On my 100th consecutive day of writing

Things are going to look a little different around here from now on...or at least for a while.  No, I'm not talking about the fact that my place of residence, school, and home are going to be different than they have been.  That's a given--my personal life is in upheaval.  What I'm talking about though is the fact that from now on I won't be writing on this blog every day...or at least I don't think so.

The entry you are now reading marks my 100th consecutive day of writing.  This whole "write something everyday" thing started as a personal challenge.  It was my attempt to convince myself that I could make a plan and stick to it.  I make lots of plans and stick to them, but they're never plans that are exclusively intended to enrich my personal life.  Most of the time they're professional in nature.  Deadlines to meet.  Papers due.  Grades to make.  I'm good at that.  But when it comes to my personal life I stink at sticking to goals.

But this time I did it. I wrote something everyday.  I did it for me.  I didn't miss a day, even on the days when I couldn't think of anything to write or on the days when I couldn't find internet or really would have preferred to do something else.  I did it.   And I feel great about it.   I stuck to my goal and I did it for me.  Only me.

But also for me,  I need to not write everyday.  What started as a way of enriching my life and doing something relaxing and good for me, is verging on being a daily chore.  It's not there yet, but it's verging on it.  And, like Michael Phelps, I want to end on a good note (but will also likely reprise my career--fair warning).   So now, in line with my original goal to do something good for myself, I'm going to stop writing everyday.  I'm still planning to write regularly, but for my stress levels, sleep schedule, and all around well-being, it won't be daily.  I need a break.  I need some days off. For me.

For those of you who have been reading along for the past 100 days of adventure, I thank you so very much.  I love that you've taken the time to read my thoughts and am so appreciative.  For those who haven't, welcome along on the ride.  A slightly less consistent ride, but hopefully a long, leisurely one.

So remember, do things for yourself. And if the things you're doing for yourself turn into things that aren't for you anymore, stop doing them.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On a poem (a la 5 year old Josie living today)

A poem (a la 5 year old Josie living today):

I am exhausted.

I am about to pass out.

It is 11:17 PM and I just ate dinner.

Dinner was just purchased in fully prepared form at a grocery store.  Nothing else was open.

I packed my entire life into a truck today.

I watched my father pack my entire life into a truck today

I drove 500 miles.

I drove 500 miles with my mother in the car.

My mother rants.

My mother tells great stories.

Trucks are evil.

Beds are good.

I will sleep.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On honesty with ourselves

The recent death of Robin Williams has brought the disease of depression to the forefront of our collective awareness.  According to reports, he was suffering from depression when he died by suicide.  Depression, as I have seen in many of my friends, family, and clients, is a terrifying, slow-working, and highly pervasive disorder.  It's painful for those suffering and for those who love the sufferers.

That being said, the interesting thing about depression is that all it is (and I don't mean this as a minimization of the disease, I mean it as a normalization) is an extreme expression of feelings we all have.  We all feel sad, down, unmotivated, distressed, unloved, and unworthy, from time to time.  If you're not feeling one of those things at least once a day you're definitely in the minority.

The other thing about depression is that it does not discriminate.  It can affect anyone, including the people who we see as the happiest and funniest.  In fact, it's the people who come off as funny, happy, lively, jovial (like Robin Williams) who are often covering up feelings of sadness and depression.  We all do that to an extent--cover our true feelings with a facade or with jokes.  But the problem with that is that then we're all walking around with facades of ourselves shown to the world instead of our true selves.  We cover our feelings and thoughts, the true ones, with joking, sarcasm, and pleasing others.  And that means we're keeping all of that bad stuff, the negative feelings we have, inside.  We never release them.  And that's unhealthy for us.  That leaves us simmering in that negativity.  And negativity is poison.

So I challenge you, whoever you are reading this, to be honest with yourself and others.  Don't cover up your true self, your opinions, your feelings (negative or positive), with a facade.  Be you.  And be you for you.  Not for the pleasure of others. You deserve it.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On my thoughts before change

A  few words on the eve of my departure for my new home.

I'm having more mixed feelings about this move than any other experience I've had in my relatively short life.  With all of my previous major life transitions-- first day of kindergarten, first day of high school, graduation from college, first job, summer away on internship, high school graduation, college graduation-- I've taken part in mass movements, whether they be exodus or arrival, in unison with my peers.  All major changes were, yes, big life events, but completely scheduled and expected.  You anticipate that when you go to college you will graduate in 4 years, so when you do, yeah it's sad and slightly earthquake-like but you were prepared. You knew it was coming. You were just one of many before and to later come.

So, for the first time in my life, a major life event of mine is not only unscheduled, but also completely independent.  I was supposed to be in my previous program, where my former cohort-mates remain, for another 3 years.  I was supposed to walk the stage to be hooded in unison with them.  As a member of a group.  Now I'm a bit out of sync.  I'm not going to graduate with that cohort and I'm not going to graduate with my new one (I'm entering with credits) so I'm really a lone wolf here. I'm going to have to tread my own path.  Find my own way. Be my own person.  An exodus and arival of one.

That's a little daunting, but it's also really exciting. I have the opportunity to be special.  To be different.  To be a trailblazer. To be a role model. To do things in an unexpected and unique way.

I may be a party of one, but also get the chance to be one unique party.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On baby fever

I attended a baptism today and in doing so came to a realization.  I came to the realization that everyone loves babies.  Not a groundbreaking realization.  And really something that I cognitively understood already.  But today, instead of just knowing it, I saw it...you know, seeing is believing and all.

So there I sat in a church with 40 or so other adults and no children except the one to-be-baptized infant.  For the entire 45 minute ceremony all 40 adults' attentions were focused on that one infant.  When I say that our attentions were focused, I do not mean that our attentions were focused on him indirectly via the ceremony in his honor.  No, I mean that every single adult was watching the child, "awwwing" at the child, whispering under his/her breath that the child is "so adorable," giggling at the child's rambunctiousness. For 45 minutes.  The poor pastor was speaking for those 45 minutes but may as well have been speaking to a wall.

And then, after the baptism was complete we first applauded, and then (in unison) did that strange baby-voiced "yaaaay" accompanied by exaggerated and stiff baby-like clapping.  It was terrifying to see a bunch of grown adults cater to this one child, all at one time, as if their lives depended on his every move.  As if him toddling up and down the stairs of the altar was akin to Marie Curie's discovery of Radioactivity.  As if, if we missed it, the entirety of the future world would completely reform.

Anyways, all of this creepy attention and baby-talk made me wonder why it is that adults are so fascinated and laser-focused on infants.  Perhaps it's an evolutionary response.  Everyone loves babies because if we didn't they wouldn't be cared for and humans would become extinct.  Perhaps its a fascination with the infant mind which is so vastly different from the adult mind.  A fascination with what we all once were and how we all once thought and behaved. A selfish interest if you will. Perhaps it's the Peter Pan syndrome piece of us all that is jealous of the youthfulness that infants exude.  Jealousy of the possibility and potential that exists within an infant.  Potential that is long gone for most adults.  Or perhaps it's everyone's need to feel needed.  Infants are the most needy kinds of humans out there, and thus fulfill that need by simply existing.

Whatever it is, it's something.  There's something about babies that makes them irresistible to adults.  That fulfills some sort of need in adults.

It's fascinating to watch...the babies and the adults.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On some more random thoughts of the day

It's a random thoughts of the day post!  You're welcome.

1.  My family really values their sleep.  My brother slept until 2 pm and is in bed already at 11:00 pm.  My sister came home for the day from med school and proceeded to sleep on the couch for 2 of the 3 hours she was home.  My father was also passed out on the chair near her for a large portion of her nap time.  None of these individuals have earned their excessive amounts of sleep with any sort of physical or mental exertion.  The closest they have come is lifting a coffee cup to their mouths.

2.  Golf is both highly fascinating and highly boring.  I think the game itself is pretty darn boring to watch, but somehow, the media turns a tournament into a fascinating event complete with special interest stories, high drama, and way too much discussion about Tiger Woods, who, in my opinion can go suck and egg.

3.  When people judge the concept of "fandom" and "fan culture" (which usually includes close watching of television shows, fan fiction, and excessive amounts of tumbling, and is generally participated in by females) they lose their right to watch half-time shows, participate in fantasy football, watch post-game shows (or Sports Center), read the Sports section of a newspaper, or really do anything relating to sports aside from playing them and watching the games themselves.  Those who disagree can go suck an egg with Tiger Woods.

4. My mother and I drove the .1 miles to the ice cream stand on the corner in order to make it in time for their 10pm closing.  We barely made it.  We are also pathetically desperate for sweets and completely bad influences on each other.  But the Peanut-butter Cup flurry was sooooo good.

5.  The neighbors down the street host a big party every year (to which I am never invited).  It seems to get fancier every year.  This year, I kid not, it was sponsored by SKYY vodka.  SKYY's logo was prominently displayed on a step-and-repeat banner stationed behind a large amount of camera equipment in the driveway.  I live in suburbia, USA.  How does that happen?  And more importantly, why am I never invited?

