The strange thing is that the path I chose for myself at one point seemed like an outrageous and risky thing to do.  Getting a PhD in the humanities is pretty ridiculous.  Professorships are scarce and even if I get my dream job, I will probably make about the same amount as most people make right out of college, which is fine except that I will have spent an extra eight years of my life in school.

A really big predictor of whether or not you will get a PhD is whether your parents have advanced degrees.  Mine do not and though I could go on and on about how incredibly supportive they are now and have been through most of my life, I didn’t feel like they were completely behind my decision to go to grad school. I think they knew the reality of the situation, which was that I had no idea what I was doing.

It was a financial risk, I had only been studying theology for a year, I wasn’t sure if it was really what I wanted, and I didn’t know if I was talented enough.  I didn’t know things would work out.  I didn’t know I would ever be this happy with myself or my decisions.  I didn’t know I would spend most of my years in school also working full time.  I didn’t know I would recover from near financial disaster.  I didn’t know that I do have what it takes.  I spent at least two years daily considering running away from it all.

But lately I have been looking at my life and asking how I ended up in such a traditional track.  I mean, grad school isn’t all that different from what it’s always been.  I work full time in a library where I have benefits and paid time off.  I’ve lived in the same city for five years and the same apartment for two years.  I haven’t seen much of the world.  And more than anything, my life as it is right now is pretty much the way it will remain for the next several years.  I’m in the middle of things.  I have a lot of responsibilities that mean staying right here.

I look around and see people I know who are on the brink of huge life changes and I feel like I should be setting the world on fire too.  Not out of envy, but because that’s what I want for myself!  I dream big dreams and ask myself all kinds of challenging questions, but what I come back to is that I am still doing exactly what I want to be doing.  And I am also on the brink of big things.

It’s just that big things require hard work and it’s not all that romantic when you’re the one actually doing it.  I am moving as fast as I can, but sometimes it’s not fast enough to set fire in my wake.  More often it means sitting at my desk putting words together.  Not with a flower in my hair and a delightful tea cup next to me, but instead a headache and self-doubt and a cup of coffee bigger than my face (at least some of which I will spill on myself).

I romanticize the idea of having the courage to take over the world, but what I need right now is the courage to be still and take myself seriously enough to not just talk about my dreams, but actually work toward them.  I have a degree to finish, novels to write, and a Kilimanjaro to climb.  If you need me, I’ll be at my desk.

I said several weeks ago that I was looking for my Kilimanjaro.  A big, scary, significant challenge to throw myself into.  I was feeling very impatient then, wishing it would just come to me already.  Saturday, it did.

It’s nothing that will surprise you and so it makes little sense that it was such a revelation to me.  It’s always been a dream of mine to be a professional writer, but when I was younger, I didn’t know myself well enough to think of what that might look like.  And, oh god, the insecurities.  I thought that I would get there eventually, but the road seemed daunting, so I chose another road that is no less daunting, but is at least well-mapped (BA–>MA–>PhD–>Live in a box).

There was something about turning 27 that made me feel like I could no longer put off the big things in life that I wanted.  Then I was hit with a bout of creativity.  And then I finished coursework and was finally able to focus on more than my immediate future.  I pretty much never stop examining my life and rethinking my priorities, but sometimes it takes things actually changing for you to see something you didn’t see before.  Old questions then lead to new answers.

So, yes, I want to make a living as a writer.  Not immediately, since I have a nice job with benefits.  And not exclusively, because I am still working on my PhD and I still want to teach.  But, I don’t want to work at the library forever and academic jobs are hard to come by.  I suppose that I could kick myself for having wasted so much time not pursuing this, but instead I think that this is the ideal time to face my fears and learn to take myself seriously as a writer.

It will probably take some time and failure to figure out exactly what I mean by professional writer.  For now, I don’t mean professional blogger, though my blog has been and will continue to be important to this Kilimanjaro.  Yes, I do mean fiction, but I am also interested in writing articles and I love personal essay-style writing.  This is going to require me to actually write things and then take that terrifying step of submitting that writing.  Mostly for rejection, but I will submit nevertheless!

Failure is a big part of writing and I have been using that as an excuse to sit on my dreams.  It’s really not the fear of failure that has made me apathetic, but rather the very small chance of success.  Now I realize I was thinking too narrowly about both the kind of writing I want to do and what I mean by success.  I am more optimistic than ever before and that makes everything more exciting.

To get more practical and make it much more difficult to back out of this when the the fear hits later, here are some of my next steps:

1. Tell the internet what I’m doing.
2. Keep blogging a lot and at the best quality I can.  This is a great place to continue working on my writing. Also, I love it here and am unlikely to ever stop blogging.
3. Officially quit my second job.  I don’t need the money and I could use that time to focus on writing.
4. Go unanonymous.  Like, attach my full name to this place and everything that I write.  Deep breaths.
5. Step up my self-promotion and pretend not to feel awkward about it.
6. Write like hell.
7. Submit, submit, submit!

