Month: August 2015

Recently we traveled around Swtizerland and had no internet. This was annoying in the sense that it made it hard to share pictures and what not, but the way that it affected me, which I didn’t quite expect, was in its effect on our directions.

I have navigated plenty without maps, in fact my family was quite late to the GPS or navigation software game. I navigated plenty with just printed our directions or mapquest AND even plain old maps. I am one of those people who can read a map, it may not be fast, but it is a skill I have.

I won’t be one of those generations who cannot read a map at all. Maybe the next one after me is, probably, but I am not. I do have that skill. +5 Mapreading.

Even though, this was not reading a map, which I know I can do. This was reading a bunch of printed directions with a very large overview map, when we needed step by step little maps, which I would do in the older times.

Even more so, none of the roads wanted to tell us their names, actually. The street signs were almost nonexistent and when they were there, they were small and non reflective. Furthermore, the directions were in a format I was not used to and even had the same direction written twice and with U-turns, which had to be a mistake.

This made me very upset, because I know, with a certainty, that I can read maps and be a navigator. I’ve done that most of my childhood and I know I posses the skills. When we were in traffic, we could navigate ourselves around.

But it also made me realize how flimsy that piece of paper was, because as soon as we were off it, I had no flippin clue how to get around or what to do. I just threw up my hands and said, “I don’t know how to get us there” and “well god only knows what road this is”.

Of course modern gps’ know what the road names are, but to us without those, we don’t.

What am I trying to say?

Things seem so easy and concrete, plugging things into a GPS, but when they fall through and you go to your back up, it is revealed that even that is flimsy too. So what do we rely on? Should I get a compass and try to do that?

I’m not sure what to end this with. maybe it’s just a food for thought.

How do you get around?

Yesterday I fainted while getting out of a bathtub. It’s about the second time this happened, and it’s probably because the bath water was too hot and the blood rushed away from my head to other places. When I stood up, the blood came back to my head, oh hello there, and then I fainted.

This fainting was so strange though because as soon as it happened, it felt like I was plunged into some deep deep rem sleep because I immediately felt like I was dreaming. While it was only for a few seconds, it felt like I had just been awoken from a deep rem sleep and I was so dazed and confused, and also sleepy!

After recovering the whole day, before bed I had this strange thought.

What if I was still asleep, fainted, and just imagined waking up? What if I was still in that crazy dream sleep that I felt I was in before and I’m still fainted?

That was a pretty interesting thought. But another thought that popped into my head, was what if when we die, we just wake up in another dream? Kind of like the matrix. A dreamception. Because I’ve fallen asleep in other dreams before, so it can happen! With dreams upon dreams and dreams.

And then what if we were about to die, but then had a dream of a whole new lifetime before we pass away, or even multiple lives! (Not my idea, twas the donation from my guest blogger).

Anyway, that’s my most recent thoughts, freaky huh?

I have been undertaking a project to help people in my life love themselves.

I usually feel pretty self sure that I love myself. I do look in the mirror sometimes and think, yeah that’s great (without makeup as well!).

I’ve been trying to eliminate the self defeating sentences. Saying ‘I can’t do it’ or ‘I will never succeed’. But also having them look into the mirror and say that I love you.

It’s pretty hard. You have to look yourself in the mirror, whatever you see, and tell that face that you love them. Trying to rewrite doubt, self hate, and guilt. It’s hard to look myself in the eye sometimes, but then on top of that you have to say I love you, even if you don’t truly feel it at that moment.

But by saying it every so often, every day, you start to believe it. And if you combine it with a small list of the things you like about yourself I have no doubt it will help.

It hasn’t been a long project, but it is my project.

For them and myself, because even if I know I love myself, what’s the harm in more love?

I challenge you to try it, every one of you. Maybe you’ll learn something. It has been especially rewarding for me to tell myself I love me, but also to watch other people love themselves. It makes me happy when people love themselves, when they recognize the good and beautiful in what I see and embrace it.

We all need love.

I have a favorite stuffed animal. Yes still and I sleep with it every night I am at home. Still. Give it to me and I will curl up like a ball. Or a cat.

But I bought it at the San Diego zoo and it has quickly become my favorite. Recently I was confronted with the opportunity to buy another hippo. At first I thought, yay! I can have a spare hippo.

But then I realized something very crucial.

