Relaaaaax

Hello Reader!

I got back home last night around 8, riding in style with a very dear friend of mine who was driving a 2011 Malibu.  Talk about luxury!

I'm so glad to be on break, it was definitely needed even though I wasn't under a lot of stress or deadlines towards the end.  Still, simply being in such close proximity to so many people causes stress.  I feel like I can breathe a little bit now.

I was just excited to spend a night in my nice warm bed, but things got a little hairy.  I was restless all night and pretty much thrashed for a few hours before finally getting up, grabbing a container of frosting, and heading downstairs to fall asleep on the couch.  I was definitely stuck in my head and so desperate to get the night over with that I turned on Jersey Shore in an effort to numb my brain.  Jersey Shore for Pete's sake!  Hey, if I have one good thing to say about that show, it makes me feel better about myself.  I knew I would feel better in the morning, but I just had to get there.

I finally fell asleep, woke up, went shopping with my mom, and am now sitting on my bed listening to music and drinking some cranberry apple tea.  I can feel myself getting progressively more stressed simply by being home, which is unfortunate since I'm really quite glad to be here.  It's just full of different stressors to which I haven't be exposed or really needed to adapt to.

It's a bummer, but the good thing is that it will get better eventually.  I think there's this weird paradox in human thought where we think negative things will last forever and positive things are fleeting.  I remember times of feeling so good and then having the thought of "This isn't going to last." How unfortunate to think that I never remember having that thought when things hit the fan.  The truth is that things do and will get better, even because of simple little things like the sunrise, and how wonderfully comforting to know that the sun WILL rise.

So I'm going to continue trying to relax and be calm, and maybe I'll watch a movie that will make me cry (since I feel ridiculously emotional now for no reason whatsoever) and later tonight I'll probably work on penning some things.

Oh but I'm listening to a Ryan Farish playlist at the moment.  He's absolutely wonderful and you must check him out.  His music makes me feel better about humanity.  Have a great evening, and smile!

-Megan

Personal Experiment

Hi Reader!

Okay, so today is Ash Wednesday and I grew up Catholic so I'm familiar with the significance and usual events that go along with Lent and things like that and while I am not really religious, I think now would be a good time to carry out a personal experiment.  You know how sometimes you just have to go crazy and change things up a bit?  This is one of those times.  My existence has been way too boring as of late so I am going to do something a little bit crazy.

For the season of Lent, I am going to attempt to go vegetarian.  Woah, crazy right?  Not so much.  I mean, I've been toying around with that concept and idea since I was 8 years old and so I'm supportive of the lifestyle, I have many many vegetarian friends and even two vegetarian professors at the moment.  It's a more common thing on a college campus and I feel like it really is not that difficult or uncommon as it used to be.  It's still a big thing and I don't want to downplay the lifestyle by any means.  It feels like a big thing to me at least.  Idk, I'm also slightly hyper at the moment...

So, this experiment is really a personal test, just to see what I can and cannot do.  If I stick it out for 40 days then I will have a fantastic experience and story to tell.  If I don't, well then that will be lame, but I also feel no religious obligation and thus hopefully won't feel as guilty, though I really do want to do this for the personal gain.  If it sticks longer than the 40 days, well then, I will go from there, and if it stops after 40 days, I still think I will gain something valuable from the experience.

I believe the most challenging part of this will be the conscious effort of changing my lifestyle.  I am no carnivore by any means, but I am still comfortable in my omnivorous ways.  I need motivation other than just an experiment which I have both through friends and personal experiences with relatives working in agriculture as well as classes I'm taking, one focused heavily on food insecurity and poverty.  So, I'm counting on you veggies out there to hold me to my promise.  Am I crazy?  Quite possibly.  But I find epic growth comes out of epically crazy ideas

Be well, be epic!

Circle of Life

Woah Reader,

I'm so sorry for my unexpected and unintentional hiatus.  Life got away from me for a little while, but I'm back.

As mentioned almost ad nauseum on the other blog, Dorm Room 718, we had a blast at MBLGTACC 2012.  That stands for Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference.  It was absolutely incredible... but we left for Iowa incredibly early.  The sunrise was absolutely breathtaking--it was one of those mornings where the entire sky is cloudy and so the sun reflects off of them in the most brilliant reds, pinks, and purples.  We watched it while listening to the broadway version of The Circle of Life from the Lion King which was epic in itself, but let's get to the big picture.

What's really epic is the sheer fact that I had the opportunity and means to go.  I mean, I had the ability to travel, to be comfortable, to speak and listen to people that I genuinely have come to respect and care about.  We had an epic time and learned a lot.  When we got back, I went home to be with my family which was also epic in its own little way.  Sometimes you have it set in your mind how something is going to be and so you dread an event and unnecessarily stress yourself out about it.  I knew that I was going home under less than ideal circumstances, and I think my friends ultimately had a better handle on the situation as a whole than I did.  They encouraged me to go despite my initial reservations, and it turned out better than I expected it to.  It still sucked based on the circumstances, but there's something to be said about facing something as a family.

