The Magic of Taking it Slow // Student Life

This semester, for the first time in my college career, I'm not taking the max number of credit hours I'm allowed to. I'm really enjoying this chance to slow down and figure out what I really want in life. 

Here's the Magic:

1. Time to plan.
   With my smaller course load, I've been able to dedicate real time to planning a strategy for each class I'm enrolled in and I can spend more time on the assignments.
2. Freedom to enjoy life.
   Not having to be in class all the time or studying for classes when not in them, I have more time to go to the library for leisure, take a walk with my partner, and volunteer.
3. Time to dabble.
   I've always been a dabbler, a kind of jack-of-all-trades. I love to pick up hobbies and crafts to find the ones I want to stick with. Now, for the first (non-summer) time since high school, I can pick up watercolors and fashion curating, just for the hell of it.
4. Time to intern.
   This year begins my first full school year with my internship at the Pet Education Project (PEP!) With my smaller workload, I can now really dedicate the time to sit down and work on my intern projects as well as get in the field with my fellow PEPpy People and my buns to make a difference.
5. Freedom to develop.
   Being in classes has always been restricting to me. More so in my own personal and social development than in any other way. Having more time outside of classes to discover new loves, move out of my parent's home, work, etc. is giving me the opportunity to grow in myself and develop a clear sense of what I really want. To me, college is the time to dabble and figure out what you want in life, but how can you do that if you are nailed to six classes fulfilling just one major and/or core curriculum? 

I'm so glad that I've chosen learning and growth over my formal education. I'd never dropout/not get my degree, but I feel, for myself at least, that graduating then growing is defeating the purpose of college. I could have my French or English degree by now but neither would have made me happy. I don't know what my bachelor's degree will be in, but I feel certain I will love the time I have remaining to get it.

Are/were you that "max-out" student or did you enroll in minimum hours? Would you do it differently now if you could?

A Little Life Planning

At the end of last week, I decided to take a stroll down memory lane and glance through my archives here at Life Ducks. What I found was a lost of book reviews and one little post called The Question. Way back before the name Life Ducks had found me, particularly in May of 2011, I was nervous and excited to graduate high school. When I wrote this post I had just finished watching Eat. Pray. Love., a lovely movie (one of my favorites) about a woman who explores the world for a year. In the terror and confusion that was leaving the only world I'd ever known, pre-college school days, I started to think about what I wanted from life versus what I was actually working to achieve. Surprise, surprise, they didn't match up! I tell you all this as a way of explaining this post. Today I thought I'd share a little with you all about what I want and plan to do with my life, in a much less poetic way than the original post.

photocredit/photocredit
I still think this photo sums up my life dreams.

So what do I want to do? I'm currently in an undergraduate program working towards my English major with a focus on Creative Writing. What does that have to do with anything? Well, as you know I'm working on a novel at this very moment. Yes, I hope to be an accomplished author, but there's so much more to it than that.

Another thing I want for my life is to travel, a lot. That began with my first major trip the summer of 2010 when I went to Europe for the first time. This is going to continue with a study abroad program. I'm so excited that I can't even handle it. I'm not sure where I'm going yet, but I will be studying abroad. My first choice is Ireland, my second is Hong Kong. The program with which I'd go to Ireland is very prestigious  so, while I think I'll be accepted, I really need my back up plan. Either place I go, I hope to study culture and languages (especially Irish Gaelic).

After my undergraduate degree is earned, I plan to enlist in the Peace Corps. With the Peace Corps I will get formal training in a language and placed somewhere that I can truly help and make a difference in peoples' lives. My dream would be to be placed somewhere in the south Pacific or near the Indian Subcontinent. The languages there fascinate me and I hope to spend my life there.

But what can I do in the south pacific? Well, after my 27 month in the Peace Corps, I plan to attend graduate school in either London or Hawai'i. Hawai'i is actually my first choice. There I hope to study Linguistics, focusing specifically on documentation and conservation of endangered languages. And that's what I want to do as my career, study, document, and conserve endangered and dying languages around the globe, specifically in the South Pacific. 

To sum it up, my life plan is as follows:

1. Study abroad
2. Publish a novel
3. Finish my BA in English
4. Peace Corps
5. Graduate School
6. Research and conserve languages for the rest of ever.

Do you know what you want to do with your life? What are your wildest dreams?