New Year's Resolutions

1. Take life as it is, let be and stop fighting the flow.
2. Actually put effort into school and become the A student I am.
3. Take advantage of my savings account.
4. Become a better version of myself - physically, mentally and emotionally.
5. Do something that matters.

As the New Year approached I took advantage of the notion that 2008 would be put to rest and 2009 would be something new, fresh and worthy of change. Despite poor reception and an inability to communicate via telephone I managed to have a conversation I've been meaning and needing to have with the one person whose conversations matter to me. In spite of a 5 hour time difference, an ocean, participation in a scrabble game and guests over I had a conversation I will never forget.

I made my point, well argued, well said, emotion counterbalanced with clarity, logic and reason without instigating a fight. Point made, taken and respected. Answered fully, to the point and positively. It went fantastically, I had a great feeling about 2009, and I was right.

We agreed that things could be smoother, that change was necessary and would be beneficial, most importantly, together it would be done. I've waited so long for that understanding, the mutual acceptance and responsibility to be allocated to both parties. It felt good. Really, truly great.

I have to stop feeling like an immovable object is meeting an unstoppable force, friendship runs deep and can't be quantified, measured or analyzed. It needs to be and this realization spurred my first new year's resolution. I need to take that stance in more aspects of my life.

My second resolution roots in the fact that I've gotten 2/3 marks back, with no intention of bragging (not that my marks are fabulous) I've received a B+ in Stats I and an A- in Social Psych. I'm basically averaging between a 77-84, which by all means are pretty decent university grades, however the odds are stacked against me and I must excel in order to succeed. Over 2000 students in psych, 300 of which will be accepted to the graduate program of which only FIFTEEN, yes 15, make it into the clinical psychology field. Pretty scary odds and I need to be one of them. So I've got to drop the bullshit, pick up a textbook and get going. So here's to being an A student, cause 85-90 shouldn't be the impossible.

My third resolution is quite self-explanatory, I'm a big spender. On what? no friggin clue. Anyways I have every intention of traveling this summer and that means I need to have some spending money, ironic, I know. In the interim I must make a conscious and strong effort to save as much as possible. I've had a savings account for a while now and I've never put it to good use. Here's the perfect opportunity.

My fourth resolution might as well be an entire blogpost of its own but for the sake of not beating a dead dog, its been quite obvious that my life has been rather BLAH lately. In hopes of spicing it up and enjoying the so-called "best years of my life" I will make an effort to improve me. Physically - I need to get into shape, round is not a good shape. Mentally - figure out my neuroses and a way to get past them. Emotionally - perhaps kindle a flame or at least deal with my roller coasters.

My fifth resolution will in fact be saved for a future blogpost because I am obviously still unsure of what I will do in the next 364 days that will constitute making a difference. But be sure that when I do something of great importance, it will be well-documented.

Here's to 2009 - May it be all that I've dreamed it could be.

The Rut I Call Home

So I've pretty much stopped posting about the relevant issues in my life and focused more on the irrelevant, I tend to do that when I get sick of focusing on myself so here is a sincere attempt to regain focus on the topics that the Psych Patient Profiles were supposed to be about. 

Lately I've been wondering what my life would be like if retrospect came first. I mean, what if we had the chance to see the consequences of our actions before we did anything? Would life be more enjoyable? less enjoyable? or any different? 

I guess I've been questioning a lot of the decisions I've made in my life:

drop a friend, pick a few friends up, drive around the city for no apparent reason, skip a class. eat an extra meal, sneak an extra snack, spend ridiculously, rat myself out, make impulsive decisions, start a fight, provoke a parent, piss off a sibling, watch too much tv, ignore my homework, put off sleep, you know... the usual. I guess I've been wondering if I've made the right decisions or if I've mostly made the wrong ones.

This all comes in light of receiving a higher credit line, spending more than I can afford and wanting to spend even more. Now I'm not working myself into a hole, because with an extra two weeks I'd be able to pay it all off, but what is it about money that makes all the lines get fuzzy, blurry and disappear like the sun sets over the hill? 

I've been hanging onto things I don't have... reaching for things I dont see but most of all wanting what I simply cant have... and it sucks. Bottom of the wallowing in self-pity pitt is not a cool place to hang out for long periods of time. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've been super down lately. Happy to be by myself yet miserable at the same time, no desire to make plans, yet wanting to be out and doing something fun and exciting. I've resumed living in my rut, the most comforting place in the world.

