Friday, January 28, 2011

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 165

Today's Daily 5:
  1. getting an early start to the day (unexpected though it was, it freed up a lot of time this afternoon)
  2. A good score on my first Greek quiz
  3. a sweet banana for breakfast
  4. my favorite seat on the bus again
  5. reading for pleasure on the bus (nearly finished the book I'm currently working on)
  6. sweetly scented hand cream - not too perfumey
  7. smiling at some English as a second language slip-ups on a professor's powerpoint slides - the sorts of things that spell-checker won't catch.  things like whole vs. hole and bases vs. basses.  Kind of a big difference!
  8. sweet, organic dried mango, straight from West Africa (thanks Dad!)
  9. making Pad Thai for supper
  10. watching "Letters to Juliet" with mom and dad

Feel Good

In last night's daily 5, I mentioned that I'd marked an item off of my to do list that had been sitting there for literally months.

Ages ago I came across this fabulous "Feel Good" list from UpUp Creative.  I loved everything about it, and especially the story behind how it helped the creator overcome postpartum depression.  I was broke at the time I first spotted it, and life wasn't quite as challenging as it has been for most of the last year, so I didn't place an immediate order.

Months ago I decided that I wanted to either make my own version of this list, or order one, and it sat on my mental to do list through all of the hard stuff that life has thrown at me for the past year.

Finally, when it became clear that my one little word for 2011 would be heal, I decided I needed a fun way to keep track of whether or not I was taking time to care for myself and make self-care a priority, and the feel good list came to mind.

A couple days ago I got in touch with the creator of the list to place an order, yesterday I filled out the form, and later last night my custom list was returned to me.  I'm not going to share the items here - I used some of my own, and some of the creator's and I can't wait to press the list into use starting Sunday.  For me this is a way to mark moments of healing and taking time to care for myself.  To chronicle my weeks through the remainder of this year and beyond.  Hooray for self-care and healing!

Productivity

By 8:00 this morning I'd completed 19 practice quizzes and exercises for my Greek medical terminology class.  Oh, and the quiz.  By 8:00.  How's that for productivity?

Actually, I'd planned to use my bus commute to school today to review the multiplicity of flash cards I've made over the last three weeks, and then do the practice quizzes and exercises after class, before writing the quiz.

But, turns out that I woke up an hour and a half earlier than I'd planned.  And, it is Friday, so I didn't really want to hang around school any longer than necessary.  I got up and started tackling the practice exercises, telling myself that if they didn't go well, I'd wait, review on the bus as planned, and then do a few more practice exercises after class, before writing the quiz.  (It's an online class, so I just had to write the quiz sometime between 6 am and 10 pm.)

Turns out the practice exercises went far better than expected.  So, I took a deep breath, put my flashcards and textbook away, and tackled the quiz.

With a very satisfactory A- result, I might add.

Not bad for someone who isn't a morning person!

This means that my bus ride is mine to enjoy.  There will be pleasure reading happening today!

It also means that after a couple of weeks of spending time daily with greek flashcards, I'm taking the weekend off from Greek!  Hooray!