The List for 2011: The Year of the Challenge

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.  -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

At this point I had planned to be back in Vermont cleaning out the enormous teetering stacks of papers that had engulfed my office during the last weeks of the semester. But as the saying goes, if you want to make God laugh, talk about your plans. The snow storm that shut down East Coast airports for several days has given me an extra few days on the West Coast with my sister and her family, and some more time out of the office to think about the plan for 2011.  As I mentioned in a previous post, Leah, Siham and I have decided to follow up the Year of New Things with a Year of Challenges.  One of the things I've like best about 2010 is that it has turned new things into a habit for me.  I used to shy away from the unfamiliar and now I find myself constantly looking for new things to try, or new ways to try old things.  So, I'd definitely still like to keep going with new things, but I also want the challenge of really tackling some things that I'm not good at, or haven't mastered, and getting better.

So here's my formula for 2011: 12 new (and challenging) things, and 12 challenges based on things I''ve already started, including two "super-challenges" picked from the life list that Leah, Siham and I also started compiling last year. Something else I learned from last year is that it's a useful thing to be flexible in list-making: new opportunities come up, and friends suggest ideas that hadn't crossed my mind.

With the caveat that the list is intentionally incomplete, and subject to change, the plan for 2011 is:

12 New Things including:

• Visit the Snowflake Bentley Museum in Jericho, VT.  This one and the next were suggested by my friend and Dominican Republic service teammate, Ashley.   One thing I loved about last year's list was the chance to discover new things in my own backyard.  This is one of them.

• Volunteer as a dog walker at the Greyhound Rescue in Saint Albans.  I think greyhounds are great, and so are the people who work to give them a life after they've been chewed up by the racing industry.  Don't know why this one never occurred to me, but glad Ashley suggested we do it.

Ashley getting paper towels for our Dominican Republic group at our Vermonster-eating session last spring. Now that she's done with student teaching, she's got time to do some new things together.

• Do nothing.  Former student and fellow AIDS activist Madison suggested this one almost a year ago, Tom warned that it is much harder than it seems, and after a year of putting it off, I've decided he's right. But I really want to try, so it's being written in to this year's list.

• Try sled hockey. My super athlete philosophy colleague Patrick suggested that I could try this at his team practice last year, but it was near the end of the season, so I didn't get to it.  But I'm intrigued, I'm hoping to do this one sometime in the first month of the new year.



Leah, the Tall Ship Expert, is dying to show off her expertise to Siham and I on a New Bedford expedition

• Explore New Bedford. I think Leah should work for the New Bedford Chamber of Commerce.  She's got a whole  itinerary planned, from exploring the Ernestina tall ship to the New Bedford Whaling Museum to the fabulous indoor climbing gym, we're set to go for a weekend of being tourists.

•  Go to a shooting range.  My friend and student Alexsis suggested this one. She's willing to go with me.  I hate guns, but I agree that it makes sense to at least learn how they work.

• Try using a pottery wheel.  Julia B suggested this one in a comment to a recent post, and offered to teach me.  Kate B. and Lauren have both become amateur potters in the last year as well, and really encouraged me to try it. I've always been intimidated by the thought of a pottery wheel but think it's time to get over it.

• Go dog sledding.  When Siham, Leah and I were on our trip to Quebec City, we discovered a number of places that offer one-day dog sledding experiences.  Now I really want to go back and try it.

12 New Challenges (the two off the Lifetime List are marked with an *)


• Become a better rock climber.  Anyone who's ever glanced at this blog for more than five seconds had to know that one was coming, right? Can't wait to get done with my three-week doctor-imposed hiatus of exercise to get started.



With coaches like  Conor and Dan S. how could I help but love this activity?  Now I just have to actually get good at it.

• Write a book with my students* Already started, and with a 28-person team of students and alumni spread around the US and in four different countries, it's an interesting challenge.  Luckily, it's a Dream Team of students and alumni to work with, and it's a LOT of fun.



Matt and Alexsis will be incorporating some of their work on MDG Goal 8 into the independent study course the three of us will be doing together spring semester. In this picture from our  November writers' meeting they're setting up a google group to communicate with all the Goal 8 team.

• Become a better skier and/or snowboarder.  Loved trying both of these last year.  I bought a Bash Badge to give me incentive to go to Smuggler's Notch this year, and have a great ski instructor, Drisk as a housemate.  Plus, Paul also just started snowboarding, too, so I'll be tagging along with him at Bolton, I think.

• Run a marathon* I always swore I'd never do this, though at least one friend, Gary, insisted differently, and I put it off indefinitely by assigning it to my life list.  But Colleen caught Siham and me at a weak moment in Washington, DC and somehow convinced us that we wanted to.  I just signed up for a class at the Y to help me get serious about the training for the Burlington City Marathon.

• Become a better ice skater. Failed at sticking with this one last year, but this year will be different.  Ali is now working at the Ice Barn in Milton and between her and Michelle, I am bound and determined to get back into a skating routine and learn to jump and spin.

• Become a better cook. Between the cooking new things I learned last year (souffle, fresh mozzarella, pesto and Indian food) plus my December baking spree, I've realized that I really want to become a versatile and good cook.  I am still going to get Dean to give me the croissant lesson, Katrinka is teaching me stuffed grade leaves here in Tacoma, I still want to learn to make homemade yogurt and Claire is all set to do some cooking in early January.  I think the plan will be to try a new recipe or food per week, with emphasis on different ethnic foods I like.

First baby step on my challenge to become a better cook: learning to make stuffed grape leaves in Tacoma

• Become a better hiker. I loved the hiking I did last year, and feel like I'm ready to stretch a little into some new and more challenging trails.  The one I'm most intimidated about is attempting to follow Chris up Hell Brook Trail, but I'm game to try it.  Plus, Ashley and Luke have both offered to do  a peak in the Adirondacks, and I still really want to get out in New Hampshire and climb Mt Washington and some of the other Presidentials with Chris and/or Kate.

