Perspective Post #1

I said I would post 2 posts by Wednesday about my so called "journey" in Belleville. It's boring, but at least it is something to do. I just got back about an hour ago, I'm just waiting for my boyfriend to get home from work. Despite me saying they will be posted BY Wednesday, I will post this post on Wednesday and pre-write the second one to be posted tomorrow.

Anyways, my two posts are going to be about gaining perspective. By this I mean looking at my life and myself in different ways. The first post will be about reviewing my past and interpreting present events (sort of). The second post will be focusing more on my relationship with my boyfriend and what perspective I gained from being away from him for a few days (it doesn't sound like a lot but we've seen each other everyday since Christmas so it was our first break in a while).

I have been complaining I have been bored lately. But I have solved that problem on this trip. Again, sort of.

My biggest problem is that I do not have a full-time job while my boyfriend does. I talked to a bunch of people from my high school (teachers and friends) and my mom and feel a lot better about my situation. I was talking to one of my teachers and she just was like "Wow, you sound all set!" despite me not having a full-time job.

I have a car, a great relationship, a part-time job, I know where I want to go education wise (For the most part). I'm set. How am I so dumb to not see this?

Sure, I have a lot of time on my hands but I should really just take advantage of this and finally start a BOOK! Use my time to actually do some learning on some subjects I want to learn about outside of school.

If I don't find a full-time job by the summer-school semester I will pick up a course or two using money from my education fund (this never occurred to me because I didn't want to touch my education fund this year).

Anyways. From high school to now I feel...: personality wise: I feel the same, except more confident. Body wise: I have gained a couple of pounds and lost a bit of endurance but I am working on that. But I do feel different. More mature, more loved (by my boyfriend), more of an alcoholic (not an actual alcoholic)... I don't know. I've just grown up. As one of my old teachers said, "Wow! You look great! You've matured so much!"

This reflection really seems all over the place. I don't know. My teachers asked me if I enjoyed school, it was quite hard saying that I didn't.

I also noticed myself saying "Oh well" to a LOT of people. Is that my thing now? Saying "Oh well"?

Oh well.

Bored and Seeking Adventure

Bored and broke: The Student's guide to summer.

Yeah, really? Really life? I have all of this time on my hands and no extra spending money. I don't go back to school until September. I would take summer courses but, they cost $750 and I don't have that kind of money.

I am looking for a full-time job but this town has nothing. It is a college town. Everyone is looking for work. I had an interview on Monday and I was supposed to hear back yesterday. It sounded extremely promising: here's to hoping the guy is just lazy and hasn't called me back. I called him back today and left a message.

I live with my boyfriend and he is busier than I am. He just got a full-time job and he is working at his parents' over the summer as well. So I am a fucking apartment-girlfriend (not house-wife because this is an apartment and we are not married). 

I am bored. This is boring. I hate this. I love being here, but I need a job. Desperately. I need to fill my time. 

I was talking to a girl from my part-time job which is not giving me any new hours... (ugh), and she was just like "So what are you doing during your time? You sound like you're not doing anything?". After explaining my past day to her, waking up at 10am, watching TV and eating, going to the gym, coming back and watching more TV and eating more food until 5:15 when I worked... that's not what I want. 

I don't want this blog post to be me just complaining about being bored and broke, I am trying to work through it as I type to find a solution.

I have some hobbies, like writing, sewing, reading, and drawing that I could do. I have been doing them. I've been watching a lot of TV and my boyfriend got me playing Okami on his PS3. 

What do I want other than a job? Time. That makes no sense. I am bored, I want less time. But I want a full-time job and then time to take road trips. That would be nice. Realistically, I want more friends in North Bay. All I have is my boyfriend, essentially. I didn't make too many friends in university outside of my roommates and they've all gone home for the summer. My friends from high school are all back home for the summer too.

I am visiting my mom's this weekend until Wednesday, and as much as I am going to miss my boyfriend, I am going to be glad to see my friends and have some variety in my life. I'm craving an adventure. I am going to seek one out once I get there. Meet up with some friends, talk to my mom, visit my old high school. Get some perspective from other people on my life. 

So... it's time to stop being boring and start being adventurous, Sarah.

