the last day of break.

Today is Saturday, January 20, 2018. It is my last full day of winter break; I head back to campus tomorrow night. It is 3:37 PM and I am sitting at our kitchen island. I am listening to the sounds of my laundry in the wash while my brother plays Breath of the Wild and my mother works on her sermon in the next room over. Sunlight streams through our dusty windows creating a beautiful dispersion effect through the room and I am eating kettle corn.

I’ve done and thought about a lot this week; after lounging around at home for the whole break I spent this week working full days at my school’s costume shop. Though it was a lot of work, I learned a lot and enjoyed meeting and working with the people there. I am no longer afraid of sewing machines, riding the metro alone, or asking for help. I have an appreciation for waking up early, working hard, and doing creative work, and I think I have gained a better understanding of the daily working grind that comes along with an awful commute as well as priorities outside of work life.

There are a lot of occurrences from this week that I could write about, but I probably will not because I feel that they require a much greater depth of reflection than I am willing to give right now. Perhaps eventually they will make their way into something I create.

What else did I do this week? I started reading webcomics on Line Webtoons and Tapas. To be completely honest, they are kind of trashy – but reading them is like indulging in an overly dramatic reality show or two extra slices of pumpkin pie. I read one this morning about a girl who was sent a human boy hatched out of an egg so she wouldn’t be lonely… heh heh heh.

Anyway, on the topic of school starting up this week, I don’t feel very anxious (which is good). I’m more just hoping that I will embrace discomfort so that I can accomplish my goals. I often gravitate towards comfort (for example, sleeping in, snoozing my alarm, laying in bed watching YouTube, eating sugary snacks) but I’ve realized that even during a week like this past week where I had to wake up at 6:30am and got home so late that I had only one or two hours to indulge in lazy Internet video watching, I felt no less satisfied than when I had 12 hours of sleep and 9 hours to lazily watch Internet videos. In fact, I probably felt more satisfied because I had more time away from screens and that helped me to be more mindful and present. Furthermore, I found that no matter how many videos I watched or hours I spent doing comfortable, entertaining things, I didn’t feel happier or more fulfilled afterwards. While I do get inspired from watching YouTube videos and looking at new things on the Internet and whatnot, after a certain threshold, I experience no increase in satisfaction, happiness, or inspiration.

All this to say, when school starts, I hope that I wake up early and instantly and embrace discomfort whether through eating healthily, working out, or choosing to work on homework or side projects instead of mindless media consumption. Woohoo.

Here’s a screenshot of an enlightening tweet for no reason other than the fact that I think it’s INTERESTING!!!!! Okay goodbye and have a nice day.

Reasons to be Thankful for College

As much as I like to complain about school, now that I’m on winter break and living at my parents’ house again, I thought I would make a list of reasons to be thankful for school, or college more specifically. (Future self, take note of this and please refer back to it when you feel like complaining about school.)

1. Independence
In college, you get to choose exactly what you want to do each day. You don’t have to feel guilty for not doing the dishes or deciding to eat a sleeve of Oreos for dinner. Also, in my case, you feel much more freedom to be yourself because you barely interact with adults (read: closed-minded parents) who don’t understand American/young adults/millennials culture. The ability to control every aspect of your life on a daily basis feels amazing (most of the time) and is really productive to helping you grow as a person, learn more about yourself, build good habits, set goals, and figure out what you want in life.

2. Structure
As much as I love lounging around and browsing YouTube all day, too much of it can make me feel sluggish, unproductive, and generally useless. Although college is often really busy and stressful, going to class and doing assignments means you are still making progress (however small) in some way. This helps you to feel like you’re accomplishing something (no matter how mediocre it is) and gives you momentum and encouragement. We can all use that spark of positivity sometimes, right?

3. Distance from family problems
This last one is difficult to talk about, but I feel that it should be acknowledged because I think many of us deal with this though we don’t often like to admit it. Of course, if there are familial issues, in general we shouldn’t run away from these problems and hope that ignoring them will make them go away. However, sometimes these problems in our families have persisted for a very long time, and very little progress has been made due to certain family members’ stubbornness or other reasons. I believe that in these cases, it can be beneficial to just get away from the family home, which becomes a very stressful and tense environment. Personally, going to college and distancing myself from drawn-out family issues has helped me to focus on loving myself and taking care of myself instead of stressing about problems I can’t solve. Who knows – perhaps that time away from home with the burden lifted is just what one needs to have an epiphany of a great solution to the problem.

Hopefully this helped you feel a little more positive and/or encouraged about going back to school (if you are still in school)! Let me know your thoughts – do you enjoy school, suffer through it, or try to find reasons to be thankful for it so you don’t go insane?