There is something really scary about deciding what you want to do, because it means you actually have to do it.  Nothing but hard work ahead.  I know that is something I can do, but it is not easy. In other words, I could use some encouragement now and forever. This is big, internet!

Something you probably already know about me: I’m an obsessive goal maker.  When you make a lot of goals, you fail a lot.  Sometimes this will put you off of goals for a while, because failure is discouraging and it does a number on your ego. If, like me, you kind of, sort of care a tiny bit too much sometimes about what other people maybe think of you or whatever, then you may go underground with your goals and then act as surprised as everyone else when you suddenly accomplish something big, as if you didn’t kill yourself to get there.

Well, that’s stupid.  So let me loudly proclaim my (possibly unreasonable) Summer goals.

1. Write the second novel. I definitely meant to do this two years ago.  Then I said I was for sure going to do it last Summer.  Well, I’m really going to do it this Summer.  And no spending weeks and weeks working more on the outline and fleshing out the characters.  We’re on outline number five and the characters are chunky enough!  Time to get to the writing.

2. Read a book a week. This I am really excited about.  I have a book list in mind already and I can’t wait to be done with school, so that I can really dig in.

3. Read Infinite Jest. This gets its own number, because Infinite Jest is more than a thousand pages long and I will be reading it with bloggers.  I was planning to do this on my own, but then I threw it out there to the internet and several people responded.  If you’re interested, the plan is to read it in June and do it book club style (not sure how this will work yet).  Let me know if you’re interested.  I’ll be working out the details as we get closer to June.

4. Cook food and exercise. I don’t cook and I have bad eating habits.  Last Summer, I made some progress in this.  I actually started cooking myself dinner and planning meals.  I think that ended the second school started again.  As soon as I’m done with coursework, my life will be a bit calmer and not so full of pressing deadlines.  It’s time to work on the food thing again (probably not for the last time), and work out some habits I can carry with me through the end of my degree.  Exercise I like, but it’s been impossible to shove into my schedule the last couple years.  Now that I’m not in coursework, I can take the time to do it.  I would normally jump straight from zero to crazy, but instead I plan to just stick to three days a week.

5. Make plan to finish degree. I think I’m going to take it relatively easy this Summer (as far as school goes), and hit it hard in Fall.  I need to pass language exams, take qualifying exams, and write my dissertation.  If I work my ass off, it’ll take two years. If I just work really hard, it will take three years.  I want to do it in two.

I’ll be working full time, but during the day, so I’ll have my evenings and weekends free.  Let’s hope the shock of that doesn’t kill me.  I’m sure I will do plenty of blogging, TV watching, talking to people on the internet, and drinking.  I also hope to do some traveling.  Mostly, I want to have fun.

You know those people who make up their minds to do something and then actually do it?  They’re my favorite.

I can be that way sometimes. I am a dreamer.  Less idealistic than I once was, but still idealistic.  Yet weirdly practical too and with a gift for efficiency.

At their worst, these qualities combine to make me a defeatist.   I can see from the beginning that something isn’t going to work—at least in the way I dream it—and so I don’t bother.   This saves me a lot of effort, but leaves me with what ifs.

At their best, these qualities combine into an attitude I can best describe as why the hell not? People put obstacles in their own way.  They act like they’re stuck when they’re not.   They pretend they’re not free when they are.  I’m like, jump a plane, write the novel, work like a crazy person until you’re out of debt, stalk Justin Timberlake until you’re close enough to sneak a hug and then run away as fast as you can.

Not that I am a huge risk taker.  That’s obvious, right? But, I like dreams and big ideas.   I prefer to always be moving.  There’s an impatience about me.  I appear very calm, but most of the time I’m thinking, “Ahhh, I want more than this.”

So when I was listening to a lecturer last week speak about his climbs up Mount Kilimanjaro, I was distracted thinking that I need to do something like that.   Then when he said, “If you’re interested in climbing Kilimanjaro, let me know,” I was like, yes! Then, wait, no.   But, something like that.  A Kilimanjaro of my own!

I don’t know what my Kilimanjaro is yet.  It should probably be finishing my PhD, but that’s not enough right now.  I want to write another novel, but I’m not sure that’s it either.  So, I think I’ll just jump up and down in place until I find my next Kilimanjaro or it finds me.

This is the life of possibly the calmest, most impatient, practical dreamer you’ve ever/never met.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how much I consume.  I spend all day, every day reading things, watching things, and listening to things. Rarely only one at a time. If my eyes are reading, then my ears should be doing something too!  I wouldn’t say I feel inundated with images and noise. It’s rare that I feel overwhelmed enough that I need to take a break from it all.  But I do think about the quality of the things I’m consuming.

I’m as guilty as everyone else of refreshing my twitter stream even though only seconds have passed since I last refreshed it and, hey, why don’t I check tumblr to see if anyone has posted anything in the last minute, and then after that, I should probably check twitter again because it’s been 30 seconds.  At a certain point I realized that cycle is boring and unfulfilling; whatever I’m avoiding is probably more interesting and if I just need to connect with people, I have better ways of doing that.

