Discombobulate

It has ended up being one of those days in which I am completely, utterly, inexplicably exhausted.  It just doesn't make sense.* 

To complicate things, it has not been a nice day** in many ways.  I have been scrambling, trying to find something good about said day*** and it keeps getting harder. 

So there I was, drifting down the street on my bicycle after organic chemistry#, feeling decidedly melancholy when the sheer niceness of a breeze in my face got the better of me.  I stopped worrying about all the nastiness and thought about other things.

Life is a lot like drifting down the street on a bicycle. 

Sometimes, the best way to deal with all the little stresses is to let them go.##

It is important to be a bowl rather than a bottle so that, when dealing with bad things, they overflow rather than age.


And with these sort of thoughts, the day gets better. 

I thank God for little breezes, which are capable of fixing many things. 



*I got to bed at normal time, slept like a log, and did not awaken before my alarm.  However, I woke up and it's been downhill from there.

**The paperweight I was going to grind for a grade cracked. 
The paperweight I made because the aforementioned paperweight cracked also cracked. 
I missed 3 of 5 questions on my morning quiz. 
I made myself look dumb in anatomy. 
I nearly fell asleep (thus, looking dumb) in organic chem.
And it's not even 2:30 yet.

***This is important--nay, imperative--because if I find something nice, I will not have an epic bawl-fest issue breakdown.

#Most of the way from the Math & Science building to my dorm is downhill.  This means minimal pedaling.^

^Which means I practice riding one-handed in the hopes someday I might be able to ride without holding the handlebars. 

##Somehow, this brought to me a mental image of sparrows swirling about, as sparrows are wont to do at times.
I like sparrows.  :3


See?
Es cute.
:3



Black Sheep

The abilities of the internet usually manage to surprise me*.  Needless to say, I was glad to discover that there are lots of page views on days that I post. 

People read my blog. 

:3


In other news, I'm working on added colored bits to my clear glass in glassblowing, which has been awesome except for when it's been really hard.  Really hard, as in, each of my first three attempts has somehow or other managed to fail epically. 

All three of them.**

The first^ wasn't cool enough when I went to gather more glass and mostly ran onto the floor during my desperate speed-walk to the bench; there wasn't time before class to turn it into a paperweight.  The second^^ cracked from cooling too quickly while I was helping another person with kiln doors and such because his paperweight was overly large***.  I overheated the third^^^ right before I finished it and it fell off in the drip pan at the end of the bench with a shattery-sounding sort of splat. 

And the project is due Friday#. 

Hopefully, all ends well.


More important than bemoaning the current disaster of glass class is to announce that I have returned from a trip enlightened and impassioned, which is always a good thing.  Especially when it will help my study practices.

I am part of an excellent scholarship program supporting the training of medical personnel, and as part of this program I went on a trip to a nearby-ish medical school## that graduates from the program attend.

I loved it. 

The school is in an actual city###--with bookstores and nice restaurants and more than one stoplight--and did anyone ever mention that med school is amazing?  Yes, they try to destroy you with more information in one day than I sometimes see in a week.

And yes, I just shrugged this off as lightly as I would a coat.

This entire process of earning a Bachelor's is littered with nasty little inconsequential things I don't want to think about anyway.  Humanities?  Bah.  Physical activity classes?  Pullox.  Introduction to communication?  Humbug. 

Discussing seeing patients and spending two hours in a gross anatomy lab> and contemplating the white coats>> made driving back to my little state college awful. 

I didn't want to leave.

So, despite hating chemistry with an all-consuming passion, I have returned renewed.  I will get into med school.  I will finish in this program.  And I will be a doctor.

Bwaha.  :)



*It learns stuff while I'm busy studying and working.  I come back and it jumps up and down and says, "See!  I do new things now, and some old things better!  :D" 
No need to mock me, I just don't pay as much attention to the web as would be nice.

**  D'B

^blue bits

^^black-and-white bits in a dot pattern

^^^red and white bits

***No good deed goes unpunished.  I never believed this before in my life.

#This wouldn't be such an issue except the thing needs 24 hours to cool and at least 15 minutes on the grinding wheel which means I have to make an excellent one+ tomorrow between my make-up test, and class, and rugby.  Ugh.

+At least one.  More than that would be nice, though, too.  :(

##Nearby-ish = 9 hours on a bus each way.  Xl

###My definition of 'city' here is slightly different than the usual interpretation: the location in question has a population a little greater than 400 thousand.  Which is small, I know.

>Gross = large amounts.  As in, cadavers.  The smell is . . . special, let me tell you.

>>Those students who are not full-fledged MDs yet have shorter coats than the doctors.  They still looked professional.+

+The idea of being professionally dressed every day excites me.  I have too many unworn classy clothes.  :3

Still Alive

Is there any way of knowing exactly what one is capable of?  We know best what we can do when the buiding is crashing down, the bear charging, the end too near. 

We live holding back--yes, it's true.  The human body never completely expells all its air.  One third of a person's lungs is never emptied as a precaution for the event that there would be no filling it at the next breath.*

We live in wait of a moment that may never come.

But how do we push past this containment?  How do we arrive at a place where everything is all out, all or nothing?  How do we live in such a manner?

It is foolish to be always waiting in terror of what may never come.  And it is even more foolish to live in terror of what is guaranteed to come.

I do not think that life without morals is a good thing: indeed, quite the opposite.  We do ourselves more favors by walking the line, keeping to the rules.

But what good does it do to simply hold this glass we have been given, be it half empty or full?

Ride motorcycles in spite of the risk factor: it's freeing.**

Make frienships, even though friends (especially the close ones) will cause hurts: it's a good way to learn empathy and feel happiness.***

Attempt the things that you look at and say, "I would like to try that."  Why?  Because those are the things that make life brighter.+

Live adventurously.  Not stupidly, as they are different things and stupidity could get you killed.  But adventurously.


*I learned this in my high school choir class.  And who says you never learn anything in high school?^

^ . . . . Yes, I have said this.  Don't mock me. 

**This is true, very true.  Motorcycles are delicious: like riding a horse only faster.  :)

***This is true of falling in love, too.  Your beloved will hurt you, despite what the world thinks^, and you will have to learn forgiveness or join the growing divorce rate. 

^The world is wrong about love for many reasons. Love is not an emotion: it is acted out through wishing the best for someone else.  Furthermore, it is wrong about how it happens. Falling in love rarely happens gracefully.  It's less like a supermodel on the runway and more like said supermodel on black ice.# 

#There will be snags, slips, and many nigh breaks, but hopefully it all comes out all right.

+I, your humble nerdy blogger friend, am currently playing rugby^ and taking glass-blowing^^ in the spirit of this idea. 

^They call this the gentleman's game, which quite honestly doesn't make sense to me yet.  Clawing a downed person with cleats and ball-snatching are quite acceptable, so you might understand my confusion.

^^This is one of the more delightful things I have ever done.  The glass comes out of the kiln like honey, except unlike honey it stiffens up into great glorious things# that can be kept indefinitely.

#I am not yet making great glorious things.  I am making paperweights, which are the training grid to making great glorious things.  Despite their ingloriousness, they are fun and exciting.