Learning Challenge: Health and Happiness Memes!

(Image found via Learning Challenge website)

Forget these as steps to happiness (although no doubt they're awesome if you use them that way too)--this is such a cool way to remember how to deal with things. Once things get to the end of the semester--particularly with papers; I'm trying to learn how to love papers because theoretically they're things you can learn so much from but really in practice currently they're just a way I torture myself with procrastination and perfectionism and anxiety--I really do have to remind myself that there are steps towards success, and the first step involves controlling myself (and my negative thoughts). Often times this is as easy as taking a deep breath, sometimes it involves using this method, and sometimes I have to resort to Maggie Stiefvater tactics. But eventually I can control my thoughts enough to look forward to the second step. Alternative solutions are hard, but in a lot of cases I can calm myself down even further due to the step back I have to take to see the whole picture and make new plans. And then comes the third step: I choose the situation that's going to make me the happiest in the long run. Which I guess is sometimes the situation that leads to the least tension and negative energy, but sometimes it's unavoidable, and I have to keep taking deep breaths and just Do The Thing...

But anyway. This is a great picture, with a great mental device, and I'm glad I found it on the blog!

Learning Challenge: Killing Boredom with Procrastination

(A funny image about citations, via Flickr)

This is the article I'm referencing in this post (it's a beautiful article. If you're wondering whether you should read it, you should!)

So the title of this article is "Two for One Deal: Killing Boredom with Procrastination." I read that phrase and got really intrigued, because the kind of boredom that I  think of when I think of things I want to procrastinate on are not actually boring. But it turns out that there's lots of kinds of boredom, and the one this article is referencing is apathetic boredom--or a feeling of helplessness and depression in the face of a large, scary task.

This article is beautiful because, now that I think about it, that feeling actually is boredom. And it's conquerable, through the stress management techniques that are laid out in the article before. I've been conquering this kind of boredom all along, when I've been cleaning the apartment instead of writing that essay I was supposed to start writing yesterday.

Except when I've run out of time, and there's no time to procrastinate.

So I guess the answer is to start things earlier, so that I have time to procrastinate in the right way? Do I think that would help? Probably, yeah...especially this coming Dead Week...I have a huge paper due on Wednesday that I've been putting off writing, but what I'll do tomorrow morning is do up the citations and organize my notes.

And then I'll write. And it'll be great...yeah...

Week 12 Learning Challenge: The Happiness Jar

All right--so here are  things that have made me happy in the past 6 days (we'll see if you can see a trend...):

Day 1: It's Sunday, so I had time to talk with my roommate (who's awesome, by the way, but I never see her because she's just as busy as I am), go for a walk, and do my homework. I love it when this happens...

Day 2: I had food I made from the weekend! (I cook for the week on the weekends, which is time-consuming but generally worth it because otherwise I end up eating only peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner and while I love peanut butter it is not a food group in itself.) I ate some chili and it was wonderful...especially after biking home in the rain...

Day 3: Sent a bunch of emails I'd been putting off. Adulting win!

Day 4: Met with one of my teachers about an internship for next semester and was able to start setting it up the same day because people replied to my emails (you see I am hypocritical as anything about my email habits, but we all have our flaws...)

Day 5: Went for a walk and listened to music. It was sunny and nice and spring-like, which is basically the best way to make me happy...

Day 6: Shopping for food is the best, and that's what I did. Also I went for a walk, and it was beautiful outside again...Oklahoma spring is my favorite season, barring the tornadoes...