Monday, January 7, 2013

What Am I Actually Doing Right Now?

"The Usual, What's Up With You?"

Last week I wrote about the goals I’ve made for 2013.  Long term goal setting helps you keep focus throughout the year on what you determined was important and its rewarding to look back on a year and feel satisfied in accomplishing your major projects.

However, the reality of the situation is that many tasks we deal with on a day-to-day basis are not part of our goals for the year and yet still are important.  These things must be accomplished, regardless if they are on our yearly goal list.

For me, this past week was a week dedicated towards them.  There are a few major projects in my life that demand attention.  The holidays were a wonderful break and it was productive to reflect on the year past and future, but now its time to get down to business.

So what is the business of a returned Peace Corps Volunteer?  Well one thing that is on the forefront of my mind is preparing for my trip to Southeast Asia (hey, I didn’t say these weren’t fun things!).  This coming February I’ll be traveling to Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand for a month.  I want warm beaches and I hear this is a great place to get them.

I’m looking forward to this long term travel because it will allow me to keep a pretty loose schedule and compare notes with other travelers I meet.  Even with that, I still need to set figure out flights, visas, and identify a few accommodations for those first nights in country.  And of course, I want to have some idea of places I’d like to check out to give a little bit of direction to the trip.

I’m also going to be applying for jobs this year (surprise!).  Though my proposed start date is in spring, that will come soon enough.  Updating my resume, networking, and doing industry research is a continual focus to ensure that I enter the job search strongly.  I’m fully confident of gaining employment in 2013; I’ll be even more confident once employed.

Connected to this is thoughts about moving.  Though nothing is off the table, its highly unlikely I’ll stay in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and even less likely (read: impossible) that I would continue to live at my parents’ house.  The logistics surrounding a move to an unknown city is something I repeatedly tell myself to not worry about, but it still takes up brain space.

Finally, I’ve begun the long-delayed project of revamping my website, updating the design and changing hosts.  Still with great content (he humbly writes..) but a cleaner and more professional layout.  Its all still in draft mode, but my hope is that someday soon you will be greeted by a shiny new looking site.

These are the immediate projects currently on my plate.  Its surprising to me how busy I’ve actually been; I’ve been wondering how I’m going to fit a full time job into all of this.  But just like everything else, I’m sure it will work itself out when the time comes.  Happy New Years!