Welcoming in 2012

     I am very eager to welcome in 2012. Goodbye 2011, and good riddance. To properly welcome in 2012 it only feels appropriate to recap my accomplishments of 2011, few as they may be!

     Going in to 2012, my expectations for what I am going to accomplish on this list are not incredibly high. If I were to write out my list of what I hoped to accomplish on this list, however, it would look something like this:

#7- Have a Child. If this didn't happen in 2012 I would be awefully concerned.

#16 & #18- Grow my hair so that it touches the top of my buttocks and then cut it and give it to a hair charity. It should be plenty long enough by the end of 2012, and hopefully by then I can just chop it off and have it short for a while

#10- Graduate from College. Again, would be very concerned if this didn't happen

#46- Get in to Graduate School. Here's hoping!

Honestly, anything else will be a bonus. Low expectations for 2012 as far as quantity, but for sure the quality of what I expect to be crossing off my list this upcoming year is superb :-).

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Creating My Family's Coat of Arms

    Complete: Drop #69- Create my own family Coat of Arms

      I have to say that I miss doing art. I took an art and design class last spring, but in high school I used to draw/paint all the time. I was even in the National Art Honor Society, and participated in state art competitions every year or so. Ah, the costs of growing old. Anyways, something I've always wanted to do was make a family 'Crest'. I put it on my bucket list a couple of weeks ago and with school out, I decided it was a good opportunity to do something fun with my time. So, here it is!

The Nguyen Family Crest/ Coat of Arms

      This is a family 'Coat of Arms', if you will, for my husband and I. It was more for fun than anything, but each part actually does have a meaning that was fairly carefully thought out. I tried to incorporate my husband in to this as much as possible, but I found that the difficulty in this is that family Coat of Arms are mostly from Europe, so Vinh's family surnames, although the most popular in Vietnam, doesn't actually have a crest. Makes sense. So, although the parts of the crest encompassing my side of the family are more apparent, I did include his as much as possible, it's just that the inclusion is much more abstract.

     I used Wikipedia as a source for what should be included in a Coat of Arms. I am usually completely against using Wikipedia as a source for anything except a portal to potentially credible sources, but this is just for fun. It's not like I'm doing this as an art thesis or anything.

     The two fish on the side are the 'Supporters' of the shield. The supporter could be any animal, person, etc that is local to the area or means something to that group of people. I chose the fish because it is my (and Vinh's? debatable) zodiac symbol.


     The shield is designed with both my mother's and father's surnames in mind. The left is half of the design from the Unger family Coat of Arms, while the right is half of the design from the Moynihan Coat of Arms.   In the middle bottom is a turtle shell. For me, the turtle represents growth and stability, as well as having the ability to acknowledge the past while looking forward to the future.

Unger (Left), Moynihan (Right). Courtesy Ancestery.com,
Irishsurnames.com 

The bottom part is the abstract element that is a nod to my husband's ancestry. It consists of three parts: the Compartment, the Order, and the Motto. The Order is the star. It is often a symbol that is associated with the persons that the shield represents. The yellow star is in the middle of the Vietnamese flag, and although it is a simple symbol it is representative of that culture. The banner is red and yellow, another nod to Vietnam, while the shape of the banner itself is modeled on the outline of the country itself. Perhaps obviously at this point, the Compartment represents water, as in the water that borders Vietnam, and an appropriate landscape for the fish to 'stand' on. The words themselves are Latin, as is often traditional with Coat of Arms, and translates to 'Loyalty to the End."

     The last part worth talking about is the top part, which consists of the Helm, Mantling, Torse and Crest. The Helm is the helmet, and doesn't really have any significance. Coat of Arms need a Helmet. Similar with the Torse, which is the cloth on top of the helmet, and the Mantling. The only requirements for the Torse and the Mantling is that it is to be of the two main colors of the Shield. The Crest is the Dragon, which represents both my and the new baby's animal for the Chinese Zodiac.

     So that's complete! And it was a fun project. Gave me something to do, and allowed me to relax and do something I enjoy doing, but with a purpose.

Update: Drop #7- Have a Child

It's a Girl!!!

12wk, Sucking Thumb

       Went to the doctor's today for the 20 week ultrasound. Everything is where it should be, which of course is great. Heartbeat is normal, it has all its fingers and toes etc., sleeps with ankles crossed like its Daddy and oh, yeah, IT is a She!

20 Wk, Spine, Ribs, etc.

      Today I am officially halfway through the pregnancy. Now if only I can maintain feeling this good through the rest of it and I'll be all set! Both Vinh and I are very excited *Insert Smiley Face*. He's already shopping for shackles and a shot gun :-D

Drop #66- Plank

Planking...

http://www.planking.me/

The Stupidest Thing Ever...

An Interesting Find

     In my restlessness I was organizing some boxes that we still haven't unpacked from our move back in August (can you tell that we can't wait to move out of here?) when I came across the planner I used my senior year in high school. It had been touched by the flood that wrecked havoc on our basement last spring, so the pages had blended together and were water damaged. I briefly flipped through it and lo-and-behold, look what I came across:

If I remember correctly, the picture that seeped through from the other side of the page is a sketch I drew of John Steinbeck based on his portrait on the back of one of his books.

     Ladies and Gentleman, Stephanie's Senior Year Bucket List 2006! It goes all the way up to 100. It seems like high school senior Stephanie and college senior Stephanie still have some things in common.