I get anxious when I think of all the things I want to see and read and hear and experience, so I’m trying to be more intentional about what I consume. As I am prone to do, I’ve been in a rut lately, listening the same music I always do, watching the same shows, and barely reading fiction at all.¹  I stick to what’s familiar instead of seeking out what is new.  But right now I find myself itching to experience novelty.

To consume sounds so passive, but it can really be very active.  It takes some discipline to keep myself moving.  Or at least some intention. I’m ready to take that challenge more seriously even though I am as much plagued by a lack of time as always.  At the moment, I find myself wanting to consume as much quality content as I can. I know it’s unreasonable, but I keep thinking that I should be able to read a novel a week, listen to a new album a week, and watch a thought-provoking movie a week.  I’m going to fall short (especially trying to read a novel a week), but I’m going to try anyway.

What you consume is important, because it becomes part of who you are.  And it becomes part of what you create.  That’s the other part of this.  I’ve been thinking a lot about what I create.  I guess I’ve always placed a higher value on creating than consuming, because it requires so much hard work. More than just hard work.  It takes courage and talent you’re not sure you possess and so much patience. I’m proud of how much I produce, but right now I’m thinking that I want to say so much more.  I want to say as much as possible.  For a long time, I’ve had this crazy idea that I should write a novel and fill a journal every year.²

I’m going to keep up with my own ambitions the best that I can and especially focus on reading fiction and listening to new music.   I hope to find things worth writing about and sharing.  I like the idea of connecting to people through literature and music especially.  I’m going to try to post what I’m reading/listening to/watching in the sidebar of my blog (in part to keep myself accountable).  If you have any suggestions, throw them my way, and I’ll add them to my long and growing lists of things I must consume right this second.

I’m starting to think there might be something about this time of year.  In 2010 I was listening to Contra on repeat and obsessively plotting out the next five years of my life.

1. Well, I actually have been since writing this post, but so far I’ve only read Never Let Me Go.
2. Uh, maybe once I have the PhD.

I made many goals last year, but I knew that if the only thing I actually accomplished was getting out of debt, then I would be happy with that.  Paying off my debt was consuming and took priority over almost everything else.  This year I am excited to have the freedom to choose from greater possibilities, but my resolutions are simple.

I have been dealing with anxiety for 3-4 years now.  It’s quite mild and I have been using that as my excuse not to do much about it.  But, why would I do nothing about something that has such a negative effect on my happiness?  I decided a couple months ago that I was going to take it seriously, but I didn’t have any time and I didn’t want to spend any money.  I have the money now, if it’s necessary, and time has always been a poor excuse.  This year, I’m going to speak to a professional about my anxiety.

That once appeared as one item on my list of ten resolutions, but after NYE when I told everyone in that hot tub that I was going to do something about my fucking anxiety, I looked at the list again and realized that nearly every other item was also about being kinder to myself and doing the things that make me happy.  Not too long ago, I dismissed “be happier” as a goal, because I figured that I was already happy and that still left a lot of room for boredom and heartache.

I guess it feels more meaningful now, because I have an idea of what to do and I have the freedom to do it.  One of the most important things I’ll do this year is start working less.  This will not only free up a lot of my time, but significantly reduce my stress.  There are a lot of other things I’d like to do with all of the energy I’ve been putting into earning money.

Not that money is unimportant.  Now that I am out of credit card debt, I am working on building my savings and doing fun things like travel.  I would like to see more of the United States this year.  And meet more bloggers, of course!

I’ve been thinking a lot more about being more disciplined in my creative efforts.  In the first place, maybe I don’t give myself enough credit for what I already do.  Because “creative efforts” is another way of saying writing and I write a lot.  But, I want to write more.  And I like the idea of doing it in a more focused way instead of always while doing a hundred other things.  Me, music, writing is the goal.

Speaking of writing, I am suddenly back in love with the idea of blogging.  I am looking forward to ending my debt blog and focusing just on my personal blog.  I don’t know if this will mean more posts, but it’s fun to feel more excited about blogging than I have in a while (though, in truth, I never stopped loving it).

Here’s to a year of happiness and productivity and travel and meeting bloggers!

I have been waiting since March to sing, “In December drinking horchata” and have it actually be December.

I’m a fan of December, but I must admit that right now it appears daunting. So daunting that I basically made myself sick with stress on Monday.

I know I can do it.  I’ve been here before.  In anticipation is just when the anxiety attacks.

More than the work of it all, there are a few things that have been nagging at me for a long time.  And while I’d normally continue to put them off and say things like, “I’ll deal with that after the new year when I have time,” I’ve put them all on a list and decided I will cross them off before the end of 2010.

I swear, I need to be hit over the head with the book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, because so often the biggest tasks are like nothing to me, but I will let the littlest something nag at me every day for weeks until I have blown it completely out of proportion or have actually made it a big deal by avoiding it for so long.

