Mini-Goals Update

This January, I am finding myself really, really missing the beginning of last semester. At that point, I could safely finish most of my homework within about 8-10 hours every Sunday and be caught up and ready to go for class on Monday.


Not so much this semester. I just finished my homework to-do list to get me through February 1; it has 19 items, including several hundred pages of reading, a few papers and some assignments that I don't even know how to do yet. This is unfortunately seriously cutting into my time for working on my other goals. While I knew this was a possibility with taking two classes, I have to say the workload for one class in particular is really surprising me. I was expecting it to be more similar to my homework load from last semester, and I'm instead finding it to be double or triple the time, even putting in less quality work. So, here comes my update!

1. Weight loss: utter fail. At this point, I'm just hoping to make it through January without gaining any weight. Between the stress and the fact that my routine has pretty much consisted of going to work, doing homework from 5:30 until midnight, sleeping and then repeating, I have not been eating well or exercising. I got in 2 days of walking this week (while doing my readings for class) and even those were a test of my motivation.
2. Stay caught up in my classes: This is, so far at least, not a complete failure. I'm certainly not ahead like I was hoping to be, but I'm not behind quite yet. We'll see where the next few weeks take me, as I have a HUGE assignment due in one class during the first full week of February.
3. Cross two more things off my list: Done. I'd love to repeat this goal in February, but I'm not sure it is something that will be do-able.
4. Get caught up at work. My forums are this week! For the moment I am about as caught up as I get. I still have tons of things that need to be done, but I don't believe I have anyone holding their breath on what I get done at this point. Of course, that could change tomorrow, but I'm trying to keep things under control as much as possible.
5. Stick to my new budget. I have actually been doing all right on this goal, which surprises me. By cutting way down on going out to eat and on my grocery bill, I've actually cut down on my spending quite a bit. Next month will be more of a challenge, as Henry's birthday is coming up at the end of the month, my youngest nephew's birthday is at the beginning of March, and the tabs for my car will be coming due.
6. Make sasparilla: Done. It's not quite as tasty as I was hoping for, but it was an interesting experiment.

I'm starting to get a bit less stressed about this semester this week. Part of it is probably just me adjusting to the lack of time to myself, but part of it is also probably that I took a few more hours for myself this weekend. I know I'm not going to be able to keep this pace up for four months, though, so I'm really hoping that things start to slow down after my first huge assignment is due in February. While I told my friends I wasn't planning on being able to see them until the semester ended in May, I don't think I really believed it, and I'm already of having to turn people down who want to see me because I need to spend yet another Friday night or Saturday on homework.