I have just received my first admission to a graduate school! When I first found out, I was so excited and happy and I couldn’t sit still…I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t wait to tell my parents, who were out to dinner when I called and had to wait an hour until they got home to tell them. During that time I was so anxious and thrilled, but relieved when I finally got to tell someone! Now that a couple of days have gone by since I found out, I have felt such a mixture of emotions ranging from excited, happy, thrilled to nervous, intimidated, self-doubtful, anxious, and worried. A lot goes into deciding whether or not you attend a certain graduate school – i.e. if you actually want to go there, if the program is a good fit for you, whether or not you can handle it, what that degree will lead to, the expenses, giving up your current life for something different, etc. So I am not making any rash decisions, but I have to say that I am extremely happy to have gotten in to such a magnificent institution and am excited about what it could potentially lead to in life.
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Why is a bucket list called a bucket list?
0I thought it would be good for me to start a bucket list to set some goals for myself in life. So here it goes!
Live in another country
Attend the Olympics
Learn how to fly a plane to overcome my fear of flying
Have goats as pets/run a small goat farm
Adopt a child from the Czech Republic (my origins)
Play with sea otters
Have a DIY wedding
Watch either an open heart or brain surgery
Master a perfect French accent
Open an independent cinema/book shop/art gallery/wine bar
Ride around Paris on a bicycle
Continue to enjoy cooking and trying new recipes
Well, this is a start and I’m sure I’ll add more to it in my head as I think of more things I’d like to do in life.
The Plague
0I am plagued by indecisiveness. I always have found it difficult to make decisions, from little things like picking what movie to watch to big things like choosing what college to go to, and it has become more of a problem lately as I have been faced with really important decisions that affect the rest of my life – i.e. picking a career and deciding who I want to spend the rest of my life with.
Why do I cringe when I hear the word passion? You would think that it is very easy to decipher what your passion is, but it’s not for me. I have been trying to identify my passion for a long time and it is becoming more and more evident just how important it is to do so now that I am part of the ‘working world’ and no longer a student.
The thing is, once you have identified a passion, you have to evaluate whether or not that passion is what you want it to be – whether or not you like it and can be proud of it. Sometimes I feel like I have succeeded in identifying my passion, but then when I think about it it’s not really something I would be proud to tell people about; or not necessarily that I wouldn’t be proud of it, but that perhaps in some way it’s not as worthy or as ‘good for society’ as some other careers.
It’s hard for me to let myself just feel what I feel and accept a passion without feeling the need to exert control over it. I feel like I’m constantly trying to control how I feel or what I want to feel and justify my interests before I let them turn into passions. I guess you can say I have control issues – not necessarily when it comes to other people, but more so with myself.
The only one
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Being an only child, I am very absorbed with myself. Not in a selfish way, but in a contemplative, reserved way. I think this is a trait that is probably pretty common among only children because growing up we spend so much time alone and we are our parents’ only concern, so we inherently receive a lot of attention and support. Therefore, only children tend to think about themselves a lot because that is how they are brought up. This tendency can result in a negative self-absorption and selfishness where one only thinks about oneself at the cost of others. But it can also result in a very contemplative and almost nervous concern for one’s life and future, i.e. what do I want to do in life, am I doing the right thing/making the right decision, what kind of people do I want in my life, what kind of person do I want to be, etc. This is not to say that people who have siblings do not have the same concerns, but there is something about only children and the time they spend alone and the way they are brought up, that I think fosters this kind of thought.
When yes actually means no
0Do you ever catch yourself saying yes when you actually mean to say no but you simply cannot bring yourself to say no? This could happen for a variety of reasons – maybe we don’t want to admit the truth, maybe we don’t really know what we want or how we feel and it is easier to say yes, maybe we so badly want to mean yes and we think that if we say yes enough it will translate into how we feel. Whatever the case may be, it is a very uncomfortable way to feel and there is no easy way out of it. You hope that perhaps throughout time you will feel differently and you wait for it to change, but when it doesn’t, it can be ever so frustrating. Sometimes you do feel differently and it does change and it feels great. But until then, you’re in limbo, which is always a very uneasy place to be.
Decisions, Decisions
0Sometimes making decisions is so difficult, it’s easiest to stop thinking about it and let the decision make itself. Sometimes we must pull ourselves away from the situation and let it work itself out. And sometimes decisions are made by circumstances that are beyond our control. These instances, although perhaps disappointing, are easier because they don’t require us to make any sort of decision, but only think about the repercussions either in sadness or in joy.
2013 in review
0The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 530 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 9 trips to carry that many people.
The fate of the working world
0Working a regular 9-5 desk job really shatters one’s creativity. Your time is not your own, and when your time is not your own all you can think about is what you would with time that is your own. So, as miserable as it sometimes may be, it does make you realize what you’re truly passionate about and wish you could be doing. But alas, we all need to make money somehow to survive. So a job’s a job. It seems like most people don’t like their jobs, and those who do are the lucky ones. But I can imagine liking your job when you know what your income is going towards, like the mortgage of a house that you might be really proud of, a family with children that you need to provide for, a nice car perhaps, vacations to places you look forward to going to, pets (which undoubtedly cost money), etc. So may we all strive to like, or even love our jobs!
If the shoe doesn’t fit…
0You know when you feel like you don’t fit in anywhere? With people especially…you don’t fit in with old friends and you don’t fit in with new friends…it’s worrisome because you wonder if you’ll ever fit in with anyone. I think it’s just a reminder that we are fundamentally lonely creatures and even when we’re in the company of others, it’s very easy to feel alone regardless of their presence. But even so, we try to fit in with others to feel some kind of closeness with people, although it can be very frustrating when we’re feeling out of place. You begin to wonder if it’s you or them. Are they just not the right kind of people for you or is there something wrong with you that explains why you’re not feeling in sync with them? Whatever the case may be and although we want to try to form those relationships with people, whether or not they flourish doesn’t really matter since ultimately, we are solitary, lonely creatures.
Rash judgment
0We all think we’re open-minded until we come across something that we form an opinion about, or realize that we’ve held that opinion for quite some time without realizing it, and then all of a sudden we don’t feel so open-minded. We feel rather close-minded and judgmental. This has recently been occurring to me as I think about different things and almost unconsciously make a judgment about them without really thinking about them. It is somewhat bothersome to me, but at the same time, I don’t altogether disagree with the rash judgments I make because it must be how I feel instinctively and there is nothing wrong with how we really feel, even if we don’t like it sometimes. It’ just how we feel and we have to be true to that and not judge our judgements. Or should we?
gooollysandra 