Monday’s Musings (Dec. 3rd).

Today’s an exciting day for me because it’s the last day of classes of the fall semester. Woohoo! This semester has definitely flown by. However, I’m ready to be done. The “burn-out” associated with end of the semester stress has definitely set in. Though I’m relieved that today is the last day of classes, it’s only the beginning of a week of stress. I’ve got a Community Psych final on Wednesday, a Developmental Psych final Thursday, a Human Biology final on Monday, and a Humanities essay to write. I can feel the tunnel vision and stress headaches approaching.

I’m looking forward to the semester being over. Then I get to focus on friends, family, traveling, celebrating, and lots and lots of pleasure reading for a full month. Yes! 🙂

While browsing NPR’s book section of their website today, I came across a great article: Finders Keepers: 2012’s Books To Hang On To. The books from the list were:

• Home by Toni Morrison. Though I haven’t read Home, I recently finished Morrison’s Sula and enjoyed it. I may have to give Home a try sometime during my holiday break.
  
• Mortality by Christopher Hitchens.
• Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. Though I hadn’t heard of this book until reading the NPR article, I’ll definitely have to read this book because it focuses on why people love books and what they searching for through them. Aka, exactly the kind of book I’d love!
• Wild by Cheryl Strayed.
• Brothers by George Howe Colt. 

Since I only had heard of one of these books (Home by Toni Morrison) before reading the NPR article, I definitely am behind on my reading. Thankfully, I’ve got a month of relaxation following finals to read as much as possible.

So, have any of you read any of the books from the NPR article? Or are there other books you read during this year that have had a huge impact on you? I’ll definitely be in need of more book suggestions to enjoy over the holidays. 🙂

Photo Friday: Let the stress continue.

From Tumblr.

“In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.” – Fred Rogers

Gilmore Girls as stress relief.

As stress reaches extreme levels this week due to research papers, final presentations and final exams, I’ve had to give myself daily stress relief so I can keep my sanity. Yesterday’s stress relief involved 20 minutes on the elliptical at the campus gym and 30 minutes of yoga stretches, which was just what I needed. Today, however, after a long day of classes and a night of studying for my Humanities exam tomorrow and working on my Humanities research paper ahead of me, I know I need an extra special stress relief. Therefore, I’ve turned to the stress relief classic: Gilmore Girls. It’s a tv show that never ceases to relax me and make me laugh. To make things even better, I’m giving myself a double dose. 🙂

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Due to being completely swamped with schoolwork, projects, papers, and all sorts of end of the semester stuff that professors love the throw at us the few weeks before Thanksgiving, I’m going to have to drop my commitment to do NaNoWriMo. Though I’d love to say that I have the time, I truly don’t, and this blog has always acted as just a way for me to let my feelings out. With everything related to college + making time for NaNoWriMo, I don’t have a place for my frustration to go. Plus, I just know that I really need to focus on academics right now. That’s what college is about…plus reading some on the side and making weekly, if not by-weekly, drives on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Therefore, I’m sorry to those of you who were looking forward to my day-by-day account of NaNoWriMo, but I know that I’ll definitely be posting similar writing pieces throughout the month…just not quite every day. Plus, as I’ve learned since January, writing a memoir isn’t exactly an easy thing. Having to dig up a new painful memory from my childhood to write about each day is just too much right now. Plus, I think it’s also important for me to keep reminding myself that there is no timeline. I don’t have a deadline I need to meet. I don’t need to relive my entire childhood in the span of a single year. Truthfully, I think taking my time with it will make it that much better. I’ve never worked well when I’m rushed, even if I am the person that ends up getting things done if they need to be done. I guess I just have now realized that this doesn’t need to be done right now. I’m not giving up on it by any means. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I think taking more time with it will make it even better, which is what I want.

That being said, I’m off to spend the evening working on an incredibly important research paper, especially since I’m hoping to have it done by the beginning of next week (even though it’s not due for a few weeks). Wish me luck! Also, happy writing to those of you who are trudging through NaNoWriMo. I’ll be cheering you all on throughout the month!

Photo Friday: A best friend reunion in autumn.

