First off, Happy Memorial Day to everyone. Thank you to those who serve, have served, or will serve for keeping us free.
Next, this seems like the perfect day to post this blog because of it's big topic and how it relates to me and our country.
I am one of those people that needs a hard and fast goal to focus on to try my hardest. If I have a general goal like "Graduate school" I only put some effort into it but if I make a solid goal, I throw myself into it and focus on what needs to be done to reach it. Since I was really young, I've wanted to serve the United States in some way. 9/11 pushed that motivation farther than I would ever have imagined and I planned on enrolling in the military the second I turned 18. Unfortunately, circumstances beyond my control prevented me from doing that (yes, I know I have recourse for it, etc but I've never been one to use my circumstance to say "hey, I should have that" and I didn't want to take on the military when they have other things to worry about) so I started searching for other ways to serve my country. For a while, I looked into an international relations degree but upon research, I found out it wouldn't do all that much towards my goal. Enter the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Everyone knows that I'm a big sports bluff and love writing but before the Olympics, it had never crossed my mind that these things could be combined into a career. It also never crossed my mind that sports could also help international relations until I paid attention to the news during the Olympics. Surprising to me at the time, the Olympics are more than a sporting event where the world unites, this event strengthens relations between countries (and in each country itself but that's another point for another day). So there you have it, I have my new plan to do something for my country and it may be even more productive than the military. I want to work for a US National team of some sort or even our Olympic committee to help strengthen and build our relations with other countries. So now I have my solid goal to work towards and I'm excited to see where it takes me.
Now enter the lack of patience. If you know me, you know I am one of the most impatient people in the world. I don't want to wait two years to do something, I expect it to happen and to go right right now! This often leads to a grumpy attitude (something that I really need to work on) that sours up whatever experience I am having. That's what happened to my first year at West Texas A & M. I've been in college since 2006 and my brain tells me I should be done and moving on to grad school. This makes the rest of my body impatient and brings on the whole "I don't care about anything, I just want to be done" thing. You could say that it really soured up the whole 2010-2011 school year because I wanted to be done. So remember that solid goal from above? A part of it is to have patience. I guess we'll see how long it lasts because it's definitely a huge weakness of mine but I figure if I keep myself busy, I won't have time to focus on the "living in fast forward" thoughts I have.
