This is Jim Jacob. He is on his way to work, he woke up late, so he accidentally put his wife’s blazer on. He realized while on the train when he saw another passenger female wearing the exact same thing. She said to him “Oh see you were wandering in the wrong closet today.”
Dear Katherine,
Do you go by Katherine. I can’t imagine myself going by anything other than Katie. Anyways, I am now 30. That’s one of the scariest thing I’ve ever heard. Did we even make it this far?
At 30, I hope I am happy. I hope I have a successful job. I hope I am married. I hope I have a family. I hope my kids have the best life I can give them. I hope my family are still healthy and full of joy. I hope I kept those promises to my friends saying that we will always be close. I hope I saw the world and camped in Alaska. And of course, I hope I create the most epic internet meme of all time.
And even if I haven’t done all of the things I wanted to do.. I really hope I am happy.
With love and luck,
Katie (or Katherine) Melhuish
I chose this assignment because I thought it would be silly and easy, like most things I do. However, I decided to take the more serious route. In all honesty, the future scares the hell out of me. I’m the kind of person who usually doesn’t handle the unknown well. My expectations are impossibly high, resulting in a lot of disappointment. I handle it better now and so another hope I have for when I’m 30 is being okay when something isn’t how I planned it to be.
On the other hand, I’m interested to see what my 30 year old self would think of 20 year old self. I know my 20 year old self looks back on my 16 year old self with disgust and disbelief. How did I think I was so mature when I was so young?
Either way, time goes by way too fast and I’m sure 2026 will be here before I know it despite my wishes to have time slow down.
(And here’s a picture of 20 year old me acting like 80 year old me by killing it at bingo).
Dear Future Matt,
I hope that you’ve accomplished all the dreams that I have in mind today. I’m sure by now you’ve finished grad school and have gotten your Ph.D. It was always a life goal of ours to do that. You should have the jobs of our dreams researching new and exciting things that can make an impact on the world. By now you should have traveled the world and gone to Europe, Japan, Australia and any other place that seems interesting. By the time I read this letter ten years from now I will be thirty-three years old and I will hopefully have a family of my own, a nice house and all the little things that make life great. I know you are the person I want to be ten years from now because I will work hard everyday to make sure that my dreams become a reality. You don’t have to be rich and famous, but just be the person I envision myself to be.
Sincerely, Your Past and present self.
My second assignment I chose was a 3 star writing assignment. Here is the link: http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/your-hopes-dreams-and-fears/
Dear 31-year-old Kristin,
Here is what you hoped for, dreamed for, and feared at age 21:
Hopes:
First off, I hope that you are happy.
I hope that you are still following Jesus with your whole life.
I hope that you love your job.
I hope that your relationships with your family and friends are great.
Dreams:
You dreamed that you would be a Special Education teacher, and a really good one.
You dreamed of getting marrying and starting a family within the next 10 years.
You dreamed of having a German Shepherd.
You dreamed of leading Young Life after college.
You dreamed of going back to Africa soon.
Fears:
You were afraid that you won’t get into grad school.
You were afraid that you wouldn’t be financially stable enough to start life after graduation.
You were afraid of choosing the wrong path after college.
You were afraid that your faith would fade.
You were afraid of leaving Virginia and your family and your friends that you have known your whole life.
Overall, 31-year-old Kristin, I hope that you are happy and you have made time for what is important in your life.
Love,
21-year-old Kristin
Reflection:
This writing assignment was super cool for me in the season that I am in right now. I am in my senior year of college, I have no idea what I am doing next year, and I have a million options of what I could do and where I could go. To write this letter, I thought of the most important aspects of what I want my whole life to be. I thought of what was most precious to me now and what I hope my life will be like. This assignment was not easy because I have a lot of hopes, dreams, and fears for my life but I wanted to choose the most important.
Dear future me,
Life in 10 years… this is a crazy thought but I will be 40…YIKES!!!! What do I imagine my life to be like at age 40…
What is scary to me is who is president… Donald Trump? Hilary Clinton? Someone new I hope!
I hope that we have found a way to end this horrific violence. It is a very scary thought to me that this could still be going on in 10 years. I hope that we have found the answer to this violence.
