In Reflection

I leave for college tomorrow. The summer is basically over, and I’m left to consider how summer 2012 shaped up. I did a lot of different things, largely thanks to the bucket list. Usually I spend most of my summer dancing, but this summer although I did dance I spent a lot of time with my friends and family doing things just for the fun of it. Cheesy as it sounds, I have a lot of memories from it now, and when I look at the list every completed item reminds me of a story, whether it’s a bug landing on me at a baseball game or laughing all night. 

However, we didn’t manage to finish the whole list. In fact, almost half is left. At first I was disappointed about this, the whole point was to do something epic my last summer before college. I’m okay with it now because if I had done everything on the list, I would’ve been so stressed out from seeking epic-ness, that I wouldn’t have enjoyed it! Looking at the list now, I’m happy to think that I’ll do the rest of the list next summer.

 Scrolling though the list, the last item is staring me in the face. #100: Change someone’s life. At the beginning of the summer we talked about this one a lot. Maybe we should volunteer somewhere with people, work at a food kitchen or something. We never got around to it though. I’ve been thinking about this last item a lot. Especially as a close friend of my family recently passed away. I guess you can never know what kind of influence you have on the people around you. When someone dies, everyone talks a lot about that person and how amazing they were, how many people loved them, and how they changed lives. However, I’m not planning on dying anytime soon, and I won’t be present at my own funeral to know whether I changed anyone’s life. I guess I can never feel confident (or possibly cocky) enough to mark this item off the list, because I can never know who’s life I may have affected. 

This is something I’ve been thinking about all summer, and hopefully I’ll be able to remember for the rest of my life. I want to live my life in a way that it might change someone else’s life. I don’t know exactly how that will look, but I can try. I want to be the best person I can. I want to be the kind of person that people can look up to. I want to be the kind of person who can give good advice. I want to be the kind of person who can use her own experiences to help others. Maybe I won’t ever know whose life I’m changing, but I truly hope one day I inspire someone to be a better person. I leave you the way I started this blog, here’s the full list:

100 Things to do Before Leaving For College:

1. Get accepted to college

2. Make a collage of pictures to take with me to college

3. Cook a five-course meal

4. Donate to charity

5. Visit the tourist sites of Norfolk

6. Have a spa day

7. Go to Virginia Beach for a day

8. Go to a baseball game

9. Watch all the Harry Potter movies in one day

10. Perform for the public

11. Make a music video

12. Ask someone for their phone number, and actually get it

13. Eat a banana split

14. Build a snowman

15. Devise an elaborate and unbeatable senior prank

16. Skip a stone

17. Go on a hike

18. Swim in a pond, a pool, a lake, or an ocean

19. Build-a-bear

20. Volunteer for a cause

21. Go ice skating

22. Wash the car

23. Go kayaking

24. Memorize the handshake from the parent trap

25. Get a haircut

26. Get a free makeover

27. Go to Busch Gardens

28. Draw with sidewalk chalk

29. Meditate

30. Enter a contest

31. Roll down a hill

32. Read ten books

33. Plant a tree

34. Go star gazing  

35. Get into the Virginian Pilot

36. Build a fort  

37. Write a letter to my future children

38. Play Frisbee

39. Go biking

40. Do a color by numbers picture

41. Stay awake for 24 hours

42. Go to a FREE concert

43. Learn about my great-grandparents

44. Do yoga

45. Watch a sunrise  

46. Draw a portrait

47. Put something on youtube

48. Try foreign cuisine

49. Make a soufflé  

50. Eat crazy ballpark food (changed from beat all 15 levels of tetris)

51. Have fried green tomatoes

52. Make a list of my favorite things

53. Go to an antique store

54. Finish a puzzle  

55. Make my own soundtrack

56. Send letters to 3 random people

57. Visit a graveyard at night  

58. Make an echo

59. Wear fake nails

60. Write on a bathroom stall

61. Play a song on the piano

62. Break the law

63. Play Life

64. Get cornrows

65. Use a disposable camera

66. Go a day without cellphone, ipod, or computer

67. Visit a museum

68. Wash the dog

69. Be in two places at once

70. Dress like a hippie

71. See a play

72. Read a romance novel

73. Hug a tree

74. Eat a pack of bubble gum all at once

75. Blow bubbles

76. Visit an animal shelter

77. Run a race

78. Sleep outside

79. Blast some music and dance

80. Get lost on purpose and find the way back

81. Hit a homerun

82. Choose a role model

83. Have a slumber party  

84. Watch a foreign film

85. Check something out at the library

86. Eat a whole box of oreos in one sitting  

87. Learn to play the harmonica

88. Play basketball

89. Play golf

90. Crochet something

91. Complete a New York Times crossword puzzle

92. Take a freezing cold shower  

93. Eat sushi

94. Make a blog

95. Go church hopping 

96. Make a time capsule, including a letter to yourself

97. Have a tea party 

98. Have an Audrey Hepburn movie marathon 

99. Make cookies or brownies for someone 

100. Change someone’s life

A Saturday of Bucket Listing

Jasmine and I took advantage of a nice Saturday to get some more bucket list things done. We started the day kayaking:

23. Go kayaking=done! That green stuff completely covered a section of the river, it was really kind of creepy

Next we came home and started an Audrey Hepburn movie marathon (#98 is done!) 

 I'm not sure why that first picture isn't rotated...but special thanks to Victoria for loaning me the movies :)

While we watched we did a New York Times crossword puzzle (#91) 

Again, sorry its the wrong way, its just not cooperating tonight :P  We did cheat, mostly by asking my mom. We only needed the internet for a few things.

