…Yup, one of those days.

So its come to my attention that my free time has mainly consisted of sitting around on my computer “stumbling”, browsing facebook, and reading recent Tweets. The stumbling hasn’t been too bad, since I do come across some different information I wouldn’t have thought to look up myself, but seriously? Its pretty pathetic.

A typical weekday in my life consists of me getting up at 5:30am and working from 7am-3ish… I use the term ‘work’ loosely here because my internship is more me observing other lab techs doing their jobs and helping from time to time followed by MWF lectures on various medical technologist topics (bringing my day to about 4 on those days). After that I come home and have free time from about 4-10… and then I read a little bit and go to bed. So that’s 6 hours of free time I have every day. I do cook dinner every night and watch some recordings from my dvr with my fiance (The Daily Show and Colbert Report usually)… but the rest of my time is spent sitting doing nothing!!

Ok, ok so that is a bit of an exaggeration. I do have some days where I study for the tests given at my internship and usually at least 3 times a week I spend around 40-60 minutes working out (WOO TRYING TO GET IN SHAPE!) And in my browsing of the internet I’ve picked up some new interests: cooking/food, make up and fashion. For those who know me, the newer ‘girly’ interests are a bit strange for me. Throughout high school and college I was very much the t-shirt and jeans kind of girl, wearing flip flops at any temperature higher than 50! I would get dressed up on the weekends if we were doing something but that was about it. Well my friends, don’t get your panties in a bunch; I still plan on wearing scrubs and zero make up 5 days of the week!

The Plan

I digress, the whole point of this ranting is this: I need a hobby. Being out of college now I don’t have homework, exams to study for, and a plethora of friends surrounding me 24-7 to fill my time… so I need to keep my brain busy somehow! We’ll see how this planning thing goes but I have a few things I plan to do more frequently to keep myself busy!

1. Work out more. Now I know this is the number one on so many people’s lists, but its so true! For pretty much everyone! Being overweight has been a lifelong ailment of mine, and a few months ago when I reached an all time high weight (which I choose not to disclose ) I decided it was enough. I have gone through all the excuses from ‘well my family eats unhealthy’ to ‘well now I’m eating dorm food’, but now I buy all my own groceries and am fortunate enough to have a supportive boyfriend. I’m taking charge! Ultimately I want to overall lose almost 100 pounds (and that still puts me at the top of my recommended BMI range) and so far I’ve lost about 15! Its at a slow down but I still have high hopes! Or low hopes if you will

2. Read more books. I’ve always regretted not reading more, and now I don’t have school work in the way so I need to just pick up a book and read! I’m not one of those people that can grab a book and read for hours on end most of the time, but there is nothing unrealistic about reading a half hour to an hour a day! I’ve got the time!

3. Read up on the Fashion/make up! I have a subscription to Glamour magazine and I LOVE it! I also started following them along with other fashion magazines and organizations as well as make up companies on twitter to try and keep up on the latest! (Sidenote: I could fill an entire post about my shifting views about twitter, but in short I didn’t think I would ever use it and now I am so excited to follow a lot of people. I’m still not one to ‘tweet’ much myself but that isn’t my main use for it anyways)

4. Food experimentation and documentation. In an Elle magazine I picked up in an airport for some light reading, they had a section on food blogs. From the frequency of posts I do here it might be clear that blogs have never really been that high on my personal life totem pole, but this might change. The idea of posting various things about foods cooked, restaurants dined in, or just interesting recipes sounds exciting! I know to some it might sound lame, and depending on my mood I might agree, but as a part of my healthy living self movement I think it might be helpful for me to document my experience along the way! So my new project (aka hobby) will be to start a food/health oriented blog to keep a kind of journal about my progress and discoveries. Here’s hoping it goes well!

1. I graduated from college! While the education was great and all, it is so nice to have more spare time! Mind you I basically work 8 hours a day five days a week for my internship, so I have less physical time at home. That said, I have so much more mental time. I don’t have to spend my spare at home time catching up on sleep or studying or writing papers or doing homework assignments anymore.  So step 1 of finding more time complete!

2. Twitter: when it first blew up I will admit I was definitely skeptical about it. Now that I’ve had more time to investigate it a little further, I’ve found ways to utilize it as a media and information machine. I still don’t really post a whole lot about myself and what I’m doing, because as far as I’m concerned that’s what Facebook it for where people I actually know read it. It has been awesome for keeping up to date on some of my favorite musical artists though, and I even use it for news blurbs and fashion tips!

