Down, but Not Defeated

Yesterday I finally learned my fate of applying to the AUSL teaching program. Unfortunately, I did not get accepted.

Although I exhausted so much time and effort during my pursuit of this program, I do not regret a single second of it. In fact, I'd only harbor regrets if I never tried.

Because I believe that everything happens for a reason, I'm trying to focus on the positive aspects of my rejection. And I hope and pray that a better opportunity will cross my path instead. I'm very accepting of the fact that the AUSL program just wasn't meant to be, and I'm confident that I'll find happiness in different work in the future.

I still maintain that this has been one of the most rewarding and inspiring years of my life! And I'm beyond thankful to have become a mentor with Friends First. My mentee and I have grown quite close the past few months, and I'm so proud to cheer her on as she pursues her own goals. I became a mentor to gain more experience with children, and I'm not certain I would have applied to be a mentor had I not pursued the AUSL program. And that would have been a shame, because being a mentor is one of the best things I have ever done in my life.

Additionally, after all I was willing to sacrifice to get accepted into this program, perhaps now I won't have to consider sacrificing so much when pursuing future endeavors, including what is most important to me - time with family and friends.

I still believe in sweating the small stuff despite the cliche instructing me not to, and I'm learning that maybe it's the big stuff that we shouldn't sweat after all. If we refuse to dwell on the negative outcomes of our goals and choose to perceive them as positive experiences instead, then perhaps our potential to achieve is limitless.

The Finish Line

I did it! I accomplished ALL of my Top Ten Goals for 2010! And with over a month to spare!

Queue the fanfare, confetti, trumpets, parade, etc.

Setting all of these goals really gave me a purpose this year and blogging about them undoubtedly kept me on track. Setting these goals also served as a springboard for giving me the guts to pursue some really drastic life changes this year. Additionally, I've been happier than I've been in years, and accomplishing my goals along with the unwavering support of friends and family has contributed significantly to my happiness. I have learned so much this year and have been so inspired, but I think I can best sum up what I've learned by saying that if you don't try to get out of your comfort zone as often as possible, then you will always fear change and you may never have the courage to face the unpredictable curve balls life has a tendency to throw at you (good and bad). I've learned that this is true for me, at least.

When I set out to write this blog, I decided to focus on "sweating the small stuff" and directing lots of attention to appreciating the little miracles in life. But, I've learned that a culmination of appreciating life's little gifts and overcoming everyday hurdles with a positive attitude prepares one to confidently venture onto bigger challenges. So, as I wait to hear my fate after applying to the AUSL teaching program, I can't help but think that setting my Top Ten Goals for 2010 positively led me to working toward one giant goal.

So, without further ado, here is a rundown of all my accomplished goals:

1. Goal - Run at least 5 races:

a.) Chicago Police Run to Remember 5k (29:26/9:28 pace)
b.) PAWS Run for Their Lives 8k (47:39/9:35 pace)

c.) Bucktown 5k (29:21/9:27 pace)
d.) Pumpkins in the Park 5k (28:00/9.01 pace)
e.) Hot Chocolate 5k (I forgot my race bib on day of race, so it wasn't timed. Boo.)

2. Goal - Learn to cook at least 3 new dishes:

I actually cooked a ton of new dishes this year, but these were the first three things I made

a.) Chicken Mole Nachos with Avocado Cream
b.) Pasta & Potato Bake

c.) Moroccan Soup

3. Goal - Read 10 books and write about each:

You can find my favorite quotes/passages from these books in my previous entry at:
http://bigcitysmallpotatoes.blogspot.com/2010/11/book-report.html

a.) City of Thieves by David Benioff
b.) Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
c.) Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
d.) Push by Saphire
e.) The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini
f.) The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
g.) Virgil and Beatrice by Yann Martel
h.) My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler
i.) Lit by Mary Karr
j.) Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman

4. Goal - Write in my journal at least once a week:

I wrote over 52 times. That counts as once a week, right??