 

 

I’ve included two photos for today’s Photo Friday because I absolutely love fall (It really is the perfect season), and my best friend, Skidmore, is coming down from Virginia today to spend the weekend with me. We’re planning to go shopping (yay retail therapy), watch movies (which will be chick flicks galore, obviously), jam out to Taylor Swift’s new album (since she’s our favorite singer. Yes, guilty as charged) and just do our typical best friend things. I can’t wait, especially since I haven’t seen Skidmore since the beginning of August. This best friend reunion will be much needed after the stressful week that I’ve had. And having Skidmore here during my favorite season is as close to perfection as things could ever get. 🙂

Give yourself emotional gifts.

Stress is a funny thing. When it reaches high amounts, it is overwhelming, often causing us to cry, scream or give up on our project altogether. However, in small amounts it can be good. It can help us be more productive and help us to get things done quicker than we might have if there was no deadline in place. However, more often than not, it’s not one of these extremes. Often, our stress levels fluctuate, and I know from personal experience (in college especially), it’s not always easy to prepare yourself for the massive stress days. In my experience, it’s better to focus on the aftermath that the stress creates rather than trying to trick yourself into not getting stressed. As it turns out, that increases the chances of you getting equally worked up about something that is close to meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Today I hit an incredibly high level of stress because I had a Humanities exam this morning. Unfortunately, stress didn’t work in my favor on this particular exam. I completely freaked. I blanked when I got the exam and only felt confident about the essay portion of the exam (since that was the part that I spent most of my time preparing for). Therefore, after I turned in my exam, I knew the aftermath was coming. I could feel it. I knew that I’d just have to let it out. So I did. I cried. I yelled. I got frustrated (first at my professor and then more at myself for over-studying and not focusing on the right things). I ran into 2 friends of mine and thankfully they let me vent, which was just what I needed. However, even after venting and going to a Psychology talk on autism that I wanted to attend, I was still feeling a bit overwhelmed. The aftermath was still lingering, and I needed to find a way to get it out of my system.

I came home and considered giving myself some emotional gifts, or some things that I knew would help me relax and make me feel better. I settled on 3 things: a bubble bath, Gilmore Girls re-runs, and chocolate. First off, I don’t know what it is about bubble baths that makes them so amazing. However, I just know that it always seems like my stress melts away whenever I take a bubble bath. That could partly be because the bubble bath formula that I use is specifically for stress relief and ache relief. Though I definitely do think the actual bubble bath formula is part of it, the simple act of soaking in warm water with bubbly soap just makes me feel better. I’m smiling just thinking about it. The Gilmore Girls re-runs and the chocolate added to an already much more relaxed me, which was perfect. However, though I chose 3 specific things that I thought would make me feel better in the moment, I know that on a different day with a different situation I may have needed something completely different.

Often times, I just feel like I need to remind myself that I deserve treating myself to emotional gifts, or doing something that has no purpose other than to make me happy. Though I think of treating myself most often when I have rough days, I think we should all remember that sometimes we just need a little treat every once in a while. Due to the fact that I’ve been in more physical pain over the last few months, the realization that I need to treat myself more often so that I can feel better is incredibly strong. Even though today’s bubble bath, Gilmore Girls, and chocolate was all wonderful, tomorrow is restorative yoga, bubble bath, and pleasure reading (after class, obviously). I’m smiling just thinking about it. 🙂

De-stress with Tristan Prettyman.

Currently I am incredibly stressed because I’ve got a really difficult Humanities exam tomorrow. Despite all the studying that I’ve done, I don’t feel like I’m retaining much, and that definitely means that it’s time to de-stress with some calming music. A few days ago I came across this song by Tristan Prettyman. Her voice is just so beautiful! Though it’s an incredibly sad song, it’s still nice to listen to if you’re trying to relax. Enjoy! 🙂

Finally Friday!

So glad to have a few days to recharge and relax, plus getting ahead in schoolwork as usual. But for now, some nice Norah Jones to take the stress away from the crazy busy week I’ve had. 🙂

An Emotional Whirlwind.

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” -Henri J.M. Nouwen

I feel like I’ve been through an emotional whirlwind recently. I had a tough travel day on Thursday (even though I did finally make it home), I came home to find out that one of my dog’s has a tumor, Delta lost my luggage and I didn’t receive it until today, and a limb went through the windshield of my car and it has to be replaced (but thankfully I wasn’t in my car when the limb went through my windshield). For the past few days, it’s felt like nothing has gone my way. It’s almost as if anything that could possibly knock me over has slammed into me with full force.

