Focus: 2016's Word of the Year

I didn't make any resolutions for 2016. Instead, I chose a theme: focus.

Image courtesy Ryan McGuire

Now that the year is over, it's time to reflect. What did "focus" mean for me? Did it help me ease out of bad habits or start good ones? Was I happier, more productive?

 What did "focus" mean for me?

First of all, the reasons I decided "focus" should be my word:

In a nutshell, I am a really awful multitasker. We all are, aren't we? My problem is that so many things are interesting and I'm not always good at prioritizing. The biggest ways I (fail to) multitask:

1. I'll be working on a blog post and need to Google something or other. But then when I go to switch tabs, I notice one that I don't remember ("What is this?") or another that I haven't really looked at yet ("I was saving that for later!") and then twenty minutes later I remember that I was writing a blog post and was originally going to just do a quick Google. The same can be said for open windows in the desktop.

2. This also happens with jewelry. I have 5000 different ideas about what I should make next or how I should promote my Etsy.

3. Beyond Etsy, "jack of all trades" is my life story. I sell jewelry; I also teach English and work as a freelance editor/proofreader. My unpaid work includes full-time Swedish language study and writing.

(Let's not get into how many books I try to read at once.)

 Did it help me ease out of bad habits or start good ones?

So yes, I can have a hard time choosing one thing over another! Did consciously trying to focus do anything to fix these problems?

1. I think the most obvious and lasting effect of "focus" is that I no longer keep 387671 different tabs open in Chromium. It's a small thing, but it's kind of important. Chromium tabs kind of represent my working memory and my "pressing issues," for lack of a better term. It's harder to get distracted when I don't have as many "what was this?" or "saving this for later" tabs open. 

The same is true for open windows. My digital workspace is now much less cluttered, which does a lot keep me on track. (It also frees up RAM, making the programs I am using run that much [okay, not much] faster.)

2. This year I decided it would be the year of chainmaille and made a point of ordering high-quality supplies and learning specific weaves that could apply to my STEM ideas. As a result, I've been able to branch out into biology with chainmaille pieces inspired by DNA and gel electrophoresis—ideas that would be impossible to do in beads, or tedious at best, and result in a look that I'm not too interested in pursuing. (Beadweaving is the first step to madness, IMHO.)

3. This is maybe the one area where "focus" fell down. I certainly devoted more time to focusing on professional development in all three of my career branches than I maybe would normally, but I didn't do as much as I could. Ideally, I should have focused on one career track and prioritized that. Or maybe not? I don't know.

Was I happier, more productive?

First of all, happier. This is the hardest question to answer, since I can't go back and relive 2016 without focus for comparison's sake. And it doesn't quite work to compare how I felt in 2016 to how I felt in 2015, since 2016 was just such an absolute fucking dumpster fire of a year.

Productivity is a little easier to tackle. I think I wasted less time than I would have otherwise. I was more diligent about noticing that I was getting sucked into Facebook or Twitter and stepping back. I read more books than I did last year, even though the last third of my year was sucked up with a full-time language course. 

Overall, I think the "word of the year" project was, at least, marginally successful for me. I'm pretty sure I know what word I'm going to use to guide my actions in 2017, but that's another post. But I'll definitely keep "focus" in mind for the new year.

Did you have a word of the year? How did it work out for you? Do you think you'll use one in 2017?

#TBT Euler Variscite Seashell Necklace

This is a necklace that, judging by the materials and the design, dates back to around 2010 or 2011. Most recently in my math jewelry I've focused exclusively on pi, but in earlier work I tried to branch out into other irrational numbers—like Euler's number.

Euler's number necklace by Kokoba

Euler's number isn't as sexy as pi. We don't use an exotic Greek character to refer to it, just e. And while pi enjoys near-universal usage as circles are everywhere, e has a more specialized usage. The only time you probably encounter logarithms is in banking: e is an important part of calculating compound interest.

Also, if you're wondering: "Euler" is pronounced like "oiler," not like it would rhyme with "Ferris Bueller." The more you know!

