Progress Report

It's halfway through the summer of ending status quo and I find I can't hold off any longer on making a status check. Here I am in the second decade of my life, and what have I got to show for it? It's a question I'm always afraid to ask myself, but it comes to a point that it cannot be helped. If ever I'm to reach that moment of self-actualization where I can wake up and say that I'm happy, that I don't want anything more, I must first ask myself what I want and if I have it.
I gave myself a lofty list of things to accomplish this summer at the close of spring semester. Rather than "goals", I called it my "summer agenda" hoping my new diction would turn these items into things I had no choice but to accomplish. Going down the list...my agenda has not even come close to being fulfilled. The things I was determined to do when the summer started, things I felt I had to do when I wrote them down, lest I be an absolute failure, are largely undone and the ticking of the clock is getting more and more audible. I am aware that the summer is winding down and it makes me nervous.
I'm nervous, but I'm not panicking. I have two fantastic things to show for my summer: my job and my show. I started work the same day that we had our first rehearsal for Sweet Charity, so that Monday had a very "first day of the rest of your life" air about it (at least for me). That was weeks ago and while, on one hand, it seems like forever because this routine has grown so familiar to me, it feels on the other hand like I'm just getting started. There's so much more I'll get out of both.
 I love my job. I really do. I look forward to going to work every morning, seeing my colleagues and being useful to students. I'm glad when I walk out the door that I got out of bed that day. I feel proud to finally be earning money to help support myself without my means of income being determined by need. What I get at the Writing Center is mine and no one is going to start laying claim to it come 2015. And my having this job, this notch under my belt, means I won't be totally groundless when I ask people to hire me while I try to do my actor kid thing, which I can't neglect no matter what. I'm extremely glad that I took the leap of faith to do Sweet Charity in Quincy. My average is up to two shows a school year, I've branched out into another medium and I've gotten to meet new people, which is never a bad thing. I'm still not a good dancer, but there is enough physical activity in the show (be it dancing or being enthusiastically stoned) that I can call myself "active". Hopefully, I'll develop some endurance by the time the run is over. Between Sweet Charity and the Writing Center, I've come up with a pretty decent summer. Twenty hours at work and eighteen hours at rehearsal isn't a bad way to sum up a week. Still, as happy as I am with those two aspects of my life, I can't deny how much room for improvement there is.

I've sold one set of CUTCO and been to one Vector meeting. I told myself that I wouldn't go to a paycheck meeting until I'd sold something, but even after I did, I had no desire to go there and didn't put much effort into trying to find a ride. I didn't see much point in fighting for it after I got a job that pays regular-like, but the half-hearted attempts at making contacts has lately faded into nothing. I have yet to work through one solo. I might cheat and count all of the songs I've learned for Sweet Charity, but that would hardly improve my repertoire, which was the point. Because I've spent so much time in rehearsal, I haven't made it to dance class much since I got cast. It's not a bad excuse. We do have boot camps and dance rehearsals, but the things I need to work on often get lost in the counts. I have read a few plays, heard some good music, learned a few songs and had a few occasions to find myself outside of my dwelling without any particular purpose. If I were fifteen years old, with all the limitations of my teenaged years, if I were seventeen, with the delicate fence between child and adult to straddle, if I were eighteen, with four years of college to look forward to and a clean slate to work with...I'd be quite satisfied with myself at this point. As it is, I'm twenty. I'm not a kid and I'm not a teenager and I've passed all of those phases already. At this juncture, it isn't quite enough for me. I will justify not learning how to drive with the convenient excuse that I have not had a teacher. If that goal remains unfulfilled when the end of August comes around so be it. But how can I account for my dozen unfinished blog posts or my seeming inability to choose a research topic? Those things, I know, can be remedied in the coming days. And so they will. If someone was to ask me at this point how my summer is going, I could sincerely say, "Not bad." I am enjoying myself for the most part and it is a vast improvement compared to summers of old. As I say when I'm looking over drafts, we're off to a very good start (me myself and I). Now it's time to see what good a little tweaking will do.