An ant just fell out of my hair.
This wouldn't be too terribly alarming if I wasn't on my 2nd round of antibiotics in 3 weeks for insect attacks. Mystery spider bite in California led to a swollen wrist I could barely move. A week later, I was opening my mouth to order at The Grist Mill, when I felt something buzzing at my leg. I was wearing an ankle length purple dress, feeling pretty fly since I actually wore something mildly fashionable. But thank you fashion for trapping what I can only assume was a bee in my dress, where I-- being brilliant-- managed to squeeze it, so it stung me. Without even looking, or ever even seeing the bee for that matter, I ripped the stinger out and threw it. I started semi-shrieking that something bit me as the pain seared up my leg. Of all the places, the bee chose to sting me on my inner thigh. The confused waiter, my exchange student sister, and my boyfriend just stared at me. Finally the dumbfounded waiter drawled, "I guess I can go get you some ice..." So I spent the rest of dinner with my sexy dress pulled up one leg, holding an ice bag to my thigh. A week and a half later, I had to go to the doctor to get an antibiotic cream and some Zyrtec-ish related pills. I've also been so dizzy that I'm disoriented. The doctor told me to drink Pediasure...well great.
I am afraid that I will soon pull an Alien v. Predator and actually morph into an insect.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
On being 20
I am incredibly talented at overcomplicating everything. Most things are really a lot simpler than I think they are. I've also realized, 1 day into my 20s, that I am simultaneously more and less mature than I think am. I am obviously not the grown up I think I am sometimes, but I have also grown so much and have so much more control over myself than I used to. In the spirit of my favorite activity, list making, here is another list of things that I have realized (realizing being my other favorite thing apparently).
Life lessons that will probably take my entire life:
1. No matter how much I want to or how hard I try, I can't do everything. I learn this lesson over and over again (think: 1st semester freshman year of high school's physical, mental, and emotional breakdown; 2nd semester senior year with all AP classes and 11 extracurricular activities; 1st semester of college when I almost blew out my hip; the 4 jobs I have been trying to balance this summer and failed at today). A quote I found today: "While intelligent people often simplify the complex, a fool is more likely to complicate the simple." Sometimes I'm a big fool.
2. I have got to get a thicker skin. I have had plenty of rejection and criticism in my life, and honestly, I think I deal with big problems a lot better than small ones. I take things way too personally and always turn everything into my fault. I know the adult world is just full of even more rejection and criticism and drama and unfairness, especially the career direction I seem to be headed in, and I will melt into a puddle if I don't toughen up.
3. People really don't care about what I do as much as I think they do. Sometimes I think I invent problems where they don't exist, like my life just isn't right without sometimes going wrong. I care way way wayyyyyy too much about pleasing people with every choice that I make, when in reality they would be most pleased if I just made an effing decision and committed to it.
All of these are also simultaneously my greatest strengths and weaknesses. I think the root of all of these weaknesses is that I care so incredibly much. If caring too much is really and truly my biggest weakness, then I am doing ok. I try to do everything because I never want to miss an opportunity to have fun, improve myself, or to improve the world. I have a thin skin because I care so much about doing things the absolute best that I can. I care what people think because I want others to be happy and never want to do anything that hurts them. Fortunately my skin grows thicker as I get older (mostly due to developing a self-deprecating sense of humor), as my patience grows deeper, and my reasoning abilities grow stronger.
Here's to coming into the prime of my life. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm pretty sure things only get better. As my advisor told me the other day, I have lived more in 20 years than many people have in their entire lives. And as my therapist told me, I have very good coping skills. So I suppose I'm not doing so poorly.
When I'm really in doubt I refer to the old Houston Chronicle horoscope clip I cut out years ago: "Your plight is like Spiderman's. With great talent comes great responsibility." At the risk of sounding a bit conceited (but who reads this anyway??), my spidey senses tell me this will be my truest lifelong lesson.
Life lessons that will probably take my entire life:
1. No matter how much I want to or how hard I try, I can't do everything. I learn this lesson over and over again (think: 1st semester freshman year of high school's physical, mental, and emotional breakdown; 2nd semester senior year with all AP classes and 11 extracurricular activities; 1st semester of college when I almost blew out my hip; the 4 jobs I have been trying to balance this summer and failed at today). A quote I found today: "While intelligent people often simplify the complex, a fool is more likely to complicate the simple." Sometimes I'm a big fool.
