A Five Year Plan?

So.. for whatever reason I wrote a five year plan 2 years ago (well 2 1/2 years ago if you want to be specific. February of 2011).

No specific reason why other than I wanted to have some idea of where I was going and where I wanted to be in five years. Is every 2 years... err... 2 1/2 years a good time to update the 5 year plan?? I mean that is halfway to five years.. Maybe that 's a great time to reevaluate.

Some background info to set the scene. In February 2011 I was 20 years old, finishing up my last semester of my undergrad degree. I was trying to figure out what the heck I was going to do with my life after graduating, including where I was going to live as my mom was most likely moving back to Indiana. I was intensely torn between staying in Florida, moving to Indiana because it was easy and cheap and moving somewhere else entirely.

My 5 year plan - Feb. 23, 2011

- Get a BSN
- Get a job at a hospital. First as a patient care tech, then as a nurse.
- Save money
- Travel internationally
- Work a job I love
- Try to get involved in women's rights too
- Start researching grad degrees for a Master's in nursing
- Move out
- Buy a Mac
- Take more photos
- Dance/Work out
- Write more

An evaluation on how I'm doing now.
- Well I'm 50 days away from a BSN so I'd say I'm doing pretty well on that front!
- That didn't exactly work out. I applied for no less than 8 million tech jobs up here and interviewed for two. I didn't get either of them. Getting ready to start working on the nursing job in a hospital.
- Save money.. Well I've been moderately good at this. Until a couple of weeks ago I was doing pretty darn well. But I haven't worked much recently.. But I'm actively working on it.
- Travel internationally. Still working on it. Hopefully next year!
- Work a job I love. Found that in my job as a birth assistant. Even though I'm having a hard time with the job right now for various reasons... I love it a lot.
- Women's rights.. Does blogging and reading a lot about it count?? Cause I totally do that!
- Definitely been researching grad degrees for my masters. Now I just have to decide when I want to start and where I want to go.. Probably not for a few more years. Online? San Francisco? DC? New York? Decisions, decisions.
- Move out. NEXT YEAR, MAN. Once I get a job.. the plan is to move on outta here.
- Buy a Mac. Well I ended up getting one as a gift for graduation so that worked out.
- Take more photos. Yeah.. I definitely managed that, if my way overloaded iphoto is anything to show for that. But I'm loving it. And I can't wait till I have more time to do it next year.
- Dance/work out. Sadly no dancing. But I have been working out 2-3 times a week for the last year and half ish. Planning to do some aerial silks or dance or belly dance or SOMETHING next year. I'm excited about that.
- Write more. I sort of succeeded in this? I haven't done Nano in a few years.. which I'm sad about.. but I have been writing some every once in a while. I'm super sad I can't do it this year.. but I'm planning to start writing more everyday as soon as I get done with DARN school!

An updated 5 year plan - Oct. 13, 2013 (Yeah it's been sitting in my drafts folder for a bit...)

- Graduate nursing school and pass the NCLEX! (EEK!)
- Get a job at a hospital. Hopefully somewhere I enjoy.
- Save money. Still..
- Travel internationally. YUP. Also, see above point... The list of places is long though.
- Work a job I love.
- Blog more. Find out a way to be more involved in issues I care about.
- Decide on a few schools I might want Master's degrees from and start applying. (After I figure out when I can handle... I mean *want* to go back to school)
- Move out. And stop commuting about 2 hours EVERY DAMN DAY.
- Be a responsible adult. Pay bills, handle things on my own. Decorate my apartment.
- Take more photos. Do some workshops or get some mentoring for my photography. Maybe start a little side business. But, ENJOY IT.
- Continue to work out. Start some aerial classes! Or pure barre, or dance or something!
- Try to write a little everyday. Set myself a word count and REACH IT.
- Get some experience as an RN and then move to a new city. Experience a different culture, force myself to grow and meet new people.
- Figure out how and when I want to start having kids. Foster, adopt, bio? And when? My weird old plan was always start before I'm 27. Well that's only like 3 1/2 years away.
- Learn another language. Seriously.. my French sucks. But I wish it didn't.
- Go on a medical mission trip.
- Spend more time with the friends and people I love. Build myself an intentional family.
- Get some tattoos.