3. Watching Comedy Central: I know this may seem a little strange as a way of furthering my knowledge of current events, but believe it or not its one of my main sources. I tend to find regular news programs boring, or not on at times that are convenient for me, so I’ve taken up watching “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” regularly. YES I am fully aware that these are satirical broadcasts meant for entertainment, but the topics they cover are real and current. For example, with my previous habits of news intake I wouldn’t have realized that the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” issue was up for being repealed! BUT when I heard about if on CC I looked into it more on my own and signed a petition as well as stayed up to date on it. ((Sidenote: SO glad it got repealed! But I won’t get into that here))

4. Reading: I still haven’t worked a whole lot on getting in more casual reading, but I’m slowly getting there. I have decided that I will start collecting books, and I am so excited about it. Though it will add to my collection of bought but unread books, haha. I’m currently working my way through “The City of Dreaming Books” by Walter Moers. I loved his “The 13 and 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear” so I decided to read another portion of the Zamonian saga. At the same time I also have started reading “The Divine Comedy”. Polar opposites almost, I know, but that way I can read based on my mood. The one thing in my reading world that I have managed to stay completely caught up on is my manga; I still have a few new volumes to get, though. I’ll be waiting until after the Crhistmas/birthday season is done for me. Just in case.

5.  My final improvement as far as time management and staying up to date on things is the adjustment of keeping open several tabs on my web browser. In the past I mainly changed just he one tab around, maybe two for references. However now my normal MINIMUM is 3. I have a Facebook tab and a Twitter tab open at all times, both informing me of updates, and then usually at least one other tab open for browsing. The nature of “tweets” often leads to more tabs since any links posted open up in a new tab, so I’ll usually go through all the tweets I have to catch up on and open any tab along the way, sometimes mounting to massive numbers. I also like to have a reference tab or two open for a quick spell check or Wikipedia/Google look up.

I still have my vices however in time management. My biggest flaw is my continued obsession with online games, in particular those on Facebook. I’ve gotten better over the last few weeks and hope to keep it that way by eliminating a few games I don’t really play much. CURSE YOU NETFLIX, seems pretty self explanatory about what my situation there is. Another issue with time management isn’t so much a vice as it is added responsibility. Two big culprits are dish washing (alas we have no dishwasher) and cooking dinner. I LOVE cooking so it isn’t really that big of a deal. I’ve been trying all kinds of recipes, most ending well. I guess that comes with the territory of this “Real World” stuff people always talk about out of college. My most recent addition to time-takers is trying to start a workout regime, hopefully that goes well.

I hope to continue to expand my knowledge base, maybe by using that “StumbleUpon” button a little more often or maybe by just casual browsing and reading. I will also try to give myself more time for the joy of reading for fun with the collection of unread books I have amassed. Good luck fellow time crunchers!

1. Understand and accept that life is not always fair.

2. Donate blood.

3. Everyday, take a 30 minute walk in your neighborhood or on campus.

4. Don’t make excuses.

5. Be on time.

6. Stop blaming other people.

7. Reread a favorite book.

8. Know when to keep your mouth shut.

9. Know when to say something.

10. Listen more, talk less.

11. Take time to be alone.

12. Get organized.

13. Strive for excellence, not perfection.

14. Return everything you borrow.

15. Admit it when you make a mistake.

16. Cultivate good manners.

17. Let some one cut ahead of you in line.

18. Do not argue.

19. Be humble.

20. Live beneath your means and within your seams.

21. Everyday, do something nice and try not to get caught.

22. Learn from the past, plan for the future, and live in the present.

23. Give all the clothes you have not worn in the last year to charity.

24. Do not sweat the small stuff.

25. Be kind to people.

26. Skip two meals a week and five the money to the homeless.

27. Be even kinder to unkind people.

28.  Do not criticise anyone for 24 hours.

Now I’m not saying I follow this religiously or that I am this person described on a daily basis. Its just a cute and quick little list to try and keep me in check and stop and think about the things I do in life. I try to strive for happiness, as I think most of us do, and I also hope to make other people happy along the way. Good luck getting happy

Take a deep breath…. and let it out with a smile

I guess some would call it prioritizing, but I call it a warped sense of time management guilt. I call it this for 2 reasons. First, doesn’t that just sound cool? Second, I don’t do a lot of things in my free time because I feel too guilty “wasting time” on them when I could be doing something much more productive… yet some real “time wasters” manage to elude this sense of guilt that keeps me from reading or coloring. (Yes, I enjoy coloring.)

I guess I just need to revert back to how I used to do things. I work on productive things until there just isn’t anything left to do, then I don’t feel guilty doing anything! I was lucky enough to have some time over this past summer that was guilt free laziness, but the school year is just around the corner!

