Winter quarter at SCU is notoriously the quiet quarter. The weather, my California standards, sucks, and there is not much going on off campus. Because this quarter will be a little calmer, I want to make a couple changes. Don’t get me wrong, last quarter was great; my classes were all taught by professors who were experts in their field, I met so many new people—many of whom who have become close friends, and I accomplished many things outside of academics. But still, there were a couple things that were in my control that I wish I would have actively changed.

Although I performed well in my classes, academics were not at the top of my priority list in many instances where it should have been. A couple of my finals grades easily could have been a third of a letter grade higher if I had just taken that ten extra minutes to read over a submission or actually finished reading the study as opposed to skipping the last couple pages. I still value the importance of spending quality time with friends, going out when I really should have stayed in hurt me when I had to stay up until 2 am finishing something due the next morning.

Though this may seem counterintuitive, especially after following priority of academics, I want to go on more adventures. For me, if I stay in the same place for too long, even if that means the SCU campus for three days, I feel restless and unproductive. So at least once a week, I want to get out of Santa Clara, whether that means going two miles away to Crema on The Alameda, or an hour and a half on the CalTrain to San Francisco. These adventures do a lot for my mental health, especially if I have someone along with me.

Midway through the quarter, I noticed that I had fallen into an unhealthy daily routine. I would go to class, get lunch, go back to my room and watch TV, then go to club meetings and do homework. I realized that I did not like that I had watching TV, even if it was just an hour a day, etched into my schedule to the extent that I felt like I had been robbed if had to skip it for social plans. I don’t regret having downtime, I just don’t like that my downtime revolved around screen time. So my goal is to practice better relaxing practices that don’t revolve around technology; reading mystery novels, journaling, and making collages.

I think I am generally a good friend. But when it comes to long distance, I am not the best at keeping in touch. My goal is to Facetime with someone once a week. I’m going to try to carve out an hour every Friday to chat with a friend and get an update with what is happening in their life.