Times of Change and Being Intentional

A few years ago, I started reading How to Win Friends and Influence People because I thought it could help with my lack of friends.  I read two pages, which contained anecdotal human interactions, to which I thought, "These people are stupid."  At that point, I thought, "This book is wasted on me."  I never finished the book.

Almost two months ago, I started The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  I'm about halfway through.  Do you know how hard it is to read boring common sense?  It's hard.  Especially for someone who is already excruciatingly slow at reading AND can't focus.  I am uncomfortable when people have to watch me fill out forms because how long it takes.  Also, one of my roommates with ADHD laughed at me for taking two months to read a book that she read in two days.  So, yeah, I would say it's difficult.  Besides not being done, it's been a good reminder to become better.

Although the two books aren't the same, I would clump them into the same category: improve your dang skills books.  Or minimize ineptitudes books. Or don't be dumb books.  Any of those categories.  Any will work.  I think for the first book, I just wasn't ready to change.  If we look at the stages of change, I was in the precontemplation/contemplation area for the winning friends book.  I knew that I wasn't good at making friends, but I didn't really think that I needed to make any.  And now, I am on the contemplation track with self-improvement.  "Should that be a good idea?" said 4-year-old Griffin.  I think it should be.

Anyway, things need to change because I am a jobless, homeless (of sorts but not really), single millennial.  I could just say that I'm a millennial, and then people would be like, "Well that's your problem.  Too bad that can't be changed."  Adding the other three words just makes people even more irate or censorious.  I should just resign to my misfortune.  (Or my plight.)  Okay, sorry, sometimes I just get these ideas in my head, and then they come out into my writing.  Mostly, I need to get a job and a place to live because being single and being a millennial are useless worries.  And I just added them to make the problem more tantalizing.  (Attention-seeking much?  I dare say yes.)

The whole idea of this is that I am trying to be more intentional.  I want to set better, more achievable goals for myself.  Not only to get a job, but to be a better neighbour, sister, daughter, etc.  I think because of the way my life has awkwardly turned out in the last 6 months, I am finally able to realize how much I actually need to change and what I want to/need to work on first.  Getting a job.  And intentionally talking to strangers.  I don't do so well at initiating conversations based on some unhelpful beliefs about myself.  So that should be a good idea to change.

It's hard being intentional.  I set goals and don't do very well at keeping them.  So, I guess keep a head's up for a new social experiment that I will put together in the next month.  I'll let you know what my goals are and how I plan on talking to strangers.  Excited?  Probably not.  Because I am really my only reader, and I am not excited.

My Study Abroad

My bucket list only has one item on in it: travel outside the United States.  I've completed that, so I guess I can die now.

I've been living in New Zealand for a few months.  And since I am still taking my online classes, I sometimes call this my study abroad.  But because I do a lot of babysitting my nephew, my sister calls me her au pair.  Whatever this time is called, I thought some peoples would want to know what it's like.

I came to New Zealand with my dad and friend from Utah.  My sister and her husband have been gracious hosts.  The beach is so close.  And I love beaches.  If you wade in the bay close to their house, there are often crabs scurrying across your feet or away from them.  The last time I saw so many crabs was in my neighbourhood in Wilmington, North Carolina.  And they would be in the gutters after a large rain.

 We live across the street from the marae.  I've been able to attend a powhiri for one of the teams participating in Te Matatini.  They stayed at the marae across the street.  And Te Matatini was awesome, even though we only watched some of it on TV.

One of the classes I was taking while being abroad was a diversity in recreation.  And the class was mainly about race, ethnicity, and the struggles of participating in recreation if a person is not White.  It has been awesome to hear various sides of relationships among different races and cultures and to see differences in how people participate in life.  However, so many times while reading the textbook and thinking about my experiences, I think people are really the same.  We have the same needs and desires.  Some of us are just raised a little differently.

I have had roommates who are Chinese, Indonesian, Belarusian, Argentine, Mexican, Polynesian, Nigerian, Colombian, and more.  We have the same basic needs.  And living in New Zealand, we still have the same needs.  During my class, the chorus of Depeche Mode's "People are People" played over and over in my head.

Now that my study abroad rant is over, I'll share the joys of being an au pair.  I'm not a real au pair; all I do is babysit my nephew for a few hours a day.  I get baby snuggles every day.  What could be better than that?  My sister and I used to joke that I would come live with her and be a stay-at-home aunt while she worked.  That would be awesome, but eventually I'm gonna have to leave this cute baby.  And then I'll have to be a real adult.  Boo.  Guess I'll squeeze in as many snuggles as I can.