Keep Moving Forward

The second day back to school consisted of waking up at 8 in the morning to do nothing. Most Tuesdays and Thursdays I will probably be working at my internship of working on homework but for as of today I had nothing to do. Now had my foot been functioning and not angry at me for walking around camous all day yesteday then I would have tried to go to the gym or do something productive. Alas, I spent the day napping, watching Disney movies, try to stay warm, and planning for my future. I've been looking into other options and making backup plans in case I don't get in to grad school or in case I end up in grad school and realize that the program I've put myself into is not the one I actually want to be a part of. 

I saw the quote above months ago and I've had it easily accessible at all times ever since. Disney's outlook on life seems to be pretty whimiscal and is just one of those things that makes me want to be better person. I want to try new things and keep moving forward, that just seems like it is the better plan in my opinion.  Today I tried to apply that by looking into options for my future and looking at what is in store for me for my final semester. 

Let's just say I feel like it is going to be good year. 

Standing By Me

"Good friends will help you until you're unstuck."- Winnie the Pooh

The first day back at school was not easy. Sitting down and motivating myself to write this instead of just crashing my head onto my pillow and escaping to dream land was also not easy. From waking up six hours earlier than normal to hobbling around my hilly campus with crutches in fortyh degree weather the change of scenary and routine from the past three weeks was very difficult. Most people on campus weren't even paying attention to this first day back. There's a little championship game going on tonight, no big deal or anything just has everyone distracted.  Besides that though, it was a bleak day. Roomate and I came home exhausted and cold and generall ready to just give up on today. I will hand it to him though, he really came through for my poor, crippled self today. A bunch of people did. And I am so grateful for that. Something I have forgotten to mention until now is how appreciative I am of all the people who assisted me with any and everything while I was still at home. 

I walked out of the house 45 minutes early just so I could avoid being late for my nine am class. Forty. Five. Minutes. I left the house at 8:20! This whole crutches business needs to end very soon. Anyway, after leaving that early, taking 10 minutes to hobble down what is usually a  3 minute path, and finally catching a bus to the other side of campus I made it to my class on time. Yay, woo, good for me and the universe. Then a friend bought me breakfast and basically let me loiter around his house for five hours. You sir are fantastic. The roommate then took over KaitlinWatch and *carried around all of my stuff* for the rest of the day. You sire are also fantastic and I love you. A sister also helped out today, providing me with transportation to pick up this semester's books. 

All of this would have been much more difficult without everyone's assistance. While I may not consider myself to be a social butterfly and have five million friends, I will say that I am so lucky to have the people who are involved in my life and who do put up with me and my shenanigans.

Thank you to all of you. 

Side note: I didn't drink any soda today!! Its a small step but I'm proud of it. 

Ties that Bind

Today was my last day home, presumably for another two or three months. I enjoy going home but I won't lie and say I would rather be staying at my house over going back to my school. I just don't like being stuck in my house and that is pretty much all I did over the break due to my foot. I love my family, despite all of our drama and everything that we have been through. We've been able to over come so many tests and trials and losses. There is no way I would be able to have gotten this far with out them and though I don't say it nearly as often as I should, each one of them knows I love them and appreciate each lesson they've taught me. Which is a large amount if you were wondering. My family on my mother's side alone is around forty people.

Leaving isn't an easy thing for me even though I am excited to go back to school.  My heart breaks everytime I have to leave my nephews and tell them I'll be back soon. They are so little and all I can think about are all of the things I won't be there to see. I wasn't raised by my parents, I was raised by myself and my sibling. All I want to do is be a big part of my nephews' life the way their parents were a part of mine. 

Leaving also reminds me of all the family members I don't get to spend a whole lot of time with every break. Aunts, cousins, my grandmother. The categories don't do the amount of people I failed to appropriately interact with justice.  As I get older and pay more attention to my surroundings family becomes more and more important to me. While it hurts to leave then behind for another semester I have to remind myself that I am going back to anoter family at school. My roommates, sorority sisters, friends and coworkers make up my pseudo family while I am away. I'm going to try to look at it as though I am not leaving my family behind but rather seeing more of them.