5. Goal - Go on at least one big trip:

You can read about my Costa Rican adventures by clicking on this entry: http://bigcitysmallpotatoes.blogspot.com/2010/04/costa-rica.html

and this one too:

http://bigcitysmallpotatoes.blogspot.com/2010/05/pura-vida.html

6. Goal - Volunteer at least one time:

a.) Kids Day America with One Brick

b.) Became a mentor with Friends First through Mercy Home

7. Goal - Take a class:

a.) Canning tomatoes with The Glass Rooster

8. Goal - Pay off 2 credit cards:

I fully expected some sort of fanfare once I paid off the balances of my two old credit cards, but the statements just stopped coming instead. Very anti-climatic. Oh well, I'm still proud!

9. Goal - Save money:
I took some fairly drastic measures in order to save money this year. The following are just some examples of the steps I took and how I modified some spending habits.

a.) Paid off credit cards
b.) Moved to an apartment with a much lower rental rate

c.) Lowered my student loan payment
d.) I have only ordered take-out/delivery a handful of times since I moved
e.) Used coupons and swapped name brand items for generic equivalents

10. Goal - Frugally re-decorate bedroom
I've since moved, but I was able to re-decorate my bedroom by employing my mad Martha Stewart skillz and only spending around $200. Plus, I was easily able to transport the decor to my new bedroom! Very efficient and frugal indeed!

Book Report

My #4 goal for 2010 was to read 10 books and write about each of them. It just so happens that I've read more than 10 books this year, but the following are my favorite quotes and/or passages from 10 of the books I read:

1. City of Thieves by David Benioff: "I am aware that I am aware"

2. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan: "I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current."

3. Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby: "She had to defend him in order to defend herself. That was why people were so prickly about their partners, even their ex-partners. To admit that Duncan wasn't up to much was to own up publicly to the terrible waste of time, and terrible lapses in judgement and taste."

4. Push by Sapphire: "Abdul get tested. He is not HIV positive. Something like that make me feel what Rhonda, what Farrakhan, say - there is a god. But me when I think of it I'm more inclined to go wid Shug in The Color Purple. God ain' white, he ain' no Jew or Muslim, maybe he ain' even black, maybe he ain' even a "he." Even now I go downtown and see the rich shit they got, I see what we got too. I see those men in vacant lot share one hot dog and they homeless, that's good as Jesus with his fish. I remember when I had my daughter, she nurse nice to me - all that is god. Shug in Color Purple say it's the "wonder" of purple flowers. I feel that, even though I never seen or had no flowers like what she talk about."

5. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini "Perspective was a luxury when your head was constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons."

"...I brought Hassan's son from Afghanistan to America, lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty."

"I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night."

6. The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore: "There's a term in the hood for a face like Tony's, that cold, frozen stare. The ice grille. It's a great phrase. A look of blank hostility that masks two intense feelings - the fire evoked by grille (which is also slang for face), and the cold of the ice. But the tough facade is just a way to hide a deeper pain or depression that kids don't know how to deal with. A bottomless chasm of insecurity and self-doubt that gnaws at them. Young boys are more likely to believe in themselves if they know that there's someone, somewhere, who shares that belief. To carry the burden of belief alone is too much for most young shoulders."

"It made me think deeply about the way privilege and preference work in the world, and how many kids who didn't have "luck" like mine in this instance would find themselves forever outside the ring of power and prestige. So many opportunities in this country are apportioned in this arbitrary and miserly way, distributed to those who already have the benefit of a privileged legacy."

"One of the key differences between the two was the way their communities saw them. Here [South Africa], burgeoning manhood was guided and celebrated through a rite of passage. At home [America], burgeoning manhood was a trigger for apprehension. In the United States, we see these same faces, and our reflex is to pick up our pace and cross the street. And in this reflexive gesture, the dimensions of our tragedy are laid bare. Our young men - along with our young women - are our strength and our future. Yet we fear them."

7. Virgil and Beatrice by Yann Martel: "There's nothing like the the unimaginable to make people believe."

"Creative block is no laughing matter, or only to those sodden spirits who've never even tried to make their own personal mark. It's not just a particular endeavor, a job, that is negated, it's your whole being. It's the dying of a small god within you, a part you thought might have immortality."

