Time Flies

Oh, blog.  I’ve neglected you…  Lo siento.  I’ll try not to let it happen again (read: it’ll probably happen again because lucky me, my internet at my house isn’t working).

Anyway…

This is my last semester of college…  That’s weird.  All this time, I’ve just been focusing on almost being done and getting out of school, but just recently, it hit me that this is my last semester of college.  There is no “spring semester.”  There is no “next year.”  Whatever I wanted to do while I was in college, I need to do now.  No more holding off.  No more procrastinating.  As our dear Gopher football team likes to say, “THE TIME IS NOW!”  So, for the next few months, I’m going to make it a point to do the following:

1. Visit/Study in my favorite place on campus* (which I won’t get to do once it gets cold because it’s outside).
2. Visit/Study in various coffee shops on and near campus.
3. Visit my old place of employment, Dunn Bros., and get half-off drinks.
4. Go to at least two Campus People Watchers events.
5. Go to church more and get more involved.
6. Go to West Bank and St. Paul at least one time each.
7. Successfully feed a squirrel.
8. Finish my Honors Thesis (though it would probably help somewhat if I actually started first).
9. Go to at least two concerts (on- and/or off-campus).
10. Go to Gophers After Dark at least once.
11. Go to the Rec Center at least three times.
12. Actually go to campus events and get lots of freebies.

I guess we’ll see how successful I am at accomplishing these things.  I’m sitting in Espresso Expose right now, so #2 is off to a good start.  And I was just at my favorite place on campus yesterday, so again, that’s another good start.

Anyway, Espresso Expose just started playing The Beatles, so I’m really distracted right now.  That’s okay though ’cause I think I’ll end this here and continue listening to The Beatles.

*more on that later

I’m in an intermediate state

And it’s not a good place to be.

in·ter·me·di·ate

adj.   Lying or occurring between two extremes or in a middle position or state

Yup.  That’s me.  I’m caught between:
1. Being good and being bad.
2. Wanting to be sorry and wanting to be mad.
3. Being happy and being sad.

(Yay for rhyming, yo.)

I don’t like being between two extremes.  You see, when you’re clearly on one end, there are certain criteria that define your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, etc.  But when you’re in the middle, the criteria just blow up.  They don’t exist.  Instead, you’re left to pick criteria from either extreme.  And you know what?  That’s cheating.  You don’t end up with nice criteria.  You end up with mutt criteria, and mutt criteria do a shoddy job of telling you how to act.

Bleh.

But you know, maybe it’s not that bad being in an intermediate state.  Okay. Allow me to speak nerd for a paragraph or two to explain.

n.   Chemistry A substance formed as a necessary stage in the manufacture of a desired end product.

Well.  That’s encouraging.  “Necessary stage.”  “Desired end product.”  So even though I’m in this intermediate stage now, perhaps it won’t last forever.  It’s good to think of it in the sense that I need to go through this stage first before getting to a stage I want to be at.

Duh.  I should’ve known that.  The evidence is everywhere.

You have to walk before you run.  You have to go through an awkward adolescence before becoming an adult.  You have to wait before… oh, a billion nice things.

So I guess being in an intermediate state, while not completely enjoyable, isn’t entirely a bad thing.  To be honest, that’s not the conclusion I was planning on drawing when I started writing this post.  I was totally planning on harping on the sucky side of being in the middle, but as I kept writing, Dictionary.com showed me the error of my ways and said, “Hey, it’s not so bad being in the middle.  Check out definition three.”  Thanks, Dictionary.com.

I guess, that makes this post pointless… save for this:

P.S. After writing this, I have the urge to listen to Jimmy Eat World.

My self-esteem is on vacation?

Lately, there’s a question that’s been on my mind:

“What’s wrong with me?”

Now, I don’t mean it in the mental disorder sense; I mean it in the “why don’t guys like me” sense. Okay, before I begin, let me just say that I am aware of how completely juvenile that sounds. Trust me, I know. But please try to refrain from rolling your eyes too much and let me get a little vulnerable with this one, okay? It’s been really bugging me lately…

So. I’ve been single for a while now, and that’s fine. I don’t think I’m really ready to be in another relationship anyway. Okay, so what’s the problem? Well, it doesn’t seem like any guy shows interest in me. It seems like a number of my friends always have these different guys showing interest, trying to get to know them better, asking them to hang out, hitting on them– whatever. The list goes on. It’s the same for my single and taken friends. And amidst all that, there’s me.