Some things that are on the old bucket list that are already on the current one:

#1. Write a Memoir
#3. Visit all 50 states
#15. Donate hair to Locks of Love
#30. Own a House
#43. Take a Photo Every Day
#58. Send a Postcard to Postsecret

Some things that are on the old bucket list that I actually did, even though I forgot all about the list:

#14. Learn how to Cook Vietnamese Soup

#17. Go to a Concert

#21. Work in a Jewelry Department

#31. Go Scuba Diving

#35. Adopt an Abandoned Animal

#83. Start a Charm Bracelet

Some things that are silly:

#18. Make a Music video Featuring my Life or my Feelings

#51. Become a Grand Master at Suduko

#69. Never Turn Down an Opportunity to Try a New Food

#72. Get to the End of Endless Bejeweled

#90. Pet a Lion

#93. Try Camel Meat

A few things that I would like to add to my current list:

#37. Stand up for Something I Truly Believe In

#48. Identify 100 Things that Make Me Happy

#70. See the President in Person

#80. Love my Job

#82. Start a Family Tradition

#100. Pass on a Legacy

     A few comments: Something I found interesting was how subjective some of the items on the first list were. Maybe I've become too philosophical since high school, but what defines happiness? What is considered a legacy? If I love my job one day can I cross it off the list, and what if I love it but then end up hating it? I find the things on the new list are a bit easier to measure. It's easier to tell when I've graduated college or gotten a million dollars in assets.

    Before I came across this list I was debating whether or not I would allow myself to change my current list if I didn't want to do something on it in the future. I think that I have to allow myself that flexibility, else I would be stuck with a goal that may no longer be obtainable or enjoyable for me to strive for (ex. try camel meat??).

Update: Drop #27- Wean Myself from Social Media

     I haven't been on Facebook since mid August, and I can't say that I miss it.

     I've done this Facebook Sabbatical' before, but I've never done it for this long. It's been nearly four months since I've logged in. The reason for this past sabbatical has been so I can maintain focus on real life and my senior year in college without unnecessary distractions. It's been absolutely wonderful, just as my last sabbatical was.

     This sabbatical officially ends Friday, coinciding with the last day of this semester. Today I am going out and buying an old-fashioned pen and paper address book. Yes, if I can remember my password I will log on to Facebook friday, but it's going to be to ask people I actually care to keep in touch with for thier contact information. After that, I'm deleting my Facebook. There's still plenty of ways to keep in touch with the people I care to keep in touch with. Humanity has been successful enough up until this point without social media sites and, although times are changing, that doesn't mean I can't pick and choose what parts of me changes with it.

     I am not God. There is no reason for me to be checking up on what everybody is doing, just like there is no reason for anybody to be checking up on me. By the time spring semester starts up, my Facebook will be deleted.

     New York Times wrote an article yesterday about other 'Facebook Resisters'. It isn't a particularly persuasive article, but it provided me just enough food for thought to basically solidify the decision I already made about my own usage on the site. There is a link to the site below:




Photo Courtesy Steve Dykes for The New York Times

To visit article, click here

 

Update: Various Comments About Various Things

     I have recently decided that my bucket list is pretty boring. Do I really want to live a boring life? Why aren't there more adventurous, exciting things on this list? Why don't I want to swim with sharks or see the seven natural wonders of the world? Shouldn't I be aspiring to climb Mount Kilimanjaro or submarine down to the wreck that was once the Titanic?

     I thought about it a little bit more, and really I don't need all that much in my life. I don't have the desire to fly to the moon or spend thousands of dollars traveling the world. Yes, I do have certain places that I would love to visit and certain things that I would love to do, but I guess the reason why I want to do these things aren't just so I could say that I did it. It's moreso because that experience is going to mean something to me once I do get around to it. I guess it's the underlying reason for accomplishing something rather than the accomplishment itself that provides a sense of accomplishment.

     Regardless, I decided to stop being such a dried up prune and update my list to make it a bit more interesting. I had a lot of help from some other people's lists, but honestly not much. I guess I am not a risk-taker. Anyways, they are drops 49 to 56.

     Also a little bit about how I recently changed the blog, if there is anybody out there (?). Those items on the bucket list which are completed are now hyperlinked to the blog where I talk about thier completion. A bit of technical awesomeness on my part :-). In addition, I also made my background less depressing. That is all for now!

Drop #47- Conduct a Life Interview with a Family Member

     I would like to talk about this one a little bit.

     Life interviewing is something that I heard of only recently. The concept was developed by psychologist Robert Atkinson from the University of Southern Maine. Basically the concept is to sit down with someone for one or more sessions of however much time you need and record the individual's whole life from birth until present. It can be a stranger or someone that you know well, or maybe someone in your family you don't know well but wish you did. Although it was developed by a psychologist, it isn't a type of therapy. Yeah, it's good practice if you want to work with people, but the goal is to help the person record an account of thier life.

     I would love to do this with a lot of people in my family. I think it's a great opportunity to learn some things about them and my family history that I could have never known otherwise. Most of all, however, I think I would like to do this with my Nana. I really don't know much about her and her life other than who she is today. I would love to learn who she was, and what she did that brought her to this moment in life.

     To learn more about life interviewing, you can visit the Univerity of Maine's website by clicking right here. The website will describe what life interviewing is, some sample questions, and even some life stories that were conducted. There was a book published too that you can get on Amazon if you are seriously considering conducting a life interview.

    On a related note, if you are interested in life stories in general there is a great project by StoryCorps. Booths are set up at various locations in the United States, as well as a traveling booth that goes to various locations. Anybody can interview anybody else about whatever topic they choose, and it gets archived in the Library of Congress. A great way to become familiar with this is to watch some of the animated shorts that StoryCorps has made out of a few of the interviews. Watch some of them here:



StoryCorps Animated Shorts