Write out a vision for my life for a year from now.

feel prepared to teach kids who need love and a role model-
i think im a little bit closer. today i finished my third internship, and i had a good experience. i learned some things about teaching i guess :) i still have a lot of learning to do though, but i think that most of it will come when i actually become a teacher.

feel completely professional and grown up-
this is still a struggle. im becoming more independent though. im managing my life better. sometimes. i take responsibility for more things. and professionality, i think im pretty good with. its mostly the part about feeling like an adult that i have a hard time with. i think my parents are really holding me back with this one though. they feel like i should still get permission from them and make them aware of every single thing in my life. its a hinderance.

stop using aim completely.. ugh-
like a said before. so far from using the internet to communicate with people (except email for work and school).

am completely in love with someone new-
mmm hmmmmm. :)

have completed many more paintings and crafts-
eh. not really. i have one painting that is 1/3 done or so, and i have one drawing that needs to be completed in about 3 weeks.

am a woman that my peers/coworkers look up to and trust-
absolutely. well, i still gossip, i do admit. but i am most definitely trustworthy, and a role model. i think so anyways.

have a few new best girl friends-
ugh, i love her. she is my heart song. and my everything.

have traveled to one new place-
still no. hopefully christmas break will let me do some traveling at least around the state.

have helped one person come to christ-
well i have helped one person come back to christ.

A year from now, I’d like to be less stressed, less perturbed by things that don’t matter, and less filled with self-doubt. Ideally, I’d like to have a brother who was on the road to beating his alchohol, drug, and nicotine addictions. I’ll be married to a man I love, and provided I’m doing everything right, have my A.A., and am less than two years away from getting a real job. I’d like to still be with Publix, though I may have to try switching departments. All this money grubing rubs me the wrong way. Maybe grocery… I want to read more, write more, in my journal and otherwise, and figure out more ways to get out of the house on a budget. I want to be a more optimistic person, and to show my husband I love him. I would like him to show it more as well, our busy schedules (well, my busy schedule) leaves me exhausted and grumpy on my days off. I’d also like the money I owe on my credit card to go away.

1. Working in a new job (either in my field in a different province, or something completely different in a completely different country…like working as a tour guide in Thailand…wow. I SO need a change)

2. Debt free (but if I need to incur debt to get a new job, so be it)

3. Tuned into my daily life, and into the habit of doing things that I enjoy and that make me feel good (friends, family, exercise, artsy stuff, good healthy food, keeping on top of responsibilities that might be a bit tedious but are worth keeping on top of as a means to avoiding totally avoidable stress…whew…that’s a mouthful)

4. With a significant other / truly able to say that I am open to the possibility should it come along, as opposed to being jaded and hiding from things (and by ‘things’, I mean ‘people’)

I might re-write this to be…um…shorter. For now, though it stays. I feel inspired. It’s a wordy sort of inspiration, but inspiration nonetheless.

(i hope to)

• have a part time job that pays well enough for me to be more independent from my parents.

• live in an apartment by my own that looks the way i want it to.

• be doing great at the art university. drawing, panting and photographing better.

• have a great professional potographic camera.

• be a hell of a reader.

• do yoga everyday.

• be satisfied with the way i look.

• be doing journalism at the Federal University of my state.

• have given P. a hug.

• keep a constancy in my correspondences.

• have saved money like crazy.
  ____________

i’m trying to simplify my wishes. i’m not going to hope for more happiness or a lover, or anything like that. i’ll stick with what i possibly can get. (oh, that sounded bitter, but that wasn’t what i meant)
so, i guess, this is it.

“these years locked in my drawer
i’ll open to see just to be sure”

- sleep; azure ray.

A year from now:

I want to have my AA,
Be happy
Be married!

lets assess my progress.

by the end of december 2008, i hope that i…

-feel prepared to teach kids who need love and a role model
I feel that I am closer to accomplishing this. This semester has really opened my eyes to my future as a teacher. It is showing me what I can be. I can have an esl class. I can be a successful teacher. I can give kids opportunities, safety, inspiration. I can be a leader in my school, I can be a representative for other teachers and my students. I can be a voice. I can resist the administration and do what I know kids need. I help kids fulfill their potential as learners, readers, and people.

-feel completely professional and grown up
I still feel like I’m 14. Because that’s how old people think I look. I don’t act 14 though. Maybe I am feeling more professional though, as I learn more and more about my profession. I am leaving the darkness and some of my confusion. But ya, I’m still totally confused about a lot of things in regard to teaching.

