On a personal note…

My classes for the semester have finally ended, and I’m now left with a couple of weeks to reflect on another scholastic year gone by, and to decompress before heading into a summer of full-time work.

I’ll put it bluntly: The second half of my third year in university was not a four-month period that saw my finest work.

With that off of my chest, it’s easier for me to say that it was, however, a time of growth and productivity in other areas of my life. In fact, I feel like four years have flown by since January and I’m now in 2016, wondering why I ever was the way I was, and wanted the things I used to want.

I should have learned a very important  lesson from all of this: That spreading yourself too thin is an inevitable consequence of an inability to say no.

But when it’s all said and done, I’d rather be plagued by an inability to say no, than a debilitating fear to say yes.

So as summer approaches, and the sun slowly works at melting away the stress still lingering from past deadlines and due dates, I’m looking forward to another “four years” of adventures between this semester, and the beginning of a new one next fall. (Which, by the way, marks the beginning of my fourth and final year in university.)

My goals for this next little while? My fabulous piano teacher always used to say: ‘If you don’t have your health, you have nothing.’ And after having had to take several mental health days this semester, I have finally realized that it’s time to accept this as a law of nature, and adopt his wise words as a rule by which to live my day-to-day life.

I’m looking to long and relaxing days spent at the beach, mornings started with pilates and yoga, and a lot of writing done because I actually want to write. I’m hoping to rediscover my former love of cooking, and to listen to more live music. Reading, lots and lots of reading, is on my page-long to-do list, which is, for once, filled with things I actually want to do.

Call it a summer of want, call it a summer of rehabilitation. But I’ve got a bucket list of things to see and do, and only so many weeks to do them. So I’m calling this, the summer of George Hayley.