Mary from Mary’s Average Adventures nominated me for the Freestyle Writing Challenge. I know it was her way of getting me back into the blogging game like the awesome, sneaky friend she is. This will make 3 weeks in a row back on schedule so I shall give this a go. I will also tag 5 blogs to try their hand at this with a new topic different from my own. I have ten minutes to open a blank document and write about whatever topic has been left for me below. My post will be underneath these directions with my word count as will my topic. See you at the bottom! Ready? Set? Go!
1. Open an MS Word / Google docs document.
2. Set a stopwatch or your mobile to 5 minutes or 10 minutes whichever challenge you think you can beat.
3. Your topic is at the foot of this post BUT DO NOT SCROLL DOWN TO SEE IT UNTIL YOU ARE READY WITH A TIMER.
4. Fill the word doc with as many words as you can in the time limit. Once you began writing do not stop even to turn.
5. Do not cheat by going back and correcting spellings and grammar with spell check in MS WORD (it is only meant for you to reflect on your own control of sensible thought flow and for you to reflect on your ability to write the right spelling and stick to grammar rules)
6. You may or may not pay attention to punctuation and CAPITALS. However if you do, it would be best.
7. At the end of your post write down ‘No. Of words =_____’ so that we would have an idea of how much you can write within the time frame.
8. Do not forget to copy & paste the entire passage on your blog post with a new topic for your nominees (at least 5) and copy & paste these rules with your nominations.
My topic is: Five Year Plans
So it seems that I have ten minutes to talk about five year plans. Im not sure if Mary was specifically looking for my opinion on five year plans, or more specifically, if I am supposed to disclose my personal five year plan with my followers, so I guess I will do a little bit of both. I really like the idea of five year plans, and even ten year plans. Anyone who knows me knows that my head is always pretty much in the future which can be both good and bad. Everything I do or say has some sort of reasoning or meaning behind it and I think that all of our actions account for something and have to hold some sort of validity or purpose, otherwise they might not be worth doing. When it comes to five year plans, I am very much in favor of them, however, I think that people need to learn that things can go differently than the plan mapped out in their minds, so flexibility is also essentially key. I think a rough five year plan with room for changes, growth and an open mind can make us feel at ease and can help us to make decisions. When you have a clear goal in mind, you may not have a set, direct path, but you do have that image of a finish line and you know what steps you need to take in order to get there.
For my personal five year plan from where I am sitting right now, it would begin with me blogging away right now in my dorm room at school at 20 years old and it would end in June when I am age 25 in the year 2020 which sounds like an insane year. So here’s the roughly mapped out plan. Within the next two years, I will be finishing up my undergraduate career at college. I will graduate in May of 2017. For junior year, or next year, I hope to maintain, if not raise, my GPA and really focus on my academics, my extra-curriculars and my health. My chronic migraines and weight has taken a backseat lately and I definitely want to push those things to the foreground. For that summer, I am really hoping that mine and Molly’s Writing the Wrong program that started as a Davis Peace Project will get the go ahead to continue and that we will have raised the funds to do it. Then, I am hoping to either do something abroad or to have an internship. In terms of abroad, I am looking at a month long exchange program to go to North Korea or looking into staying with one of my former au pairs and doing something with journalism in England. Who knows? Oh! I am also looking into doing Birthright this December which would land me in Israel for winterbreak, followed by an adventure through several cities with my best friend, Molly. For senior year, I want to be invited to do a departmental honors paper and I either want to run for SGA president (and hopefully win this time) or start my own organization. Only time will tell. I need to nail down a Communications internship and I need to take the LSATs and apply to graduate school.
Age 23 will bring me to the third year of the plan and I will hopefully be in my first year of graduate school. Right now, the goal is to pursue a dual degree program for my Masters of Arts in Communications or Journalism and a Juris Doctorate of Law. Or if that doesn’t work out, I will go to law school solely, grad school for communications solely, J school for a year and then re-apply, or move to a shitty apartment in a city and work at a coffee place and cry myself to sleep. Hopefully the former of all of these is what happens. If option one works, then around five years from a month ago, I would be graduating from grad school/law school in 2020! Long story short, I plan, by 2020 to be the recipient of 3 higher education degrees (BA, MA, JD), living in a city (Boston, NYC, DC hopefully).
So I guess I’ve only really planned my education, but the rest would come in the next five year plan. That would probably include a Ph.D track and career goals (media lawyer or political journalist/correspondent) so we shall see. No, I didn’t mention marriage or children or houses. That won’t come for a while, if at all. Dating is not in the five year plan, or the ten year plan. That will start at the 30yr mark, but we’ll see what the fates have to say about that.
Word Count: 797
Well, I guess it helps to write quickly about something you’re passionate about, so I thank my obsessive and calculating daydreaming, planning and strategizing and years of taking SGA minutes for the speed typing…
Leaves of Logan 