-stop using aim completely.. ugh
Thank God that phase is over. So done with online chatting.
Now I only have online private speech.

-am completely in love with someone new
Nowhere near completion.

-have completed many more paintings and crafts
What have I created? I have some text I created on my wall, and a half-finished afghan. A notebook of inspiration I’m collecting. A doodle or two. That’s about it. Totally lacking here. I need an extended period of time to actually craft something.

-am a woman that my peers/coworkers look up to and trust
I think that I am one of the more mature people in my job, but I still sometimes leak some gossip hear and there. It’s so tempting to just get in on the hate sometimes. Need to work on shutting up and not talking about stupid crap.

-have a few new best girl friends
Still getting to know them, but I love them already. They are girly and normal, but still a little weird like myself. I’ll be honest, we are a sexy group of girls.

-have traveled to one new place
Definitely no. Homebody. I hopefully will be going out of state to see the baby this summer though. PLEASE.

-have helped one person come to christ
I have identified a couple potentials, but I haven’t really attempted much here. I suck.

Clearly I still have a long way to go on my vision for myself. I just need to work on maturing myself – my words, my goals, my desires. Sometimes I get a little sidetracked or exhausted though. But I think that I can do it.

For whatever reason, 43T says I failed on my challenge on this. So did not. Thumbs down, I say, thumbs down!

One of the interesting things I discovered doing this was how, generally speaking, I’m pretty happy with my life right now. My goals were mostly of the “staying on track” variety… how to take action on the goals that were already in place. I don’t feel like I will really be in a significantly different place a year from now, with the exception of hopefully engaged. I don’t want to move, I don’t need to switch jobs (although I am open to Something Better coming along, I’m okay with playing the work-all-day-write-all-night scheduling insanity that is my present life for at least another year), I don’t need to change lovers or friends. Things, strangely enough, are okay the way they are.

Which, given how often I’ve wanted a “redo” button for my life, is actually kind of… nice.

I tried to stay with the SMART plan, but there are some that I had trouble with, but still felt the need to include

A year from today I would like:

• To be engaged.
  This is one of the problem goals, as it is not entirely self-Attainable. However, what is in my control is:
1. letting my boyfriend know that this is something I would like to happen this year
2. working through some of my personal issues which he has said are an issue to him feeling comfortable making that kind of a commitment
3. contributing to a stable financial enviroment where we are able to undertake the $$ involved in the venture

• To have finished and revised my thesis novel

• To have found a literary agent who is pimping said novel
  Another not entirely self-Attainable goal, as the whims of agents are capricious to market demand. However, I do think if the book is good enough, if I’ve done my revisions well enough, I should be able to find someone willing to take me on.

• To have finished a draft of novel 2

• To have taught a class in revising creative writing

• To have revised enough of my mpoems for a chapbook

• To have gone to Beijing to see the summer olympics
  This one will be difficult in the Realistic and Timely catagories. I have been wanting to do this ever since I learned that China was in the running for the ‘08 olympics, and now suddenly ‘08 is here, and I have no plans and no savings to get there. So one of the first tasks, on an ASAP basis, it to figure out HOW to make this a SMART goal.

• To be maintaining a weight 30 (or, after disaster holiday partying, more realistically 40-50) pounds under where I am now.

• To attend a Bikram yoga class once a week

• To attend a more meditative (Anusara, Kripalu, Sivanada? must research and explore to find the right match) yoga class once a week

• To be able to hold an inverted pose for 6 breaths

• To be able to do a full backbend

• To be able to do the splits in all directions (each leg forward, and also out to the sides)

• To be able to impress my friend Eric with my parkour skills.
  I worry this isn’t quite Specific and Measureable enough to really count, but I don’t quite yet have a better way to measure it. I know the kinds of things that he would jump over, or grab for, and I want to, within the year, be able to do the same/a little bit more. Assuming I am able, I know he would be impressed (just as I am impressed with him now), and that makes it actually a much easier form of measurement than trying to perform a specific trick, or measure out distances or heights I would like to get to.

• To be living within my means and stop spending money in a way I regret.
  Measurablity is an issue here as well. Certainly I can measure what my means are, and budgeting better is definately an issue. But I’m not so far away now, it’s just I have problems paying for the bigger things I want (see: Beijing trip) because I spend money on silly things. (Like Starbucks coffee because I’m too lazy to walk the extra three blocks to the other Starbucks where I am friends with the manager who comps me.) So it’s eliminating those kind of things that I need to work on between now and 2009.