However, the one thing that I am holding on to is the fact that I get to see my best friend Skidmore on Friday. I’m holding on to that one simple thing with every fiber of my being because if I know that if I give myself even a small chance to stop and think, I’ll just fall apart. Though I know that once I see Skidmore I’ll most likely finally break down, I’m trying to hold it together to some extent until then. Not because I don’t want to appear weak. Far from that, actually. I just know that if I give in to what I’m feeling right now, I’ll just start crying and I won’t be able to stop.

Maybe it’s stress. Maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t seen my friends in what seems like forever. Either way, this feels like the eerie calm before the storm. But waiting to break down until I get to Skidmore’s is exactly what I need. Though the waiting wouldn’t really change much, it would change everything all at the same time. Skidmore is the easiest person in the world for me to talk to, and I know that if I was talking to her through body-heaving sobs, she wouldn’t even say anything. She’d just hug me and wait until I was able to get out what I was feeling. I need that kind of patience, that kind of willingness to listen. For so long, Skidmore has been the one person that I’ve turned to for everything, and even though it’s never a good time to feel like your world has been flipped upside down, I feel like it couldn’t have come at a better time since I’m going up to see Skidmore this weekend anyway for her 21st birthday.

Either way, all of this is hard to grasp right now….especially the weight hanging on the fact that my dog, Roxy, has a tumor. My family put our oldest dog, Max, to sleep at the beginning of this summer, and the fact that Roxy may not be far behind is the most heartbreaking thing I can even imagine right now. I want to cry….and scream…and run…and throw things….and hold on to Roxy for as long as I possibly can. None of this is fair. I understand that losing a pet never is. However, it’s just as if all of this stress has hit me like a bulldozer, and I don’t even know what to feel. So I’m just hanging on for a few more days…hanging on until I can fall apart in the company of my best friend.

It’s (almost) summer!

Well, I’m officially done with finals and moved out of my dorm. I’ve just got a short paper due on Monday that I’ll get done this weekend. Even though I’m very happy to be done and have the stress melt away, it was sad saying goodbye to my friends (especially 2 of my friends who are exchange students from England). I have loved my first year at UNCA (but second year of college). It’s been so amazing.

I’ve made some of the most incredible friends….ya know, those kind of people who you know you’re going to be friends with forever. It is such a great feeling, and I’m so happy that I got the opportunity to find a place where I belong. I know it takes some people a while to find that special place, while others seem to just be thrown into it…ya know, the people who just love a place from the start. That’s how it was when I visited Asheville for the second time though. I knew that it just fit me so much better. I was nervous as usual, but everyone gets nervous when it comes to new experiences.

Anyway, even though I won’t be technically on summer vacation until I write this last paper, I am eager to do lots of pleasure reading and have the chance to enjoy living in the mountains and not being bothered with schoolwork. It’ll be such a great change (at least for a little bit). Tomorrow I’m heading to Columbia to talk to one of my previous physical therapist’s graduate physical therapy classes about how things have been for me having CP. Though I have gotten better at talking openly about my CP over the past few months, the thought of standing in front of a class of graduate students and talking about my life is a little scary. I’m not exactly sure what I’ll say. However, I am pretty sure that Meredith (my previous physical therapist) will try to make it as easy on me as she can. However, that doesn’t take away from the fact that I’ll be standing in front of students talking about myself.

Though CP is a huge part of my life and I do want to share my story with the world, I’ve never really liked talking about myself too much. I just never want to take away from the possible things the other person I’m speaking with may be able to teach me (in regards to their own life). Friendship, and communication in general, is a two-way street, and I think many people forget that. Anyway, tomorrow will be interesting to say the least. However, I’m excited to hear what the students have to ask me and to hear what they are currently learning about. Since I had 15 years of PT, I feel like a pro to the terminology when it comes to comparing my knowledge to someone who has no background/experience with PT. However, it’ll be interesting to see what the PT students know in comparison to my own knowledge. After all, it’s never considered a bad day when you have the opportunity to learn something new.