Setting some goals

With one full year of graduate school under my belt (YAY), I am setting some goals for the summer. I thought I’d risk public shaming and put them out here on the world of the internet, so that the four people who read this can bug me about them at their leisure. Sound good? Excellent! They are roughly in order of least to most farfetched and highest priority.

1) Pass my German class.

2) Pass my Syriac class.

3) Not starve.

4) Not accrue credit card debt in order not to starve (this will be accomplished by making more money! And spending less on frivolities!)

5) Go back through my Hebrew textbook from 11th grade and relearn all the vocabulary, the paradigms, do the exercises, etc. Basically re-learn Hebrew, but for real this time.

6) Go running with the dog at least 3 times a week.

7) Eat a healthier diet (this is the point at which we enter the Land of Wishful Thinking.)

8 ) Hang out with friends a lot while still accomplishing goals 1 through 7.

9) Do some creative writing.

10) Read books that are dense and intellectually fulfilling as well as fluff.

11) Shop at the farmer’s market more often (i.e. ever).

12) Read all the school-related articles and books that I wanted to read but didn’t have time to over the school year.

13) Write my Personal Statement for graduate school applications (okay, I actually DO have to do this one).

14) Research graduate schools thoroughly, impartially, and not as haphazardly as the last time around.

15) Go to bed and wake up earlier.

16) Finish the quilt.

Whew. I feel so virtuous now. And by virtuous I mean “tired.” I’m going to go read a trashy novel instead of studying Hebrew (so much for resolutions 5 and 10…).

EDIT: Goal 17: Blog more.

Oh the life of decadence that is mine

I had my very first graduate school exam this morning at 8 am, and I’m a week ahead in Hebrew preparation (through no virtue of my own), so basically it’s smooth sailing from here to fall break! To celebrate, I’m currently doing the following decadent things:
1) Eating fresh made chocolate chip cookies for supper with whole milk
2) Watching “Gossip Girl” online for the first time EVER
3) Kind of falling in love with said show, and trying not to be freaked out by the fact that I’m lusting after characters WAY below the statutory-rape bar
4) Seriously considering a beer, if I don’t throw up from too many cookies
5) Not posting about interesting topics that have to do with the stated theme of the blog, namely the process of thoughtful questioning that leads to intellectual, spiritual, and personal growth, but instead talking about the silly things I do with my day.

To salvage this pathetic state of affairs, I am going to pretend for a moment that I am a qualified expert on writing, instead of a wannabe who can’t actually finish anything, and comment on the writer dude’s advice to Dan on “Gossip Girl,” which was mostly really really bad. You definitely don’t have to pull a Hunter S. Thompson (or, for that matter, a Samuel T. Coleridge) and expose yourself to dangerous toxic substances in order to be a good writer. The writer dude was right about one thing, though, I think: you do have to be willing to be kind of an asshole.

“The Grownup,” by Rainer Maria Rilke

All this stood upon her and was the world
and stood upon her with all its fear and grace
as trees stand, growing straight up, imageless
yet wholly image, like the Ark of God,
and solemn, as if imposed upon a race.

And she endured it all: bore up under
the swift-as-flight, the fleeting, the far-gone,
the inconceivably vast, the still-to-learn,
serenely as a woman carrying water
moves with a full jug. Till in the midst of play,
transfiguring and preparing for the future,
the first white veil descended, gliding softly

over her opened face, almost opaque there,
never to be lifted off again, and somehow
giving to all her questions just one answer:
In you, who were a child once–in you.