Hi. I’m Kimberly, and I just submitted my last coursework assignment ever (unless I take more after I advance to candidacy, which, let’s face it, is a very real possibility).

I feel like I should rest, but I also feel antsy. So I’m going to make a few public commitments and share a few thoughts about what happens now.

In terms of official officially what’s up…

Now I write a comprehensive literature review on topics related to my area of research interest, which include theory, methodology, and a few different Connected Learning topics. More on that as it proceeds.

Also, I keep working on Project READY.

But also…

I’m planning to publish e-prints of a few annotated bibliographies based on literature reviews I’ve been sitting on. Those literature reviews are the foundation of lots of research ahead of me, and I don’t want to publish my synthesis and analysis, but these are tricky topics where you have to dig into weird places to find literature, and I think it could really help other scholars to get those bibliographies out there. I’m not going to reveal the topics yet because I don’t want to accidentally hint at any conference juries that particular papers are from me.

I’m working with the UNC SILS Coalition of Youth Librarians to start a Triangle area chapter of the Harry Potter Alliance. To that end, I’m going through their Wizard Activist School program.

I’m submitting a proposal to the Connected Learning Summit.

And personally…

I’m going to be packing and purging stuff from my house. We’ve lived in it for five years and there’s definitely stuff that hasn’t been touched in that time.

I’m going to a twentieth anniversary reunion party for The Bronze posting board, the thing that made fandom a social activity for me.

I’m waiting to really dig into cosplay beyond the casual until I can get a good craft studio space set up.

I want to cross-stitch everything from weelittlestitches, but that’s not new.

I want to crochet myself a whole wardrobe of lacy things out of black yarn.

But really, what’s next?

A nap. Christmas decorations. Leonie’s 2018 Shining Year workbook.

Oh yeah, 2018! So that’s going to happen.

Yep. For several years now - probably inspired by Leonie but I’m not sure - I have selected a word of the year. I often find out around March that I picked the wrong word. My 2016 word was FLOW and it turned out perfectly. This year my word was WORK and it was the right word, but it didn’t manifest quite like I expected.

I’ve been searching for 2018’s word. I want to encompass healing, self-care. I had a revelation in the shower yesterday, as I was agonizing over whether my blood sugar would be good when I went to the doctor today (it was; I’m pretty sure that’s thanks to drinking crazy diluted apple cider vinegar, on the advice of the PCOS Diva). Showering and driving, the best activities for having good ideas.

Anyway, this thought came to me:

I want 2018 to be the year when I treat my body with the same care that I treat my mind and my emotions.

Obvi, I’ve invested more energy in my mind than in anything else in my life. And I tend to look after my emotions, and listen to them.

But my poor body. We have been enemies, thanks to chronic illness. I don’t treat it well at all. There are a lot of reasons. I mean, I don’t drink much or do drugs besides those prescribed to me/readily available over the counter. But I also don’t eat nutritious food as much as I’d like or move on the regular or take good care of my skin and hair.

I’m so sorry, body.

So yeah, I’m still working on finding out what word captures that feeling. It’s not HEAL.

I’m leaning toward GLOW right now, but how much that’s influenced by the Netflix series is hard to say. (By the way, Netflix… I need more GLOW merch. kthx.)

It’s what we’ll go with for now.

So, that was really rambly. What’s next, again?

I’m going to glow.

And take a nap.