I really don’t know why I complain

Last night, I got two hours of stress-filled sleep where I was worrying about my papers and finals in my dreams. I rolled around for another couple of hours in an attempt to go back to sleep before giving up and getting up to write a paper.

Normally, I get extremely frustrated when I don’t have enough sleep. Knowing my own irritability, however, I told myself to acknowledge that I was going to be slow, tired and grumpy, and should therefore be gentle with myself.

What wonders a kind frame of mind can create. Instead of freaking out over how much time I’m losing, I found myself enjoying my day more than I thought possible.

Sunrise from Marine Drive

This is a picture of the sunrise I typed my paper under this morning.

I don’t have it here, but there was also a single star shining white in the lingering night sky that I pretended was the North Star, but probably wasn’t, given that I was facing south.

Shout-outs go to all the amazing people who showed their care and concern for me after my little burst of bad temper the other day, through emails, phone calls and text messages. I was wondering why more than one person was offering to feed me before I remembered I’d blogged about it. This is to let you know I got groceries today, so don’t worry!

(I also did my laundry today so have deliciously clean clothes, too. Mm, I do love pretty smells!)

Also special thanks to a special friend who dropped by this evening to give me a massive box of mandarins and vitamin-saturated fruit juice. They will be incredible in my efforts to dose myself up on Vitamin C.

Much love and luck to everyone doing exam battle—we are troopers!

(P.S. I think I saw a real chipmunk today! It was adorable.)

I am not a happy chipmunk

(Why a chipmunk, you ask? I don’t know, only that it was the sentence running constantly through my head the other day when I was probably running a low fever. The sentence still stands as entirely accurate, however: I am not happy, nor am I a chipmunk.)

I dislike it when people tell me they are jealous of my exam schedule, because I will be done next Friday. If I only had two finals on Tuesday and Wednesday, then yes, I would be jealous too. However, I also have three research papers due on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and none of these are going well. My bout of whatever this lousy illness thing that knocked me out on Friday afternoon at 5 pm after a day of struggling to read and write one of these papers is not helping. I am almost entirely out of food in the fridge and also lacking energy and motivation to cook. This week is also my turn to clean the kitchen and living room. I haven’t done my laundry yet. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve thought over the last few years that stress over school is not worth the sickness. My heart is sad and stressed because I feel so lousy, I’m sure to do badly and will pull down my grades and then not get into grad school, and now I’m overthinking and need to get back to my paper.

Rant done and promise there will be no more of this sort this year.

Things I Love Thursday

The days are long, but the years are short.
— Gretchen Rubin

The above quote comes from The Happiness Project, a blog I like because it was one of the first sites that got me thinking seriously about the nature and importance of happiness.

This quote sums up my sense of passing time. While in the thick of things, like my four more papers and three finals between now and next Friday, the end feels wretchedly far away. On the other hand, I could hardly believe that it’s Thursday already again, and I should be writing my Thursday post, let alone that it’s December and there are less than 30 days to a new year.

(This in turn triggers thoughts like ‘ohemgee, I’m in fourth year, ohemgee, I only have another year and a half before I really can’t drag out my degree any longer, ohemgee, time is flying by and I feel like I haven’t done half the things I wanted to do when I first came to university, omgomgomg’. But that’s another post for another time.)

In the meantime — Thursday!

♥ My best friend in this city is home from exchange. Although I’m really happy for her that she had such a great time abroad that Vancouver is currently underwhelming her, I am still selfishly glad to have her back!

♥ I made my first snowman late last Thursday night, after watching Jade in the Coal. He was a small, lumpy affair, but I also got to make snow angels! (Check another item off my to do list.)

♥ A pot of good quality honey makes for great honey and lemon water. This is my favourite precaution against sore throats at this time of year.

♥ My friend’s sister introduced me to HauteLook, an online retail store currently offering rain boots on sale at $20-30 (ending today at noon). None of this $100+ nonsense — hurray! I will soon have my first pair of wellies in over a decade!

♥ I love my fellow Speakeasy volunteers. They are some of the warmest, most humorous, easygoing people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. Often I intend to pass through the volunteer space, only to find myself still there hours later, immersed in the most random and interesting conversations. Finding my niche at UBC was one of my biggest concerns in first year; I’m glad to say I’ve now found it.

♥ I got a two-day extension on one of my papers. THANK YOU, KIND PROFESSOR!

♥ I watched Jade in the Coal at the Frederic Wood Theatre on campus last Thursday and meant to write a post saying what a good play it is, but you can have it in a bullet point: It’s about Chinese miners in 1900 Cumberland, BC, and the arrival of a Cantonese opera troupe. Having prepared myself to hate Cantonese opera based on my toddler experiences of it, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying it. I do recommend it and tickets are still on sale for performances until December 4 (student price is $15).

♥ Nickelback’s ‘If Today Was Your Last Day’ is one my favourite videos because I totally want to carry suspicious black bags and throw their colourful contents onto strangers too!

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCZCfOygt_w]

RSA Animate – Changing Education Paradigms

I mentioned watching Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk a few weeks back, and now a friend has just sent me another talk he gave on changing education paradigms — this time, complete with pictures. I thought it was so cool, I had to share it with you:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U]

Things I Love Thursday

It struck me that I almost forgot about this week’s Things I Love Thursday post. Well, we can’t have that! Happy things > stress any day.

This first one’s also pretty easy:

SARA BAREILLES LIVE, OMG. Yup yup, that’s right: I went to her concert in Vancouver on Monday night and had a blast. She is a great performer and evidently believes deeply in the concept of ‘fun’. Also, she writes lovely slow, happy songs and upbeat, sad ones. (Amazon is selling her latest album for $1.99 as part of Black Friday sales. Need I say more?)

♥ Has anyone seen the moon lately? As large as a dinner plate, round, and silver or gold depending on the evening, it hangs low almost every night as if to say hello.

♥ I had an internal social event with a volunteer group the other night, and one of our volunteers made The Best Nachos Ever. My mouth waters just thinking about them now.

♥ I have a new tin of cocoa, courtesy of my brother dear. Technically, it’s for my several baking plans post-exams, but I don’t see why I can’t have a mug of cocoa every now and then — you know, as a reward for studying. Or just because.

♥ Whatever I may think of black ice, the deathly cold, the long waits for buses at night, etc, I still think that falling snow is magic.

♥ My friend sent me a link to some gorgeous entries in the National Geographic photo contest. They are breathtaking.

♥ I still have my yellow helium-filled balloon! I’m so pleased!

♥ Lastly, this cute picture by Brock Davis I found while browsing a blog:

Child tornado asking adult tornado if they can keep a cow for a pet