Tag Archives: creative writing

New Year’s Resolutions 2023: Mid April Update #NewYearsResolutions

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Background

On the 4th of January, I posted my New Year’s Resolutions for 2023. Here is my fourth short update, three months later (check out update one here, update two here and update three here).

I need to lose 50lbs. Simple as that. During Covid, I became the fattest I’ve ever been. Not acceptable. Current weight: 17st 12lb (250lb). Goal weight by Summer: 14st 5lb (201lb).

Me (04/01/2023)

Well, a consistent regimes of (1) jogging every day, and (2) junk comida portion control, mean my current weight is now 15st 9lb (219lb). That is solid progress. Let’s keep it up!

Holiday break

I’ve always had a problem with routines. I’m all or nothing. If I take a break from a project for a few days, for whatever reason, I find it very hard to get back into the rhythm. I don’t know why. It’s a real weakness.

I went on holiday on the 1st of April and got back this week. So I was really scared that I was go off the rails. As it happens, though, I only put on 1-2 lbs and have got right back into the swing of exercise.

Half way there

I am about half way on my weight-loss journey. At least, until I meet my target goal weight. But I am only at the beginning of my life-long health journey.

© 2023 Bryan A. J. Parry

New Year’s Resolutions 2023: Mid March Update #NewYearsResolutions

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Background

On the 4th of January, I posted my New Year’s Resolutions for 2023. Here is my third short update, two months later (check out update one here and update two here).

I need to lose 50lbs. Simple as that. During Covid, I became the fattest I’ve ever been. Not acceptable. Current weight: 17st 12lb (250lb). Goal weight by Summer: 14st 5lb (201lb).

Me (04/01/2023)

Well, a consistent regimes of (1) jogging every day, and (2) junk food portion control, mean my current weight is now 16st 1lb (225lb). That is solid progress. Let’s keep it up!

Wake up calls

I have now reached and gone beyond a highly significant milestone for me, namely, 16st 2lb. Here’s the story of why that weight is so psychologically important for me.

When I was about 27 years old, I had let myself slip into a weight-based funk; too many beers, too many pies, and I’d stopped running. I remember it clearly: I was in Malta on holiday, and I went past a chemist’s; it was closed, but it had a coin-operated height-weight machine outside it. Being a former colony, Malta uses/used our British system of weights and measures. So I stepped on the machine. It rang up 16st 2lb. I had never weighed so much in my life. I turned to see my face in the reflection in the window; I looked truly bloated and grotesque. And memories of being a small boy and asking my then rather overweight Dad how much he weighed rang around my head. “Just over sixteen stone”, he said. I had never seen my Dad so fat, now nor me. It was a wake up call, and when I got back from holiday I got real. I got back into exercise and got back into shape.

Years of good habits followed, but eventually I would sink into a funk again, partly due to mental health problems caused or exacerbated by rather trying life circumstances. And here we are today. But I’m back on track, and I mean it.

© 2023 Bryan A. J. Parry

New Year’s Resolutions 2023: Late February Update #NewYearsResolutions

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On the 4th of January, I posted my New Year’s Resolutions for 2023. Here is my second short update, two months later (check out update one here).

I need to lose 50lbs. Simple as that. During Covid, I became the fattest I’ve ever been. Not acceptable. Current weight: 17st 12lb (250lb). Goal weight by Summer: 14st 5lb (201lb).

Me (04/01/2023)

Well, a consistent regimes of (1) jogging every day, and (2) junk food portion control, mean my current weight is now 16st 6lb (230lb). That is solid progress. Let’s keep it up!

It also counts as another milestone achieved. To those who don’t know the British system of weights, we measure things in stone and pounds. There are fourteen pounds to a stone. Therefore, each seven-pound interval represents a milestone, namely, half a stone. Having now dipped below 16st 7lb, I have arrived at and gone beyond that milestone. Next stop? 16st 2lb. Why is this odd weight highly significant for me? Well, let’s find out in the next post — where I will have reached that target.

© 2023 Bryan A. J. Parry

New Year’s Resolutions 2023: February Update #NewYearsResolutions

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On the 4th of January, I posted my New Year’s Resolutions for 2023. Here is a short update, a month-and-a-half later.

I need to lose 50lbs. Simple as that. During Covid, I became the fattest I’ve ever been. Not acceptable. Current weight: 17st 12lb (250lb). Goal weight by Summer: 14st 5lb (201lb).

Me (04/01/2023)

Well, a consistent regimes of (1) jogging every day, and (2) junk food portion control, mean my current weight is now 16st 10lb (234lb). That is a great start. Let’s keep it up!

My other four goals on the list are in progress, but the achievements so far aren’t as solid as my weight loss. Therefore, I’ll update on those later.

© 2023 Bryan A. J. Parry

New Year’s Resolutions 2023 #NewYearsResolutions

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Let’s get right to the point.