Even if I lost it and had my back up hippo, it would never be that first hippo. It would never be Hippy. All it would be is the backup to a memory, something that could never quite compare, didn’t have the trials that this one has. It would never be my hippy.

I spend so much time stock piling things like makeup and what not, just so I have a back up, always. In case something goes wrong. And things go wrong.

But as I grow older, I have started to ask myself, so what? If I lose it, buy another, get to try another.

So for makeup and what not, less is lost and I am learning to just appreciate what I have for now.

I have started trying to sweat the small stuff less.

If I lose it I can try another and I can see the silver lining, although generally I usually tend to get stuck in the sadness and mourning period.

But for the hippo, I realized I will move on. I will try to find a new thing. I will cry a bunch and be super sad, but since nothing will ever compare, why try? I can go on a lovely search for another special animal that I can make memories with, those that are special and unique to that one.

It’s not fair to have the second hippo and expect it to live up to that gone dream and image of the first hippo. It can never be what that was. So it’s not fair to hold it up to that standard it will never reach.

Suffice it to say, I did not buy that second hippo. And, while I hope nothing happens to Hippy, if it does, I will not have a backup.

And that’s a bit like life isn’t it?

I would never have pegged myself for loving Pocahontas so much, but it has emerged as the final and favorite winner.

I remember the most songs from that film than any other and so let’s sit down and see why.

So why?

1) Her Spirit

But something I love about her is her determination not to settle. She wants to pursue her dreams even if they aren’t what people expect of her. She knows who she is as a person and wants to stay true to that, no matter the cost. She defies expectations. She fights for what she wants. She is in tune with nature, and fights the mindset of the settlers to exploit the land. For me, it’s less about the love story and about who she is as a person. How she changes her mind and changes as a character. She’s a bad ass. If I was a bit more like her, I would be totally happy. She seems like a good friend too. She is in the situation totally, walking around in the woods, she isn’t on some high throne. I love her. Maybe she can be my inner spirit Disney heroine.

2) Nature and Living in the Woods

I grew up in the woods and would never trade that for anything. It is my most treasured memory and so integral to who I am. I am a solitude home body. But living in the woods with some land, made me really appreciate the beauty of a relatively untouched nature. I love my garden and land, not for their landscaped manicured, but the way they balance the wild and a vision of a garden. I don’t like the green cut grass, the fenced in paths, I like going off the path, the wild grass, the feeling I am in nature. So of all the heroines, I feel a bit like her on the inside. Although I could never run around without shoes…gravel hurts.

3) Those songs

So. Darn. Catchy.

 

I have been recently watching a television show, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and really been liking it. It doesn’t hurt that it’s up my alley in terms of content with three super cool female characters.

One of these happens to be named Skye, an Asian female who is (not determined yet really, but supposed) an orphan. There’s a lot of drama in the show, but one of the sub plots involves her trying to find out where she came from and her background.

I’ve talked a bit about my own thoughts on this process already here, but she finds out that a whole village and team of agents died to protect her. What her superior officer experts her to take from this is a total world shattering moment where she is confronted with death and destruction which would end her search. But what she takes from it is that she was wanted.

That moment just hit me in the feels and resonated with me. Because I think about that a lot myself.

A lot of the time I just wish I could have answered that question without a doubt, no speculation, just a simple answer.

I can speculate and guess, but it doesn’t answer the question and at dusk the ghosts still linger.

I guess I would take the same from the situation as Skye, because of all the emotional and scars that linger from it, not feeling wanted or good enough are the biggest two.

And when I’ve made mistakes and what not, those are my biggest fears that I won’t be wanted or that I’m not good enough. For the most part I’ve worked through a lot of these feelings, being surrounded by people who love me no matter how dumb I can be sometimes, and really investing time and money into defining my own self worth, to appreciate who I am and feel good enough.

But it definitely didn’t used to be this way, in my old relationship I let the idea of not being wanted keep me there, a fear of not being wanted or being alone (although there are some differences between them). I endured pretty stupid things, just so I could feel like I was wanted to some degree, although I, as I am, truly never was.

Another thing related to this was the feeling that I, in my old relationship, never felt good enough, because it would always end and I felt it had to have been me. Now I know it was never me, but I didn’t at the time.