Here’s to hoping senior year is time well spent!

I speak, of course, of the time of year when summer is ending and soon I’ll be going back up to school. I always struggle with how I feel about it, I realized. When some one asks “Are you excited to head back up to school?” I always respond with a prompt “Yes!” thinking of how I’ll be living once again on my own and not under the same roof as my parents but with my close friends. I also think of how I’ll get to see people I haven’t really seen all summer. I think of the parties and fun outings…

Then I stop and think more deeply about it. More classes will start, more stupid drama will happen, and I’ll be hundreds of miles away from the man I love… One can see how I get a mixed feeling about leaving home and going back to school.

I do, however, like the idea of a change in scenery. Its always a highlight for me to shake up my routine and start anew in a different place. I mean yeah, I’ve been to East Lansing several times, but its always rejuvenating to come back after a long time away. This year is even more of a change because we’ll be in an apartment! I’m excited and nervous about it all at the same time, but it’ll definitely shake things up a little! I’ll miss the kids at work but at the same time being able to NOT edit how I act all the time will be a relief, too. My hours will go down, but my hourly wage will go up? Lol, not quite enough to make up for the dropped hours but as my mom often reminds me “YOUR NUMBER ONE JOB UP THERE IS SCHOOL!”

I’m REALLY looking forward to seeing friends again, especially since two of some of my closest friends that I normally have at school AND home are both away in Europe :’( But hopefully they’ll have lots of fun stories to share

The countdown is on and its somewhat intimidating because this is also my senior year of college, which means I have to get on the ball and figure out what and how I’m going to take care of the rest of my life, or at least the next step in it. I’m struggling a little bit right now since my primary plan looks like it might be falling through a bit, but I still have other options so I’m not panicked, just a bit pressed for time.

But how I feel won’t change the fact that the days are dwindling and whats going to come is coming closer!

This summer I’ve felt particularly bad about it because not only do I lose communication with my MSU friends, but people that are normally around me at home are gone and can only be reached via internet. Hooray WORLD wide web!

So hopefully I’ll be able to get online more often and catch up a bit, if not I suppose I’ll be back at school in less than 2 months… I know I for sure won’t be in communication with people in 2 weeks FOR 2 weeks because of my vacation to Hawaii.

Here’s to keeping in touch.

To be honest I can’t recall if there has been a single week all semester where I went to all of my classes. I would like to think there was, but it makes me sad that I can’t confidently claim it. I mean even the first week I missed classes on Wednesday  because I was throwing up sick! I think I went to class all the next week… maybe?

It makes me sad that I have sunk this low. Some claim its just me realizing how unimportant some class lectures are, when I know its only that I let myself believe this is true. In my sophmore year of high school I earned the name “Over Achiever” by some of my class mates because I would have a full week’s homework done by Monday, Tuesday at the latest. I mean, yes I was stuck at home not allowed to go online or go outside from 3pm-530 or 6pm so why else was I going to do? But still. Wow. What would they say now?

I sicken MYSELF with my seeming plummet into a lack of motivation. Where did that motivation disappear to? Freshman year in college I don’t know that I missed a single class, let alone at least one a week. That may not be entirely true but its close to it. Did I take this realization of freedom about whether I choose to go to class or not too far? Yes. There are days taht I justify missing class by using that time to catch up on sleep or study, and thats mainly what I do, but why am I behind on that sleep to begin with? Shouldn’t I be keeping up enough with classes so I don’t have to skip to study? Its a vicious cycle really, and I’m hoping I can get out of it.

I know there is a mentality out there of ‘Every man for himself’ but I think that some one needs to be there to just be there for people. That little something to keep humanity connected. As I’ve said before I want to be a forensic pathologist, which is more or less autopsying people and finding causes of death, etc. Note: this is not by any means a psychologist or psychiatrist job. I want to be there in my own way, not in some scientific philosophical way. I can understand some of the reasoning in it all, but it can only be applied to specific situations to an extent.

I love my life. I have great friends and family. I have the opportunity to get an education and am fortunate enough to not have to pay for it myself. I don’t show my appreciation for this enough. I have a wonderful relationship with my fiance. I have a plan for my life. Is it any wonder why I don’t have a difficult time to keep a generally happy demeanor? So as I see it, why can’t I try and share it? It comes off as conceited but I wish I could give everyone a life like mine. I have bumps in the road, yes, but that is just a fact of life. This is why I am such an optimistic person, and why I think it is my duty to try and bring people up when they are down.