MPoLs ‘19

“Have pride in how far you’ve come and faith in how far you can go”

There’s a medium sized line between being selfish and caring for yourself. And in the year of 2019 I plan on caring for myself. Life is short I guess, and I want to be the bestest me I can be. So 2019 is going to be my year to start that both academically and personally.

 

[What I’m Proudest Of]

I guess I’ll start from the beginning of the year forwards.

One of the projects I’m proud of so far this year is my Live Action Video. Not only was it fun to make in the sense of challenge, but it was different and a test of organization. Which until recently, I must admit I was very bad at. I like a fun challenge. Like jumping into snow from a hot tub for 10 seconds for $7.25 .

… that’s a dare never mind. But I like challenges too. Like… A 7 minute presentation about passion and crazy people.

Which is, surprise surprise, another project I’m really quite proud of. I spent a lot of time on this one. A l o t o f t i m e. We went to Seattle to do work for this one, which was really fun. If you look at my ‘mini Pecha Kucha” from earlier this year, I didn’t really look up, I didn’t fit my timing at all and eye contact was very limited.

But I am proud of my exhibition presentation. I’m proud of it because I was panicking before I went up to present. I could feel the fear welling up in me. And I got up and I presented through that. I’m proud because even through the fear and anxiety I still got up and I did it. I got to speak about passion for 7 minutes and that’s really important to me. Passion.

Which brings me to my final example of work I’m proudest of so far.

My song.

This project wasn’t necessarily a big one, but I really enjoyed doing it. As a human who spends multiple hours playing music of my own and even more hours listening to music, I really enjoyed this project. Both a passion and a hobby I have stuck with since I was at least 5, has been music. Every second Monday -until at least March-, I have a good 5 hours of band in one day.

I’m not sure if this even really counts as a “project”, but I really enjoyed doing this work and I’m proud of it. When I found out we had an assignment to make a one and a half minute song I was really excited. I literally live and breath music, this was perfect. So I chose a kind of music I wanted to make (not the kind I have used so many times before) and decided to do something I hadn’t done before. I always created pop/electronic sounding music digitally so I decided to try something more chill and I was extremely proud of the results.

Plus I got to mix my love of music with school so that was a bonus.

 

[There’s A Million Things I Haven’t Done]

If you look at my last two years MPoL blog posts, you can see that I have had the same goal: became organized. This year I have had that goal ripped from me by PGP.

PGP has made me look at goals. Just a lot of goals. One of my goals has always been organization, it’s something I’ve never been overly caring about. I just kind of accepted myself as a “mentally messy” human being. Although I hate messy spaces so I have no idea how that happened.

PGP has helped me get my organization together using mainly two tools.

Part One- Time Blocking.
I have every class, after-school activity and work shift time blocked so that I know exactly what I’m doing and when. I have two-three hours taken out of my day for homework, and I turn off my iPad and do other things by 9:45pm.

 

Part Two- “Things”
Things is an app that helps me stay organized. It has to-do lists, project plans and even shows my calendar events so that I know when and where I should be.

PGP has also had me map out my goals. Things as small as what I want to have completed in the next week, to things I want to complete in my lifetime.

Smaller goals such as “I want to have my hair re-dyed” could be put under a Weekly Plan, while things like traveling or learning a new language can go on a dream board.

I am very proud of my dream board. It includes goals and plans, values of mine, and passions I want to have in my life.

For example, on my dream board I have goals such as “Travel Around Europe”, “Graduate”, and “Visit Australia”. As well as values such as Family, Love, and Friendship.

My main goal in life is to live a good one. I to be that old lady that has these telling stories of travels, work life, and dreams that came true. Good and bad.

First I have to graduate. I don’t even know what I want to do after high school but graduation is good place to start.

 

[Life Doesn’t Discriminate]

Mental Health is something I have worked on quite a bit in the past few years. But this year is going to be my year where I make sure it doesn’t get in the way of my life.

Which means that I have to take time to myself, as well as keeping up with my work.

PGP definitely helps with that. By time blocking 5-7/8pm out of my days for homework, and having the rest of my day for either school or other life activities, I am working to be able to balance my personal life and school life as well as possible.

Self care is hard (especially time-wise) because sometimes the line blurs between “self care” and “laziness”. No one wants to be lazy obviously, but no one wants to drown in work and never have a break either.

I thinks it’s about balance. And that’s what I’m going for from now on.

Thanks For Listening!