6. My parents have a pool that I just swam in for the first time in a year.  I am fairly certain that my swimming in it also marked the first time anyone has swam in it all summer.  It's August.  That's just a waste.  A waste of time, money, effort, and especially of the chipmunk lives lost by kamikazi jump into the pool.

7. The 20 minutes that both of my siblings and I were in the same place today (and all conscious), were the best 20 minutes of my month.  No lie.  I love them a whole lot.

8. When each of my siblings and I were seniors in high school we began getting short lectures from my mother about how to be an adult.  The importance of paying bills on time.  The importance of cleaning dishes.  The importance of returning calls.  Today I realized that these short lectures, which we then called "ten second life lessons,"  have recently become much longer.  Ten seconds is now ten minutes.  When I shared this thought with her her response was, "that's because you've all failed."

9. My siblings and I were very strange, and apparently under-entertained as children, because we came up with some of the stupidest "games" I can imagine.  A list of names should suffice for elaboration.  Titles included:  Sunny and Precious, Ching Chong Chong is coming to get you, QB Sack, Beanie Baby football, and Toota Butt. Yes, pronounced "toot a butt."

10.  It's going to be really hard work keeping in contact with my friends from my old program.  I'm really bad at keeping in contact, but today I made my first "just calling to catch up" phone call to my best friend from there and it went well.  I may be able to handle this this time.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On perspective and junk

I've got a lot of junk.  I have no idea where it all came from.  Well, actually, that's a lie.  I know exactly where it all came from, and that's precisely the problem.  You see, I have collected things of various sorts throughout my life:  a teddy bear from the day I was born, ballet slippers I wore as a toddler, participation ribbons and trophies from elementary school, advertisements for shows I was in in high school, news paper articles I was featured in in college, and materials, lots and lots of materials, from my first two years of grad school.  I've been collecting stuff since the day I was born and I have been neglecting to throw things away since that same day, because everything seems to have an attachment to a time in my life that I can clearly remember and, apparently, that I would like to continue to remember.

And that brings me to this very day.  Today.  Three days before I am set to move away from my parents home (again) and to an apartment even further away than the one I just left.  I've been living away from home for about two years now, but I certainly didn't take everything with me when I left.  A ton of stuff stayed.  A ton of stuff that I'm now having to sort through for fear that if I do not, my parents will become so fed up with the stuff that they will take it upon themselves to chuck it all in one giant dumpster.  And I don't want that because despite the fact that most of this stuff is completely disposable, there are a lot of things that have a lot of meaning.  I've got photographs of friends, recordings of performances I was in, my first CD, posters of boy bands long forgotten. These are the things that matter to me.

But the interesting thing is that had you asked me two years ago I would have said that all of it mattered to me. Now, aside from the select few things, I really wonder why I kept most of this stuff.

It's amazing what a bit of distance and time will do because  now looking at it all I realize that there's more junk than matter.   With the distance and time has come perspective.  I've lived more.  I've experienced more.  I've realized that while I thought in 8th grade that a plastic cross necklace, prominently printed with "Jesus Loves You," was something important, to be saved and displayed on my dresser, now it's just a meaningless eyesore.  While the senior photo of a high-school acquaintance was a keepsake then, it's now just a nice image that I can access on Facebook.  While a screen-print fitted t-shirt from sixth grade was my very favorite in elementary school, now it's just a reminder of a fashion statement that I'm happy to have seen disappear.

Distance and time bring perspective, and apparently perspective brings full trash bags...and fresh starts.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On white coats, success, and failure

It's funny how sometimes the most useful and profound statements come from unexpected sources.  Christian Borle (of Broadway fame) one said that the best advice he was ever given was "Other people's successes are not your failures."

Today was my baby (she's only three years younger than me) sister's first day of medical school.  For anyone familiar with the medical professions educational system, with the first day of school in a medical profession comes something called a "white coat ceremony."  The white coat ceremony is intended to welcome new medical students into the medical professions.  There's a lot of pomp and circumstance (speeches and such), but the main event occurs when an actual licensed medical professional puts a white coat on the new student.  It's a very exciting time for everyone, especially parents and the incoming students.

Now, for weeks I have known of the coming of this event.  My family has been talking about it since January.  They all came home for it-- including my grandmothers.  We planned to attend together and then go for dinner.  The whole shebang.  So, since we've been talking about it for so long I've had a lot of time to think about it, and the more I thought about it the more reasons I came up with for why the ceremony is a bad idea.  I have lots of theories (read opinions), especially coming from a profession (psychology) that is so grounded in an understanding of power differentials and humanism.  When I thought about a white coat and what it symbolizes, I wasn't too  impressed.  What I concluded was that white coats are intended to define a power differential (those are never good), intimidate patients (they increase anxiety in patients), inflate egos (of the medical students), and celebrate something that has yet to occur (the whole ceremony is celebrating the fact that the students are simply at the school...I'm not sure they've earned the pomp and circumstance).

Well, being that I am the person I am, I shared these thoughts with my sister and parents.  Bad idea.  Of course my sister (who was about to participate in the rite of initiation) and my parents (who are both medical professionals who wear white coats daily) were not receptive to my thoughts.  But, that didn't stop me.  For six months I rattled on about power differentials, and patient care, and patient anxiety.  And I stand by those statements.  They're all true.  But today, as I rattled on about them while sitting in my seat before the ceremony itself, my mother called me out.  Said I was being too negative.  Said it sounded like "sour grapes" (which I assumed meant that she thought I was jealous).

Well...being called out made me think about it. Made me consider what my actual opinion was about the whole white coat thing.  Was I really arguing on the side of justice or was I jealous?  The words coming out of my mouth said one thing, that I was speaking out against an injustice, but my feelings, when I really dug deep, said another thing.  I realized that while I was saying that white coats are bad for patients and lack meaning, what I was really feeling was that I didn't like that a bunch of students were being recognized for making it to graduate school, when I never got the same recognition  making it to graduate school.  Future doctors get pomp and circumstance, but future psychologists get dropped of at the front door and fed a free sandwich for lunch.  And that's not fair.  That is an injustice.  But the problem isn't that my sister and other medical students get recognition for their hard work.  No, it's that other graduate students don't. And that's not my sister's fault, or anyone else's fault in the medical professions.  It's the other professions who are dropping the ball and not appropriately welcoming their students.

After concluding all of that I realized that Christian Borle's words were completely accurate.  My sister's successes (and her classmates) were not my failure.  Them getting accolades and recognition did not mean that people do not also think that I deserve those accolades and recognition, they just don't give them so outright to me (not that I should really feel the need for them).

I am not a failure simply because I don't wear a white coat, or walk across a stage, or get a fancy dinner.  While white coats do represent (at least in part) other people's successes, I've realized that they are not intended to represent my failure.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On fifty things that make me happy

Fifty things that make me happy:

1. Accapella music
2. Pasta e Fagiole made by my Father
3. A completed to-do list
4. Arriving home after a long trip
5. Sleeping in without an alarm set
6. Starting my day at 6am
7.  A good cup of coffee
8.  Slow mornings spent on the couch
9.  An accepted manuscript
10. A good homily at mass
11. Holding babies
12. Watching toddlers play
13. Learning something new
14. Intellectual conversation
15. Reading a whole book in one day
16. Fanfiction...lots of fanfiction
17. Juicy gossip
18. Clients making progress
19. Christmas Eve dinner (feast of the seven fishes)
20. Christmas day with my family
21. Family reunions
22. Traveling with friends
23. Professional conferences
24. Spending a night alone in a hotel room
25. Cooking for myself
26. Cooking for friends
27. A glass of pinot grigio
28. Grocery shopping
29. Shopping in open-air markets
30. Broadway shows that make me cry from start to finish
31. A good depressing movie cry
32. Telling people the thing they want to hear when it's truthful
33. Spending quality time with friends
34. My friend's successes
35.  Teen dramas on TV
36. Baking cookies
37. Seeing Girl Scouts selling cookies
38. A good sale
39. Petting soft animals
40. Florence Italy
41. Dancing like a fool
42. Karaoke
43. Singing a solo on stage
44. A perfect hair day
45. Gelato from GROM
46. Times Square at 6am
47. Spending long weekends with my family in my Brother's Brooklyn apartment
48. Pay day
49. My Teddy Bear
50. Christmas lights on my house

It's good to think about the good things sometimes...

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On sex, my beliefs, and why no one needs to explain theirs

There are a lot of things that I do in life simply because of my beliefs. They're usually not based on popular or appreciated beliefs.  I tend to like to be contrary, and my beliefs are no exception to this.  But I stand by my beliefs, despite their lack of popularity or tendency to buck the cultural status quo. I'm stubborn.

