I completely read the last Collo meeting email wrong, and didn’t realize that I had to go to class last Tuesday. So, I missed the description of the guidelines for this last post and I am also sorry. Anyways, I asked a couple people and I think it’s supposed to be a full year/collo project summarization and a reflective type of deal, so that’s what I’m gonna write on.
I feel like my mind has gone through four centuries of time and has been in 300 different places since August 2018 and the start of my college journey.
I’ve grown up so much. I’ve taken so many wonderful classes, read the entire Divine Comedy two times, met a lot of people, lived in two different places, had three different hair colors, and written like 50 papers (not exaggerating). I’ve realized a lot about myself and even about life + existence in general.
These past 9/10 months have been the start of a lot of new things for me: I’ve fully embraced a love for writing, picked up knitting, had my first apartment, became an intermediate-level yogi, started meditating, went vegan, got a new car, changed one of my minors, and adopted some cool plants.
It’s been many months of mental exploration, self-reflection, and getting in touch with my realest dreams, desires, and plans for the future; and Collo has actually been really helpful with this journey.
Last semester, it made me go out more and put myself in situations I wouldn’t be in otherwise, like going to art events on campus, volunteering, etc… these are things I should do and deep down want to do, but that I usually don’t do because I get too nervous. Actually having to do them has made me better at putting my nervous mental cycles regarding those things aside. Also, when the time came that I got an opportunity to work for the school paper, I felt more comfortable going to the required events for my articles because I had the reassuring thought that I was able to do it so many times before.
This semester, we had to set a project proposal in order to focus on one of our personal goals and reach a sort of achievement. I’ve always despised myself for letting other things get in the way of reading, watching good movies, doing personal writing whenever I have spare time, so I made it a goal that I would start actually doing things like that– things that are as equally enjoyable as they are good for my intellect & mind. So, my project was that I would read two books a month and one movie a week– books and movies not assigned for classes. I disappointed myself a little bit, because there was a month or two where I didn’t quite reach 2 books, and some weeks that I only watched the movies required for my film class. In my defense, I had 19 credit hours and my classes were all pretty reading/writing heavy… but there’s really no excuses, because I wasted a lot of time, too. It’s human nature to waste time and not be constantly exhausting your mind to the point of destruction, so I’m not going to beat myself up over this. Also, I still achieved a lot. I read about 6 new books and watched a lot of really good movies… and I genuinely felt inspired and encouraged by all of them. Setting and working on this goal made me realize that I have extra time to do a lot of things, especially the things that will help me most in the English/Art fields that I’m interested and immersed in. So, because of this class, I’ve set summer reading/writing/arting/move-watching goals. I mentioned this in my previous blog post, but I have 35 books that I’m going to read through and 100+ movies I’m going to try to watch. I also want to write some short stories, maybe start a book, definitely write more poems, and maybe make a short film in that 3 month span. I really hope that I’m not overestimating the feeling of time, but I think I can do it. All of the books and movies are really good, and I’m feeling very creatively inspired lately. I’m kind of at a point in life where I feel like that’s something that will build towards making me as content as possible, and that’s a promising thought for success, too.
Also this summer, I’m going to Paris for a class for three weeks, and I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life. I leave May 27th. I’ll be traveling all around and having a wonderful experience, but I’ll spend a lot of time on trains, buses, metros, and planes– the perfect places to read some of the books on my list!
I’m rambling at this point… and disclosing a lot of details of my life. But, just one last thing. I’ve really enjoyed having to keep up this blog, even though parts of it have been pretty objective and strictly-honorsy. So, since I’ve been doing a lot of class writing, personal writing, journaling, and collo-blogging this semester, I (finally) realized how perfect of an invention blogs are for my writing goals… I realized what’s missing from my life is a space where I can type out my life experiences, feelings, and thoughts into the public, dark abyss of the internet where strangers can hopefully relate to and appreciate my ways of being in the world. So, I’m starting a separate blog. Yesterday, I did some research for inspiration and encouragement and didn’t really find a blog that was similar to what I’m hoping to do with mine.. so I’m a little nervous, but also excited that I’m going to be doing something really original and personal to what I’m all about.
The only thing stopping me from already having this page up and running is that I can’t think of a good name for it (lol), but I’ll meditate on it and get it up and running by Friday. My next post on here will be a link to it, for evidence that I’m capable of manifesting my goals and also for maybe the one (or two?) people that read any of my posts on here who may be interested in reading more of my wordiness.
Sorry this post was so long– anyways… happy end of another educational year, happy summer & thanks, Collo 1, for being an encouragement for good in my life so far.
THINKING CLAIRE-LY 