I don't do 'resolutions.' That's just a fancy word for 'rules' and I'm not into imposing rules on myself. I think the reason so many 'resolutions' fail is that it is human nature to hate being boxed in with rules, self-imposed or not.

but goals? hell yeah I have goals. Things I want to do this year:

• become more of my true self
  
• learn more love and compassion
  
• grow closer to God/dess ♥
  
• learn to listen to my spirit and FOLLOW MY INSTINCTS!!!
  
• further develop my soulfriendships with Nimajneb and Hannah
  
• be more active in changing the world: leave 'you are beautiful' notes, smile more at people, strike up conversation with more strangers, flaunt my body hair, wear curvy-pride shirts and figure-hugging outfits.
  
• create more; making jewelry, painting, drawing, modeling, photographing (! and add a deliberate 'flaw' to remind me that 'flaws' are beautiful!)
  
• post WHEN I FEEL LIKE IT, without worrying that I am going to flood my friends page and my favorite post of the bunch will be ignored. I know that isn't true, and if it is, it's not a good enough reason.
  
• spend more time and effort communicating with my lovely friends; commenting back, commenting on their posts, IMing, and calling. Not any ritual amount, but following instincts instead of being so O-C about doing it 'in order.'
  
• go to Glasgow and meet clown_frog and maybe shalotus! and of course spend a lot of delighted time with my beautiful soulfriend shmee_!!!
  
• have shmee_ and die_fiend come down, hopefully during RenFest season!!! and hopefully have my firekat (kmiotutsie) come down too! *dreams* This must happen. *is firm with the universe, shakes finger for emphasis*
  
• spend more time with sabr and malignlibra
  
• meet more of my lj friends! there are a ton I want to meet, we'll see who I actually manage to make plans with. ;-) at the very least, I must meet kmiotutsie and sunshinepill.
  
• find at least a handful of new amazing people to mutually adore. (and hopefully some who are Aquarius!)
  
• set firm plans for International Women's Day next year (post to come about that!)
  
• dance more, maybe start taking bellydancing classes again.
  
• get at least one tattoo!
  
• find more of my meaningful rings.
  
• dye my hair purple, like I have ALWAYS WANTED.
  
• help my little sister get the courage to do what she needs to do.
  
• tell my parents I'm 'bisexual' and be officially disowned (after I figure out whether or not they will keep me from talking to little sis, she is more important than me getting the satisfaction of never having to talk to my dad again)
  
• go skinnydipping at least once!
  
• go to at least one concert!
  
• have at least three photoshoots.
  
• do at least three self-portrait shoots (hopefully a lot more, but I gotta get some better lighting)
  
• Self-educate: read 88 books this year; keep a running list of them, and post an update every eight books, with a SHORT summary.

  0 / 88 (0.0%)

I don't do 'resolutions.' That's just a fancy word for 'rules' and I'm not into imposing rules on myself. I think the reason so many 'resolutions' fail is that it is human nature to hate being boxed in with rules, self-imposed or not.

but goals? hell yeah I have goals. Things I want to do this year:

• become more of my true self
  
• learn more love and compassion
  
• grow closer to God/dess ♥
  
• learn to listen to my spirit and FOLLOW MY INSTINCTS!!!
  
• further develop my soulfriendships with Nimajneb and Hannah
  
• be more active in changing the world: leave 'you are beautiful' notes, smile more at people, strike up conversation with more strangers, flaunt my body hair, wear curvy-pride shirts and figure-hugging outfits.
  
• create more; making jewelry, painting, drawing, modeling, photographing (! and add a deliberate 'flaw' to remind me that 'flaws' are beautiful!)
  
• post WHEN I FEEL LIKE IT, without worrying that I am going to flood my friends page and my favorite post of the bunch will be ignored. I know that isn't true, and if it is, it's not a good enough reason.
  
• spend more time and effort communicating with my lovely friends; commenting back, commenting on their posts, IMing, and calling. Not any ritual amount, but following instincts instead of being so O-C about doing it 'in order.'
  
• go to Glasgow and meet clown_frog and maybe shalotus! and of course spend a lot of delighted time with my beautiful soulfriend shmee_!!!
  
• have shmee_ and die_fiend come down, hopefully during RenFest season!!! and hopefully have my firekat (kmiotutsie) come down too! *dreams* This must happen. *is firm with the universe, shakes finger for emphasis*
  
• spend more time with sabr and malignlibra
  
• meet more of my lj friends! there are a ton I want to meet, we'll see who I actually manage to make plans with. ;-) at the very least, I must meet kmiotutsie and sunshinepill.
  
