New Years is just around the corner, and, as I have done for a number of years, I planned on boycotting New Years resolutions: “Lose ten pounds,” “Read all Charles Dickens,” “Run ten miles,” “Walk on water.” These over-zealous, unobtainable, hypothetical oaths that we force ourselves to make in the heat of the confetti cause only more mental damage and guilt by January. I am funny about “resolving” myself to things so I usually avoid as much “do it because you said you would” pressure as possible, especially coming from myself. There is no logical reason I should obligate myself to achieve some random goal I made up just because it is a new year.
Living happily with my uncommitted lifestyle, I happened upon an article in a Martha Stewart magazine featuring various people’s New Years resolutions. The title of the article was “What is on your not to-do list for 2009?” Some people wrote that they would not do office work on Sundays and others said that they will not freak out over the economy. However, the one that caught my eye was by Sarah Bartlett from the little state of Rhode Island:
“I won’t overcommit. I have weeded out all the things I have felt obliged to do in the past and have decided to participate only in the volunteering, social, and family activities that I truly want to do.”
Suddenly, this list of things “not to do” struck me as brilliant. Instead of adding another thing to do on my to-do list, I realized that I could resolve to not commit to another impractical goal. Like a double negative, it leads in the end to a positive, to freedom. I resolve not to worry about what I will be when I grow up, but just live and enjoy where I am. I resolve to not be self conscience. I resolve to not be a brilliant writer, so I will not give up when I write crappy things. I resolve to not freak out when I screw up, that way when I do, I will be achieving my resolution.
No doubt the well seasoned New Years Resoluters would say this is actually defeating the purpose, but I suggest you try it before assuming it counter productive. Let all the Type A people of the world take a year off and create a resolution not to do something. Don’t be surprised if you feel the euphoric freedom of un-obligating yourself and just be human.
Yesterday I cranked up the AC in my car. It seems like they are hording all the cold air up north.
For the past week I have been looking in vain for one of those classic Christmas movies that the TV stations usually play over and over. Where is The Grinch? A Christmas Story? Christmas Carol? This is the first time in a long time that I am not absolutely sick of Christmas music the week before Christmas. This holiday season seems both subdued and desperate. I almost feel bad when I hear familiar businesses beg and scream for my Christmas business. “FOR THE LOVE OF SHOES!...” I heard one advisement shriek over the radio just before I pushed mute. You can’t really blame them for trying to appeal to American’s materialistic appetite. Those poor suckers just want to make a buck like everyone else.
I am sorry guys, but my Christmas dollars are spent. Now I just want to relax and enjoy what I have.
Once again after a 16 hour day of outlet mall shopping and interstate traveling, I have arrived at my familiar doorstep in Orange Park, Florida. When the fresh wildly cool breeze greeted me out of the car, I was amazed at how quickly I forgot Florida’s relatively warm winters. This time my mom was able to help pack up my apartment and drive down with me. Her ingenious dexterity as a mom proved to be a life savor when I realize how much stuff I had to take home. By the time we hit the road, the car was a solid block of apartment matter.
I took the late night shift, the Lake City to Jacksonville no-man’s-land, armed with Oreos, granola bars, Rits Bits peanut butter cups, and an enormous cup of tea. Just to ward off any possible inkling of fatigue, I played the Newsies soundtrack. This musical has become my tradition when traveling to or from school.
My 500 mile commutes home mark the beginnings and endings each season of my life. For once I am forced to sit and think while I pass deteriorating billboards and small towns with water towers painted like peaches. Whether it is the monotony of the road or the exhilarating feeling of rushing forward at 80 mph, I forget all my screw ups and defeats, leaving them behind and rush headlong, optimistic into whatever future awaits me.
Road trips are tiring, boring, and long and I often become anxious for home hours before I arrive, but they are also a sort of metal detox. Don’t struggle to drown out the silence with loud excessive stimulation, but for once just be content in the transition.
If you ever find yourself in need of high consentration on little sleep, I have figured out a few key ingredients that would help and compared both their pros and cons.
The following is a list of tested stimulants for staying awake:
Coffee: though this may be the immediate drink of choice when in need of mental energy, if overused or used improperly the result may actually be counter productive. The high off of coffee (especially straight espresso) is a sudden jolt of energy in which the drinker is lifted to a point of euphoric sensation, senses are heightened, hands start shaking, laughing easily. At this point you are in a self induced state of ADD, extremely wired yet easily distracted by shinny things. Coffee also holds a risk of dependence.
Apple: I once was told that an apple will awaken a person just as well as a cup of coffee. Now I am a little skeptical of that claim, but, to their merit, chomping down on a juicy sweet while pouring over your textbook hold a sort of awakening satisfaction. After you have finished nibbling the sweet fruit to its core, you can always amuse yourself by throwing the left over core at an unsuspecting student studying in the desk across the room, the one you always thought was a little two uptight.