`

Today's the Day

"Life's not a spectator sport. If watchin' is all you're gonna do then you're gonna watch your life go by without ya."- Laverne- The Hunchback of Notre Dame-1996

If feeling all gross and yucky can take a toll on your goals for a single day, I don't even want to imagine what it can do for my whole year.. I was supposed to do lots of things and see lots of people over the course of today but I just didn't feel well. I canceled all my plans, stayed home and did laundry so that I can go back to school with clothes to wear for the first week. Later on it will be my solum duty to pack all of said laundry and the rest of my stuff in to my large, purple suitcase. Joy. 

Aside from that one bit of productivity, I binged on Netflix and dreaded sitting down to do anything else that required any type of effort. I sat and wasted my life away.  I don't like doing that. All that free time as a last semester college student right before said last semester begins? Its a bad plan. All it results in is worry and anxiety and panic about all of the things I still have to accomplish. Aside from that, once I start worrying and getting overwhelmed I can't stop and thats pretty much all I do for the rest of the day. I just don't have the time to be behaving like this and it must stop. 

If there is one thing I am going to do today it is actually set my goals to accomplish by May regardless of how petty some of them might sound.

1. Stop drinking soda.

2. Visit with the nutritionist on campus to start eating better.

3. Make time to go to the gym, I want to feel better about my self. 

4. Put effort into my appearance 3/4 days out of the week.

5.USE MY PLANNER AND REVISIT MY TIME MANAGEMENT SKILLS

6. Stay positive.

7. Take the GRE.

8. Drink more water.

9. Make straight A's my final semester.

10. Be happy with myself and the choices I make

11.Look into internships.

12.Learn how to cook.

13.Work on my relationships.

14. Make better choices with my finances.

14 goals to accomplish by May 2014. Some of them should be fairly easy. The others... maybe not as easy but no one said change was easy.

Patience and Civility

"You follow old Rafiki... He knows the way!" -Rafiki- The Lion King 1994 

Remember how I said people will have an impact on you? Today's impact was reminding me to be patient and civil. I went to my orthopedist to have my foot reevaluated and to hopefully be cleared to go back to work (I wasn't) when I had a lovely little run in with some obnoxious people. Now, I call them obnoxious because that is how *I* viewed their actions but maybe someone else would say differently. That's essentially the point of the picture above in my opinion. 

To start, the receptionist for the clinic seemed very grumpy and bored with her life and didn't seem to care that she was snapping at people. As a receptionist, I cannot say that I blame her for feeling that way. However, as a customer service agent (which she is, as am I) it is expected that each guest to your establishment be treated civilly at the very least.  Lets just say she failed in that department and needs to learn some manners. The other obnoxious person of the day was a fellow patient who previously experienced a hard time with the same receiptionist. I went up to the desk and waited in line to ask a question when she quite literally jumped in front of me with her paper work. Did she not see me standing there with my crutches? Maybe she thought I wasn't in line? I have no idea. 

In both of these instances all I wanted to do was tell these individuals off. I wanted to call out the receptionist for her demeanor and ask if she ought to go home if that was the way she was planning on interacting with people. I wanted to tap the woman who stole my spot on her shoulder and ask whether she was blind or if cutting people was an accepted social skill where she comes from. But I didn't. Instead I reminded myself that not everyone is raised the same way and not everyone is going to deal with a situation they way I would. And that is okay. I have to make the choice to treat these people in a civil manner and be patient with them. It's not all about my self and as an aspiring therapist I need to remind myself of this more often.

"You have to look beyond what you see" -Rafiki- Lion King 1 1/2

On a positive note, my doctor was a pretty cool dude. He was pretty concerned about the shenanigans I've been doing with my foot and gave me explicit instructs for the future. He hates my school but otherwise very friendly and funny. My nephew recently broke something in his foot and we have the same doctor so I am glad to know our doctor is going to take good care of him.