Along with being stubborn, I am, like I've shared before, a practicing Catholic.  A lot of people are Catholic.  In fact, Catholics comprise 16% of the world population and 50% of the Christian population. While the doctrines of the Catholic church are firm and specific, they are so firm and specific that they tend to be really hard to follow closely.  That's why, despite millions of people in this world calling themselves Catholic, you're likely to find vast differences in the beliefs and behaviors of practicing Catholics.  I am no different.  I subscribe to the majority of Catholic Church doctrines, but there are certainly those that I choose to interpret in my own way.  Some would call me a "cafeteria catholic" (a derisive label for those who pick and choose from church doctrine, like you might pick and choose what to eat from options in a cafeteria), but I just consider myself a discerning Catholic.  After all, the cafeteria serves some really unhealthy things, so it makes sense to avoid eating them.

Anyways, among the church regulations that I have chosen to subscribe to are some that fit really well within my social and cultural context (like loving my neighbor and going to mass every Sunday), others are a little more controversial.  Specifically, unlike the majority of my peers, I have chosen to save sex for marriage (OH NO SHE DIDN'T!).  Yup, I said it.  I'm a card-carrying (not really, but there are virgin cards for real), purity-ring-wearing (that I'm not kidding about) virgin.  I'm going to remain a virgin until I'm married.  And if I don't get married then I'll never have sex.  (WHAT!?)  

But really, all of that is tertiary to my actual point.  My point in sharing all of this is not to share my sexual preferences or to start drama.  No, my point in sharing is to explain that when I tell people all of this, they actually become personally offended.  They infer from my beliefs, that I am judging them for not agreeing.  They assume that I am a prude, or that because of my lack of sexual inexperience I just don't know enough to make a decision about whether or not I'd like to have sex before I'm married (which is a really convoluted way of thinking).  They think that I will regret my decision or change my mind.  That I am confused.  That I am blindly complying with a system that someone else created.

Well all of this is wrong.  I have made my own choices.  I have educated myself about these choices.  I will not regret these choices because I have been educated.  I am proud of my decision.  I am not ashamed.

What I've learned by having a counter-cultural belief is that my beliefs are no one else's business.  They are not for other people to judge.  They are my own.  I do not owe anyone an explanation.  My beliefs do not affect others in any way, but their criticism of my beliefs, and my intelligence via my beliefs, does affect me.

And through this I've realized that my opinions are irrelevant and unnecessary when it comes to other people's beliefs too.  What I think about their life choices is unimportant.  It will serve no purpose for me to question them and tell them that they are wrong.  It will help no one for me to explain why I disagree with them.  My beliefs are mine and their's are their's.  And that's the way it should be.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On unrelaxing vacations

My family is full of do-ers. We are action-, goal-, motivation-oriented individuals...five of them in one family. We like to be productive and when we're not moving toward achievement of something we feel a little aimless and things get a little out of hand. This makes vacations a little bit counter-intuitive for us. By definition a vacation is "an extended period of recreation, especially one spent away from home or in traveling." Well, we do okay with the "spent away from home or in traveling" part, but the "extended period of recreation" part is something with which we eternally struggle.

Most people, when they go on vacation, spend at least a part of that time doing non-productive, relaxing, and exclusively entertaining things--like sitting on a beach, or going to an amusement park. Things that are strictly intended for enjoyment. Well, sometimes we do that--our very favorite vacation place is Disney World--but most of the time we swing and miss.  By that I mean, most of the time there is very little to do with relaxation and enjoyment and more to do with education.  We go away for weeks at a time, but we go to places where we can learn something...usually history-related. We've gone to almost every historic city on the East Coast, but never once have we spent even so much as a day sitting on a beach.  We've been to Boston (the whole freedom trail), Baltimore (Aquarium), Washington D.C. (the entire Mall), Richmond Virginia (Civil War sites), New York City (Ellis Island), Philadelphia (Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, many others--my sister stated the words "aren't there any beaches nearby?"), Gettysburg (twice), Jamestown, Williamsburg, Charleston South Carolina, Toronto (Casa Loma and a few museums), the Thousand Islands (Bolt Castle), Niagara Falls...the list goes on.  

Anyways, we're an action oriented family and even vacations are consumed with learning opportunities and education.  This is great, in part because I've got a better grasp of Civil War History than most people in this world and because I even had the opportunity to travel at all.  But what I've realized in my life of educational vacationing is that sometimes, it's okay to be unproductive.  You don't always have to be learning, or doing, or producing.  Sometimes, it's okay, and even healthy, to do absolutely nothing, while sitting on a beach.

Not that I would know. 

What I do know, however, is the kind of wood on which the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution sat.

Keep on thinking,

Josie

On a family tradition

Once a year I go to New Jersey for four days to spend the long weekend in a house with approximately fifty other people.  Those fifty other people consist of my immediate family, my first cousins, aunts and uncles, second cousins, third cousins, great aunts and uncles, and grandmother, all from my father's side. For some perspective, my third cousins are the children of my father's cousins and my great aunts and uncles are my father's aunts and uncles.  The house is big, but not big enough for fifty people to comfortable reside, so the floor gets good use.

When I tell my friends about this yearly event they are a bit confused.  Most people, after all, couldn't identify their third cousins in a line-up, let alone snuggle with them on a couch. We're close.  We know each-other's lives.  We get in each-other's business. We've got endless inside jokes. Nothing is sacred.  Nothing is private. For example, I was showering (which is a no-no due to the house using well water) in a shower with clear panes this weekend, when my cousin barged in stating that "she was going to jump in with me. Is that okay?" The only correct answer to that on cousin's weekend (the name for this long-weekend we spend together) is "sure."  So...yeah...privacy is non-existent.  

We spend our mornings sitting around the kitchen table, discussing each-others lives--who's got a significant other, who had a bowel movement in the past day, who was embarrassed by a parent in the last year, whose job is the most difficult--while eating breakfast.   At around noon, the breakfast food is changed out for lunch foods and the conversation reconvenes on the dock (the house is on a lake).  Conversation continues in a similar manner, discussion slightly shifting to that of body hair, vacations, non-present family members and yes, still bowel movements.  By dinner time, we're having these same conversations, congregated around plates of my grandmother's pasta, made with love in her suburban town-home, and some fancy salad created by my second cousin who was assigned the responsibility because even that exceeds the bounds of her domestic capabilities.  

Together we eat dinner. Cousins from white collar, upper middle class families, with second cousins and third cousins from upper class wealth, discussing all the same things over the same food. By nine o'clock we're playing games with the cousins from our own generations and listening to stories of times  passed told by members of older generations.  By one in the morning, the "adults" have retired to their rooms (they get beds) while the "kids" (actually all teens and twenty-somethings now) rush to find spaces on the floors in sleeping bags, and on air-mattresses, and on couches, according to seniority. 

The four days proceed like this--fairly predictable with the odd celebration of an engagement, or wedding, or expected baby.  A lot of talking, close quarters, uncomfortable sleeping, lack of showering, sun, chaos, and food. It's noisy and overwhelming and full of joy and love. A simple weekend, not at all about the entertainment or relaxation, and completely about quality time, maintaining relationships, maintaining family history, maintaining culture.  It's an experience that most families don't get.   An experience that I am privileged to have...

no matter how little privacy it enables me.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

These past few days I've felt a bit pressed for time, unmotivated, and just in need of a good break.  I'm on vacation with my family (if you can call it that...it's a family reunion with 50 people in one house for a long-weekend...not so relaxing), just moved from one city, and am now heading home for a few weeks before moving to a new city.  I'm exhausted, and stressed, and anxious.  All I need is a few days with no commitments and nothing required of me. But I've made a commitment to write everyday.  A commitment that I'm proud of, and do not at all regret.  It's been a wonderful growing and learning experience for me, but it's really freaking hard.

Today is my 88th consecutive day writing, and this past week, with all of its chaos, I've realized that it's really hard to find something to write about everyday.  To come up with something new for 88 days in a row.  Something to write at least a few paragraphs about. It's really hard to devote the time to it everyday when I'm tired, or when there are other things that I want to do.  It's really hard to find internet access everyday for a long enough period of time two write something.  Not easy. 

But that's not a problem that's exclusive to blogging and writing.  That's a problem that simply comes with being a person. With being an almost adult.  Life is full of commitments that we have to make.  And those commitments are great, but they also prevent us from being able to do whatever we want, whenever we want to.  That's the way of the world, and the reason that the world goes round.  

Because we make commitments and we stick to them.  

Keep on thinking,

Josie

Given an unfortunate lack of internet, I'm writing my daily entry with the minuscule digital keys of a phone today. Needless to say, this will be a brief entry.  I apologize in advance.

I believe that every person in this world should have a life motto. A philosophy by which they live day-to-day. A philosophy that they use to guide them through life. I've mentioned it before, but I'm a fairy religious person. Catholic to be specific, and the tenants of the Catholic religion guide most of my life, but two phrases--that are are seemingly contradictory-- are what it all boils down to. They've been on my mind a lot lately because things don't seem to be going according to plan on my life these days.  So, today I'm just going to lay them out for you, but at some point I fully intend to expound on them. At some point when I'm not typing on a keyboard the size of  a large big.

