De faire des choses divers, c'est bon ça!

Every summer, I make some grand goals in favor of productivity and pro-activity in general. These goals are usually effectively abandoned by around June 15 and I end up spending my summer mostly wallowing on the internet, eating, staying up til four in the morning and waking up sometime past noon, eating, watching piss-poor television, examples of which might be What Not to Wear, re-runs of Degrassi, and whatever reality dating/weight loss/rehab show VH1 is hawking at the time. Oh, plus eating. This is not to say that I become some loser recluse in the summer...I always have a job and often hang out with friends, but on days when neither work nor play happens, I always find myself lost in a fetid, slothful cloud of complete non-productivity and it's pretty gross.

This summer, however, has thus far proven to be a glaring exception [knock on wood]. I fully expected to come home from France and be an absolute sad-sack, hating America, pining for my European way of life...but I've been shockingly positive. Normally after a really good experience, I can't think of anything else but going back in time, yearning in futility for something I cannot and never will get back. This time, I'm looking toward the future. I'm taking what I've learned in France, both about myself and the world, and applying it to my life in a realistic way instead of obsessing. The best part is, I'm not even consciously trying to do this. It's just sort of...happening. The extreme depression that I expected never really hit, and while I have my moments every day of missing Paris for some reason or another, I very rarely sit and wallow in that emotion...I acknowledge it, I realize it's normal, I breathe, I look forward.

So what have I been doing? Well don't you worry, I haven't given up the internet. But I've been using it to achieve more productive ends than earning Neopoints or trolling Livejournal communities (though I still spend an inordinate amount of time on OhNoTheyDidnt). I've been attempting to teach myself Spanish using About.com's Spanish lessons. Ghetto, yes, but better than nothing. I've been researching graduate programs, Teach for America, teaching opportunities in other countries, AmeriCorps, and maybe citizenship laws in France. I read the news in French every day and occasionally even in English, a habit I really need to get into.

Outside of the internet, I've been playing guitar every day, trying to watch French films (Persepolis was excellent!), chugging along through Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (afterward, going to need some light reading), and I've started running. RUNNING. Me. I'm serious. I ran three miles the other day! Well, I stopped twice for about a minute to walk, but I otherwise ran the whole thing. You wanna know the last time I did that? Never. Because I am essentially the anti-athlete. Well not anymore! I'm losing these patissérie pounds if it's the last thing I do.

Does all these mean I don't look at my pictures from Europe on an almost daily basis and sigh wistfully? Well...no, ok? I haven't lost all of my pathetic sentimentality. But I'm damn proud of myself for one of the first summers ever! And hopefully by the end of August, I'll be a little slimmer, a little more well-read, a little closer to speaking some semblance of the Spanish language, a little more informed, and a little more musical. After all, it's all about baby steps.