#InkRippes: End of the year & already thinking about 2018 #goals

By: Meradeth Houston on 4:00 AM

#InkRipples is a themed meme hosted by Mary Waibel, Katie L. Carroll, and Kai Strand. We post on the first Monday of every month. If you would like to participate compose your own post regarding the theme of the month, include any of the images displayed on this page, and link back to their three blogs. Feel free to post whenever you want during the month, but be sure to include #inkripples when you promote so readers can find you. The idea is that we toss a word or idea into the inkwell and each post is a new ripple. There is no wrong interpretation.

Okay, so I'll admit it: I'm terrible with resolutions/goals/whatever that often start to creep into the world as one year edges toward the end and a new one starts. I've tried it before. Made lists, checked

in monthly, tried to make lists that were more broken into manageable bits and pieces, blah blah blah. I've tried many different things. And so as I scramble through the rest of this year and try to plan ahead, honestly, I feel more like I'm just trying to keep my head above water more than anything else. Actually, not even my head; my nose above water--just enough to breathe :) (Not that I'm trying to bitch or anything, just the honest truth. It's been a pretty brutal year in academia...or at least the university I work for...)

But, this isn't to say that I don't have things I'd like to see happen next year. Some of which are out of my control: I'd love to see my employer get its shit together and no longer live under the cloud of fear that I won't have a job next year (god, I can't not complain about this--I'm sorry to my readers, but GAH it kills me!). I'd also love to see some major changes in politics. But, for the most part, there's nothing I can do about these things, other than vote and be active in doing my part for change. 

On a more personal note, there are plenty of things I'd like to see happen that I do have more of a hand in: get tenure or find employment elsewhere (the latter being the option that is honestly more of an option, because, well, I'd love to work somewhere that heated my office--hell, at this point I'm surprised I have tp in the bathroom...). Apply for more funding, and work like hell to secure something. Publish more, both personally and academically. Make more time for my personal life (said the woman who has worked most of the weekend...), and tied in with this is be more active. These are the kinds of things that I'm thinking about for 2018. I probably won't write them down. I'm already striving toward them. Because goals are things that need to be met, lived, breathed. And as 2018 ushers its way into the world, I look forward to meeting it head on and working my ass off to make it mine.

Also, writing posts Sunday evening whilst in the midst of pre-Monday freak-outs is probably not the best. Well, at least I hope you find this post amusing on some level ;)