Next, we learned to crochet and made a flower (#90)

Jasmine already knew how to crochet so she only needed a refresher. I learned to chain ages ago, but didn't remember it at all. It was rather difficult, although our abs got a great workout from laughing,

Then we relaxed with some yoga (#44)

Again we laughed a lot, but did do several poses (including tree, downward and upward dog, and warrior).

That night we went to a Tides game (#8).

I discovered that I do not enjoy or understand baseball. It's just boring.

While we were there, we decided to eat some ridiculous ballpark food.

We split a macaroni and cheese hot dog and a fried twinkie. They were both decent, but nothing to really brag about. The twinkie just tasted fried. Regardless we made the executive decision to replace 50. Beat all 15 levels of Tetris with eating crazy ballpark food. Neither of us are good at or enjoy tetris, and don't even know where we could play it. Therefore we decided we might as well replace it with something we actually wanted to do. 

Well that's all for now, I'm leaving for college the 16th so we don't really have much time left, but we're going to try and get a few more things done before then :)

Melody




 

17 More Things!

I apologize that I haven't posted in awhile. I end up getting picture off of two or three different cameras, which makes it more difficult, but really I'm just a procrastinator :) Because I have so many pictures, I'm just going to post them all and then at the bottom I'll say everything we did.

That's a lot of pictures! Here's what we did (in order of appearance):

62. Break the law (dogs are not allowed on the beach during this part of the year)

61. Play a song on the piano

67. Visit a museum(it's the museum inside the Norfolk Pretlow library)

88. Play basketball
89. Play golf

81. Hit a homerun  (we'd never manage to hit a real homerun, so we were creative!)

69. Be in two places at once (Norfolk and VA Beach)

80. Get lost on purpose and find the way back

25. Get a haircut

52. Make a list of my favorite things

56. Send letters to 3 random people (Yes that's only two, but I'm working on the third now!)

2.  Make a collage of pictures to take with me to college

Not pictured: 

38. Play Frisbee

68. Wash the dog

76. Visit an animal shelter (If anybodies interested in adopting a super sweet cat, let me know)

85. Check something out at the library

3. Cook a five-course meal (I really wish we got pictures of this, but it was hectic and we totally forgot. There were no major disasters and everything tasted great though!)

Melody

27 out of 100 done...Oh dear.

After a week of doing nothing, I'm beginning to realize that we're likely not going to get all 100 things done. Regardless, we're having fun. We decided to undertake the most time consuming ones this past Friday, numbers 41 (Stay awake for 24 hours) and 9 (Watch all the Harry Potter movies in one day). While we did that, we were able to get quite a few others done. So with very few words and lots of pictures I present to you "A Night of Bucket Listing".

 Jasmine came over around 1:30 to start the movies. Unfortunately Grace could not join us for this occasion, but Jenny came over the night for the overnight part thus making it a slumber party (minus the slumber, #83)

Friday also coincided with Cow Day at Chick Fil A, so we took a break for dinner and dressed as cows to receive completely free meals.

 Nothing to do with the bucket list, but a lot of fun :D

 We completed a puzzle (number 24)

 And started another one which proved to difficult for our tired minds.

 We attempted to eat an entire package of oreos in one sitting (#86), but just couldn't so we settled for each eating two thirds of a pack over about 4 hours. Oreos are now my least favorite cookie ever and do not intend on eating another one for at least...a week or so.

 We star-gazed (#34) and were able to count all of 6 stars. It was cloudy though.

 Built a fort (#36)

 Duct tape (which we used on our fort) is extremely sticky and difficult to tear, especially at three in the morning.

 Jasmine drew a portrait (#46) and I posed since drawing a portrait myself would've taken forever and/or looked horrible. Jasmine's looked lovely of course.

 We had to make a snow man (#14) so Jasmine and Jenny made one out of crushed ice and I made one out of paper. Mine had a face, but there's was actually like, closer to snow. By the way, whatever tool that was didn't crush the ice, we had to put it in the blender. If you ever need to blend something while your parents are sleeping, take it to the room farthest away from them, close all the doors between and wrap the blender in towels. It muffles the sound.


While we watched Harry Potter, several things stood out. Emma (Hermione) is our favorite and arguable the best child actor in the whole series. They grew up a lot between the first and second movies. Harry and Hermione both did illegal magic outside of school that goes unpunished. Rupert (Ron) is excellent and cracking his voice just at the right time. They're all excellent at awkward scenes. And they're all bad fake criers (Emma gets better eventually, the boys don't). We decided to see whether we can fake cry better than them. What do you think?

 We were supposed to play monopoly (#63) but decided that playing Life counted because we wanted to play that more than monopoly. The first time I won by a lot (as you can see), the second time I lost spectacularly (somehow we just didn't get a picture of that one).

 We watched the sunrise (#45), or more accurately, were outside and looked at the sky during the time that the sun was rising.

 We took freezing cold showers (#92) before we watched the last movie. Our hair is wet in this picture if you can't tell. 3 minutes under freezing water really wakes you up. It also causes involuntary screams.

Finally, we wrote letters to our future children and future selves (#37 and #96) and also to our future husbands. #96 says to make a time capsule, but we decided we can do this on our own time since we'll have to find pictures and stuff. In our letters to ourselves we wrote the role models we chose for #82. Jasmine chose Emma Watson (inspired I'm sure by watched all 8 Harry Potter movies) and I chose my favorite Christian author Nancy Rue.

So there you go, 15 things done in 24 hours. In case you're keeping track we now have done twenty seven things. Maybe we'll get half done this summer and the other half done next :)

Melody