Summer Goals--Wrap-up

Since I'm heading back to school tomorrow, I feel that the summer is officially over, or practically. So I'm going to run through the goals I had going into the summer and how well I met those goals.

1) Volunteer I volunteered a few times at my church, helping them prepare for Vacation Bible School, and helped teach Sunday School a few Sundays. I had imagined myself volunteering more, but considering that I had a job for the summer, I'm pretty satisfied with how much volunteering I did.
2) Freerice I still can't quite believe it, but I actually reached my goal of getting 2 million grains! Today I hit the 2 million mark, and my final total was 2,011,260 grains. Wow!!
3) Summer reading Considering the fact that I had a job, I was really pleased with how much of my list I finished. The only books I didn't touch were a book about bees and Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (which is really too bad, I was really looking forward to reading it). I'm also still working on Parzival by Sir Wolfram Eschenbach; I only have a few chapters left.
4) Book reviews I reviewed every book I finished this summer. I even feel like my reviews have improved a bit.
5) Reflect more Hm. Sometimes I did great on this, and sometimes I did really horribly. I think that I actually reflected more last school year--perhaps because I'm so in the habit of analyzing things, perhaps because my fellowship group at school is more supportive. I did try to reflect, but it was very up and down.
6) After graduation I made a lot of progress in this direction, although not at all in the way I imagined. I scheduled my GRE and then cancelled it; that was what I felt God calling me to do. Then I felt Him calling me to go to seminary. So I researched seminaries, and spoke with three different pastors over the summer about seminary and the ministry (although I'm not sure if I'm being called to ministry--just seminary, at least at the moment).
7) Sleep! Considering the fact that I had a job and no time, I did pretty well. There were very few days when I didn't get at least eight hours of sleep, at least (I tend to need nine).
8) Exercise OK, I didn't do very well on this goal. I rarely exercised more than once a week, if that.
9) Work on thesis I read almost every book that I wanted to read this summer, which really pleased me. I didn't get a chance to read any of the articles I wanted to read, but I'm still pretty happy with what I accomplished.
10) Declutter Some decluttering happened, although not as much as I would have liked.
11) Scholarships Amazingly, I submitted 42 scholarship applications this summer. Wow!
12) Pray for others I made amazing progress on this, actually. I thought and reflected a lot about prayer this summer. I got a lot more in the habit of praying for people and situations that I see, and created a list of things to pray for throughout the year (it includes endangered species and careers). The one thing that I wish I could have worked on a bit more was the list itself--it's not done yet, and I still haven't quite gotten into the habit yet of using it every day.