Archive for the ‘Personal Rants and Raves’ Category

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I have been contemplating what to include in this post for quite some time now.  I alway start the New Year off with a list of reading and blogging resolutions.  I have an increase in ambition at the end of December and the beginning of January.  And then the reality of my hectic schedule sets in and all of my resolutions to be better, healthier, more organized, more productive … they fall into a heap of forgotten wishes.  And when I do remember my original goals and the fact that yet another year wen by with so few accomplishments, a huge wave of guilt washes over me.  But every year has a different story to unfold.  2011 was an incredibly difficult year.  I accomplished a lot of truly fantastic things.  I graduated from college.  I started grad school.  My reading and blogging life came to a bit of a standstill as I focused more and more of my time on developing into a professional getting ready to enter the workforce.  In many ways, I took on way more than I could properly handle.  But I have grown a lot.  I have learned a lot.  I have been blessed by the presence of some truly incredible people in my life.  And so I prepare to enter 2012 with my head held up high.  I have been reading a lot of truly fabulous end of 2011 reading reflection posts.  I am sad that I missed so many truly fantastic reads this year but I look forward to getting around to reading many of these gems in 2012.

Instead of leaving you with my best of 2011 picks (I honestly did not read many books this year), I will be leaving you with my hopes for 2012.  I am not making resolutions like I usually do.  Instead, I’m sharing with you my “love list” for 2012: a list of things that I would love to do in 2012.  They are an attempt at outlining what I would like focus on this year.  They will change as the year progresses.  I will work at defining and refining them as I come across new experiences, but for now, they are a general reflection of what matters to me, of what is in my heart as I enter 2012.

• I would love to make the time to read a book every week in 2012.  This will hopefully lead me to reading somewhere close to 50 books in 2012.  I know that many of my fellow book bloggers read a LOT more than this, but I’m trying to be realistic to my circumstances and kind to myself.  Making plans to get through a HUGE number of books stresses me out and makes reading less enjoyable for me.  I want to read with a purpose.  I want to take my time to enjoy the books that I’m reading.  I don’t want to turn reading into a chore.  It should continue to be my refuge; my place to find whatever I’m looking for.
• I would love to make time to write more in 2012.  I am not good at creating a writing schedule and sticking to it.  I have tried this several times and every time I failed miserably.  Writing is one area where pressure does not motivate me to work harder.  I want to just make an effort to create liesure time where I can write whatever tickles my fancy.  I signed up for and failed NaNoWriMo again in 2011.  I think that before I embark on the NaNoWriMo journey again, I need to be prepared.  I want to start getting my writing process into something more organized and organic.  More on this to come (hopefully) ….
• I would love to exercise more in 2012.  I have an awesome bike that I got for my birthday that I have been neglecting.  I also got some awesome athletic wear for Christmas.  These items must be put to good use!  And so, for this item on my love list, I am adopting a challenge (because fitness challenges actually do inspire me!).  I am enrolling in the Get Moving Fitness Challenge which runs from Jan. 1, 2012 to March 31, 2012.  I have challenged myself to exercise (walk/run/bike/yoga/weights) for 30 hours in the time frame.  Wish me luck!
• I would love to be more productive in 2012.  I want to be more purposeful in my work ethic.  I am already working at creating new routines and regimens in the hopes that this will become my best year ever.  I’m going to be starting the year off teaching 2 classes of seniors.  In between my other jobs and graduate classes, this is going to be an incredibly taxing year for me.  I want to be prepared for whatever the future brings.  I don’t want to run into the same problems I hit this year.  I want to find meaning in all the work I do so I don’t get burned out and unmotivated.
• I would love to focus on making more friends and rekindling lost friendships.  Self explanatory.

This is where my heart is as I enter 2012.  I will undoubtedly be writing more about these areas of my life in the new year.  I look forward to hearing about what you all hope to achieve in the New Year as well.  Happy New Year to you all.  I hope that it is filled with love, friends, and many blessings.

From the slightly cluttered desk of Justice Jennifer:

Happy Holiday wishes from the bottom of my heart.  I feel very blessed that this holiday season was filled with friends, family, and love.  I believe that 2012 is going to be a spectacular year and I am already gearing up for it.  Don’t expect to hear much of me this next week but starting on January 1st I plan to make a comeback (finally) in a big way.  I’m working on getting all my ducks in order to ensure that 2012 turns out to be a better blogging and reading year for me.

+ Finished with Winter quarter.  Ready to enjoy the Holidays.
+ Preparing lesson plans for January 2012 when I official take on my first two classes.  We are starting with Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  As I plan, I find myself rediscovering my love for everything about the play.  It is amazing.
+ Reading Harold Bloom and discovering new complexities in Hamlet that I had never noticed before.
+ Reflection on new adulthood for a guest post @ Reclusive Bibliophile.
+ I am currently obsessed with the BBC’s Merlin.  I have been watching it nonstop on Netflix.
+ I’m looking forward to the Christmas episode of Doctor Who.  It looks awesome.
+ I’m also really looking forward to the New Year and Season 2 of the BBC’s modern adaptations of Sherlock.  Three new episodes!
- I have been watching too much TV lately and avoiding any work.