It's difficult to admit when you're wrong, but my friends were completely right on this one.  Everything turned out okay and I would have really regretted it had I not gone home.  I'm taking a writing class at the moment and one of the things I'm learning to deal with is the fact that I cannot spot certain flaws within my writing until someone points them out to me.  It's difficult to look at your own writing and your own life objectively, and so having people around you who aren't necessarily as influenced by the emotional nature of a situation is almost crucial to making the right decision sometimes.  My friends were right and I was wrong--this time.

I am blessed to be where I am, to be doing what I'm doing, feeling what I'm feeling, learning what I'm learning, and seeing what I'm seeing.  In spite of anything unfortunate, I am leading an epic life filled with epic people who can sometimes point out my epically flawed personal logic.

Recognize how valuable the people around you are.  Whether either of you see it or not, they're giving you a perspective that's difficult to see by yourself.  Be epic and be well.  Until we meet again,

-Megan

Laughter

Hello lovely Reader! It's Nicole here.

Let me just say, yesterday was rough.

I couldn't stop laughing.

I mean, I really couldn't stop laughing. I don't know what came over me, but when Megan came over to my dorm after class, I just started to giggle. Then Megan couldn't stop laughing because I couldn't. It lasted solidly for an hour, then sporadically for the rest of the night. Nothing was particularly funny, but apparently I found it to be all hilarious.

To be honest, yesterday was rough. I had class at 8:30, volunteering the costume studio in the theatre from 10-11, then class from 11:50 to 1, and then homework until dinner at 6, then I had to write a speech and practice a monologue for class today. It was just long and I didn't have a lot of time relax. I took a half hour nap, but it was accidental. So let's just say my giggle fit was quite needed in my life.

A few months ago, Megan figured out I was very ticklish. When she discovered this, she said my 'tickle-giggle' was adorable...I didn't even know I had a 'tickle-giggle'. The more I thought about having different kinds of laughter, the more sense it made. Think of different situations when you laugh: with friends, at a movie, looking at photos or videos online, etc. There are ton of different types of laughter:

1. The tickle-giggle.
2. The "you-don't-get-the-joke-so-you-laugh-anyways" laugh.
3. The "you-just-fell-and-it's funny" laugh.
4. Trying to relieve tension.
5. The bursting laugh.
6. The inconspicuous laugh.
7. The pity laugh.
And so many more...

Here's what epic: laughter comes in so many different forms and in so many different situations. Someones all you need a good laughing fit after a long day or a little humor in a dark time. Life get's a bit down sometimes, but even science proves that if you smile, you feel a bit happier. I even heard that if you spend a few minutes just laughing every morning, your happiness will increase. So enjoy laughter because it's pretty epic.

Be epic and keep on being lovely.

-Nicole

Walking on Diamonds

'Ello Reader,
Sorry for the long delay--it's been kind of a crazy week.  I'm actually sitting here redoing my hair since it's looking a little minty green.  It's supposed to be purple... it turns out blue.  Don't ask.  So I'm sitting here, a bit bored, I haven't blogged in about a week, and it's a good way to procrastinate on my homework.  OH!  I'm going to a conference from Friday to Sunday and I am super excited about it!  So yep, that's what is new with me.

Hmm, so let me talk about thought and the mind for a bit.  Our minds are incredibly powerful and incredibly mysterious.  I mean, why else would a branch of psychology (cognitive) be dedicated to the mind and how it works?  We can slip into altered states of consciousness through things like meditation or hypnosis, which are really solely due to the mind. Our minds can also cause physiological symptoms, especially those associated with pain or anxiety.  There's a whole slew of psychosomatic disorders out there, and I don't know about you, but stress and worry wreak havoc on my body.  I especially carry stress in my shoulders and as someone put it quite eloquently to me, "You have knots on your knots!"  So yeah, it's a little crazy to think something so intangible can manifest thought and worry into physiological symptoms.

What I think is a little bit cooler though, is the concept of attention.  If we don't pay attention to something, especially something visual, it's as if it doesn't exist!  I find it both interesting and a bit freaky to think about the extent of what we miss on a daily basis, simply because we're not paying attention.  The other night, I was walking back to my dorm sometime around midnight. The temperature had just dipped below freezing and the very thin layer of moisture left on the street and sidewalk was beginning to freeze.  I wasn't really paying attention, but when I looked down everything seemed to sparkle.  It was as if I was walking on diamonds.  It was the most beautiful thing I had seen in quite a while,  though I must admit it was rivaled by the hoar frost we've had on the trees for the last two days.  Stunning. Here's a photo my friend took of that by the way.  I feel so lucky to be living in such a beautiful place.