1. It is what it is.

2.  We all have choices in life and those choices have consequences.

Two very simple phrases, but two phrases that have completely changed the way I perceive my own life and the my interactions with others.  I'll never argue that they're mottos to live by for all people, but they sure work for me.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On random thoughts of the day

Sorry guys and gals.  This week has been a bit crazy, so you get another bunch of random thoughts of the day!

1.  I think too much when I drive.  It gets really dark and twisty.  Not healthy at all.  I'll have to limit my long-distance driving in the future.

2.  Family is special because they're some of the few people in this world who can tolerate your stupidity.

3.  Large groups of family lead to large amounts of stupidity to be tolerated.

4.  I have a low tolerance for stupidity.

5.  Apparently I am more emotionally connected to buildings than people because I cried when leaving my apartment for the last time, but didn't cry when leaving my friends.  That can't be healthy or normal.

6.  Donuts are God's gift to the world and can immensely improve one's day.

7.  The only thing better than donuts is donuts with coffee.

8.  My laptop is an asthmatic mess.  It seems to sense when I need it to function most and decides, at that moment, that it no longer wants to function.  Like an insolent and obstinate adolescent.

9.  Driving in the dark is not something I enjoy...even when it's the only way to see someone I love.  My brother officially owes me big.

10.  Two heads are better than one, but three heads are one head too many.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On goodbyes

Goodbyes are the worst.  Here's a list of six reasons why:

1.  When attending a goodbye event, or in the days approaching a goodbye, there's awkward avoidance of all conversation regarding the goodbye.   Everyone pretends it doesn't exist which makes it that much more strange when you have no choice but to confront the fact that it does with an actual goodbye.

2.  You have to go through the really awkward, "do we hug, shake hands, or do nothing?" moment.  Sometimes both parties are on the same page and sometimes they aren't.  When they aren't...yeah, that miss-communication will stick with you for a while.  Nothing like an awkward final impression.

3.  There's awkward conversation about keeping in touch, and sending pictures, and communicating, when both parties know that the likelihood that things will ever be the same, despite any massive amounts of communication that can be maintained, is next to impossible.  Pleasantries abound...and I hate pleasantries.

4.  There's awkward processing of feelings and compliments are thrown around like dirty laundry.  I don't do feelings very well, so this is all very painful for me.  I'm ready to run when people start talking about how much they like me and how much I've affected them, and how my departure is making them cry. I love them for feeling those things, but it's really awful to hear them talk about it.  I get squirmy.

5.  When you are the only one leaving and everyone else is staying, that's when things get really annoying.  The goodbye is focused on you, because you are the one who is changing. And everyone else only has to say one goodbye, to you, while you have to say tens of goodbyes...and that's just not fair.

6. You know, the whole nothing being the same ever again thing kind of sucks.  It kind of sucks a lot.  A whole freaking lot.  Eff nothing being the same ever again.  It can go die in a corner.

So, yeah, goodbyes are the worst. But, really what it all pins down to is discomfort with the ambiguity of it all.  Because goodbyes are so ambiguous.  There's ambiguity in all of it. Whether or not to hug. Whether or not you'll ever see each other again. Whether or not you will miss each other equally. Whether or not the person needs to express their feelings, feel their feelings.  Whether or not anything will ever be the same again.  All of it is ambiguous and that's what makes it tough.

But ambiguity isn't all bad.  Ambiguity leaves open doors and possibilities.  So do goodbyes.


Keep on thinking,
Josie

Music is

I am a massive believer in the power of song.  That sounds really corny, I know, but I really hold that to be true.  Music has power and music has unique power.

Music has the power to completely change a moment or an experience. Music has the power to lead us toward emotion and through emotion.  Music has the power to make us laugh, and cry, and smile.  It has the power to cause anything from raging revolt to sleep.  Music has the power to make us feel good when we produce it. To make us feel good when we dance to it.  It provides us the opportunity to move and act silly.  It has the power to completely change our day around simply by being present.  And the right kind of music, the perfect song, for the perfect moment, well that has the power to change the entire course of our lives.

Music has existed for centuries.  Maybe for all of time.  It has served many purposes throughout its existence: communication, entertainment, prayer.  It has played a role in major historical events.  And it is one behavior, one experience, that connects us, living in the modern age, to our ancestors, and their ancestors, and their ancestors and connects us wherever we are to everyone else, wherever they are.  Music represents cultures and families.  One thing unifying all in their differences.

Music is powerful.

Music is beautiful.

Music is history.

Music is people.

Music is.

Keep on thinking,

Josie

On feeling replaceable

It's really strange to feel unneeded.

This is a thought I've had many times in the past few weeks.  The circumstances of my very imminent departure from my current PhD program for another are likely the sole origin of these thoughts.  I'm prematurely leaving my current program, and therefore leaving an established situation that shall remain entirely the same, except for me.  All of my classmates will stay, all of the clinical work and clients will stay, everyone will continue on with their research projects, and their friendships, and their jobs, and their lives. While my life is changing drastically, and ultimately, for the better, everyone else's is pretty much staying the same. Everything that I'm involved in here will continue along the same path after I leave.  And because everything is continuing despite my departure, I'm finding myself replaced a lot.

This is, of course, completely logical.  When a best friend leaves, you find new support systems.  When a group leader leaves, you find a new leader.  When an employee leaves you find a new employee.  It's just the way of the world.  That being said, all of this replacement makes me feel...well...really replaceable.  And that's really not a great feeling.

While I want everyone here to continue happily on without me, there's a lot of fear inside of me right now that they'll forget me, or that they won't miss me enough.  And in my brain, not missing me enough is a sign that I didn't contribute enough and make a big enough impact on anyone's life while I was here.  That I actually wasted the two years I've spent here.

This is the point in my daily entry where I try to spin the situation (or reframe it as we call it in my profession) into something positive--find the bright side.  But, you know what? Screw that.  Sometimes you just get to feel crummy, and anxious, and sad, and afraid.

These are really feelings and feelings are so good.   But sometimes, even if it's good to feel feelings, they don't feel good.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On ten thoughts I've had today

It was moving day today, and subsequently, a very long day.  So, in the interest of saving you an over-thought monologue of nothingness intended to be only an essay and not a good essay, I will instead give you ten thoughts I've had today.

1.  I've always been a believer in female power and feminism, but when you're moving, it sure seems like gender stereotypes prevail...the men move the big stuff and make the choices about the whole Tetris of the process and the women play the supporting roles.  I don't like it, but it happens.

2.  I spend entirely too much time reading fanfic.  So much so that when I can't sit down and read it for a while, I instead discover that there is a thing called podfic...and proceed to listen to it while doing chores.

3.  Group polarization is a really real thing in fandom...oh my word.

4.  It's really great to have good friends.  It makes me realize that there really is such thing as one's heart feeling warm.

5.  You don't know who your good friends are until you ask people to help you move.

6.  My parents are the best long-distance helicopters in the world.  This is both a good thing and a bad thing.  Mostly good since it's always nice to know that you have someone to dig you out of ditches when you accidentally fall into them.

7.  Driving large trucks, while terrifying, is incredibly empowering...until you are so focused on how terrified you are to be driving a large truck that you stop at a green light with friends following you.

8. Sometimes the things we fear most aren't things we should fear at all.

9.  People should really ask for help cleaning in addition to moving.

10.  I ordered pizza for the first time in my life today...at the age of 25.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On the joy of manual labor

For the past two weeks I've been almost exclusively consumed with packing my apartment for my move down south.  I've moved before, but never after having acquired enough belongings to fill a one-bedroom apartment and to live an almost adult lifestyle (which requires things like coffee grinders and mattresses on frames and with box springs).  I also have packed my apartment exclusively on my own--one of the only downsides to being single and roommate-less.  Needless to say, the whole process was a lot more grueling and exhausting than I ever anticipated.  It turned into an exercise...no, not an exercise in anything in particular...just exercise.

Now, I'm not one for exercise.  I'll go to the gym if a friend wants a gym buddy, but that's more for socializing than fitness, and that's the extent of my physical fitness awareness.  I count walking to class as my exercise for the day.  Don't get me wrong, I'm aware of health in lots of other ways...just not physical fitness.  So, because I so seldom experience true exercise, my encounter with physical exertion these past few days, through packing, has brought me to a realization: physical exertion, manual labor...it feels really good!

It feels really good to work hard.  Feel active and motivated.  Make progress that you can see, physically.  Sweat. Get your heart rate up.  It feels good.  It also feels pretty darn empowering to be able to manage all of the manual labor on my own.  Reassures me that, while I may not be running a half-marathon everyday, I'm not a blob either.  I'm really darn capable.  I get reassurance of my mental capabilities in my work everyday, but it's not so often that I get reassurance of my physical capabilities.  That's kind of nice to get.

So, while packing is kind of the worst...at least something good comes from it.

