018. Eighteen

tldr: i am someone older and wiser

So I’ve been 18 for about 5/6 of a day. What a wild ride, and by wild ride I mean ‘I had work off today so I slept til 12’. But honestly, it’s been pretty great! My friend brought me Dutch Bros, I found out that I’d get to tutor Calculus (very exciting not-sarcastic), and I ultimately chilled. I’m gonna make this blog post a little bit shorter all things considered [I wanted to wait until I was actually 18 to write it, but I also wanted to, not worry about writing a blog post on my birthday]. So here it is:

I don’t mean this to be rude to myself or self-deprecating, but rather an honest list.

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18 Things to Change/Do by 19

1. Be able to pick up a book and be able to sit down and just *read* and *enjoy* it. Finding time doing something (besides math) to wind down.
2. Get some different clothes. No clue when this will happen, what style, what store, none of that. I just know I want it to slightly happen, and that I want to spear-head this self-project.
3. Stop knee-capping my sentences. Instead of “That sort of makes me uncomfortable”, saying “That sort of makes me uncomfortable”
4. Get better at accepting compliments. Grow in self-confidence while trying to not be arrogant. Maybe one stems from the other. I hope not.
5. Stop chewing on my ballpoint pens. One of my worst nervous stims. This normally isn’t an issue when I am at home working, but it looks bad when I am on zoom, and I do it mindlessly.
6. Grow academically in maths. Moreover, become better at explaining mathematical concepts to other people. After all, I do want to teach one day.
7. Finish a notebook. It doesn’t even have to be all one subject/class notebook. It could be a daily check-in notebook. But finish one, before I turn to the next. Hopefully this will also help in my efforts to use less paper.
8. Have better self control. If I tell myself I will stop watching after a certain episode, I want to be able to actually do so [and not come back to it later].
9. Become a person who donates. I know who/where I want to donate to when the time comes. I just hope I can maintain this goal of mine. More updates on this specific point when the time comes.
10. Move to the east coast. Whether it be a dorm, apartment, whatever– just get me to a different time zone.
11. Get a tattoo. Hopefully soon actually. I know what I want so, I will make a post about it if I do so.
12. Drink more coffee and less creamer. Who knows, I might hate just straight up black coffee; but I won’t know til I try.
13. Have a more diverse song selection. I love Broadway songs, but damn some of my friends have such *huge* music knowledge and trivia. Meanwhile, I suck at remembering who the artist/title of a song is.
14. Have a good freshmen year of university.
15. Maintain a daily/weekly agenda. They tried to get me to do this in middle school and high school but it never stuck.
16. Become more physically active. I like my body [generally speaking. I mean, weight for me isn’t as big of an issue for me than other parts of my body.], but I just find that I feel better/happier when I get up and stay active.
17. Go in an airplane. Never done it.
18. I want to be better at making positive lists as opposed to the ‘negative’ ones. Again, I want to iterate that I don’t mean this list to be negative. But it was definitely easier to write a list of “things I want to change” as opposed to “things I like about myself”. That needs to change by next year.

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Hopefully, I can see some of these changes by the time I am 19. Although I will say, some of the points I made have stayed on this list for quite some time. I won’t let that get me down, and hope that by having written down some of my goals that these changes happen. Can’t wait til my age is a prime number again.

Paige