New Year's Resolutions

These are my 2015 resolutions

• Walk outside every day


• Exercise for 30 minutes daily


• Journal daily


• Draw daily


• Intervene in negative spirals


• Vote! Volunteer! Be politically active!


• Study smarter and more regularly


• Ask for help


• Take photos


• Local or organic food

I feel like every year the resolutions are the same. But as I said in May 2014: "These habits are about long term wisdom rather than short term results." So it's okay that the goals keep showing up; some of these are about life long habits and goals.

Get out of the apartment everyday

Meditation

Listen to my body

Walk or exercise for 30 minutes daily

Eat something when hungry

Eat at least 1 healthy meal each day

Journal daily

Wake up and sleep at a regular time

I mean, you can even go back to 2013 and find some of the same resolutions!



Progress is happening. It's amazing to think how much has improved in my life over the course of a few years. I feel so much more in control of my life; I feel like I'm finally in a place to start giving back and helping others. I know myself as a person much better - I feel comfortable expressing who I am and who I want to be. I have the space and security to do so as well.

As far as concrete improvement:

I've definitely improved a regular sleep cycle. Like, a drastic improvement. I am up most days at 7 or 8am. In bed by midnight or earlier. This really helps to balance my moods. I've found that it's best to keep the same schedule no matter what the external needs are. Also, I need my morning tea. I'm absolutely useless until noon without it. My push goal is to track my productivity over the course of a day to find my best hours. 

I've been cooking for myself and eating healthy for almost a year now. I've tried the organic local delivery thing. I did and am still doing the bring your lunch to work thing. I've cut back significantly on delivery food. At this point, almost all of my food is either local or organic. It's great for my mood, health, and budget. My goal is to lock in on ALL of it either local or organic. 

I blog twice weekly most of the year with occasional breaks. I'm really proud of the changes and improvements I've made in my blog, slow and steady. I think the quality of my writing has improved; I've started focusing on political and topical subjects. I want this blog to be useful to me and others too. I'd like to really launch the blog in 2015. I think the one thing I really want to focus on is adding images to my blog. 

I'm living on my own and supporting myself. I think I'd need pages to describe what a difference this has made in my quality and control of life. I feel so proud of being and knowing me at last. I'd like to stretch myself to improve on the things I love to do.

I'm dressing and looking how I want. Over on facebook, I have a post about the 4 years of hair changes: blue hair, long hair, short hair, curly hair, keratin hair! I've embraced my natural curly hair and my current color. I'd still like to try being a red head! I'm also wearing more bright colors and jewelry. I've also been trying different make up looks and totally fallen in love with gold and blue eye liner.  I've written that I feel better when I look better. I love the surprised exclamations from my friends, Are your eyes really lined with gold!?! There have of course been mistakes and strange things, but I love that too. It's fun to learn and explore what does and doesn't work for an outfit or style. But most of all, I love that I am expressing myself. I'd like to start exercising so that I can express my self - my own body - more. 

Endure, Accomodate: Become

She is not a romantic. Illness does not necessarily produce insight. Mostly it does not. It must be endured, accommodated. Our struggles towards health can accommodate what looks like disease. If the shaking woman is extended a measure of tolerance, she can become a companion in endeavour. 

~ Hilary Mantel, in her review of The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves by Siri Hustvedt. 

I have spent a lot of my life believing that if I didn't acknowledge things that they would go away. But that's not how things work! I have been truly blessed to finally find folk who recognize that ignoring abuse doesn't make it disappear. Ignoring abuse allows your abuser to continue.

(via)

There's this other idea of the creative pathos; creativity doesn't come from suffering. Creativity comes from hard work. Suffering isn't noble. Pain isn't romantic. Like the quote says, being ill doesn't magically make you wise. Running away doesn't fix the problem; ignoring it doesn't help you.You're going to have to confront the situation and then figure out what you can do. That's how you get wise: learning how to fix problems through experience.

• When going through a difficulty, you must recognize that it is happening. 

• Recognize and accommodate.

• Pretending you aren't sad, sick, or tired doesn't make you feel better. 

Recharge and Refocus

I took a few days off of blogging to recharge. Life seems to get more and more daunting as I move forward. But there are also a few amazing changes that I want to share.

The first is that I think I'm going to move out of my dorm. While the people on my floor are lovely, I find the dorm culture to be a bit toxic and too transitory for my taste. This is something that I've been looking forward to as an abstract thought for a while, but it's much closer to becoming a reality than ever before.

The second is that I'm trying to make a monetary commitment to myself. I have enough things lying around, not all of them being used, that I don't need to buy anymore. I want to make sure that I'm financially stable as I move out and that I start saving money the way I really should be.

Finally, I want to do the things that I set out to do over the summer. I want to draw twice a week. I want to read all the books I've purchased. I want to go back to writing letter. I've been dealing with difficulty and stress. In general, I really just lost sight of what I'm doing and who I am because I was too caught up in the stress of the moment and the difficulty of the moment. I want to get back in touch with the ideal me that I was working to be, rather than the miasmic discouraged me.

Moving Forward From Failure: Get Started!

I find failure to be the most difficult thing to overcome. Maybe it's the fact that failure had such a high cost in my youth. Maybe it's just that failure represents the effort put into the attempt not being quite enough.

via: Left handed toons People don't actually laugh at our failures

But here's what I do to get over my fear of failure and get started on a project.