I will write 2 blog posts by Wednesday focusing on my adventures in the most boring cities on earth: where I live now and Belleville. Fuck. 

So, I don't have a learning disability.

Last year I noticed something different a few months after I started my first year of university. I was having trouble concentrating on material, in lectures and while studying and writing assignments. I was pretty sure I had ADD. Most others around me also thought I had ADD when I described my symptoms to them. Thus, the journey began.

I approached my family doctor about my concerns and she referred me to my school to be tested for learning disabilities because she wouldn't prescribe me anything without a diagnosis. So I went to my school. They did some preliminary testing and told me that I am above average in my intellectual ability but I might be on the borderline of ADD. This was all found out around November, 3 months after I started university.

Today I finally had my appointment with the testing centre. My results? I don't have ADD. I don't have any learning disabilities. Again: I am above average in my intellectual ability.

I literally stumped the psychologist. My grades have dropped 20% since high school. Something is different, something has had to have changed.

Inevitably, grades do drop in university from high school but things just feel harder here. Or easier. I am bored. The material I am learning is not what I want to be learning. I find it boring. I love my majors (psychology and philosophy) but my profs are not doing it justice.

I explained all of this to the psychologist and he has decided to try to piece things together. Essentially, he thinks my inability to focus on my work has to do with my motivation, despite me having very high goals in my future. I have amazing goals it is just the tasks I have to accomplish to get to my goal (school) is not my cup of tea. I am stressed all of the time. I am bored. I am unengaged. I do not care about what I am learning. Even if I transferred schools it would still be the same format of learning.

So what do I do? The psychologist I saw informed me he was going to dwell on me a little longer and then contact the learning strategist I have been working with at my school and the three of us will work together. 

I wish I had a learning disability. I wish my problems could be solved with strategies or medication. But my problems are bigger than this because they cannot be fixed. My problems are my choices to face because of the goals I want to accomplish. 

This is the biggest rut of my life. I am sad. I am depressed. School depresses me. But I want to attain my BA in Psych and BA in Philosophy and then my Bachelor of Education, perhaps my masters in Education. Why? Well, I want to teach high school. I was fed up with the high school educational system and I wanted to help fix it from within but also teach high school as well to fulfill my passion for educating and being a leader. I am now leaning towards wanting to work in university education just because of how much it takes out of me. 

The system does not work for me. It does not work for most people. Human purpose is to live. A part of living is sleeping. University students do not get enough sleep. People should be able to live the life they choose but instead we pick the unhappy route so we can conform to society. This has been troubling me for a couple of years now and I still am conforming to all of this bullshit and it is maddening me. It is depressing me. It is pushing me deeper and deeper down into my own despair.

I shouldn't care this much about the university and education system in general but I am the type of person that likes to take charge and fix things and that is what I have been inspired to do. 

But for now, I am going to keep conforming to depression. Also, I can't do anything without a degree because of credentialism. I also cannot do anything because ageism (I am 18). 

Although, I did just get a good job (FINALLY). Readers may remember getting a job was one of my goals for this year. I am a Blog Editor and Marketing coordinator, it is an executive position with my university. I don't know too much about it because I was just hired and I have not started yet, but I find out tomorrow. I am looking forward to it. I am fairly lucky, job wise, compared to other people my age. I am not working a part-time shitty stressed job with some fast food or chain store. Someday I will probably have to again, before I have my degree, but for now, I look forward to having a job that I can actually do something effectively in. I am not putting down workers of chain stores or fast food stores, I am just judging the work of those places to have higher stress than my job and I am just thankful that I will (hopefully) not have to deal with it.

So at least that is good.

But I don't have a learning disability. I probably just have the psychological disorder called "conformity".

New Years Resolutions + Tips on How to Stick to your Goal (and why I hate them)

I hate new years resolutions so much. I love making goals it is just the idea that we have to make goals at the end of the year for the beginning of the new year is just arbitrary and let's face it--- just setting the goal doesn't work.

It never works. You can't just say "I am going to do ______" and then do it, you need to create measurable, actual steps towards that goal. Not many people realize this and therefore their goals are not completed.

