Newly Revised Bucket List

In July 2009, I created my first ever "Bucket List." It's nearly a year and a half later and upon reviewing my list, I have learned that my life has dramatically changed in the last year and a half which means many of my aspirations have changed. I decided it is time to do some revising. Below you will find my new bucket list. To see my former bucket list, click on this link: http://elezpona.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html

It is not an incredibly different list; however, some of my goals have changed and are more specific. I have also decided some things are not things I want to do anymore.

Here is my new and improved Bucket List (in no particular order):

1. Go backpacking through Europe the summer after I graduate college and see the following countries: Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Greece, Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, United Kingdom, Iceland, Ireland, Sweden, Poland, Scotland, and Switzerland.

2. Graduate college.

3. Have a career that involves working with teens.

4. Study Abroad.

5. Go bungee jumping.

6. Get married.

7. Visit China.

8. Participate in the National Student Exchange.

9. Live in the moment.

10. Jump off a cliff into a body of water.

11. Live in Montana.

12. Adopt a retired greyhound.

13. Incorporate public speaking into my career.

14. Fly a plane.

15. Go zip lining.

16. Take a tropical cruise in the Caribbean.

17. Be a member of another Drill Team with my horse, Vogue.

18. Get a tattoo.

19. Develop a winter hobby.

20. Visit the Atlantis Hotel in the Bahama's.

21. Take a hot air balloon ride.

22. Go white water rafting.

23. Hike the Grand Canyon.

24. Go horseback riding in the surf of an ocean.

25. Stay passionate about the things I am involved with.

26. Go sky diving.

27. Make a difference in the lives of others.

28. Write a movie script.

29. Learn how to dance.

30. Visit the Amazon.

31. Be happy in the things I do.

32. See the Sahara Desert and tour Africa while I am there.

33. Live in a different country.

34. Scuba dive along the Great Barrier Reef.

35. Celebrate New Year's Eve in NYC.

36. Learn something new each year.

In the last year, I have learned many new things. But my favorite? Learning how important friends are and who my friends really are.

37. Attend a Super Bowl.

38. Kiss in the rain.

39. Own my own business - preferably a small animal boarding facility.

40. See as much of the world as possible. I hope to see Egypt, New Zealand, Australia, Guatemala, Fiji, Belize, Morocco, Madagascar, Peru, Chile, Costa Rica, Cabo San Lucas (Mexico), and Japan.

41. Train another horse from start to finish.

42. Have a small hobby farm with horses, goats, and chickens.

43. Design and build my own home one day.

44. Run a half marathon.

45. Get into the best shape of my life and stay that way.

46. See Nickelback, Lady Gaga, and Avril Lavigne in concert.

47. Go to a Packer game.

48. Graduate college with at least a 3.5 GPA.

49. See all 50 states.

50. Get my motorcycle license.

101 Stories

Not only do I blog myself, but I also enjoy reading blogs. I came across a very inspiring blog post that I think everyone should read. It came from the blog "Marc and Angel Hack Life." Read, cry, smile, and enjoy. It's 101 short stories that will make you think and give you a different perspective on your life as well as the lives of others.

Here's the link to the blog and the blogpost is dated December 27th, 2010.

http://www.marcandangel.com/

Top 20 Moments of Semester #1 at UW-La Crosse

The last three and a half months have been full of adventure. After starting life at a new school surrounded by new people, new professors, new experiences, and new opportunities, I've experienced a lot of "moments." I have compiled a list of moments which may be experiences, realizations, or accomplishments to sum up what my life has been like during my first semester at a new college.

Here we go:

1. Knowing that I would do things EXACTLY the same if given the chance to rewind to September of 2007 and start over.

2. Loving the fact that I only came in contact with 9 smokers while making my way around campus the entire semester.

3. Being taken out by a skateboarder--I broke my arm. Yes, skateboarding is the way to get around at UW-La Crosse. The sidewalks can be a scary place. Okay, I was kidding about the whole breaking my arm part.

4. Spending $101.25 on a calculator and realizing it was worth every penny.

5. Receiving a 94% on my third statistics exam.

6. Receiving a 99% on my fourth statistics exam, which was the highest in the class.

7. Passing my statistics class with not only an expected C, but an AB! If I put my mind to something, I can accomplish anything.

8. Deciding that I will have no career that has anything to do with statistics, despite the fact that I do actually know what I am doing.

(Side note: statistics was the biggest pain in my you-know-what all semester)

9. Being reminded once again that in life, there are no coincidences; I made an immeasurably beneficial resource on campus the second week of the semester.

10. Developing a highly effective and routine study schedule.

11. Being completely surprised by how different people can act two hours south of where I formerly went to school. That's right, people are not always that friendly.

12. Falling madly in love with The Rec.

13. Realizing I spend more time in the library than my own bed.

14. Deciding that I will not decide what I want to do with my life until I absolutely have to.

15. Getting offered an internship on the spot at a place I was applying to volunteer for.

16. Staring to volunteer every week doing something I love.

17. Having a person dressed as a gorilla and a person dressed as a banana run through my music lecture two days before Halloween.

