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ventaCome 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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 08:22 am (UTC)Conversational skills in semaphore, morris code, sign language, or braille?
Cook every recipe in a cookbook (a la biography Julie & Julia, though that might take more than a month (it took her a year). Maybe just prepare a multi-course dinner for a party of eight?
Learn a new programming language and write something more complicated than "Hello World" or build a website?
I'm partial to learning a new style of dance: I gather you do morris and basic ballroom - what about argentine tango? As a goal, being able to go to a club and dancing all night?
Do you sew? My first project was a victorian ball gown, from the underwear out (including a hoopskirt), everything but the shoes, gloves, and corset. Maybe a complicated halloween costume?
Pottery? Can you throw a pot?
Whittling? Carve a wooden animal or toy? Or carpentry and build a bookcase or hutch? Or something like habitat for humanity and build a house.
Do you knit/crochet/weave/embroider/quilting? Can you make a sweater, hat and mittens, an afghan, a sampler? Cross-stitch is fairly straightforward.
Photography? Not sure about the goal.
Build a sand sculpture?
Caligraphy? Or maybe illuminate a document? Your birth certificate or a wedding certificate or something? A diploma?
Read the bible/koran/darwin/nietzche?
Swim a mile in under 20mins? Or the channel?
Brew beer? Ferment wine? Whiskey?
Climb whatever mountain one would climb in the UK? (Where I live it would be Half Dome).
Write and direct a play (one of my friends does this for her church)
Balloon animals?
Play a musical instrument like a whistle, harmonica, or bones?
Flip and sheer a sheep?
Harvest honey?
Teach someone else any of the above?
Do the splits? A handspring? A cartwheel? (I never learned)
Skate backwards?
Snowshoe?
Write your memoires? Write your grandmother's?
Look at every fesible planet through a telescope? (More than a month, probably)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 11:23 am (UTC)I've nearly got my list of 12 together, but I think those suggestions will help finish it off. Thanks :)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 01:30 pm (UTC)