What I haven't been doing.

Apparently, the only discernible skill my new Bachelor's Degree has given me is the ability to wake up early. Every day. Without an alarm. Without fail.

This is useful for work. Normally I have to be in around 9am. I set my alarm for 7:45. But right at 7am, BING! I'm awake. And for half a minute I think about how I should roll out of bed and walk to the little gym in the clubhouse and do something productive for half an hour before work. So I can be energized and maybe work off the extra fluff I've accumulated over the past few weeks. But I never seem to get past the thinking part; I just fall back asleep, and then get ready for work.

Work happens to be a four minute drive away. Less if I don't hit the single stoplight between my apartment and the staff parking lot. I'd rollerblade to work, but there's no where to put my blades while I'm working. The lockers are too small. :( So I'm back home for the weekend, and I'm going to try to steal my bike back. That way I can save on gas money, too. :)

As for why I'm not working this weekend? I asked for it off to go to an Aikido Seminar that my sensei is teaching. But I haven't been to an aikido class in... months? Months. That's just embarrassing. I want to go, but at the same time, I'm slightly apprehensive. It's not just this pathetic laziness that's taking over my life, it's just that it's an ukemi seminar. And my ukemi sucks. That's probably enough reason for me to go, but I'm also absolutely broke. Dead broke. Yes I have a job, but I haven't even gotten my first paycheck yet, and I still have to pay for rent and groceries. :/ So it looks like my choices are: food? or seminar? -sigh-

I need to start going back to aikido. I deliberately made my work schedule so that I could still make it to class Monday and Wednesday nights. I intended on going to class this past week. But after work I just crashed. Took a great big nap, had dinner, and went to sleep for the night. Wake up in the morning, go to work. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I need to stop making excuses. Aikido and working out aren't the only things I haven't been doing. I need to be WRITING.

Now, a big part of writing, is reading. And gold star for me, I've actually been doing that. I recently finished Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters, and I'm currently working on Ed Regis' Nano. Once I finish catching up on books in my personal library, I'm going to start working on the recommended background reading for one of my grad school classes. My conservative goal is two books a week, so I need to step up my game a little. I'm going to make a rule for myself, that if I want to read, I need to be doing something else at the same time. Like spending some time on an elliptical trainer. Multitasking.

But reading isn't everything. I'm going to start working on an MFA in Creative Writing, for heaven's sake, and I need to actually WRITE in order to get my degree!

I have a lot of half-started projects, ideas in their infancy, and almost-done essays that just need a bit of tweaking. But I need to be writing. All the time. Working on something. I need something to show for this summer. So I need to find time to write. Every day, at the same time. I'm not quite sure how this is going to work yet, but maybe I'll link it to starting a Dream Journal again. After all, all my best ideas come from my dreams.

So now I need to go out and DO something! And I hope you all DO something, too! And enjoy your weekend. :)

--EDIT!--

OH OH OH. Before I forget!! I got my grades for my final semester: STRAIGHT A's. (YAY!)

Six more weeks.

In typical procrastination fashion, I am posting when I should be doing something else. In this case, writing a take-home essay I've had about 2 weeks to complete.

I am still waiting on five more schools to get back to me, so at the advice of my thesis advisor, I sent the directors of the writing programs emails asking for updates on my applications. They were very short, polite emails, stating that although I got a good offer somewhere else, I want to hear from them before I accept/decline. Hopefully I'll get responses within the next week or two; if not, I still plan on making my final decision by April 8 (a week before the April 15 deadline).

I've been talking to my top school choice, and I am very excited about the opportunities presented to me. I've already been briefed on my choices for my assistantship, and everyone I have talked to has been really friendly. :)

I still have a lot of work that I need to do for (undergraduate) school, and there are two big submissions due at the end of this week that I haven't really started on. Coupling that with job fairs and award interviews and getting headshots taken and all of this... I'm getting rather stressed out. There is so much to do, and I just don't have enough time for it all. :/ Hopefully my headshots turn out nice (I have a lot of faith in my super awesome photographer, Toivo) and my interview goes well and I finish everything I want to do this week.

I've paid for almost everything for graduation (just waiting to get my honors medallion, which I won't get until the end of next month), and I'm excited because my parents are both chipping in to get me a class ring. :) My mom and her fiancee were also nice enough to get me an awesome outfit for my graduation. I have two ceremonies on two separate days, but I'm wearing the same outfit to both of them. I like it that much. (And it was crazy expensive, even on sale.)

Battling seniouritus is such a pain; but I am still trying to get everything done and keep my grades up high. I know all of my acceptances are conditional, and I don't want them revoked because I got lazy in the last six weeks. So far so good, though. :]

Good News and Bad News.

We'll start with the bad.

I found out this week that Vanderbilt rejected me. On top of that, I had to pull my first all-nighter of the semester. I went to sleep around 8am, and woke up at 11am, so I guess it wasn't a true all-nighter, but it could have totally been prevented. Deadlines just snuck up on me; it seems that on top of midterms, EVERYTHING IS DUE this week. Including submissions to awards that I've been putting off. I have almost everything I need for the award about being an outstanding graduate (just missing a recommendation letter I'm going to pick up tomorrow), and for the creative writing awards, I finally have a piece written, I just need to edit and expand on it. I'm behind on my thesis--I wanted to be pretty much done with drafting all of the pages by now--so if I'm lucky, I'll get all of my midterm and studying stuff done early in the weekend, so that I can spend the rest of next week creating formats. That way, when I meet with my thesis director next Thursday, he can tell me yea or nay before I commit the comic to detail and color over Spring Break. (so much work!! >_< ugh.)

And as for the good? I got accepted into UCF's Creative Writing MFA Program! Yay! I have choices (Now I just need to get an assistantship or something somewhere to help offset the cost...) I'll have to spend my Spring Break getting all of my financial aid work together to start submitting to the schools I got accepted to, so that they can start processing the fact that I absolutely need their aid or I won't be able to attend. :/ (So somehow, I turned the good news into bad news again.)

Next week I get to order my cap, gown, & tassel, along with my honors medallion (for attaining a 3.5+ GPA) and hopefully my honors society sash (for my participation in Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honors Society). I've registered for Commencement through the University and the Honors College, and I'm planning on signing up for membership at the Alumni Society soon, too. I wanted a class ring, but they're just too expensive, and since my Bachelor's degree isn't going to be my last degree, I figure I'll just wait until I finish my MFA (or even my PhD). Graduation is so close, I can almost taste it! I just need to survive the rest of this semester first!

Dilemma

I've come to the alarming realization that while I have a strong writing voice, I have no real identity of myself as a writer. This is mildly embarrassing, especially considering my self-proclamation of being just that.

Being a writer means actually writing--on a regular basis--and submitting work for publication. While I have been doing both of these things, I wouldn't say that I am doing them well. I write sporadically, and lately have had a tendency to revive and refinish old works, rather than producing brand new content. I'm holding myself back. Perhaps inadvertently, but it is still happening.

I need to change this.

I need to write something brand new every day. It can be a snippet of a thought, a paragraph, a page, a chapter. Whatever time permits, whatever works. I need to take risks, experiment. Really try to find myself.

Because without direction and purpose, what good is a voice?