• find at least a handful of new amazing people to mutually adore. (and hopefully some who are Aquarius!)
  
• set firm plans for International Women's Day next year (post to come about that!)
  
• dance more, maybe start taking bellydancing classes again.
  
• get at least one tattoo!
  
• find more of my meaningful rings.
  
• dye my hair purple, like I have ALWAYS WANTED.
  
• help my little sister get the courage to do what she needs to do.
  
• tell my parents I'm 'bisexual' and be officially disowned (after I figure out whether or not they will keep me from talking to little sis, she is more important than me getting the satisfaction of never having to talk to my dad again)
  
• go skinnydipping at least once!
  
• go to at least one concert!
  
• have at least three photoshoots.
  
• do at least three self-portrait shoots (hopefully a lot more, but I gotta get some better lighting)
  
• Self-educate: read 88 books this year; keep a running list of them, and post an update every eight books, with a SHORT summary.

  0 / 88 (0.0%)

I don't do 'resolutions.' That's just a fancy word for 'rules' and I'm not into imposing rules on myself. I think the reason so many 'resolutions' fail is that it is human nature to hate being boxed in with rules, self-imposed or not.

but goals? hell yeah I have goals. Things I want to do this year:

• become more of my true self
  
• learn more love and compassion
  
• grow closer to God/dess ♥
  
• learn to listen to my spirit and FOLLOW MY INSTINCTS!!!
  
• further develop my soulfriendships with Nimajneb and Hannah
  
• be more active in changing the world: leave 'you are beautiful' notes, smile more at people, strike up conversation with more strangers, flaunt my body hair, wear curvy-pride shirts and figure-hugging outfits.
  
• create more; making jewelry, painting, drawing, modeling, photographing (! and add a deliberate 'flaw' to remind me that 'flaws' are beautiful!)
  
• post WHEN I FEEL LIKE IT, without worrying that I am going to flood my friends page and my favorite post of the bunch will be ignored. I know that isn't true, and if it is, it's not a good enough reason.
  
• spend more time and effort communicating with my lovely friends; commenting back, commenting on their posts, IMing, and calling. Not any ritual amount, but following instincts instead of being so O-C about doing it 'in order.'
  
• go to Glasgow and meet clown_frog and maybe shalotus! and of course spend a lot of delighted time with my beautiful soulfriend shmee_!!!
  
• have shmee_ and die_fiend come down, hopefully during RenFest season!!! and hopefully have my firekat (kmiotutsie) come down too! *dreams* This must happen. *is firm with the universe, shakes finger for emphasis*
  
• spend more time with sabr and malignlibra
  
• meet more of my lj friends! there are a ton I want to meet, we'll see who I actually manage to make plans with. ;-) at the very least, I must meet kmiotutsie and sunshinepill.
  
• find at least a handful of new amazing people to mutually adore. (and hopefully some who are Aquarius!)
  
• set firm plans for International Women's Day next year (post to come about that!)
  
• dance more, maybe start taking bellydancing classes again.
  
• get at least one tattoo!
  
• find more of my meaningful rings.
  
• dye my hair purple, like I have ALWAYS WANTED.
  
• help my little sister get the courage to do what she needs to do.
  
• tell my parents I'm 'bisexual' and be officially disowned (after I figure out whether or not they will keep me from talking to little sis, she is more important than me getting the satisfaction of never having to talk to my dad again)
  
• go skinnydipping at least once!
  
• go to at least one concert!
  
• have at least three photoshoots.
  
• do at least three self-portrait shoots (hopefully a lot more, but I gotta get some better lighting)
  
• Self-educate: read 88 books this year; keep a running list of them, and post an update every eight books, with a SHORT summary.