8. My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler: "I used to think I was a black person in a past life because I looooove black people. It's the way they express themselves that draws me to them. White people, for the most part, are too conservative with their emotions and not nearly as effusive as black people when they get excited. If you've ever watched a game show where a white person wins and then, later, a black person wins, you've seen the difference. Black people don't stop and think before they jump up and down in celebration. They are so much more spontaneous and festive, and I've always felt that without that kind of energy, what would be the point of anything."

"It was Valentines Day and I had spent the day in bed with my life partner, Kettle One. The two of us watched a romantic movie marathon on TBS Superstation that made me wonder how people who write romantic comedies sleep at night.
     At some point during every romantic comedy, the female lead suddenly trips and falls, stumbling helplessly over something ridiculous like a leaf, and then some Matthew McConaughey type either whips around the corner just in the nick of time to save her or is clumsily pulled down along with her. That moment predictably leads to the magical moment of their first kiss. Please. I fall all the time. You know who comes and gets me? The bouncer."
    

9. Lit by Mary Karr: "What hurts so bad about youth isn't the actual butt whippings the world delivers. It's the stupid hopes playacting like certainties."

"Their bottomless cool - their cynical postures grown from privilege they were ungrateful for - could make me hate them. Born on third base, my daddy always said of the well off, and think they hit a home run."

"The righteous cry of married men everywhere, for it's a cliche that every woman signs up thinking her husband will change, while every husband signs up believing his wife won't: both dead wrong."

"When you've been hurt enough as a kid (maybe at any age), it's like you have a trick knee. Most of your life, you can function like an adult, but add in the right portions of sleeplessness and stress and grief, and the hurt, defeated self can bloom into place."

10. Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman: "Sometimes writing is like talking to a stranger who's exactly like yourself in every possible way, only to realize this stranger is boring as shit. In better moments, writing is the opposite of difficult - it's as if your fingers meander arbitrarily in crosswise patterns and (suddenly) you find yourself reading something you didn't realize you already knew. Most of the time, the process falls somewhere in between."

The Final Sprint

There is a moment during ever race I run when the finish line is nearing, and I need to start sprinting to shave off any extra seconds from my previous race times. A supernatural force of energy comes over me and carries me across the finish line. All the fatigue I was feeling prior to the final sprint is irrelevant at that point. And when I check my official time to see that I did, in fact, beat my last race time, reflecting upon the effort to reach that goal makes the accomplishment all the more satisfying.

So, you may have noticed that I completely skipped an October entry. Whoops! BUT, I have an excuse! I've been busy! Since the last time I blogged, I ran 4 races, celebrated 32 years on this earth, flew to Ohio to celebrate my nephew's 9 years on this earth and continued my mentoring obligations with Friends First. October may have been busy, but it was also a very rewarding & fulfilling month.

Anyway, all the sprinting talk is relevant because I'm currently in the proverbial final sprint of accomplishing ALL of my Top Ten for 2010 goals. I still have to create a blog entry about my favorite quotes and passages from 10 books I read this year. And after that, I will recap all of my accomplishments for the year.

Additionally, I was invited for a first interview with the AUSL teaching program!!!!!!!!!! I submitted my application in September, and then, just when I was feeling over-the-top frustrated from not hearing anything, I received an email last week with a request to schedule an interview. I nearly fainted I was so happy! Because nobody at work knows about my quest to become a teacher, I immediately went to the restroom just to do a "happy dance." It was one of those rare moments in life that is so sweet you wish you could bottle it and open it any time you're feeling down. I can't imagine how I'll react WHEN I am notified of a second interview. Or even WHEN I get accepted into the program. Fingers crossed.

Finally, 2010 is turning out to be an incredibly inspiring and life-changing year for me. And I hope to continue this momentum into 2011 and beyond. Oh, and don't think that just because this year is coming to a close that my blogging days are too, because I already have big ideas for my next blog. Stay tuned.