"Everybody Wants Somebody" - Patrick Stump

"Jasey Rae" - All Time Low

My First Semester is Over

Well, as of yesterday evening I finished my first semester. It has been crazy and busy trying to make sure I could keep all of my schooling balanced with work, ballet, and my social life but I think I managed to do all of this successfully.

I know I only get a couple weeks of rest before I start up in the Wintermester, that should be a lot of work. I'm planning on taking a Sociology course for the Wintermester. For those of you who don't know what a Wintermester is, it is going to start mid-December and continue through mid-January. The work is supposed to be exactly the same as if I were taking the class during a regular semester, just highly concentrated. I'm a bit nervous about how well I will handle the added workload, but I do seem to thrive in these high-stress environments. Since I'm also planning on taking about a week and a half off from work, I don't think this should be too much of a concern. Even though there will be more school work, there will also be less work-work.

I've also gotten registered for the Spring semester! I'm really looking forward to this semester, I'm taking French, History, and another English course. I did take French when I was in middle school and high school and I loved it. Sadly, since I have had no use for the language, it has quickly left me and I'm looking forward to picking it back up again. Why would I take French instead of something that I might use more, like Spanish perhaps? I love French. It's really as simple as that. I plan on going to France sometime soon and I don't want to be one of those silly tourists that is unable to communicate. Before I started visiting my grandparents in Brazil, I was sure to know at least basics and quickly picked up the language. In my opinion, if you're going to be visiting another country it is extremely rude to have no understanding of their language.

Anyways... I now get a week to relax from school work. I'm looking forward to being able to focus on ballet even more since the Exam is coming up quickly. I'm starting to get a little nervous since I'm an extreme perfectionist. There are only little details that I need to work on, but sometimes it's those little details that can make a move transform from ordinary into amazing. But, isn't that a little how life is? The little details are what make our days go from ordinary to extraordinary.

Are you afraid to dream?

As children, we are all taught that we can be anything we want to be. The President, an astronaut, a sports star, a Broadway star. We are all told that we can attain these dreams. At what point do other people's dreams turn into our own? When do we actually step out of what other people are telling us we want and actually begin to have dreams of our own? What keeps us from actually reaching for our dreams? 

Some people never have dreams. Some people live in the shadows of society for their entire life and never question if they are really happy with their life. If people don't ever take the time to look at their wants and needs, they can never really have dreams of their own, it will only be dreams that have been passed on to them that they are told that they want. People strive for things they are told they want: money, fame, a family. But are these things they really want? Are these things really going to make them happy? Maybe for a little while. But, really, these things can never make a person truly happy. They are reaching for something they are told they want instead of taking the time to figure out what will make them happy. 

There are times when we have a chance to see our dreams but we are too afraid to act on it. The people that only look towards their dreams but never act on them live a very lonely life indeed. They live in constant fear that they will be unable to achieve any dreams so they don't even bother trying. People like this may not realize that you miss every shot you are afraid to take until it is too late. When you see what you want and you are too afraid to do anything about it, you live your life wondering "what if?". Maybe it is the fear of failure, maybe it is the fear of the unknown, but we are too afraid to act on what will really make us happy. 

Some people gain this knowledge early in life. Other people wake up one day, after having a career and family and deciding that this is not the life they want. These people realize that there is more to life than just work. There is more to life than the constant need to make sure other people are happy. No one can really pin point a time in life when you have the ability to dream, it comes to us all at different times in our life. Being able to recognize your dreams and act on them takes great courage and strength. It is more than just knowing what you want, it is having the strength of character to stand up to adversity and be willing to make mistakes. It means you are willing to take the chance and jump into a world that you might not be completely sure of. Will you succeed? Who knows, but is what you want worth taking the chance? 

In life, it is never too late to dream. And it is never, ever too late to begin acting on your dreams. You will probably never be the President, or an astronaut, or a sports star, or a Broadway star. You will probably never see your name in lights. But is this any reason to forsake a dream that we could actually attain? Is the fear that we won't be famous enough to win out over what we really want?Are you willing to take the chance for something that could be greater than you have now? Are you willing to take that risk? Are you willing to fall and get back up again?

Eureka!

Have you ever had those moments where you just suddenly know exactly what you want to do with the rest of your life? That's pretty much how my entire weekend was. Maybe it was due to the lack of sleep and waking up at an ungodly hour that led me to have plenty of time to think about the future, maybe it was just the fact that I always knew but I was afraid to actually acknowledge it, maybe it is some other unknown contributing factor that led me to this realization. Either way, I've come to know that there are several changes I need to make in my life.

My plan thus far for college has been to be a business major and just continue in the line of work I am currently in. It isn't so much the fact that I like my job, I just knew that I needed a degree that would help me advance my career and I could make a decent living off of. I don't dislike my job, but it isn't what I want to do for the rest of my life. And, honestly, I don't want to work in business. I don't want to be in this corporate world like I thought I would. I briefly toyed with the idea of getting some form of art degree and doing something with that, but that idea was quickly tossed aside. Art is something I like to do for me, for friends, not for profit. If I started to use an outlet that I have for my emotions, I would quickly become miserable and burnt out on it. I even considered the possibility of teaching art. Then I realized what half the students that were in my art classes were like and I know I couldn't put up with that for long. I know that if I was teaching a class and pouring my heart into something I loved, and kids were just blowing it off, I would quickly come to resent my job. So that went out the window.

This all left me where I started in the beginning: What do I want to do with my life? What do I want to be?

Then it hit me, I want to be a writer. Not just having a blog to write about whatever catches my eye, I want to write and make a difference. I have no idea how I will be able to do this, but this is a direction that I know that I could never grow tired of. I find a joy in writing that I don't find in anything else. This is something that I've always wanted to do, deep down, but I've always thought it was just a silly dream that I could never have. But why can't I have this? What is keeping me from achieving this dream? Only myself. And I'm getting tired of standing in the way of myself.

I know this isn't something I can do over night, it will take a lot of sacrificing and struggling in order to get to the job I want, but this is something that I'm willing to make sacrifices for. Since this is all pretty new to me and I wouldn't know where to start, I'm going to start off by talking to my composition professor tonight so she might be able to help me figure out where I want to take this, which path I want to take, which profession would suite me best.