I was initially trying to trick myself into being proactive, but somewhere along the way, my attitude actually changed.   Monday night, I put six things (left vague mostly for reasons of being boring) on a list and while I only dealt directly with one of them on Tuesday, I managed to make progress on three others without any conscious effort.  Even just that little bit of success has made me eager to cross everything off of this list and then run it over with my car and then burn it.  Or possibly something less dramatic.

The start of a new year is a great time to make changes, but this year I’m taking advantage of December to clear the way for all of that.  I don’t want the same things that bothered me in 2010 to follow me into 2011.

I often have this weird feeling like adrenaline is coursing through my body.  I can’t keep my feet still or my eyes.  I remember feeling this way as a kid, but then I hit middle school and I got serious about studying and became a reader instead of a girl who spent every moment playing outside.  And then I got to high school and became a mostly apathetic girl who somehow got labeled an overachiever.  Then I went to college and got smarter and found things I really cared about.  Then I started grad school and went crazy.

When I first started college, I reacted against my apathetic high school self by becoming rigid in my goal-making (and in my religion).  I was going to be perfect and nothing was going to stop me.  Living that way was miserable and late in my junior year I gave it all up and was happier for it (not-so-coincidentally, this was when I started studying theology and began to question what I knew before).  I didn’t grow any less ambitious.  I just learned to be kinder to myself and more open minded.  I had the feeling sometimes that I wasn’t doing as much as I could, but when I thought back to how miserable I’d been, I knew that I couldn’t go back to that.

I started grad school and my future closed in on me a bit.  I was walking down this really narrow and expensive path, not sure if it was where I wanted to be.  I questioned myself constantly.  I even took an extra year to decide.  Finally I made my decision to go for the PhD.  I wanted it, but I was fearful and struggled to see beyond my immediate future.  Everything felt out of my control; it seemed up to chance whether it would all work out.

It did work out and so much of that uncertainty that was haunting me dissipated.  Something else changed too.  I took control of my finances, which for as well as I think I know myself, I did not realize was weighing me down to the ground and limiting even my dreams.  No wonder everything felt uncertain when I wasn’t sure how I could pay for any of it, when I knew one bump in the road would put paying my rent the next month into question, when I could imagine no end to my struggle with money.  With the possible exception of starting a blog, no one thing has changed my life so significantly in the last five years.

All of this history has brought me to this weird point in my life where I have this crazy energy to reach for all the possibilities I see open to me and I know I can do it in a way that won’t make me miserable.  My goal used to be perfection.  It was a feeling of I need to change in order to be acceptable to other people. Now my motivation is to pursue the things that interest me.  I couldn’t stop myself from pursuing these things even if I wanted to; I am propelled by some force already.

It’s a strange aspect of the INFJ personality that we have the minds of dreamers, but we manifest that in the external world by being very systematic.  We write things down and put them in lists.  It’s how we calm our minds.  I gave up most of my lists when I came to associate them with failure.  I’ve come back to them now with a different feeling all together.  I am thrilled by the idea of taking my dreams seriously.  I look at my lists with big eyes and too much excitement to keep inside.

Over the break I took from blogging, I developed a list of goals and then I put them all into a 5 year plan.  My first ever.  I never could imagine 5 years into the future and now I can.  I look at it like an outline for a paper.  It’s a direction to head, something to look at when I get lost along the way, but something I certainly will veer from.  Where I end up in five years may look nothing like what I imagined, but these goals are so central to my interests that I cannot imagine them not a part of any life I lead.

Still, I laughed at myself the first time I looked at the completed 5 year plan.  The first thing that came to my mind is that I am so like my parents.  If no one else understands that things like this are fun to me (I know a lot of people who couldn’t think of anything less fun than a 5 year plan), then I’ll at least have two people who understand.  The second thing I thought is that it only takes one step back for perspective to realize I must be crazy.  Here are some things I plan to do in the next five years: get out of debt, earn a PhD, publish a novel, save $20,000, and move to New York City.  I am well down the road to all of them already, so maybe I’m not crazy.  Or maybe crazy isn’t so bad.

People often tell me to stop and smell the roses.  There are a lot of things I need to be reminded of, but this is not one of them.  I have never struggled with making time for myself.  I’m an introvert, so it’s only natural for me.  But, I’m not the stop-and-smell-the-roses type.  I’m more the type to be running along with my head in the clouds when a pleasant smell strikes me and I look down and think, “Oh, roses.  I forgot about roses.”  I’m all for changing the things about myself that make me unhappy, but I’m happy being surprised by roses.

I’m at a strange point in my life where instead of aspiring to do all the things I want to do, I’m actually doing most of them.  The things I’m not doing, I am at least working toward.  So now my mind has turned to the dreams at the very edge of my reality.

I mean, I’m with Jack Johnson when he says, “don’t let your dreams be dreams,” but these few I don’t see fitting into my life as it stands now.

