Stress and Laughter

Song I'm Currently Listening To: A Whisper & A Clamor - Anberlin

I'm blogging because my cool suite-mate blogged not too long ago, and it reminded me that I haven't blogged since September.

Just yesterday I watched The IT Crowd episode where the boss, who is unfortunately dressed like this:

is talking about how stress is constantly killing people. Which of course then he's the major cause of most of the stress in the building anyway because he's threatening to fire anyone who's stressed at the end of the day, which of course means they're all going to be stressed about the thought of being fired because they're stressed...

The point of the matter is, over the past month and a half or so, I've become extremely stressed out. My workload has quadrupled from the workload I had last session, plus a string of a thousand other things. It's just like stress decided to punch me in the face and steal my lunch money. For those who need a visual, here's an example:

Stress does not wear a blue coat. I am also not a small Asian boy.

You get the point. I'm very tired and overworked, and it's not a fun place to be in. I also learned something very interesting this past week. I was on the phone ranting to a friend, and they noted how that even though I was so tired, upset, and stressed about certain things, I kept laughing about whatever the subject was. That statement made me realize that whenever I don't feel like I can handle something, I laugh. It's like a built in defense mechanism. Laughing makes me feel better, so I automatically do it when things are going wrong. 

I don't think it's a bad thing all the time. If it'll ease up the stress a little bit or help me see what's making me stressed in a clearer light, even for a moment, I don't see how it's bad. If it helps me realize that it's not something that is going to control my life and never go away, I think it's fine. If it starts making me not take things seriously, that would be a problem. But I'm not doing that. 

All I know is, an overload of stress isn't good for anyone. Avoiding it at all costs would be awesome, but I know that isn't possible. All I have to say is... I know I'll live. And if anyone else is extremely stressed out, you'll live and make it through, too. Life isn't always fine and dandy. Take advantage of the moments that are, and kick the butt of the ones that are not.

This Is A Blog Post About...

Song(s) I'm Currently Listening To: Random bits of the Queen Discography

* I'm drinking a particularly good cup of coffee today. It makes me happy.

I did not, however, specifically arrange coffee beans so I felt like I was drinking a picture.

* My dorm room feels like I'm sitting in a bathtub full of ice cubes in Antarctica. 

I decided googling "bathtub" wouldn't be a smart idea. So here's Antarctica!

* Yesterday my room mate, my suite-mates, and I randomly ordered a large pizza from Pizza Hut and devoured and then proceeded to devour it at the hour of 10:45 pm.

Behold, grease!

* I have 5 empty plastic water bottles on my desk.

This is more than 5.

* I get to go play with wolves soon. Yes, real live wolves.

"I love you!!!"

* At the beginning of the week, a fake ladybug failed to perform a stealth attack on me by sitting on my pillow and sneaking up on me. It then was flicked out of the room by yours truly.

"Fear me, I'm kamikaze beetle."

* I'm sitting here pouting because Freddie Mercury's falsetto is a million times better than my regular voice.

He's even gloating about it. :P

* My exam today in Abnormal Psych was okay until we got to the case studies. Those were hard.

I made this exact face while reading them.

This is my day/week so far. I'm pretty sure the rest of it is going to be great :-). Have a great week, everyone!

Mosquitos

Song I'm Listening to - Little Lion Man - Mumford & Sons

I have 16 mosquito bites on my legs. I covered them all up with band-aids so I would stop scratching them. 

I'm never going outside in shorts again after dark. I used to do it all the time with no problem. Not anymore.

I hate mosquitoes. They're evil things sent specifically to bother humans and leave their legs an itchy mess, while they buzz off with a belly full of blood and laugh maniacally.

 This one in particular enjoys pretending it's a non-sparkly vampire.

I learned from the ever trustworthy Wikipedia, mosquitoes living in nature (apparently some live in captivity?) usually don't live longer than a couple weeks. That makes it even worse. They hatch, they grow, they bite as many humans and animals as they can, and then they die. But there's like, a bazillion (that is not a trustworthy statistic from Wiki) of them out there. How do they manage this?!

I do, however, feel like I helped assist many families of mosquitoes in to breeding more little monsters. I may have assisted in the building of a giant army of mosquitoes considering the state of my bitten legs. Or maybe they just really like my blood.

I apologize to you all for unknowingly helping the mosquito population get fed. 

"Life Changing" Test

Song I'm Listening To: Typical - MuteMath

I did not intentionally switch the song I was listening to from Justin Bieber's "Eeenie Meenie" to something else so I could write what song I was listening to at the top. Nope, I didn't do that at all.

