Action Plans

Okay, I know I have been slow about putting up these action plans. But, believe me, they have been developing in my head and I have even been making small changes in my life.

The first action plan is environmental responsibility. Step one: I have already made some changes by purchasing environmentally friendly cleaning products. I will not use products that contain things like chlorine or hydrocloric acid...I'm switching over to nontoxic products. I've already found nontoxic cleaning spray, and Jake picked up environmentally friendly toilet bowl cleaner and laundry detergent. Step two: Continue to bring in reusable bags to the grocery store. Step three: Buy a few more houseplants and nuture them properly. Step four: Get Jake to bother Dominion Power to switch over our electricity to wind-powered electricity instead of coal-fueled electricity. Step five: Continue to educate myself and slowly make changes...Does anyone else have suggestions? I've been reading this book by Peter Singer about the ethical consequences of our food choices. I think I've already decided that I'm not eating chicken out at restaurants anymore. I want to make sure that what I eat isn't coming from one of the factory farms wreaking havoc on the environment. I probably won't want to eat anything by the time I finish the book.

Oh, and a sidenote: I don't want to be embalmed and put in a casket when I die. I'm interested in the idea of "green burials" and I wonder if that might be better than being cremated. But, yeah, when I die...don't embalm me.

Okay, action plan number two: becoming healthier. Step one: I need to drink a proper amount of water. I have been carrying a water bottle with me at work, but it would probably be a good idea for me to drink water along with breakfast and dinner as well. Step two: Make a doctor's appointment sometime this year and get a real physical. Talk to the doctor about my blood pressure. Step three: Eat more fiber. Step four: At a bare minimum, exercise the equivalent of taking a half hour walk each day. Step five: Make an eye appointment and look into the possibility of lasik surgery for my left eye. Put away money into Jake's flexible spending account to pay for it. Step six: Continue to educate myself and develop new goals. Suggestions?

Action plan three: continue to develop my life philosophy. I'm pretty sure my life philosophy involves advancing knowledge and living responsibly on the earth. It does not involve religion. To continue to develop my philosophy, I will educate myself more about science. I want to read about physics. I want to read about evolution. Hmm...I'm not sure what else I want to do in this area. I guess this isn't very specific is it?

Action plan four: contribute to the human legacy. By this, I mean being creative. I also mean putting my own ideas forward in order to shape the environment I live in. I want to be able to advance changes in the moral and social climate. I just finished reading this book by Richard Dawkins and he discussed the idea of memes, which are units of cultural information. Memes (according to theory) may work similarly to genes and evolve according to natural selection. I think I need to be contributing memes in order for society to advance. (And, eventually, I will contribute my genes, too...when I'm good and ready.) Anyway...Step one: Continue to blog. Step two: Be less afraid to voice my own opinion. Step three: Do arts and crafts. Take my ceramics class (which starts tomorrow!). Step four: Take advantage of new situations, learn, and try new things. Meet new people. Have conversations. Play music. Etc.

Well, this is the start to becoming a better person. Maybe I can have the same action plans next year and add in new specific goals that build off of what I'll accomplish this year.

The New Year

I'm incredibly tired. I can't think straight. I'm staying up, though, waiting to see if the airline will deliver my bags. They were lost last night on the flight back to DC. They are supposed to be coming tonight. A flight came in at 2pm today that supposedly had my bags on it. I called Frontier (the airline I flew) this afternoon to see if they were on the way. The guy told me that my bags should have been picked up at 4pm by a delivery company today. He also said, however, that it could take 4-5 hours plus before the bags get to my apartment...maybe more because there are lots of lost bags to deliver from holiday flights. Ugh.

Anyhow, I am working on my action plans. I have four broad plans, which I need to come up with specific small steps to achieve. Here are the four plans:

1) Become an environmentally responsible person.
2) Become healthier.
3) Develop my philosophy of life.
4) Contribute to the human legacy.

I know these are excessively broad. I bet I can even keep these action plans for next New Year. But, hopefully I will be steps closer to "perfection" in each one.

I do have smaller steps for each of these. I don't feel like writing them out right now, though. Plus, I think I need to develop better, more specific steps for some of them, which will take more thinking and effort than I'm willing to put forward tonight. I'm so ready to pass out.

I read that recent Census data indicates that about three quarters of college freshmen say that their primary personal objective is "being financially well off". Back in the 70s, I guess college freshmen said that their objective was "developing a meaningful philosophy of life". Isn't it depressing that our society has become so money-focused? What does that say about America? Man, I want to push back and have a movement toward making life meaningful. I guess I don't know exactly what the meaning of life is, but I'm sure money isn't the meaning of life. Maybe money faciliates some meaningful life experiences, but it's not the reason that I exist.

I have so much more to say, but I feel completely wiped. I feel like I think about a million more things than I'm able to blog about lately.

Hopefully, I'll write more tomorrow or something. I also want to write about what I did over break. Jake should have pictures and I should be able to get those from him after Thursday.

