Summer of 3rd year is quite possibly my last summer vacation ever. Or at least until I retire or strike it rich. When will I ever get four months of no responsibilities and a casual return to the usual in September again? Maybe if I take more than 4 years to graduate. (Which is likely too actually…) To try and not regret the following months, I’ve started a list of stuff I want to do before the summer ends.
- Dye my hair something not brown:, blonde or red: because someday a wacky hair colour might stand between me and a job
- Master parallel parking: I have my N but I still can’t really do this
- Drive on the highway (after the parallel parking mastering)
- Write a song
- Go on a short distance trip: likely Seattle or Banff
- Watch a band play live, maybe an indie show would be cool
- Watch the new Batman movie
- Watch the new Spiderman movie
- Watch at least two movies on my IMDB watchlist outside of the two above mentioned movies
- Travel somewhere farther away for over a week, or however long I can take work off
- Go hiking
- Play basketball
- Make a creative contribution at work
- Read a book
- Then read another book
- Learn to read and write 100 Chinese characters
- Lose 5 pounds, or alternative: get fit
So the items aren’t anything seriously epic, but it’s a start.
There was actually a lot of contemplation done before deciding what to do this summer. School? Work? Full time or part time? Paid or un-paid? Travel?
Summer of 3rd year is a chance to make sure you graduate in 4 years, if that is your goal. Third year is a great time to get an internship too. What with the fear of an empty resume next spring and the many opportunities to leverage our student status for a real foot in the door somewhere.
I think getting an internship would have been the smarter choice for my future. I ended up disregarding that. I’ve taken summer school every year since grade 8, except grade 12. I worked/volunteered at the same time for most of those summers. I don’t regret any of those summers at all, but taking a summer to just be a kid again is the choice I felt I needed to pick. Many internships are full time all summer long, so travelling for something like two weeks would be out of the question. Maybe I’m just a fool who has fallen to short-sighted temptations. Hope I don’t regret it!