…of my first summer home from college. It kind of went super slow, even though it’s already over, and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I mean, if you’d asked me two years ago what I’d be doing during my first summer home from college, I would have speculated that I would hang out with all my friends from high school like Mia and Kelli and Craig and that whole crowd. I thought I’d be going on nostalgic camping trips, talking late into the night about college antics, going on weekend adventures to our various college towns. In reality, I remain on speaking terms with a grand total of about 10 out of 460 people from high school, and for the most part I spent my summer trying out various coffee shops and making videos.
It’s not to say that I didn’t hang out with “all my friends” from high school, I did! I learned how to play Dungeons and Dragons with Sean, Morgan, Ben, Sam, and Dylan, I played frisbee golf with Chad and Chris, I went to movies and stuff with Rachel, and I had dinner with Anita, Avivah, Adrienne, and Betsy. Maybe some of the people I thought I’d be friends with forever flaked on me, and maybe sometimes it hurt kind of a lot, and maybe this summer sort of just rubbed salt in those mostly-healed wounds. And maybe this summer wasn’t exactly what I was expecting two years ago, but you know what? Screw the flakes. This summer was pretty great, all things considered, and it’s entirely because of the people I just named, and the others I saw for briefer moments.
That all said, towards the beginning of the summer, I posted this video regarding my summer goals, and I thought I would revisit them now in blog form as a sort of summation. (If you don’t want to see me talk about stupid faces, skip ahead to 2:20 for when I discuss my goals)
Goal #1: Exercising
Goal success: 4/5 Passion Tea Lemonades (I’m at Startbucks and that was the first object I saw)
Overall, I think I did pretty well, when you take into consideration that I haven’t exercised regularly since I was 14, and even then it was only through organized sports. My fitness method of choice was an EA Sports Wii Fit kind of game, which brought me through a variety of exercises for all parts of my body that I can do with or without the console. I haven’t lost any wait, necessarily, which is unfortunate, but I do feel physically stronger, and I can see certain places on my body getting more defined, if not by a lot. Now that I know exercises that I don’t absolutely abhor doing, I think I can definitely keep it up during the school year, especially because of my super OCD scheduling.
Goal #2: Writing
Goal success: 17/17 Alex Goot Songs
If you follow me on Twitter, or if you even glance over at the Twitter box to the right of the blogs, you’ll probably have seen some sort of update on my writings. Since the summer “officially” started, I have completely edited Eugenia, written a rough query letter for it, edited over half of Addicted and The Secret Wife, and written 23,303 words (as of 2:19pm on August 18th) in my third spy book, Scourge. I honestly can’t think of how I could have been MORE successful with this goal. Except, you know, getting something published or whatever. BUT WHATEVER. I WROTE LOTS. Maybe publishing with be NEXT summer 😉
But if all that didn’t convince you, maybe this will. The other day, my dad and I sat down and created a Zoho Database for all of my characters (across ALL book universes), so now I have a place to look when I forget someone’s age, hair color, or important quirks. I’ve only entered about 40 characters so far, mostly from Addicted (my first spy book, if you’ll remember), but trust me when I say that it’s AWESOME.
Goal #3: Cooking
Goal success: 82/89 Deviled Eggs
Mmmmm. Deviled Eggs. Anyhoozle, I was pretty triumphant with the whole “learning to cook” goal. I’ve perfected my smoothie, learned the best lengths to cook certain vegetables, worked out which foods taste good with other foods, and basically just kicked hunger’s butt. Maybe I’m not the greatest chef in the world, but I can hold my own, and I’m getting better at choosing healthy, self-cooked options rather than quick, unwholesome crap. Hopefully, my roommates will appreciate it. And in any case, Colton is learning to cook healthy things too, so together we shall make DELICIOUSNESS.
‘All in all, I think I did pretty good this summer. But I’m excited to go back to school. I’ll see you soon, Oregon!
You misspelled weight. 😛