I haven't had a summer off in... probably more than 10 years. For the overachiever in me, wasted time is my worst enemy. For the secret, lazy slob in me, free time is the main ingredient in a recipe for disaster. What's that? You didn't know that I'm secretly a lazy slob? If you were my super organized, undiagnosed OCD sister and had to share a room with me for 16 years, you'd know better. Sorry Erin; so, so sorry... To appease the overachiever and avoid lazy slobbiness, I've commenced goal-setting for summer 2013!
The goal-setting was sparked by a few weeks volunteering with HOBY, where we encourage the setting of SMART goals (or SMA-ORT goals, depending on which HOBY dialect you speak). My first goal is directly related to HOBY, and it will take more than just the summer to accomplish: I intend to raise money to send ambassadors to HOBY. Prepare for me to knock on your metaphorical doors, asking for literal donations, because I believe that lack of funds should never be the reason that a school can't send a student to HOBY; the experience is simply too impactful for anyone to miss. Please don't send me money now; I'm waiting for the new fiscal year to commence fundraising. I'll gladly take your money in 2014: please and thanks.
Don't consider me completely selfless just yet, as the remainder of my goals are for myself. Yeah, not sugarcoating that at all. The next goal, I think I'll call the "piled higher and deeper" goal - to borrow a phrase from my grandma. This fall, I'll be applying to PhD programs, which means I need to spend my summer investigating programs and deciding wherein to apply. For those of you who don't know, this means four more years of school. And I couldn't be more freaking excited (I know, I'm weird).
In order to attain the piled higher and deeper goal, though, I need to finish my thesis first. Goal three then, is all about thesis prep. If I don't have anything better to do this summer, I may as well do some reading for my thesis, right? I might hate myself for this one, as I'll be spending all spring semester on my thesis, but... I have the time, so we're doing this.
And at this point, you probably think that I'm a glutton for punishment. Let me reassure you: I have included some fun goals that aren't academically related. There's the "go to the pool as much as possible" goal as well as the "train for a 10k" goal. In addition to that, I'm spending some time on writing - writing JUST for fun. Have I mentioned that I actually started writing a book? Yeah, it wasn't a joke. I've set a goal to write several chapters before the end of summer. What is the book about, you ask? It's a self-deprecating self-help book targeted at 30-year olds who have experienced disastrous yet hilarious dating lives. No, this is not a cry for you to set me up with your friends; although, if you did, it might beef up my chapter about friends who tried to set me up with people and how super-fail-awesome-horrible that was. In other news, this blog post is fodder for the chapter discussing reasons I might still be single: too focused on other things.
So here I am: at the helm of some pretty ambitious goals. I suppose if I post the goals here, I'll have people to keep me accountable by casually asking, "Oh hey, so how are those goals going?" I can't lie very well, so I should probably keep up with these goals in order to respond to questions like that. And when you do ask, I look forward to blowing your mind with my response.
Peace, love, and "more of the same"--
EMILY
June 27, 2013
June 2, 2013
A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss
It's not uncommon for me to put thousands of miles on my car in the course of a few weeks (although usually it was a rental car and I was traveling for work), so it's no surprise that I'll hit the mileage printed on my Jiffy Lube sticker within a month of my last oil change. As a matter of fact, by the time I finish my two-week trip back to Ohio, I will have seen nearly every corner of the state, which is just one more reason that I'm a little perturbed that gas is over 50 cents per gallon more than the price in North Carolina. Seriously...
My two-week adventure - brought to you by summer vacation - has taken me from Winston-Salem to Akron to Anna, and will continue from Anna to Cincinnati, Ada, Centerville, and Urbana before returning to Winston-Salem. If I had hit Toledo and Columbus, I might be able to make the map of my voyage look like I drew a star on a map of the great state of Ohio, the heart of it all. Instead, it looks like this:
In preparation for this trip, I packed just about everything but the kitchen sink. With two HOBY seminars, overnight stays in at least four different places, a concert, a baby shower, visits with friends, and all sorts of other stuff jammed into these two weeks, you never know what you'll need. Of course, my life is never a dull moment, and packing my car provided another glimpse into the idiot moments that punctuate my everday life. For example, I took a little car-packing break to take a shower and get ready to depart Friday morning. After a few hours indoors, I walked out my front door to embark on my journey only to find that I had left my car door open for the last two hours. Yep, that's right: car packed full of nearly all my worldly possessions, doors locked, with the back door wide open. Smooth move, ex-lax. At least that wasn't as bad as the time I left my front door open for a few days while traveling for work.
So here I am, at the beginning of two weeks in Ohio. I'm getting pretty good at this driving thing (I really, really think I was born to be a trucker), and my car is almost totally unpacked again (all doors closed - no worries). If you'd like to add to the fun, there are still a few minutes of those two weeks that are left unclaimed, and I'd love to pencil you in (although you might need to come to me). You can be sure that I'll be blogging vigorously through this time (which, in Emily terms, probably means about once a week), and you can bet that something ridiculous will probably happen to me during that time. It's never a dull moment.
Peace, love, and gas station loyalty cards--
Emily
My two-week adventure - brought to you by summer vacation - has taken me from Winston-Salem to Akron to Anna, and will continue from Anna to Cincinnati, Ada, Centerville, and Urbana before returning to Winston-Salem. If I had hit Toledo and Columbus, I might be able to make the map of my voyage look like I drew a star on a map of the great state of Ohio, the heart of it all. Instead, it looks like this:
In preparation for this trip, I packed just about everything but the kitchen sink. With two HOBY seminars, overnight stays in at least four different places, a concert, a baby shower, visits with friends, and all sorts of other stuff jammed into these two weeks, you never know what you'll need. Of course, my life is never a dull moment, and packing my car provided another glimpse into the idiot moments that punctuate my everday life. For example, I took a little car-packing break to take a shower and get ready to depart Friday morning. After a few hours indoors, I walked out my front door to embark on my journey only to find that I had left my car door open for the last two hours. Yep, that's right: car packed full of nearly all my worldly possessions, doors locked, with the back door wide open. Smooth move, ex-lax. At least that wasn't as bad as the time I left my front door open for a few days while traveling for work.
So here I am, at the beginning of two weeks in Ohio. I'm getting pretty good at this driving thing (I really, really think I was born to be a trucker), and my car is almost totally unpacked again (all doors closed - no worries). If you'd like to add to the fun, there are still a few minutes of those two weeks that are left unclaimed, and I'd love to pencil you in (although you might need to come to me). You can be sure that I'll be blogging vigorously through this time (which, in Emily terms, probably means about once a week), and you can bet that something ridiculous will probably happen to me during that time. It's never a dull moment.
Peace, love, and gas station loyalty cards--
Emily
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