I want to write a column. There’s nothing so weird about this one, but I’m not otherwise interested in journalism and am not interested in being a reporter.  Even free lance doesn’t appeal to me.  When it comes to blogging, I am very back and forth about whether I want a bigger audience or whether I prefer flying under the radar.  I don’t know that the stress of having a lot of people read my writing wouldn’t take all the fun out of it.  I also don’t know what I would write about.

I want to do something in politics. My interest in politics was reignited in the lead up to the last election and it hasn’t gone anywhere.  I definitely don’t want to be a politician.  Not sure I want to work for a politician either.  Maybe what I want to do is write about politics.

I want to live in New York. I have never lived in a real city and New York doesn’t seem like a good fit for me.  But, I just really want to live there–at least for a little while.  Maybe while writing my column about politics that someone mysteriously hands me even though I have no experience.

I want to be a rock star. This is the craziest of all.  I can’t sing.  I can only play the clarinet and not very well.   I’ve never written music and seem to have no natural inclination toward it.  Oh, and I’m very shy and can’t imagine performing in front of people.  But, like, when I see concerts, I oddly want to be the center of attention, singing my heart out to a bunch of people who my music matters to.  That sound extremely narcissistic.  Maybe that’s why it’s so appealing.  That and I love music.

Somehow this turned into all the things I secretly want to do and the million reasons I shouldn’t want to do them/would be terrible at them.  For now, it’s enough to say them out loud.  In time, I will figure out how to accomplish some and others will fall away or be replaced.

At some point in my late high school or early college years, when I should have been out doing something exciting, I was instead inside (pathetically on a Friday or Saturday night, I bet) writing a list of Lifetime Goals and what I called Cross Off Goals.  The lifetime goals have not kept pace with my age or education; they’re terribly dated and I might as well toss them out.  The Cross Off Goals, however, still appeal to me.  Here they are:

1. I’ve actually seen him 3 times.
2. I think my best ever was 60 lbs.
3. Does anyone do this anymore? I should start looking for leg warmers.
4. It took me until grad school, but I did it–more than once now!
5. This has a secret meaning. Shh.
6. In red, of course.
7. Honestly, I don’t like plays or musicals that much, but I’m counting on enjoying this.
8. Does anyone know how to play? Teach me!
9. Hopefully slamming a door as I go.
10. I’ve seen them a million times now.  My favorite concert act.
11. In an awesome dress, of course.
12. I guess I was really into running when I wrote this list.
13. I’m much better at 140-145 and maintain.
14. Inspired by Lord of the Rings, no doubt.
15. This has everything to do with Prince William
16. The plan is London 2012
17. I think this was a late addition.  I never had any intention of getting a PhD before.

I’m having a hard time summing up 2009, which is why this post is days late.  It was a good year for me.  I wrote my thesis, graduated with my MA, started a PhD, kept blogging, gained some confidence, and started acting a lot more like an adult.

Typically at this time in the year, I’m developing a plan for how I can be a completely different, obviously perfect person.  This is the least like changing everything about myself that I have ever felt at the start of a new year.

It’s a weird place to be.  I can’t say, “Screw 2009!  2010 will be my year.”  In my surprisingly, embarrassingly still superstitious mind, I almost don’t want to say this out loud for fear of a major reversal, but I really do think it’s going to be a good year for me.

It’s so much easier to be awesome when you don’t start off feeling like a failure.  It’s so much easier to succeed at things you’re already doing and already enjoying than to try to be perfect at everything.

I love and hate New Year’s Resolutions like I love and hate all goals.  I’ve failed and succeeded at goals I’ve set at every time of the year.  The most successful I’ve ever been at weight loss started as a New Year’s resolutions, but my most recent goal (and probably the biggest I’ve ever undertaken) to get out of debt started on a non-specific day in early to mid November.

My favorite thing about being on a school schedule is that there are so many opportunities to start over.  What I’m learning now is that a fresh start feels powerful even when you’re already doing well.  It’s a chance to refocus.

This year I’m thinking less about what I can do to impress everyone and more about the things I can do to make myself happier. There’s too much on my plate right now to do everything I want to do, so this year I’m breaking the most important rule of goal making and leaving everything quite vague.

This year I resolve to pay off all of my credit card debt (follow my debt blog here), rock my new job because it’s one of the biggest opportunities I’ve ever been handed, develop as a student (keep up with reading and talk more in class), make time for writing, and make steady improvements in my eating with some general effort to exercise or at least move more.

And now for the vaguest of them all. I want to try to live a little, um, louder, I guess.  This came to me when I realized that this wasn’t just the end of a year, but the end of a decade.  I spent the first half of this decade living very apathetically and the second half trying to save myself from those habits.  I’ll probably never be spontaneous, a big risk taker, a world traveler, but I have it in me to be more aggressive about the things I want—a little more willing to make mistakes and make myself vulnerable if it means really living.

