Updates...Gina and the last goal update of 2008

First off, thanks to all of you for your well-wishes for my cousin. Gina ended up with broken ribs, a couple of broken vertebrae, and a punctured lung. Her lung didn't collapse though, which made things slightly easier. She's in a lot of pain but she's been conscious and lucid enough to talk.

The doctors have been running a lot of different tests to check for permanent damage, especially spinal cord damage, but everything so far indicates that though it'll be a long and painful road, she will make a full recovery. So again, thanks to all of you for your support, and for putting up with me being a total mess the last few days. <3

Now for a quick goal update. This is the last of the year, so I'm going to see where I stand on all of the goals I haven't yet finished, based on what the original goal was. Overall, I'm impressed with how much I got done. When I started this at the beginning of the year, I was hoping to finish maybe four or five. I never thought I would add so many goals and yet manage to complete the majority of them. I'll definitely be putting up a new set of goals at the beginning of 2009.

1. Nano novel. Okay, the initial goal was to finish my Nano novel from 2007, and edit it once. Technically, this didn't happen, but I'm still thrilled with my progress. I'm probably 3/4 through the first draft, and I've already edited some large chunks of the story. I may actually finish a story, for once. >_>

2. Write every day. I didn't write every day, or even close to every day. I'd say I probably averaged 3-4 times a week. Considering before this year I'd go 6+ months without writing a word, it's an improvement. I may end up carrying this goal over to next year and trying to work up to every day.

3. Let other people read my writing. Much better than I expected with this one. I still have to work on it, but I managed to get over my terror of letting others read my writing a little bit. I even let my mother read something.

4. Learn Japanese. I've made a hell of a lot of progress with this. If I continue this or try another language next year, I think I need to set a more specific goal so that I can measure my progress a bit better.

5. Start buying less stuff, and finish what I have lying around the house. This is and probably always will be an ongoing battle with me. I have my times where I buy shit I really don't need, but having this as a goal I was consciously thinking about helped me to curb my spending a great deal. I've also managed to finish a lot of things I've had around the house for ages. And overall I think I've finished more than I've bought. Except for maybe books. >_>

6. Organize my stuff and get rid of unnecessary clutter. This is probably the only goal left on the list that I'm not satisfied with. I got a lot of this finished, but I still have a long way to go. I've made some more progress the last few days, so maybe I'll make it a goal for next year to finally finish.

7. Get through borrowed stuff. Very happy with this one. I don't remember what the original goal was, if I wanted to finish everything I'd borrowed or just get through as much as I can so I could return stuff. Whatever, I'm probably through about 3/4 of what I had, and I've been doing well not borrowing so much from people. I limit myself to the few things that really interest me so that I don't get completely overwhelmed with other people's stuff.

Like I said, overall I'm thrilled with how much I managed to get done. Even the goals I didn't complete, I made noticeable progress. Once I come up with some new ideas for goals for next year I'll start the posts again. I think having the blog and posting regular updates kept me on track with my goals, unlike regular New Year's resolutions which are forgotten in a week. Plus, if I stopped doing these updates, I think Jade might hurt me....