What's the life of a man, any more than a leaf ?

[venta]

Come January, I shall be making my usual bookkeeping post in which I witter tediously about the extent to which I've kept the previous year's resolutions. However, I have a new plan for making resolutions this year... and I need a bit of assistance.

My aim for this year is to acquire twelve new skills - one per month. They are to be things which could be regarded as useful life skills. Now, I'd love to learn to speak Japanese, or to play decent jazz piano from a fakebook, or to learn to ride a horse, but these are clearly abilities I'm unlikely to acquire in a few weeks.

I've already selected some of the skills I shall attempt to acquire. I don't know how to feed or bath a baby, or change a nappy, and I feel I should be able to (learning this obviously requires me to locate a friend who will lend an appropriately sized baby. Offers welcome.) Most of the basic first-aid skills I've learned have fallen out of my head (or changed in the years since I learned them), so I should brush up in that area. I'd like to learn a few basic guitar chords; I've no delusions of learning to play guitar in a month, but being able to keep up with the three-chord trick should (I hope) be manageable.

However, I'm after suggestions to add to my list. As the guitar should suggest, I'm willing to accept a fairly broad definition of 'life skills'; think of it as a list of abilities which today's urbane sophisiticate could be expected to possess. The skill must be plausibly learnable (or its basics graspable) in a few weeks. And I don't wish to get all SMART, but it should be objectively measurable. There should be some goal (a first-aid certificate, a non-wailing baby, and a quick rendition of a few Status Quo numbers) to demonstrate I've achieved some level of competency.

Does anyone else fancy this for the new year ? If so, shout up and we can get compiling a list from which any takers can select their twelve life skills.

Comments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Sounds like an excellent idea. I'm not going to try to participate myself, but for the sake of those who do, how about learning a few basic DIY skills? The goals could be a straight shelf, a non-dripping tap, etc. Simple stuff easily learnt from sites like this, but dead handy. Perhaps some ambitious cooking projects, too? Like Beef Wellington or home-baked bread?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Nice - I had considered plumbing specifically as something I could do with learning about. I'll take on most minor household DIY, but plumbing is a closed book to me. And something I feel I should learn rather than launch into, since the possibilities for calamity as quite sizeable!

Cooking projects are tricky ones. If I elect Beef Wellington, then it's easy to make it once and tick it off 'done'. The thing is, any idiot can follow a recipe, so making it once isn't really learning much. I'd have to make it a number of times, I think, until I felt comfy with it, could do it without references books, and mess about with variations. Which might be a bit excessive on the Wellington front.

Bread, though, is a good idea. I did do a bit of bread-experimentation last year, and the results were 'ok'. Bread is something which lends itself much better to repeated efforts, and I did mean to re-visit it after last year's attempts.

[(Anonymous)]

Now I can help with this. There are a number of elements to plumbing. Cutting and jointing various types of pipe or tubing, methods varying according to the material. Then there are applications of the learnt techniques to actual installations. Did you have a property in mind to practice on? He asked innocently.

W

[ebee.livejournal.com]

My mum would be delighted to talk you through Bread making for an afternoon or something..she wuvs you..

[venta.livejournal.com]

Your mother is clearly a person of little discrimination ;)

Though I have the theory of breadmaking - I grew up in a house where bread was turned out in batches every couple of weeks. It's just the practise I need!

[venta.livejournal.com]

I think your plumbing may be slightly advanced - I was more thinking of fixing dripping taps than sweating lead/copper joints!

Maybe you could recommend a suitable approach to learning the basics needed for ordinary household everyday crises ?