This necklace features one of my all-time favorite stones, variscite, also known as aqua terra jasper, snakeskin jasper, or impression jasper. I'm actually nearly out of this in my bead box, so listing this one has been a reminder to do some bead shopping. The tan beads are cultured pearls. The spacers between each digit are drilled sea shells, completing the marine look.

What I Read: Day of the Locust

Well, since 2016 has been year of the mediocre white male, seems fitting that my last book review of the year is one by a mediocre white man!

Just kidding. I have no idea if Nathanael West was himself a mediocre white man. But Day of the Locust features a whole bunch of them. It's telling that the novel (or is it more like a novella?) didn't initially sell well, and wasn't considered a "classic" until some years after its initial publication. I'm split on this—on the one hand I'm something of a populist and want to say that if a novel fails to do well with its peers, then maybe it's not that good. On the other hand, Moby-Dick and other greats were equally underappreciated in their times, and books like The Da Vinci Code top contemporary bestseller charts. So...who knows?

Image courtesy Penguin

But I really, really, really did not like this book. There were some scenes of striking and surreal visual interest (as any Hollywood back lot must be, I imagine) but it was all overshadowed by how needlessly and humorlessly obnoxious most of the cast was. Tod Hackett spends a good portion of the time either daydreaming about raping (West's words, not mine) Faye, the token love interest, or scheming to try to seduce her. Most of the other men aren't much better: they all feel entitled to Faye's attention as well as her body. Some are violent about it; others just seethe. Faye herself is every awful stereotype about women rolled up into one uncomfortably young character (she's around 17 and has men in their 20s, 30s, maybe even 40s chasing after her).

All of this would be possible for me to ignore, or look over, or hand wave away if the writing were anything amazing, but it's not.

In my trek through the TIME Top 100 novels, I've come to notice that there are certain groups of novels. A number of books can be classified as featuring "Dysfunctional Expatriates," for example. Another group could easily be "Sad Families." You also have "Character Studies," "Romantic Melodramas," "Formal Experiments," and so on. One of those groups you could easily label "Farce" and that's where Day of the Locust seems to fit in best. Other notable members include At-Swim-Two-Birds, Money, Lucky Jim, and Under the Net. But where the others are genuinely funny, or even satirical, Day of the Locust is just a book spent with unpleasant and uninteresting people.

Maybe it's book for Hollywood people, I don't know.

The edition I checked out from the university library also featured West's earliest novel, The Dream Life of Balso Snell. As far as a surreal and expressionist trip through the annals of art goes, it was okay. It's an improvement on Day of the Locust in that because it's so surreal, it can't really trade in stereotypes because it can't really even attempt to realistically characterize anyone. But otherwise it's too far out there in Experimental land for me. ("Experimental" would be another group in the list: Nightwood, Naked Lunch, Mrs. Dalloway, On the Road.)

I think I'm extra frustrated with how unfunny this book was because I was really looking forward to it and expecting it to be something akin to a written version of a Marx Brothers movie. Something like Under the Net but set in Hollywood rather than London.

NOPE.

Anyway, it sucks that West died prematurely in a car accident because maybe he could have stopped being such a whiny entitled dude (if his writing is anything to go by), but as it is I am thoroughly unimpressed. He's up there with John Updike and V. S. Naipaul when it comes to "Writers Whose Works I Found To Be Thoroughly Unpleasant to the Point of Revulsion." #sorrynotsorry

And on that note: fuck off, 2016. You even ruined wanting the year to be over. You and Nathanael West can go suck eggs.

Five Fandom Friday: Holiday Recommendations or Traditions

Image courtesy Darling Stewie

So I guess 5 Fandom Friday is back? Anyway, this prompt is way more interesting than the OG Friday 5, so I'm rolling with this one: 5 Holiday Recommendations or Traditions!

1. Saffron

Image courtesy Brandon W. Mosley

This is a Very Swedish winter thing, but . . . saffron. Between Persian friends and Swedish holiday traditions, I've had more saffron in the last three years than I've had in my entire life. All during advent (but especially on St. Lucia day, December 13) there are seasonal saffron and rice pastries available in convenience stores and grocery store bakeries all over. You also have it in rice porridge for breakfast around Christmas proper. The best part, IMO, are the fresh saffron cookies our store's bakery sometimes puts out.


