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26 for Twenty Six

First Published: 27 March 2025

Draft 1: 27 March 2025

This will officially be my third year attempting to do a number of new tasks over the course of the year.1 I more and more realize that this has become less of a way for me to start doing more new things and much more a way of making sure that I recognize the many ways that I’m continuing to grow as a person.

Even though I’m well into this year of my life, I still want to have finished with this by the time I turn twenty seven! Let’s see what things I’ve already done, and then start to consider what else I want to do:2

  1. Learned to live with a single living parent.3

  2. Saw Hozier live in concert4

  3. Checked in with most of my friends to make sure that I was communicating appropriately. That’s really mostly me accepting that I like to have expectations explicitly stated and trusting my friends enough to do so.

  4. Officially gave up on my web novel.5

  5. Seasoned a wok!6

  6. Sharpened my own knives at home7

  7. Sat Shiva! It was a really fantastic experience, in as much as anything about grieving can be good. Watching someone else near to me deal with the loss of a parent without Shiva8 really highlighted just how beneficial it was in terms of my ability to process my grief and accept the way that life is forever going to be different for me.

  8. Did a large embroidery pattern9

  9. Was the entirety of the stage crew for a cabaret. I don’t quite know how to phrase this one, but it’s mostly that I was the sole person for staging all the props and scenes for a number of small acts. It was kind of weird having such responsibility

  10. Joined a book club with some church friends10

  11. Joined a community choir! It’s TTBB which is also really cool

  12. Went to adult night at the local conservatory (nature not music)

  13. Started going to a weekly watch party for a television show. I really don’t think that I’ve ever really kept up with a show as it aired each week

  14. Did an unassisted downward dog!11

  15. Tried a bunch of different fitness classes!12

  16. Started teaching children’s religious education

  17. Designed a novel search pattern13

  18. Was explicitly acknowledged in a Ph.D. defense not as a formality14

  19. Started using the university-wide high throughput computing center

  20. Got an award for service: I apparently gave talks in the greatest number of counties through the university’s talk program

  21. Learned how to crochet flowers

  22. Realized that my life is better when I wear good noise cancelling headphones, bought a pair, and became comfortable wearing them in public

  23. Will15 lead an interactive science demo with children.

Wildly, that’s already twenty three items. Many of them are things that I don’t really think that I would count if given the option, and so let’s pare the list down to things that I actually consider novel:

  1. Learned to live with a single living parent.

  2. Saw Hozier live in concert

  3. Seasoned a wok!

  4. Sharpened my own knives at home

  5. Sat shiva16

  6. Did a large embroidery pattern17

  7. Did the entire stage managing and crewing for a small cabaret production

  8. Joined a community choir! It’s TTBB which is also really cool

  9. Went to adult night at the local conservatory (nature not music)

  10. Started going to a weekly watch party for a television show. I really don’t think that I’ve ever really kept up with a show as it aired each week

  11. Did an unassisted downward dog!18

  12. Started teaching children’s religious education

  13. Got an award for service: I apparently gave talks in the greatest number of counties through the university’s talk program

  14. Learned how to crochet flowers

  15. Will19 lead an interactive science demo with children.

That’s still 15! That means I need to do eleven in the next four months, which is more than doable, hopefully! That’s a relief, honestly, and really points out just how much my mind lies to me. I did really believe that I had not done anything novel this year, entirely because I thought that my mom’s death had been all consuming. It’s nice to know that that isn’t true! Only two and a half of the items are explicitly related to that, and the rest I don’t think were impacted at all! Wild how life continues to go on even when I want it to stop, and wild that I continued to actively live even when I felt like I was behind a curtain watching life pass me by.

N.B. This is the living list of ways that I want to take care of myself and/or goals that I have and/or things that I want to do. I’m planning to start adding the shorter term goals that I have to this as well.


  1. Apparently I never updated the twenty five for twenty five, so it’s anyone’s guess whether or not I made it!

  2. I generally want to do less lists in my blogging and writing generally, but this feels like an ok place to do so

  3. we all knew that I was going to start here, since it’s obviously the point that is the biggest change

  4. which was a great time

  5. the day that I have in my notes is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the day I made the post on the site

  6. or, at least, attempted to

  7. or, at least, ran my knife over a sharpening stone. In doing so, I realized that my standard for sharpness is actually relatively dull, which is kind of nice

  8. do I capitalize it???

  9. which I’m actually really proud of

  10. and unfortunately had to stop the book club because I then joined a community choir

  11. there’s a chance that I did this before, but I cannot remember a time when I did

  12. barre, rhythm cycle, zumba, HIIT

  13. I think, at least, and we’ll see whether or not it ends up working

  14. i.e. not a member of my research group, who is obligated to do so

  15. in about a week

  16. turns out it is not supposed to be capitalized! Who’d’ve thunk? Thunk is a weird word, now that I think about it even a little bit

  17. I feel like I should justify this one more, also maybe I should blog about the fact that I actively hate the idea of anyone caring about it? apparently at least

  18. there’s a chance that I did this before, but I cannot remember a time when I did

  19. in about a week

  20. at least moving forwards and hopefully also working backwards through the many posts that I have

  21. as a living list!

  22. ties into the professional goal

  23. what’s the term for not just within?

  24. e.g. why am I so opposed to framing the embroidery or giving it to someone who would cherish it? Why is it that I told a friend yesterday that I don’t like using extant embroidery/cross stitch patterns because I think that most art should be created a single time, and what does that mean? Where is the line between art and functional things (e.g. I love crocheting the same flower a hundred times or the same hat a million (exaggeration for literary effect) times

  25. hint hint

  26. OOf this is a lot

  27. brain dump meaning I sit down at my computer and start typing until the well runs dry in regards to the idea. Avoid significant editing or revising wherever possible

  28. something I just realized is that I never added time to make graphics, or a stage where I would explicitly put them in. I think that I plan to do so after the first time my advisor looks at the drafts, because no point making something she thinks is pointless

  29. I know this is more than a week away, leave me alone