I know many smart people who say that resolutions are silly. You shouldn’t wait until the beginning of the year to make changes. I agree. That’s why I have lifetime goals, semester goals, monthly goals, weekly goals, and day to day goals. You could say I’m goal obsessed.

After so many years of this, I got kind of burned out on goals. I didn’t get tired of the work that goes into achieving goals, I got tired of the constant self-assessment and failure. I just wanted to live. So, I chilled out a bit on the goals, and, what do you know, I didn’t stop achieving things.

After a short break, I was able to approach goals with a better attitude. I missed the mental focus that comes with goals, but I tried to drop the super self-critical edge. I started to think of goals as ways to improve upon the person I already am instead of ways to start over, perfect this time.

So, that’s the attitude with which I approach the following resolutions. These are changes I’m excited to make in order to improve my life, and not changes I need to make in order to like myself.

The Big Two

1. Eat better: This one is huge for me, and I’ll try to explain it better in future posts. Last year I lost weight; eating to be healthy and eating to lose weight are very similar, but they are not the same thing. This year, I want to eat foods that are better for me, a more diverse variety of foods, foods that are more organically grown, foods that are more ethically produced, and foods that are more locally gathered. This is going to take a lot of regular effort from me, and I’ve always been reluctant to put time and energy into preparing food. This year, though, I think I can do it.

2. Do something with the novel: This sounds quite vague, but I mean something pretty specific. Doing something with my novel means, first, finishing it, so that I have a draft I’m willing to let people read. Second, I have to let people read it! Third, I want to try to get it published. I don’t know that it’s publishable. I have my doubts. But, I want to make at least some effort to shop it out, and do all that annoying agent/publisher search stuff.

Other Resolutions to Keep in Mind

3. Finish Thesis and Graduate (May): This one I’m sure to do, whether I make it a resolution or not. But, it’s big!

4. Run!: This is always a goal. Of course, exercise is a big part of getting and staying healthy. Plus, I enjoy it. I’d like to run at least one race this year, however small. I should be tracking my efforts on my lately very quiet Running Blog.

5. Grow Blog: I feel a little shy talking about my blogging ambitions here, but that’s just silly. Basically I want to continue producing very regular content and expand my readership. I’d love to be the blog reader myself who comments on every post; that’s not realistic, but I want to continue to participate as much as I can in the blog community.

6. Journal More: Blogging has distracted me from journaling, and that’s a shame, because I love to journal. It’s also my favorite time to listen to music–ahh, heaven. This just requires me to carve out the time to do something I love to do.

7. Explore More: With this, I’m referring mostly to music, but also books and blogs. On music, I like the familiar. I listen to the same artists over and over, letting only a few new ones in each year. But, at this point, my taste in music has become almost stagnant. I don’t think I’ve gained any new favorites this year, and I’ve hardly listened to anything other than The Boy With No Name in the last several months. I need to work a little harder to expand my horizons. I also need to find contemporary fiction authors I like, and I need to regularly read new blogs! I’m always open to suggestions!

8. Get Finances in Order: I doubt I’ll ever go into great detail on this one, but basically I’m setting myself up for more and more debt without the promise of any great salary waiting at the end. This is what I want to do, but it involves sacrifice, and I need to be smarter about my finances than I have been.

9. Define Tasks More Clearly: This resolution might exist only as an ideal, but, for my own sanity, I’d like to define my tasks more clearly, so that I’m not stressing about all things all the time. This means no procrastinating on my research assistant tasks or homework, but instead getting them done, so that I can go do fun things without work hanging over my head.

10. Reach Out to People More: I need to put a little more emphasis on developing relationships this year. Being such an introvert, it’s easy for me to avoid, but I like people, and I want them in my life.

11. Look at this list again before December 31st: This one’s pretty self-explanatory. I might try to do a monthly check-in.

This post is basically an extended this is what I did this year list. I’m sorry it’s so long.

This year, I don’t know, it wasn’t dynamic in any obvious way. Yet, a lot happened, and I did a lot of growing up. It was a quiet year of transformation. In 2008, I laid the groundwork for many things that will be important for the next several years at least.

This year I was more successful at following through on my resolutions than I ever have been before. I had a lot of what I called “vanity goals.” The biggest one was to lose weight. This time last year, I was at my highest weight ever and at the very limits of what is healthy for my height. But, I didn’t just want to lose weight. I wanted to lose weight in a way that was healthy and that would keep me sane. I’d never managed the second before. So, I kept my calories at a very reasonable level instead of cutting them drastically, and I worked out five days a week instead of six or seven. It worked! I lost 15-20 pounds, and I feel better about my body than I ever have in my life.

The resolution at the top of my list last year was to “become a scholar.” When I was an undergrad, it was all about being a good student. But, grad school is more than that, especially if you’re pursuing a career in the academy. You have to develop research interests beyond just what you do in the classroom, and you have to do the networking thing. I knew these things at the beginning of 2008, but I wasn’t able to think of myself as a scholar, and I was so bad at the networking stuff.