2. I have got to get a thicker skin. I have had plenty of rejection and criticism in my life, and honestly, I think I deal with big problems a lot better than small ones. I take things way too personally and always turn everything into my fault. I know the adult world is just full of even more rejection and criticism and drama and unfairness, especially the career direction I seem to be headed in, and I will melt into a puddle if I don't toughen up.
3. People really don't care about what I do as much as I think they do. Sometimes I think I invent problems where they don't exist, like my life just isn't right without sometimes going wrong. I care way way wayyyyyy too much about pleasing people with every choice that I make, when in reality they would be most pleased if I just made an effing decision and committed to it.
All of these are also simultaneously my greatest strengths and weaknesses. I think the root of all of these weaknesses is that I care so incredibly much. If caring too much is really and truly my biggest weakness, then I am doing ok. I try to do everything because I never want to miss an opportunity to have fun, improve myself, or to improve the world. I have a thin skin because I care so much about doing things the absolute best that I can. I care what people think because I want others to be happy and never want to do anything that hurts them. Fortunately my skin grows thicker as I get older (mostly due to developing a self-deprecating sense of humor), as my patience grows deeper, and my reasoning abilities grow stronger.
Here's to coming into the prime of my life. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm pretty sure things only get better. As my advisor told me the other day, I have lived more in 20 years than many people have in their entire lives. And as my therapist told me, I have very good coping skills. So I suppose I'm not doing so poorly.
When I'm really in doubt I refer to the old Houston Chronicle horoscope clip I cut out years ago: "Your plight is like Spiderman's. With great talent comes great responsibility." At the risk of sounding a bit conceited (but who reads this anyway??), my spidey senses tell me this will be my truest lifelong lesson.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Ayo Technology...
I'm sitting here at work, a picture of modernity. I've got headphones on, playing my latest Rhapsody finds, my cell phone (with internet) plugged in, my laptop open and logged in to gmail, Facebook, Rhapsody, and Twitter. I'm alternately reading a book and writing the 14 status update ideas that pop into my head. Our brains have to be evolving to be able to function like this. How do I get everything done?
I also worry a lot about how electronic all of my creativity is. There really isn't anything like a hard copy of a diary or notebook to look back at in years to come. What will archaeologists of the future have to find but computers with unreadable files? Half of the creative moments and thoughts that I've had are lost somewhere in cyber space, blips of something that really isn't anything. I've tried getting myself to write in a journal, but I just don't have the patience. My hand can't keep up with my brain, nor do I have the patience to take the time out to write by hand. I don't want to print every single thing I write. What to do?
I also worry a lot about how electronic all of my creativity is. There really isn't anything like a hard copy of a diary or notebook to look back at in years to come. What will archaeologists of the future have to find but computers with unreadable files? Half of the creative moments and thoughts that I've had are lost somewhere in cyber space, blips of something that really isn't anything. I've tried getting myself to write in a journal, but I just don't have the patience. My hand can't keep up with my brain, nor do I have the patience to take the time out to write by hand. I don't want to print every single thing I write. What to do?
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
So everything finally snapped. And I'm angry. Really really angry. And I like it.
Being angry is so much better than being sad and desperate and lost. It has energy and passion. It makes me move forward. At least it doesn't feel like I've fallen in a hole. Yesterday it was just denial (stage 1 of grief, right on time...there was a lot of bargaining already...jumped ahead with stage 3, I guess). Too much to do, too much to grieve. There comes a point where there is just only so much one person can grieve for and at some point you go the completely opposite direction and are just happy because you've run out of room for sadness. Today I'm just angry (stage 2). Angry that people have to die and hurt and that I can't figure out what's wrong with my hip and have gotten nowhere.
So I'm going running. Haven't been allowed to for the better part of a year. Don't stop me.
--
I want to be good at poetry or writing songs or art or something to get this all out better. All I do is write bad emo stuff.
Just had to put this somewhere.
