Holidays + Being Productive

Happy Winter Break, my friends! My first semester of senior year has somehow come and gone faster than any other, and I'm a week into my break. For as long as I can remember, I've spent these two weeks every year at dance camp preparing for YAGP or doing extra studying for school, but I really have nothing to do right now. Actually, I don't have much to do next semester either.

I was talking to a friend over lunch a few days ago, and he predicted that I would have an unprecedented amount of free time for the first time in my life. He's right. He also said I would have "no idea what to do with myself," and once again, he's right.

After getting into college, a lot of the pressure I've grown accustomed to over the last four years has suddenly vanished. My grades are still important, of course, but I don't need to get high A's on every single assignment now. I still feel obligated to go to dance – if only because I'm terribly uneducated on other ways to exercise – but it's much more of a personal preference than a requirement.

I'm a self-proclaimed and well-known workaholic who loves being productive and crossing off to-do lists, but the problem is that I don't have many tasks to cross off now. Sure, I need to start looking at scholarships and company auditions, but I also need to spend time with my friends before we all leave for college. At the same time, I need to make sure that I don't spend too much time with my friends, or I'll feel too burned out by the social activity. Ah, the struggles of being an introvert.

So far, I've cleaned and organized my study room and bookshelf, and Jake and I have sent five boxes of excess stuff to Goodwill. I've also been to more parties in the past seven days than I have in a year, and my skin is sorely reacting to the vast amounts of junk food I've eaten. Just yesterday, I slept at 7 PM and woke up at 2 AM. My point is, my regular routine of studying, dancing, and sleeping has been disrupted. (There's a French phrase called "metro-boulot-dodo" which means "commuting, working, sleeping," and I think it encompasses my regular life pretty well.)

Cleaning this room took an entire container of Clorox wipes, two full trash bags, and two full days.

I'm beginning to think that spring semester of senior year isn't going to be normal either, but then again, I don't want it to be. I want to have more new experiences, go out with friends more often, and soak in my last few months of high school before starting over in a completely foreign place. But in order to do it all in a way that doesn't leave me feeling purposeless, aimless, or burned out, I'm making a.....goals sheet. Yep, you read that right. I'm bringing structure to the period of life that's usually filled with Netflix binges and losing track of time. But personally, I don't want to lose track of time only to wonder at how spring semester passed by so quickly. I don't want to say goodbye to my friends before they leave for college and realize afterwards that it might be weeks, months even, before I see them again. I want to be present in every moment and hold on to these memories, and I want to make the most out of every minute.

Some very cool friends of mine at Harrison's birthday party!

Ah, finally! Here's the part where I decide my goals for 2019 and my senior year second semester. My weekly habits will continue without change:

• 7 hours of sleep (3x/week)

• 8 cups of water (4x/week)

• 30 mins of reading (5x/week)

• Exercising (6x/week)

• No added sugars (2x/week)

• Folding my bed (4x/week)

• Listening/reading to some form of French (3x/week)

For context, I maintain the frequency of my habits for a month, and then I reassess and either increase or decrease their frequencies as I see fit. For example, if I was able to fold my bed 3x/week for a month, then I'll increase it to 4x/week for the next month. This way, I'll be able to build long-term habits by slowly integrating them into my life instead of forcing myself to fold my bed every single day and giving up after a week.

I learned this from a really helpful podcast about habit change, so if you're interested, check it out here!

Here are the goals I want to implement in the coming year, ordered (somewhat) by priority:

1. Finding Scholarships

Surprise! Paying for college is expensive. Paying for a prestigious, out-of-state college is very expensive. Basically, I have to remember that scholarships are a priority and should be taken seriously (instead of blowing them off to spend money with friends).

2. Spending Time with Friends

Yep, I've talked about this for the entirety of this blog post. My main thing to remember is that I can decide who to hang out with and for how long, and I can say no to hangouts when I want to be alone.

3. Finding Company Auditions

This one may come as a surprise, but I genuinely do want to see if I could audition into a company. I'm keeping my expectations low, but it's good experience and hey, maybe I could spend that year I skipped in 2nd grade dancing professionally?

4. Learning About Money & How to Budget

I should avoid being a broke college student before I even go to college, so reading about money and budgeting is pretty important. Plus, my goal to hang out with friends is inevitably going to involve spending money (fear not, I will also be making money through teaching), so it's important that I learn how to not overspend.

5. Journaling

I don't want to make journaling a habit, since I won't have something to journal about every single day, but I want to journal on the days I go out with friends or have a new experience. That way, I can have a collection of my most meaningful memories from my last semester in high school.

6. Keeping a Food Diary

I'm suspicious that I snack slightly more than I ought to, so I want to actually log my food intake. Not calories, just food. I also have performances in January and March, so that'll be a good thing to incentivize me to come to dance and stay fit.

Almond flour pancakes...with whipped cream because I neglected to put any sugar in the pancakes themselves.

Here's list of smaller goals I want to implement as well. Not the kind that need to worked on every day, but things I want to do before I leave for college.

• Learning how to sow pointe shoes (I really should've learned this earlier, I know.)

• Doing track...? (I'm superrrrr iffy about this, but I'm going to ask my friend about it and see what it entails. I kind of do want to spend more time outside though, and running helps tone legs. Will update more on this later.)

As always, my list of goals and habits is quite ambitious, but it's better to have a full plate than an empty one! Of vegetables, of course. But also of things to fill up time. In my experience, I'm much more productive when I'm busier than when I have lots of free time. Anyways, thanks for reading all the way down here (though I doubt anyone did). If you want to hang out, let me know! Or if not, have a great Winter Break :)

(If anyone has tips on what to do as a second-semester senior, please let me know. Evidently, I'm very confused.)

See you in 2019,

Ellie