Work before play......

33. Make a list of 10 people I know in my life that have inspired me

I hope everyone read about the first person out of the ten that have inspired me.  If not, scroll down and  check out the post "Need a little inspiration?"  I still have nine more to go, so I will be getting to them one by one, as I need reminders.

The second person in my life that has inspired me taught me a lesson about life that I have kept with me for almost twenty years now.  I feel pretty confident that she has no idea that she left this impression on me, but she did. Listen closely, because it is really important.  Lesson: Always finish your homework before you go out drinking.

Freshman year in college is about the craziest time in your life.  You have no rules, no restrictions, new friends, and no one to make you go to class.  You are surrounded by new people, and you create new friendships and new bonds.

The funny thing is, the best friends that you make you don't really pick yourself.  The people in the housing department pick them for you.  When you share a room, a hallway and a bathroom with people, you get really close to them really fast.  My freshman year in college the girls in our dorm became really close.

I had different things in common with different people- one liked soccer, one was from Georgia, one was a business major.  We hung out together, we went to the dining hall together, we went to parties together, and we went to the Esso Club together.

Now if you didn't go to Clemson, let me explain the Esso Club to you.  As the name suggests, it is an old Esso gas station converted into a bar.  Sounds fun, huh?  The floors were dirty, the bathrooms dirtier, and the air was full of smoke (because of course back then you could smoke indoors about everywhere.)  As I think back on it, I think the only thing even remotely attractive about the place was that they didn't enforce the legal drinking age there.

In Clemson (as I would imagine most other college towns) Thursday night was the true beginning of the weekend.  And freshman year, most Thursdays we started out at the Esso Club.  Sometimes people would back out of Thursday night because of an early Friday morning test, but I never did, and neither did my friend Tiffany.

Tiffany is like me in many ways.....she speaks her mind, she is sarcastic, she says what she means.  She was also very pretty, which made it fun to hang out with her in bars- we rarely paid for drinks, and there were always plenty of boys around.  There were at least a few times when Tiffany and I headed down to the Esso Club, just the two of us.  Now you have to imagine, none of us had cars there, and it was probably about a mile walk from our dorm to the Esso.  The two or more of us would get our "pre-party" on and head on down laughing the whole way.

Tiffany was very methodical about her college life though.  On a Thursday after class, she would come home and start her studying and her homework.  There were many times that I waited in her room with Julie for her to finish her homework so that we could go out.  We would not leave until the assignment was done, the quiz was studied for, or the notes were copied.  Tiffany's motto was clear- work hard at getting her school work done, and then (and only then) get your party on. 

I really admired her dedication to her schooling.  If I am not mistaken, she had an academic scholarship.  She later graduated with honors, and took a job with one of the big 5 (at the time) accounting firms. She went on to become a recruiter, and in the last few years started her own recruiting firm.  She also invented something really cool and sells it online and in stores all over the country.  She has also traveled to 6 out of the 7 continents with her husband.  Seems she still has the same theory- work hard and then play hard.

So, as silly as it seems, the lesson I learned from my friend all those years ago has stuck with me.  Get your "work" out of the way so you can enjoy your "play."  It is hard to have fun if you have unfinished business in the back of your mind creeping in.  I am trying hard to instill this in my kids as well, as I know that it will help them be successful later in life.

I guess I should go put the laundry away, so I can really ENJOY Desperate Housewives.

And in case you forgot the styles of 1990, here is the regular Thursday night crew...that is Tiffany in the middle row, all the way on the left.  I am sure all of these ladies will love me sharing this picture :)  I am also pretty sure that it must have been taken right before a game of "I never...."