• Get comfortable with mechanics. Despite Nigel's excellent lessons, I still feel like I'm just not there.  I think I need a full-fledged, multiple-session class in beginning auto or bike maintenance to feel like I understand it.  Laurie, Kate and Nicole have all offered to do it together, and Chris has offered to give me some more instruction to try to nail this one down this year.

• Visit Alaska via container ship.  Leah, Siham and I all feel like we're ready ta tackle this one.  The plan is to leave from the Port of Tacoma and sail to Anchorage, and then return via car or plane.  We're all pretty psyched, and now just waiting to find out if the March timing we had selected can work or if we have to wait till later in the year.

• Study Arabic. Hanging out in foreign countries with Siham, who is fluent in both French and Arabic is very humbling. Jordan is one of the most wonderful places I could ever imagine and I definitely plan to go back. So, it's time for me to bite the bullet and try to learn the language a bit, even though I think it seems much harder than French or Kiswahili, the two languages I've struggled with in the past.   

Listening to Khaled and Siham go back and forth effortlessly between Arabic, Friench and English during our Petra adventure made me wish I could as well

 So, that's the plan.  As always, I'm looking for teachers, people who want to do these things together, and new ideas, so please let me know if you're interested in any of these things.   Here's to a 2011 filled with all kinds of great challenges!

What's Next? 2011, the Year of the Challenge

When I decided that 2010 would be the Year of New Things it was because I had the germ of an idea (travel) and my friends Leah and Siham helped shape it into something much more ambitious and all-encompassing (52 New Things).  Since that decision in late fall of 2009, we've gotten together at least every couple of months (Siham lives in Boston, and Leah in New Bedford) to do something on all of our lists and think about what else we want to do.  This last weekend Siham and Leah were up to celebrate my birthday and the fact that I completed 52 New Things in a 52 weeks. I should have known they would, once again, take the germ of an idea (keep going) and help me think of it in a more ambitious way.  By the end of the weekend we were clear that 2011 will be the Year of the Challenge.

By the end of the weekend we also had the coffee table completely covered with Christmas cookies. Of, course I pressed everyone in the condo into service -- here are Drisk and Siham helping out.

All three of us are big believers in signs, and one of the signs came from the things that remained on all three of our lists of new things.  A lot of the stuff that's left is hard, and will require some pretty serious time commitments.  All three of us, for instance, want to learn a new language, and we're still planning our trip to Alaska by container ship in March, which is a bit more complicated than just hopping on a plane would be.

One of our many signs -- in Quebec City, Siham and Leah spotted a container ship -- a clear harbinger of an upcoming adventure.

But Siham and I had gotten another sign the week before when we were in Washington, DC and got to spend a little time with another friend and former student, Colleen. Colleen has decided that 2011 is the year to run the Burlington City Marathon -- not just her, but Siham and me as well.  Clearly, it was a sign.

Happy smiles -- Colleen had just wrangled a commitment from Siham and me about the marathon, and the gravity of what she had agreed to hadn't hit Siham yet.

So, now I'm in the position I was about a year ago (but this time thanks to Julia I already have a blog from which to write), asking friends and family for suggestions for challenging things for the coming year.  The plan is to try to continue to do new things on a regular basis (hopefully at least once a month), but also pick some things that take a serious commitment in order to improve or become even minimally competent.

Here's what my list is looking like right now:

• The MDG book.  This one has already been started, obviously, but now we need to spend the next year seeing it through  It's simultaneously the most ambitious and most fun book project I've ever been part of, and it's going to be a front-burner effort in 2011.
• Run a marathon.  I'm going to try to get Colleen, Siham and I all registered for the Burlington City Marathon (which will be May 21, 2011) before the new year so that we're all committed. 
• The container ship trip to Alaska.  Still planning to do it over spring break, and need to set up the logistics when I'm in Tacoma at Christmastime.

• Hike Hell Brook Trail with Chris.  This is the toughest trail up Mt. Mansfield, and full of big rocks which are usually wet. Incredibly, Chris does it on a weekly basis when the weather allows, and I am going to do it with him sometime in the coming year.





I won't be smiling like this when we do Hell Brook


• Learn to jump and spin on skates.  This was on my original new things list, but I was overoptimistic.  I was going great guns last winter, but then stopped skating altogether in May.  I need to commit to skating a couple days a week and hopefully doing some more lessons to get back into the game on this one.
• Do nothing.  Sounds incredibly easy, but when I was preparing to do it (I wound up doing the far easier and more delicious option of going to Chris's mom's for Thanksgiving instead), I discovered it was actually going to be pretty tough.  But I will do it in 2011.
• Mechanics, once again.  Despite Nigel's excellent tutelage on bike and car tire changing, I feel like I just didn't totally get it.  I think I need to take a full-fledged bike or auto maintenance course to really get a feel for how things work.
• Skiing. Loved it last winter when Drisk took me, and bought a Bash Badge for Smugglers Notch for this winter so I can work on getting better.
• Arabic. This language really intimidates me, probably because I don't even know the alphabet for it, and think it looks impossible to read.  But I want to give it a shot to at least learn some basics.

One more weekend Christmas cookie shot, just for the fun of it

It's a very incomplete list and I'm still thinking about what else should go on, so please, feel free to offer thoughts and suggestions.  I'll write the full list and plan sometime around the New Year, and I'm still going to do a post about the year I just finished.  But it's always fun to think about what might be on the horizon.  If anyone is interested in doing any of these challenges (or others you want to suggest) in tandem, please let me know as well.