Summer Resolutions

I was inspired by this video and although it's a few weeks after it's been up, I've been thinking about it ever since. Ways to better myself, to make sure I'm doing the best that I can, and to just better myself on a whole. So: here it is. Hopefully, my intentions putting it on here will help me stick to what it is that I hope to accomplish.

• Be nicer to people, and be optimistic about those I've just met.
• Healthier life choices: don't drink the entire bottle of wine, just because. Save it for later, for another dinner, for another time.
• Exercise every day. It makes me feel better, and I've let it slip because I had so much work, and that affected my daily life in a huge way.
• Don't laze around, get up, get going early and enjoy the sunshine. Or rain, or whatever.
• Write everyday. Take time to work on your own as well as giving feedback on others.
• Go out more, although that's hindered for a few reasons. Find ways to get around that.
• Make a tighter budget, follow that strictly. But also treating myself when I need it. Like buying a pair of cute heels.

I slept for 10 hours for the first time in a long time.

It's one of those mornings where the air is damp and chilly, and I'm in a sweater waiting for it to rain. Since a couple of weeks ago, I've started living alone, everything I own spread in the three habitable rooms in my apartment. It makes you feel thin and stretched out. But once I started taking all of my school and paper work out of my bedroom and moving it into what's now my office, everything's starting to feel in place. The emptiness is something I still have to get used to, without another person living here. That and I need to get shelves and filing cabinets. My books are piled up on the opposite wall of where I'm sitting, all of my old binders and notebooks shoved in the corner to the right of my desk.

Yesterday was my last day of work and school. I still have to drop off some student folders and a final assignment that my class had an extension on. Then I'm going to wander around Manifest (our college's end of the year celebration/showcase of student work) until five, and then I'm meeting up with a friend for some dinner. Then after that, a housewarming party. It's a busy day to say the least.

Summer's usually when I like to busy myself with a lot of work, personal and job-wise. Which, I'm still looking for at the moment. Every summer when I apply for a new one, I'm reminded about how aggressively you need to put yourself out there. Trying not to stress out too much about it, something will come. My music's too loud, I should probably go turn it down. I have a few of my friends' manuscripts that I'm going over and then a book review to work on.

I guess what I was mainly going to write about was something a classmate said of mine. I need to "be kind to my writing" over break. This past semester I kind of let my personal writing slip, I paid more attention to working with my tutees and spent more time on my internship. With that said, I pushed out a lot of material, but I guess the best realization I've had this semester has been wanting to teach. No real writing breakthroughs. Next fall I'm taking a Practice Teaching: Classroom course, along with a publishing one and my regular Advanced Fiction. Everything's crunching down. I have a year and a half left to study. That's kind of terrifying now that I think about it. But there we have it.

Cold Feet on a Saturday

 

Sometimes you have to read something over, and over again until it means nothing to you anymore. It's been a shitty two weeks, not going to lie. Between having carpal tunnel, the amount of work piling up that I'm not going to finish in a timely way (because of old bad habits, amongst other things), I don't know. It's buckling down to the last few weeks of the semester. I peeled off all the polish on my nails last night in the shower. I'm just rambling now. Here's a song for you, it's from Drive. I've been in the mood to watch it for awhile, maybe tonight's the night.

Crossing Out To-Do's Eliminates Stress. Seriously.

I do this thing where I have three to-do list notebooks and have to check off every single thing for each of them, or close to it before I make a next one for the following day. Since Saturday, I've been having dexterity issues in both of my hands, and in my right it's been getting worse. I'm pretty sure it's a pinched nerve? It's painful to the point where I can barely type, and can't write longhand. Why are you typing, Fallon? You're an idiot. Good question. I have to turn in something tomorrow, after I go to the doctor, so I don't really have a choice, do I?

In my planner, I like to add as many notes as possible, so when I look back on them, I can remember what I needed to do. This is a little insert I taped in with the two schedules and courses I wanted to take for next semester. There's a satisfying feeling looking back at all the work you've done, all the appointments, scheduling, important memos (which I have few of) you've accomplished and/or received. It's almost better than keeping a journal of some sorts. Almost. 

The past two weeks have been insane. Just a lot of work that needs to be done, and Jesus Christ, I only have four weeks left of the semester. I thought it was still March the other day. Nope. Funny how that creeps up on you, just when you feel you've got the swing of things once again. The end of this one is going to be applying to more internships, rewriting and working on final essays (my favorite!), going to a few readings, and hopefully not damaging whatever it is that needs to be healed. Sleep would be nice to fit in there somewhere, too. Oh, sleep. I've been getting up naturally at 7:00, 7:30 recently. It's been nice, compared to waking up in the dark. 

My mother likes to buy me things to help me relieve stress. This is one of them. (It works for about two minutes then I forget I've applied it, whoops.)

A little pencil box I've deemed a storage unit for all the things that used to clutter up my workspace.

 

 Kimbra's one of those artists that came into my life at the right time. I draw a lot of inspiration from her raw voice. She's a tiny powerhouse, and I'd like to think that I could be the same. Seeing her last fall at Metro was an absolutely incredible experience, she's so down to earth and god damn, girl can sing. The end of the week came a lot faster than expected, but overall it wasn't a bad one. Have a good weekend, etc.