Eccentricities

Here is a list of my eccentricities that I am aware of:

1. Things have to be balanced. (i.e. You can have both shoes tied, or both shoes untied, but not one of each.)

2. Necklace chain clasps belong along the back of the neck. I will always be ready to help you put it in its proper place.

3. I am afraid of werewolves, and I have no idea why that fear has stayed with me and all the others left with puberty.

4. When I buy a beverage with a lid I like to pour said beverage into the lid and drink it in shots rather than from the bottle.

5. When sitting, I don't like having my feet touch the ground/floor.

6. The first three things I notice about people are: a) their shoes, b) their face [eyes, smile, etc.], and c) their veins. And yes, in that order.

7. Smells can change my mood almost instantly. Examples: rotting food will put me in a snarly mood and men's cologne will put me in a good mood.

8. My favorite features about myself are my eyes, my forearms, and my hands.

9. Leather is one of my favorite materials.

10. I believe that boots are the single most attractive kind of footwear in existence.

11. I obsess over things briefly and intensely and then I just like them forever.

12. I do not like to "pretend" to be worse off than I am. If I am worse off than before, fine; but I don't like to pretend.

13. Anyone standing taller than 6'3'' is immediately 25% more intimidating to me.

14. I do not like apple juice, and I don't usually like cranberry juice, but I love cran-apple juice.

15. I cannot wear socks that have holes in them.

16. Well fitting button down shirts with the top two buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up are extremely attractive.

17. I am easily distracted by my own reflection.

18. The color of my eyes depends on the color of my shirt.

19. I like odd numbers better than even numbers.

20. I like to practice my handwriting every once in a while and periodically change how I form certain letters and numbers.

21. Every morning, I brush my hair the same way: I start on the left side and work my way to the right. I have tried starting on the right before and it just made me squirm.

22. I am double jointed in my thumbs and toes, I can scream (and squeak) with my mouth shut, and I can wiggle my ears, twitch my nose, and shake my eyes.

23. I don't like frosting.

24. (For Lauren) "I have magical hair that glows when I sing."

~

I just got thinking about the strange little things about me and I thought I'd share so that everyone else knows how strange I am too. :) (That is assuming of course that you didn't know already.)

~

"A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things." -Herman Melville

"'Henry have you made your peace with God?' 'I did not know we had ever quarreled, Aunt.'" -Henry David Thoreau

"If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Women are angels. If someone breaks our wings, we continue to fly...on broomsticks. We're flexible like that."

~

Today's Featured Quote:

"One step short of crazy and what do you get?"

"Obsessed."

"Passionate."

Sanity and Psychology

(This must be read as a rant: fast, with pauses only to breathe, and lots of emoting facial expressions) ;)

Once in a while I start to doubt my sanity. I'm sure it happens to lots of people. Every so often I'm sure we wake up from a day dream or stop suddenly in the middle of a task and realize that this scene looks an awful lot like something out of A Beautiful Mind and we start to question whether or not the person standing next to us is real and whether or not that emotional outburst was warranted.

Psychology is an interesting field. Not only do I find it fascinating, but I also find it useful and applicable to my life. I have learned things that have helped me better understand myself and that will probably lead me to continue to better understand myself and others in the future. My psychology classes put my mind at ease when it comes to days when I just don't understand myself. I know lots of people who have those days. They are the kind of days where you throw ping-pong paddles at your cousins' husbands because they won and you don't really know why you did it but you feel bad and then you run off and cry in a closet somewhere until you work up enough courage to find and tell your mom who tells you to apologize and you do but it's still weird to be around your cousin's husband for the rest of the evening. We've all had days like this. Maybe we don't all throw ping-pong paddles or markers at people or go around bonking people on the head, but maybe we say things we don't mean, or do things we might not otherwise have done.