Being angry is so much better than being sad and desperate and lost. It has energy and passion. It makes me move forward. At least it doesn't feel like I've fallen in a hole. Yesterday it was just denial (stage 1 of grief, right on time...there was a lot of bargaining already...jumped ahead with stage 3, I guess). Too much to do, too much to grieve. There comes a point where there is just only so much one person can grieve for and at some point you go the completely opposite direction and are just happy because you've run out of room for sadness. Today I'm just angry (stage 2). Angry that people have to die and hurt and that I can't figure out what's wrong with my hip and have gotten nowhere.
So I'm going running. Haven't been allowed to for the better part of a year. Don't stop me.
--
I want to be good at poetry or writing songs or art or something to get this all out better. All I do is write bad emo stuff.
Just had to put this somewhere.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Tis the season for the groove type thing
Tis the season for freaking out, and I feel like I should be...but I'm not. This week should be super stressful, and maybe I'm not working hard enough, but so far it's been pretty decent. (I should probably get to that 15 page paper soon...) It's strange, or maybe not so strange, but I tend to find my zen place when I have a lot to do. Perhaps it's more of a groove-type thing.
I feel pretty snobby sitting here at work, listening to a Mendelssohn string quartet, reading critiques of Samuel Beckett, sipping coffee. (The picture is definitely brought a bit back to earth by the fact that it's cafeteria coffee mixed with chocolate in a plastic mug, and I'm sitting in a cubicle making minimum wage, and the Beckett critique is for a class I have a final in on Friday.) The thing about Beckett is that it makes me feel kind of bummed about life. He's such a downer...all this "you're born, you live a meaningless life, you die" stuff. College has a tendency to be depressing when you actually think about things.
In other news, I had decided to go to India for study abroad, buuuuuut not so sure about that now, what with all hell on the loose. I'd still really like to go to Scandinavia. Doubtful that I can convince my advisor that the whitest place on the planet is the place for me to do research for my senior honors thesis, though. I just don't feel drawn to somewhere where I might get blown up or shot or taken hostage or die of malaria. I appreciate that things suck a lot and need help, really I do. But I don't know how my dying to see that is going to help anything. I'm also coming to see a lot about how "the academy" works. To get credibility, to get a teaching job (of which there are few in the anthro field), to get published, and to get known, one has to go to the Third World to do research. My interests have always lied more (is that proper grammar?) in the realm of studying the oppressor or something like that. I have mixed feelings about being the world's savior. We definitely need to make reparations for effing it over in the first place, but at the same time, we meddle too much in other people's business.
Also I really hate small talk. A lot. Don't ask me how I am if you don't actually care how I am. And I will do the same.
"Hi, how are you?"
"Good. How are you?"
"Good."
If you actually tell how you are, people go glassy eyed, because they didn't actually want to know. A simple hello will suffice. The worst thing is when both people say "How are you?" and "Good" at the exact same time. And I have it on good authority that Europeans think our fakeness in greetings is dumb. Except we do it in French class too, so I don't even know.
Soooo I need to get back to my work...
I feel pretty snobby sitting here at work, listening to a Mendelssohn string quartet, reading critiques of Samuel Beckett, sipping coffee. (The picture is definitely brought a bit back to earth by the fact that it's cafeteria coffee mixed with chocolate in a plastic mug, and I'm sitting in a cubicle making minimum wage, and the Beckett critique is for a class I have a final in on Friday.) The thing about Beckett is that it makes me feel kind of bummed about life. He's such a downer...all this "you're born, you live a meaningless life, you die" stuff. College has a tendency to be depressing when you actually think about things.
In other news, I had decided to go to India for study abroad, buuuuuut not so sure about that now, what with all hell on the loose. I'd still really like to go to Scandinavia. Doubtful that I can convince my advisor that the whitest place on the planet is the place for me to do research for my senior honors thesis, though. I just don't feel drawn to somewhere where I might get blown up or shot or taken hostage or die of malaria. I appreciate that things suck a lot and need help, really I do. But I don't know how my dying to see that is going to help anything. I'm also coming to see a lot about how "the academy" works. To get credibility, to get a teaching job (of which there are few in the anthro field), to get published, and to get known, one has to go to the Third World to do research. My interests have always lied more (is that proper grammar?) in the realm of studying the oppressor or something like that. I have mixed feelings about being the world's savior. We definitely need to make reparations for effing it over in the first place, but at the same time, we meddle too much in other people's business.
