Goals for 2024

Gelukkig nieuwjaar! Wishing you and yours all the very best of health and happiness in the year ahead.

Last year was the third year in a row I posted a set of goals for the coming year. As is usually the case with these posts, the balance between my ambitions, capacities, and the surprises of the year meant that many of these goals went unmet. The resolutions below are also more than likely to be abandoned or shifted as the year goes on. I find setting them a useful and enjoyable process anyway so here we go again. 

What are your hopes or ambitions for the coming year? Whether you have many New Years' Resolutions or none, I wish you a fulfilling and fruitful 2024.

"Resolutions and goals" by creepyed is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

In academia... 

• My SMALL goal to attend at least one panel at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, or the International Medieval Congress, in Leeds, on a subject about which I want to learn more, and speak to people there before or afterwards
  
• My MEDIUM goal is to give a paper or talk in a venue or format that is new to me.
• My LARGE goal is to say thank you, congratulations, can I help, and yes, whenever the opportunity arises.

In blogging...

• My SMALL goal is to write a blog post about things to do in Utrecht, based on the (many!) page flags I stuck into my copy of Utrecht: Sights and secrets of Holland's smartest city, which was a leaving gift from my wonderful library colleagues. And/or, write a post that references this amazing list of things expats should do in the Netherlands.
• My MEDIUM goal is to finish the posts I have drafted about Before We Were Trans by Kit Heyam, The Bright Ages by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry, and The Gates of Europe: A New History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy, plus one new post about a history book.
• My LARGE goal is to publish 52 posts over the course of the year, using this space as a place to share what I read and play with non-academic writing.

Big Red, aka my mother's birthday afghan, a decade in the making, blocking in December 2023

In crafting...

• My SMALL goal is to finish the ten-stitch blanket I started in late November 2023.
• My MEDIUM goal for this year is to remove two UFOs from my flat. I moved to the Netherlands with several UFOs (unfinished objects, not alien spacecraft), and derived enormous satisfaction from finishing one of them. Let's finish more in 2024!
  
• My LARGE goal is to purchase fabric from the Lapjesmarkt and use it to sew a set of fabric boxes for my flat.
  

Buttons at the Lapjesmarkt, November 2023

In living in the Netherlands...

• My SMALL goal is to write a letter to Sinterklaas and get a reply--an idea that comes from the brilliant and hilarious blog Accidentally Dutch, written by an expat Englishman, which I read a lot before moving to the Netherlands.
• My MEDIUM goal is to sign up for a Netherlands Museum pass and go to at least three exhibits, ideally in different cities.
• My LARGE goal is to take at least one Dutch language class, and get to A1 Level. (To be precise, skills I want to acquire are: numbers in Dutch; basic vocabulary to discuss hobbies; the ability to understand when someone is offering me a receipt and politely decline; the ability to understand when a cashier is offering to have a holiday gift wrapped and politely say yes; greetings for times of day and the holidays; and a few idioms, specifically the equivalent for "you're pulling my leg" that mentions dragons.)

In publishing...

• My SMALL goal is to write something about my research interests or teaching for a history or ancient studies periodical I admire--JSTOR Daily, the Public Domain Review, Piecework, Ancient Jew Review, etc.
• My MEDIUM goal is to complete all three of my unfinished book chapters.
• My LARGE goal is to finish and submit a draft of a peer-reviewed journal article on marginalised participants in early medieval letter exchange for my postdoc, as well as to reach the finish line of three other articles.
  

the UFO at the Inkpot, Utrecht (August 2023)

In reading...

• My SMALL goal is to read at least one of the stories shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing (ideally, one of the prize anthologies if I can obtain a copy from my public library).
• My MEDIUM goal is finish reading Our Beloved Kin by Lisa Brooks, which has lingered unfinished on my nightstand for over a year.
• My LARGE goal is to join three 2024 reading challenges and write at least two posts about what I read. I've signed up for an epistolary reading challenge and a historical fiction reading challenge, as well as a books in translation reading challenge (with the intention of focusing on books translated from Dutch to English). The last two challenges will probably overlap since I already have two works of historical fiction by Dutch authors in my TBR pile (In a Dark Wood Wandering by Hella S. Haasse and Crusade in Jeans by Thea Beckman.)

In running...

• My SMALL goal is to run more than 592 miles, in order to beat my total mileage from last year.
• My MEDIUM goal is to join a running group and attend at least twelve times over the course of 2024.
• My LARGE goal is to train for and finish a 10k, improving my personal best time at this distance (49:24, set in 2020).

In teaching...

• My SMALL goal is to attend at least one in-person event or workshop related to teaching and professional development.
• My MEDIUM goal is to ask one of my colleagues to observe my teaching during the semester.
• My LARGE goal is to meet and adapt to the challenges and rewards of teaching in a new country and academic system by meeting deadlines for marking and getting materials ready, building a good rapport with my students, and keeping a reflective log throughout the semester.

In writing...

• My SMALL goal is to participate in the Mini 1000 writing challenge for a second year in a row, aiming for a consistent 750 words per day (plus one session of editing at the end).
• My MEDIUM goal is to participate in 1000 Words of Summer, aiming for a consistent 750 words per day (plus two sessions of editing at the end).
• My LARGE goal is to participate in National Novel Writing Month, including the NaNo Prep 101 exercises, with the purpose of finishing a first draft of a story with the working tagline "fight princesses and rescue dragons." Given that my previous two years of NaNo efforts were for 500 words/day, this is a pretty big leap. But as my grandmother said, if you don't shoot for the stars, you never get off the ground.
  

At the risk of tempting the fates, my overall goal for 2024 might be summarised as "landing the fleet of UFOs"-- aka finishing unfinished work, be it in my craft bags or on my hard drives! In the immortal words of Emperor Gregor Vorbarra, let's see what happens.

 

Previous New Years' Posts:  2021 2022 2023