  0 / 88 (0.0%)

We broke a thousand! My comm curvygirls now has 1020 members! *crazy weird dancing*

Seriously, when I think about the impact this community is having, I'm blown away. Creating it, I thought it would end up being just a group of people like myself who like curvy women. Instead it has become a movement; girls come in with no self esteem and learn their own beauty through seeing beauty in others, slender-curvy to zaftig-curvy. People post so often about how their lives have been changed that it's become commonplace to me, and I don't realize just how astonishing that is until I step back and think about it. All I can credit to myself is having the passion to form the community and the graks to keep it focused -- the reason the community is such a huge force for positivity is because people are coming in with the desire to grow and learn love. All they want is relief from self-hate, and what they find is acceptance, care, admiration, friendship. Reading the comments in the community is so encouraging, because they are so consistently wonderful. It's wonderful because the women are wonderful. And it makes me want to cry with joy because all it takes is giving someone the chance to be supportive and caring, and they will take that chance! At core we all want to love each other, we're just too scared of rejection to do it, and if we find an environment where it's the culture to care and show admiration, we will.

It takes spending time with someone who's of 'normal' cosmo-culture to realize that curvygirls is a revolution, a quiet but continuously-building force of change. And we all go out and influence others, in tiny or major ways. And yeah, the comm is about body-love, but it goes so much deeper than that. It's about learning to love ourselves for being OURSELVES, rather than rating ourselves and everyone else according to how we match some tyrannical unhealthy standard set by greedy fucks who want to beat us down and charge us for it. The body is just a symbol of the self, it is our SELVES and each other's selves that we are learning to love.

Viva La Curvylution!!!

We broke a thousand! My comm curvygirls now has 1020 members! *crazy weird dancing*

Seriously, when I think about the impact this community is having, I'm blown away. Creating it, I thought it would end up being just a group of people like myself who like curvy women. Instead it has become a movement; girls come in with no self esteem and learn their own beauty through seeing beauty in others, slender-curvy to zaftig-curvy. People post so often about how their lives have been changed that it's become commonplace to me, and I don't realize just how astonishing that is until I step back and think about it. All I can credit to myself is having the passion to form the community and the graks to keep it focused -- the reason the community is such a huge force for positivity is because people are coming in with the desire to grow and learn love. All they want is relief from self-hate, and what they find is acceptance, care, admiration, friendship. Reading the comments in the community is so encouraging, because they are so consistently wonderful. It's wonderful because the women are wonderful. And it makes me want to cry with joy because all it takes is giving someone the chance to be supportive and caring, and they will take that chance! At core we all want to love each other, we're just too scared of rejection to do it, and if we find an environment where it's the culture to care and show admiration, we will.

It takes spending time with someone who's of 'normal' cosmo-culture to realize that curvygirls is a revolution, a quiet but continuously-building force of change. And we all go out and influence others, in tiny or major ways. And yeah, the comm is about body-love, but it goes so much deeper than that. It's about learning to love ourselves for being OURSELVES, rather than rating ourselves and everyone else according to how we match some tyrannical unhealthy standard set by greedy fucks who want to beat us down and charge us for it. The body is just a symbol of the self, it is our SELVES and each other's selves that we are learning to love.

Viva La Curvylution!!!

We broke a thousand! My comm curvygirls now has 1020 members! *crazy weird dancing*

Seriously, when I think about the impact this community is having, I'm blown away. Creating it, I thought it would end up being just a group of people like myself who like curvy women. Instead it has become a movement; girls come in with no self esteem and learn their own beauty through seeing beauty in others, slender-curvy to zaftig-curvy. People post so often about how their lives have been changed that it's become commonplace to me, and I don't realize just how astonishing that is until I step back and think about it. All I can credit to myself is having the passion to form the community and the graks to keep it focused -- the reason the community is such a huge force for positivity is because people are coming in with the desire to grow and learn love. All they want is relief from self-hate, and what they find is acceptance, care, admiration, friendship. Reading the comments in the community is so encouraging, because they are so consistently wonderful. It's wonderful because the women are wonderful. And it makes me want to cry with joy because all it takes is giving someone the chance to be supportive and caring, and they will take that chance! At core we all want to love each other, we're just too scared of rejection to do it, and if we find an environment where it's the culture to care and show admiration, we will.

It takes spending time with someone who's of 'normal' cosmo-culture to realize that curvygirls is a revolution, a quiet but continuously-building force of change. And we all go out and influence others, in tiny or major ways. And yeah, the comm is about body-love, but it goes so much deeper than that. It's about learning to love ourselves for being OURSELVES, rather than rating ourselves and everyone else according to how we match some tyrannical unhealthy standard set by greedy fucks who want to beat us down and charge us for it. The body is just a symbol of the self, it is our SELVES and each other's selves that we are learning to love.

Viva La Curvylution!!!

