Finally?

It’s time for the final ROW80 check-in of Round 2.  Let’s hear it for a successful Round of Words!

Hip, Hip….

*crickets*

Actually it wasn’t all bad.  While I didn’t always achieve my goals, I did meet a number of them.  And I learned a lot about things I like to do, and how I was sabotaging things I loved doing with things I felt I needed to do.

For example:  I loved trying MOOCs and learning new thing, and for the last few years, I was taking them and having a blast.  I didn’t always finish the classes I signed up for (and none of them on time), but I picked at every one I did and worked at my pace.  And it was wonderful.

Beware of …
(cred swissbanana)

Then…  I started teaching and felt I needed to keep adding to my skill set to be a better mentor and resource for my students.  And…  *steadily increasing whistling sounds… ending in a WHOMP*  Not only did I fall out of the wagon, but down the slide of the canyon wall we were racing next to.  Yeah…  it wasn’t fun anymore.  It wasn’t for me, and…  it was for a place (and several people) I’d begun to resent for their constantly increasing expectations of my performance (no, not the people I actually worked with daily).

So…  was this the best, most productive Round of Words?  Actually I think it was problably the most productive one I’ve ever had.  It just doesn’t show in the numbers.

• Writing — over the round I averaged 823 words a day on my story (65842 actually) and countless others on blogging; if anything, I think blogging has taken most of creative output lately.  I don’t like that part of all this reporting, and I’m testing out ways to streamline that process.
• Time with characters/storyworld — I’d made amazing progress here, having fun with my characters, talking with them about their bunions and chatting over campfires as they endured their travels and dealt with annoying relatives, bandits and lovers…  but these last two weeks?  Poor Alanii’s been hanging out at the bottom of a canyon mid-avalanche for almost a week now, ‘Listii is passed out on the training hall floor from a psychic-backlash, and Atyr just realized the woman she was struggling with is dead (and she doesn’t know how).  I really need to spend some time with these folks, don’t you?
• Pushups/general fitness — Inconsistent is the only way to score this goal…  I certainly didn’t do something every day.  Most days I was active in some way, but I’m still abysmal with my push-ups, and despite my best efforts, I still struggle with the two-hour run of karate and then weapons class on Saturday.  The knee does not like me then.  Not at all…
• Camera time daily — I started this goal a bit late in the Round, but I have stayed with it, and have even created an awesome (imho) mini blog-hop called the First Friday Photo via my ‘name’ blog The Garden of Delights.  Check it out!  Also, new sign-ins start tomorrow so we can actually have our posts ready for the First Friday (especially with the 4th of July in the US happening)
• French and German daily 10 minutes — most of the time I’ve stayed on top of this.  I missed a day here and there, and once I missed a week…  but in general I did great with this.  At the beginning of the round, I was doing Italian, Irish, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Danish and Japanese for my Mixed Language Arts class in 10min spurts throughout a day.  This lasted about two and a half months before I just could not maintain that pace anymore…  especially when it seemed my students weren’t putting in even half that effort.  Feeling like your efforts are going for nothing or aren’t at all appreciated can be brutal on achievement
• MOOCs — I made a good start at the beginning of the round, but as soon as I made this a ‘goal’, I fell hard.  The fall I don’t think was so much related to setting a goal however as the gradual decline of satisfaction in the work world I was trying to justify my attachment to MOOCs to.  In other words…  the next MOOCs I sign up for, I’m signing up for because I want to learn something, not because I think I need to do it to help and support others.

And that’s my ROWnd 2.  How was yours?  Do you plan on participating in Round 3?  Haven’t made you mind up yet?  New to a Round of Words?  If so, check out our blog.  We’re an awesome bunch, as you discover by checking out all the cool folks at this week’s linky.