Monday, August 18, 2014

Summer 2014 Review

This has been the first summer in two years that has actually been a proper "summer break". Last summer, I was in summer school. The year before that, I was training 20 hours a week and taking SAT practice tests in my spare time. Lame, right?

So, approaching this summer break, I knew I wanted to go all out and do everything I've been wanting to do for two years in just three months. To give you an idea of how utterly desperate I was for a break, I starting planning summer break activities probably back in October of last year. Anyway, here are the things I did, in order, ranked from most fun to less fun, but still fun. 

1. Read the Harry Potter series
This is no joke the most fun thing I've at least done in a very long time. Before reading the books, I had the common preconceived notion about Harry Potter books: they were about magic and witches and wizards, and all of that was odd and probably something I would never care about. But it turns out that the magic is just "there" as a medium of sorts to convey the actual underlying story, which is not really about magic at all. I don't think I've ever read a book series that captivated me as wholeheartedly as this one did. Heck, I even bought Harry Potter clothes. Take that, The Hunger Games (disclaimer: I still really like The Hunger Games; it's just not as good as Harry Potter). 

2. Watch every movie I've wanted to watch for two years
Two years is a long time to virtually go without seeing any movies. Therefore, I had a ridiculously long list of movies I wanted to watch, and I'm both proud and a little ashamed that I've been able to watch all 30 or so movies. They ranged from all of the Harry Potter movies (of course) to practically all of the Oscar-nominated films this year, as well as as some old classics, such as Titanic (my new favorite movie) and The Matrix. 

3. Buy new clothes
These days, I sometimes take a look at my closet and realize that at least a fourth of the clothes in there were not there before the summer started. In a good way, I was too busy to go shopping during the school year. But this summer has been a prime opportunity to support the economy through my impulsiveness. Working at the mall didn't really helped my bank account, but then again, I would not have been able to take advantage of all the sales and amazing deals I got on clothes if I hadn't been there almost every day. Also, ironically enough, I found most of the clothes in the store I worked in to be completely unappealing, yet I managed to still spend quite a bit of money there on stuff I did like. Anyway, I try to make myself feel better about it all with the fact that I honestly don't feel like shopping much at all--or at least, not for a while. Give me a few months.

4. Spending days doing absolutely nothing
When summer break began and I occasionally spent days doing nothing at all, I really beat myself up over it. Basically, I was so used to always needing to be productive that I didn't want to let myself relax. I'm still sort of like that, but I've really enjoyed the days that I didn't really do anything at all. It is an excellent way to recharge.

5. Working
Like I said, I'm the kind of person who always needs something to do because I hate boredom. Working about 15 hours per week gave me something to do, while at the same time giving me nothing to do for a lot of the time (does that even make sense?). While the job was very stressful sometimes, other times it was a lot of fun, and that was mostly because of the customers and my coworkers. I think I will genuinely miss going off to work and feeling like I'm making a small contribution to the world.

I would give this summer 9 stars out of 10. My only complaint is that I didn't do absolutely everything I wanted to do, but then again, when does anyone ever do that?

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