Let It Go

"Let it go, Let it go. Can't hold it back anymore. Let it go, Let it go. Turn my back and slam the door." "Let It Go"-Frozen- 2013

They say you learn something new everyday. Well today I learned quite a few things. For one, I realized I need to not be so serious and  even though I'm fairly good at interpreting things in multiple ways I tend to go the serious route. For another, I have pretty bad impulse control and I need to work on this. Also, I was reminded today that I am not the universe's favorite person (I tried to be healthy and order a grilled chicken salad, chicken arrived undercooked, had to get fries and a shake instead), I am incapable of controlling my stutter, *and* I should probably revisit the idea of not letting people get to me. All of these things I am okay with. They are all part of what it is to be me right now, in this current place in time. Can they change? Of course but it will be on my terms and no one else's. Letting it go.

Aside from all of the things I learned about me today, I learned a couple things about people as well. People will have an affect on other people, positive or negative. That seems redundant and pointless to state but its true. Some people are going to disappoint you or stun you or surprise you or disgust you. It is going to happen more likely than not. It happened to me today. Someone who I thought was my friend and who I thought I meant something to surprised me with his or her shenanigans and kind of shattered the image of our friendship for me. But I'm okay with that. His or her life is not mine to monitor and his or her actions should not dictate how I run my life. I won't let it and I won't allow it. I am stronger than that because I want to be. 

Let it go.

Side note about people:

 Have you ever disagreed with someone or their choices so much that you ask your self "Why do I interact with you?" Have you ever just looked at someone and realized how odd it is to actually be friends with, be in a relationship with, or be related to them? Think about it. We choose to let person X,Y,and Z into our lives because of similar interests or views or because we share the same major in college. We choose to interact with them verbally, conTEXTually (see what I did there?), publicly and privately all because there is something about their individual weirdness that relates to ours. Even people we have nothing in common with, sometimes to the point of being complete opposites, we sometimes let into our lives. Then we complain about it whenever person X, Y, or Z does something that we as individuals don't agree with or that society deems socially inappropriate. Do we do anything about it most of the time? Not from what I've learned about people but I could be (read "probably am") wrong about that.  I'm not saying there is anything wrong with any of this, quite frankly there isn't. Humans are social creatures and we need social groups in order to function. But when I sit back and I look at it as a whole, I'm just baffled, amused, and content with it all at the same time. Does anyone else have this happen to them or am I just off my rocker?  Probably. 

The First Step

"'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door,' he used to say. 'You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to.'"-  J.R.R. Tolkien The Fellowship of the Ring 1954.

Every journey starts off with a step, literal or metaphorical. Literal steps are kind of difficult for me currently considering my foot is broken so I'll stick to metaphorical ones for now.  First steps can come in a variety of ways. Thoughts, feelings, a decision on a matter, moving on from a matter... the list could go on and on if someone was creative enough. My first step occurred yesterday when I decided to start this adventure. The second step was making the blog and the third was posting about my decision. First steps can be really scary. Look at how long it takes babies to walk or for someone who wants to change the world to actually stand up and do it. That step is critical to their future and the *have* to trust and believe in themselves enough to even try it let alone keep it going. And that is where I failed last year.

My journey through 2013 started with deciding to be productive and actually work towards more goals instead of just listing them off and expecting them to just happen. I booked a trip to New York for summer and started planning a trip to Disney for spring break. I made a promise that I would go to the gym as well as many other clichéd NYE resolutions that I won't bore you with. 2013 brought me many opportunities and just as much drama be it familial, personal, social, whathave you. Drama. It was everwhere at all times. And it's exhausting.  I *tried* really hard to keep all of my goals but by the middle of the year, I was losing that battle with my self. I just couldnt find the energy, reason, or the self motivation to keep up with the rules that I put down for my self and they slowly slipped away. This year however, I will not let my self commit that same crime. I will be keeping my self in check with these posts and by teaming up with a friend of mine (Branndi314) to go through my remaining semester of undergrad and the rest of my 2014 in the best way possible. 

Happy New Year everyone.

Brandi314's blog:  becauseiwantachange.blogspot.com

Photo retrieved from www.geekwithcurves.com