I am a human being. Blast. More about that later. Psychiatrists make me nauseous . They could take a perfectly normal human being and turn them into a basket case just by talking to them. It's not that what they're saying isn't true, but they make it sound like you're the only one with a problem and that it's weird and "not normal." This is a lie. You are not the only one with a problem and it is normal. There are certain chemicals and reactions in the human brain that are triggered by intense situations and other stimuli. Our reactions as humans may be different one from another, but that doesn't mean that they're not still just reactions. This same thing happens in my non-fiction class. It's not that what my professor is saying is wrong, it's just that she lathers it with too much fluff and psychedelia that she makes it seem wrong. My fiction teacher could say the exact same thing but the way he says it makes me believe it, apply it, and move on. Such should be the world of psychiatry. Patients should come in, tell their problems, and the shrinks should explain to them what is going on in their brain and how to fix it. Here is an example: Instead of saying "you're feeling this way because you never loved your mother and your father told you were a loser, so you need to pay me another hundred dollars for another hour to talk it out" they would say "these feelings are being displaced from other things in your life that are bothering you, so you need to figure out what is really bothering you and stop that at the source so that what you are feeling now will stop." Wow! What a difference that makes! I said the exact same thing without causing turmoil or labeling anyone! I'm a genius. Einstein would be proud.

The only thing I will commend psychiatrists on is their encouragement of talking. We learned just the other day in my psychology class that talking about what you're feeling is helpful to your mental health. If you suppress feelings it's like stopping up a river: the water may not go down that path you stopped up anymore, but it will go somewhere. Talking is a great way to release emotions: it's a means of catharsis that's helpful. Catharsis (or blowing off steam) by exercise or listening to loud music--or whatever your coping strategy--is good, but it's still like putting up a dam: it just pushes the water somewhere else.

Not that any of this matters to anyone but me right now, but I just thought that maybe someone else might also benefit from the fruits of my Psychology class. I am a human being and I have issues. Or as my parents would say: Issue. But after much deliberation (and given the fact that I am no longer in the heat of my moody moment) I have come to the thoughtful and somewhat obvious conclusion that I come to after every such episode: I am human, I am female, and I am just fine. :)

~

Insanity is hereditary: I get it from my kids.

Weird is relative.

Normal is just the average of all the weirdos.

Sometimes I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

~

Today's Featured Quote:

Time is natures way of keeping everything from happening at once.

Disney

On Tuesday I informed my Fiction professor, shortly before class, that I wasn't feeling well and might be leaving class early. He then informed me that I was not allowed in his classroom that day; that I must go home and sleep and feel better. Thank you Dr. P. Well, I took half of his instructions: I went home...eventually. I went shopping for food first. Then I came home, ate dinner, did what homework was absolutely necessary for the next day, and then I played the piano for a little while. But the highlight of my day, and possibly my week, came at around nine thirty Tuesday evening.

It was too late to start a movie (for me) but it was too early to go to bed. So, I went on Youtube.com and found a whole collection of old Disney Short Animated Films. All of them were less than twenty minutes, most of them were musical, and a considerable portion of them were narrated by Sterling Holloway. Needless to say: Amazing night in the heart of good fun, awesome music, and fond memories. I must do this more often. :)

~

For those of you who would like to reminisce with me, here are the names of the shorts that I watched (all are available on Youtube):

Peter and the Wolf

Lambert the Sheepish Lion

Paul Bunyan

Golaith II

Ferdinand the Bull

Willie the Operatic Whale

They are all pretty much amazing. :)

~

"Sometimes the right path, is not the easiest one." Grandmother Willow, Pocahontas

"A flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all." Emperor, Mulan

"Giving up is for rookies." Phil, Hercules

"The past can hurt, but the way I see if you can either run from it, or learn from it." -Rafiki, Lion King

"Get with the beat!" Baloo, Jungle Book

~

Today's Featured Quote:

