This year I resolve to...

[attractivegeekery]

- Go to Costa Rica for a week in March
- Travel to San Diego for Nerd Mecca yet again
- Record a VA Demo Reel
- Learn an accent not my own
- Learn to control the one accent I do own
- Release said reel into the marketplace
- Sail on the Charles River
- Run a 5k
- Make pasta from scratch
- Learn how to use my sewing machine
- Kick my PTSD in the shins really damn hard
- Play hookie from work for mid-week fun
- Destinations for the above include: Six Flags, Hampton Beach, P-Town, The City Museum, The Mutter Museum
- Get "Foxes in the Hen House" off the ground
- Finally produce Tumblr project

If you, or someone you love, would like in on any of these fine activities...please to be letting me know.

Comments

[agonistes]

If you're planning on picking up one of the accents of the land of my people, I am glad to provide (kind, encouraging) feedback.

[attractivegeekery]

I would totally be down for picking up such an accent.
Any good media suggestions?

[agonistes]

Here is a scene that illustrates how to hear the differences between two accents: HE LIVES ON SESAME STREET, DUMBASS For more of that, here's this post that was floating around Tumblr.

For media, I'd honestly recommend bypassing TV and movies and going to documentaries. The best example I can think of right now is this episode of This American Life. I haven't started listening yet, but the SFA podcasts are likely to have good accents. And then there are the videos by the Southern Documentary Project.

What is selling these days is redneck everything, so you probably want to concentrate on rhotic accents -- not the Savannah accent that Ed Helms does (he and Brian Baumgartner are both from Atlanta, which makes that scene delightful for me), but something closer to what Jenna Fischer is doing, where the speaker leans into their R's rather than elide over them.

[attractivegeekery]

Wait wait wait...words even have Rs in them?
When did this start? And why wasn't I told?

(Awesomesauce! Thank you!)

[jothra]

I am in for like, half of these things at least.

[attractivegeekery]

Remind me: Do you do Roller Coasters?

[jothra]

Only very timid ones. The Tilt-A-Whirl is pretty much my limit. Maybe a log flume ride if I'm feeling daring.

[vivien]

I am also going to attempt the sewing machine thing. I'm a little scared. It goes so fast!

[attractivegeekery]

I've been trying to decide what would be the most effective way to tackle the sewing thing:

1) Bribe people who know how to sew into coming over to my place and showing me

2) Enrolling in an online class akin to This Sort

3) Enrolling in a local Adult Education course.

I've been pondering this question for the last four years.
It's kind of sad...really.

[skygiants]

You know I am pre-booked for sewing parties and pasta parties!

[attractivegeekery]

There will be pasta.
Oh yes.
There will be pasta.

[genarti]

Sewing parties! I'm totally up for that! And it'll help me, uh, get anything done ever. (If I want to embark on certain ambitious cosplay plans I really need to a) commit to them and b) start on them ASAP.)

I'm also totally up for teaching you to use your sewing machine, as best I can, but with the caveats that I am very self-taught and do a lot of "hmm, let me poke at this until the shapes make sense in my brain" when sewing, so I don't know how good I'll be as a teacher for anyone else's brain.

Pasta parties also sound fun! And random museums and amusement parks, budget and schedule logistics allowing.