To Do Today
I've developed a list of things I want to do. Not a Bucket List, though I have one of those, too. These are things that I want to accomplish in the here and now. I'm embracing the present. I want to accomplish one thing each day. I am starting on the first of February and continuing hopefully until my birthday, though we'll have to see how things go. Unfortunately, my creativity has only brought me to 31 items. I need your help! Commenting with ideas (even half-formed ideas) would be really helpful and probably very inspiring. It doesn't matter how random, I'm open to all suggestions--whatever pops into your head. Also, I'm not sure if I'm going to assign one specific thing to each day or if I'll just see how it works out. It might be a little of both. Comments are welcome. Please help me!
Here are my ideas:
1.) Brighten people's day
2.) Decorate something
3.) Shower the People (James Taylor's suggestion)
4.) Find lyrics for every day words
5.) Speak poetically!
6.) Take risks
7.) No media
8.) Say 'yes' to
un-harmful things
9.) Write down everything
10.) Try new foods
11.) Put ideas into action
12.) Find beauty in the mundane
13.) Be a practical joker
14.) Live in quotations
15.) Identify constellations
16.) Be patriotic
17.) Live in today**
18.) Invent something
19.) Become a guru in something
20.) Make something
publicly pretty
21.) Bake something new and something difficult
22.) Admire the stars and stay there all night
23.) Explore a new world
24.) Find opportunity amongst crisis
25.) Rescue something
26.) Tell stories of a magical land
27.) Give thanks
28.) Design a wardrobe
29.) Live simply
30.) Dress to the nines
31.) Find and read all the Serendipity books
P.S. Some of these are things that the entire world population should be doing every day, but I am planning on focusing specifically on each for an entire day.
* If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.-- Lao
Tzu**
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/dressed-to-the-nines.html
Western to China
Well, here I am...back at Western. I had a
terrific break. It was super wonderful, I got to see a lot of super wonderful people, I got to do a lot of super wonderful things. I'm very happy. They say that it takes 21 days to get in the habit of something. I was home for 23 days, therefore, I created a habit. The last few days got kind of slow because everyone was back to work/school and I was at home, but it was nice to chill out and have some alone time. I never really felt the pull to head back to school, though. It almost felt like school was a vacation or a summer camp or something that was a one time deal. Don't worry; it's not. I headed back here on Sunday not really fully processing where I was going and what I was doing. My mind hadn't exactly accepted it yet.
Once I got back, I had just enough time to unload and unpack before Katie got back from rehearsal (she's been here since Saturday) When we started talking she was telling me about things that seemed really familiar here. I'm totally feeling the same way. I crawled into bed and saw the multi-colored clock we have with the microwave clock right below it and listened to Katie's lovely voice float up to me as we talked before sleeping and I was like, "Wow, this feels so...
normal!"
Okay--I wrote that a while ago without posting. This is a follow up from the first week of classes.
This week seemed really short, but I definitely feel accomplished. Right now it seems like I'm working more than I'm going to school, but I think that's because 1 hour at work seems like 5 hours of school. I usually open and NO ONE wants frozen yogurt at 11 in the morning.
My classes are decently good. This will definitely be an easy semester. I'm only taking four credits (though that adds up to 16 credit hours): Spanish, German, Religions of the World and Chinese. Mondays and Wednesdays I only have Spanish at 6 in the evening, but that leaves the rest for Tuesday/Thursdays. I have the other 3 classes all in two hour segments right in a row between 12 and 6!
My Spanish teacher is so-so. She's not at all like the other two Spanish teachers I've had (both of whom I love!!), but I'll get by. In all three of my languages, I'm looking to finish out this semester and then do some busting of my behind and testing out of the next level this semester. That would mean the end of Spanish grammar classes and on to composition and conversation.
German is not fun. The teacher is a native speaker so she does not like teaching such a low level of German. It's also hard to re-learn the basics of German because they are the basics of Spanish also. I already know why I have to conjugate verbs and that some nouns are feminine and some are masculine! I'm hoping to test out of two levels of German this summer.
My religions class looks like it's going to be really great. We have four different professors so they all know what they're talking about. It's kind of nice to have a class in English. It's also stuck between German and Chinese so it helps to keep things
separate.
Finally, my Chinese class is really fun. I know almost everyone in there and I also went in knowing my teacher. Languages are definitely better, easier and more fun once you've gotten over the initial...shock!
My biggest news about Chinese is that I've been given the opportunity to go to China for a couple weeks at the end of the summer. I've been accepted into the program and will go as long as I can finance it. My paychecks are being set away and I'm looking into some serious financial aid. There is a potential that with all the scholarships I would only have to come up with about $500. Even if that doesn't come through, though, I'm pretty sure that I'll get there.
I'm super excited about the trip, though. It would be with my previous Chinese professor who is originally from Beijing (where we would be mostly) and he's a really cool guy.
I'm going to head off to bed now. Work may be boring, but it's taking over my free weekends!
Auf Wiedersehen!
Sydney/Eva/Mao
SiSi/*insert cool German name here*