I am woman! Hear me ROAR!

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On the worth of anger

 Anger, an emotion like any other, is healthy and normal.  We need to feel it once in a while, and sometimes we should feel it.  It is not the presence or even intensity of the emotion that determines whether it is good or bad.  No, it is what a person chooses to do with that anger that determines its worth.  Anger is a powerful thing.  While it can breed aggression and hurt, in its most powerful form, and best form, it can breed change.

When injustices occur in our lives, in the world, anger is a appropriate reaction.  World hunger, unequal rights, budging in line (no seriously--totally an acceptable time for anger...especially if you're a kid), the minimization of your values or work--all of these are incredibly appropriate, and in my opinion, necessary, times for anger.  But in those instances when we feel anger, it is equally necessary for us to:

1.  Identify the feeling. Acknowledge that we are in fact feeling something and that that feeling is anger.  Sometimes our cues for this can come right from our bodies--increased heart rate, shakiness, rapid breathing, tense muscles, racing thoughts.

2.  Identify the source of the anger. Before you can do anything to address the anger (to decrease it, or use it), you have to figure out why you're angry.  Observe your surroundings and take note of what's going on.  Is it something that someone else did? Is it something that is a hang-up for you and so you are the source of the anger?  Figure that out.

3.  Decide what you want to do with the anger.  Like I said before, you've got two options, use it or lose it.  Weigh these options and decide which one is better for you and others in that moment.  Anger can be destructive if it motivates action that is unnecessary or harmful.  Before you decide to act on your anger, be sure that it's because the action is going to help you and others.  This will ensure that your acting on your anger will incite change not harm.

4.  Address the anger.   Either address the cause of the anger (the problem) or relax.  Relax, realize that your addressing the problem isn't going to help, and brush it off as one of the world's crazy tactics to make you equally crazy.

If you instead decide to address the problem, well, that's when anger is a really great thing.  It's our signal that something is unjust or unfair in our world and needs to be addressed.  It's our opportunity to make change happen, improve our world, and the lives of others.  It's constructive, productive, and helpful.

So don't ignore your anger or stamp it down.  And certainly don't let people shame you for your anger or any feelings that you have for that matter.  You are allowed to feel and one type of feeling is anger.  Doing something with that feeling does not make you a drama queen, or an over-reacter, or crazy.

It makes you important.  It makes you the heart of change.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On my realization of overabundance

My biggest mission this week has been to completely pack my apartment into boxes so that it's prepared for my big move this weekend.  It started innocently enough.  I've got about ten boxes and a few suitcases.  I thought to myself. That should be enough.  I started packing my family room, all of the odds and ends lying around, the candles, the decorations, the office supplies, the books (so many books) and suddenly the boxes had disappeared.  Okay.  Guess I'll go beg for a few more boxes at the grocery store. So I did that, and proceeded to use them to pack my belongings in my bedroom...and only my belongings in my bedroom.  Really?  I'm out of boxes again? I thought.

Conveniently we had just done some major reorganization at work and I was able to grab some leftover boxes there.  I pounced on them like Simba on Zazu. Those babies were mine before they were even empty. So I brought them home and started to pack my bathroom and my utility closet which is really just full of the random stuff that doesn't really fit anywhere else.  I started packing my kitchen with the remaining boxes... only to run out again.

That leads me to now.  Sitting on my couch, glaring at the massive mountain of packed boxes which have single-handedly usurped the majority of the space in my living room, and planning for tomorrow when I will, again, go to the grocery store to beg for more boxes so that I can finish packing my kitchen.  Pathetic.

And after all of this running around to find boxes, creative manipulation of items within boxes for space conservation, hours spent putting everything into boxes, I'm left with a question:

Where on earth did all of this stuff come from!?

How did I end up with a giant mountain of belongings in my living room?  Do I really use all of this stuff?  Do I even need all of this stuff?

The answer to that last question is a resounding NO.  I absolutely do not need all of this stuff.  In fact, no one needs all of this stuff.  There's no reason a single person living alone should have this much stuff when she moves.  But I know I'm not alone. I know that I don't really have more belongings to my name than other person like me.  I know that it's pretty typical to have this many boxes.  But I guess that's where the problem is for me. Most people live this way--with extra stuff.  Most people are as materialistic as I apparently am. Most people are as dependent on their belongings as I am.

Moving sucks.  But moving sucks even more when you realize that your mountain of boxes is just one of millions of box mountains in the world.  Most people have box mountains,

but some people don't have any boxes at all.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On my ridiculous research life

Every once in a while I have a moment in my day where I realize how ridiculous and impractical my life is. Let me explain.  As grad student in a research-focused program, I'm being pruned into a researcher complete with a scientific brain and critical thinking skills.  In order to get really good at these things, as is the case with most things, you just practice a lot.  So, most of my day is composed of "research."  Well, research in my field, psychology, is really just informing yourself of the current state of the field, thinking a whole lot, coming up with questions that haven't been answered yet, figuring out how to answer them, doing the things you need to do to answer them, getting an answer, writing it down, and getting someone else to publish it.

But really this process boils down to two things: writing and postulating.  While writing is a useful and applicable skill-- something that, when you do it, produces something tangible-- postulating is really just talking nonsense for hours on end until something sticks, throwing ideas around, philosophizing, hypothesizing, supposing.  Postulating does not immediately produce anything of any use to anyone except the postulater.  It's an incredibly selfish way to spend time--thinking about your own thoughts--and strangely, this is what I am encouraged to do for hours on end and for what I am paid.  Further, the expectations for actual product resulting from this process are low.  Of the thousands of thoughts I toss out into the ether every week, I'd say one sticks and becomes something useful, like a publishable study, every month or so.

This is why I have deemed my life ridiculous. It's such a privileged and cushy existence.  So ivory tower.  I get paid to think...and one out of four-thousand thoughts, write.  

So out of touch with reality.  So impractical. But that 4,000th thought? Well,  I like to think that thought is pretty special.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On mental health and the media

The media has a lot of power.  They have the power to manipulate our minds so that we believe whatever it is they want us to believe. They can feed us their beliefs through a simple characterization, hashtag, or promo reel.  Our primary societal tenants and values are based on our understanding of the world around us as fed to us through the media.  For example, the commercials we see everyday are filled with women who are stick thin, airbrushed, and white in a very tan way.  We've consumed this media so much so that as a society, we now believe that this is how we should define "beautiful" (which is utter bullshit by the by).

Anyways, the media has a strong position to create our societal norms and values.  This is often an abused power, but as with all types of power, it can also be used for good.  It can be used to improve the lives of others and set healthy norms and values.  As a fledgling psychologist I am especially aware of how the media takes part in defining our values and norms related to mental health. Unfortunately, I'm generally unimpressed.

Mental health is a difficult topic because there are so many stigmas and taboos associated with it in our culture.  People are seen as weak if they ask for help with any problem they're having, and asking for help maintaining their own mental stability and happiness is perceived as one of the weakest things they can do.  The problem is that asking for help--through therapy or psycho-pharmacology--is actually an incredibly effective way of managing and coping with mental health problems.  You know, seeking professional help is usually a good thing when you don't know what you're doing.  Your sink is leaking everywhere and you have no expertise in plumbing? Yeah, you call in a plumber.  You don't just let your house flood.  Your car is totaled on the side of the road and you can drag it to a repair shop?  You call a tow truck.  With almost every other thing in our lives we're willing and able to call for help, but when it comes to our own sanity (literally) we'd rather attempt to indefinitely pull uselessly at the back bumper.  That's because of context.  The context of a person with mental health problems--their world.  Their world with stigma.

Stigma is perpetuated (and often times created) by the media.  The media portrays people with mental health problems as the victims in need of saving from by hero, or the person who's causing unnecessary harm to others. Who's a threat.  The media portrays psychologists as over-intellectualized, judgmental, and inaccessible.  Sometimes they're even depicted as sexual predators.  The media portrays psychiatric hospitals as creepy, haunted, unsafe, terrifying, controlling places.  The media constantly misrepresents and mistreats diagnoses of mental health disorders in their characters.  The media allows its characters to be defined by their mental health conditions--to be out of control.  No wonder people are afraid of seeking help.

In reality, none of this is actually the case.  People with mental health conditions are almost always safe.  People with mental health conditions do not need saving from others and are strong, independent, and motivated to change.  Psychologists, by definition, are empathic and warm.  Their job is to be welcoming, unconditionally positive in their regard for you, accessible, and most importantly safe.  Psychiatric hospitals are similarly safe and are not used as parts of evil plots to control people.  They are used with great discretion and anyone unwillingly attending is doing so because of  a very sad and disappointed mental health professional.  Mental health conditions are very clearly defined and meet strict criteria.  We take diagnosis and treatment seriously in the world of psychology.  And finally, a diagnosis cannot, and never will, define a person.  Yes, it is a small part of who they are because it is composed of the feelings, thoughts, and experiences that they have, but it cannot limit that person or become their only defining feature.