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+ I found the batteries to my camera and I’m thinking it’s time to get back into photography.
+ I’m reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.  So far I am loving it.
+ Today, Monday, December 5th marks the final week of Fall quarter.
- I need to get some exercise ASAP.
- Even though it is the start of Winter break, I still have loads of work looming over me.
- Pinterest is habit forming.
+ I rediscovered Say Anything and have been listening to them nonstop this weekend.
- I desperately need to clean up my apartment.
- I need a day where I can just shut myself off from the world.
- I need to get started on Christmas shopping.  I have been avoiding the malls.
- My TV/cable broke right before Pan Am came on last night so I missed it.
- I’m behind on my own reading and writing schedule.

Last week, I came across an amazing article from The Atlantic entitled “All the Single Ladies” by Kate Bolick.  The article spoke to me and it is something that I haven’t really been able to get out of my head since I read it.  As I tried to forge a way toward a successful NaNoWriMo (I failed miserably), this topic was central to my writing process.  I wanted to describe a woman’s struggle in deciding between the comforts of a relationship and the possibilities of a single life.  This is a topic that has plagued me for quite a while now as I played with the idea of “taking a break” from the relationship that I have been in for four years now.  In this article, Bolick describes the implications of the modern day “gender crisis” on marriage and the notion of  single ladies:

It’s something a lot of people might want to consider, given that now, by choice or by circumstance, more and more of us (women and men), across the economic spectrum, are spending more years of our adult lives unmarried than ever before. The numbers are striking: The Census Bureau has reported that in 2010, the proportion of married households in America dropped to a record low of 48 percent. Fifty percent of the adult population is single (compared with 33 percent in 1950)—and that portion is very likely to keep growing, given the variety of factors that contribute to it. The median age for getting married has been rising, and for those who are affluent and educated, that number climbs even higher. (Indeed, Stephanie Coontz told me that an educated white woman of 40 is more than twice as likely to marry in the next decade as a less educated woman of the same age.) Last year, nearly twice as many single women bought homes as did single men. And yet, what are our ideas about single people? Perverted misanthropes, crazy cat ladies, dating-obsessed shoe shoppers, etc.—all of them some form of terribly lonely. (In her 2008 memoir, Epilogue, a 70-something Anne Roiphe muses: “There are millions of women who live alone in America. Some of them are widows. Some of them are divorced and between connections, some of them are odd, loners who prefer to keep their habits undisturbed.” That’s a pretty good representation of her generation’s notions of unmarried women.)

As I read this I realized something a little sad about myself: since the age of thirteen years old, I have never really been single for more than a couple of weeks.  I am what some might call a serial dater.  I just can’t seem to fathom the idea of being alone.  I am a hopeless romantic.  My relationships always escalate quickly.  This is why I have always had incredibly painful breakups.  I wear my heart on my sleeve.  I can be fearless when it comes to forging new bonds but I am terrified at the prospect of breaking those bonds.  I am never the one to end a relationship.  I have stayed in horrible relationships in the past because I believed that toughing it out would be better than being alone.  I always took comfort in being able to say that I had someone.

But that comfort came at a price.  Despite all of my passion for women’s issues and feminism, I am not what one would call an independent woman.  I can’t thrive on my own.  And maybe I am wording that the wrong way.  Because financially, I could find a way to support myself if I decided to ditch my boyfriend and live the single life.  I am not a housewife, but emotionally and socially, I am very dependent on my boyfriend.  Years ago, I ditched many of my closest girlfriends (or maybe they ditched me, I have never been fully certain of what happened there).  And I found myself increasingly dependent on my boyfriend for emotional and social fulfillment.  And to this day I still am.  Sure, I am making new friends and forging new bonds with people, but at the end of the day, I still depend on the domestic comfort of knowing that when I go home, he will be there for me.

And I can’t help but wonder, am I setting my relationship up for failure?  As I move toward the prospect of marriage, I am worried that I am setting myself up to fall into a horrible trap:

When a couple’s relationship is strong, a marriage can be more fulfilling than ever. But by overloading marriage with more demands than any one individual can possibly meet, we unduly strain it, and have fewer emotional systems to fall back on if the marriage falters.

And so I am sitting here wondering, how do I avoid becoming the epitome of what I despise?  I don’t want to be one of those girls dependent on a man for self-fulfillment.  And yet, I see myself on that path.  How do I balance out my relationship?  What do I do to rediscover that I am my own key to happiness?  How do I debunk the myths and focus on my own reality?  How do I move forward in my relationship without losing myself?