My Juggling Career: Stage 1

I've decided that I want to be professional juggler. After spending almost my entire life in school and dedicating the last four years of my life towards obtaining a degree - I feel as if this is what my true path in life is. Wait. I should probably explain myself. By 'professional juggler' I mean that I want to did my hat into as many possibly rings in life. I want to try to experience as many different things as I can in order to become a well-rounded person. I want to juggle as many things as I can. To a certain extent at least.

This past year was my first attempt at trying that. Just as a little background information, the Fall 2016/Spring 2017 school year was my senior year. During the summer of 2016 I dealt with quite a lot. I decided that it would be a good idea to take four online summer classes, work 20+ hours a week at a printing/shipping store, work on campus and study abroad for three weeks. On top of all that I also was dealing with quite the mental-load too, as I went through a not-so-pretty breakup and having two grandparents in the hospital last summer. To say the least - I was juggling a lot. You'd think I would have gotten a little bit better at handling multiple things at once.

When the school year officially started I tried to continue to work two jobs and dedicate 20+ hours a week toward them. However I quickly realized that this just wasn't going to work. I had to leave my printing job in favor of my on-campus activities. I worked in the Office of Transfer Services as a Transfer Student Mentor helping incoming students with their transitions. I also was dedicating around 6 hours of my week towards the Emerging Leaders program as a coordinator. This was also the first semester that I was an officer for the Transfer Student Organization. A few weeks into this semester my grades were beginning to fall and I began to panic. Big time.

This led me to the next stage of my professional juggling career: counseling. I cannot stress how much this stage helped me. I wasn't in a good place last semester. I was over-stretching myself with my on-campus activities and jobs. The breakup from the summer seemed to last months and became more than just a romantic breakup, but also a friend-breakup. I had put my had into many different rings and I wasn't a happy person. It seemed as if the professional juggler life just wasn't for me. Counseling is what helped me handle (and juggle) my juggling dilemma. I utilized eight of my allotted ten counseling sessions for the year in one semester. There was a scheduled weekly appointment and I got to know my counselor well. And slowly I could feel myself getting back to normal. It only took a semester.

Over winter break I was able to spend a month doing absolutely nothing, which was something I needed desperately. If I wanted my juggling career to survive I needed to spend a month sat home watching Netflix and baking cupcakes. It was a literal reboot for me. This was Stage 1 of my final year. Stage 1 of my entry into adulthood and post-graduation.