Hello femmes and gents, I’m so excited you’ve come to join me on my expedition through an otherwise eventful year. I have lots of plans and hopes for the upcoming year, follow me to see if I follow through. I’m quite excited about the future, I think I’ve always been the type to always wonder “what next”. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but I’ve also spent too much time so concerned about the future which prevented me from enjoying the wonderful things each day brings. So, that’s one of my goals. I want to take one day at a time, appreciate the life I have and everything I have accomplished up until this point (jeesh, I’m only 24 gimme a break!) I expect it to be hard, if you continue reading more about me in this informal introduction to moi, then you will come to realize what I have to look forward to, or in some cases completely dread the situation that I will be in.
I think I forgot to mention one important thing about myself, sometimes a girl can be rude! This is one of those times. My name is Sarah, I think you can gather from my blogs title that I’m a proud Ginger! I wasn’t always proud to be a ginger, but I’ve finally come to embrace my locks. Show me some love all you gingers out there! I’m 24 years old, I’m a recent college grad (GO IU!), and I love to run. I should probably mention I love food, let me just say this isn’t really a surprise. What woman doesn’t love food, sometimes we have love*hate relationships with it but there’s no denying it! Oh, I should probably also mention that I LOVE to run! I’ve run several mini-marathons (4, 5, 6, maybe more?), jumped in a few races here and there without registering (sorry for those of you who mind unregistered runners), and I’ve run 2 marathons. I was lucky enough to be part of the National Guard Marathon Team for a season, it was short-lived but I had fun running the race I WAS able to run with the team. By the way, we rocked that competition at the AF marathon, it was so much fun! I plan on running many more, perhaps I’ll do a half-Ironman. We’ll see how far I can push myself…
I’ll be honest, I love all the techy clothes and gear and I’m not ashamed. Sometimes it’s nice to go out for a run without all the techy things (IPOD, watch, or Garmin), but they are delightful to have. The music helps when you’re body feels like its slothish self-push through friends- and a Garmin tells you when you’re right on target or not going fast enough. I love them all, but I can also do without. I’m not one to criticize those that have the things I don’t, I’m also not one to criticize those that do. If whatever makes you go out and run is what you need, use them all you want tiger! I hope to keep track of my workouts and runs, I expect I will have a bit of a hiatus during January, February, and March. I’ll get to that later as well, be patient!
I’m a very opinionated person, I think I learned that from my Great Grandma Bauer. She was a wonderful woman, I miss her very much and I am reminded of her quite often. I am glad I inherited this one, what I consider, very important personality trait. I would be a redhead if I wasn’t fiery, right? I tell people what I think, I am not easily persuaded, I can be stubborn sometimes, but I assure you I am a listener and I’m a softy at heart. I’m not really one to talk about feelings, I think all too often our feelings get in the ways of saying what we’re thinking. I think our opinions are often shadowed because we’re afraid of how we might hurt someone else, or we’re afraid from people judging us for our personal values and beliefs. Trust me, if it’s a debatable topic I’m game for anything. I don’t portend to be an expert, but I definitely like to hear what others have to say. I expect the same respect from everyone else.
I finally jumped on board with my life in my Junior year of college. That’s right, you read it right! MY JUNIOR YEAR OF COLLEGE. I never truly felt confident with the route I took to better my life, my education, and my personal goals. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I reached my senior year of high school. Really, what 18 year old has it all together and knows exactly what they want to do? Most don’t, hallelujah for us and hallelujah to those of you who did and who do. Unfortunately that wasn’t me. Looking back, the only thing I would have changed was me enlisting sooner. My life would have been much different if I did. I wouldn’t have met the great friends from college that I did, I wouldn’t have the same experiences that I did, and I would probably have deployed definitely once but maybe twice from now until then. But I didn’t do that, and I waited until much later. It has been the greatest thing I’ve done, I’ve had some really neat experiences and I’ve met a lot of great people. I hope to have more of those unique experiences and build more relationships with people along the way. This is probably a good time for me to tell those of you that I am deploying to Afghanistan in early 2010. That’s partially why I am writing this blog, to keep my friends and family informed. It is also to pose a different light on deployments and a female soldier’s perspective on it all. Each one of us is different, we all have different experiences that make us who we are. I do want people to understand this one thing if nothing else about the military. In a lot of ways we share commonalities, but every soldier is different from the rest. Soldiers, citizens or both, we cannot proclaim to be one in the same. It’s not possible nor should it be desirable.
Aside from running, eating well, and being merry with friends I hope to work for the Federal government some day. There, I said it! I do, I want to be a public servant. I don’t care about the stigmas of politics, I know it’s a harsh community, but it’s a life worth living being at the mercy of the people. I’m okay with that, we’ll see if I get there!
To sum all of this up and to reiterate why I started this blog, I want to have a bit of transparency to my life for friends, family, and yep strangers too! I also hope to have a place where people come to waste time at work, have a little break throughout the day, find some inspiration in food, running, or life, and I like the idea of a living journal. As long as I continue to post, this blog will be a living piece of me and my life. If you have suggestions feel free to shoot me an e-mail, or even if you want to shoot me an email for no apparent reason go ahead friend! I will occasionally post a newspaper or journal article, I like to hear what other people have to say. Don’t be timid, I like to listen. I wouldn’t have started this thing if I didn’t! Be patient with me, again if you have something interesting to point out lemme know! Oh, I have my own euphemisms. I hope they’re not too distracting for you, if they are I’m not going to stop.
Be happy, run steady, and never, never stop!
Sarah