Weekly Update or Of Late Nights and Boredom

As I sit by myself in the common room on a Saturday night, procrastinating before my inevitable attempt at studying and doing homework, I wonder about the changes of this week.

This week I let go of someone who had a huge impact on my life in hopes of a beginning anew. A beginning for myself, for my future. While I am always saddened by having to let people go, I find comfort in all those who are still around me. I know that, because of them, I will always be alright in the end. In light of the events this week, I have come to realize my most important friendships. Not only the friends who gave me the condolences that I asked for, but those who gave them to me freely. For these people, I am truly grateful for their undying compassion towards me. I can only hope that I never do something to alienate them or drive them away from me.

At the same time, I also once again have no clear idea what I want to do for my life, which I should decide on a relatively sooner scale of time, I think?

On other notes of my life, I let go of Facebook, to a surprising resistance. While, I do slightly miss the updates on my friends life, I have picked up Twitter in exchange. I can be found here.

My nights have grown into the same but changing pattern. While I actually am able to finish my work well before 12, my life is now defined by the hours after it. The many nights of staying up talking with the same few people, about everything and anything that we know anything little or lots about. While the new nightly trends have been more healthy and a bit crazier or random-er, they are most definitely just as significant as before. In the end, this is what I will remember about freshman year and college. For now, I'm pretty sure I'll be ok with this.

Weekly Update or Hm... Thinking Is Profound

What is the balancing point in life? What is the balancing point in what we do? What is the balancing point in the aspects of our lives? How do we know when to place our needs above others and when to place the needs of other above ours?

More questions, less answers. More searching, less finding.

Weekly Update or I Don't Know?

Where to begin?

In psychology we study attention, memory and cognitive decision making. As psychologists, we have scientifically gained a huge amount of insight into how we think and what our mental limits are. Often times, as a demonstration of multi-tasking abilities, a psychology teacher, driving instructor or just a regular person, will have another student or person watch a certain video. In this video are a group of students who are simply bouncing basketballs to each other. People watching the video are then asked to count the number of times people pass each other the ball. This seems like a simple easy to do task. Right? The trick here lies within what is not being told. The real test of the situation is the recognition of a man merely walking through the scene; however, this man is not just walking normally. This man is, actually, wearing a huge black gorilla suit. One may be surprised that many people miss the gorilla. While this is certain not the only test of multi-tasking, it is of course a fun demonstration of human cognitive limitations.

The first time that I watched the video, I certain did see the gorilla. Junior year psychology class has perhaps changed an entire direction in my life. I am now a psychology major at a huge public university. A public university that throws everything at you at once. School, night life, late night life and therefore lack of sleep, research, people you like, people you associate with and people you privately despise are all found here. With everything blasting at you, one would think that multi-tasking people would settle well here. Perhaps? With a sample size of way too small, I find myself incapable of judging. I thought that being able to manage several things at once would be helpful, but everything has a priority. Right? So you set rules; what is first; what is second?

At the beginning of the school year, a close friend of mine told me in college you can have two of three things: Life, School and/or Sleep. What did or will you choose? I know my choice. At first, I thought I could have a balance. Life is for the living; this has been said so much. I will certainly, not try to oppose this, for I know too well what will happen. In the last month, I have finally had my moment. The moment that I wasn't sure if I could find here. The moment of realization is one that fills you so completely. That moment of realizing that you can safely fall down, fall backwards is so amazing, exciting and calming at the same time. What sacrifice does this take? What do you have to give up to become close to those around you? Does the end justify the mean? As possible answers float around in my head, I become confused and tired. I sit in front of my computer listening to the story of: the general who became a slave; the slave who became a gladiator; the gladiator who defied an emperor, I wonder, do I have to give up what was taken from him to have my safety net of friends?

Weekly Update or How Not to Study For Exams

In keeping with the tradition of my two psychology midterms, I have decided that it would be most wise to not study and instead sit in front of my computer and come to revelations instead of studying for physics. Except whenever I do this, I somehow end up with a bunch of questions and very few if any answers.

As I listen to the music from my laptop, it scarcely surprises me that I'm listening to "You Found Me" by The Fray. While I'm not exactly trying to find God, I guess it would be fair to say that I am definitely trying to find something. But how do you know what to look for when you don't know what you're trying to find? It seems like I've found the parts of my life that are easy: what I want to do (occupation-wise), what I enjoy doing now and probably for a while, and set of close friends spread across the country. Is it possible for a webcomic written for geeks actually be right about something other than being geeky?

As I listen to recent Fray CD, I have continually wondered which one is my favorite song. It seems that it is a question I cannot answer, with any near consistency. At first it was "You Found Me", but then it quickly became "Never Say Never". As I think about what my favorite song on the CD is, I realize that it depends just as much on my mood at the time, as how my relationship with my best friend is. For a while, "Say When" was a song that quickly progressed up my most played playlist. Perhaps, now my favorite song, is the one that I looked up the lyrics last time. At first, I listened to "Syndicate" because of it's tune and the music around it. When I got past simply listening to the song, the lyrics hit me. While this is not the first time I have heard a song with this theme, to me, this song is the most realistic, possibly. I guess, I can only hope.