I don’t get hit on and I don’t have guys messaging me to hang out. Okay, I’ll admit that a week after I decided not to date for a while, two guys had asked me out, but they were so wrong for me (I won’t go into that).  Those incidents happened a long time ago, and ever since then, no one has shown any interest in me, which makes me wonder. What is it about me that guys don’t like? And what do my friends all have that I don’t?

Am I really that unattractive? Am I that boring? Is it because guys think I’m so serious all the time? Do I come off as snobby even though I’m really just shy? Are my boobs not big enough? Seriously, what the smurf is wrong with me?

I don’t know… It’s just a little disheartening when no one seems to want to take a chance and get to know me better. To be honest though, when I meet someone new, I try to keep my walls up for a while making it harder for the person to get to know me, but hey, everyone does that.

What’s even more disheartening, however, is when I do let my walls down, let a guy get to know me better, and then he leaves. He’s done. Doesn’t want to get to know me any better. I had a guy friend who got to know me (better than a lot of people actually), and I got to know him. We would hang out and have some good conversations, but lately, he’s stopped wanting to hang out when I’d ask him to. And today, he pretty much confirmed that he didn’t want to hang out with me anymore… So again, what is it about me that pushes guys away?

Recently, I had a guy friend tell me that if a guy wants to get to know a girl better, it’s because she looks good and he’s physically attracted to her. Maybe that’s the answer to my question.

Of course, I could take the active role in getting to know someone, but I’ve had bad luck with it. And besides, I’d like to know what it’s like being on the other side. Being the one that someone actually wants to get to know. I’ve actually experienced it before with my last boyfriend, but it hasn’t happened again since then.

And I’m not asking for some guy to give me a chance for a relationship. What I’ve said thus far can be applied to guys and girls in regard to a real, not-shallow friendship. I’m just focusing on the guy side because it boils down to this: I have this [at times overwhelming] desire to make someone happy and to be a blessing to that person. While it’s good to be a blessing to everyone, I’d especially like to be that in the context of a marriage (i.e., to my husband). With that, it just makes me sad to think that because a guy doesn’t want to get to know me, he’ll never know that about me. He’ll never know that when I meet the right person, I want to make him so friggin’ happy. In fact, when I get upset at a guy for doing/not doing something, I’m probably more upset not because of the action, but because he’s making it harder for me to make him happy (man, I wish I realized that about myself during my last relationship). So yeah. Basically, by not taking a chance on me or even noticing me, I’m afraid no guy will know that about me and know that I have so much I want to give, and then I won’t get married. Instead, I’ll just be by myself, filled to the brim with the desire to make someone happy, which will eventually make me explode because I won’t have any outlet. Unless I get 27 cats to be my outlet. Wow. I think I finally understand old cat ladies.  Anyway. I’m afraid that now that I’ve expressed my desire to get married and released it into the universe, it’s not going to happen. Great.

Okay, I wrote way more than I was planning on writing. My bad. I just needed to get it all out. If you read all of it, I owe you $1 or some McDonald’s fries for your time. Thanks.

What to do, what to do

Seriously. What the smurf do I do?

Non-commenting readers (ahem), I’m in a bit of a predicament. Kinda, sorta, not really. Actually, I don’t know if I can call it a real predicament since it’s mostly internal… Kinda, sorta, not really.

I won’t go into what [un]said predicament is, but here’s my dilemma: Do I keep expending effort into this predicament? Or do I leave it to the other involved parties to do something? Granted, I’m not really doing too much right now, but maybe that’s a sign that I should be doing more. Though to be honest, I don’t really know what else I can do and if doing more would be appropriate for the situation. Most likely not.

I’m being very vague right now.

Yesterday, as I stood in line to vote, I asked my magic coin who was going to win the election. Magic Coin said Obama. With that, I think I might ask Magic Coin to help me decide what to do with my current situation.

Do I keep putting in the conscious effort or just go with the flow?
He says go with the flow.

Do I need to rethink the stance I’m currently taking?
Yes.

Am I going to get hurt?
Yes.

Should I give up?

Life Lesson Learned in Record Time

Have you ever noticed how some television shows try to communicate some type of life lesson during each episode? Usually, at the end of their 30-minute or 1-hour time slot, there’s some sort of take-home message for the viewers.

