Amanda's bucket list

Friday, May 4, 2012

Alice's Bucket list

Hi readers! Today, instead of blogging about one of my own bucket list topics I want to encourage you to check out some other bucket lists as well! I would like to focus on Alice's Bucket List, which you can get to at: alicepyne.blogspot.com

Alice is a 16 year old girl with terminal cancer. Her blog has been getting a lot of buzz lately after it became a trending topic on twitter. Even before all the hype I followed Alice's blog and I hope you all will as well!

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Ink my whole body

7. Get A Tattoo

Ink my whole body might be a little drastic...as of right now there is only one tattoo that I am sure I want. I feel as though if I am going to permanently brand myself it has to be something I have put an immense amount of thought into and something that has personal meaning to me.

After much thought and consideration I have decided that, as soon as I get up the confidence, I will be getting a sand dollar and starfish, interconnected, with the words Let It Be, on my right foot. I would go right now if i could...but I'm not the biggest fan of pain :(

I came to my decision because my cousin Amy got a similar tattoo on her side...Amy, myself and our moms were going to go get matching tattoos one night when I was 17 and Amy was the only one that went through with it. She ended up taking my idea of the sand dollar and starfish and getting a simpler version of it.

I like the phrase "Let it be" because that tends to be my attitude towards life. I do not like complicating things or making problems..I would personally just rather forgive and move on rather than go out of my way to hold grudges or get involved in things that don't concern me. I like the easy living and keeping things peaceful and I think this tattoo would portray this part of me.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Carnival- Rio de Janeiro style

6. Attend Carnival in Rio de Janeiro

I have heard numerous stories about how exciting Carnival is in Brazil. After taking a World Music class where we learned all about Samba and the festivities that go along with it, I decided that I would have to attend it myself at some point in life.

For those of you who live under a rock and don't know what Carnival is it is a 4 day celebration, 40 days before Easter, filled with wild festivities, music, costumes and food. Rio Carnival is the biggest in the world! Parades of musicians, drag queens, animals and entertainers walk the streets and from the pictures I have seen, Brazil just comes to life.

Being around all of the magnificent costumes and floats and hearing the music that just can automatically put everyone in a good mood just seems like the ideal celebration to me! I feel like attending Carnival in Brazil would be a moment I would never forget.

This is small sample of the Carnaval samba parade in Rio de Janeiro. It covers one out of the 14 parades to happen during two days and flashes of some of the other 13 parades.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Famous

5. Get noticed by a celebrity

So this is a pretty common dream for a lot of people...I want to meet a celebrity and actually have them remember me/enjoy talking to me. It's kinda shallow and I understand that celebs are just ordinary people but how cool would it be to meet Justin Timberlake or Rachel Mcadams and have an in-depth conversation with them? It would be a great story. I don't want to meet just regular celebrities, I want to meet ones that make a difference and do positive things with their power and money. Famous people have a lot of influence and I want to help encourage them to do good things with that power.

Artists like Justin Timberlake have organizations and charities that sponsor sick children in the US and other countries, hospitals in their names, benefit concerts and countless other foundations. I think that is a really excellent use of their money. Some examples would be:

Justin Timberlake has supported the following charities:

Read more: http://www.looktothestars.org/celebrity/99-justin-timberlake#ixzz1qWOpjIPk

If i'm ever fortunate to have a lot of money like these celebrities I would absolutely make a foundation to help out those less fortunate than me.

Just for fun, these are the celebrities I have actually met!

Adam Sandler

Leighton Meester

Jason Derulo

Andy Samberg

Pauly D

Friday, March 9, 2012

Boston Girl

4. Attend a game of EVERY Boston Sports Team

I thought I would take a break from blogging about traveling and talk about a personal goal that should be relatively easy to accomplish. Being from Cape Cod, I am a HUGE fan of Boston sports: Celtics, Bruins, Patriots, Red Sox etc. One year I would like to attend at least one game of every sport, with amazing seats and an equally amazing game. I want to challenge myself a little so I'll only count the games that we win. So, I will attend at least one winning game for all of my favorite sports teams.

My family has been diehard Sox fans since I can remember. We have a room in my house dedicated to Red Sox memorabilia that my parents have collected over the years like signed bats, balls, jerseys and pictures. We have a nice big screen TV where my whole family would gather and watch the games, decked out in all of our Boston gear. I have been to my share of Red Sox games and enjoyed every experience I have had at Fenway. The experience isn't the same unless I'm devouring a Fenway Frank and singing Sweet Caroline with my fellow baseball fans. I couldn't ask for anything better.

