What Do You Strive For?

We should all have some sort of goal in life right?

Something that we seriously want to achieve...not just the dream of something like

I will spend three whole months back packing around Europe even though I have no money for a passport let alone money to fly there AND back...unless I can stow away on a container ship...and if I get caught, I have long hair and big boobs and can totally flirt with those dingy sailors right?!

But I am talking about an actual DREAM-TO-POTENTIAL-REALITY here people!  This does not have to necessarily pertain to your job/career/whatever you do that makes you happy and not living on the streets...unless that makes you happy then good for you and I will happily give you a biscuit for your dog!

While my dream job is to be a profiler for the FBI (I mean who would not want a bad ass job of locking up sickos for the sake of all mankind and do it all sexy like on Criminal Minds...because that is totally how crime fighting is in real life...right?) my ultimate goal as far as my job/career goes is to be a shrink.

Believe it or not, that does not shock anyone to hear that I want to be in the Psychology field.  I want to be a therapist.  Everyone totally gets it.  I mean, I am a great listener.  I can totally detach myself from the person (like if it is a friend or family member coming to me).  I joked in high school about charging my friends by the minute for our "sessions" during the five or ten minute passing time between classes.

Was I shocked when I found out that my baby sister was going to be a Pre-Med student when she left for college...absolutely not...was I stunned when she wanted to be a triple major...no way (such an over achiever I have for a youngest sibling)...did I just about fall over when she finally decided to be a Psychology major...DUH!

After I took my Intro to Psych class, I knew that I had picked the right field...however it was that same class that made my sister change her mind...and has her graduating in less than a month with her BS in Psychology...and I could not be more proud and pissed at her (for finishing her degree before me of course).

Got a little off the subject for a moment.  Back to it!

My life goal is not just to be happy.

It is not to look back and regret doing/not doing certain things.

I want my life to have meaning.

I want to have stories that I can share about my experiences that will help others.

I want to have a family...live in a huge house that I can run my own practice out of.  I want to see my future patients evolve and change into who they want to be.  I want to help them rid themselves of their fears.  I do not want to fix people...because we are not machines.  When machines break, mechanics come and fix them and make them work.  When people "break" they still function...and no amount of therapy will get them back to how they used to be because your experiences through your rough patches change who you are even if you refuse to see it.

For all the horrible things that have happened to me and around me, I would not change a single bit of it because it has given me those life experiences and stories that I can share with others and has made me who I am today!  Without my weight struggles, emotional/physical abuse, Mother Nature being a super bitch (Hurricane Katrina), I would not have the strength that I got from being in those situations.

I may have gone off on a different tangent than what I originally intended this post to be but you know what...life happens and when you start to just write and let your thoughts flow...that is when you are being genuine and true to yourself.

Well, I think I have possibly just enough time to finish folding some laundry before my Face-Time date with one of my friends that I have not seen in almost two years since I left Oregon...so...

Until Next Time!

How Techie Are You?

I really am not that technologically stupid.  I swear I am not!  Shortly after getting my Nook Color for my birthday (which I absolutely love and mostly have been using to watch Netflix instead of reading), I went to the local library and got a library card.  I had one when I lived in Oregon so I could check books out from the local community college for my papers I had to write for school.  Before that I had not had a library card since I graduated high school.  I am pretty sure I still have my very first library card ever issued to me (I believe the sticker said 1991 or 1990) from the King County Library System or something like that.

Anyway, I filled out the paperwork and got my card issued to me and asked if the eBooks that they had available could be downloaded to my Nook and she briefly showed me how to do it and said that it would definitely work.

I signed up for English Literature - Beowulf to 18th Century.  My school's website listed the book that would be used and I looked to see if it was available from my library (and it is not) but I did find it available to rent from Barnes & Noble and could get it for the entire duration of my class for about $40 or $50.  I thought that was pretty neat.

My class started Monday.  Since I take classes online, it does not matter that Monday was a holiday.  All classes start on the first Monday of each month regardless of holidays.  I think I have had mid-terms, finals and tests due on holidays before.  This class actually ends two days before Christmas!  Yeah!  Anyway, I enter my virtual classroom and let me tell you something this stuff has CHANGED a lot in the last two years that I have been MIA from online learning.  The classroom set up is different, discussion boards are now called forums.  Email is now called messages.  Lectures and the reading material is now under lessons.  I think I have it kind of figured out and I am sure that I will have it down by the end of this class (which is 16 weeks long).

I am a very slow reader.  I have a few pages that I printed off from a website that is part of my required reading for this week and decided to print out next week's reading so that way I can try and get a little ahead so I do not get behind.  I printed out the first two links which comes to about ten pages of reading (I think) and went to print the third link and discovered that it was going to be like 93 pages so I said PASS and jumped onto my local library website to see if it is available as and eBook...

...and it is!  The website said that there was only one eBook copy so I checked it out before it was too late.  I downloaded it to my computer but could not open it.  I remembered that I had to download the Adobe program in order to access it.  I found the link and tried to download it but it kept popping up with some message that said I had to "retry" and I kept clicking away and it kept saying retry until I finally just threw my arms up (literally) and said (out loud...to no one...alone in my room) I GIVE UP!

I tried calling the library to see if there was someone who could help me figure it out and after pushing who knows how many buttons and then just hitting "0" to finally talk to a person.  This woman heard my problem and then transferred me at which time I was disconnected.  Today I reserved the one and only hard copy that they had available and drove down to pick it up.  I saw a gentleman at the Information desk and told him my problem and he took the time to kind of walk me through what I had already done.  I did everything correct last night but for some reason my desktop just was not having it!

I decided to give it one more shot when I got home and busted out my little tiny Netbook.  Miraculously I was able to download the Adobe program and figured out how to download the eBook to my flash drive and then load it onto my Nook.  Let me tell you what...they do not make it easy to check out a damn eBook from the local library!  It is a good thing that I have it for 13 more days but only need it until next Sunday!

Now that I have shared my horrendous journey to download a eBook check out from the library, I am going to get ready for dinner...I kind of have a date!  Until next time!

This Is It!

This is what I want to accomplish in the next 12 months:

• Eliminate credit card debt
• Find a place to live on my own or with roommate
• Take and PASS 6 classes
• Build up my savings
• Get my knee fixed and recover 100%
• Teach more Zumba®
• Get my Zumbatomic® license (to teach children)
• Build my businesses (Zumba® and AdvoCare®)
• Participate in at least 1 Zumbathon® charity event
• Attend my family's annual camping trip (even if my cousin picked the worst theme ever...Christmas in July is just plain WRONG Amber!)
• Advertise my Zumba® class everywhere
• Become a Zumba® Affiliate(?)
• Create a Pay Pal account to accept online reservations for my class(es)
• Get a love life...or a sex life...or both...lol
• Bake and cook a lot more (I want to create my own go-to from-scratch brownie and cup/cake recipe that I can continue to tweek)

I am sure that there is more that I want to add to this list and you best believe that I plan to keep an eye on this list and add to it and cross things off as they are accomplished!  Now it is time for me to try and crash!

Until next time!