:-D

Anyway... my blog today is going to be about...

*Drumroll*

My room mate's obsession with Portal! I'm kidding haha.

I want to talk about my Abnormal Psychology class. Today the professor discussed anxiety disorders and how many people concentrate on the "what if's" in life. And it really got me thinking...

I do this ALL of the time. Last year I was afraid I wasn't going to pass this test in my awful music appreciation class... and this is how it played out in my head.

"What if I don't pass this test?! If I don't pass the test, I won't pass the class! If I don't pass the class... I'll lose my scholarship and I'll have to retake the whole thing. Then I'll look stupid and have no money to go to college. If I don't have any money to go to college, I won't be able to stay in college and get my degree. If i don't get my degree, I won't be able to get enough money... well, unless I marry a rich guy, but who'd want to marry a girl who couldn't pass Music Appreciation?! Ah, if I don't pass this class, I'll never get married!!!"

Yeah, it went on to "I'll never move out of the house" and such, but I think going from not being able to pass a test to not getting married was hilarious enough. I then passed the test and class with a higher grade than I expected.

Why did I waste my time with unnecessary worrying? Well, I mean on the plus side it got me to study a little harder, but other than that, all it brought was so much anxiety and lack of sleep... which didn't help with my mood whatsoever.

A little bit of worrying doesn't really hurt anything. It's normal and probably healthy, considering if you didn't worry about anything or have any foresight... then things would end up really badly. However, worrying so much about something that you can't think of anything else or come to irrational consequences if you don't complete something... well, that's just a bit silly.

I'm just saying... taking a breather, relax, and dive in to the task again :)

Wedding Day

Song I'm Listening To: Marchin On/Good Life - OneRepublic

I haven't written in a very long time because of one thing... WEDDING!!!

I've been working on stuff for my sister's wedding for a while now. It seemed so far away at the beginning of the summer. But soon enough, August 13th rolled around...

And honestly, I couldn't have had a better day. Everything was perfect, and my sister and brother in law most definitely deserved it.

I had to wake up at 5:00 am to get in to the church to have my hair done. I packed up everything I could have possibly needed the night before because I don't function in the morning period, especially 5 in the morning...

All of the bridesmaids, moms, and Bethany got their hair done and got dressed in the nursery of the church. It was kind of funny, looking back on it now, but whatever :). I also signed the marriage license (as a witness) on an ironing board sitting in there. :P

Once Bethany was in her dress with her hair up and makeup on... I almost started tearing up then. She looked absolutely beautiful. Seriously. Absolutely beautiful :).

Picture taking was a lot of fun... Bethany and Dustin looked so cute and happy together :)

The ceremony was beautiful. I couldn't stop smiling as I was walking in to the sanctuary at the beginning. The music was amazing (live band, oh yeah :D). Bethany and Dustin looked so unbelievably happy together. When Bethany was walking down the aisle, she had the biggest smile I've ever seen. I was bawling my eyes out by the end of the ceremony, and right before Dustin and Bethany were announced as husband and wife, my sister turned around and gave me a big hug. We were both crying because we were so happy. Apparently we made over half the church cry then...

The reception was also perfect. Relaxed, yet it still had an air of formality to it. People actually danced, which made me happy. I danced with my Uncle Dan! And my theatre directors kids haha.

Honestly the best part was looking around and seeing how happy everyone was. Of course Bethany and Dustin were happy, but everyone else around was about as happy as they were. It was truly a day full of joy, and it couldn't have gone any better, in my opinion.

This isn't really detailed or anything, it's just what's going through my brain right now... It was just an amazing day.

The Last Installment

Song I'm Listening To: E.T. - Toy Box

Note: The song I'm listening to is really, really weird/hilarious.

For starters, this blog contains a lot of Harry Potter stuff, which I know not all of my readers like Harry Potter or have even given it a try. This doesn't bother me in the slightest. My reasons for enjoying Harry Potter are extensive, and the world the story takes place in is no more "unrealistic" than Star Wars or something like that. Just throwing it out there haha. If you are reading this and do not like Harry Potter and/or haven't given it a try, well... just read the blog anyway! I'm not going to give a detailed over view about why it's awesome. This blog will also be split in to parts haha.

