Goal 18

Now that I’ve started getting a handle on my summer, I’m going to slow down on how many new goals I’m trying in a week, so I don’t get overwhelmed to the point of throwing everything away.

My computer is a virtual mess. My desktop has about a zillion things on it, and I currently have 46 tabs open in Firefox, not to mention the 3 windows/72 tabs I have open in Google chrome. I’ve been trying to organize my folders, but with all the stuff everywhere, it’s not going so well.

Needless to say, my computer is not very thrilled with me. This week’s goal (18) is to go through all of my tabs, close out the ones I’ve forgotten about and don’t need, read the stuff that I intended to read months ago, and start working on clearing off my desktop, not to mention clearing my browser histories and cleaning up my disk registry.

Also, I’ve started falling behind on the going to bed at 2am, waking up at 10 schedule, but I’ve still been waking up before 11 every day, so I’m going to try and focus a little more on that.

What counting calories this week taught me about myself:

I don’t eat anywhere near the same amount of calories every day. There will be a couple days where I’ll only eat 1000-1200 calories, and then there’ll be several days where I eat somewhere between 1800 and 2000 calories. I really like dessert (and anything you could potentially call a dessert), and it’s not exactly healthy, but it’s enjoyable, so I eat it. I also eat a lot of ice cream, even though I inevitably end up in a small cramped ball somewhere on the floor 15 minutes later, because I’m lactose intolerant (you’d think I’d learn my lesson, but it just tastes so good…).

I don’t eat the healthiest, but I don’t eat less than what I’m supposed to be eating on a daily basis, and I don’t eat extra on a daily basis, either. I rotate it through, and that’s good enough for me.

Goals 16 and 17

Another week of summer is already gone, so I'm here to post another goal to keep me on track, and to avoid losing time. This week's mainly body-focused. I've been meaning to exercise for years, and last year there was a time-span of about 2 months where I actually got some crunches and push-ups done on a regular basis. And then I failed again.

Thus, goal 16 comes in to play. I plan on walking or using wii fit for half an hour, twice a week. It's not much, but it's a lot more than I've been doing, and it's a step in the right direction. If I can incorporate this in well enough, I might bump the number of times a week up, later in the summer.

My other goal this week is paying attention to what I eat. Overall I'd say I eat a pretty balanced diet (especially when I'm at home, with no Starbucks or bakeries around...), but I couldn't tell you how much I eat. About the only thing I know is that I probably eat way too much in the form of candy and dessert and such, and the calories there are killer. So, for this week, and only this week, I'm going to try and see how many calories I eat a day.

I don't want to become obsessed with calories or numbers. Quite honestly my brain does not function in math terms. Poor Kyle spent like 20 minutes the other day trying to explain to me percentages and such (100% more than 1 is 2. For some reason this was a hard concept for me to grasp. Yeah, I suck at math.) But this week, I want to experience what it's like, force a little bit of addition into my brain, and make myself see exactly how much I'm putting in my body. For my height, weight, and age, I'm supposed to eat somewhere between 1580 and 1780 calories a day. (So I'm going with roughly 1700.) If I'm feeling really motivated, I might use Livestrong's calorie counter, which also tracks what foods I've eaten, which will give me heads up on how "round" my diet actually is.

So, goal 16 is to start exercising again, and goal 17 (for only this week) is to pay more attention to what I'm eating, and how much of it.

-M.

Goals 14 and 15

Keeping in mind my rapidly passing summer, and the fact that I want to do something with my spare non-school time, I’m adding on more goals that I’m hoping to keep for the summer months.

During the school year, I’m kept pretty busy studying text books that range from interesting to the most deadly weapons I’ve ever seen (either useful as blunt objects to hit people with, or to force people to read until they die from the horribly written thing). If I’m not reading straight-up text books, there’s usually websites and research bits of text to read to help with whatever essay I have to write for class. Needless to say, I rarely get any time to just read what I want to read, and trust me, I love to read. Depending on how many hours my new job gives me, I’m hoping to get through a book a week. I might change that—to fewer, or greater—next week, but I guess we’ll see. Currently, though, goal 14 is to read at least one book a week.

I usually have trouble with scholarships, because I know I need them, but I usually forget about their deadlines until they’ve passed, which is pointless. I also have trouble getting over the idea of writing an essay that won’t get me a good grade, isn’t necessarily on a topic I enjoy, and might have been written for no purpose (such as if I don’t get the scholarship). The thing is, I need the scholarships, and it’s actually worse to do like 5 scholarships in one day, than if I’d spread out a few across a couple of weeks. Not to mention that the written portions of my scholarships get significantly better if I haven’t already written something unappealing earlier in the day. At the very least, if I don’t get the scholarships, I can help improve my writing. So, goal 15 is to find and complete at least 1 scholarship a week. (Preferably in some kind of order that correlates to when they’re due.)

