The Two-Year Plan is Unveiled!

[hawkwing_lb]

No, I'm not talking about my government's plan to force everyone to emigrate, allowing them to have the country to themselves. (I could wish I were joking about that.)

No, this is my very own two-year plan.

2YP AIMS

-- core thesis complete
-- complete novel #1.
-- reading competence in ancient Greek
-- reading competence in modern Italian
-- have investigated freelance writing opportunities to some limited degree.
-- basic reading skillz in German

Followed by! The (still tentative) Five-Year Plan!

*sinister drumroll*

5YP AIMS

-- nonfiction book proposal for a) thesis and b) something else relevent to my interests.
-- complete novel #2
-- reading competence in Greek, Italian, German, Latin.
-- send out complete novel #1.

---

...No, I'm not really sure how I'm going to be able to succeed at this yet. On the other hand, research is what I want to do, and if that means I have to live on the dole and eat beans and rice for a large part of my life, and scrimp my pennies for ILL, I think I could accept this outcome.

Not gracefully, but I could well accept it.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

That sounds good to me: best wishes.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I think I'm doomed however much I try to make good plans, but that doesn't mean I'll stop trying. (Have you seen (http://www.independent.ie/national-news/budget/news/brians-tax-and-grab-2408551.html) what the Irish government is doing in order to 'fix' our economic woes? Alas, woe is us, etc.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Yep. Lovely bunch, governments. Raid the poor to subsidise the rich...

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

In very deed.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

...WOW. Even modern Greek is, um Greek to me. Ancient Greek would be just AWESOME.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

It's surprisingly straight-forward, I find. Also, fun. Case languages are slightly evil, though.

Περσέων μέν νυν οἱ λόγιοι Φοίνικας αἰτίους φασί γενέσθαι τῆς διαφορῆς.

"Now the word-skilled ones of the Persians say the Phoenicians are responsible for having begun the quarrel."

[anghara.livejournal.com]

Tell me about case languages. My cradle-languge has seven... [wry grin]

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

It wasn't happen to be Serbo-Croat, by any chance?

I only ask because I remember some of the Serbians I hung out with in Thessaloniki complaining/explaining about the numerousness of their cases. (The Greek five is bad enough, considering I can never get the hang of number six in Latin. Bloody ablatives. At least modern Greek only has three + vocative four.)

[anghara.livejournal.com]

That one. Yes. Got it in one.

I seriously don't envy anyone who has to learn Serbo-Croat as a foreign language from an English language base. They'll be pulling hair out by the handful.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I managed to pick up three phrases, but yes indeed. (Da zaista, that was one of the phrases!) One look at the grammar, and my ambitions to learn more than "hello," "yes," "thanks" and "pass the icecream, please"... died rather rapidly.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

One look at the grammar, and my ambitions to learn more than "hello," "yes," "thanks" and "pass the icecream, please"... died rather rapidly.

[laughing] can't say I blame you...

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

As with most languages I've encountered, I still nurse the faint hope of "one day." (I really ought to take up their invitation to visit Belgrade.) But yeah. Not soon! :)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Also, my apologies. I cannot type at this hour. I meant "It wouldn't happen to be".

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Those are excellent plans, and I'll give you all my good beans'n'rice recipes if you want them.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I never turn down good recipes!

But since I kind of hate rice, maybe I can get them from you when I actually, you know, have to eat it. :P

[txanne.livejournal.com]

:-( Rats...(I'm from rice-growing country, so I grew up eating it a lot. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it came in flavors!!)

(edit: if you put enough spices in it, you can't tell it's there. Or is it the texture you dislike?)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I always end up with watery rice, for some reasn. Either watery or hard. Which is likely my incompetence at work, but neither of those are pleasant textures.

I like eating egg-fried rice and different rices out. Where people actually manage to cook it... properly.

*fails rice*

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I can halp. Email when you feel like it...

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Perhaps in January. I might have time to cook in January!

(Thanks.)

[txanne.livejournal.com]

:-)

I have time right now, but no energy. I wonder what I want for supper that doesn't involve any effort at all. *pout* I miss summer, when I can wash a tomato and call it a meal.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

*also misses summer*

*deeply*

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

I used to do that too. My rice cooker is brilliant, or TxAnne could teach you her Sekrits. ;-)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

The acquisition of shiny! kitchen apparatus comes a poor, distant second to the acquisition of books... :P

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm an idiot--how do you feel about other fine-grained starches like couscous, orzo, etc? Or quinoa? Quinoa's great because it's got all the amino acids in it.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

...We do not often find them here. At least, I don't. It is just barely possible that one might find quinoa or couscous if one looked hard enough.

Possibly.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Quinoa's from So. America, so that's not surprising, but don't you have North African immigrants? I thought orzo was Italian, but if it's Mexican that'd explain its prevalence in Texas.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

The thing is to find the right shops. I know where the local Polish foods shop is, but the Afro-Caribbean one has either moved or gone out of business lately.

Or - simple answer - I'm looking in the wrong place in the s'market.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

In US supermarkets, couscous and orzo are by the other pastas. Quinoa's usually by the rice, but sometimes off in the fancy-pants "Food Your Mother Did Not Serve You" section.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

...Yeah. Not like that here.

A-hunting down the aisles you must go. Unless you are fortunate to live beside Rich Peoples' Supermarkets. (Which, actually, you could not pay me enough to do. Those people, they are arseholes, generally.)

[txanne.livejournal.com]

*boggles* How are normal peoples' supermarkets arranged?

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

The single shelf of Packaged Food With Funny Names is cunningly concealed someplace you would never think to look. And they move it regularly. :P

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Heh.

[clarentine]

Plans and goals are excellent - how else do you know you're making progress? Huzzah for a plan!

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Progress. Yes. That...