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
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