Goals are amazing. Nothing is really ever completed without a goal, unless it was a fluke or opportunity. But you aren't going to lose 50lbs by fluke, I'm sorry to break it to you. I love goals. But too many goals created around this time are left unfulfilled and it drives me crazy. The idea of only being able to create goals around this time is also not the best because you can create goals at any time in your life, not just at the end of a year.

Although, I have been procrastinating actually writing out my own goals so I am doing that now and here. I am taking advantage of the mob of people writing resolutions to write my own.

So here are my tips to complete your goals:

1) Write it down.
As unoriginal as this sounds, your goal becomes more real when written on paper. Put it somewhere you will constantly see it and be reminded of it.

2) Create reasonable and timely steps.
Do you remember "SMART" goals from school or work? Yes, yes they are fucking annoying. But guess what? They work. If you do not know what "SMART goals" are, click here for a good resource.

3) Be REALISTIC.
In the word "SMART" the "R" stands for realistic. I think this is a very important step to be taken seriously. Don't set a goal you can't attain. Maybe you want to run a marathon by the end of the year but then you think 1) Marathons in the winter are cold and I don't think I'll be ready by fall, 2) I need to lose weight first and 3) My eating patterns need to change, then you are probably setting something currently unattainable. If you change the time limit to a further date and make baby steps and create smaller goals like losing 10 pounds in 6 weeks, then you can work towards a larger goal.

4) SMALLER GOALS
Even if you think it is hard to come up with smaller goals to complete for apart of your larger goal do it! Write a minimum for 15 small goals to do your big goal and write one of those small goals to be completed immediately. For example, if you want to eat healthy in the new year, a first immediate step could be to research what your body needs in the way of fruits, veggies, calories, carbs, etc. A lot of people's problems are that they don't follow through with these goals. You may have decided to get in shape by getting a gym membership, but as a gym member I can't tell you how it pains me to see people pile into the gym for the first few weeks and then disappear. Force yourself to do personal training, write in advance for the whole year what days you will go to the gym.

5) Don't rush
Don't rush through your goal and make a lot of progress in January to be forgotten about the rest of the year. This goes along with the creating of smaller goals.

6) & Don't forget!
Keep your goal fresh in your mind. Write it everywhere. Put reminders on your phone. Tell your friends to remind you. Do whatever it takes to not forget to complete your small goals in order to achieve your larger goal.

7) KNOW WHY!
Why are you even completing your goal? For example, many people just decide to lose weight because they should and it's been on their mind but then they forget the reason. Is it to be healthy? To run a marathon? Write the significance at the end of your goals and remind yourself of it daily.

I really encourage everyone creating goals to follow these steps and the steps of "SMART" goals. Do what it takes to get what you want.

Anyways, so here are my goals. You can use my goals as sort of a template to write your own as well.

1) I will run my marathon in under 4hrs 30 mins. I have signed up for a marathon for early May and it is my first marathon. I hope to run it in under 4hrs and 30 mins. I am going to complete this goal by running a minimum of twice a week. I will also be able to run 32km by the end of March. I will stretch after every run to avoid injury. I will eat properly by getting the right amount of carbs and I will hydrate properly as well. I want to complete this marathon because I want to know that I can run 42.2km and I want to be healthy.

2) I will have an average over 70% in university. I will accomplish this task by completing the majority if not all of my readings, leaving enough time to study before each exam and test, fully editing my papers, participating in class discussions, visiting profs when I am having issues, prioritizing what needs to get done and completing all tasks. I want to accomplish this goal because I want an honours BA.

3) I will get a job before the summer. I will accomplish this goal by applying to places, not giving up and looking twice a week online for new openings. I want to get a job so I can earn money to not deplete my education fund too much.

4) I will manage my money and not overspend. I will create a budget and I will stay in my budget by tracking my spending and prioritizing my needs and not buying things that are unnecessary too often. I want to do this so I can come out of university with no debt and without needing a loan other than OSAP.

Good luck on the creation of your own goals! Let me know your goals in the comments.

What's new, Scooby-Doo?

I am going to be focusing on a few key things to get my mind established. Logic make some of? Grammar make good of!

Okay, so I have a few things to talk about.