My second favorite Boston team to go see would have to be the Celtics. My first game was on my 16th birthday with my dad. I got him tickets for christmas and the game conveniently happened to be on my birthday so he was kind of obligated to take me... :) Although our seats weren't exactly ideal they also weren't awful and I had a really great time. It was the highest scoring game of the season and everyone was going crazy as the game went into OT. The best part of the game would have to be the fight that a fan for the opposing team sitting a few rows ahead of me got into with Lucky, the Celtics mascot. Lucky sprayed the fan with silly string after a play that clearly upset the fan, which didn't exactly make matters any better. He charged at the Mascot and tackled him in the crowd and wrestled the can out of his hand. Being a solid 15 or 20 feet away from this, I was a little nervous as to what would happen, definitely entertained by the whole thing, but mostly annoyed because they were blocking my view of the game which was just starting to pick up.

My second Celtics game experience was with my best friend, Sam. We had second row seats, right behind the bench. It was amazing. I got autographs from Jon Wall and took pictures with him and other players. The highlight of my night was getting to touch Rondo, my favorite player whose jersey I was wearing, and getting to wish him luck in a game that he dominated in. I have no problem assuming that he did so well because I told him to ;)

Unfortunately I have yet to attend a Bruins or Patriots game but that will hopefully change soon enough! I hope to attend multiple winning games for each team:)

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Hike the Appalachian Trail

3. Hike the Appalachian Trail

It's going to become pretty clear that most of my Bucket List item's involve some travel. One of my biggest goals is to travel. I don't care where, just get me out of my little town on the Cape.

So! The Appalachian Trail. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the trail is a 2,181 mile footpath that passes through 14 states including: Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, NewYork, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Typically it takes 5-7 months to complete the entire trail..meaning I'll have to be successful enough in life to have 5-7 months to spare..HERE'S HOPING!

My brother, Timmy, hiked the entire trail a few years ago. He grew a mountain man beard and would meet up with my family and I in different states and update us on how his hike was doing. I wasn't a huge fan of the beard, but I loved his stories. He met so many interesting people and learned so much about nature and the environment. By day he would hike for hours and keep a journal about everything he saw and by night he would stay in hostels or camp out. I think it was a really great experience for him and I would love to try it out.

When I met up with my brother in New Hampshire he took me with him to hike part of Mount Washington, the highest point of the Appalachian trail, north of Tennessee. I have a condo right across from the mountain so it wasn't my first time hiking Mt. Washington but it was the highest distance I had gone up. It was really rocky and steep, but I loved it. I hate the feeling of being on a planned out trail with no difficulty at all. Although the AT is mapped out it's not close to being just a warn out path that easy to follow. I love a challenge, which is why I think hiking the AT would be a good experience for me.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Dean's List

Woops, been slacking on my blogging game, sorry! But I'm back now and ready to add to my bucket list. My next entry won't apply to everyone and it's not as exciting as traveling to Australia but it is a personal goal of mine.

2. Making the Dean's List

My goal for second semester, and all of my following semesters, is to make the Dean's list. To do this, I must get a GPA of 3.3 or higher. In reality it shouldn't be too hard as long as I stay focused. I was .2 points off this semester from making the Dean's list, which motivates me even more to do better this semester. This might seem like a silly thing to add to a bucket list but recently, academics have become really important to me.

Here's why:

In high school I wasn't a genius by any stretch of the imagination, but I was bright and typically I didn't like to do things half-assed. But at the same time I was also lazy, a professional procrastinator, and a really great BSer. This is how I survived-- I got decent grades and the teachers liked me, but I almost always could have done better. The came Junior year, also known as "THE MOST IMPORTANT YEAR OF YOUR HIGH SCHOOL CAREER," as my parents liked to remind me daily. This is when you're grades have to be really great because those are the grades that will either make or break your future. Those are the grades colleges look at. And those were the grades I failed at miserably. I feel like everyone goes through that rebellious phase where they do stupid stuff, make friends that are bad influences, and ultimately screw up and piss their parents off. I wasn't lying when I said I don't do things half-assed... I screwed up my Junior year so bad that my parents used to joke that I wouldn't even be accepted to community college. But when I realized that I was messing with my future, I got back on course. I got all my grades up, wrote really great college essays, and had my guidance counselor explain in her letter of recommendation that I was a good student who went through a rough stage at the wrong time. I was accepted to every college I applied to and that's when I realized how important academics really are.

I know I'm smart, I just need to apply myself. And I feel as though if I succeed in making Dean's list once, I will have the motivation to make the list again in the years to come. I know I'm capable of it, but I need to prove it to myself and to my parents.

So to do this I figured I just need to follow the basic steps:

Prioritize: Aka get what is due, done. And on time.
Study: I've never been a huge studier but in college, you can't really pass any tests without studying so my new motto is study, study study!
Go to class: even if the class seems pointless, I need to go. Even my 8 am's. Which I hate.
Homework: I don't have much homework in my classes, so when I do have some it must be a pretty big deal. It would probably be in my best interest to do it, and do it well.

So I figure as long as those 4 things are accomplished, I have a pretty good chance of making the Dean's List and that's one more thing I can cross off my bucket list :)