2. MST3K and RiffTrax

This happened. With a young Pia Zadora (not pictured). What a time to be alive, 1964.

There's Santa Claus, Santa Claus and the Ice Cream Bunny, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Santa's Village of Madness (not the original title) . . . so many bad Christmas movies to watch! And people keep making more, too. Good movies are good, but bad movies are great.


3. All the goddamn cookies

Just. All of them. Lawyer Mom makes these bomb-ass cookies stuffed with Andes mints. This isn't quite the recipe she follows, but it looks close enough. You're welcome.


4. Glögg

Image courtesy Brian Lary

Or mulled wine. Whatever you want to call it. DELISH.



5. The Big Lebowski

I don't know why, but at some point I started watching The Big Lebowski on New Year's Eve and then just . . . kept doing it. (Except the years I went to see the Guy Richie Sherlock Holmes movies in theaters.) I think there is something about The Dude's unflappable chill that helps me prepare for another year. And I'm going to need a lot of chill to make it through 2017 without having a freaking heart attack.


What holiday traditions do you follow? Let me know, and have a good one!

#TBT Electron Mass Necklace

This is a Kokoba beta release. It was originally an item for the Mad Scientists of Etsy!'s monthly challenge at some point in 2013: an item inspired by the discovery of a new species of frog that is the world's smallest vertebrate.

Image courtesy Christopher Austin, LSU

I'm still quite pleased with how it came out.

Electron radius necklace by Kokoba Jewelry

I tried to stick with frog-y colors, and the green aventurine beads you see there are 8 mm in diameter: around the same size of Paedophryne amauensis (which is technically an average of 7.7 mm in length). And since we're talking about something really, really small, what better way to celebrate it than with a subatomic particle?

What I Read: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

My only previous experience with Sherman Alexie was "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona" and Smoke Signals. It was homework for my freshman year creative writing workshop. Our assignment was to read the story, watch the movie, and then write about the differences between the two. I don't remember much about either the story or the movie except that I wasn't particularly blown away by either of them.

This would have been two years before Absolutely True Diary... was published. So when people started talking about it, I thought, "Oh, yeah, Smoke Signals guy. Whatever."

But then people whose tastes I trusted read it and raved about it. And then, well, Standing Rock.* So when I saw Absolutely True Diary... in the teen section of my local library, I knew that I had to see if it was any good.

Image courtesy Kirk Benshoff and Little, Brown and Company

It was.

Whatever was distant, disconnected, and impersonal for me in "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona" and Smoke Signals was immediate and personal for me in Absolutely True Diary... Maybe it has something to do with the universality of high school experience? Even if I've never been the only Native student in a white, wealthy high school, I've often felt like the only something in high school. Maybe it was Junior's distinctive voice. Maybe it was just my mood. Whatever.

The illustrations are a nice touch. It has something of a Diary of a Wimpy Kid feel, though not nearly so heavy on the "attempting to look like an actual diary" aspect. 

This one was also a quick read. I read half of it on my subway commute and the other half on campus. It won't take you long to blow through it but it's a really powerful and important book nonetheless. Now that I've read this, I'm wondering if I should go back and give Alexie's writing for adults another try. It's been a long time since 2005, after all.

*I'm well aware that Alexie is a member of the Spokane nation in Washington state, not the Dakota people who live in Standing Rock. But white people have been equally shitty to both groups, let's be real.

Newly Listed: Blue Lace Agate Light Speed Necklace

Some of the deep cuts I brought back with me from the US used a lot of blue lace agate. It's a beautiful stone and, quite frankly, the pieces they were in were pretty fugly. I liberated these gorgeous stones from their fashion crime prisons and let them stand on their own, with some random cute and femme-y floral beads I picked up at JoAnn's ages ago.

Light speed necklace by Kokoba Jewelry

I like the contrast of the dainty, vintage-looking beads with the cutting-edge concept of the speed of light (speed of light, here, given in meters / second.). At first glance, it looks like something retro and almost grandmotherly (in the best possible way). You would never suspect it was hiding a nerdy secret. STEMinism at its finest!

I still have some blue lace agate left over. I'm not sure what I'll use them for next. Maybe another chemistry piece? We'll see!