summer is over

well, summer is over, and while i dont have to go back to school because of that beautiful milestone we call "graduation" I still have a feeling of lost time. I think i wasted my summer. I am not sure yet what happens after summer when there is no school. It is uncharted territory. I have never had school-less post-summer activities.

maybe i should just start doing things that i put off doing all summer. perhaps, if i continue to allow my time to waste away, the rest of my life will turn into a wasted summer.

i have a new appreciation for the usefulness of school.

even if the work is boring or useless in itself, it is still soemthing that is to be done, and the assignments and subsequent deadlines are helpful.

so, since i didnt do half of what i wanted to do this summer, here are the ten things i wanted to do, and will try to do, even though it is no longer summer:

actually...lets be more optimistic. i'll start with things that i feel that i have accomplished, and then move on to what i want to do:

accomplished this summer:
1. decided to get married. picked the venue, colors, flowers, theme, ect.
2. re-upholstered a chair, my first experiment in re-upholstering. success.
3. wrote a single poem.
4. blogged. not alot, but enough to constitute having blogged.
5. went on many job interviews.
6. applied for countless jobs.
7. read a few books.
8. made a purse...that i am going to send to Heather because she likes it.
9. did some fun kitchen-type experiments.
10. played tennis and exercised. lost some weight

now, that isnt very reassuring, but here are the things i should have done, and will try to do:
1. get a job. successfully. and therefore make money.
2. paint some stuff. like canvases. why have i not painted this summer?
3. write something else. anything. story, poem, something.
4. read more.
5. keep a doodle blog. i am starting it today.
6. try linolium printing.
7. be more active, i.e. be more consistent with tennis and walks. even jog? maybe?
8. go to a concert soon. the lack of music is disheartening.
9. actually get married, move into new place, and start that whole aspect of life.
10. cook more.

there. now there are lists, that means everything will be easier, right? self-help books always say "start with a list" but i disagree. lists are a waste of time. you spend so much time making the list that you never check things off.

but they make me feel better. if nothing else, i have accomplished the list part of the activity.

I have begun to have a written pen-pal. a friend of mine moved to Chicago last week, and we have decided to actually try to keep in touch with that archaic method: snail mail. what a brilliant idea for a back formation. we never needed "snail mail" until "email" was invented. remember when "email" had a hyphen? been a while, hasnt it? remember when the "i" in apple products stood for "internet"? who would have thought that the internet would literally take over the world?

anyway, so I wrote my first letter to Heather (chicago chick) today. and i was suprised at how strange it felt to not have things like "delete/backspace" and a spell checker. I am a big advocate for writing things out before typing. even my papers in school were all written by hand before i typed them. i believe that the thought process is different, and that by combining writing with typing, you get the benefit of both processes. but mos of those written papers were just drafts, so i never had to worry about anyone else reading them. i always fell back on spell check and the ability to easily delete. i need to write more by hand. such an odious task...since when has writing become a chore to me?