I think I'm going to go to sleep and see if the airline calls me in the middle of the night. It's 9:30 and I can't keep my eyes open anymore.

Satisfaction

I just read a blurb in U.S. News and World Report that there is recent research suggesting that people's happiness "set points" can shift as they age. That's what I hope is happening to me. I think that I have generally been happier the last five or so months than I've been in the last couple years beforehand...

I'm not sure why entirely. Maybe I don't feel so much pressure to always work because I'm not in school anymore... Maybe I feel freer to pursue my own interests rather than fulfill school obligations... Maybe it's because I have much more leisure time... Maybe it's just having Jake around... Anyway, I'm hoping that the mood shift is a permanent change for the better.

It will soon be Xmas break. Three more days of work and then I get to go home! Things are going to be crazy because Jake and I will have a lot of traveling back and forth to do. We'll be at his parents' house first, then my parents' house, then we're flying out to Colorado, staying at a hotel, and spending time with some of Jake's aunts and uncles who live out there.

I don't like saying that I make New Year's Resolutions. Resolution sounds so weak to me. I'd rather have a New Year's "Plan of Action" or something. "Resolution" implies a vague thought that something will get done, while I'd rather have step-by-step plans in place. I'm hoping that break will give me some time to sit down and reassess some of my life goals to figure out what the heck I'm doing with myself. We'll see if it happens considering my hectic travel schedule. I did write out some goals in a notebook during the summer and I've stayed surprisingly on track for a lot of them. I think I may need to make some new goals and/or revise some of the old ones, though. Maybe if I don't get it done while I'm off work, I can do it when I'm at the apartment by myself for a few days (I come back to VA a few days before Jake does). If I come up with some new goals, I'll have to work on blogging about them.

One of the goals I wrote up in June was to take an art class within the next year. I recently enrolled in a pottery class, which I'm pretty excited about. I'm going to spend two and a half hours every Monday learning pottery with the Art League in Old Town. My class starts January 8th and goes for nine weeks. What should I make while I'm in the class? I think I want to try to make some salad bowls. I can probably do that when I learn how to use the wheel...I think we'll probably do some sessions of hand-building, though. What else should I make?

I'm trying to be a better person.

I watched An Inconvenient Truth recently. I feel like I need to make a difference to stop global warming.

Jake and I have been using cloth bags to grocery shop lately. I guess that's one way to make a difference.

We really should install a low-flow showerhead in our apartment. Our shower pumps out a lot of hot water.

I heard that it's better to buy coffee that's shade grown. The stuff that's grown in the sun is often grown in areas of depleted rainforest. I don't know how to determine if my coffee has been grown in the shade, though.

I want to quit my job. I'm thinking my new career should be professional activist.

How do professional activists survive?

Sometimes I think my job is meaningless. Sometimes I think that the kids I work with just take up space. I think to myself about how if I knew I was going to give birth to a child like the ones I work with, I'd probably have an abortion. Does that make me a bad person?

My Seduction Style

Sushi, Sake, & Smashed Silliness

Jake and I attended an engagement party last night. It was at a sushi bar. The cocktails were half price, so I had a bit more to drink than I'd planned. I also ate a bunch of sushi. We kept pulling more and more sushi off this conveyor belt and eating it.

This is my friend Tejal and me drinking this drink called the Flaming Volcano this weekend. Tejal usually orders a drink, takes a few sips, says she's drunk, and then gives up drinking afterwards. So, I'm sure I'm the one that probably polished off most of this drink. Oh, and see the fruity drink next to our flaming drink with the pineapple garnish? That drink is mine, too. I also had another cocktail prior to that one...

After the sushi place, a bunch of us went over to our friend Kevin's house. I drank some more there as well. I remember having this drink called "Prom Night on the Beach" and drinking a shot of sake. The bride-to-be whose engagement we were celebrating pretended that Kevin's standing lamp was a stripper pole and gave everyone a show. It was a lot of fun.

Whenever Tejal and I get together, we talk about what we could invent or what business we could start to make a lot of money. Her new ideas this week involved making a cheaper grocery store and designing a sash women could wear with a cell phone pocket in it. I really wasn't too crazy about either idea. Anyway, Tejal once told me that she talked to a very successful businessman who told her that the key to success is to be willing to take some risks while young. So, maybe one's twenties is the time to pursue crazy ideas. I'm not sure what to do with myself. I'm pretty sure that I don't want to be in special education for the rest of my life. Maybe I just need to pick something else and run with it.

Dropping Like Flies

It has been a scary week at work. Two people got fired and one quit. I've started to get the feeling that the managers are really watching out for slip-ups. Luckily, I had an evaluation on Friday afternoon and was told that I'm doing a good job. They didn't even really mention anything too negative about my performance so far. In fact, they asked if I'd be more interested in actually writing up the behavior plans or in doing some teaching. I'm hopeful that I'll get some sort of promotion sometime soon.