I feel so full of love and positivity. Life is good. I am noticing small changes in myself that I love. Earlier, it was 10:58 and we were driving to the video store when I realized we weren't going to make it on time, and rather than giving up as would have been previously natural for me, I decided to take a page from maladroitkat's book and ASK for what I want. (M-Kat is living embodiment of the phrase, "Ask and ye shall receive.") Unfortunately Ben accidentally dropped the phone under his seat so I wasn't able to make the call, but I was actually going to ask them to stay open 5 minutes later. After all, it is no inconvenience to them for me to ASK, and they get to make the decision on whether they are willing to accept the inconvenience of actually doing it. I was so proud of myself for even making that mental step. Often I forget that rules are run by people, who may be generous if given the opportunity (though they are often pissy if the gift is taken rather than asked for).

I really really really want to move to Glasgow. Not because I don't love it here because I DO, Georgia is in my blood, but because Kate and my soulfriend Hannah go to Glasgow Uni (or will soon, anyway) and it has a good philosophy program and I thirst for a REAL college. I could easily go to a university here for free or near to it, but I don't want to go to college for a diploma, I want to go to LEARN. I think this is an alien concept nowadays. And the University of Pittsburgh gave me a taste of what it is like to be awed by the knowledge of your professor, to listen to them and feel your mind expanding (and it was also very flattering to learn that I had been talked about between my two favorite professors, heh heh). It was so wonderful to have mind-stimulating conversations with people who know so much more than I. I took Latin American Literature instead of a foreign language, expecting to be bored, and discovered Julio Cortazar, the best writer I have ever sampled. I am still awed by the incredible depth and saturation of his metaphor. I really really enjoyed writing essays on his work -- how often does it happen that you ENJOY writing essays? But the book went completely over the head of the other students -- they preferred One Hundred Years of Solitude which was exactly how it sounds. After you are finished reading it, you feel as if no relationship is ever real and everyone lives in an impenetrable bubble and you might as well kill yourself because you're slowly dying anyway and nobody's gonna care and you cannot make any mark on the world. But the other students liked it BETTER than Hopscotch because it was more literal (even the magical realism of OHYoS was far too simple to be of any special note to a fantasy reader). Bah.

I really love learning. I hated math because of the constant review -- while I see that it was necessary, I infinitely prefer to learn something new every day. I get envious when I hear others talk about things they heard in a philosophy/sociology/psychology/culture/literature class, because I want to learn that stuff and roll it through my mind and decide what parts I agree with or disagree with or am confused/curious about. I want to understand more about people. I want to take a class on every major (population-wise) culture of today. I want to develop new ways of expressing myself through words. I want to be inspired to write poetry again. I want to take art classes! I am so curious.

And I have decided that I want to at least try following this dream. I want to talk to Ben, see what he feels about possibly moving to another country, pray about it, apply to the college (eek!), look into scholarships, and see if it is feasable. Who knows? I won't unless I do something. Knock and the door will be opened, right?

I feel so full of love and positivity. Life is good. I am noticing small changes in myself that I love. Earlier, it was 10:58 and we were driving to the video store when I realized we weren't going to make it on time, and rather than giving up as would have been previously natural for me, I decided to take a page from maladroitkat's book and ASK for what I want. (M-Kat is living embodiment of the phrase, "Ask and ye shall receive.") Unfortunately Ben accidentally dropped the phone under his seat so I wasn't able to make the call, but I was actually going to ask them to stay open 5 minutes later. After all, it is no inconvenience to them for me to ASK, and they get to make the decision on whether they are willing to accept the inconvenience of actually doing it. I was so proud of myself for even making that mental step. Often I forget that rules are run by people, who may be generous if given the opportunity (though they are often pissy if the gift is taken rather than asked for).

I really really really want to move to Glasgow. Not because I don't love it here because I DO, Georgia is in my blood, but because Kate and my soulfriend Hannah go to Glasgow Uni (or will soon, anyway) and it has a good philosophy program and I thirst for a REAL college. I could easily go to a university here for free or near to it, but I don't want to go to college for a diploma, I want to go to LEARN. I think this is an alien concept nowadays. And the University of Pittsburgh gave me a taste of what it is like to be awed by the knowledge of your professor, to listen to them and feel your mind expanding (and it was also very flattering to learn that I had been talked about between my two favorite professors, heh heh). It was so wonderful to have mind-stimulating conversations with people who know so much more than I. I took Latin American Literature instead of a foreign language, expecting to be bored, and discovered Julio Cortazar, the best writer I have ever sampled. I am still awed by the incredible depth and saturation of his metaphor. I really really enjoyed writing essays on his work -- how often does it happen that you ENJOY writing essays? But the book went completely over the head of the other students -- they preferred One Hundred Years of Solitude which was exactly how it sounds. After you are finished reading it, you feel as if no relationship is ever real and everyone lives in an impenetrable bubble and you might as well kill yourself because you're slowly dying anyway and nobody's gonna care and you cannot make any mark on the world. But the other students liked it BETTER than Hopscotch because it was more literal (even the magical realism of OHYoS was far too simple to be of any special note to a fantasy reader). Bah.

