Monday, February 1, 2016

Some Resolutions, and some Speeches

I will blame one particular friend for this post. He wanted to evaluate his progress on  resolutions, so I'll evaluate mine.

1) W.r.t my friend: I have just been mulling it over.
2) Blogwriting: I have fallen behind in slightly, but I'm still posting, which is good. (Hi, I exist.)
3. I have completed 252 anime, which leaves only 48 left. My ratio is around 64.7%, which is good, but I need to watch more shows to balance it out. Currently, I only have two Kara no Kyoukai movies left and one special episode.
4. I have seen little progress with VNs. However, I hope to read Analogue a Hate Story and Clannad to improve my progress here.
5. The story is around 10 pages, which is about a third of the way there, so I should still be able to meet this resolution. Annoying Justin is still going excellently.
6. Toastmasters: Today I will meet my requirement of "3 meetings a month" and I will deliver my first prepared speech. Progress is good.
7. Graduate School: In progress. We'll see.
8. I have not touched Infinite Jest but I did read Spice and Wolf LN2. So just reading LN3 will bump me up to this goal, so maybe it needs revision.
9. Manga: Some progress.

The at-least-40 completion club: Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, My Little Monster
The under-40 completion club: A Girl on the Shore

I hope that Orange (30ish chapters), Cardcaptor Sakura (50ish chapters), and some others can help me round out my manga goals. Of course, Hotarubi no Mori e (10ish chapters) should help too.
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But I wanted to go above and beyond just looking at my resolutions. Today I am presenting an Icebreaker speech for Toastmasters, which I hope will allow me to connect both sides of my being: the scientific side, and the artistic side. One concern is that I cannot delve into how my family has influenced me, or how I really have such dorky interests. Nowhere in this speech can ClariS be clearly mentioned, for example, or perhaps discussing how Oreimo influenced me.

 At this point, practice and maintaining confidence are likely the most important components. I just wish I could just sail through any minor blunders and give the best presentation possible. But overthinking is my mantra, and it guides even my public speaking.

But I have also been helping my dad with his paper for a peer-reviewed conference, which has helped me awaken the sleeping technical writing skills. Using just a few articles, I was able to piece together a page of writing, which hopefully was helpful. The paper is due tonight, which is cause for concern given how little time he has left. Hopefully it can be done by the deadline, and hopefully I can also do well on my speech. Tonight will be a comparatively easy night to rest.

Secondly, there's a couple of blog ideas worth pursuing. One, I imagine, will touch on poverty; the second is not so much an idea as a vague concept that I should begin writing a post about my favorite show this season (ERASED, that is). 








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