Refresh and Restart

It has been a long time since I blogged here. I started another blog but wasn't able to add google analytics unless I pay quite a bit. I think I should be able to add it here for free. It was interesting to come back and review what I had written years ago. Much of it still applies but much has changed. There is more that I would add to my bucketlist and some that I have made progress on. Last summer, I took a brief photography class. It was my birthday present. The thing that I want most on my list is to become a home owner. We've come up against some personal and financial challenges so our course hasn't exactly gone the way that we were hoping. Most importantly though we haven't given up and continue moving forward. We are at a point though that we are getting to be in a better position. I am still trying to figure out what it is exactly that I want to do. What will make me happy. For now, I am a Social Science Instructor. I teach psychology and sociology. I have found that it can be interesting, challenging, fun, and rewarding at times. I have found that it can also be really challenging and frustrating -- or that I can be really frustrated when I feel that I am not measuring up at the time to what I hoped to be in teaching. I want to be the very best -- I want an A. Err, A+, 4.0, whatever the highest is. Then again, is that enough even? I am tired of hustling for everything but it is difficult to stop. It is difficult to change. It takes a lot of awareness, conscious thought and effort. I have counseling to be helpful. I have also found that reading and reflecting on "The Gifts of Imperfection" by Brene Brown to be helpful.

Bucket List

Did anyone really have a "Bucket List" before the movie of its namesake came out? I have been thinking a lot lately. I am always thinking. Whenever someone tells me they are not thinking anything at the moment, I question how true that is. The only time I stop thinking is when I am asleep. Sometimes I think I even think when I'm asleep.

Anyways, I have been thinking lately that there are just so many things that I want to do, experience, and accomplish in life. Perhaps it'd be helpful if I organized my thoughts and made a bucket list of my own. So here are some of the things I have really wanted to do in life and things that I still want to do.

Go to College
Get married
Go to Japan, Italy, France, Lithuania, Hawaii, maybe Jamaica, and someplace in the Caribbean
Travel within the US
Go horseback riding along the ocean
Have my own deer and horse again and maybe exotics someday
watch the sunset and sunrise at the ocean with my husband
Go skydiving and scuba diving maybe
Earn my PhD
Write a book
Publish research
Learn html and maybe other programming languages
become fluent in another language
learn martial arts
make a difference in the lives of others
get a great job that I enjoy and pays well
give to charity
buy a home
build something useful from scratch
learn cake decorating
learn graphic design
learn to crochet to make amigurumi
learn to quilt
learn to cook
take a professional cooking class
teach media psychology
teach an online class
learn to make jewelry
go mining
take a photography class
start my own business
become a bartender
make my own wine or other alcohol
spend a night dancing with my husband

Hello Everyone

Hiya! So I've been thinking about writing a blog for quite some time now... a new blog, a blog about random thoughts, pets, people, wine, humor, psychology, and heart-warming experiences among other things. But I am a bit of a perfectionist I guess... I will write something and then I am not sure if it's how I want it to be exactly or if I want to share it with everyone, or anyone who might stumble upon it. Then I wonder, is this just another venue that I need to limit my activity on? I feel I should ensure I am overly politically correct, after-all I am all too well aware of how asynchronous online communication is and how easily words on the web can be ambiguous, misinterpreted, and misconstrued... and then I think, maybe I should just delete it all... or maybe I should stop using dotdotdot.

It's funny. I live in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. We have free speech and yet I am at many times afraid to exercise that, or I feel that I shouldn't because I might, in this case, write something that could come back to bite me, or someone might be offended by somehow.

So, here it is, my first post in a new blog. Hello out there! Thanks for stopping by.

To me, the internet is amazing. It can connect anyone willing to log in or link up, anywhere, anytime, yet it continues to exist when people log off and shutdown. It links us to strangers who can become friends or loves or bullies to us. It can help us find anything we could ever want or need. The internet has helped me find my job, my education, my pets, and even my husband.