18. Being asked to TA a class by my professor for next semester. UW-La Crosse started to feel like home for me that day.

19. Deciding that it is okay to not work as often as I would like.

20. Keeping the weight I lost over the summer off, yay me!

Despite many hardships over the past three and a half months, transferring has been the best decision I could have ever made. I am incredibly thankful for how much my life has fallen into place and how many opportunities I have had presented to me. I chose to focus on the more positive moments of the semester because when I look back, I do not want to think about all the struggles that I endured during this time in my life.

Give Thanks Everyday

Thanksgiving is the one day every year that people give thanks. They appreciate what they have rather than spend a day thinking of things they do not have. On this one day of every year we give thanks, we are grateful, and we appreciate the things we have.

Call me crazy, but why do we not do this every day? This summer, I added something to my daily routine. Every single night before I go to bed, I count three things I am thankful for. It could be something as simple as having a good day or getting a good grade on an exam. But...I would say 99 percent of the time, I am thankful for my family and friends. I can honestly say that this one part of my daily routine has made me a happier person. Instead of focusing on the things that I want that I think I need or how life could be better--I focus on the things I have and how great life is.

One of my favorite quotes is:

"The most important things in life are not things."

Here is what I am thankful for:

1. A God who loves me unconditionally no matter what.

2. A supportive, encouraging, and wonderful family: parents who will do anything for me, a brother who is passionate about life, and a niece who brings constant laughter to a room full of people.

3. Incredible, wonderful, amazing, beautiful, caring, thoughtful, and compassionate friends.

4. Two horses that are happy to see me no matter what type of mood I am in.

5. A safe place to call home.

6. My dog who always makes me smile.

7. College that is giving me not only a great education, but also sleep deprivation.

8. My health, mind, and body.

9. Living in a world that is surrounded by so much beauty.

10. My passions, talents, and hobbies.

Today, give thanks and be grateful. Let today be the first day of a new habit. Give thanks and be grateful everyday. Happy Thanksgiving!

Leave a Piece of You

Wouldn't it be amazing if every person we met we were able to leave a piece of "us" with them?

Think about it for just a second. How are you making personal connections with those whom you come in contact with? I am not talking about friends and families either.

I'm talking about strangers.

I'm talking about acquaintances.

I'm talking about the people you'll never see again in your life.

Have you ever met someone that impacted your like in a way in which you felt compelled to tell others about this person/experience? Maybe you had a really neat cashier who inspired your day. Or maybe someone you meet randomly shared a personal story with you. Perhaps, you interacted with a stranger who made you smile. Whatever the case may be, ask yourself this: How can you make yourself be the person that other people share stories about because you impacted their life?

Here is my point: 1) Strive to leave a piece of you with everyone you meet; 2) Never be afraid to make personal connections with strangers; 3) Be you, be real.

I had a really neat experience while I was waitressing one evening. The reason it stands out to me as much as it does is because one of my best friends, Jessica, told me that she absolutely loves how I am never afraid to make personal connections with people after I had told her the story. It was not until she gave me that compliment that I really started to appreciate this skill in myself.

It was a really busy Friday night and I had a table of 6 "older" people come in. My immediate reaction was, "Great, I'm going to work super hard for them and get a bad tip because older people are not good tippers." Once I greeted them and got them beverages, they told me they were celebrating a birthday and that I would need to bring them ice cream and a knife to cut their cake. All I could think at this point was, "Great, now they are going to sit for a while, take up my table, make me do extra work, and I'll still get a bad tip." Regardless of what was all going through my head, I put on a positive attitude and embraced what my job was, and that is: to be a good waitress no matter what or who I am dealing with.

As the night carried along, these people were absolutely fabulous customers. They were fun, wanted to know about me outside of being a waitress, laughed at my corny jokes, cracked jokes with me, and sincerely appreciated the work I was doing for them (which does not happen that often with this job). Once they began eating cake, I asked the lady celebrating her birthday if I could ask how old she was. She told me she was 93. I told her how amazing that was and told the entire table about a 12-year old girl who was tragically killed just days before. Half of the table was from the local area, half was from out of town and were shocked by the news of the story I had just shared with them. When I finished my story, I looked at the woman celebrating her birthday and said, "I view growing old as a privilege and I think it is amazing that you are out celebrating your 93rd birthday because it really is remarkable. Not everyone will be able to say they did that; no one knows if they will have the privilege of saying that." The entire table gasped at what I said and told me that I was "one special young lady." As I parted ways with this table who celebrated a wonderful birthday, they told me how I was a phenomenal waitress, mature for my age, that I would go far in life, and how I had made their birthday celebration that night extra special and one they would never forget.

This experience for me was unique and emotional and as the table was leaving, I found myself thinking, "I do not want them to leave, I wish they would stay the whole night so I could get to know them more." One of the ladies came up to me, gave me a big hug and thanked me again for making their celebration so special. This table made me love being a waitress and if everyone treated waitresses the way they treated me that night, I would not even want tips. They did leave me an incredibly large tip, but I would not have cared if they left me anything. That table felt like family to me. They left just as big of an impact on me as I had made on them. That night was no about making money to me, it was about impacting people and having people impact me.

Life is all about making not only an impression, but an impact. We should all strive to build these remarkable connections with people as we go throughout our daily lives. If we do this, we will have great days everyday, feel better about ourselves, and make a difference in the lives of those around us.