Writing Down the Bones

Writing Down the Bones is a book by Natalie Goldberg. I highly recommend it, especially if you want to start writing. It's all about letting go and just writing. No thinking, no processing, no analyzing, just writing. I'm not very good at that, since I'm pretty self-conscious, but I suppose practice makes perfect.

Self-consciousness: undue awareness of oneself.
Undue: unwarranted or inappropriate because excessive or disproportionate
There should always be some self-awareness. Without that, the path to offense and/or embarrassment is wide open. When does it become self-conscious, though? When does it become obsessive and inappropriate? Looking presentable and nice in order to make a good impression is important, but when does dressing appropriately and taking good hygienic care of oneself become vanity?
I consider myself a fairly self-conscious person. I think of what others will think of me and the people around me. Often I find myself wonder "If...then..." and have to remind myself not to over-analyze. It's hard sometimes. I try so hard to be accepted by people. Maybe I shouldn't care so much.

Question - why do dictionary definitions always contain words longer than the word being defined?

Love,
Sarah @)~

Courtesy is key

Sometimes people hold on to bad memories for days, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months, sometimes even for years. But however long you hold on to your bad memory for, why would you make others suffer for it? Yes, someone may have hurt you, but is it so difficult to be courteous and professional when interacting necessarily with them? I understand that you won't walk up to them and ask how their life is going. I know you won't call them up and say, "Hey, just wanted to chat." But is it too difficult to look someone in the eye and at least fake a smile? Is it too much to ask for a simple, "Hello, how are you today?"
Eye contact is polite and should be obligatory. Saying, "D'ya need something?" without so much as a look is not very nice. I'm pretty sure that if you walked up to any average Joe on the street and asked them if they liked people looking at them when they were talking, they'd say that it's at least appreciated.

Faking a smile isn't too hard.

Love,
Sarah @)~

Where did my head go?

I have a tendency to lose my head over little things. Over-thinking is a fault of mine, a huge fault. It makes me go crazy. Sometimes just relaxing and having a day off works miracles. Or sometimes if I talk to someone who does have their head in the right place it'll pull my out of the clouds and put my back on my feet. 

So thanks for putting me back into place. I really appreciate it.

I guess I'll be thinking about this for a while, though. I'll try not to over think this time.

Love,

Sarah @)~

Those days

Ever have those days where all you want to do is curl up in bed under an extremely fluffy comforter and do absolutely nothing? Of course you do. I have those fairly often. Sometimes I just feel like being productive is extremely overrated. However, after I do something, I always feel better about myself; I feel motivated to do other stuff.
But sometimes, you need those days. Sometimes you need a day to do nothing after a big freak out. Post-finals is a pretty good time to do this. I have one exam next week. The grade for the entire class depends on how I do. Yay. After that, we'll have a party. A sleeping party. Well, maybe that'll happen this weekend. Heck yeah, fall break!!
…This post started off fairly well written. The quality has deteriorated significantly. Yeah. I don't care.

I just made pizza. Now I want to sleep. But no, Japanese homework it is.

Love,
Sarah @)~

It's a little sad

I have no confidence. I tell myself to do something. I tell myself I can do something. But then…I don't do it. At the very last second I tell myself I can't do it, so I don't.

Go for the gold. Don't take no for an answer. If you know you can't do it, tell yourself you can. That last push is all it takes to get past the last hurdle.

Love,
Sarah @)~

What's this 'patience' thing?

If you know something is stupid and unwise, you probably shouldn't do it. Right? But for some reason, there's this strong appeal for doing stupid, unwise things. Procrastinating, for example. Stupidest idea ever, yet we do it so much. Maybe it's the instant gratification mindset that our entire population is so infatuated with. We want it now. It makes us feel good now. We may or may not know the consequences, yet we still want it now. We'll settle for less if it gets to us any quicker. Patience and peace are so lost in this world. Waiting is extremely underrated and is associated with anxiety. Calm down, it'll happen. Maybe not now, maybe not this second, but it'll happen.

This week has been too long. It's been pretty taxing on me energy-wise, as well. I'm really looking forward to the weekend. I recently learned how to make Funfetti cookies!! That's definitely going to happen Saturday. Well, if I get to the store.

Love,
Sarah @)~

I feel like a feather sometimes

Little things can push me over the edge.
I guess that's how this works.
The smallest hint,
I'm over the moon.
I want it so badly.
I have to be patient,
Wait for the right time.
Decisions, decisions.
Time's wasting away, my dear.
I'm sorry,
I love you.

Love,
Sarah @)~

Scattered Thoughts

Natalia Osipova - Juliet

Natalia Osipova is probably my favorite ballerina. So sweet, so cute, and so strong, so gorgeous.

Ask anyone who knows me and they'll tell you I love ballet. It comes with a lot of responsibility though. Going to classes daily is tiring, plus rehearsal and teaching on top of that. Daily muscle soreness, injuries, the constant desire to be underweight, exhaustion, all these come with the tiring, difficult work that is dance.

That doesn't stop me from loving dance. The feeling I get when something goes well or when I do a particularly emotional piece or combination. The feeling I get when I hear the curtain open or the audience applauding at the curtain's close. I love class, I love rehearsal, I love feeling strong, I love feeling adept. I love dance.

Hard work has a turn out.

~~~

I have to teach my little sister's ballet class tomorrow. Oh joy.

