To Break from the Norm

So much for keeping up with it...It's not that I have no free time...it's that I spend most of my free time eating, or watching movies, or laying on the couch like a lifeless blob. Usually a combination of all three. 

And it's not that I don't have anything to do right now either, I would just rather take a mental break from life. So here we are.

College is basically a never-ending flow of cramming information into my too full brain, and subsequently losing the vast majority of that knowledge due to a combination of not enough sleep and too much reality TV. But really, it's a blast :)

I'm not sure if I have really good or really terrible luck, but either way, I have only taken one midterm so far.. the rest are in two weeks. So that's slightly stressful, but I'm sure it will be much, much, MUCH worse next Monday when I start having freakouts. That's why we have a trampoline in our apartment. Honestly.

Mostly, I try to shake things up whenever I can. For obvious reasons that's always a little difficult during the normal week, but once I'm done with class on Friday there's a whole slew of options. Not that I really take advantage of all of them...but I try. 

Of course, one of the highlights of the week is gameday. Love me my football, in case I haven't mentioned it before. Last week was especially fun because it was homecoming, which is exciting in and of itself, but also because my adorable family came down from the 'Burg to visit me! My dad, sisters, and one of my brothers came along to the game with me and we had a blast. It was so great to spend time with them, even if it wasn't nearly long enough. (Also we won and that's always a plus. Go Cougs!!)

In my time here, I've learned a lot (see above comment on over-informing brain), but not just about politics and europe (and english and religion if we're just going to name off all the subjects I'm taking), but also about myself, and about other people and (cliche alert!!) life in general. 

People are not predictable. I mean, they can be, but they can always surprise you. In fact, I surprise my self all the time. But honestly, one of my new "mottos" is to keep my eyes open and never take anyone's personality for granted-I'm trying to not assume anything (good OR bad) about anyone, and to not be surprised when people surprise me. Because they always do. 

Optimism 101

I have the best friends. It's a good thing they are such good examples and keep me on the right path. So I have this one friend, and he's an amazing guitarist and singer and overall cool person. Well he texted me this morning and told me that he broke his collarbone mountain biking on Tuesday. My first reaction was shock and then sympathy because that just sounds awful. You know what he said to me? "Well, It sure could have been worse! I still have my arm! :)" So I'm already way impressed by this optimism, but we keep talking and he mentions that he can't play guitar for a few weeks.. But he says "It's pretty lame, but I still have my arm! And it's only a few weeks, right?" Let me remind you, this kid LOVES the guitar. Basically every time I talk to him he mentions playing guitar, or is playing guitar, or just finished playing guitar. I was already a huge admirer of him, but my admiration just shot even farther up the scale. I have to admit, if I broke my collarbone... Or actually probably even my finger bone, I would be moping and bored and overall unpleasant to be around. 

I definitely learned a lesson about optimism today. The best way I can think of to sum up this lesson also comes from this same conversation with my friend: "Well if you look at the lame things, it's... well, lame, right? :)"