Part 1: Today I saw the final Harry Potter film... Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2. It was quite enjoyable and I do admit I teared up several times. *Spoiler Alert for People Who Care* At the end of the movie, Harry has possession of the wand that could make him the most powerful person in that world. He then proceeds to break it and throw it off a bridge in to a rocky ravine. I didn't remember any of this because I haven't read the books in so long, so I was left to question why he even did that.

Then I questioned what I would do if I were in Harry's shoes. What if someone offered me something that could make me more powerful than anyone else in the world? Would I take it? What would I do with that power? I want to say that I would try the awful cliche of "making the world a better place", but would I really know what to do? Would I really know what was the best for every single person on the planet? Would I get big headed and think I was the best person to walk this earth? Would I end up corrupting everything and doing it for selfish reasons?

Maybe yes, maybe no. But it's something to consider. I think it's easier to abuse any sort of power you have over someone than people realize, and I think it's harder learning to realize when you can't handle the power that you do have. I know I've danced the delicate line of being in charge of something and just being bossy. I also know I've danced the line between asking for favors and just plain using people. And honestly, it's just not okay.

I really don't blame Harry for chucking that wand over the bridge.

Part 2: It was weird when the credits were rolling for this movie. Matt leaned over to me and said, "there's not going to be any more movies." That's when it hit me. For years I have watched the books come out and then the movies, and they were always things I really looked forward to. I do have to say, my sister truly grew up with this series, unlike me. Anyway, now that I've seen the last movie, I realize... it's all over. No more books. No more movies. It's finally come to a close. The story is now complete. It is sad realizing that something I've been watching develop for over 10 years now is finished, but I guess all things have to come to a close.

Part 3: I also had a really fun day with Matt today :D. We watched both parts of the last Harry Potter movie, ate at Panera, ran around Best Buy, ran around Wal*Mart, went to Gordon's to buy Bosco Sticks, listened and sang along to fun music, complained about the heat, laughed and told funny stories, waved at a cop that I thought was going to hit us... It was a great day. It really was. :)

I'm not really sure this blog is as structured or as detailed or whatever as my others, but it's my thoughts, and I typed them out now. So here they are. Enjoy.

Thank You, Summer

Song I'm Listening to: Say You Like Me - We the Kings

I love We the Kings. They make me happy, just like the band The Killers. I just ordered the new We the Kings CD today... and the album actually just came out today for everyone who's not on Itunes.

Anyway,

So far my summer has consisted of exactly what I thought it was going to be. I work, and I work a lot. I technically have two part time jobs. One of them is still at the pizza place I've been working at for the past 3 years. The other one is cleaning a family friend's house once a week. Yay for making money! I'm willing to work this much, at least it gives me something to do during the summer instead of sitting around at home. Working at the pizza place has certainly led to some frustration and annoyance, considering I'm left working the front by myself a lot of the times and expected to do a lot of work in a short amount of time. But honestly, at the end of each day, I look back at all of the good that happened that day at work, and I wouldn't change that for anything.

My other focus this summer is my sister's wedding, which makes this summer more exciting than other ones in the past :). I can't wait, especially because I'm the maid of honor! Yay! Bethany and Dustin seem really happy, and it's quite evident that they both love each other so much. Dustin is in Spain right now and Bethany misses him like crazy. I have no idea how she feels because I've never been in her shoes, but I can't wait until my future brother-in-law comes back... because it'll be good to see both him and her so happy to see each other again. Plus, that means the wedding is really soon!

Also this summer I've been treating myself to some of my own "me time," considering I'm one of those people who needs it a lot. Every time after I clean the family friend's house, I treat myself to a delicious Double Chocolatey Chip Frappuccino from Starbucks. It's rewarding after a long week of work (PJ's for 5 days in a row, then the next day cleaning). However, I learned the hard way they use real cream in their drinks... I'm lactose intolerant and I didn't take a pill before I drank it... I ended up with the worst stomach cramp ever haha. Stomach cramp aside, I've grown to really look forward to this little slot of time after cleaning and going back home. Sometimes I'll go for a short drive, like today I decided to drive around Winona Lake for a little bit just to see how beautiful everything looked on this absolutely beautiful day. Sometimes I sit at Starbucks. Sometimes I head straight home and collapse on my bedroom floor. But it's still "me time."

In one of my earliest blogs, I was saying how I was learning about taking time for myself during the school year. Well, I've now learned it's equally important during the summer time as well, especially with working two jobs. However, there's not much time left in the summer, especially with everything I have to do before school starts back in to session. But I do have to say, I love the summer time... and I'm going to make the best of the rest of it. :)