~~~

A glimmer is a flutter.
A glance is a pain.
A thought is a scream.
I'm sorry.

~~~

The weekend can't come soon enough. Let's get to conquering this week. 

Love,
Sarah @)~

Japanese is officially taking over my life.

金曜日にクラスにいきました。それから、へやにかえりました。日本ごをべんきょうしました。土曜日にfootball gameにいきました。Jimmy John'sでひるごはんをたべました。三時半ごろへやにかえりました。それから、べんきょうしました。ごご十一時ごろともだちのへやにいきました。ともだちと７１１にいきました。ミルクとslurpeesをかいました。それから、ともだちのへやにかえりました。三時間ぐらいはなしました。それから、へやにかえりました。日曜日にきょうかいにいきました。それから、うちにかえりました。七時ごろへやにかえりました。


Check that out. That's what I did this weekend…in Japanese. Roughly, it translates to, "On Friday, I had class. Then, I went back to my room. I studied Japanese. On Saturday, I went to the football game (though I don't know how to say that in Japanese). I ate lunch at Jimmy John's. Then, I went back to my room. At about 11pm, I went to my friends room. We went to 7/11. We bought milk and slurpees. We went back to her room. We talked for about three hours. Then I went back to my room. On Sunday, I went to church. Then I went home. At about 7, I went back to my room." I'm not actually sure if it's all correct; I need to turn in the handwritten one tomorrow to get it checked. I'm really liking Japanese, though. It moves crazy fast, though… I love writing it by hand, though. It's so beautiful. Somehow, the tying just takes some of the beauty away from it. Also, it took me about 40 minutes to type that.

The other classes I'm in are GeoSci: Dinosaurs and Other Failures, and Psych: The Evolution of Conciousness and Cognition. GeoSci is what it sounds like, a class about dinosaurs. It's pretty awesome, not gonna lie. The Psych seminar is really interesting. We've been focusing on meditation lately, and our only homework is to meditate for fifteen minutes everyday and document what happens each time. It's really nice and relaxing. Although, sometimes I'll get really distracted with other things and just kind of trail off; then it's frustrating.

I get distracted fairly easily. I'm not quite ADHD level; I can hold my attention if I need to. However, if I'm doing nothing particularly mind-engaging I'll just think about things, circumstances, situations, things that could happen in the future. One of my favorite pastimes is to play out scenes in my head that could potentially happen, but in all reality I know probably never will. It might not be the healthiest activity, as I could get my hopes up way too high and then have them all crash and burn, but I've learned how to control how extreme these daydreams get. I can sprinkle a sense of rationality into them so they're not completely unbelievable. When I was younger, I would do the same thing, though then I didn't have the common sense to know that most of my "scenarios" would never play out in real life. Every now and then I allow my mind to wander to some sort of Wonderland full of incredibly improbable situations, but too much and I'll just get depressed.

Distraction is my pastime.

Love,
Sarah @)~

He love me… He loves me not...

Remember the flower petal game you played when you had a crush in elementary school or middle school (or high school… or college……)? I would always cheat; if I ran out of petals when it ended on a 'he loves me not,' I'd just say, "Oh! The leaves count for something! The stem counts for something!" And I'd force to say what I wanted it to.

You can't really force people to say what you want them to. You can't really force anything. People will have their own opinions of issues, of people, of you. You can't change what they think. You can't change how they feel. You can sometimes influence people into a certain way of thinking, but deep down, you can't change anything. They have to change it themselves. Sometimes it's a conscious decision, sometimes not.

Flowers can't actually think for themselves.

Love,
Sarah @)~

What have I been thinking about?

What should I write about? I'm in a writey sort of mood, but I don't really have any concrete ideas. I suppose this will just be a word vomit entry. I hate that word…vomit. It's a disgusting word. Though that probably has something to do with my nausea-phobia.

What have I been thinking about lately? Dance, of course, that's always on my mind. I dance if there's open space. I dance if there's an even floor. So perhaps dance isn't always on my mind, but always in my body. It's not a particularly conscious thought; I don't think, "Oh, what a lovely open space, shall I dance?" I just see a space and turn. I hear music and sometimes don't realize my leg is moving or I'm tapping my fingers. It's a subconscious decision to move. Is that what a passion should be? It's simply something I do. Dance is breathing for me.

What else? Friendships. I have lots of friends at school, now. I have my different groups with whom I do different activities. Each group has it's peculiar oddities, things I love about them, things that are just weird. It's kind of strange not having a particular person that I'm around all the time, since most of high school was like that for me. I also have a lot more diverse friend groups now. In high school I was always with the same people all the time. Other than that, I was kind of a loner. It wasn't a looking-for-pity thing; I just didn't have all that many friends. I'm sure being in the whole homeschooling environment had something to do with it. I wasn't immersed in a diverse pool of hundreds of people every day. I'm quite thankful for that, actually. It's just a big transition going from that to college.

Guys, as well, are usually on my mind. What does that say about me, I wonder… I guess it makes sense that I miss that kind of attention. Both junior and senior year I was involved with someone. Again, it's a transition. Something I'm very used to changing completely. In some ways, it's really great. At the same time, though, I miss the special attention I got. Maybe I'm just selfish. Scratch that, I'm selfish. Time again to learn how to pay attention to other people. This really is going to take a while.

These are usually on my mind in some form or another. Unfortunately a lot of the time I become distracted by them. We're supposed to be meditating for Psych everyday, but a lot of the time I find my mind wandering to a dance or a particular person or situation. Even when I'm doing homework, I catch myself rabbit trailing into random thought. I can modify these thoughts to useful purposes, too, though. For example, I usually have a really hard time falling asleep, but if I focus on some choreography or someone who relaxes me, then I can fall asleep fairly easily, regardless of light or noises in the room.

The moral of the story? Well for me: Distractions can be good sometimes and I need to be less selfish.

Love,
Sarah @)~