This was a goal I didn’t really know how to attack. How do you become a scholar? How do you change the way you think about yourself? How do you network with busy, intimidating people? I was pretty much doing nothing about it, and then in February a professor of mine asked me out of the blue if I’d be interested in being his research assistant. Um, yes. I couldn’t believe it. These spots are pretty coveted, and most of them are offered to PhD students. Being a research assistant has been a constant challenge. It’s not just making copies. At the end of that semester, another of my professors asked me to be his research assistant. Networking? Check! These positions have also helped me to think of myself more as a scholar, because these professors talk to me as if I’m a scholar.

It’s a weird thing that there’s often a gap between my real accomplishments and my perception of myself. In January 2008, I was coming off a perfect semester. 4.0. My first in grad school. I’d always shrugged off my success in school and even the praise of my professors. I felt like an idiot even among my fellow students who were receiving lower grades than me. But, I had a hard time arguing with a 4.0. Partly as a result of not being sure I had what it took, I’d decided to take an extra year to decide whether I’d go for the PhD. No arguing anymore. I have what it takes

In March, my grandma died. We’d known it was coming. Her mental and physical health had deteriorated so much. But, I dreaded the day. It wasn’t as difficult to face as I expected. But, in some ways, I feel like I still haven’t really dealt with it.

At about that same time, I was dealing with a small medical scare. I’d randomly discovered that my blood pressure was high. That’s pretty weird for a healthy young person, so I went through a series of tests. They thought there might be something more serious wrong that was making my blood pressure rise. It was the first time in my life where my health felt out of my hands. After all, I was doing everything right! I was eating well and exercising and taking better care of myself than I ever had before, yet there was something wrong. To my relief, they found nothing, but I still don’t know why my blood pressure is high.

When Spring Semester ended, I randomly started poking through the files of that novel I’d been writing for a couple years. It had been my goal to finish it the summer before, but I hadn’t made it past the second chapter. This time, with no goal in mind, I just started writing. And, I kept writing. Unemployed for a while, I was able to devote a great deal of my attention to writing. I did what I’d never done before, despite all the fiction I’d written over the years. I finished a novel. I wrote the end. They say that the best way to learn how to write fiction is to write fiction. They are right.

About the same time I started working on the novel, I started this blog. I’d had the idea a year before, but didn’t really know what I was doing. In January of 2008, I even started a blog, but I quickly abandoned it. Still, I really wanted to share the more informal kind of writing I was doing in my journal. So, I gave blogging another try, and this time I figured out how to get readers. That made all the difference. Blogging has become a huge part of my life.

I decided to take an extra year to finish my Master’s degree. But, I’d already completed all the necessary course requirements. So, I couldn’t get financial aid. That meant I had to find some way to support myself. I went on the job hunt. Those of you who read my blog during the summer know that I wasn’t successful right away. I applied for everything, and heard almost nothing back. I’d been unemployed for over a month—my longest stretch ever—and I was growing desperate. Then I got a call for the perfect job. A good salary, benefits, a sweet job with almost no commute. I wasn’t applying for a lot of jobs like this. If I messed this up, then I’d be working retail for a wage only a few cents higher than I’d made in high school. But, I landed it, and now I’m working forty hours a week, supporting myself the old fashioned way.

For some dumb reason, I thought Fall Semester would be pretty easy. But, two classes, 3 jobs, a thesis, this blog, and PhD applications kept me from ever being bored. Actually, all that other crap kept me from getting started on my PhD applications. Suddenly it was late November, and the due dates were looming. Somehow, I pulled it out, and now the applications are in, and I’m here waiting.

It seems to me now that relationships, you know, with people appear to be missing from this year. It’s true, they’ve taken a back seat as usual. But, they’ve been there. Silly as it sounds, texting has really changed things. Suddenly I’m talking to my sister a few times a week instead of a few times a year. I keep in better contact with my friend Elyse; I mean, I have to know what’s happening with shels and becks! I’ve met several new people this year. And, then there’s you, blog friends.

This has really been a great year. Sure, there are accomplishments to list, but the biggest change is how I feel about myself and my future. I’m confident. It’s weird. But, it feels awesome.

There are things to work on, but I’ll save that for another day. Like, tomorrow.

I like to begin things on artificially important dates—like the start of a month. It’s no New Years’, but September 1st seems particularly good for starting over. After a summer of fun, it’s time to get serious for Fall. It’s all in how you look at it, I know.

I’ve already confessed to being a perpetual goal maker. Making goals calms me. It makes me feel productive. It assures me I’m not wasting my life. All of these things are especially important when your 25th birthday looms.

I’m often mildly successful, though usually I make goals, go about my business without ever referring to the goals again, and then look back later and say, “Hey, look at that; I kind of did what I said I wanted to.” I guess in my head I always imagine goal accomplishers having only one focus, and that’s just never the reality. The reality is something much messier and far less intense.

My goals for this Fall are quite a bit different than the normal lists I make. Many of these things I’d complete whether I ever made them goals or not. But, putting them up on my screen makes me feel better.

