Blast from the past

I found something I wrote almost three and a half years ago and want to share it here for easy access. These are good reminders for me.

These are things you need to know to be happy:

• Other people want to be happy, too. No one likes feeling crummy, so don’t take it personally if you’re not always exclusively included in what makes a specific somebody happy. Just find another way to be happy.
• Being happy is not a way to get back at other people. It’s just being happy -- for yourself.
• Sometimes, it might help to pretend that you’re another person. Not a different person, but another person, if that makes sense. Another version of You.
• Reading helps with that (above) because you can really be somebody else. Read something tragic so you can feel all of those tragic things and realize, hey! look! I have got it goooood! Also read non-tragic things so you can feel those non-tragic things, too, and be happier still.
• At night, when you’re in bed, never, ever think of these things:

1. school
2. work
3. any faulty relationships in your life
4. how messy your room is
5. pretty much anything that makes you feel stressed or anxious

because you have so much time when you’re awake to think of those things, and well gosh, isn’t it stupid to bother yourself with things that make you feel blue almost a full 24 hours of every day?

• It’s fun to challenge yourself. I like to think I have a high tolerance for pain, so just to prove to myself that I do, I’ll push my own limits if I have to deal with things (physically, too. like today I was making cupcakes and the batter got real thick but I still kept mixing it even though it hurt, and boooy did I have fun mixing it even though it hurt for the precise reason that it hurt! It was like I was beating myself in a game!) When you’re playing against yourself, it’s easier to win.

Pina

Sometime a long time ago, I watched a documentary about the late choreographer Pina Bausch. Though I wouldn't consider myself an avid fan of contemporary dance, there is so much in her work to be appreciated. I mean, just look at those stills! If you want some more magical things for the seeing orifices on your face to enjoy, this is the place to go. These pictures take me elsewhere.

EDIT ON 8/24/15 AT 2:38 AM: stfu Aya........... stop acting like you know what you're talking about, ya big, fat Snob

Spot by the window

So that's my view up there right now, coming at you live! I have my own little cubicle on the fourth floor of the campus library, and I feel so lucky because my seat is right next to the window. If this is spot were a sort of truffle, I don't know whether it would be one of those super sought-after ones, but I mean, I feel pretty privileged to be sitting here. I was reading for my government exam when I realized that for literally 10ish minutes, I had not moved from the FIRST THREE LINES of the 100+ pages I'm supposed to get through by next week. And so, here I am!

For the past couple of nights, and today super early in the morning, I've been stepping outside for a little bit because Misha (dat's ma kitty poo) likes to take trips to the front yard. It's been smelling and feeling and sounding like the summer before my sophomore year of high school. A few seconds outside, when the sun's on the other side of the earth, and I have listened to all the songs I had on repeat in 2009; and I've laid out for hours, sunbathing, on the trampoline we used to have in our backyard; and I've gone to Chicago and had deep-dished pizza from Giordanno's; and I've done all that in the span of five minutes and come back to where I'm standing on the porch in 2014. 

This makes me miss things. 

But this isn't the nostalgia that makes you wish you could have it all again. It's the kind that makes you happy you had it, and the kind that makes you hungry for more things to feel nostalgic over a few years from this instant.

I guess, this being my bloggy poo and all, I'm allowed to write whatever I want - even if it's rather useless (hahaha.... go away if you thought that was useless).

Grapefruit ideas are great ideas

You know when you're pondering one thing, and it reminds you of a related thing, and before you realize what's happening, you've gone from thinking about what those plastic tips on the ends of shoelaces are called, to wondering about the implications and ramifications of an extraterrestrial invasion on our agriculture industry? Yeah, well... I don't, either.

Anyway, something similar happened to me today after dinner. While ripping through a grapefruit and going all sorts of crazy over how delicious something is allowed to be, I started thinking of other citrus fruits. Namely oranges. (quick side-note: have you guys/gals ever tried pomelo? it's a citrus-y fruit, if, like me until a few weeks ago, you don't know what the heck that is. I totally recommend it, you guys/gals)
I have got to say, one of the most singularly satisfying feelings in life as I know it is when I'm peeling an orange and that part at the top... I don't know what it's called... I wish I were well-versed in fruit terminology.... but you know that top part of an orange, this big ol' collection of orange pith from the middle of the fruit? There should be a name for the feeling you get when you successfully extract that sucker. I'm sure the Eskimos have 32 different words for that sensation.

Well, this made me think about what other sorts of seemingly trivial things invoke great surges of actual joy in me. Maybe this list will be similar to yours. Maybe you think I should return to the psych-ward from whence I escaped.

• Stirring chocolate-y mixes
• The sound of a passing train (unless you're really close to it. I imagine that would be rather unpleasant and deafening) (this sound can also make me sad)
• Turning crystal doorknobs
• The smell of basements (haha...ha..h)
• Watching the super duper quiet person in class talking excitedly with a friend (maybe doing this just makes me a scary person)
• Good guacamole
• Miraculously finding a familiar street when you thought you were lost somewhere in a different state on your way back from the mall
• Successfully drumming a difficult part of a song
• The smell of wet tile (for those not acquainted with the scent, I'd compare it to the smell of rain)
• Flossing
• On a similar note, Q-Tipping my ears... heheh. 

........what the

Alright, alright, alright, alright, alright now ladies!

(I'm missing a few alright's up there, heheh)

Well, you guys and gals, there I was, sitting on my bed, staring blankly at a Word document of a paper I'm supposed to be peer reviewing, when the blinking text cursor and I started giving each other dirty looks. It was then that I decided the only thing left for me to do when I didn't feel like writing was.... write a blog post! 

If I'm being a Truthful Theodore, I haven't been up to much as of late. Ooooh, don't act all surprised!

Approximately 96% of my entire life nowadays is reserved for school and school-related thang-a-langs. I'm taking calculus II this semester, and when I tell people this, I can feel pity/awe emanating from every orifice of their body (count on me to give a good visual). I'm sooort of... a lot scared. It is in my nature to worry about things regardless, but get strangers telling me how hard this semester is going to be, and I shake in my booties. 

A couple of times a week, I get together with this cute little study group a few of my calculus classmates and I started up, so that is pretty super fun! I especially fawn over my new friend Kelli. Since I started at university, she's been in basically all of my classes, and we have so much in common that some people may call it terrifying. 

And there's this auburn-haired beauty-of-a-man that I've been obsessing over at school, and I'm just counting down the years until he realizes we're basically meant for one another. 

Besides that, let's see... I saw Anderson Cooper Monday night. I don't think I need to tell you ladies and gentlemen about how wonderful of a human being he is.

One of these days, my posts won't be so self-deprecating. Today is not that day. *lol*

EDIT: 
Geez, Louise! How funny is it going back and rereading all my previous posts? They all start with a variation of so-I-haven't-been-posting-but-here-I-go-now, haha. I am such a riot.