With this in mind, it is vitally important that, as consumers of media, we acknowledge the biases and misrepresentations that we are fed.  It is important that in acknowledging these problems, we also understand how these misrepresentations impact us and the people around us.  We must not allow these biases to prevent the people we love from getting the help that they need and the help that will likely improve their quality of life.

They're worth a whole lot more than a bad episode of this months trending drama and a plot twist.  They're worth a heck of a lot more than that.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On 10 things about which you should not give a shit

There's something incredibly freeing about not giving a shit.  I don't mean not giving a shit about anything.  No, there are some things in this world that we most definitely need to give a shit about-- world hunger, religion, freedom, equality, etc...  Yes, there are definitely those things, but there are also a number of things that are really not worth our shit-giving.  Things that are a waste of our mental and emotional energy.  Things about which we worry for no purpose except to worry.  Things that we worry about without improvement resulting.

In light of that sentiment, here is a list of...

10 things about which you should not give a shit.

1.  If your favorite ship will sail.  People get really intense about this!  Surprisingly intense in my opinion.  I get it, that when you get invested in a fandom you also get invested, personally, in the characters.  They become an important part of you.  You like them because you identify with some part of them.  When they don't end up with the person you have declared their "endgame" (is that an accurate use of that word?) then it's like a personal offense.  But here's the thing, you are so much more than a television character.  You are a complicated, unique, three-dimensional being with a real life, not one created by others.  Your happiness does not need to depend on the happiness of a fictional character.  But I get it...Naley.  The feels.

2.  Whether or not someone likes you.  If someone doesn't like you then they're not worth your time and you don't want to be hanging out with them anyways.  They'll suck the life out of you like a dementor. You'll keep trying to get them to like you and they probably won't change their mind because, fair to say, if they don't like you, they're crazy. No one needs more crazy in their lives.  Spend your time finding people who appreciate you instead.

3.  Whether or not your clothes are "appropriate".   Wear what you like and werk it.  You chose the clothes you chose for a reason-- because you like them.  Any differentiation from that is you taking action to please others instead of yourself.  Put yourself first.

4.  That you are awkward.  Awkward is beautiful.  Some of the most loved celebrities out there are loved for their awkwardness (e.g., Jennifer Lawrence).  Awkward people are the best.  For further clarification see my post on weird people and why they're the best.  I freaking love awkward...especially people who embrace their own awkward and I know I'm not the only one.

5.  Whether or not you are smart enough.  Listen...there are always going to be people who are smarter than you.  That is just going to happen.  And the smartest person in the world does not exist. What does exist is a bunch of people who are really smart about specific topics.  No one knows everything but everyone is really smart about something.  For example, I'm really smart about psychology, but ask me about sports and I'm like Flounder on hot sand.   It's knowing what that something is, not that you're a genius with lots of degrees, that makes you smart.

6.  Whether or not you are "pretty enough". This is so cliched but it is so true.  You are beautiful.  You are beautiful because you are you and because you are an imperfect person with flaws.  Flaws are what make people beautiful.  Embrace your flaws and you'll be a lot happier and more self-confident. And if you're having a really bad day, realize that even "pretty girls" can look pretty flawed https://imgur.com/gallery/rOROR.

7.  If your music interests are unique.  Only hipsters care about this...don't be a hipster.  If you like it listen to it.  If you don't, then don't.  Simple.

8. Whether or not you're successful enough. Success is relative.  Your definition of "successful enough" should be based exclusively on your own goals and expectations for yourself, not on the expectations of others and their goals for you.  If you're happy with your life then you're successful.  No number of dollars, or children, or significant others, can define that.  Only you can.  If you're not happy with your life then think about how to be happier, don't wallow in your unhappiness.

9.  How many followers you have on social media.  How many "followers" or "friends" you have is not an indication of anything except the amount of time you have spent online.  If that is something that is important to you--spending a lot of time online--then sure, use those numbers as a proxy measure of your success at your endeavour.  If spending a lot of time online is not your goal, then forget about the numbers and forget about posting things just so you can impress people with your income, food, lifestyle, etc.  Worry about maintaining meaningful relationships instead.

10. Whether or not people disagree with you.  Haterz gonna hate.  You can have opinions.  In fact, you should have opinions.   And the great thing about opinions is that they are personal and it's okay if yours is different from other people's.  No need to pretend that you agree when your opinion really just shows that you've thought an don't resent other people for also thinking.

On my academic angels

When I first came to grad school it felt a little bit like the first day of freshman year of college.  I was entering a new and completely foreign place, without any friends, surrounded by people in the very same situation--friendless.  It was terrifying to think that there was a slight possibility that I would be horrible at making friends, and be stuck at the school for five years without anyone to confide in, spend time with, know.  And then a crazy thing happened--I met a group of people, my cohort, who completely changed my life.

Grad school can be a miserable place, and it's easy to fall into a miserable state of being because of that, but good friends will help you keep an even state of mind, pull you out of the trenches when you're stuck, amp you up for the tough stuff, and celebrate with you for the good stuff.  Good friends in grad school are like little academic angels.  That's exactly what my cohort has been for me in the past two years-- a little pack of academic angels who keep me grounded and sane.

Because they have kept me afloat these past two years, the prospect of leaving my angels is terrifying.  I've learned to function as a graduate student, but I'm not sure I've learned to function in a way that is not dependent on them.  I'm not sure that I know how to be a good graduate student without them and they're not going to be at my new school in Florida.  It's just going to be me.  But at this point, I don't have a choice.  I have to learn to live without my angels, or at least with my angels intervening from a distance (which they will I'm sure). I'll probably find another set of angels.  Not better, because that's in no way possible, just different.  Still angels though, just wearing different school colors.

But that still feels wrong.  Feels like replacing, and no one can replace my black and gold angels. No one.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

I have been on a mission this week to create a gift of some sort for my cohort who I will be leaving in a couple of weeks.  We're having our "last supper" (if you will) tomorrow and I wanted to be sure that I attended with something that they can take and remember me by.  I'm making them a basket full of things that are completely irrelevant to this particular discussion. The important thing for you to know is that because it's a gift basket, and because gift baskets are composed of lots of different things, I've had to visit lots of different stores in the past few days.

Today I was finishing up the gift basket project and needed to stop at two of the most unglamorous stores in the world: Walmart and the Dollar Tree.  Now, when I visit unglamorous discount stores, I anticipate that the service I receive and the attitudes of those also shopping at those stores will reflect the quality of the store--so I expect grumpy people and poor service.  Sometimes I'm surprised, but usually my low expectations are met.  Today was a usual day.

I wandered aimlessly around the stores, looking for the things I needed, unable to find them or anyone to assist me in finding them.  At Walmart in particular I lapped the entire (super)store about three times before I finally found what I was looking for, the whole time annoyed that no one noticed my perturbed and confused expression and helped a sister out.  After successfully locating all of my purchases, and getting enough exercise in the mean time to last me the week, I approached the check-out areas.  They were incredibly full.  Ten, maybe even fifteen, people lined up at each register but I got in line and started thinking.

Ugh.  Really? What did you expect on a Saturday afternoon, management? Why are these cashiers moving so slow?  Why aren't there more registers open.  The woman standing behind me is annoying.  Ew, that person eats pork rinds.  Why can't that person read the instructions on the keypad and just push the green button? What kind of mother buys her child a bag of candy? Why is the person next to me complaining about the line being so long?  Suck it up people!

After allowing my mind to wander in that direction for a bit, I remembered an essay by David Foster Wallace (actually a graduation speech turned essay) called "This is Water."  The premise of the speech is that in our daily lives we encounter lots of annoying and frustrated situations (he uses the grocery store check-out line as a very vivid example), and it's easy to fall into the trap of negative automatic thoughts in that moment--but negative thoughts just bring us down.  If we can instead, be attentive and aware of our surroundings and our thoughts, then we have the power to not bring ourselves down and to not make everything in our lives about us.  

And boy did I fall into that trap. All of the negative thoughts I had about other people.  The assumptions, criticisms, and judgments I made.  In that line I fell into the trap and it wasn't until I noticed another woman speaking the words I was thinking, and my annoyance in response to those words, that I realized what I was doing.

So I stepped out of the negative and made a conscious decision to think more complexly about the situation.  To be aware.  I chose to be aware of how hard the cashiers were working to be fast and efficient and also friendly.  I chose to be aware of how exhausted the mom who just bought her son a candy bar was.  I chose to be aware that I was judging a woman for speaking the very same words I had just thought.  When I chose to be aware, I also chose to be a better version of myself in that moment.  A happier, lighter, more polite and pleasant version of myself.