I think I was lost in thought before I noticed the sidewalks and roads.  I love just sitting around and thinking.  It's why I kind of like blogging--it forces me to organize and summarize my thoughts.  I think a lot of people enjoy thinking, and especially having the time to think, but what gives thought it's value?  It is valuable because we enjoy it? or do we enjoy it because it's valuable?  Also, does the value of thinking come from the sheer fact that we do it and enjoy it, or from our explicit application into our daily lives?  I'll leave that last one up to you. Whatever answer you come up with, I'm sure it will be epic.

So, go enjoy a few minutes of that epic thinking, but don't forget to look down--you never know when you'll find a diamond.

Please be well and be excellent!  Have a good week!

-Megan

Waves

Hey Reader,

How's it going? I am once again procrastinating slightly, but I swear I will be productive tonight, then I get to hang out with little kids tomorrow morning.  I'm excited.  So, it is 6:02 and I'm kinda just waiting for people before dinner and then there's an event going on tonight.  It's work time after that, I swear.

Life is filled with all sorts of little epic coincidences.  Lately I've noticed that life seems to be composed of two separate waves, like sound waves kinda--there's the internal wave which consists of things like emotions, thoughts, personal goals etc.  It's pretty much everything internalized, and given the name, is subject to very frequent ups and downs, even within the span of a day.  Then there's the second wave consisting of everything external like events, weather, luck, etc.  It's everything external to ourselves and can get a little out of hand sometimes, though we can control it in little ways, such as putting ourselves in specific situations or controlling how we react.  As with the internal wave, this wave also has ups and downs.  Duh, it's a wave.

Now, what I find interesting is how the waves interact with each other.  I mean think of it.  If an external wave crest matches up with an internal wave trough, they cancel out, and vice versa.  This can be way cool if you're having a bad day and then something amazing happens--like seeing an incredible performance.  *cough* *cough* Preston Pugmire. (Look him up, he's great to watch.)  I mean, even if you're having a bad day and something good coincides, yet the waves don't exactly match up, the roughness is eased and life just becomes better.

Sure, these waves can cancel each other out and essentially, mellow you out, but they can also build each other up or rip each other down further.  Take the sun for example, say you are feeling great and then you walk outside and it's a beautiful day--you see an incredible sun reflecting off all the surfaces and BAM, your good mood is now amplified by the great weather.  Unfortunately this can also work in reverse.  Say you're feeling rotten and then you find out you bombed a test or something like that.  The bad mood is now amplified as well.

For the sake of optimism, let's focus on when internal positivity and general happiness coincides with external positivity and possibly good luck.  We cannot isolate the two waves to examine them separately, but I highly doubt our lives would be as intense--yes it can sometimes be intensely painful, but it can also be intensely wonderful, and those times when the wave crests coincide is when epicness occurs.

So, live for the epic times when the crests coincide, they'll get you through the times when the troughs do.  However, also be aware that the frequency is by no means static.  Don't think that life has a set pattern for you, chances are it doesn't.  Just enjoy the spontaneity of it all.

Be well, be excellent, be bloody brilliant!

-Megan

Spectra

Heyo Reader!  How're you?

I have about ten minutes before I head off to my philosophy class... what better to do with ten minutes than write a blog post right?  Yes.  So after class I am going to try to crank out an essay, breeze through the rest of my homework, maybe eat something, and then head off to see an acoustic show around 10.  Good day?  I think so, but that doesn't mean I don't need a weekend... right now preferably.

Seriously, since when did we make everything so black and white?  You know those color pallets with maybe 10 colors on them?  Then have you seen those full color spectra like the customize section of the Microsoft Paint program?  Life is a spectrum, not a dichotomy.  We dichotomize everything!  Why?  Well, it's easier to organize in our heads, but life offers so much more variety when we understand that almost every experience is taken from a spectrum of experiences.  Think about all the false dichotomies we encounter in life.  These are, but are not limited to: gender, sexuality, leadership, even race. I mean really, how much more colorful can life be if we accept the entire spectrum as reality instead of just a limited pallet of color?  False dichotomy is a logical fallacy for a reason.

I was thinking about how I've changed from more of a leader to more of a follower the other day.  Then I smacked myself in the head and told myself to stop being so ridiculous about the whole thing.  My leadership roles have shifted, turned a few degrees to the right or left maybe, but they have not completely reversed.  I am simply more comfortable taking control in different situations than I have been in the past, and I'm much more content to be led.

We can't just live life pigeon-holing ourselves into one set role, position, or anything else.  We are humans and we change.  Everything about ourselves, be it personality, preferences, interests, whatever you can think of, has the capacity to shift and shift fairly often.  It's okay to recognize in yourself the fact that you are a dynamic human being.  Just accept it and go with it.  Enjoy the dynamic ride. Who we are, and what we are is just a flexible point on a spectrum.  Spectra are epic--take rainbows for example.  Nothing is better than a good rainbow... except a double rainbow...

Have the most excellent of days.

-Megan