1. My recent trip to visit the university I will be attending this fall

2. Current things I am thinking about

3. What I am thinking of doing as a career

4. Poetry

(Oh boy)

1. My Recent Trip to the University I will be attending this fall

I am going to be attending Nipissing University this fall and for the third time I visited the university for an Orientation. What was nice about this one is that you actually get to meet students that are in your program, or ones similar. I got to meet a few interesting individuals and some people too! (Cue the laugh track). Sorry, bad joke. No, I got to meet a few interesting students, which was nice. There weren't any other people (that I noticed/met) that were also in philosophy. I met one other in political science with me. I met a bunch of people from History and Fine Arts. I also met two interesting professors. 

My mom and I stayed in the residence there, and it was really nice. I was sitting in the room on my ipad eating soup (this sounds sad, but it wasn't) and I was just thinking about how in two months, this will be where I am living (not that exact dorm house/room, but you get the point). 

Overall I had a good time. I didn't learn too much. I did learn now I cannot complete a BEd at Nipissing, which I wasn't necessarily planning to do, anyways. I can go somewhere else (as long as I am accepted). But Nipissing is no longer accepting psychology and political science as teachables, so I can't enter the BEd program afterwards. I might go to York, but that is very far into the future.

2.  Current things I am thinking about

Time to enter my mind. I am thinking about reading a lot. 

Thinking about reading.

Not even reading. Well, I am.

I know I am going to be doing a lot of reading in university, which I don't mind, but I just have a slight concern. I cannot stay awake while reading something that doesn't interest me. This may apply to many different people, but it applies especially to me. In grade 12 english I was literally trying so many different things to stay awake while reading Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (which I originally chose to read for my independent study). I would overload on caffeine, contort my body into different positions, get comfortable, get uncomfortable, go in bright light... nothing would work. I kept falling asleep. Literally passing out. I think my solution to this in university will be reading in a public place. I hate falling asleep in public places, so I will probably read somewhere public like the library, but sit somewhere with minimal distraction so I can focus. 

Another thing about reading is that I got a bunch of books from Amazon.ca and Chapters.ca to read this summer. I am halfway through one already. It is a book of poetry, but I will talk more of this later.

3. What I am thinking of doing as a career (Also, what's my major?)

Since I was at Nipissing the past two days, I have really been thinking hardcore about my major. If you follow my blogs, you know this is a common theme I talk about. What will I study? What will I do as a career? 

Currently I am choosing to double-major in either Philosophy, Psychology or Political Science. I am pretty much 100% going to be studying philosophy, but obviously, I am not going to commit until I have to. I am taking all of the first year prerequisites for these subjects and I don't have to declare my major until I begin selecting my second year courses. 

I want to take philosophy because it combines a few of my favourite things: thinking, questioning things, history, greece/rome, eastern cultures. I like to think about thinking, it is as simple as that. (Or is it?)

I want to take political science because it is interesting to me and I may possibly want to be a politician someday. So that could be a good choice.

I want to take psychology because I love education and psychology has a strong focus and interweaving with education. I also love the mind and thinking (as related to philosophy). 

In the end, I want to become either a politician, teacher or professor. I want to either be a strong political influence or politician (a MPP or City councillor or mayor), be high up in the school board, be a principal or do something do help education, or be a teacher of philosophy and whatever my second teachable turns out to be in a high school setting, and lastly I might want to be an education professor. 

I don't need to choose (yet). It's just haunting me. 

4. Poetry

As stated earlier, I have been more interested in poetry lately. Most poetry goes completely over my head and I dislike it, but I have this small book of poetry written by a Canadian, just based of of their life. It is interesting to me. I think I find it interesting just because I think people are interesting... and this poetry helps me get into the mind of this random person. It's not hard to understand, it's pretty clearly stated.

I didn't like the Poetry unit too much in my writer's craft class in high school, but now I don't mind poetry. I started writing some stuff, and I will be honest with you - I am not good at it. 

My mind doesn't write in verses yet. It can't be poetic. I think the more poetry I read, the better I will get.

And that is it for now. I am hopefully going to stay on top of blogging. I am going to be reading more often, so I might blog about things I am reading about. Who knows? Life is a mystery.