Being possibly the only person in the cohort still updating their blog, i thought i should make an entry. In particular, I’ve been thinking about goals.

in my previous entry, i stated that i have a list of goals i wish to complete. About a month ago, i made a list of resolutions and made them ‘ goals to complete while i am 19,’ because who can really be bothered waiting for the new year to set goals. Not just that, but there is a whole two months without uni until the new year finally kicks in, so its best to start working at goals now. In addition to this list, i made a smaller list of things to do before uni begins again next year. I made sure the list was do-able, but i set myself the challenge of completing at least 7 things from my wider list of resolutions. I have made a bit of a start, but so far am moving relatively slowly. So here is what i plan to do:

Since this blog is currently for my own purposes, as in, i don’t have a regular audience to cater to, I’m going to use it to keep track of these goals. Well more than that really, i want to update the blog when I’ve completed the goals. I am doing this for a number of reasons; to keep me on track and so that i don’t slack off, because continuing to use my blog is on my resolutions list, and because setting goals is a rewarding process.

In the midyear holidays i set myself 6 fairly simple goals and completed 4 of them. I will admit it was somewhat disappointing to have not completed them all, but i have carried them over to the new resolutions list, so they will get done. Having a physical list of goals is valuable protection against being stagnant and not accomplishing anything, plus it feels so rewarding once you cross something off with a pretty highlighter. My list in particular, though i will not show it here, is full of things that align with what i want to do and who i want to be. I mentioned in earlier posts that i felt i hadn’t created much this year, and i was disappointed in myself to have stopped painting and creating and doing things that i used to love, so these are things that are included in my list.

Here’s hoping i stay on track. The next time i update this blog, i will be a slightly more accomplished person. For the time being, here’s another photo of my dog.

So i have finished all the uni things i had to do this semester! Which means i am officially on holidays now, hooray. the last assignment i had to do was an essay which isn’t due until Monday, but my friend and i both decided to pull an all-nighter last night to do work, so i managed to finish it. I went to bed at 7:00am and woke up at 10:30am to finish it off, so im currently running on a couple of hours of sleep and coffee. I also did that because i was going into the city with my brother anyway so i wanted to hand it in while i was there, he hasn’t really seen RMIT before either so it was all fun.

I am so happy that I’ve finished, i have something like four months off now, that’s insane. Don’t have the money to travel yet, maybe ill go to the beach or something with friends, but not overseas. I have a list of goals for the holidays though that im looking forward to making a start on, so this is another note to future Jackie: don’t slack off, complete your goals! You know you want to!

Hooray for freedom!

So I updated my header picture, its the same picture but I made it harsher on the eyes, particularly on the tired, late night eyes that I currently have.

Now this is daunting, I am left with this blog, wanting to update it, without any course material to update it with. For some reason I imagined this being a lot easier in my head, coming up with things to write about. I suppose being confined to ones room while frantically trying to finish assignments isn’t the most inspiring environment, so that could be it. I haven’t really gone out in the world for a while.

I did start a Pinterest today though, it has helped with my creative block, I just really want to make something colourful and pretty right now… so I amped up the colour in my blog header…*pats self on back* I’ll get my groove back soon.

While I finish these things off, since I’m not feeling very inspired of late, I’ll just decorate this blog with a picture of my dog, how nice.

EDIT: So I’m messing around with my theme at the moment, the other one seemed too simple for me. I like lots of colour, so much colour its almost sickening. Actually, so much colour it is sickening… and then a little more, so lets see what I can come up with here….

I’m finding it difficult to believe that my uni classes for the year are all over, particularly because I am currently working on an assignment and watching a lecture… holidays will have to wait.

I’m thinking I might try and finish my Cinema essay early, hopefully by Friday although it isn’t due until next Monday, just so I can relax and have fun sooner. Come on procrastination, don’t take me now.

So the end of semester is near, assignments are piling up, and today I found myself searching the word ‘motivation’ on Google and YouTube. On Google it was mostly fitness motivation, on YouTube it was very broad, unhelpful stuff just screaming ‘BE CREATIVE’ at me.

Normally, I try not to express that i plan to do something until i am absolutely sure I will do it/ have done it, because it leads to awkward situations when I don’t follow through, and this has happened in the past*. But here is my advice for all of you who are procrastinating, pick up your phone right now, text one of your best friends, and tell them a list of the tings you are going to accomplish today. Don’t make promises, don’t tell them to force you to do something (that’s why you aren’t telling your parents or teachers this list, pressure, ew), but just share a list with them of the homework assignments that you have, that you should be able to accomplish in that day, and trust me, motivation will come. When you complete as many of those tasks as you can, text them back, tell them, they will congratulate you, and it will feel awesome.

*A few years ago, someone commissioned a painting from me, or at least, they wanted to. I said I would take it on, and they gave me a description of what they wanted, though it was pretty broad and they weren’t very descriptive, so I just ended up being scared to do it as there was a high chance its not what they would’ve had in mind. Two years later, I finally painted something for them. Its took me two days. I spent two years agonising over this task I said I would do, leaving them waiting, and I could’ve done it in two days. Needless to say, I didn’t accept payment.

This was it, recreated from a magazine picture I saw.

It hit me this week that i have been more slack with updating this blog recently, usually saving all my posts for Thursday night. I have the intention of doing  it more regularly and not so far between, but assignments have been catching up to me and this is usually the last thing on my to do list. I have been pondering whether i really will continue to use this blog, for example, over the summer. I wont have readings to write on, and relying on my everyday observations of networked media around me to fuel three blog posts a week seems rather unlikely. Without readings and lectures to draw on this blog will either take one of two paths.

1. the posts will become quite rare

2. the subject matter will change. Perhaps i will begin blogging about other things. Not saying this blog will  turn into a fashion blog or dedicated to some fandom, however, if it is going to survive, i need to be able to explore new things. I intend for this blog to be a record of my creations and achievements, which i have already taken a step toward publishing, such as in this post, so in order to keep it from stagnating, i must continue to create. Not a bad incentive to create more frequently.

As soon as we were given the task of creating and developing a blog, i knew there would be different reactions to this from the cohort. Some people rarely post, loathe the blog, are counting the days until it is no longer required, whom i am not critical of as i have been forced to create blogs for subjects in the past and despised the experience, so i know where they are coming from. Actually when i heard we would be keeping a blog as part of this subject i thought to myself ‘oh man, these things never work, this is going to be annoying,’ however, i have since decided that since i haven’t been creating as much as i used to, i should invest time and effort into creating this blog and everything in it, as well as using it as a place to document my creations and efforts. Since early in the semester, i made a commitment to the blog which i don’t plan to go back on. Who knows, after the next few weeks, and after i (hopefully) pass this subject, this blog could stagnate, but i think i will use the fear of that happening to pressure me to create more. For this year, I can remember every painting i have done, every piece of sound or video i have recorded and edited, every piece of writing and essay i have produced, and i think that is disgusting. Coming from 2012, a year where i created too much to remember or even count, to this, no wonder i feel like a stagnating person.

So although this blog was, for many people, just another assessment, i see it as an opportunity; to make a commitment to it and keep a promise to myself that i will begin creating again, rather than consuming, and i really don’t intend to break this commitment. On a similar note, my mother told me how she recently ran into someone i knew in primary school, and they had a short exchange about how i have always been the type of person to be set in my ways and stick to my decisions, so i guess i should live up to that reputation.