Success!...sort of.

So looking back at my goals for the summer, I did to some capacity meet the majority of them. Which really isn't that bad, but when you're a perfectionist like me, as well as extremely hard on yourself, you don't need a dad to tell you that you aren't good enough, since you police yourself much, much better (my dad doesn't do this). Let review, shall we?

1. Get a job and earn $3200: I've made a little more than half of my goal. Perhaps I was overly ambitious, but I still would have liked to have seen myself get closer to this one since it's so crucial. Oh, well, I'll just get loans and put myself deeper into indentured servitude after college. Next!

2. Get a driver's license: I almost did this one...until I decided it was too late in the summer to apply, get the experience, take the actual driving test, and get the license. Plus, I found out that you have to show proof of insurance in order to get a license, and I can't afford insurance, let alone my own vehicle, especially given the previous goal, so this one is out. The goal was mainly symbolic anyhow, more to do with the cutting of the purse-strings and having that much more independence and another skill set under my belt. Not that the lack of a license has slowed me down: I find that, in Monterey anyway, you can get around just fine on a bike, as long as you are in decent shape, which brings me to my next goal:

3. Create and follow a summer exercise regimen: I didn't really do this, but I found that between my job and a weekly bike ride, I haven't had any problems achieving the intention of this goal. I have come home sore almost every day, and my biceps are getting admirably beefy. Stud alert! Ladies beware!

4. Continue cooking for one's self: this was kind of a forced sucess, in that I either had to cook for myself or starve since there are many places for quick, cheap, vegetarian food around Monterey, and I was unwilling to fork out the cash anyway. Most of the stuff I produced was rather canned, though: mexican and italian food are pretty much the staples of my diet. I seem to have lost the cooking bug when I left Spain.

5. Continue playing guitar at least once a week: THIS is where I have grown by leaps and bounds I can play approximately 30 songs now with varying degrees of competence, and I can't help but touch my guitar at least once a day. I've even learned to sing and play at the same time. I have guitar FEVER! And the only cure is to ROCK!

6. Continue writing in my books, as well as writing my books: I have written a few times in the dream journal when I had dreams that seemed to be of some importance; most notably, I had a series of dreams in which my closest family members, a well as the cat, died horrible deaths. Now THAT shit will freak you out. I haven't written in my Spanish journal at all, and for this I feel the most guilty, because I know my abilities will slip. As for my books...I continuallly have more and more ideas for books, poems, etc., and I will write a line or tow of them and then forget them for eternity. Some of the ideas for novels, however, compliment each other, and I'm starting to think thatmaybe my subconscious is putting it all together for me into a cohesive whole, and then one day I will sit down and it will flow out of me onto the page. The problem is, when will "one day" come?

All in all, I did manage to do most of the things I set out to do this summer, but I am still left with a lingering sense that I could have done more...perhaps in the last few weeks here, I will tie up some of those loose ends.