Soundtrack Music: trying to write an essay in which you sound smarter than you are takes your full concentration and energy without having to battle boredom of sitting at a computer screen. The best way to solve that is with music, though not just any music, music without distracting words which get stuck in your head and the next thing you know your writing lyrics in your paper. Usually that would mean classical music (a sure ticket to drifting asleep), or movie soundtracks, complete with epic and compelling theme to energize your mind and no words that may accidentally slip into your paper. Now you can have the euphoric high of watching a movie and be productive.
Exercise: when you start to maul over the same sentence for thirty minutes, its time to take a joy ride. Get up calmly, walk out the library, and start running across campus. You will soon realize that this was a bad idea since it is cold and dark and 2:30 in the morning but by that time, you will be a good distance away from any of your things. Then you will quickly run back to the warmth of the building and your laptop which you left sitting on the table. That should keep you up for a good hour and a half
Tea: a good alternative to coffee is dark, nearly bitter hot black tea. Don’t bother with the herbal infusions and antioxidants, which will do nothing, more than give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Unlike coffee, you won’t spike into near delirium but the silent stimulant will keep you awake and alert long after you finished drinking. Caffeine is a diuretic, consider yourself warned
Water: when all else fails, or when you have ingested too much coffee and cant focus on anything, start chugging the water. It doesn’t take very far into the night to dry out but you must dehydrate your brain from time to time. This is also a good way to fight off the 3 am munchies when you’ve eaten everything in your dorm already.
Early Friday morning I climbed into my car after completing yet another near all-nighter. It was cold enough to see my breath in inside the car and I amused myself by blowing smoky puffs of breaths while lumbering towards campus to deliver my finished project.
I too am caught in the epidemic of sleep deprivation which had broken out on campus this week. Everywhere I could see signs of the plague: sweat shirts, ponytails, haggard faces, students carrying enormous coffee cups, and friends wearing the same outfit for the last three days. For the first time all semester, it’s hard to find an empty desk in the library.
Whether because of the winter nights, or the lack of distractions, I found the most productive corner on campus in the basement of the library, tucked against the furthest wall and blocked off from the rest of the library by towering shelves of book. As an added bonus, each of these desks was separated with a wooden shelf-like barrier creating an ideal cubby. There I was free to make annoyed faces and frustrated twitches as I worked to perfect this stubborn essay while hidden from puzzled onlookers.
Perhaps the first symptom of this disease is the procrastination over the Thanksgiving Break which led to a reality shock on Monday and the subsequent late nights and early mornings. Usually in the middle of exam week I wonder if it would just be better to scrap the paper and take the hit on my grade or whether I should change my major to something that doesn’t require work (like underwater basket weaving). There are so many better things I could be doing.
But I have finished, survived, just as I was telling myself I would at 5:30 this morning. The days before blend together into intervals between coffee and brief naps, but now, in the growing light of dawn, I am more than eager to turn in the monstrous project.
Yet for all the mental battles between sleep and stimulant, no reward can be as satisfying as finishing and knowing, weather you made the grade or not, that you have tried your hardest. Finish strong.
As we gathered a group of friends for a post-thanksgiving "happen to be in town" get together, our first inclination for meeting place is the familiar green and white Starbucks coffee shop. Starbucks has become the only restaurant with an environment conducive to conversation and fellowship. The diverse wildlife in these little shops is quite entertaining: students pouring over textbooks, the table scattered papers; the book worms who can spend hours curled up on their sofa, and an occasional pair of men discussing life, wives, and football over a chess board. All three of my current brother-in-laws asked my father for my sister’s hand over a Starbucks latte.
Whether you have guessed it or not, this welcoming Starbucks atmosphere is no accident, but as a former barista, part of our training was to create this "third place environment" (the first two being home and work). Though this is a unique concept for a restaurant in the US, this may not be so unfamiliar in the European countries. The first concept of coffee shops originated in Italy. In Amsterdam, as I have heard, friends get together and have what they call, Hugah. Bundled up in the cold winter months, they would spend the evening with friends, teas, candles and good conversation. No amount of consuming entertainment or mindless movies could compare to just getting to know people, whether over a cup of coffee or in a warm living room.
At the start of anything new there is a sort of exhilaration and fear. It is as if you make a commitment to start, there is an almost obligation to finish…if not an obligation, at least a curiosity of its eventual end.
All that to say, I have broken my stubborn determination to stay out of the faddish new medium of electronic blogging and created a virtual page to scribble my thoughts on – one of countless others.
So whether for the random readers who may stumble over this minor, yet widely accessible, publication, or for my own accountability to write more often, I have fashioned this virtual journal…
so it begins.
