[image not mine — found on Facebook]

Technically, that “tomorrow” is today, but I liked the idea of having my first 2015 blog post feature a picture of books.

In the spirit of my winter break project to brush up on German — Frohes neues Jahr! 

One of my yearly goals is to do least 1-2 new things per year that are outside of my comfort zone. This originated around sophomore year when I realized that I’d grown the most from experiences that were initially very uncomfortable. Last year, I trained 8 hours a week during the Spring 2014 semester to become a fully certified volunteer for a peer counseling/referral hotline at Rutgers. It was one of the most eye-opening experiences I’ve had as an undergraduate. I learned more about active listening and how to sit down for a while with someone who is in a dark place (battling the usual instinct to try to grasp at something more positive and avoiding those feelings), mental health, suicide intervention techniques, conversational skills, and LGBTQ advocacy.  My training class was also full of inspirational people with diverse backgrounds that I would have never met otherwise.

My new 30-day challenge this year will be to do something that I’m bad at for 15 minutes a day, so I drew a “card” below to email as a New Year’s greeting. Drawing has been one of my most hated activities since elementary school — the teacher regularly ripped my work out of my hands, threw it in the trash, and yelled at me to start over. (In hindsight, I wonder why she took a job as an art teacher for K-5 students? Oh well)  After years of avoiding anything that required a whit of artistic ability, I’m happy with the result:

 (sidetrack: funny Quora thread about what it’s like to hug a penguin. Basically, don’t do it).