Day Zero Project

Let it be known that I stole this idea from my dear friend, Jenee, who poked and prodded me to complete a Day Zero Project list. 

I love to be an active participant in this thing called "life."  It is rare that anyone will find me idle.  Most of the time I am insanely busy running from one place to the next, helping people, completing tasks, making more tasks for myself- you get the idea.  Despite my filling every hour of the day, I constantly feel bored, or worse, unaccomplished.  Then I thought that, perhaps, its because I haven't been working towards a single, profound "goal(s)" of my own.  My daily tasks tend to focus on the needs of others more than myself.  Rather than letting "myself" and my needs sit by the wayside, I opted to do the Day Zero Project in order to focus on the things that I want to accomplish. 

The Day Zero Project is simple enough.  You create a list of 101 things that you want to do in 1001 days.  While most people will think that creating a list of 101 things to do is easy, I found it rather difficult to do.  Not that I don't have 101 things that need to be accomplished, but I wanted a list that would contain meaningful tasks, along with obligatory ones, that would make me feel like I've conqured something.  This is why I spent the past week creating this list.  I've broken down the list into several catergories.

For Personal Benefit:
1.Read "The Secret"
2.Walk a 5K
3.Identify 10 things that will make me happy. COMPLETED 5/23/2012
4. Write a poem.
5. Do yoga every day for a month (In Progress)
6. Do the best Ramadan fast.
7. Learn Quantum Theory
8. Get my credit in order
9. Learn Arabic
10. Get a hang on Ottoman Turkish
11. Brush up on my Romanian
12. Tell my family that I love them every day for a month.
13. Spend a fun filled day with my siblings (each one!)
14. Fit into my old jeans.
15. Finish the couch to 5K program. (walking or running)
16. Learn natural remedies to my most common ailments.
17. Lose 5lbs (In Progress)
18. Get in touch with my Sufi side.
19. Start a blog and keep it. (In Progress)
20. Finish the scrapbooks I started two years ago.
21. Get my motorcycle liscense. (In Progress)
22. Sketch every day for a week.
23. Start a seperate savings account and keep it.
24. Blog about the teaching process in the blog I'll create. (In Progress)
25. Brush up on my Greek.
26. Get out on my own.
27. Accomplish everything I want to do in one day without procrastinating
28. Clear my closet and dresser of clothes I don't use anymore.
29. Learn to mend socks with holes.
30. Save $10 for every task I complete. (to go in the seperate saving's account I'm opening.)
31. Eat at home every day for a month.
32. Make my own granola bars
33. Expand my vocabulary by 100 words. (In Progress)
34. Don't complain about anything for a whole week.
35. Get "tech free" (aside from the phone calls) for a 24 hour period once a season. (thus 4xs a year.)
36. Tell my mom and dad how much I love spending time with them.

To Benefit the World:
1.Bring awareness to the rape plight in Haiti by doing something about it.
2.Create/Support a charity to teach women self defense in Egypt and Haiti.
3.Set up my Charity project for the 5K that I'm walking in September. (And, if possible, get friends in on it!)
4. Stop using plastic bags.
5. Make my life 75% "green"
6. Get gram and pap's history to the Holocaust Museum
7. Inspire my students to reach for their academic goals.
8. Do volunteer work once every 3 months. (I'm thinking at the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council)
9. Put change in someone's expired parking meter.

Academic/Career Goals:
1. Apply and get into a PhD program.
2. Apply for the Fulbright Scholarship
3. Finish my teaching article for the Middle Ground.
4. Finish my Spanish article proposal. COMPLETED 5/25/12
5. Finish my "8-hour work day" encyclopedia proposal. (In Progress)
6. Survive my first day of teaching.
7. Make the best syllabuses for my classes. (In Progress.)
8. Email profs around the globe to find my perfect PhD match.
9. Present at Naz
10. Find/make a list of grants that fit my research.
11. Get a better grade on the GRE
12. Take a physics course.
13. Write a paper connecting quantum theory with mysticism.
14. Learn Indian History (In Progress)
15. Write a guest post for the Eleventh Stack Blog.
16. Create an academic portfolio. COMPLETED  5/31/2012
17. Type up my first month's worth of lecture notes before August 1.
18. Work at MW library at least one shift.
19. Make a list of PhD programs to apply to. (In Progress)
20. Learn Asian History
21. Complete my next writing project 3 days before it is due. (In Progress)

For Shits and Giggles:
1. Read the Prose Edda COMPLETED 5/11/12
2.Make my own bread supply for a month.
3.Write a letter to myself to read when the 1001 days are over. (In Progress)
4. Fit into my bridesmaid dress. COMPLETED 5/15/12
5. Rediscover my love for Cetacean-ology and Marine Biology
6. Go dancing
7. Go campling.
8. Go back to Europe.
9. Make my own perfume.
10. Feed my inner physicist.
11. Catch up on Downton Abby.
12. Spend quality time with my cat (20 minutes a day) for a week.
13. Read Rumi's Masnavari
14. Read The Handmaiden's Tale
15. Learn to cook Polish sweetbread.
16. Make pork free gaulompkis (pig's in a blanket).
17. Make a recipe for a healthy nut roll.
18. Finish the journal I started 3 years ago.
19. Belly dance every day (20 minutes a day) for a month.
20. Knit Fou's blanket.
21. Clean out two boxes of stuff that I don't need.
22. Finish Willow's blanket.
23. Brush up on my grammar. (In Progress)
24. Make an iTunes playlist of my favorite 101 songs.
25. Go to a planetarium.
26. Create an inspiration board.
27. Do a "Good Reads" book challenge.
28. Watch the sunrise and sunset in the same day.
29. Leave an inspirational note in a book for someone else to find.
30. Write to my local paper.
31. Watch true blood to see what all the fuss is about.
32. Go to a concert.
33. Go to a jazz club.
34. Spend a day sketching at the zoo.
35. Answer the "50 Questions that will Free Your Mind."