In a reflectionERI kind of mood...

Hello, everyone.  This is my first attempt at a blog and I'm finding it so hard to figure out where to start!  I guess I'll just write and see where it takes me.  First, let me introduce myself.  My name is Eri Raib, said like Mary minus the M Raw-Eeb.  I'm in my mid-twenties and have been a student all my life, and a teacher for the last half of it.  I haven't found a job fit yet with my BA in Telecommunications, so I decided to go back to school for Exercise Science.  This makes sense I guess, since I'm a dance teacher!  And after studying the field for a few years, I knew I wanted to continue my education and pursue a PhD in Physical Therapy to work specifically with dancers.  Maybe this is where my discontent is starting to stream from.  I love what I'm learning, but it's so much different than my first degree that I have to adjust the way I study and struggle through it.  I never really had to do that before.  Aaannndd, it feels like I'm going to be in school forever! I can't seem to find the light at the end of the tunnel.  Anyways, enough about school. 

Now onto the Blog!  Why did I decide to jump in and do this now?  The creation of this blog is to serve a purpose in the actualization of my potential as a human being!  What do I mean?  Well, as it was getting close to the end of 2010, I started to reflect on where I was in life, and I wasn't very happy about it.  When I looked in the proverbial mirror, I saw a shallow, low-income, overweight blob.  I may have accomplished "stuff", but what did that stuff do to improve me? My soul?  I was too busy caring about pointless junk that I forgot to care about me. 

So forget the new year's resolution.  This is a new start.  I will consciously focus on the care of my mind, body, and soul - and I invite you to join me every step of the way.

Usually,something significant happens that implores a person to make a change.  Let me tell you about what it was for me, and maybe you can find some inspiration in it.

So a great thing happened the other day, a catalyst so to speak.  My whole family was in town for the holidays, and my mother gathered us all in the room.  To be honest, I was scared silly at this point because the last time this happened, I just knew my mother was going to tell us that we were going to Disney World.  Except, what she really had to say was that I was getting yet another little sister.  Needless to say, I didn't take it too well.  So, here we all are sitting in the dining room waiting for some big announcement, and it was one of the greatest surprises of my life.  My mother, father, myself and my three little sisters are all going to Indonesia together to visit family for a month this summer.  Let me give you a little background information right here.  My mom was a foreign exchange student to Indonesia, where she met my dad.  Then she came home, and I said, "Surprise!!!"  My dad moved over here to the United States, and he's only seen his family a couple times since.  This will be the first time that most of us are meeting family, and this is also the first time that we've ever taken a family vacation!  Pretty great announcement if you ask me.

But how did this inspire me to change my life?  Well, I got to thinking.  I'm gonna be seeing people I've never seen before... what are they gonna think of me?  I'm gonna be on a tropical island with beaches for a month... am I just going to be embarrassed the whole time?  How will this trip leave an impression on me... will I just forget it by next year?  Once I thought about it for a while, I knew that when I step foot onto that land, I want to be the best person that I can be so I can take in every experience and just soak it up inside of me, so it becomes a part of me and lives on forever.  That's what pushed me to where I'm at now.

So again, I implore you to join me on this journey, wherever it leads us.