Awareness, not negative thinking, makes us the best versions of ourselves.  I experienced that today.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On my "What the f***" fandom moment

Since I was a 12 year old obsessive fan of the boy band Dreamstreet (remember them?--Jesse McCartney's first gig), I've been an avid subscriber to fandom culture.  At that age fandom looked a bit more like recording the fandom stars' television appearances on VHS,  tracking down fanfiction on angelfire and  geocities, and finding friends in school who were equally obsessed with your fandom.  It looked less like tracking down YouTube videos, logging onto AO3, and finding people equally obsessed with your fandom on tumblr.  That means for thirteen years straight I have been a part of some fandom (usually a lurking part, but a part nonetheless).  I jumped from Dreamstreet, to Jesse McCartney, to Jonas Brothers, to Twilight (so ashamed), to Hunger Games, to some really obscure ones that didn't last too long because of their obscurity, to Glee, to Broadway, to Grey's Anatomy, and now to my most recent fandom, henceforth refer to as Fantasy for fear of implicating myself and others discussed in this entry.  Call me a bandwagon jumper-on-er because that's what I am.

Anyways, when I get into a new fandom, I really get into it.  I want to learn all about it.  All the ins-and-outs.  As I've gotten older my fandoms have switched into television and movies and away from celebrities themselves, so I have gotten invested in storylines and characters, and what the cast of a show or movie has to say about that storyline/character.  Sometimes, however, regardless of my disinterest in so-called celebrity gossip, the "news" pages for fandoms include information about the "stars" themselves.  So began my descent into "What the F***"-ery today.

I had just gotten home from a long and stressful day of work.  Of course, as any good fan does, I went right to my computer (tumblr to be exact) to do some surfing of the Fantasy tag.  I found a new blog that looked interesting and informative, so I clicked through it for a while.  After about 20 minutes (and a fall down the rabbit hole) the blog shocked me with the face of a high-school friend.

 "What the F***!," I screamed to no one but myself as I disgustedly scrambled away from my computer. You'd have thought spiders had just started crawling from the crevices of my keyboard.  "Ahhhh!" I stared at it from a distance.  The level of discomfort I felt at that moment is indescribable.  I mean, I knew that he had been working on the production end of Fantasy, so it wasn't completely out of the blue that his face showed up on a gossip page for the show, but still...it felt wrong.  I felt wrong.  Like I was seeing something I wasn't supposed to and getting caught doing it.  This was the guy who sat behind me in Biology lab, who performed scenes with me in our high school musicals, whose mother, and father, and sister, I know.  All of these people in the Fantasy fandom who visited the high-traffic blog saw that picture of my friend...and I was just one of them...sitting there, creepily idolizing him among the other production people in the picture simply because he is associated with a show that I really like.

YUCK! YUCK! YUCK!  I'm so creeped out.

In that moment I realized what fandom really is.  Fandom is devotion to story-lines, characters, and incidentally the people who portray those characters.  But the thing I knew in a cognitive way before, but felt in a visceral way today seeing that picture, is that those people are just that--people.  The have families, and friends, and class-clown high-school pasts.  And they have a job now.  A job that so happens to be the production of entertainment media.  But still, just a job like any other.  And it's a little creepy that I think of these people as something more magical and venerable than that.  That I put them up on a pedestal and consider their faces worthy of blog space for thousands to stare at.  I can tell you, my friend, he's pretty awesome. But nothing abnormally awesome.  Just awesome like anyone else. Just a former annoying high-school friend.

They're all just former annoying high-schoolers in the end.  Just like you and me.  Let's remember that.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On my favorite and least favorite words

I was recently listening to a podcast focused on the topic of my favorite television show.  The television show happens to be of the fandom variety, and so, the podcast was discussing a recent "con" (as it is called in the fandom universe).  The question asked to most of the "talent" at the con was the question, "what are your favorite and least favorite words?"  This got me thinking, what are my favorite and least favorite words?  Often I find myself realizing while writing a word in context that I really love a word I've used, though I'm not sure that feeling has as much to do with the word as with how fitting the word is in context (and how awesome I am for knowing the word).  I also realize sometimes when I hear a word how annoyed it makes me feel, again, in context.  The problem is, when thinking about what my favorite and least favorite words are out of context, the challenge is a bit larger.  So, I've been thinking about these two words for a while, and I'm still not sure I'm satisfied with my two chosen words (though I'm fairly certain it doesn't matter either way).  

Anyways, for my least favorite word I came up with the word good.  Counter-intuitive probably, but when have I ever cared about conforming to that status quo or making sense?  So, the word good, despite having a positive connotation and the power to describe something, is in my opinion, the weakest descriptive word out there.  What does good actually mean in the end?  It's so relative.  One person's good is going to be different from another person's good.  And something described as good in one situation may be described as adequate in another situation and stellar in even another.  For example, I ate ice cream yesterday.  If I described that ice cream as good, what does it tell you?  It tasted delicious?  It had a positive outlook on life and a genial personality?  It was not disgusting?  I don't know.  But put gelato from Grom gelateria (my favorite gelato in the whole world!) next to it and call the gelato good and the quality of the ice cream I had yesterday can no longer be defined as good.  Anyways, all of that is to say that the word good lacks adequate descriptive power and is therefore a fairly useless word in my vocabulary, and maybe your vocabulary as well if I've been convincing enough.  If that wasn't convincing enough just consider how you would feel if your boss described your work as good...I'd feel unsure about how my work's matching up to expectations.  I'd rather hear, inadequate, or adequate, or fantastic, or abysmal.  At least then I'd know where I stand.

For my favorite word I looked high and low.  I did research because the word that kept coming to my mind seemed a bit anticlimactic and uninspiring, but I think my favorite word is the word simple.  I think that there are so few things in my life right now that happen simply that the word is like music to my ears.  Everything is complicated.  There are always hoops to jump through, things to do, people's expectations to meet, complicated instructions for everything, five forms of malfunctioning technology per person, so simple has become more extraordinary than it was at one time.  I think it's pretty special when a word can go from meaning lack of excitement or intricacy to lack of complication. Simple things are, in my mind, the best kinds of things, and so it would be silly of me (another one of my favorites) to pick any other word as my favorite.  I also love that the word simple looks simple.  I always liked when the appearance of a word reflects its meaning.  

So I guess simple is as good a word as any.

Keep on thinking,

Josie

On my long-distance personhood

If you've been following along here for the past couple of months then you're fully aware that I'm moving long-distance in the next few weeks.  I've been living here for the past two months, working toward a PhD that ended up being a terminal Master's degree after my advisor left for another program.  Hopefully take two will end up with a PhD.  Anyways, for anyone unfamiliar with the whole PhD in Psychology gig, it's a long, painful, haul that very few people are crazy enough to pursue.  Only 3 or 4 people are accepted every year into a program, and I was lucky enough to end up being one of four in a very dysfunctional but lovable family to whom I have become entirely too attached and on whom I have become entirely too dependent.

One person in particular in our family of four has become my person.  If you've ever watched Grey's Anatomy you'll know that the relationship between Cristina and Meredith is one that exceeds best-friendship.  They just get each other.  There's never a need for explanation or apologies.  When they met it was like they never knew anyone else who got them quite as well.  They're sisters separated at birth.  They were each-other's people.  That's me and Lucia.

Lucia is my person. She's significantly older than me--about 6 years older--but I've always gotten along with people older than me better anyways.  Despite our age difference, when we first met we never had to deal with the whole tip-toeing around "can I swear in front of you?"  "What's your deal?" mess.  We just dove in head-first.  Cursing-bodily-function-deep-philosophical-what's-your-life-story-totally-comfortable-head-first.  And from that point on our weekends were marked by hour-plus phone conversations, and our weeks full of study dates, dinner dates, wine dates.  She became like an extension of me, an important one like a foot or hand.  One without whom you can't function.

So, leaving her is probably the worst part of this move.  I feel like I've been robbed of three years of time with a person in this world who, finally, gets me and accepts me unconditionally.  And while my person-hood with her has been the best more-than-friendship (in a totally platonic way) I've every had in my entire life, I don't want another one.  I just want this one.  Forever.

So this time, I have to try a bit harder.  I'm bad at keeping in touch.  But I WILL NOT this time.  I will not lose touch with Lucia because I'm fairly certain that if I lose touch with her, I will lose touch with myself.

No.  I will do this the right way and I will be a good friend.  I will talk every week, text everyday, send gifts, and visit yearly.  I will not fail at being her person because I need my person in my life and I'm pretty sure she needs me.

That's pretty awesome.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On five things to do on a rainy day: A list

Today it rained and I had nowhere to go.  I was inside all day, but without sun, my motivation was lackluster to say the least. The thing about rainy days is that they're full of opportunity!  Opportunities to do something different! So, here is a list of...

five things to do on a rainy day.

1.  That thing you should have done yesterday.  I feel like there's always something on my never-ending to-do list, and that at least half of those somethings are things that were supposed to have been done yesterday (or two days ago, or two months ago).  Rainy days are great days to do those things because really, what else are you going to do (aside from any one of the other four things on this list of course)?  Today, the thing I should have done yesterday but did today because it was raining, was start packing my apartment.  Ugh.

