When I was making my list initially, there were several items that had a very clear start and end. Once you're in the water with a dolphin, you have officially swam with dolphins. Once you're up in the air with a balloon attached to your back, you have officially gone parasailing. But what happens when you've started working on an item that doesn't really ever have a defined end? What if you attempt to complete an item and it either gets foiled or isn't what you expected? Do these things count against my list? I haven't decided, but for the sake of it, I want to call these things out and report on the progress I did make (or tried to make).
#17: Learn to Ballroom Dance
If someone walked up to me and asked if I knew how to ballroom dance, I don't think I could say yes with a straight face, but I did take private and group lessons over a span of almost a year while I was still living in Orlando. I have a pair of Latin shoes, a series of DVDs and can perform the basic steps of things like the quickstep, tango and waltz, thanks to Mr. Mark Arnott. My original goal was to become good enough at ballroom dancing that I could go to a competition (and potentially win), but finances and moving just got in the way, and ballroom lessons are WAY too expensive up here in Philly for me to keep the learning going.
#21: Learn a Second Language
I'm a bit embarrassed on this one because I spent $500 on Rosetta Stone software and I have certainly not used it as much as I should have. Two years later and I speak a LITTLE French, but not nearly enough to have a sustainable conversation with a person who speaks fluent French. I think part of it is that I have to admit to myself that I just don't have a brain for languages. That's not to say that I can't or couldn't pick up a second language, but more that if I really want to learn one, I have to focus significant effort on it and practice over the long term. Right now there are so many competing priorities in life that this isn't one of them, but at least my Rosetta Stone license doesn't go away and so far what I have learned has stuck with me pretty well.
#1: Play a round of paintball, #3: Watch turtles hatch and #7: Be a member in the audience of a TV show
Two years ago, my friends Aynsley and Meredith gave me an "IOU" for a round of paintball as a group gift for my birthday, and the cosmos have just collided such that it's never happened. First Meredith got pregnant (which is great news, so I hope this isn't reading like I'm complaining!), then Aynsley moved much farther away. Then I left Florida and Aynsley got pregnant, and lo and behold, it may be several years yet before the three of us can actually get together to make this happen.
As far as the turtles go, I partly blame myself for having poor planning skills, but partly blame Mother nature, too. When my friends Kaitlyn, Anna and I booked a weekend beach vacation at Disney's Vero Beach Resort, we did it in June specifically because we knew that was the time of year when loggerhead sea turtle eggs typically hatched. Little did I know that you can't just walk around the beach on your own looking for these little guys, but you actually have to go with a guide, and clearly these nighttime beach walks were a heck of a lot more popular than I expected, because they had all been booked solid upon our arrival. Then Mother nature released storm after storm while we were there, which had we booked a walk, may have meant its cancellation regardless. Plan foiled.
Finally, I have been trying to get tickets to be in the audience of a TV show for THREE YEARS now. I applied for The View, Ellen DeGeneres, SNL, etc. and would have traveled to New York or LA or wherever had I gotten tickets for ANY month, but nothing. I probably could have made my NYC friends get up at the crack of dawn to stand at the Today Show courtyard, but felt too guilty making the request of them. And then when my friend Dana and I bought tickets for The Price is Right Live in Lakeland, we expected a close replica to our favorite game show and thought maybe that could suffice as my "TV show." But it was a cheesy, sort of scam-like experience that left us feeling pretty empty, so it was clear that night that I couldn't really check that item off my list either.
#10: Solve a Rubik's Cube
Before I left Florida, my friend Christina ever kindly donated her Rubik's Cube to me, and ever since then I have been trying my damned hardest to solve the thing. And no, I haven't been sitting around fiddling with it and hoping it would solve itself, I have been actively using tutorials, algorithms and so-called Rubik's Cube "hacks" to try and get this thing completed. But I am failing. I can get the first layer complete and then all the tutorials lose me and I wind up screwing up everything I accomplished and having to start from scratch. I knew from the start that my lack of spatial intelligence would probably make this one challenging, but I figured there had to be some sort of easy cheat I could use to be able to cross this one off the list. Not so. I'm not 100% giving up, but this "thing" sure as heck has become more frustrating than fun at this point!
So what do you think? Do we count these 6 as complete or incomplete? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
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