On to the better things in life…Let’s hope I have found the man of my dreams by now and have married him. I hope that we are thriving in our life and loving every adventure. I hope that we have had children and are raising them to be kind, gracious, honest, respectful, and strong.
This is really kind of a crazy thought to think of myself in 10 years but this is the best that I can come up with.
Love,
Me at age 30
In the next ten years you will become a principal of your school, making technology a huge digital tool used by teachers in every classroom. You will inspire students through your hard-work and dedication to student success. You will also complete your Masters Degree.
In 10 years, I want to still be teaching, but have taught a variety of different grades and positions. I would also like to work at a few different schools since I work in a very diverse school board. Personally, I hope my daughters and husband and I are doing well!
In 10 years, I’ll either be in a ditch or living the high life. Ain’t no way I’m letting the law get ahold of me. Either the years of running from the marshal’s will catch up or I’ll have made it big time.
I’m fearful of the law. I’m fearful that things won’t turn out for me. It’s hard being on the road, no specific place to call home. That’s where hitting it big time comes in. Hopefully by then I’ll have hit a big bank (or even a couple little ones) and I’ll be able to buy myself a new identity and a permanent home. Hopefully I won’t have to run no more. Here’s to the future.
-Rose Oakley
I chose an assignment that asked me to write about where I saw myself in ten years. Since we are doing all our assignments on our characters this week, I wrote about a version of my character’s younger self and where she saw herself in ten years.
The reason I chose for a younger version of my character to write on this topic is because I have to incorporate another character. Since my character is a homesteader’s wife, I thought it would be funny to have her as a young girl talking about a crush that she wants as a potential suitor. I chose Kris’s,a senior at UMW, character, Merrell Shale, as the lucky guy.
Your Hopes, Dream and Fears is an assignment to write a letter to myself in ten years, that I might be able to look back and reflect upon it later when I read it. I am old enough that I think my goals are static, whether I achieve them or not is another matter, but I will remember them…. I think. It is odd that looking back to ten years ago, the goals I had at the time have all pretty much gone by the wayside as life barreled forward. These goals, though both limited in scope and somewhat broad, are more impassioned than those, so hopefully this time it is a little different. I really dislike thinking so much about the future, but assignments like this are good because they keep the pressing need to progress along the path I have chosen at the front of my mind instead of passively waiting for the world to unexpectedly take notice of how wonderful I am and hand me all the opportunities I desire.
Dear future me,
I think a lot about where my life has been and where I intend for it to go. I spent my youth comparatively aimless for a variety of reasons, so it is nice now to have some intended direction, and to have the wisdom to realize that no matter what I intend, life may have other plans and that I can be ok with them. Hopefully this is a characteristic that you still share, but let me tell you about the things I aim to work toward in the mean time.
Professionally, you (me) ought to have finished law school or graduate school by now. Don’t put that off like you did college. If we (myself and I) are able to attend a worth while law school, meaning if you did well enough on the LSAT to choose the school, then my primary goal is to be practicing law that in some way helps and assists some undeserved class of people. I will do the best on my end studying to make that come true so that you don’t have to look back and think, “if only.” I don’t mean social justice law or anything like that, at least not exclusively, but some sort that you think betters the lives of everyday people instead of furthering the interests of those with the most power and influence. They have enough lawyers anyway, they will be fine without me. You should probably consider something that at least makes enough money to pay for all this school…. sorry about that.
If law doesn’t work out, or even if it does, teaching of some sort has always had an appeal to me, so I hope that by the time you read this, we have had the opportunity to explore that more. I hope that additionally, you are excited and passionate about learning as I am currently. I will work on keeping that alive for you.
You are blessed enough to already have a large and happy family, so I hope you keep and cherish them as much as I do now. I will keep pushing our children to help them pursue their own goals and have the direction that we did not, but I commit to you that I shall make sure those pushes are as gentle as possible.
If you fail to do all that… then you better at least have a funny comedy routine about it… biggest smiles mask the saddest faces or something to that effect.
May this letter find you in good health, until then,
Present Me
