Dubliners

It has to be coherent.

It has to be relevant.

It has to all tie in together.

It has to convince her that what I have written is an accepted, intellectual and innovative truth.

This essay has to be everything, else I shall be completely miserable all summer, and shan’t enjoy the long heady days in the grass, nor any anticipated travels around this supposedly beautiful country.

And two days later, I have to submit 4000 words of pure literary genius. I have to tame my tutor’s senses and whisk her emotions away in a hurricane of action, my words ceasing to be groups of letters and becoming images floating through her mind. I want her to finish reading, and suddenly slam back down into her chair as reality hits her once more.

But how to do this, while simultaneously analysing James Joyce?

Do tell me, for I am quite lost and bogged down both intellectually and creatively.

January

Was an interesting month.

I didn’t do much to be proud of, really. I complained a lot about things and people. I was ‘busy’, rather than ‘productive’.

I did a lot of driving, a lot of writing. I spent money I didn’t really have. On things I didn’t really need.

January passed me in a bit of a blur. What did I achieve in the first month of the year?

Nothing, really. I submitted two assignments. I went to the gym three-four times a week, I got up at six o’clock every morning, witnessed some frost, witnessed no frost..

Sometimes it was sunny, sometimes a drizzle hung over the city, making everything wet and shiny, creeping up on us before we noticed it and drenching us slowly, menacingly.

I had some marriage hiccups. Some familial hiccups. But they all sorted themselves out in the end. As they do.

Did I achieve all my goals? I don’t know. I didn’t really have goals.

But I think in writing about each month of 2016, I might have a good picture of what my goals are, and how my year will turn out.

My husband said to me today, “I don’t want to chug away t work everyday. I don’t want to be like all the millions out there. I want to innovate and create and make this world a better place. I won’t do that designing lights for luxury cars while my fellow colleagues around me hobble past with mugs of tea.”

He has a point, you know.

My goals for February are to be more outgoing. Go to new places, do more things, be more creative, read more books, connect with my soul. Also get 85% in my next two essays. Also get my paints out of the attic.

That was my January. How was your January?

Johanna Bohoy

Why Do You Think You’ve Got What it Takes?

Well, first, what it takes to do what?

In my case, it’s to do life.

To be kind and and good, to handle adult situations in a mature way, to pass all my modules.. and with high grades, to secure a  prosperous future for myself, to follow my dreams, to give my parents their due respect and honour, to be a good wife, to help my marriage survive, to take care of my body and my soul, to do well in life, to be happy.

Well, sometimes I don’t think I do have what it takes. But that isn’t what the question is asking. It’s asking why I think I have what it takes. WHY do I think I can do what I set out to do? Assuming I already know I do have what it takes.

Which I do.

I think I do because I am passionate about what I do. I am eager and excited to get up and go. I love my goals and dreams, and I desperately want them to become a reality, so therefore I am willing to put in the extra effort and hard work that I need to put in in for that to happen.

I know the road to ‘there’ will be difficult, and I will experience moments of sadness and frustration and sometimes depression, and might even feel like giving up halfway through.

But it’s like at the gym, when you’re on the step machine, and you’ve set yourself fifteen minutes of random intensity and at the seven minute mark you think, ‘God, I can’t do this anymore, let me just get off and go on to body training’.. but then it’s 7:55 and then 8:21 and you’re like, ‘Well, I can stop at 10’ but then ten comes you’re like, ‘well, what’s five minutes, ey?’ and then fifteen minutes are up and hallelujah you’ve completed your goal and you leave with shaky legs but feeling absolutely fabulous.

That is why I think I have what it takes, because I know when the going gets tough, I can give myself those little nudges that I need to go full speed. I can speed myself up. I am a self-motivator.  I can DO IT.

 

Why do YOU think you’ve got what it takes?

 

 

That List

 

These are the things I want to achieve in 2016.

 

1. Expand my painting skills by doing more painting. Especially with oil paints. I really want to be able to paint fascinating pictures full of colour and get the shadows just right, so I can put them on my walls.
2. Write more. Oh, so much more. Finish my novel finally and try to get it published. Write ten hours a week to start with.
3. Set up a website for my translating and editing business.
4. Practise my Arabic reading and writing and grammar.
5. Get really fit, and increase my daily cycling distance from 10 miles to 30 miles.
6. Explore more places, now that I have a car.
7. Walk for an hour everyday, while listening to informative podcasts.
8. Follow my tastes in fashion, and stop looking like such a frump sometimes.
9. Wear more colour, own more colour, create more colour.
10. Be kind. Kinder. Be more open to humans. I am far too closed off and cold. Smile more.

 

That’s mainly it, really! There are probably more things but right now I am geared up to go. Well I was last week but it’s nice to start from day one.

Speaking of which, I saw so many runners when I went on my bike ride this morning. WAY more than usual. Looks like people have begun with their resolutions already!

Have you?