Projects underway

Cycling:

When I changed jobs last year, I also changed how I got to work: in short, I started cycling, covering about 10 miles (16km) a day. That's not a lot by proper cycling standards, but the regularity of the exercise helped me become more familiar with my bicycle, and more comfortable in using it to get places.

It's often said that increasing confidence leads to increasing possibilities. With that in mind, I began considering the possibility of taking some longer cycling trips in the new year. Where to go? My first goal is to ride to my old college and back, and if that goes well attempt a multi-day trip out to Gettysburg and back, which is about 270 miles (434km). Ultimately I want to cycle from one end of the country to the other, visiting friends and interesting places along the way. That will take some time to train for no doubt, and would probably be safer (not to mention more fun) with some company. We'll see how that goes, but I figure that if this year's trips go well then such an undertaking would at least be possible. 

Storytelling:

In 2014 I made two attempts at writing a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. Both efforts came up short, and while I learned a lot in the process, it was still frustrating to not finish what I'd started. After the second attempt I discussed the matter with my friend Bob, who proceeded to say, "This is not good, you have too many unfinished symphonies, my friend. Every artist has a portfolio, and you need to start building yours. If novels aren't working out, why don't you try writing a short story instead?" The idea seemed like a good one, and in four weeks I had completed two and a half such tales which, while not polished, at least contained the basic structure of a story, and some characters that I found interesting. (Incidentally, after reading these drafts my friend Bob concluded that every character sounded like me. Something to work on, it seems). 

As it is, I'm currently working on the draft of another short story, and if all goes well I'll have a few more completed drafts by year's end. Couple that with at least one more 30-day novel attempt, and we are looking at quite a bit of writing practice in 2015.

Language:

This summer my family and I have plans to travel to Germany, so I have started brushing up on my Deutsch for the visit. It's amusing to look back through my old college textbooks, reviewing notes on grammar and vocabulary and culture and the like, and remembering all the fun things we used to do in German class--long chats at Stammtisch (language table), drilling grammar in the basement of Olin Hall, hanging out with Martina the German TA in the international house, not to mention all those hilarious and grammatically-fickle skits we had to write and perform. 

I've always found German a difficult language, but I often had a lot of fun learning it. Perhaps it will prove useful on our trip in the new year.

Art:

Toward the end of last year, I became very interested in learning how to draw people in the style commonly used in manga art. With the help of some online tutorials and a book from the library, I learned enough to make a dozen or so sketches. So far it's been a lot of fun, and the activity is very engrossing. My hope is to continue practicing in the new year, and get to the point where I can draw characters from my imagination rather than simply making sketches from models. Here are a couple that I thought came out well:

Music:

Toward the end of last year I started performing folk-music on bassoon at an open-mic in New Hope on Thursday evenings. I had a really good time playing at those events, since everyone there was very welcoming, and seemed to agree that folk-bassoon was a "sweet" and "gnarly" genre just bursting with possibilities. (That didn't stop the usual flood of  "Nice oboe!"comments, but at this point I just laugh and remind folks that it's a bassoon). After the first few performances I started having reed issues and haven't played as much of late. My hope in the new year is to get those issues corrected, find some interesting music to perform, and make folk bassooning at the community stage a regular thing. The people there are really neat, and performing for them has thus far proven a delight.

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So those are some of the projects currently underway at the start of 2015. I'm looking forward to seeing where they lead in the new year, and what other challenges will find their way into my life. 

Happy Thursday, friends :)