I longed to be the one who would walk away, to be the one who dropped it, but it didn’t even happen until the end. And that haunted me for a while. I felt that in order to be over the relationship I would have to find some closure in that way, to be the one to say it was over, but I’ve moved past that now.

It’s over, I have closure in my own way, and have moved past that superficial feeling. Not leaving wasn’t all weakness, it was a sign of my spirit to never give up on people, to believe in their power to change (even when they don’t). I’m smarter now, to realize when people don’t want to change, and when I need to walk away now, but my not being the one to end the relationship is not all a moment of weakness.

It’s a complex moment, but it’s almost like a rising from the ashes where I have found out the characteristics that truly define me and the ones I need to explore.

Sorry I didn’t post earlier. The heat finally broke, and today I was finally able to catch up on sleep I haven’t had for weeks. It was cool and not noisy this morning so I was able to finally sleep. It was so much needed.

But it meant that today was a sleep and relax type of day where I spent a lot of time sleeping, but also relaxing and not melting.

So I am sorry this isn’t a very exciting blog post, but I hope there will be something better for Wednesday! I am going to bed nice and early tonight so I can hopefully have a chance to write something tomorrow.

My brain is slowly returning to its solid form.

I have not had many good things or anything really to write, not because I don’t think things, or have suddenly lost my brain…although it feels like that. I feel like I can’t think properly.

So many of my thoughts are how to deal with the heat, what foods to buy, feeling like a lethargic sloth during the days when it’s the hottest and I have to fight my eyes because I’m so tired and it’s so hot.

I do not do well in the heat. So excuse if these blog posts are not up to par. They aren’t. Because I’m not up to par. I’m a melting slug in the heat. I am losing my form, and regressing to a sloth.

Additionally, I’m getting little itchy bumps where I get the hottest, my feet and legs, so that is a constant struggle.

I am not a summer person at all, Winter definitely is my favorite time of year. I can always put more things on, but I can’t take my skin off. Impossible.

I don’t even have a strategy to beat the heat. I drink tons of fluids and stay inside during the hottest, wear loose clothing, and protect myself, but I still get reduced to a melting popsicle mess.

I’ll do my best, but for now, this is almost it. I’ll take the weekend to really brainstorm some good posts, or at least ones that are better.

 

In hindsight I realize that that review was very vicious. But it was very true to how I was feeling.

There is a saying I heard recently, “Hindsight is 20/20” and I think that’s pretty spot on. It’s the idea that with hindsight you have total clarity and can see everything. Which is pretty unfair to yourself because then you see all the possible, or most, outcomes of the situation and what ended up happening with those actions. So it is a bit unfair, because we never have 20/20 vision in these situations. What we have, is what we got.

That’s kind of what I have now when I think about how I tripped and fell yesterday. I fell flat on my face after tripping on my shoe lace which was only untied because it was giving me a cut on my foot. So yes in hindsight, I should have seen it was untied sooner and stopped to do it, even though I was running late.

Instead I ended up falling flat on the ground, badly bruising one knee, both my palms, and hurting my elbow muscle.

So yes, Hindsight is 20/20.

Today is the last day to hand in my paper for class. It has been a long hellish ride and I was looking forward to handing it in so I could truly vent it out in the evaluation form, only to find out it expired last night at midnight.

So here it goes.

This class was, on a whole, disorganized and badly planned. There should have been an information session on the trip weeks before the semester started, maybe in the last semester, so that people knew what they were in for. Additionally, the layout of the class allowed for no creative or critical discussion to take place, which did not occur on the trip either. The trip had no decent time table for a group of fifteen students, which resulted in us being late everywhere and with no clue what we were doing. The car accident was just the cherry on top of it all. There was a lack of clear deadlines for the final paper with no idea of what it entailed and no grading rubric, which might have been the case of the professor wanting to relocate to a beer garden instead. He also should wear a mic in general as his voice is severely quiet. This was the worst class of my whole entire Masters program, never mind post high school life, and I would never take it again. I would seriously warn people from writing any of his courses for a grade or at all, and I am seriously upset I need to take two of his courses next semester. I was very disappointed, and felt like I learned absolutely nothing from this class. As for the room for improvement, everything needed improvement badly.

There, it doesn’t feel that great because this achieves nothing and I need to do two more, but there it is. My honest opinion which will fly off into the abyss of the internet and mean nothing.

I need a detox from this.