2. Pull up all of the blinds. Counter-intuitive, yes.  Genius idea, also yes.  While opening the blinds on a sunny day lets a great deal of natural light into your apartment, opening the blinds on a rainy day is, in my opinion, even better.  Who wants natural lighting when they can watch people walking pathetically through the pouring rain without umbrellas looking like soaked rats.  On rainy days you can see the giant splash that all of the cars make when they drive through your flooding streets.  On rainy days you can watch everything outside of your window move in the wind in ways it never does on those nice days.  On rainy days everything outside your window is way more entertaining.

3.   Go out and do something.  Put on your galoshes and rain coat and get the eff out of the house.  Go somewhere where there are usually too many people (as long as its inside).  For example, the mall is a great place to shop when it's raining-- so quiet and easy to find sales people to help.  Totally worth the struggle through the rain.

4. Watch your local weather.  Weather people love a good storm.  They freak the freak out when there's a good storm.  Their minds are blown and they run around like puppies chasing their own tails.  It is absolutely hilarious to watch nerds freak out over water falling from the sky.  This is especially the case when the water falling from the sky is in the form of tiny mist drops instead of the hail they have predicted...then they stop chasing their tails. Instead it ends up between their legs.

5. Stay in bed all day.  This is my default. Stay in bed all day on a rainy day and charge up your internal battery for the sunny day that is bound to come tomorrow. I am a firm believer in lazy days and rainy days make perfect lazy days.  (See also: Netflix marathon, read a book, Facebook stalk, sleep, watch trash TV)

Keep on thinking,
Josie

I am madly, passionately, deeply, in love with New York City.  For weeks I've been attempting to write an entry about this love affair, but somehow every time I start writing I end up off on a tangent of some other sort, and am inspired to write about something else.  Apparently NYC is incredibly inspiring to me...not surprising.

Growing up in Upstate New York, "The City" always meant NYC, and non New-Yorkers assuming that "New York" meant New York City was highly irritating. The assumption that New York is exclusively composed of The City is still a bit irritating, but I get it now.  In the summer between my junior and senior year of college I got a research internship in The City.  For four months I lived there, right in the heart of The Village, worked my unpaid internship during the day, worked at my favorite gelato shop in the world (a branch of my favorite gelato shop in Italy) at night (until about 2 in the morning), and on my infrequent days off, saw a Broadway show or two.  It was the hardest working, but absolute best, summer of my life.

The energy of The City is unparalleled.  People move quickly.  They're constantly striving toward whatever's next.  Never settling for the status quo.  It's a city full of dreamers, hard workers, no-shit-takers, public transportation, and close quarters that force you to confront people you might otherwise avoid.  It's like a well oiled but massive machine-- every person his or her own moving part. When I'm in The City I feel like I'm a part of that machine.  I feel like I'm a part of something bigger than me.  I feel alive, and whole, and like I'm a strong, independent, constantly learning, woman.

But amidst all of the hustle-bustle that I love about NYC lies my very favorite place and experience in the world.  That is, Times Square, the heart of chaos, bright lights, and New York insanity.  Any native NYCer would look at me like I've got lobsters crawling out of my ears if they heard me say this, but hear me out. There's a caveat to my love for Times Square.

Yes, Times Square at most times of the day is pretty awful.  Too many tourists.  Too many taxis.  Too much bobbing and weaving.  But at 6:30AM on a weekend, Times Square is like a different world.

It's quiet.

No one's there.

The streets are clean.

There are still bright lights and billboards, but that's it.

Just that.

Standing in the middle of Times Square at 6:30AM is peaceful.  And standing alone, with just the bright lights and billboards surrounding me--the contrast to what the area normally is so vivid--I feel powerful.  Like I'm the queen of the city and no one could stop me from doing whatever I want.  The world is at my fingertips and at only my fingertips.

And so, while I am madly in love with New York City, my love for NYC at 6:30AM is that love one-hundred fold.  At 6:30AM in Times Square I am the queen of a massive machine.

I am the queen of The City.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

"Home is where the heart is" they say, but the word "home" is a strange one for me these days.  It's all muddled up in my mind and has kind of lost its meaning.  For most people the word "home" is used to identify a single location-- the place where they feel most welcome, most comfortable.  Where they fit in best.  For me, the word "home" is used to describe two places.  I currently rent an apartment in the city where I just completed my Master's degree.  I spend the majority of my life in the apartment with my new furniture, and my text books, my bills, and my cookware.  The rest of my life (a cumulative couple of months a year) is spent in the North East.  That's where I grew up.  That's where my parents live, and where I have a bedroom in a large house.  A bedroom with pink walls and white furniture and my favorite Teddy Bear, aptly named Teddy.

When I'm in my apartment, Home is my parent's house.  When I'm outside of my apartment but in the city where I completed my degree, Home is my apartment or my parent's house.  When I'm in the North East, Home is my parent's house in the North East.  My family freaks a little when I slip up and accidentally call my apartment Home, so I'm constantly censoring my thoughts and back-tracking my sentences to be sure I don't accidentally call my apartment Home in front of them.

But here's the thing.  Despite the two places and their respective titles of Home dependent on my location, I'm not sure any place feels like Home right now.  When I'm in my apartment if feels too temporary to be Home.  The contents are mine, but the building isn't mine.  I'm residing on someone else's property when I'm in my apartment.  I have to follow someone else's rules.  I have to hear the voices and sounds of others from the apartments around me.  On the other hand, I spend so little time in the North East now that it feels like the ghost of my old self is floating around in my place when I'm there.  It doesn't feel like my Home.  It feels like younger me's Home.  When I'm sleeping in my pink room, I feel like I'm shrinking back into the mold of what I  was instead of who I've become.

Perhaps this feeling of not belonging or fitting into any of my residences comes with the territory of being a young adult--not a girl, not yet a woman (thanks Brit).  I'm too old for the old me, and too young for the future me.  I'm hovering between the two and probably will for a while.

So, yes "home is where the heart is," but maybe I need to try a little harder to plant my heart somewhere.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

I just realized that in all of my posts this week I never posted my weekly list. When I travel, which I have been doing all week, my brain gets a bit fuzzy and my posts get a little out of wack. That's especially the case when I have to fly-- deal with all of the hotel arrangements, rental cars, etc.. But, as I've been traveling this week, and as my travels for the past week have been with my mother, (and only my mother--ahh!) my list today will be...

five things to consider when traveling with your mother.

1. Don't assume she's going to pay. Though you are traveling with a parent, you are also an adult (or at least approaching adulthood). It is very easy to fall into your childhood habit of sitting back and anticipating how good your ice cream is going to taste, while she pulls out her credit card. But want to know how to really impress her? Pull out your credit card to pay for the ice cream.

2. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. If you're going to be spending any long period of time with your mother (or anyone really), you want to stay on her good side. Yelling at her because she woke you up late will not create an environment conducive to happy travels. Just keep your mouth shut

3. Be a good co-pilot. When you're traveling uncharted territories, and no one knows where you're going except for the GPS system in front of you, do the woman a favor and play go-between for the technology. If your mom's anything like mine, then she ignores the GPS completely and will only get you where you need to be if the directions come from a human being. Make that human being you.

4. Generously employ improv rule number one--"yes and..." Back in the day when I was a theater geek who was on the stage instead of in front of it, I was taught that in any improvisation acting situation (planned or unplanned) when somene asks you a question, you should always respond "yes and..." because it keeps conversation going and doesn't make the other character/actor mad (watching annoyed improv is no fun). Annoyed mothers are no fun either, so use improv rule number one at all times.

5. Thank her profusely for her efforts in traveling with you and for all of the things she pays for. Throw some tears in for good meaure and by the end of the trip she'll be telling you how she loves to help you pay for things because you don't take it for granted like your siblings.

Keep on thinking,

Josie

I've been writing for 66 days now.  One post every day and this is my 66th.  I'm not sure if I actually thought I could stick with the whole "write something everyday" thing, especially because in the past most of the blog-type things I've attempted have failed miserably within a week.  I would write for a couple of days, get really discouraged when no one acknowledged my work, and, without the external motivation, quit.

But this time was a bit different.  I decided this time that I was doing this for me.  That writing something everyday would improve my writing abilities, increase my awareness of the world around me, challenge me in a way that I haven't been challenged before, and force me to spend time with my own thoughts everyday.

You see, when I decide to do things for other people, and then those other people don't show up to appreciate what I'm doing, or just appreciate silently, then I feel bad.  But when I do things for myself, then simply doing them makes me feel good about myself.  Simply writing something everyday, sticking to my goal, makes me feel good, regardless of whether or not there are comments, or "likes," or "reblogs."

When I do things for myself, the only person I need to impress is myself.  I've got high enough expectations for myself.  I don't need the expectations of others looming in on my life.

But 66 days,--that's pretty good.  That's way more than I expected.  That's more than a two months.  That's more than two months of doing something exclusively for me.

Here's to more for me!

Keep on thinking,
Josie