This is no good.

I feel behind already. The Plan is holding up well enough, and I'll continue reading, following, and revising it daily, especially as the semester goes on. But school...that's where I feel behind already. The shooting on Monday, combined with a number of other factors, have made focusing especially difficult this week. I'm looking forward to next week, just so that I have time to recover and re-center myself. I hate that I'm already treading water. I need to stay ahead of the game.




QOTD:
“A sad thing in life is that sometimes you meet someone who means a lot to you only to find out in the end that it was never bound to be and you just have to let go."


"Share your M&Ms. There are bags and bags of them all over the place. If you give them one of yours, even one of the green ones, you will not be lacking. Now apply this to Time, Concern, Touch, Interest and Being Vulnerable."

The Plan

Once more, it is time to review and re-evaluate The Plan. This is the big, capital-P "Plan" that I keep on my computer at all times, which contains my rough budget, short-term goals, long-term goals, and a sort of "to-do list" of things that I need to work on, beyond just the mundane tasks. The Plan is hideously dated at this point, and so I am revising it, and writing it here, as I promised I would.

So here we go.

Budget: Under Construction (after financial aid, a big paycheck, and paying off all of my bills, I'll have some more concrete numbers to work with.)

Short-term goals (6 months or so):
  3.5 GPA
  Grad school research
  Grad school applications
  Letters from professors: Drake, Sigler, Hesford, Williams, Thacker, Lauriola
  Comm or English dept.? Narrative Theory is either.
  White Tie - paid gigs, publicity, long-form, website, twitter/facebook
  Mentoring - meet my Mentee.
  Get a passport

Medium-term goals (1-3 years):
  Lose 165 lbs. (this number was 190 when I last updated in March...so that's good!)
  Graduate
  Move away from Moscow - Boston, Chicago, Seattle, England, Hungary are top choices at the moment
  Find a real, 'grown-up' job in literary academia, communication studies, or improvisational comedy
  Save up $2,500 on top of paying student loans, regular savings, etc. for my travel fund
  Dance for a night without feeling awkward/uncomfortable

Long-term goals (3-10 years):
   Travel to all 6 inhabited continents
   Give a TEDTalk
   Teach a class at a university
   Perform in a large theater for an audience of 500 or more
   Finish my Master's Degree, possibly start on a PhD.

Things I will do to help me accomplish these things:
   Turn in all assignments
   Attend all classes I am able to attend (no skipping!)
   Check Princeton Review, University websites/department pages, and talk to advisors about grad school
   Apply to 3-5 schools with 1 week left before the deadline
   Call all professors I wish to study with
   E-mail professors for letters, stop into offices.
   Keep a calendar of all White Tie goings-on with my academic calendar and my events calendar, so as to stay aware of all of my obligations in one place.
   Meet with M. monthly to discuss changes in White Tie's direction.
   Apply for a passport
   Drink 1 gallon of water daily, and no soda
   No deep-fried foods. None. Ever. Lots of steamed vegetables and fresh fruits.
   Revive Iron Man In A Month (IMIAM) plan, start again at 30 days on 9/1, finish the school year at 21 days in 5/2012
   Keep a journal of all exercise and consumption. Examine weekly.
   Pack lunches and eat breakfast at home daily
   Speak with contacts in Boston, Chicago, Seattle, and Hungary about living costs, employment, etc.
   33% of paychecks into savings
   Take a dance class, attend Swing Devils 1/month minimum


That, dear friends and readers, is my Bible for the next 3-6 months, until it needs to be revised and re-evaluated again. This will all go in my bathroom in some form or another, and I will do my damnedest to adhere to all of the promises I've made here to myself.

QOTD:
"A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor."
Aldous Huxley
"A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive."
Pearl Bailey

Whelmingly Gruntled

These past few weeks have been great. Honestly, I mean that. I haven't been too terribly busy, and I haven't been too stressed, and I'm rather excited for school to start. That being said, there are some things I've not kept up on, which I need to pick back up. Once again, I'm relearning just how much I am a creature of habit, and just how hard it is for me to change my (sometimes erroneous) ways. So, I'm writing up a plan. This plan, unlike past plans, will be public. I will write it on my bathroom mirror in dry erase marker, so that all of my guests can see it, and later, when I'm done identifying all of the areas I am looking to work on, I will post it here. I'm done discreetly attempting to make life changes, because it's becoming more and more apparent to me that I have an incredible group of friends, in whom I can place a fair amount of trust. I need to trust them not to judge me harshly, and not to let me slip up in my goals. It used to be that I would feel guilty for asking my friends to help me, and I still do not like it, but I also know myself well enough to know that public exposure to my trials will persuade me to commit to things, if for no reason other than fear of embarrassment or harsh judgment. So stay tuned, folks, The Plan is a-comin'.


That aside, I've also decided on a focus for a second blog. This one has become a journal of sorts, and while I have no problem writing in here, it is not a 'blog' in that it has no particularly unique or interesting perspective on anything. Nobody had any input for me, and so I had to ponder for awhile about what really gets me excited, and what I am passionate about. I figure that if I can identify those things, writing about them would become a joy, rather than a chore. My passions are as follows:

     Comedy - I am a sucker for a good laugh. I spend hours every week focusing and refining my ability to induce those laughs in others, and would love to take a more critical, analytic approach to the subject

     Travel - Visiting new places and meeting new people is always exciting, even if conditions are harsh. Louisiana/Mississippi low-income neighborhoods were not pleasant by any means, but I learned a great deal about myself and about people in general from the experience. I believe the same is true of any open-minded individual travelling to communities outside his/her home.

     Narrative - English Literature Graduate programs at universities sometimes have an emphasis called "Narratology", which is, as it sounds, the study and examination of stories and storytelling techniques. This field is exactly what I would study in grad school, assuming I could find a program accepting of such a mediocre GPA as mine.

     Communication - Like Narratology, Communication is one of the few things I would love to study in grad school. I am fascinated by communication techniques, and the things people can do to more effectively communicate with one another.



When I condensed all of this into a single sort of 'theme', I was left with the concept of Connection. I have often stated that I believe that modern American society has traded in connection for connectivity. That is a tragedy, in my mind, and one that can be resisted to some extent with just the tiniest bit of effort by an individual. Connection, then, will be a recurring theme throughout my new blog. The bloggy blog. I will not endeavor to be funny, or witty, or clever, only sincere. Sincere in my attempts to establish an honest, authentic connection with others, because if a person can do that, then they can also communicate effectively with others, empathize with them, and hopefully learn from them. I will be writing my first entry as soon as possible, as I am eager to get this started, and even more eager to keep it going, instead of dropping it like so many other projects and tasks in my past.

     -Richard

 QOTD:
""Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." - Albert Einstein