still alive

For the time being, anyway.

I apologize for the abrupt conclusion of my "project 365" after five days, but, well, break has been... boring, to be perfectly blunt. I cannot believe I'm going to say this, but I think vacation was too long, and I can't wait for the semester to start up again. I'm not crazy, I promise.

My reasoning here is that I require some sort of goal in order to feel productive. During the fall semester, there was no shortage of goals. Do well in my classes. Help out my students in the basic skills math lab. Make sure all bills get paid on time. These are all real, attainable goals with specific deadlines, specific rewards for completion and specific punishments for failure. They helped me to feel like I was being productive with all of my time, even the time I would spend relaxing on weekends to recover from the rest of the week.

For the past month of vacation, I haven't had those same goals. I was happy to get the apartment clean, happy to start having time to cook for myself as opposed to eat out several nights a week, etc. But really, the only overarching "goals" that I've had over break are to start going to the gym again and to continue leveling up in Modern Warfare 2 so I get killed less often. Neither of these has either a specific deadline or a specific punishment for failure.

(A couple of notes here. First, I don't see my inability to get into a gym routine [yet] as having a punishment for failure. I'm in good enough shape in general that I don't have a pressing need to go to the gym; I'd just like to build more muscle on these skinny bones. Second, I don't count repeated death-by-headshot in MW2 as a punishment, because after all, it's just a game. I'm talking real-life punishment.)

Granted, it's been nice to relax, especially in advance of what I know is going to be a crazy 2010. Spring semester is going to be another 12-credit course load, on top of having comprehensive exams to worry about. The summer brings my final 3 graduate credits and, likely, a job search that has me start teaching in the fall. I may not have this much time to myself again until summer 2011 (and even then, I may have certification classes).

That said, I'll be happy to resume my journey towards being where I want to be -- my vision of finally being at least a little bit "successful".