"Let's say God puts two people on Earth and they are lucky enough to find one another. But one of them gets hit by lightning. Well then what? Is that it? Or, perchance, you meet someone new and marry all over again. Is that the person you're supposed to be with or was it the first? And if so, when the two of them were walking side by side were they both the one for you and you just happened to meet the first one first or, was the second one supposed to be first? And is everything just chance or are some things meant to be?" -Prince Henry, Ever After

Me Time

In the last few weeks I have been working on finding a balance in my life between school, other outside activities (Debate mostly), and time for myself to do the things I'm interested in. The piano that now sits at the end of my bed is one of the things that fit into the last category. Another thing is my new "Belle-mode" on campus where I read books while walking between classes (this one perks a surprising amount of interest in people who walk by--especially professors). Both of these have been great ways for me to achieve some balance in my life between all of the necessities in my schedule. But, I have found, yet, another outlet for my energy every Monday and Wednesday at 1 o'clock after institute: pool. There is a billiard table located in the Institute building, and right after my institute class, before I go to Debate at 2:30, the table is vacant. Well, not anymore.

I have officially established a reputation with the receptionist who loans out the supplies. She expects me now. It's wonderful. I have the whole room to myself. It's quiet; perfect for gauging the sound of my break with every new game I start. Even having only done it for three days I am starting to see drastic improvements. My aim is improving, my control is much better, and I put more balls in the side pockets than all the corner pockets combined. I have now made a new goal on my life's "to-do list:" have the ability to hustle a pool table. In the short amount of time I've spent practicing thus far, I have had to rely quite heavily on luck. I will admit that although I try to be patient with the game I play against myself, I often become irritate and just aim for the nearest ball to the cue ball and hit it with as much force as I can. Every time I have done this a ball has gone into a pocket somewhere, several times two balls will go in, and once three balls were put away with this "angry" hit. I need to stop being rewarded for these careless hits or I might never improve. But in the words of my father: "I'd rather be lucky than good any day." Amen. :)

Either way, I'm glad that I have another form of "Me Time."

~

P.S. About the Belle-mode: if you ever want people to pay attention to you, walk around in with your nose in a book. Everyone will immediately want to know what you're reading that is so fascinating that you can't stop to walk from place to place. You will instantly be popular. Your professors will also want to know what you're reading; possibly even to the point of distracting you so that you will become irritated by them stealing the book off your desk while you're not looking to read the back of the book so that they can judge you on your choice of literature outside of their classroom. But that's only a possibility. :)

~

"With a dreamy, far off look, and her nose stuck in a book; what a puzzle to the rest of us is Belle." -Beauty and the Beast

"Writers sometimes seem brightly colored and fascinating, but really those are just nature's way of warning you off. We're like tropical toads. Oh so pretty! Want to touch the toady! Except: poisonous skin that kills with one touch. Beware of writer." -Chuck Wendig

"If I fret over tomorrow, I have little joy today." -Llonio [Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander]

~

Today's Featured Quote:

"Happily ever after? I don't think that's quite what you meant. But one way or another, I rather think I will." -Cimorene [Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede]

The Bells Tolled

There's an old saying from somewhere that says "Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it." To a certain extent, I agree with this phrase. You should not be flippant with your wishes. Wishing is not an activity where sarcasm is appreciated or welcomed. Only genuine wishing here, please. I have been, several times, the victim of wishing for something without really thinking about the consequences. When I was around nine, I thought that glasses were cool and I wished I could wear them. A few years later, my rash and unthought-through wish came true. Of course, with that example, it is conceivable that it would have happened anyway, seeing as both my parents wore glasses, and therefore carried that gene that had a good biological chance of being passed to me regardless of whether I wished for it when I was nine years old. But I'm sure that deep in the forgotten recesses of my mind there are other examples of this, and I'm sure that all of you reading this have already thought of examples in your own life. If you haven't, hurry and think of one now and pretend you were being an analytical and active reader. I promise I won't tell anyone.

