It’s the start of a new semester for Radford University students, and I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m ready to kick its butt. Last semester was a pretty good one for me. I was able to maintain my social life while still doing good in school. This semester won’t be any different. I’m motivated more than ever to finish out this last year and a half of college strong. While motivation is something that can keep yourself going and pushing through, I also believe setting clear-cut goals for yourself is another way to make sure you stay on track with what you want to achieve. Here are some of mine!

1. Maintain/increase my GPA

I finished out last semester strong with straight A’s….almost. If you ask most people six A’s and one A- is straight A’s, but if you ask me, I can do better. While my grades were pretty good that one A- bothers me, because I know it could’ve been a solid A. So this semester I have another chance at achieving it. I know I have good study habits; I just have to push myself a little bit more. I was almost there, and I know I can do it.

2. Get cast into more dance productions

I double major in media studies and dance, so this one is referring to my dance major. Radford’s dance department is great and provides us with a lot of performance opportunities. I was extremely happy to be casted in The Nutcracker last semester, and I am going to be in a fellow students Capstones this semester, but I want more. My goal is to be cast in our spring show Dancing on The Edge. But being a dancer, you know that you’re not going to get into everything you audition for. So although I really want to be in Dancing on the Edge I’m not going to be too hard on myself if I don’t get cast into it. There are also a lot of other shows to audition for, and I would be more than happy to be casted into one of those.

3. Continue going to the gym

We have this awesome new fitness center on campus that opened at the beginning of spring semester in 2015. My sophomore year, I was really good with going to the – I went almost every day. Last semester I didn’t necessarily fall off the wagon, I still went to the gym, but it just wasn’t every day. I want to get back to going at least five days a week. I did it before and I can do it again. When I go to the gym I usually stick to the elliptical or take this fun dance fitness class called Kaliente, but I’ve been trying to get more into weight lifting, and not just sticking to cardio. I know we have the equipment, but I’m just not that well versed with how to use it and what to do. Thankfully though we do have this class called BodyPump that’s essentially a weight lifting class. My friend and I took it, and I definitely felt the effects from it the next day. But as nice as the class is, I want to be able to lift weights on my own. So that is something I will be working toward this semester.

4. Making more memories with my friends/taking more pictures

I’m the type of person who finds staying in on the weekends and eating, to be a fun weekend. Thankfully, most of my friends feel the same way. Sure we go out to parties every now and then, but it’s January and who is trying to walk all the way to some frat party? Not me. This semester I hope we continue to all hangout and do what we do best. Which is staying in the same position for 6+ hours (probably longer) watching movies. Maybe we’ll move to get food maybe we won’t. Some of my friends know this but my goal for some years now is to watch all 8 Harry Potter movies in one sitting. That’s 19 hours and 33 minutes. I’ve tried many times and failed. I’m not saying that it's going to happen next semester, but it’s going to happen before I graduate. And my friends will be right there watching with me. I also want us to take more pictures. We hang out a lot, but you wouldn’t be able to tell that because we don’t take that many pictures with each other. There’s some, but we can do better.

5. Sleeping more

I have insomnia, but that’s no excuse for some of the (poor) decisions I made last semester. While there are times where I am just not tired, there have also been times where I was watching a show on Netflix and I kept saying to myself “just one more episode.” It was 3 a.m. one night and I was tired, but I just had to keep watching How to get Away With Murder. Needless to say, I had an 8 a.m. that morning, and I regretted my decision. The set time I usually have for being in bed is 12:00 a.m. But just because I’m in bed doesn’t mean that I’m going to go to sleep right away. What I usually do is: get in bed by 12ish and then scroll through my timeline on Twitter, my newsfeed on Facebook, and look at stories on Snapchat. By then it’s close to 1 a.m. I’m probably always going to check social media before I got to bed, that’s never going to change, but I think I should aim to be in bed by 11 p.m. instead of 12 a.m. It’s probably not going to happen every night, but it’s a start. I also have a terribly bad habit of taking naps in the middle of the day. And it has come to my attention that my idea of a nap, is different from other people’s ideas of nap. Some say that a nap is 45 minutes to an hour. I say a nap can be four hours. I have a scheduled nap time when I am at school and it is usually between the hours of 2-4 p.m. sometimes even later. I know, it’s bad. I want to change but I’m just so tired from staying up late and waking up early. And then I nap and stay up late and the cycle just repeats. I need to break the cycle. I’ll be trying to this semester.

6. Interning in NYC

If you know me, then you know it has been my dream since I was a kid to live and work in New York City. I wouldn’t be able to even describe the feeling if I were to be able to get an internship in NYC this summer. I want to make my dream a reality and with continued hard work I believe I will be able to do just that this summer. I’m going to be applying to tons of internships so watch out New York because here I come!!!

7. Stress less

Although my grades were pretty good last semester, I was extremely stressed out for the majority of it. Well, more like the first two months. Things starting calming down around the end of October/ Novemberish, but those beginning months were rough. I was unhappy and I wasn’t enjoying myself at school. I isolated myself from my friends and I was just a big ball of stress. Looking back, I put way too much pressure on myself. This semester I need to remember to take a chill pill and to just breathe sometimes.

8. Keeping my faith

Going off of that, I had to talk to God a lot last semester. There were times where I truly thought I wasn’t going to make it. I needed His help and His guidance. It was tough at times, but I believed in Him and I made it through. I want to continue building my relationship with God and leaning on Him for support, because I know I can count on Him to help me make it through.

So here’s to continuing to get good grades, getting cast in more dance productions, making memories with my friends, getting more sleep, saying no to stress, and keeping my faith. Have a successful semester everyone!