  1. I need to lose 50lbs. Simple as that. During Covid, I became the fattest I’ve ever been. Not acceptable. Current weight: 17st 12lb (250lb). Goal weight by the Summer: 14st 5lb (201lb).
  2. Finish editing my first poetry collection and get it ready for self-publication.
  3. Enter some poetry competitions.
  4. Carry on with my language learning programme (Basque) and meet my goals in it (not specified here to avoid a long post).
  5. Get back on the horse with regards my Spanish. Specifically, get back to practising my speaking using Glossika every day and watching Spanish TV every day. Sit a B2 practice test around the Summer to see how I’m getting on.

That’s it.

These things are important to me. I want to achieve them. These are SMART goals (some details left out to keep the post short) but with in-built flexibility.

Let’s see how I get on.

40 Month Streaker

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I haven’t posted on this blog for two and a half months. My post in September brought to an end my streak of forty months of solid posting on the trot! Sadly, I have been having various life stresses (which I alluded to here). It got to the point where I was like, ‘Ya know what, I don’t have the energy to post right now’.

Whilst I’m still not a hundred per cent, I feel it’s time to get back to writing. When the time is right, I will reveal to all four of my subscribers what has been transpiring. But for now: guess who’s back, back again, Bryan’s back, tell a friend.

© 2017 Bryan A. J. Parry

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Self-Motivation #selfmotivation #newyearsresolution @resolutions #SMART

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Here’s the private note I wrote myself in January 2016 to keep focused. Spelling and formatting as in the actual note. Never looked at it till now, so kinda defeats the purpose. Anyway, in red ink (‘cos red = emergency and thus unforgettable, so went my thinking) it reads:

If I want to achieve my creative and linguistic goals, I need to dedicate SUFFICIENT time EVERY DAY.

But …..

…… I don’t have the time. Therefore, I need to think how to filter this time throughout the day, e.g., vocab. cards on the train.

So ….. Come up with a daily plan that gives me …..

* 2-3.5 hrs of screenwriting/novels/etc (=BIG creative works) per day

* Vocab cards + listening/speaking of 30′ + Memrise

= 1 hr / day per language

–> Swedish, Spanish, and….. Other langs = only Memrise. But langs I am serious about, do above.

* Blogging = 1 hour

* 21CLF — sth, even a subsection 30′ per day

Think about how to thoroly embed my serious langs into my life in order to speed up my learning

Can’t say I disagree with my own conclusions. But I’ve been very inconsistent.

  1. “Big” creative works, e.g., screenplays and novels. FAIL! Well… definitely haven’t done any work at all on these for several months, and very little in any case in 2016.
  2. Language stuff. SUCCESS! I have been doing, more-or-less fairly consistently, flashcards, reading, speaking, listening, and so on, in both Spanish and Swedish. At least half an hour each language a day; very often, an hour or so.
  3. Blogging. More-or-less SUCCESS! I haven’t been doing an hour every day, but I work on my blog (behind the scenes) almost every single day, and throughout the week, I easily tot up an average of one hour a day.
  4. “21CLF” is one book I am writing. FAIL! I have actually done a lot on this during 2016. However, it has been in fits and starts. Mainly, other stuff periodically take precedence and this book gets sidelined. But I was right: I’ve gotta at least look at this project on a daily basis or it’ll never come off.
  5. Thinking how to embed my languages in my life. MIXED! I’ve done this somewhat, but not extensively. But then I didn’t set myself a SMART goal. That is, no specific, measureable, broken-down targets; therefore, how can I judge my success?

Conclusions?

I need to start setting myself SMART Goals for 2017. That is, goals which has are distinct and definite parts so I can measure my success, and a predetermined timeline to do them by. All of my above goals, despite specified time to be spent, are still a tad vague.

Also, speaking for myself, I find I work very well when I have a series of deadlines stacked up and am forced into planning more. Hence why I tend to do well on courses and in work-based assignments. Hmm, maybe there’s a lesson there for 2017…

© 2016 Bryan A. J. Parry

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SMART Goals 2: Finding Time: TDSOTM #SMART #SMARTGoals #PinkFloyd

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As you might know, I’m struggling to fit an ever-busier life into the 24 hours that this selfish Tory government has deemed fit to give us. Things can’t go on as they are: I’m barely keeping up, and I am spread thinner and thinner over more and more toast. I need to develop SMART Goals to sort myself out.

If I don’t pull my finger out? Then the following brilliant song’s words will be my epitaph. I’m talking about Time by Pink Floyd from their classic 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon. I keep listening to the song right now to try and spark me into success.

Time

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say.

© 2016 Bryan A. J. Parry, bar the lyrics and video

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text of lyrics courtesy of http://www.pink-floyd-lyrics.com/html/time-dark-lyrics.html 

SMART Goals: Finding Time

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As you may know, life just seems to keep getting busier and busier the older you get. More responsibilities and that. Right now, I’ve got so much to fit into my day, I don’t even know how to do it. I desperately need to find a SMARTer way of working. CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE POST