Self Improvement Project

WOOT! I would like to announce that this is the 100^th post I have loaded onto PeaceCorpsGing!!! 100 posts of crazy Peace Corps Gingery goodness. *sigh*

So, this is the first of two really inspired blog posts that I am going to post within the next few days, which means that if you don’t come around here much anymore (because I haven’t been very good with updating) than you should start to check back on a regular basis! 

Anyways, my most recent book read (I’m going to try and update my list on the tab at the top pretty soon as well) is a doozey called “The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun.” This book documents the author, Gretchen Rubin’s experience taking a year out to focus on making herself more happy (I know technically I should b using “happier” here but she makes a point to say that she wasn’t unhappy to begin with, so I think the connotation is better.) Now, on the whole she is SIGNIFICANTLY more, how should I put this...type A? Than I am; in that she is incredibly analytical, super organized, and wildly scholarly about her happiness endeavor (shout out to baby sister and Mom on that one.) To her credit though, she states that not everyone’s happiness project looks the same, and that just because this is how SHE did it, doesn’t mean it is how EVERYONE should do it.

Meanwhile, in the mind of Claire...

A few weeks ago I decided that I was going to put myself in self imposed lockdown for the month of May. This is due to a few reasons, one being because I was leaving my village a lot and the other being because my wonderful cousin Alex, is coming to visit at the end of May and I wanted to make sure I was in good shape before touring around with him a bit. A few days ago I realized that this would make for another excellent writing project, but instead of writing a novel (like what I did in November) I wanted to write a letter home every day, for a month. Thus BoLeWriMo is born!!! AKA Botswana Letter Writing Month.

Combine the above two ideas and you have my little one year project, or what I like to call “Claire’s Year of Improvement.” I have picked a different thing to do every month that I think could better my life. Every month I will post both here, and for the Peace Corps Botswana Newsletter, about how I am doing, what it is like, improvements I am seeing and challenges I am having. This will give you out there in cyber space the ability to comment, critique and join along if you see fit! This is the schedule I came up with:

Claire’s Year of Improvement

·         May – Month of Letters: Write a letter every day

·         June –Month of Meaningful Mornings: Wake up at least 1.5hrs before you have to leave the house and either a.) cook a nice breakfast or b.) meditate/ write in your journal

·         July –Month of Journaling: Write in your journal every day

·         August –Month of Daily Exercise: Exercise for 30mins every day. Sundays off and walking only counts if it is beyond your daily transportation needs

·         September –Month of Cleaning: Clean your house for 20minutes every day. Cumulates when you are not home and must be done within twice the time you were gone (i.e. if I am gone for two days I have 40mins of cleaning to make up, and it must be done within 4 days)

·         October –Month of Music: Take 20minutes a day to sing, play guitar or ukulele, or listen to new music every day

·         November –Month of Hygiene: Shower at least 3x a week, brush and floss every day, brush hair every day, and use face wash every day

·         December –Month of Daily Blog Posts: Must write at least a paragraph every day, to be posted at least three times a week. Once a week the post must be for the educational blog you have completely neglected

·         January –People’s Choice Month: Comment with your suggestions and I will give something a whirl for a month!

·         February –Month of Daily Pictures: Take a new picture every day, if possible, post to blog

·         March –Month of Religious Study: At least 30minutes a day take time to read the Bible or research other faiths. Weekends are Abrahamic Religions focus, i.e. Sundays are set aside for Christianity, Saturdays for Islam and Fridays for Judaism

·         April –Month of Looking Good: Make-up, hair, nails, and more than 30seconds thinking about what you are going to wear every day. Sundays off (Saturday’s off if you are staying in)

·         May –Month of Meditation: At least 30 minutes every day

Isn’t it a beaut? We are going to see how long this sticks, I think I can make it, seeing as it changes every month. This is perfect for me since once we hit June 2014 I am either going to be getting ready to go home, or I am going to be getting ready to move. If ANYONE in Botswana, at home, or in any other part of the world, is interested in trying any of these out with me, let me know and we can be accountabili-buddies! If you are willing, you can also write about your experiences and I can post them up here. If you want to do your own, I would also be interested in hearing from you! I know this is a lot more “audience participation” than I have had on this blog before (aside from the little survey thing to the right) but we are growing, and expanding, and I want you to be a part of my process!

So, homework for you wonderful people: let me know if you want to be a part of this little self improvement project, and come up with ideas for the month of January so I can chew them over and pick a good one (I will of course give credit to the inventor.) The only thing I would ask is that you keep in mind that it is like the surface of the sun here in January (so if you write in with “running” I’m going to laugh in your face and keep on looking), and that I also might be traveling for a period of time that month (so doing something like “yard work”, “cooking”, or anything else that involves me being home won’t fly either.) This will be good feedback to me as well since I will get a better grasp on how many active readers of this blog I have, seeing as I reached over 12,000 views the other day, which is cool, but I don’t know how many of those are from weird internet bots.

Homework for me: start writing letters...lots and lots of letters.

Hugs and smooches!

Claire

Alternative Ideas for Year of Improvement:

·         Month of No Smoking

·         Month of Working in the Garden

·         Month of Running

·         Month of No Toilet Paper

·         Month of Reading

·         Month of Job Searching

·         Month of MCAT/LSAT/GRE/Foreign Service Exam Studying

·         Month of Job Applying

·         Month of Nose Picking

·         Month of Yoga

·         Month of No Drinking

·         Month of Art Making

·         Month of Setswana/ Language Learning

·         Month of Village Exploring

·         Month of Emails Home

·         Month of No Dongle

·         Month of Pay it Forward

·         Month of Mud Bathing

·         Month of Media

·         Month of No Spider Killing

·         Month of Poetry (this is actually a real thing that went on in March called NaPoWriMo)

·         Month of US President Education

·         Month of No Car

·         Month of Yoga

·         Month of Relaxation