5 Most Difficult Tasks to Complete

#26: Complete the 5,000 question survey. My gosh, I didn't realize just how long a 5,000 question survey really is. I've completed under 200 so far. That means I have more than 4,800 to go!

#40: Get a permanent teaching job. Job searching sucks, it's hard to keep myself from getting down on myself when I apply for every job I can find that I'm certified for, and not get a single interview. Leading up to my student teaching, I was the last person of all the people I knew in the school of ed to get a placement, it was kind of disheartening, I didn't understand why no one wanted to work with me. So, it took a while, but I ended up in the classroom that was perfect for me. I keep telling myself that the same thing goes for my permanent job. My perfect classroom just hasn't opened up yet.

#72: Compliment a stranger, 10x. I've done this twice, so far. It's just not in my nature really to compliment people. I don't know why. But I get compliments from strangers on a semi-regular basis, mostly about my clothes or purses, so I put this item on my list to pay it forward. The first time, I had gotten multiple compliments on my dress and my shoes at a sub job, and so the next day I set out with the goal in mind that at some point, I was going to compliment a student on something. And I did. But generally, if I'm not specifically looking for something to compliment someone on, I don't think to. The second one, however, was more spontaneous. A girl at the food co-op with a cool hula hoop. We had a nice conversation about hula hoops, where she got hers, etc. I told her about the one my friend made me, which apartment neighbors threw out a few years ago. She told me that just means I get to get a new one, with new colors to vibe on. The whole interaction made me very happy!

#77: Get all the dishes washed at once, 10x. This has been difficult for me because I have dyshidrotic eczema on patches of my right hand, caused by an allergic reaction to dish and laundry detergent. Contact with detergents gives me hundreds of tiny little itchy water blisters on my hand. It's painful and uncomfortable, so I have to wear a rubber glove when I wash dishes. But then my hand gets sweaty, and the sweat and rubber irritate my skin too, so I can't wash dishes for too long at a time. I mean, I tried, I really tried, and I would do the dishes at least once, if not twice a day, and never be able to catch up. Also, when I wasn't working this summer (and even when I was before, I wasn't working as much as Robert , and I wasn't paying any rent), I wanted to do all the dishes myself, so I didn't ask or expect Robert to help with them. The only two times I got them all done was when he was out of town for a week or more, and there were less dishes to do. Now we have a dishwasher in our new place, but I still can't seem to get them all done at the same time!

#89: Read 100 news articles in Spanish. I put this on here so that I wouldn't loose my language skills. But I've lost them some, and while I used to regularly read articles in Spanish, I now find it a bit more cumbersome. I just need to get motivated.