I really love learning. I hated math because of the constant review -- while I see that it was necessary, I infinitely prefer to learn something new every day. I get envious when I hear others talk about things they heard in a philosophy/sociology/psychology/culture/literature class, because I want to learn that stuff and roll it through my mind and decide what parts I agree with or disagree with or am confused/curious about. I want to understand more about people. I want to take a class on every major (population-wise) culture of today. I want to develop new ways of expressing myself through words. I want to be inspired to write poetry again. I want to take art classes! I am so curious.

And I have decided that I want to at least try following this dream. I want to talk to Ben, see what he feels about possibly moving to another country, pray about it, apply to the college (eek!), look into scholarships, and see if it is feasable. Who knows? I won't unless I do something. Knock and the door will be opened, right?

I feel so full of love and positivity. Life is good. I am noticing small changes in myself that I love. Earlier, it was 10:58 and we were driving to the video store when I realized we weren't going to make it on time, and rather than giving up as would have been previously natural for me, I decided to take a page from maladroitkat's book and ASK for what I want. (M-Kat is living embodiment of the phrase, "Ask and ye shall receive.") Unfortunately Ben accidentally dropped the phone under his seat so I wasn't able to make the call, but I was actually going to ask them to stay open 5 minutes later. After all, it is no inconvenience to them for me to ASK, and they get to make the decision on whether they are willing to accept the inconvenience of actually doing it. I was so proud of myself for even making that mental step. Often I forget that rules are run by people, who may be generous if given the opportunity (though they are often pissy if the gift is taken rather than asked for).

I really really really want to move to Glasgow. Not because I don't love it here because I DO, Georgia is in my blood, but because Kate and my soulfriend Hannah go to Glasgow Uni (or will soon, anyway) and it has a good philosophy program and I thirst for a REAL college. I could easily go to a university here for free or near to it, but I don't want to go to college for a diploma, I want to go to LEARN. I think this is an alien concept nowadays. And the University of Pittsburgh gave me a taste of what it is like to be awed by the knowledge of your professor, to listen to them and feel your mind expanding (and it was also very flattering to learn that I had been talked about between my two favorite professors, heh heh). It was so wonderful to have mind-stimulating conversations with people who know so much more than I. I took Latin American Literature instead of a foreign language, expecting to be bored, and discovered Julio Cortazar, the best writer I have ever sampled. I am still awed by the incredible depth and saturation of his metaphor. I really really enjoyed writing essays on his work -- how often does it happen that you ENJOY writing essays? But the book went completely over the head of the other students -- they preferred One Hundred Years of Solitude which was exactly how it sounds. After you are finished reading it, you feel as if no relationship is ever real and everyone lives in an impenetrable bubble and you might as well kill yourself because you're slowly dying anyway and nobody's gonna care and you cannot make any mark on the world. But the other students liked it BETTER than Hopscotch because it was more literal (even the magical realism of OHYoS was far too simple to be of any special note to a fantasy reader). Bah.

I really love learning. I hated math because of the constant review -- while I see that it was necessary, I infinitely prefer to learn something new every day. I get envious when I hear others talk about things they heard in a philosophy/sociology/psychology/culture/literature class, because I want to learn that stuff and roll it through my mind and decide what parts I agree with or disagree with or am confused/curious about. I want to understand more about people. I want to take a class on every major (population-wise) culture of today. I want to develop new ways of expressing myself through words. I want to be inspired to write poetry again. I want to take art classes! I am so curious.

And I have decided that I want to at least try following this dream. I want to talk to Ben, see what he feels about possibly moving to another country, pray about it, apply to the college (eek!), look into scholarships, and see if it is feasable. Who knows? I won't unless I do something. Knock and the door will be opened, right?