I wrote two essays, Motionless Claws and Kin, that dealt with therianthropy, and one essay here that I promised I’d write, didn’t write for a really long time, and finally produced in a day or so while half-asleep (this is a theme throughout my work). I wrote many poems, all of which are here, and started Music of the Spheres and started writing on the Wanderer’s Library. I wrote the Extinction Chronicles. Preferably I’ll get significantly more done next year, both in reference to essays (mostly philosophical and therianthropic) and in reference to poetry and short stories. And I’ll revise an old essay.
I don’t recall exactly how much I’ve got done in the realm of visual art. I know I’ve finished several pieces for art class that I’m not displeased with, that I did some macro photography over the summer, and that I’m pretty sure that I did the spiraling batik watercolor this year. Much of what I’ve done isn’t online because my scanner is tiny, but I should be able to combine segments into a complete image. Or label small sections ‘close-ups’. I’ll probably finish the oil painting I’m working on next year, and during the summer of course I’ll be taking many photographs and doing some photomanipulation.
I haven’t gotten done nearly as many science projects as I’d like, and by that I mean I’m pretty sure that my total is nada. The only one that I have gotten anything done on, the bioluminescent algae, may well have failed utterly. Unless one counts growing plants as a science project, in which case that’s doing quite well. Next year I’ll be in the West for long periods, and I should be able to do something during that period.
I’ve strengthened my social ties quite a bit, though many of them are online. And a few people I haven’t seen for quite a while online have been being active again recently, though there is one who I used to talk to often but has drifted away. Still, I know she’s alright.
---
It’s been a rather heady year, I suppose, both in a political sense and a personal sense. I’ve joined new communities, strengthened my social links, improved my grades a bit, created quite a few intellectual accomplishments, dedicated more spare time to various communities and causes, and got rather excited about the growing protests. I’ve felt, I suppose, slightly more optimistic about the state of the world, or at least its future state. At the same time, I’m not blind. I know very well that with Section D of the NDAA, the indefinite detention of whistleblowers, Citizen’s United, etc. we of the United States live in a country that is and has been for too long on the brink. And other countries aren’t always doing better, at least not that much better. Corporations continue to rake in monstrous profits, legislators continue to attach horrible things to budget bills (and not just Section D, look at wolf delisting), the media still only cares about ratings... it’s awful here, take it from me. And part of the reason it’s so awful is that so many people are blindly convinced that we’re exceptional, or yak about how the fact that we have it better than, say, the DRC means we shouldn’t still strive to do better.
But there’s hope, and I’m rather pleased to state that my more in-depth involvement with the online community, especially the therian/otherkin one and the friends I have here, tell me that I’m not alone. Even if many of the people who agree with me are on the other side of the Pacific or Atlantic, it gives me some hope.
It’s been a good year for writing. I wrote two essays, Motionless Claws and Kin, that dealt with therianthropy, and one essay here that I promised I’d write, didn’t write for a really long time, and finally produced in a day or so while half-asleep (this is a theme throughout my work). I wrote many poems, all of which are here, and started Music of the Spheres and started writing on the Wanderer’s Library. I wrote the Extinction Chronicles. Preferably I’ll get significantly more done next year, both in reference to essays (mostly philosophical and therianthropic) and in reference to poetry and short stories. And I’ll revise an old essay.
I don’t recall exactly how much I’ve got done in the realm of visual art. I know I’ve finished several pieces for art class that I’m not displeased with, that I did some macro photography over the summer, and that I’m pretty sure that I did the spiraling batik watercolor this year. Much of what I’ve done isn’t online because my scanner is tiny, but I should be able to combine segments into a complete image. Or label small sections ‘close-ups’. I’ll probably finish the oil painting I’m working on next year, and during the summer of course I’ll be taking many photographs and doing some photomanipulation.
I haven’t gotten done nearly as many science projects as I’d like, and by that I mean I’m pretty sure that my total is nada. The only one that I have gotten anything done on, the bioluminescent algae, may well have failed utterly. Unless one counts growing plants as a science project, in which case that’s doing quite well. Next year I’ll be in the West for long periods, and I should be able to do something during that period.
I’ve strengthened my social ties quite a bit, though many of them are online. And a few people I haven’t seen for quite a while online have been being active again recently, though there is one who I used to talk to often but has drifted away. Still, I know she’s alright.
