The List

I am on vacation and it is brilliant. I don't have time or energy to really read during the school year, so I've already read 4 or 5 books in the last week since vacation had started. (They are all fictional books this time, so they're going by very quickly. Plus, the train rides between Jersey and NYC and the flights between NYC and Berlin have offered me plenty of sedentary time to read.) Geoff and I also had some opportunities to see some friends in the city, which has been really great. Eating two containers of Chicken and Rice by myself also didn't hurt. (This took me a couple of days, obviously. Geoff ate two of them himself. Yummmm.) We also ran into some old friends when we went swing dancing on Thursday, and that was really lovely as well. We dance a bit in Berlin and the scene is very friendly and pretty fun, but I miss the company of my dance friends in NYC.

I've been doing some self-reflection and realized that I always do things months after I say I am going to do them. It's pretty annoying to Geoff, who is super responsible.** But I guess it's at least somewhat better than people who say they will do something and then never do it, right?

For example, I had been thinking about taking private German lessons in the fall of last year. It was not until January of this year that I started actually doing private lessons. Now that I take lessons, it's hard to imagine that I didn't think it was of immediate importance sooner.

Another example: Last year I thought as soon as I had moved to Berlin that I needed to find a regular yoga studio, so that I could be motivated to keep practicing yoga. It was not until at least November or so, that I went to the studio for the first time. Another month or two passed before I started going with any sort of regularity.

With that in mind, here are some things that are idly on my plate (my thinking about them means that they are at least getting into the queue of things that need to be done, even if I won't get on them right away):

* Doing my 2011 U.S. taxes. sigh. I am pretty sure I'll end up filing an extension this year, unless I sit down tomorrow and miraculously all of the paperwork (German and Salvadoran) I need is already in one place and easy to locate.

* Transferring money over to my Roth IRA account. Of course, still for 2011. In my defense, I was trying to be "good" about this and I tried to transfer the money about a week ago online, but I had forgotten that Bank of America is now stricter about online transactions, so I had to physically walk into a bank and handle that. Now I have to follow up on the other side to make sure it actually went through and will be properly filed as 2011 contributions.

* Planning out my summer road trip through Asia. (I have officially bought roundtrip plane tickets, so at least I am fully committed to this now!) Usually, Geoff plans a good portion of our trips; I've got to step it up this time since it's a solo trip. Also, because I'll be traveling by train from country to country, I feel like there must be more logistics involved than our usual trips. Hence, I am encouraged to put it off.

* Looking into the possibility of going to Herrang Dance Camp this year. Herrang is the world's biggest swing dance camp, and it runs for all of July each year in Sweden; I've been wanting to go to this now for years. From when swing dancing was a serious passion of mine to now. I'd like to go because, heck, I now live a short hop away from Sweden. But, since we're getting some house guests at the end of June and then I'll be away traipsing through SE Asia for most of the summer, this seems to have taken a back seat both in terms of budget and time. Still, I feel that I owe it to myself to at least investigate the costs, as to totally rule it out and have no regrets.

* I'd really like to up my yoga practice to twice a week, since I suspect that my German meds help me retain extra water weight. I think I can succeed in upping yoga to twice a week next school year, because it involves my leaving school at a reasonable hour on a regular basis. But, I'd like to start this sooner, if possible. (I think it could be possible after I lose my batch of Grade 12's around IB exam time.)

* I'd like to see a knee doctor. I've been afraid of this for years, because as a kid (in high school) I had an injury, didn't have money to get it fixed, and since then I've had at least one weak knee. Doing aerials on it as a swing dancer certainly made it worse. Now I feel kind of like I'm a hair away from limping around everywhere. Geoff thinks I should get it looked at by a doc, since I am paying a lot of taxes to the German medical care system. I think that's a good idea but I am afraid. So, this goes on the list but isn't of high priority.

So, that's the list. It looks disastrous at second glance. I'll chip away at it soon, now that I've said the items out loud.

**I am lucky to have Geoff as a backseat wedding planner. He gives me reminders and deadlines and in general keeps me from putting things off. If the logistics were left to me, our wedding would not happen until we're retired.