Also I really hate small talk. A lot. Don't ask me how I am if you don't actually care how I am. And I will do the same.
"Hi, how are you?"
"Good. How are you?"
"Good."
If you actually tell how you are, people go glassy eyed, because they didn't actually want to know. A simple hello will suffice. The worst thing is when both people say "How are you?" and "Good" at the exact same time. And I have it on good authority that Europeans think our fakeness in greetings is dumb. Except we do it in French class too, so I don't even know.
Soooo I need to get back to my work...
Thursday, September 25, 2008
How Ursula got her groove back
General rule of my life: When it rains, it pours.
But the good news about that is that this time it's pouring happiness. I feel like me again! Yesterday I socialized with more skeletons (in the biomechanics lab) than people throughout the day (until nighttime), but I got my groove back. I probably should actually be more stressed than I am, but I'm feeling under control. (I have 4 meetings in a row tonight, but it's ok!) I also love Southwestern again and am satisfied to be here. I've also finally learned how to be ok not being in a relationship and honestly-- get this-- don't want to be in one. That's not to say I am opposed to dating, I just really can't do serious right now. And it's ok!!!!
Also, the career plan du jour is Teach for America for 2 years post-SU to get some money and to get the teaching bug out of my system. Then UT law, which I hear is actually a lot more fun than I thought. Then: world domination. By which I mean running a non-profit or NGO or working for da government. Or the trusty backup plan of writing things.
"Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
-Nathaniel Hawthorne
But the good news about that is that this time it's pouring happiness. I feel like me again! Yesterday I socialized with more skeletons (in the biomechanics lab) than people throughout the day (until nighttime), but I got my groove back. I probably should actually be more stressed than I am, but I'm feeling under control. (I have 4 meetings in a row tonight, but it's ok!) I also love Southwestern again and am satisfied to be here. I've also finally learned how to be ok not being in a relationship and honestly-- get this-- don't want to be in one. That's not to say I am opposed to dating, I just really can't do serious right now. And it's ok!!!!
Also, the career plan du jour is Teach for America for 2 years post-SU to get some money and to get the teaching bug out of my system. Then UT law, which I hear is actually a lot more fun than I thought. Then: world domination. By which I mean running a non-profit or NGO or working for da government. Or the trusty backup plan of writing things.
"Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
-Nathaniel Hawthorne
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Existential crisis part deux
Actually, it isn't really very existential, but someone PLEASE remind me why I thought taking Anatomy was ok? Why? I mean, I have reasons, but they obviously aren't good enough ones. Why didn't I take Environmental Science like I knew I should? Today they are hearing a talk from a beekeeper for their lab. While I hear a 45 min lecture on muscle articulation and learn the entire musculature for the elbow, wrist, and hands. HAAA. This class is killing my beautiful GPA and making me feel stupid. And at this point there is nothing I can do about it. I did try to do my research last year, but I got such sketchy answers from people on the hardness of anatomy...lots of "ooh..eeee" and even "that's what made me decide to be a kines major" and now it's "holy Jesus why would you take that?" Where were those naysayers when I was asking last year????? I've made the dumbest scheduling decisions this year, and I can't do anything about it now except forge on for 3 more months and hope I don't deeply regret my stupidity come transcript time. It is entirely possible to get through this school without actually taking anything all that hard while still learning things; in other words to leave with a nice inflated GPA and a decent bank of knowledge, but apparently I derive some perverted pleasure out of taking needlessly difficult classes. Microeconomics is a case in point. I honestly can't say I remember very much or that I'm very glad in retrospect that I took that class. It was the downfall of my 4.0 with one little minus, and I don't even think I got much out of it. Except maybe I kind of know something about how houses made the economy suck.
Also, I am ridiculously sleepy but not tired. My body is antsy mcantspants, but I can barely keep my eyes open. I was literally beating my face in class to keep my eyes from crossing. I even went to bed before midnight last night! (Thought I did get awakened to open the door for someone and was very confused by the fact that I'd been asleep...I can't really explain it. I also had a lot of very vivid dreams about naming body parts. Yeahhh.) I do not want to become addicted to caffeine!!!
