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At my old school, we just did gymnastics and ate doughnuts all the time, but now I've got the chance for a fresh start and I am going to use the opportunity to just do better: better for my body and better for my personal growth. But, obviously still having fun in the mean time. I mean, I hear there's a kegger on Friday and I bet the cool kids will be there. 1. Homework -Do prescribed physical therapy exercises as they are recommended -Lift 3x per week I want to work on all sorts of fun things (start going to the ninja gym! back twisting on tumbletrak! back handspring series! take a circus class!) but need to get my shoulder straight first. Lifting can be done without compromising it, I am pretty sure, so I will take my PT recommendations in stride and keep trying to get workouts in in the mean time. 2. Bagged lunch -Track daily caloric intake for a few weeks -Only weigh once weekly -Stop tracking if I get weird or crazy about it I've got some new muscle (dude, my legs are insane this year) to show off and I want to lean out a bit for #croptopseason 3. Shut up and drive -Practice driving 4x -Possibly schedule road test, if cannot schedule road test before permit expires, plan to get a new permit Stop procrastinating and do the work. Schedule times to do this. 4. Stop being a slob -Floss at least 5x per week -Callus care at least 1x per week -Moisturize face at least 4x per week All of these are things I do with lighter frequency, so this should just be a nice step up towards doing more things for myself.

In which NTB reveals how obsessive she can be! I could probably also call this Operation Rangerbrain. A year or two ago, back before I joined NF, I filled out a spiral-bound notebook with an elaborate plan to better myself that I called Operation STOBAL, or Stop Being a Loser. At that point in my life, I really did feel down about where I was in a billion different areas of basic humaning. I have come a very long way since then. I can say pretty confidently that I have indeed stopped being / feeling like a loser. I went back several months ago and I was REALLY PLEASED at how much I'd done in every category, even though I was no longer filling out the log pages I'd set up. But there are still some pieces of the plan for me to tackle, and I've been wanting to close them out for a few challenges now. I REALLY liked my last challenge where I focused on just one goal, and I'm going to keep doing that for most challenges from now on, but I'm going to do this first. Once I've made enough headway into each category (and I don't expect to do EVERYTHING during this next month), I can officially close out Operation STOBAL and advance to my next self-improvement project (Project BEC - Be Even Cooler). ____ There were a bunch of categories in the original STOBAL plan, including exercise. I've got that one under control so I didn't include it here. 1. Driving I was a very late bloomer with learning to drive and being comfortable on the road. I've mastered most of my STOBAL driving goals (highways, driving at night, fear of parking garages, etc.), but I still need to learn how to parallel park. It's not even that I was BAD at it when I was learning to drive. It just wasn't on the CA test so I practiced it like twice and never did it again, so I need to figure out how to practice. I don't really want to practice on real cars?? Goal: Just figure out HOW to practice parallel parking. I don't even have to actually do it. 2. Cooking I can cook fairly well but I'm a big recipe follower. I really like the idea of learning more meals by heart. I've made some progress on this - I cook a MEAN chicken breast and can make a few things from memory, but I'd like to expand my list. Goal: Make sure I have a few things I know by heart (esp. a few things that don't require any special tools, so that I can cook them at my parents' when I'm there for 2 weeks in December) 3. Friends I suck at making friends as an adult. BUT I sort of made friends with someone in my aikido class, and I get out and socialize more than I used to. I make efforts to visit my college friends even though they rarely visit me. I've also gone to a bunch of different meetups this year. I've identified a few guidelines to stick to Don't approach encounters with new people too eager to make friends, just enjoy them for what they are Keep going to nerd meetups and especially game meetups Contact / text friends and family more often Goal: Contact friends I may be able to see in CA EARLY on the trip for once 4. Grooming I've always been kind of bad at / inattentive to looking nice, and it never bothered me much, but it's something I started to care about more a few years ago. I've made big strides - konmari'd my wardrobe, read some fashion blogs and started strategizing about what looks good on me, gotten in better shape, started going to a curly hair stylist and learned to manage my hair better, and gotten very slightly better at nail care. Slightly. So, I have two goals here. Goal: Learn 2 simple hairstyles that I can use for when my hair is messy (at least one for work) Goal: Just figure out how often people actually need to file their nails and then start doing it at that frequency. I have no idea?? 5. Reading It ebbs and flows, but I've been doing pretty well in past months. I hit my goodreads goal with flying colors! I still don't read as voraciously as I used to and I'd still like to make more headway on my unread books, but I'm pretty good about reading most nights. Goal: Read as many of those friggin' library books as a I can before I leave for CA, and then read regularly while I'm in CA 6. Writing I really enjoyed NaNoWriMo the few times I've participated, but I've also realized writing stories isn't my strength or my passion the way I kind of wish it were. I love reading, and writing can be fun sometimes, but I don't actually have the desire or a reason to try to write regularly. I did start journaling a while back, though I lost the habit (and a few months of entries) when my hard drive failed. So I didn't really achieve anything with this category, but I realized that it didn't need to be a category? Goal: journal at least 1x/week during challenge 7. Education I set this goal with career-related stuff and general ed-style stuff in mind. I took a Coursera MOOC and an online course I got my work to pay for, but that's about all. I've gotten less interested in reading career-related stuff. I realized I didn't actually want to do a lot of the things on my list for this category. But there are plenty of things I want to learn. I took an online cooking course! I am looking into swimming (running into schedule issues with travel). I study Aikido. I read nonfiction way more often than I used to (which was never). I've been studying French on Duolingo very consistently. Goal: Identify things I am actually interested in learning and read / plan to learn about them - fitness and food, Spanish/French/Japanese, fermenting food, chi running workshop, Adobe illustrator, etc. 8. Hobbies I started whittling but haven't spend a whole lot of time on it. Goal: Finish or make progress on a whittling project before going to CA (since I can't exactly bring knives on the plane) 9. Finances I'm doing awesome on financial goals and paying off my student loans / paying myself first, but I'm also getting too spendy with leftover funds and food. I stuck to a grocery budget better than usual as part of a recent challenge, but I did not do so well this past month. Goal: Try to get food costs under control - eat out of my freezer, buy cheap meats, etc. I'll be in CA for two weeks, which means fewer groceries but more eating out. So I'd like to just try to keep that balanced. Challenge Schedule

This will be my first 6 week challenge. I have been part of the Academy for the past month and have managed to drop a size in jeans already. Wanted to take part in the challenges over here too. I think it will greatly help. Main Quest: To live a healthier lifestyle My Goals: exercise at least 3 times a weekmax of a can of diet coke a dayadd one fruit or veg to at least 3 uni packed luncheslights out by 10pm on a uni nightLife Quest: To keep up to date with university workTo ask lectures for help if I need itMotivation: I want to be happier and comfortable with who I am. Stats: Height: 5ft1ish Weight:9st 6 or 132pounds on September 6th. Don't own scales at university Below are the main measurements I'm focusing on as well as pictures every month. Upper Body:31 inches Belly: 34 inches Hips: 35 inches I also have a lovely spreadsheet documenting my stats, diet and workouts