Hm. Think about that.

30 minutes to an hour.

Short as that may sound, I’ve got that beat. I learned a life lesson in the span of about 3-4 minutes. And I didn’t just learn it– I internalized it and applied it to a somewhat broader aspect of my life.

So what exactly happened and what exactly did I learn? Well, read on, read on. This is the part where I tell you.

So there I was sitting on the can in Elliott Hall when I happened to look down at the space underneath the stall door. I saw a tiny little beatle-ish bug on its back kicking his miniscule legs trying to get back on his feet. As I stared at him struggling, I thought that there were two things I could do: help him or kill him.

Now, I really despise bugs and insects, so the temptation to just step on the sucker was needless to say, kind of strong. But he looked so sad and helpless, so… I decided to be the better person and help him.

I did my thing and as I was leaving the stall, I gently nudged Mr. Beatle-ish Bug with my shoe in the hopes that it would turn him over in the process. It didn’t work. He was still on his back kicking. I nudged him again. He stopped moving.

Oh crap. I killed him!

I stared at him while I washed my hands, hoping that he would start moving, but he didn’t. I felt horrible. Here I was trying to do something good for something I didn’t particularly like and I ended up killing him. As I dried my hands, I was reminded of all these situations I’ve encountered where my good intentions backfired. Why does that happen? Why do some good actions produce bad results?

Downcast, I turned to leave the bathroom. Just before I left, however, I looked back at Mr. Beatle-ish Bug one last time and what did I see? He was moving! And not only that, he was back on his feet and crawling! Yay for him…

With lifted spirits, I made my way to class and realized that I learned something valuable in this little tryst with Mr. Beatle-ish Bug.

Life Lesson: Your good intentions might cause something bad to happen immediately afterward, but sometimes, you have to wait a little bit to see the good of your actions.

[end scene]

[roll credits]

Some days…

I feel like this:

Today is one of those days.

Procrastinators Unite!

We work tomorrow for a better today.

Throughout my academic career, society has made it a point to make procrastination look really, really bad. And like the sheep that we all are, we believe them. But has anyone ever stopped and reconsidered this prevalent attitude? Is procrastination really as bad as people say?

No. It’s not.

Seriously. It’s my personal belief that procrastination implies completion. Well, okay. I know that’s a big assumption to make, but think about it. When someone says, “I procrastinated on my paper last night,” what assumption do you make? A) The person didn’t finish the paper or B) The person finished it, but it took some time to get there. (The answer is B, yo.) Procrastination is just delaying some action for another time, and eventually, delayed actions are completed.

Take, for example, the story of how I came into existence. My mother told me I was supposed to be born in early July. Instead, I came about three weeks late and was born toward the end of the month. Sure, I put off being born, but I still went through with it, didn’t I?

Still, some might ask why you’d even put something off in the first place. Well, maybe your heart just isn’t in it at the time. In some cases, you shouldn’t do something if you’re not throwing yourself 100% into what it is you’re doing. Let’s go back to the story of my birth. Can you imagine if I went into this being born thing with only 50% the ambition? <Insert a comical visual of a baby who halfway through the birthing process decided to change her mind and stop what she was doing> I needed to procrastinate. I needed that time to feel fully motivated into being born.

I think it paid off because come July 27, I was ready to make my entrance. On that day, I was at 100%, which I’m sure my mother appreciated (I’d like to think it was a team effort and my contribution was beneficial). And let me just say that what resulted was a beautiful birth.*

As you can see, procrastination isn’t really that bad. Things still get done, and sometimes, a person just needs to take some time away from the task they’re doing so they can come back even more energized to complete the task.

Tonight, for instance, I have to write a paper. I am in no way whatsoever motivated to write said paper. But! Will I do my assignment? Yes. Will I do it well? I’ll sure try. Will I do it now? Heck no. I’ll do it when the time is right. [Edit: Finished at 11:49]

In summary, procrastination isn’t that bad. That’s it.

By the way, my time management skills really aren’t as bad as I might make it seem. Really.

For more information on procrastination, go to the source of pretty much all my knowledge, Wikipedia, where you can learn what type of procrastinator you are!

*Actually, my mom has made it clear that out of her four kids, my birth was probably the hardest and most frustrating… Sorry, Mom! I’ll try to make it up to you by being easy to raise. Oops, too late for that.