Vices:
Chai
Dark Chocolate
Panicking
List making
Time to go stare at my inspirational rodent screen saver.
Also, I am ridiculously sleepy but not tired. My body is antsy mcantspants, but I can barely keep my eyes open. I was literally beating my face in class to keep my eyes from crossing. I even went to bed before midnight last night! (Thought I did get awakened to open the door for someone and was very confused by the fact that I'd been asleep...I can't really explain it. I also had a lot of very vivid dreams about naming body parts. Yeahhh.) I do not want to become addicted to caffeine!!!
Vices:
Chai
Dark Chocolate
Panicking
List making
Time to go stare at my inspirational rodent screen saver.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Ok this is getting kind of obsessive, but when I'm stressed, I organize things, even my brain. Soo, fueled by liberal-arts inspired critical thinking skills, here is an organized version of my existential crisis.
About every 3 years I have one of these crises, and every time it rearticulates the same ideas in a more analytical context. Basically, it grows up with me and my vocabulary. It also grows inversely to my knowing who I am. I know myself very well. It's more a matter of what to do and how to think.
There is nothing I can do about some of it. I am impatient to be somewhere, actually doing something, having a "real" life, not stuck here putting in the grunt work. Time, however, can't be changed, no matter how hard I try. The rest of my problem is a matter of binaries (thank you, Levi-Strauss): useful vs. enjoyable, fun/less "achievement vs. work/more "achievement," exploration vs. domesticity, idealist vs. realist, put on the happy pants vs. give myself a break. I don't know how to just accept that a lot of things are BS (i.e. the college lifestyle), but that's ok. Now that I write this down I feel a little less abnormal, because I sound like half the people in the universe who have taken a semester off, dropped out of school, joined a convent, etc.
Action plan:
-Write. Anything, everything, all the time, whenever. Please God, help me find my creativity again.
-Humor. My constant fallback companion, the monologue in my head. Self deprecation puts everything in perspective.
-Continue my personal mantra of: think good things, say good things, do good things
-Accept that I will probably never reconcile the desire to achieve the most with a need for fun, so do very best but don't freak out over "failure"
-Forgive myself.
I move closer to the person I want to be through these crises. I think it's ok to have this period of time in which I'm just not entirely ok, because I'll come out of it even more ok than before. I already feel like I've reached a new place. Change is just hard. The only thing I possibly can do is move forward. I didn't live today like I meant to, but I can leave tonight like I want to. Every personal leap needs somewhere to leap from.
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world... as in being able to remake ourselves.
-Mahatma Gandhi
About every 3 years I have one of these crises, and every time it rearticulates the same ideas in a more analytical context. Basically, it grows up with me and my vocabulary. It also grows inversely to my knowing who I am. I know myself very well. It's more a matter of what to do and how to think.
There is nothing I can do about some of it. I am impatient to be somewhere, actually doing something, having a "real" life, not stuck here putting in the grunt work. Time, however, can't be changed, no matter how hard I try. The rest of my problem is a matter of binaries (thank you, Levi-Strauss): useful vs. enjoyable, fun/less "achievement vs. work/more "achievement," exploration vs. domesticity, idealist vs. realist, put on the happy pants vs. give myself a break. I don't know how to just accept that a lot of things are BS (i.e. the college lifestyle), but that's ok. Now that I write this down I feel a little less abnormal, because I sound like half the people in the universe who have taken a semester off, dropped out of school, joined a convent, etc.
Action plan:
-Write. Anything, everything, all the time, whenever. Please God, help me find my creativity again.
-Humor. My constant fallback companion, the monologue in my head. Self deprecation puts everything in perspective.
-Continue my personal mantra of: think good things, say good things, do good things
-Accept that I will probably never reconcile the desire to achieve the most with a need for fun, so do very best but don't freak out over "failure"
-Forgive myself.
I move closer to the person I want to be through these crises. I think it's ok to have this period of time in which I'm just not entirely ok, because I'll come out of it even more ok than before. I already feel like I've reached a new place. Change is just hard. The only thing I possibly can do is move forward. I didn't live today like I meant to, but I can leave tonight like I want to. Every personal leap needs somewhere to leap from.
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world... as in being able to remake ourselves.
-Mahatma Gandhi
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