Hair cut, check. Write an email to a friend, check. I feel like everything I do these days has to be on a checklist. I can’t just do it for fun. I feel like every minute I need to be accomplishing something, and even though it could be deemed as an enjoyable task, I must put it on the list in order to feel productive.
And so starts another school year. I already feel stressed out, sleep deprived, worried beyond belief, etc… And the kids haven’t even showed up. Tomorrow starts my 5th year of teaching, as well as my 5th graduate class. In less than a week I need to come up with an elaborate gifted learning topic to research for a quarter. Yuck! I already feel sick to my stomach thinking about it. So, instead of getting to work on it, I’m taking a few minutes to do something that I enjoy. I’ve decided to create a list of goals for the upcoming school year. It’s so easy to feel depressed while teaching and working on a masters. I see people having fun, doing things I’d love to do, moving on with their life, but here I sit, stuck at my computer, writing a boring paper while the world around me lives. I want to live! I found myself thinking yesterday during the sermon (yes, even in church my worries and stresses don’t leave me), that I just wish this year was over. Immediately I thought, “That’s horrible. There are people who are struggling to live another year, and here, I just want the next year to be over even before it begins.”
In order to keep my sanity and to prevent myself from wishing the year away, I’ve decided to come up with the following goals to do this year (to keep me from being an old ninny).
Goals to do this Year (to keep me from being an old ninny)
- Have a waffle party- each person brings his/her favorite waffle toppings.
- Picnic at Erzhiping
- Plan a birthday party for Zach
- Build a blanket fort
- Make a new recipe of vegetarian patties that I've been meaning to make for the last 4 years. Sad, huh?
- Blog more
- Make a scrapbook about our European travels
- Go to the beach (Baishawan) and eat the Vietnamese restaurant
- Have time spent with Zach that is unadultered from school, grad classes, work, TV, stress...
- Say yes to eating out with friends once this semester
- Make Christmas cookies
- Go to at least one basketball game that Zach coaches
- Run.
- Go to Yingge. For the last 4 years, I've been wanting to go here. (It's an old pottery town).
- Make donuts
- Go to the forbidden hot springs
- Organize a game of flag football for Zach
- Plan a cake balls/cake pops party with Marcy.
- Have Zach make all my favorite superbowl snacks and watch a football game with him
- Plan Christmas trip to Thailand for Zach and Jan
- Invite new people to our house for Friday night supper/vespers
- Bike along the river with Zach
- Every month try a new recipe from pinterest and blog about it on my cooking blog
- Find a new musician to listen to
- Actually say yes and attend a teacher outing
- Finish buying gifts for friends in the States and mailing the packages
- Photography date- take pictures around town to remind us what Taiwan was like whenever we decide to leave. (Take a video of riding on a scooter).
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I want to continue making a list, but I fear that if I put too many things on there, I won’t do any of them. So for now, I have this list, and honestly, completing all of these things seems impossible right now. But I’ll try, and who wants to be an old ninny, anyways?