In my rut, no one can hurt me, phase me, touch me, excite me, encourage me, convince me or betray me. I am on my own, so very alone. The comfort of it all is just too tempting sometimes. Yet there's always that big part of me that fights for it, when that tiny little part claws to get out more, see my friends, experience life and get hurt trying to have fun. 

Lately, I just dont have the energy, I dont have the passion for life or the determination to get from one day to the next. 

A class skipped is a few extra hours of sleep. An extra hour of TV is a postponed hour of work and thereby a postponed hour of sleep. I'm in a cycle I just cant break, I'm too comfortable here but scared I'll get stuck. After all, that's why it's called a rut. 

There's a reason why there's an expression about life in the fastlane that I don't know the words to... I wouldnt know what life in the fast lane is like, I'm happy to hang onto the shoulder of the road and never move forward. I'm not scared, I just dont like change. Change has just never worked in my favor. Ever.

So here's to embracing life, escaping my rut, taking chances, making mistakes, and forgetting about pre-retrospect options ever existing. Life should be worthwhile and I'm determined to make it so.

A Very Bad Day

So today was a bad day... you know those stereotypical start off bad and then go worse, kinda days? Yeah... well one of THOSE. 

It all started last night at 12:05 when the power was expectedly cut (I say expectedly cause I was informed it would happen but was seriously counting on it being a major hydro mistake), anyways the power went out and I couln't finish studying for my stats exam to be taken 10 hours later. Ironically the chapter was on "effect size" and "power", let tell you what the size of the effect of not having power is: EPIC statistics exam FAIL. That's what the effect size and power have to do with each other in relation to me and studying. EPIC FAILURE.

So I asked my parents to wake me up at 7:30 so I can get some extra studying in, well my emergency 8 AM alarm went off and I got out of bed, so that's 30 mins of wasted studying time.

I then got into the car 8 mins earlier than normal (8 mins less to study) so I could put gas in the car since Mom called and told me it was 93 cents the day before and I had forgotten to fill up when I saw it at 99 cents. OBVIOUSLY. so I get in the car, early enough to fill up my tank before my exam, and lo and behold - gas is at 105!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thats a whole 12 cents more per fucking litre, which computes to an extra $5 or so. Now $5 isnt alot but when you fill up once a week, 4 times a month, 12 times a year = it comes to $240. thats an extra 24 pizzas, 24 chinese food meals, 240 items at the dollar store + tax, and 240 I'd be missing out on. 

So instead of filling up, I drove to class, got to class right on time only to see that Corinne saved me an end seat which meant it would be significantly harder to cheat (which I clearly needed to do to pass)... get the exam start writing it and realizing I didnt memorize any of the definitions, and knew very close to NOTHING. Talk about EPIC FAILURE. Finish exam with a minute left in class. And go to Social Psych.

So... I wrote my social psych midterm what? close to 3 weeks ago and I still havent gotten my mark, the OP scan machine was apparently fixed before Tuesday, since she told us that we would have the exam marks today, so all excited I go to class expecting a mark. OBVIOUSLY I set myself up for failure cause she hasnt computed the marks yet. FUCKING BITCH.

Go my stats lab which clearly there is no joy in going to due to the EPIC FAILURE of a morning... and I'm told class will be short (which on every other 2nd thursday would be great due to the lack of RM conference from 4-6). however this week is in fact a conference week and I therefore need to be in school til 4, so the extra 45 mins of break-ness between the classes was seriously unwelcomed for lack of homework to do and sheer boredom.

Get to my RM class, she's handing back the assignments we resubmitted last week + the new work that was due last Thursday. Seeing as how my original mark prior to resubmission was 4/5 I thought I was doing fairly well and my resubmission with corrections would be at least equivalent to a 4/5 or higher, but was I wrong!!! I got a 4/5 in addition to "make an appointment with me so we can discuss the problems with your paper" HELLO - 4/5 = 80%, 80% is a pretty decent grade!!! I'm so confused, either way it was a major crimp in my day, which already sucked.

This post sucks which is making my day significantly worse and now I'm just so angry that I'm going to bed. Probably because I've had a tension headache since about 5:45 when Randi came home and insisted on making Chinese food for dinner - like I dont eat Chi-Chi Cuisine often enough on my own!! argh.