Also, a while back I found a quote from a survey I did. You know one of those ones that circulated myspace.. back when myspace was still a thing.
The question was: three things you would like to do?
My answer: Travel the world, get tattoos, have babies.
I feel like this should be my tagline for life. This sounds like a pretty swell way to live.

Here's to another 5 years.

Mini Friday Photo Dump

Hello!! So its been like 2 days since my last instagram post.. but whatever. I'm trying to get back on schedule. So I'll just post a mini friday photo dump..

I miss being able to actually write blog posts. Even though they weren't that exciting, and were really only for me to reread I miss having time to write them.

There's four weeks left of the summer semester. Then I'm moving into my fourth and FINAL semester of nursing school!! Whooo feels good to say that. This summer I had maternity, mental heatlh and now I'm in peds. This fall I'll have management, critical care and community health. Among some other bogus online classes. But I'm sooooo close to the end. I'm making plans about my graduation trip (probably Orlando and then maybe somewhere further south with a beach!), and trying to decide when I'm going to take the NCLEX (before my trip or after).

Then of course there's the whole business of finding a job and actually managing to get hired. Which honestly is stressing me out to no end. I don't like uncertainty... I would really like to know where I will be working next year and to that end where I will be living! What bugs me most is that I can't seem to decide what unit I even want to work on, much less what city or hospital. Part of me knows that I need to be a labor and delivery nurse to get in hospital experience... but I fear that I won't be able to get a job there. ER is my other love, and it would be a great way to get a ton of experience doing IV starts, blood draws, caths, etc, etc. So I'm torn. Also.. will anyone even hire me?!? Luckily I've got the job I have now and I'll be able to take on more once I'm actually an RN so that's at least something.

Anyways.. a small update on my life. Mostly I can't believe its the middle of June and I'll be graduating in less than 5 months!!

late night musings

The other night I lay in bed, simply overcome with thoughts. I almost got up and turned my computer back on to start writing then… but I was afraid that would ruin whatever train of thought I had going. So I settled by writing some of it down on my phone and saving it to be reexamined later.

My eyes burn with sleep that won't come
My mind yearns for the past 

And I wonder are all artistic people tortured? Is this a normal part of Artistic life?* This feeling of muchness? Too great, too terrible, too beautiful, too MUCH. There is this enormity of all of my feelings. As if everything that I can experience is too large to truly behold.

And I try to convince myself that the artistic part of me is not dead. That I can be artistic in other ways. That maybe they can be just as meaningful. Because you can't go back to what you used to be. That my sense of my artistic self is not a loss. That I'm not lost.

I'm not scared that I lost the person I used to be. I'm scared that I lost the person I could have become. The persons I could have become. The multiple versions of myself that were waiting for me once upon a time. Isn’t that the hardest part of deciding what to do with your life? Letting go of the things that you could have been? As if by choosing one path I must say goodbye to all the others that I could have taken. I know this isn’t a new question, heck “The road less travelled” is basically this question in poem form, but still isn’t it a valid question?

How do we reconcile this loss of what we could become? How do you ever decide that the path you’ve chosen is the right one when all the other paths call to you almost as loudly?

I don’t have many answers; mostly just questions that keep me awake at night. Questions that bubble back up when everything around me is quiet.

*I accidentally capitalized artistic on my phone… but I think its kind of nice, so I’ll leave it

Friday Photo Dump

Because I have no ability to blog anymore due to my life being consumed by my physiology class, here's my friday photo dump.

 E eating breakfast. I do appreciate the quiet time we spend together over breakfast when no one else is awake.

 Physiology studying.. It's consuming my life.

 Outfit on Tuesday. Out to eat at Steak and Shake and then to Meijer's!

 My example of what to do when your hair hasn't been washed for four days and your face is all broken out: Slap a headband and some mascara on and head out the door.

 Sometimes she's a bit needy and will try to climb up in the chair with me.

 E helping Grandma work. She's VERY helpful, that one.

 E watching the dogs eat dinner. She likes to sneak a few mouthfuls of dog food whenever she gets a chance...

Reading "Under the Banner of Heaven" in bed last night. Had to use the available light because it was 103 degrees here yesterday and was too damn hot to even turn the lights on.