T- 6

So here are a few things I’m planning to do while I adjust to living in a much bigger city in which I know maybe half a dozen people:

• Write stuff. I mean, I don’t want to get too specific about this, because maybe I’ll get sidetracked and write something quite different to the projects I currently have in mind. But as long as I’ve written a decent amount of decent material by the end of it, that’s fine. I’ll be working remotely in a tiny elite writers’ group with a good friend of mine, checking in with her every week or so.
• Keep on learning Polish. I’m hoping that the fact I’ll have very few possessions with me will help me to actually devote time to it, rather than finding a gazillion other things to do first. I mean, to be perfectly honest, the Polish is sort of a lost cause, because it doesn’t matter that I know a fair amount of vocab: there are so many complicated grammar rules that I can’t string a sentence together without needing to be some kind of genius. Maybe if I study it for ten years. That’s what my teacher once said, anyway.
• Read stuff. One of my 2010 resolutions is to read a book in Spanish: something I haven’t quite managed outside of class before, but I would have achieved this about ten years ago were I not prone to getting sidetracked and wandering off halfway through. Again, I’m hoping that a newfound minimalist lifestyle will help me out here. The book I’ve selected is Temporada de Caza Para el León Negro by Tryno Maldonado, which has the added bonus of being a slim volume and will therefore not take up too much space in my meagre luggage. I reckon I’ll take only a couple of other books with me, and use my bookmooch points and maybe this place when I get there.
• Bake stuff. Yeah, I have this weird thing going on these days where half the time I’m a drunken train wreck and the other half I’m doing wholesome things like baking. I started on New Year’s Eve, because I had resolved to bake something before 2009 was over. Since then, I’ve made Anzac biscuits, cranberry slices, coconut-honey muffins, and most recently chocolate chip cookies. I am a goddamned culinary genius.
• Travel. Of course. A trip to Warsaw is likely to happen at the end of April so I can attend Ste‘s gig (I also resolve to not get so hammered that I barely remember the show, as per last time). Also likely is a visit to Paris in May. Oh, and I already have a week in Ireland booked, and did I mention I’m visiting Brussels and Amsterdam on the way to Berlin? So. I’d also be interested in returning to Istanbul, though I haven’t looked into it yet. And I’m open to other options.

Would you believe that I mostly envision spending time by myself and being all quiet and domesticated? Yeah. I don’t know what’s up with that, but I suspect it’s just foreshadowing.