Monday, May 26, 2008

Sunday Scribbling: Quitting

Things I have quit in my life:

  • biting my nails
  • my first and only retail job after 1 day (it was at Victoria's Secret)
  • my first and only restaurant job after about 6 months (moved on to greener, less panic-attack-inducing pastures)
  • going to therapy when I felt it wasn't beneficial, despite feeling I "should" continue
  • worrying about a prominent career or job title
  • eating meat for 1 year while in college
  • obsessively picking out ingrown hairs
  • being an English teacher for foreign-language speakers
  • adult swim classes

Things I plan on never quitting:

  • traveling and living in places other than the one where I was born
  • speaking Portuguese as my home language
  • writing, be it blog, paper journal or novel
  • my habit of a cup of tea each day in the morning
  • creating art in some form
  • saying no and not feeling guilty
  • saying my superstitious travel prayer
  • hitting the snooze button - I love my extra 5 to 55 minutes
  • dancing

In retrospect, there aren't a lot of things that I've quit in the past 5 years or so. Likely because I stopped saying 'yes' to things I didn't really want to do in the first place!

For more Sunday Scribbles, visit here.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to follow you in some points : I love to travel and live around, I wouldn't stop speaking French as my primary language (although Portuguese is my mother tongue ;-)), I'll never ever stop writing (that's my job ;-)) and I looooooove the snooze button as well ! It feels so good to turn an alarm off and go back to sleep !

Unknown said...

Hello la loca! Great to read you again. I have been out of the blogosphere but am thinking about making my comeback. Hope all is well in Maputo.
xxxx

DJPare said...

Love the snooze technique - totally agree!

What is this travel prayer?

Anonymous said...

What about when you have kids? Shouldn't you exclusively speak English to them while Rico speaks Portuguese, so that they can grow up natively bilingual? That would be a wonderful gift to your children.

Ali Ambrosio said...

~Jo Ann - Parece que a gente tem muita coisa em comum, né? Loooove the snooze button, though I try to bear in mind that Rico might not love it as much as I do!

~Captain Cat - Good to see you back! I've stopped by your blog a few times in the past months and am looking forward to regular posts again, circumstances permitting.

~Djpare - The travel prayer is something I do every time I travel, and have done for as long as I can remember. Basically it's a few words asking God to look after me, everyone I love and everyone that loves me.

~Anonymous - We will definitely raise our children bilingual, however I'm not sure which language I will end up speaking to them. For example, if they are in an English-language school, I'll speak to them in Spanish (or Italian, if I ever get it back up to speed). It also depends if we are living in a place where Portuguese is the spoken language or not...

Granny Smith said...

It's amazing how close your lists of quits and no quits corresponds to mine. I'm afraid I have almost lost Portuguese as a language I can speak fluently, although I read it easily. Tenho saudades do Brasil, mas nao sei quando seria possivel voltar.

Ali Ambrosio said...

~Granny Smith - Também tenho muitas saudades do Brasil. It will be lovely to be back next month for our wedding. I've lost my Italian...I grew up speaking fluently, but once I learned Portuguese at age 15, it totally dominated my languages! I'd love to get my Italian back up to speed!

Anonymous said...

Cool... I like a person who isnt afraid of quitting, and is confident enough to say so!