winter 2026 personal curriculum: february check-in
As I anticipated, February was not an easy month for me to adhere to a regimented study plan. In this update, I'll cover the successes and challenges I faced, how I plan to adjust in March, and some of my overall thoughts on the concept of a personal curriculum two months into this project.
For my Moomin class, I finished reading Moominsummer Madness and Moominland Midwinter - two classic novels that I very much adore - and wrote their accompanying mini-portfolios covering subjects such as: (1) Moominmamma's character arc, (2) Misabel, Whomper, and the Theatre, (3) Jansson's developing strengths as a narrator, (4) the Lady of the Lake versus the Groke, (5) Moomintroll's shifting perspective on Winter, and (6) Moomintroll's growth alongside Mamma's validation. While I have read about a quarter of Boel Westin's biography, there's still a long way to go and I have yet to start Tales From Moominvalley putting me one book behind schedule. Given how short the month was, I'm happy with the quality of my reflections (some were several pages long!) and have reinvigorated my love for Midwinter in particular. It's far and away my favorite book from the reread so far and I remember it ranking high among the full collection for me.
One part of this class that I completely dropped off was watching the Moominvalley TV series. Originally, I had planned to watch most, if not all, of the seasons and not only is that unrealistic within the span of two months but I don't want to do it. While there are some charming elements, most of my reflections emphasized what I disliked about the direction of the adaptation - particular with Moomintroll's characterization (though there were several other characters that I was also unhappy with.) There's something about the overall tone, perhaps in its distinct Anglican focus, that doesn't work for me.
For Birding in my Backyard, I had originally planned to go on a minimum of four bird walks. I went on one formal walk at a nearby park and had a great time! But the weather, either pouring buckets or intensely warm from a heatwave, made me drop a lot of my original plans. I'm not worried that I will forgo bird watching altogether, though. My current goal is to reach 15 birds identified and I am currently at 8: American Crow, Rock Pigeon, Anna's Hummingbird, House Sparrow, Black Phoebe, Dark-Eyed Junco, American Goldfinch, and Mourning Dove. With the weather warming up for an early spring, there are lots of happy birds singing outside every day (I can hear them through my window right now chirping away.) I'm sure that I will be able to see so many more with nesting season coming up fast.
Photography took a backseat in terms of active study. My checkout expired for Bryan Peterson Photography School before I could finish and I still need to delve further into studying photo editing. However, I have been taking more pictures casually and practicing editing them using Snapseed. I think that's still a win because my reason for designing the class in the first place was to engage with this hobby more intentionally.
Finally, with my Puppetry class, I watched a few episodes of Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock as well as the reboot pilot of The Muppet Show and started reading Puppetry: How to Do It by Mervyn Miller. Unlike my experience with *Moominvalley, I really love these two approaches to returning to beloved series and it gave me a lot of thoughts about what makes a good adaptation/reboot (something I'll surely write about in the future.) Still, my goal to finish an entire season was way overambitious because that's such a time commitment.
I can definitely see myself continuing to watch more Fraggle Rock, both the new and classic series, to work on a final project about adaptation done well. I'll also continue reading Miller's book, which is full of great group exercises to develop puppetry skills. Even though that's something practical for me to put into use, I enjoy hearing about the methodology for developing this kind of performance.
In March, I am going to take a much more relaxed approach with my personal curriculum: whatever gets done gets done. Instead of viewing each course as a fixed syllabus with assignments, I'm going to mentally reframe them as a kind of menu asking myself what I am feeling up to doing each day. That will likely result in some, perhaps even all, of the classes being incomplete by the end of the season. As long as I am mindfully engaging with these interests, then I consider this experiment to have been a success.
Which leads to some of my broader thoughts about personal curriculum. Between work, my personal life, and everything going on in the world right now, I have been experiencing pretty severe burnout. Anything that even remotely feels like an obligation has set off my PDA and I have been defaulting to past tendencies such as binge watching media and using sleep as the main form of rest. It's not surprising that my studies, even ones that I intentionally chose and was excited about, fell to the wayside while I focused on getting back into the rhythm of cleaning my room, cooking healthier meals, sleeping at normal hours, etc. I'm in a much better place mentally now, but I do not foresee that translating to me getting back to the mindset I had in January for dedicated study.
I'm not going to force it. These aren't graded assignments and I'm not going to fail the class by granting myself more flexibility. Plus, I have found myself itching into engage other interests (drawing, writing, reading for leisure) that I kept putting off because I was "supposed to" be focusing on the ones I chose at the beginning of the year.
Each day I'll try to choose two things: one thing from my curriculum that sounds appealing and one thing just for fun purely because I want to do it. If I do anything extra, that's great! But I need to keep things small and contained so I don't feel cagey again.
It's enough that the world is falling apart; I need something to hold myself together even if that's just letting myself disappear into a book for a little while.