As I go through my days, I wonder whether I still continue to live in the daze that surrounded me when school began this year. An eerie, uncharacteristic optimism motivated me past all that I had attempted for before. If this daze still surrounds me, am I right to still continue to feed off of it? But if it has passed, is this what I am looking for again? Am I right to look for it again, or is this something I should let go seeking for? So many questions, so little directions. How I miss the olden days when it was ok to ask for my parents advice.

For now, I guess I should focus on questions that I can answer though. Surprisingly, I can actually do physics, which means that it's way too easy right now. I am not complaining though, just commenting.

Update or Yet Another Week Coming to a close soon

So as the weeks of the quarter start to pass, I find it appropriate to reflect on the past two weeks and a half. This quarter has definitely taken more away my sleep :( Since the start of the quarter, the amount of sleep I've gotten has drastically decreased. Now, I'm falling asleep left and right during class. Oh boy. So far for the past few days, I've been going to sleep at like 2 and waking up before 7. Ah! I hate my life.

In other news, I'm totally looking forward to next month. I'll be done with my first exams for all my classes, first weekend, Julia's Prom, third weekend is Dashboard Confessional/Augustana concert, and fourth weekend, I'll be completely done with one of my psych classes followed by Memorial Day! I do still need to find some data to present for psych class though.

Hopefully, May will come just in time to save me from April. Not only is there insane, depressing rain (only when I don't have my umbrella), the temperature can't decide to stay warm, leaving me confused on weather to celebrate the coming of Spring.

Not So Weekly Weekly Update

Once again, I find myself in front of a computer wondering what I'm doing. With a monotonous passing of time, I find myself trying to find something to do. While I told myself I would do this or that, I end up not back where I always find myself, here, staring at a computer screen while listening to music. The funny thing is: I never feel like I actually have free time to just slouch around. I'm sure right now, there are a hundred things I should be doing: sleeping, reading, doing homework, etc. Yet I don't. I'm not doing anything not because I don't have anything to do, but more because I don't want to. Ideally, I'd like to blame this on the changing seasons/SAD, but I know I really can't. So I just continue to sit here and stare at the computer screen.

So now that I've told the world what I haven't been doing, I guess it's time to tell people what I have been doing. The first week of school was mediocre at best. Classes aren't too bad I guess, but lecture prep for physics (watching Lewin's lectures) is already killing my brain. The hospital decided that it would be cool to have me volunteer at 8:30 in the morning on Tuesdays, which while I did sign up for it, I clearly indicated that it was not my preferred time. The lab has been ok. I managed to start some cool stuff that broke from the monotony of MRI film analysis and make some microscope slides. While that may seem strange, it was definitely a good break.

Hopefully this week will turn out better. Tomorrow morning is the first time volunteering; I guess we'll see how it is.

Weekly Update or A New Break Is Upon Us!

So with the conclusion of another college quarter, I find myself thinking again and concluding again. Without a doubt, this quarter has made my life cloudier and harder to predict. Perhaps this is because of the so many options that I have given myself but not knowing which one I really want to take. Or maybe it's the exact opposite. Maybe it's because the micromanaged plan that I had at the beginning of the year isn't turning out quite how I thought it would. Perhaps I'm still clinging onto something I gave up on a long time ago (relatively long time ago).

This past quarter is not what I thought it would be. I succeeded in some areas and became indifferent in many others. While I wonder about how to take advantage of the opportunities that I've made for myself this quarter, I feel myself not wanting to take the next step to actually take advantage of them. Is it that I'm holding myself back? Or am I just futilely resisting inevitable changes in my life? Perhaps the prior and the latter are the same?

I thought that if I just stuck to the goals that I made for myself at the beginning of the quarter, I'd be fine, and my life would become better and clearer. Now at the end of the quarter, I realize that I have reached a majority of my goals. Some goals took more physical dedications; others required more disciplined patients, and still others took a persistence that I struggled to find. Finally, there is one that I didn't accomplish. So, in the end, I ask myself, is this quarter worth it? Now sitting back, do I want the options that my successes have created? I would think that I do. After all, I did just spend ten weeks to accomplish them. Where does the one goal that I didn't accomplish fit in all this then? How do you rank at the end something when you add it to a list after all the others, but then failed to achieve? It seems like life is just riddled with questions. When did my life go from a simple two-pronged fork to a trident fork to (insert correct prefix)dent fork?

I guess this break comes at a valuable time. In the last few days, I stepped back from the relentless pursuit of achievement. While this doesn't necessarily constitute a deeper understanding of this past quarter, I feel like at the end of next week, I will be ready to accomplish another set of goals, hopefully this time, answer some questions that fill my mind now. So far, I've gone to a friend's house, eaten ice cream in a thirty degree night, make a complete full of myself, watched Disney movies and answered some questions before raising many many more in its place. Hopefully, I will have many many more answers someday, but until then, I guess I'll just keep making goals and try to accomplish them.