As far as last week’s goals, they’re going pretty well so far. Except for yesterday, I woke up between 10 and 10:30 every day, and I went to bed by 2 on most days—though that could use some improvement. And here I am, writing another weekly post, so hopefully I keep up with that, as well. I have orientation for a new job this evening, so that might put a little bit of force behind my time schedule, too…

-M.

"Their names, though lost in earth below
And hence are not recorded here,
Are known where lasting pleasures flow,
Beyond the reach of death and fear"
"Their feet have trod misfortune's sand,
Their lives by hardships worn down;
They're gone, we trust, to better lands,
To brighter sunshine of their own."

___________________________________________________

Yesterday, in honor of memorial day, my dad and I went to 2 Revolutionary Soldiers Cemeteries that are near our house, in Pennsylvania. The poem was one of the things written on the monument at the first cemetery; the picture comes from the second. It was nice to see that both sites were well-kept, with new flags and well-trimmed grass. The saddest part, though, is that all of the soldiers who's graves were marked, were unknown. The plaque at one of the cemeteries said that there were other graves nearby, but they didn't know how to locate them. These men gave their lives hundreds of years ago, but we don't even know who they are...

-M.

I haven't made a goal post in about a month,

due to a load of final papers, final exams, and general procrastination. Actually I’ve been out of school for 2 weeks, so procrastination really is a biggie, here. Consequently I’ve also done absolutely nothing in the last 2 weeks that I can count as anywhere near consequential. My daily routine has basically become me waking up somewhere between 11 and 12, then going on tumblr for ages, playing an online game, watching tv with lunch, and going back on the computer for most of the day (more tv and movies with dinner), until I finally go to bed around 4am. It’s ridiculous.

In mounting frustration, I’ve tried to take control and do some dishes and laundry the past couple of days, but I still feel utterly unaccomplished. Every summer, without the structure of schoolwork and things that need to get done at certain times, I feel like I flail around hopelessly, getting nothing done, until August, when I realize I’ve frittered away most of the summer. At that point I make a few last attempts to cram in something worthwhile in the 2-3 weeks I have left before school starts up again. I don’t want that to happen again this year. So, I’ve had almost an entire month to wind down from school, and I’m ready to start living my summer.

The first thing I want to change is when I’m waking up (and consequently, when I’m going to bed, as well). It doesn’t matter that I have the same amount of time between 12pm and 4am as I would if I changed my sleeping time to 12am and my wake up time to 8am; every time I wake up at 12, I feel like I’ve already wasted most of the day. Then I feel like I’ve done nothing productive, and have no reason to do anything else productive, and my day goes from there…Not to mention that I’m usually the only person awake from about 12-4am, so I can’t accomplish anything that would be noisy. Naturally I turn to watching netflix on my laptop with the door closed, or I have another go on the internet. To be more productive, goal 12 is: I want to start going to bed by 2 am, and waking up by 10am. It might only be a 2 hour difference, but I know I won’t even bother trying if I make it too drastic.

Just waking up isn’t nearly enough, so this week’s other goal (goal 13) is to make sure I start up my weekly goal posts again. I should be able to accomplish writing once a week, and quite honestly, I’ve missed it.

-M.

So, all this rapture business...

I don't believe in it. Of course, I consider myself agnostic, so I'm not really religious, but even if I were I still don't think I'd believe this. It's highly commercialized. Having enough money to put up billboards all over the place about the end of the world is ridiculous. While I appreciate and respect (and am fascinated by, in many cases) peoples' religions, I don't understand a religion that forces its beliefs on others or a religion that somehow manages to control large amounts of money. If the idea of rapture was simply spread through meetings between the people that believed in this, and people's personal communications--talking to people they know, making a post on their blog, group discussions among the believers--that'd be fine. I think the thing that's bothering me most isn't the idea of rapture and believing in it or not. The ludicrous thing is how commercial this is, and how many people are waiting to go to heaven or be forced to endure horribleness until they're consumed in fire, or whatnot. (Okay, I don't know all the specifics and technical words and such, sorry.)

On one hand, it's awesome for the people who finally spent money on big trips these past couple months, or took May 21st's death sentence as their chance to finally do something they've been meaning to do all their life. In fact, I applaud these people. So many people wait to do big things until they're retired, or they wait too long and never get the chance to do something that means a lot to them. So, if rapture means that people are living by the motto "live like you're going to die tomorrow", I can't find fault in that.

On the other hand, the people who are telling others that they're going to burn in hell for all eternity for not being "normal", are despicable. I don't understand people who say you can't be anything but heterosexual, white, a man (or a female who defers to men, constantly, and has no self-value), a virgin until marriage, and extremely religious. They dive into the bible and come up with abstract quotes condemning people for different things but, of course, find no quotes that would create fault in themselves.

So, if rapture happens later today, my deepest apologies for not believing sooner. Either way, I can't stand those people that condemn others for things they find fault with and can "support" with quotes from the bible, and I also can't stand how commercialized religion seems to have become. In the mean time, have a nice rapture-free day!

-M.