1. Write thesis: I technically have until March to finish this, but I want to get it done this Fall. I meant to do it this summer, but I decided to write a novel instead. I’ve tired of my former topic (it was about God and power), though, so I’ll have to pick a new one.
2. Apply to PhD programs: I really don’t look forward to this. I think I’ve narrowed it down to five schools. It’s going to be a lot of paperwork, a lot of money, and a lot of networking. Oh, and probably a lot of rejection. Though, I’ll be applying to several schools, there are really only two I’m interested in. One of them is across the street from the school I go to now, and the other is in Chicago. For a while, I was dead set on going to Chicago, but staying here seems like the better idea now (though part of me still wants Chicago). As one of my professors told me, “Financial aid will probably make your decision for you” (i.e., I’ll likely choose the program that accepts me and makes getting a PhD most affordable).
3. Finish the novel: So, I finished the story, and I’ve been working on revisions. Or have I? Yeah, off and on, but not with as much diligence as I should. To be honest, it would probably be smartest for me to put the novel on hold for a while to write my thesis and apply to schools. But, I still want to get to it this Fall, so I’m going to have to get that other stuff out of the way!
4. $$$$$$$$: Because I’ll only be taking 4 credits this semester, I’ll be spending most of my time working. My job at the library is 40 hours a week, and I’ll be working for two of my professors as well. I need to save and pay down some debts.
5. Weight loss/fitness: You knew this one was coming. At the New Year, I made a resolution to lose weight. And, holy crap, I did it! For 6 months, I was on plan. I took something of an unintentional break over the summer, but now I’m ready to get back at it. I’m happy with my weight now, but I’d like to keep losing. More importantly, I’d like to get myself back into better shape. I want to swim too. The Olympics made me want to swim.
6. Participate more in the blog community: I started off well, but as soon as I got a couple regular readers, I got lazy about seeking out new blogs to read and getting people to read me. I’m cool with keeping this place small, but I feel like I’m missing out by not exploring the Blogdom (is that a thing?) further.

Today is my half birthday. Yeah, that’s a thing. It’s the six month mark between one birthday and the next. I’d never heard of it until I baby-sat for this kid whose parents gave him presents on his half birthday. I hated baby-sitting (loved reading Baby-sitter’s Club books, though). I never pay much attention to my half birthday, but this one is different—it’s BIG. In exactly six months, I’m turning 25.

I’m freaking out a little, and though I’d like to pretend my reasons for freaking out are different and more respectable than the normal reasons for freaking out when you turn a year older, they’re not. I’m running around thinking, “What have I done with my life? I should be further along!” In high school, I thought I’d be married by the time I turned 26. It’s not looking good, and I don’t think I want that anymore anyway. But, something in me thinks that if I don’t live up to my high school dreams, then I’ve failed. Thankfully, I didn’t have that many dreams when I was in high school.

I still think I’ll feel better about turning 25 if I accomplish some things first (though, in all honesty, I doubt it will make a difference). So, here I go with more goals that aren’t really any different than any other list of goals I’ve made this year. Wish me luck!

(If you’re 25+, try not to be too annoyed with me right now.)

I’ve taken to spelling things with Z’s, and indulging in other annoying internet speak. I do it in fun, and usually only when people will recognize that, but since people usually assume I’m serious about everything, they’re probably judging me right now.

I recently heard someone repeat that old statistic on Harvard MBAs. I don’t remember the numbers, but the point is that sometime in the 70s they asked everyone in the graduating class whether they had goals and whether those goals were written down. Several years later they followed up and the people who had goals, but didn’t write them down were making significantly more than those who didn’t have any goals at graduation, and those who had goals and had written them down were making something like twice as much as everyone else. So, go ahead and get a lesson about goals out of that. But, that’s not the surprising part of the study for me. The shocking thing to me is that out of the entire graduating class of Harvard MBAs only something like 3% had goals, and even fewer had written goals. What?

Maybe it’s weird that I was born of two people who list everything, and experience great joy in crossing things off those lists. Maybe it’s weird that I could ask my mom or dad for their lists of goals, and they could produce them in minutes. Maybe it’s weird that I can’t fathom walking through life without a plan. I just looked through the files on my computer. In my folder marked GOALS, there are six items. I have lifetime goals, whimsical goals (things like, make a grand entrance), summer goals, fitness goals, resolutions, and things to do before I turn 25. Making goals gives me comfort; for me, there’s security in having a plan. And, they make me happy. I get excited when I make a new plan.

I’m not waiting for a pat on the back for my diligence in making goals. Actually, I’m more interested in exploring why I do this so obsessively. I like success and praise as much as anyone, but I really think my need to make goals is existential. I stress about the limited time I have on earth and I fear that I’m not living the way that I should. I look to these goals and plans to somehow validate my existence—to make it real and meaningful. Time is flying by, and I try to make that less terrifying by achieving things. Yeah, it’s not working, but I’ll keep trying