Sufficed to say that you should not be impulsive when wishing. But, it is actually the contrary side of the above mentioned saying that I want to talk about. (I led off with the opposing argument to give contrast to the point I am trying to make and also so that I can use it as a point of reference for building up my point of view--and to think that I keep asking myself why I coach Debate)

You see, there is this weird, backwards thinking in our society. We will recklessly drop negative comments like, "I wish she would get the plague so that she would stop afflicting me with her over-bubbly, noxious personality." And when the above mentioned "she" gets in a car accident and nearly dies two weeks later we immediately think that we somehow jinxed her life and we suddenly feel guilty for having wished evil upon her in the first place. In juxtaposition, when a bright and glorious fluorescent dream stands in front of us, we hesitate and refuse to reach for it because "it'll never come true anyway." On a smaller scale, we sometimes won't ask a question because we're sure the answer will be no.

Here is further illustration of my point through a story: I was in Scranton, Pennsylvania for some unknown reason and was walking around enjoying myself when I ran into a very old church building. You know the type: the ones that look like a cheap knock-off of Notre Dame with a small 10-bell bell tower and only five stained glass windows in the front. But, I had this deep fascination with the building and went inside, wondering if I could get at tour. The custodian walked me around and showed me the main attractions and at the conclusion of the tour asked if I had any questions. I thought I would take a chance on an odd request. I asked if I could see the bell tower. Five minutes later I was walking up a set of stairs that looked as though they were right out of the end of the first National Treasure movie: nothing but termite damage and rot holding them up. We stopped at a door that lead to the space above the ceiling of the chapel. I stood on a five inch thick bearing wall support beam where if I had fallen to either side the flimsy ceiling underneath would have collapsed and I would have fallen sixty feet to my death or serious impalement. After this we climbed up yet more flights of stairs (these ones burned from a fire years ago) to the small trap door that led to the bell tower. It was amazing. I bet Quasimodo himself was the only person who had a better view then what I had. I got to carve my name in the wood and we got to be in the tower while the bells tolled. It is one of the coolest memories I have; and all because I asked.

I was careful what I wished for, and I got it. I know it's been said over and over again until our ears are sore that we don't ever wish for the things we really want because we're afraid that we won't get them. Well, here's an idea: If we wish for something and it does come true, great, but if we wish for something and it doesn't come true, are we any worse off then we were if we hadn't wished for it? Many people would answer: Yes, because I would have failed. My rebuttal: Who cares? Failure will never be the antagonist in your story, it will only be a conflict. These conflicts can beat against us and tear us down, and no matter how may times we beat it, it still comes back. In the immortal words of Benjamin Franklin: "Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and it will every now and then peep out and show itself." (never mind he was really talking about pride) But, we are the ones who get to chose whether or not the conflict, whether or not failure wins the battle and gets the girl (or guy as the case may be). WE are the ones who get to decide.

Dream realistic, but dream big. Believe me, you can do both. And don't be afraid to just ask; you might be pleasantly surprised.

~

"Never hold back you step for a moment. Never doubt that your courage will grow. Hold your head even higher, and into the fire we go!" -The Scarlet Pimpernel

"If you think you can't, you're right. If you think you can, you're also right." -Unknown

"When facing a difficult task, act as though it is impossible to fail. If you're going after Moby Dick, take along the tartar sauce." -H. Jackson Brown

~

Today's Featured Quote:

"Expect the best. Prepare for the worse. Capitalize on what comes." -Unknown

En France...

Le francais est etonnate! Well, at least in my opinion. I had a rather interesting delusion the other day. I pictured myself with a young child (my own) and I was speaking to them in French. Their father (faceless at this point) then spoke to them in English. Then it occurred to me how awesome it would be to have bilingual children! It didn't matter that I'm currently learning Spanish and not French. French it was and rightly so. As useful and practical as Spanish is, French has a little more sophistication. I still want to follow through and learn Spanish, but I would then like to learn French. I don't know where I'd have a use for either of these languages, but there is something very appealing about the idea of be trilingual.