Rousseau: Life to the Fullest

Understanding the education is preparation for life, we can now figure out how to embrace that life. Sometimes it can be very difficult to create an approach to life that allows you to embrace the moment. Hearing peers anxiously talk about grad school in their freshman years or professors drone on about the impenetrability of academia can make it seem like life takes place in stretches of decades rather than days. But your life is made of days!

Fortunately, there are great minds who have already written about the focus on the day to day life, and the benefits to embracing daily joy. Let's look at a quote from Rousseau, on of the great thinkers from the 18th century. His writings on education will help us to better understand what an effect positivity can have on us, as we approach our life and our education. 

Read more for wisdom on embracing your day!

Positivity: Education to the Fullest from Rousseau

Walking through the Infinite, I'm always amazed by the project posters and the chatter of discovery that surrounds MIT. I love the feeling of excited and frenzied exploration that permeates the people, the very buildings.

But there's something that makes me a little anxious: the concept of a technology education  Some of my peers see their time here as a way to gather up data points to store and recite for accolades. Others see technology as unequivocally good, unquestioning of the pursuit of knowledge and a fancy career. And there's always the disparaging of HASS, class that focus on the humanities. I can't count how many times have I been told that "readings for HASS classes are optional" or that "there's aren't any jobs in that; it's useless."

Something has changed about the way we approach education. We seem to see education as a decoration for our resume rather than a way to see the world.

(image via stephenhicks)

Read more for Rousseaus' vision of education as a way to impact individuals.

End of Term

It's absolutely amazing to think that it's the end of the semester. Next year I will be a junior! There are so many exciting things to talk about: an exciting summer job, studying for exams, packing for a return to Virginia.

Due to finals there won't be any more posts until after May 24th, when I return to Virginia. After that, I will return to schedule.

Read more for my thoughts on the end of term and summer plans.

Over-committing: Classes, Clubs, Career

There's a big shift transitioning from high school to college. You have a lot more independence to pursue what you want when you want but more responsibility follows. Classes in high school were really easy for me; I could skate through lectures and rely on the repetitive style of teaching if I wanted to zone out for a day.

College is not like this.
At all.

The work load is more intense, especially since professors aren't holding your hand through the material. It's up to you to keep up with work and ask for help when you need it. Despite this, a lot of students coming into college try to replicate high school, signing up for tons of clubs and activities. While it's good to have things outside of lecture, the priority of a college student is their classes, in my honest opinion. Well, it's not just my opinion: it's the opinion of the faculty and advisors.

Here's some advice for the times when you've overcommitted in your classes, clubs, and career.

Staying positive: Lookin' Good

I've realized that a major part of me feeling good about myself is based on feeling that I look good. This spring and summer, my goal is work a routine of healthy self care and trying out a new more outgoing personal style.



Read more to hear about my rationale for this new commitment and the steps that I've broken this major goal down into.

Cuter Electronics: THE END

So this is the end of the Cuter Electronics Series.

It was really fun to work on this for so long and share so many ideas.

What else would you like to see me write about?
What did you think of the series?
Did you purchase any of the listed pieces?

Let me know!
Comment and chit chat with me~

Day Planner

After going to the comic book shop with a friend, we wandered around a bit. And being the person that I am, I couldn't resist a little stationary kitsch shop.

It had so many cute things to pick up and explore. I was thinking of getting myself a nice soap but then realized I have enough soap for a small eternity, all of it lavender scented too.

Isn't the planner just lovely? I love that the cover is of vintage Boston. It has a bit of elastic to hold the cover closed along with ribbon to keep the page.

The front page has personal information; the next spread is monthly views and holidays.
I got myself a planner for new year of 2013 so to fully dedicate it in the back are my new year's resolutions. It has a great pocket in the back. I use it to store the letters that I'm about to post.

Set up with with a view of the week on one page and a note sheet for lists, this little planner has been helping me get organized. I use stickers to spark up the pages for my routine events and even for reminders of small inspirations. I put in my plans for IAP. I also put in some surprise plans throughout the year, complete with stickers. I think it's very important to have little things sprinkled throughout the year to keep oneself from losing sight of the small joys.

My one warning would be that it doesn't have a full spread monthly view.  For each week, there is a mini month view. That's alright for me since I have a monthly wall calendar along with a cell phone app calendar.

Hope that this little book can keep me organized throughout the year! I do really hope it does; as you can see I'm trying to improve myself a bit in 2013.
How do you keep organized? I enjoyed reading the Dainty Squid's post about planning blog posts.

Vlog

Good Morning!

Started my wake up routine with a cup of water and a plan for the day. For breakfast, I had some bread with Nutella with some tea wake up fully.

I recorded a vlog last night and am currently editing it. I had the brilliant idea of using the camera that our dorm uses for i3 videos since it's an HD camera. Super happy to be able to bring some high quality video without having to lay out the cash for a new camera. The new vlog's about cute electronic accessories. I should post the video on the 8th along with a related blog post. Please look forward to it!


Progress shots of the related illustration that I did!

I'm going to post about going to the ballet tomorrow.
Please look forward to it.
Hopefully I'll also film a youtube video and link it once it's uploaded.
Super excited and I hope you are too.