Summer Challenge-2019

*my post somehow didn't save so this is my second time typing it up, you better enjoy

Summer Challenge

My last day of school was May 30th.  That means that I am officially on summer vacation!!!  This school year has been very memorable.  This year was my worst year of school yet, but also one of my best.  I had such a hard time studying and focussing on my school work and had a very dysphoric feeling all throughout the year.  On the other hand, this led me to make more discoveries about myself and has given me more inspiration to write more.  With that being said, I still have a lot to improve on.  I have gotten an idea on how I can improve myself and do better in my 8th-grade year, but to improve myself and build strong habits, I need to gradually set these habits into work.  You cannot just start a routine one day because you feel like it.  Habits take time to develop and you should start doing them slowly.  This is why last year I created a little activity I do in the summer.  To me, summer is the time period you work on yourself and enjoy yourself.  You find yourself and get your life back together.  For me, I use summer as an opportunity to build stronger habits and to get work done.  In this post, I will share with you guys some things I want to work on to help me throughout the next school year.

   Running

I don't know if other countries do this, but here in the States, there is an inevitable event used to torture children called the mile.  Now, the mile is used from middle school to high school and everyone has done it before.  Many schools may vary as to how many times they make their students run the mile over the course of a school year.  I know my friend's high school makes them run 4-5 times a week, so every day.  Another middle school my friend goes to only has to run the mile once a trimester.  Well, for my school, we have to run every Tuesdays.  After we run the mile, our teacher gives us the time we got.  So why is this a big deal?  2 reasons.  The effort we put into the mile and the times we get contribute about a fourth of our P.E grade.  Plus, in the states, we have to take a fitness test every two years starting in 5th grade.  Now, this fitness test has a lot of parts, push-ups, sit-ups, stretches, and the debilitating mile.  My running could use some work and I need to work on my stamina and speed.  See, I'm a fast runner, but when I run fast, I take more breaks.  I also have the stamina, I can run the whole mile without taking a break, but I am slower when I do this.  I need to work on balancing these two traits.  Fortunately for me, my father bought a treadmill that is coming in, in about 2 weeks time.  I want to start gradually, so maybe run a mile every 3-4 days.  I also want to run under 9:30 minutes. 

Skin Care

   Now, I'm not really concerned about how I look and I'm not saying I need to fix my skin and acne or whatever.  I'm saying that I want to take better care of my skin.  My morning routine most morning consists of me waking up very late, taking a shower, brushing my teeth, and realizing that I'm late and quickly changing my clothes. I don't really have time for washing my face or putting on sunscreen or lotion.  That is why I put skincare down on my list.  I'd like to build a habit of putting on chapstick in the morning and lotion before I head out.  Maybe a face mask on the weekends or something like that.  I want to have a morning and night ritual for skin care and hygiene.  I don't really care about acne because, no matter how hard I try to get rid of a pimple, at the end of the day I'll probably get another one anyways.  

Eating

Now, one thing I really want to improve on is my diet.  I don't mean I want to go on a diet and eat less.  This year, I have had a hard time with time management.  In the morning, I'll be running late so I'll grab a few crackers or something I'll eat during snack. I want to build a habit of eating a better breakfast every morning and a better lunch and dinner as well.  I want to pay attention to what I eat and start eating healthier.  I also want to eat less meat.  I don't want to give up eating meat, but I want to start eating less.  I love animals and have started researching animal agriculture and its effects on the environment.  I don't think this will be significantly hard for me since my mother is a vegetarian and I don't eat a lot of meat anyway.  I also want to cook more.  I want to learn how to cook more food and learn more recipes and meals I can make.

Exercise

     I really need more exercise.  For me, I don't necessarily mean a full-on workout, and going to the gym.  I just need more exercise.  As of now, I don't exercise regularly unless you count p.e.  I'm a pretty lazy person and not in shape at all.  I want to work on getting fitter, not weight wise, but getting stronger.  I want to have better stamina and not get lazy.  To accomplish this, I want to do more yoga.  To me, yoga seems like the perfect activity for me to try.  It isn't a very vigorous activity and is the perfect balance of what I need.  Like I said earlier, I want to improve my running.  If I build these habits then I will have an easier time in P.E and will be less lazy.  I also want to do some stretches before bed or when I wake up.  Stretching can help you loosen your muscles and would help me start or end my day.  

Reading

Another thing I want to do during my summer is read more.  I love reading and this year I have discovered a love for Shakespeare.  I have created a list of books that I really want to read and am looking into buying.  Now, if you're like me, you can't exactly force yourself to sit down and read.  When I try to make myself read, I always get distracted and bored.  So I've decided to give myself a goal of sitting down and reading 30 minutes a day.  I know as I progress through the book I will get more interested in it and read more, but for now, I want to stick to 30 minutes a day.  I also want to read more about business.  I've found that I have an obscure partiality to the topic of business and politics.  I want to look into this topic more and research and learn more about business and politics including all the wonders wall street has to offer.  I've also wanted to listen to more podcasts for a while now.  I know this wouldn't be considered reading, but I'll add it on here because it fits here more.

 Writing     

One thing I really want to improve is my writing skills.  I love writing and want to practice it more.  A little back story, I have very peculiar dreams.  I've had recurring dreams and sometimes experience deja vu that I am pretty sure I had already seen in a dream of mine.  I did some digging and found out about keeping a dream journal.  After you wake up in the morning, you write down what you remember about your dream in detail.  This would help you find a pattern in your dreams and can help you notice what may be similar or different about your dreams.  Not only would keeping a dream journal help me with finding patterns in my dreams, but it would also help improve my writing as well.  I also want to do more with my blog.  I said this earlier, but this year, I have gained a lot of inspiration and ideas on what I want to write about and have started writing short stories and things like that.  I want to focus more on my writing and make it stronger.  I want to write down my ideas and work on them.  I have written a few short stories and want to continue, as well as write more poetry.  I want to give myself an hour every day just to focus and write down and work on my ideas and improve my writing.

Now, before I end this post I will say, I originally was going to include another paragraph for mental and emotional health on here as well, but it got deleted and I hadn't saved that paragraph beforehand so I don't have it.  Instead, I have decided that I'll make a separate post on how to improve your mental and emotional health instead.  I hoped you found something useful in this post and you decide to do a summer challenge as well.  I will be posting an update on what I have improved on Tuesdays every two weeks.  Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Snap chat, whatever else.  Subscribe, and have a nice day.  Cheers!