But beyond the language, I find France as a country to be quite fascinating. Over the past couple of weeks for absolutely no reason whatsoever* I have fallen in love with France. Some of my favorite movies/plays/books of all time take place (at least in part) in France: The Three Musketeers, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Les Miserables, The Count of Monte Cristo, Beauty and the Beast, Chocolate, etc.

I also have an unexplainable new interest with French history. This might be due to the several books I've read recently that take place in France between 1600-1800. But regardless, I am very intrigued by the country. They aided America during the Revolution not 20 years before their own. I don't know why these things fascinate me so much, but they do. I feel a sudden urge to go to Paris like in Sabrina and do some sort of internship and learn to speak French. ("You speak no French yes?" "No." "No?" "Yes. Could you repeat the question?")

Eventually. :)

Au revoir!

*I lied. There were reasons. :)

Oh! And Happy Binary Day! (101110)

~

"If you keep waiting for tomorrow, you'll find yourself with a whole lot of empty yesterdays."

"The French don't care what they do as long as they pronounce it properly." --My Fair Lady

"Woman was created for our destruction, and from her all our miseries arise." --Alexandre Dumas (The three Musketeers)

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Today's Featured Quote:

"Fools aren't born. Pretty girls make them in their spare time." --101 Dalmations

Happiness

It has been so long since my last post that I was beginning to wonder why I had a blog. I felt like I had to write something, and based on some feedback I have been getting lately, I thought it would be appropriate to write something happy and uplifting instead of... what I usually write. So, here it goes:

~

I have been so happy since last Friday. On that day I drove up north to Logan to spend the weekend. I saw my favorite play twice (The Scarlet Pimpernel), spent some time with my sister (not arguing), got to see one of my best friends, found my box of piano music, and got a piano as a gift from my parents. All in all the weekend was amazing and the residual effects of this happiness are still with me seven days later.

It is infrequent that I obsess over things, but when I do, I am well aware that I can get annoying. I apologize. But before everyone starts telling me to shut up about The Scarlet Pimpernel, I want you to consider that I am happy. There are so few things in my life that give me explicit happiness and when they do come, I want to hold on to them for as long as I possibly can. I know that seeing the show twice, listening to the soundtrack, playing the music on the piano, watching the movie, and reading the book in five days time is a little excessive. But I regret nothing. I am happy.

The other major source of happiness right now is the piano. I have lived without a piano at my disposal for over two years now. Until then, I've always had the piano as a physical and metal outlet. Not having one has been hard. I know that some people don't have as tight of a connection to music, but it really is a wonderful thing for me. These past few days have been so wonderful because I can just go into my room and play. I love my parents' piano. It was the piano I learned to play on, so it has a great amount of sentimental value to me, and I just love to play so much. I've been playing probably more than I should the last few days, but, as I said before: I regret nothing. I am happy.

Over the last seven days I've realized that I take great happiness in taking time for myself. Perhaps this is why I have been so miserable lately. I have been doing nothing but going to school, going to Debate, and doing homework for well over a month now. (That and I've had an obnoxious cough for the same amount of time). But I think it's time I start taking some quality time for myself. Not just any time like for watching TV or sleeping; but quality time. Time spent doing something different than normal: going to see a play, renting a good movie, going out to dinner, etc. I know it sounds selfish, but I just think I need to set some time aside for me.

I've been so happy the last few days and I want to find a way for it to last. Anyway, I'm sure this post is really weird and random, and seemingly out of character for the normal, cynical Amy. But, I thought I would give myself and the few people who will read this a break. :)

~

"Never regret anything that at one time made you smile."

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."

"The words tell you what to think, the music tells you what to feel."

~

Today's Featured Quote brought to you by Frank Wildhorn and Nan Knighton:

"La, but someone has to strike a pose and bear the weight of well tailored clothes. Each species needs a sex that's fated to be highly decorated. That is why the Lord created men!"