Another Milestone

I just authorized the payment that will bring my student loans under the $10,000 mark. Sure, it won't go through for a couple of days, but I'm still going to celebrate. Yippee!!

In the year that I've been paying them off, I've managed to pay out over $5,000. Granted, some of that was with a little help from my parents (a year-end gift that they gave to each of my siblings which, for me, naturally went towards my first student loan payments), but the majority of it was me pinching pennies and putting 40% of my paycheck towards loan payments. And if the trend continues, and I continue to remain employed for the majority of the year, I have every hope that I will be able to get these paid off within a couple years, and that is a heartening thought.

As for other milestones, I'd like to talk about goals for a moment. I like to have goals for my seasons before I get going in them. This season I have 3 main goals:

1. Amp up my hiking mileage and try to get out with my backpack a bit more. This means that I want to work on hiking farther at a go than normal - I did lots of 4-8 mile hikes on a regular basis at Big Bend; now I want to start making 8-14 more of the norm, and even put some 14-20 milers in there. And I want to use my backpack and camp out. I only used it once last year (that fun time with my Tucson friend in the Superstition Mountains) and that barely warrants it the space that it takes up in my well-tetrised car. I'd like to try and get out with my backpack at least once a month, at least for a one night trip.
2. Create a social life outside of Bodie. I've decided that I've spent too much of my time in town. I need to get out more, meet people in the neighboring towns, and do things with them! It'd be healthier for me to have other social circles than just the dozen or so people I work with every day, and I don't want a repeat of any of the craziness that went down last season. No, this season: I'm going to get out more.
3. Read, a lot. Last year, of my half dozen or so books that I lugged across the country, I only read a handful of them. At Big Bend, I had one book that I was halfway through when I arrived which I didn't finish until after I left. Where does all my spare time go? A lot of it went to fun activities, yes, but a large part of it was wasted on the computer. No bueno. I've decided to try and spend more of my free time reading this season, and so far I've already read one book (Old Murders Never Die - a cheesy, poorly written murder mystery that took place in a ghost town, which made it a fun read) and listened to another (The Hunger Games!) on tape. I even got a library card and picked up a few books there. My currently cracked spine is the Big Bend favorite "The Secret Knowledge of Water" by Craig Childs. I'm two chapters in, and I highly recommend it. So I'll try to keep you guys tuned in to what I'm reading and my running book total for the summer. Summer reading club... it's like I'm a kid again. :)

So there they are in writing: my goals for the season. I'll be sure to check in here and evaluate how I'm doing as time goes by. And in case you missed it, my mailing address was in my last post, so you should check that out if you want to send me anything for some reason. But for now I think I ought to sign off - it's getting dark and I want to read some more of Childs' book before I go to bed. I've had enough computing for the evening as it is!

Until next time...