Let's be all stereotypical and write a New Year's Resolution post, shall we?
2010 was a whirlwind of life changes. In May, I graduated from grad school, in June I was hired for my first teaching job, in August I moved to a new town and started the job, in November I met a boy.
Well, gee, when I put it that way it doesn't seem all that exciting. Nonetheless, it's been pretty crazy, especially the last half of the year.
I really have two New Year's Resolutions for 2011....
1) Be a better teacher. Not that I think that I'm a bad teacher or anything, but teaching is something I'm incredibly comfortable doing, especially considering I'm a first year teacher. And especially since my weird medical issues started right before Thanksgiving, a lot of the effort I was putting into teaching has gone more into just making it through the school day while trying to ignore the pain. (More on that in a moment)
2) Run again. That's right, I didn't say MORE because that would mean that I've been running and I haven't. In fact, in 2010, I think I could count the number of miles that I ran on my fingers. The picture above is of me running 10 miles in one fell swoop...something's wrong with this picture. I will not be running to lose weight or to break any records, except my own. I inadvertently lost between 10 and 15 pounds when I started teaching, I guess because of the constant walking around the classroom and the fact that when you're teaching, there's no time for mindless snacking. Both of those things are good things, and at the beginning of the year I was doing yoga (while still at JMU) and end of the year I also started attending a Boot Camp class, which was awesome. The only problem is that I now pay a monthly gym membership which I won't admit how few times I've gone since I joined in August. As soon as we figure out these medical issues, this will change!! Time to be a runner again!!
Medical issues - the Friday before Thanksgiving I woke up with intense pain in the lower right abdomen. Pain so bad that I took off from work and went to the doctor fearing appendicitis. Since then the pain has not gone away and I even spent one night in the ER because the pain got so bad. Ultrasounds have ruled out an ovarian cyst, CT scans have been done, and I've been to my primary care doctor 3 times and two specialists. So far, they have not found the source of the pain. Next Friday I go to a GI doctor and I really hope that he can find a better solution than continuing a regimen of Tylenol with Codeine when it hurts. Anyway, this has caused countless days and nights of pain, three days off from work and did not make for the ideal Thanksgiving or winter breaks. Also, it's caused me to go on survival mode both at work and in life -- doesn't let me be a very good girlfriend (although because I have the best boyfriend EVER, he's stuck with me through all of these even though it's still the very very beginning of our relationship), haven't worked out since all this started, and I just feel all around pretty crappy. Six weeks is way too long to be in pain with no answer, especially when you are no closer to an answer than when you started. So, there's a third resolution, but it better take like just January of 2011 and not the whole year --- GET BETTER!!!!
So, there they are, my resolutions... one for work, one for me. Reasonable, right??
Thank goodness I copied my 101 in 1,001 list into here. The dayzeroproject website has disappeared and who knows if it's gone for good? The good part is that I did put the list into my blog, the bad news is, the notes that I was putting on that website are now gone so some of my progress will have to be guessed. For example, I had watched almost all of the movies necessary for #12, and with the addition of Netflix a few weeks ago, I know what I've watched in the last few weeks, but that one may be off by one or two movies.
Anyway - my progress will be noted on here, we'll call this the year-end post, I don't THINK that I'll finish anything else in 2010, unless I watch X-Men before midnight tomorrow. Anything crossed out, I have completed, anything with an asterisk is in progress.
1. Donate hair to Locks of Love Children with Hairloss - Had to change to an organization that takes color-treated hair
30. Make a gingerbread house
*31. Do one thing a month I have never done- August 2010, went to a movie by myself; September 2010, adopted a dog; October 2010, finished my first nine weeks of teaching; November 2010, cannot remember now that my notes were deleted but I'll come up with it!!; December 2010, bought and put up my own Christmas tree!!
*49. Listen to 26 bands I've never listened to starting with each letter of the alphabet.- again, I lost my list, but I pick up the free iTunes singles from Starbucks when I remember and download iTunes free singles every week which helps this one.
94. Do something adventurous- although this year has been full of adventurous things... new job, new town, new friends, new love... I'm going to hold off on saying this is complete. Nothing screams "adventurous" enough, yet.
14 "in progress"
15 completed
Plenty more to go, but I am 5 months into a 2.75 year project and pretty happy with the results so far.
The 365 project reminds me everyday of this list and the things that I set out to do. It's awesome that I haven't just forgotten about it and also that I haven't gotten annoyed or sick of the fact that I actually made a physical list of the things I really want to do. Today I registered for the half marathon, the first step to actually running it. It's been a year and a half since I ran the Baltimore 10 miler and I haven't run much since then, I miss that feeling of being able to call myself a runner. It will be great to be able to track my training progress and feel like I am getting closer to another thing on this list.
Also - in case anyone is keeping track from my last post, things are going well in the dating department, all it took was quitting the online dating scene and trusting someone I hardly knew to match me up with someone. Someone that I enjoy spending so much of my time with!! :)
