Bucket List.

Recently, I was reading a blog post over on Shari's blog where she touched on the amazing things she has accomplished before turning 30.  Shari has been a big inspiration in my life over the last year, and has really inspired me to find the things that spark my interests and go for them.  She's a big believer in dreaming big, and furthermore accomplishing her dreams which has needless to say, inspired me to do the same.  While for many years I've faced a number of challenges with growing up, becoming independent, and having many battles about my responsibilities as a daughter (more on this later), I've missed what living is really all about.

In April, there was a lot of pressure on me to figure out my life and where I was going.  A lot of it was self-inflicted because my friends were headed off to grad school and I wasn't, and a lot of it was people constantly asking me what I was doing with my degree.  It was overwhelming and stressful and I found myself slipping into a spot in my life that was needless to say, not the best.  While the decision to come back to school had been decided, the glamour of becoming a student again quickly faded.  The majority of the month of May I spent in my bed doing nothing.  I wasn't sociable with anyone.  It wasn't that anyone had done anything wrong, I just didn't feel a need to go out and do anything.  I was waiting to go away on my trip to Northern Ontario so I wasn't working and I had no academic or extra curricular activities to keep me busy.  For anyone who knows me, they can tell you that I'm not the kind of girl to do nothing, but after a year where a burn out nearly happened, a lot of people recognized that it was time I had a bit of a break.  And at first the break was really refreshing, but come the fifth season of a show in two weeks, I quickly was losing motivation to make something of my life.

I know what you're thinking "Why didn't you get up? Call a friend to make plans? How come you didn't just go for a walk or something?"  and to be honest, I really don't know.  I literally was only eating dinner with my family because making a box of Kraft Dinner was effort.  There was one week where I showered twice.  When I drank, I became upset and relied on my friend Joseph to comfort me and remind me that I was going to be okay, that I just needed some sleep, that things were going to turn around.  The two am conversations you have with people are the things you really remember when you come out of a dark time, because you're reminded that if someone is willing to stay up until you're asleep that there is at least one person in this world rooting for you.

  Looking back on all of this now, I realize that I was on probably on that cliff of a depressive episode with one foot on the edge and the other quickly sliding.  The choices I made weren't obviously good choices and I was enabling myself to feel terrible by refusing to help myself.

I want to emphasize that I'm not saying that "I had depression" or "depression is as easily cured as finding a motivation to do something" but one of the elders from my trip said our biggest enemy in our lives is boredom.  When we get bored, we should avoid getting into the slump of doing nothing and we should go out and do something.  Go for a walk, help a friend, visit our grandparents, whatever it is to make our minds busy because when we get bored, we end up in trouble.  Mentally, physically, socially, emotionally.

So my motivation for making a bucket list lies in the fact that I never want to be bored.  I don't want to be in a situation where I make myself vulnerable for a mental breakdown.  With genetics against me (there's an 80% chance I'm going to develop bipolar disorder in my lifetime...more on this later too) I don't want to give life more chances to stop me.  I want to live a life that is full, I want to be able to have children one day and tell them all the great things I've done.  I want that little spark known as adventure to always be burning in my body, and I want to take on the challenges it throws in front of me.

So here it is, my bucket list.  Some with explanations, some without.  Happy Sunday everyone.  I hope your day shines bright xo.

Amanda's Bucket List:

Give a TED Talk

Visit every province (Vancouver & Ontario done as of February 2014)

Run in a charity run and raise funds for a cause I believe in

Get my research published

Earn my masters

Earn my PhD

Attend the Brier (this is a big curling tournament in Canadian men's curling)

Own a car

Get another tattoo

See a show on Broadway (preferably Annie for childhood reasons)

Touch the red sand in PEI

Present at a CPA convention

Submit a Post Secret

Send my mom a care package when I don't live at home

Send my brother on a vacation

Travel with my dad to one of the provinces

Make someone a dream catcher 

Get married

Have a family

Buy a house

Adopt a pet

Visit a Disney Theme park

Attend a winter Olympic event (preferably curling for obvious reasons)

Mentor someone

Get a manicure and a pedicure (Birthday Present from Shari, November 2013)

Visit an aquarium (Vancouver Aquarium February 2014)

Teach my niece a skill I have (bowling comes to mind)

Explore Europe

This list will continue to grow.  As will my dreams, my aspirations, my future, and desire to live the fullest life possible. 

The GREs are not the be all and end all.

I don't think there's any amount of words to explain the relief I am feeling right now.  For one thing, my back no longer feels like it's breaking because I no longer have the Princeton Review GRE Guide lugging around with me everything I go.  I have also set my flashcards on my bookshelf and will no longer be trying to integrate words like "laud" and "gregarious" into my vocab anymore.  I have a huge sense of relief lifted off my shoulders.

The GREs were without a doubt one of my biggest things holding me back from wanting to go to graduate school.  The pressure that I put on myself to be perfect or to be the 80 + student is ridiculous even in my eyes.  The thing with the GREs is you cannot be perfect.  From the time I picked up a book to study to the time I hit "submit scores" I knew my score was not going to be perfect.  At the same time, I wanted to be above the norm.  I wanted to stand out and make my application shine like nobody's business.

But the thing is, as time went on and I did practice test after practice test not only from the ETS Powerprep software and from the Princeton review website I quickly realized I wasn't going to get these outstanding scores I wanted.  I was scoring a few points below the 50th percentile on all the tests I was taking and was growing more and more frustrated.  The thing with the GRE is you get yourself into a mind frame that if you don't do well on these it is the be all and end all of your grad school application.

This is not the case.  It is a portion.  All my applications require another four things to get me into grad school, and while GREs are a big part I still have:

My GPA: It's not the highest, and it's not the lowest.  In some cases, my GPA has made me cross a school off my potential list.  But I consider the overall mid B average and last year A average to be enough to hopefully get me in some where.

My Personal Statement: I have a passion to learn.  I am driven to give back to people and to help them and to change the place that we live in.  There's more than this to my personal statement, but this will be where I shine on my applications because it's a chance for me to show them this is where I come from, this is where I am, and this is where I want to go.

My CV: I have an outstanding CV.  With work and volunteer experience, I'm able to show my future schools what I've done to make myself stand out.  And

My References:  Every person I've emailed to be a reference has been the upmost supportive individuals.  I've given the warning that they could have to write up to ten, and this doesn't turn them away.  These are people who have watched me grow.  At least two of them have seen me at my worst, and all three of them have built me up to be an amazing person.  They know my potential.  They've seen me work my ass off and know that I have the ability to think things through logically.  They believe in me and that my friends, is what has managed to get me this far in the application process.  They tell me to go for my dreams, to get out and travel, to take the opportunity to go to the states and pack my bags.  None of them have held me back, they haven't told me where to apply to or where not to, they've listened to everything I've had to say about grad schools. And that, is A LOT.

The GREs took me a little under four hours to write.  I came out of the room with my eyes watering from staring at a computer screen so long and the biggest craving for pasta.  I looked at my phone to see encouraging messages from peers and mentors.  While I didn't have outstanding scores (152 Verbal and 146 Quantitative, waiting for analytical and these are tentative), I'm proud of them.  My friends and peers and mentors are proud of them.  And while I try not to value myself based off a score I'm holding my head high and screaming I'M AVERAGE.  Because with this under my belt, I feel like I am unstoppable in applying to grad school.