Healing Hurts

My name is AnnMarie, and I'm a TV addict.

This is probably not news to any of you reading this, assuming that the set of all those reading this is a subset of the set of people I know. If I don't know you and you're reading this (how did you get here?), you might actually not know this. But that's beside the point. The point is: I'm a TV addict. I watch way too much TV and it's bad for my physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual health.

Like most addicts, I've been in denial about this for quite some time, but something I read tonight hit me hard enough that I finally couldn't rationalize my way out of it. Or rather, I could have, but I was finally humble enough not to. I finally admitted to myself that TV-watching is not just a casual hobby, that it's not not having an effect on my life and well-being, that it's actually keeping me from things that I want in the long term.

It's ridiculous to say that watching violence and immorality or hearing vulgar language and jokes on television has no effect on you. If you saw those things in person they'd affect you; why not if you see them on television? After I watch something violent or vulgar I always feel dragged down. My mood becomes dark and brooding, and the effects can linger for hours or sometimes even days. I'm not sure what science would conclude, but for me that's pretty compelling evidence. I have enough problems with depression, anxiety, and self-loathing from my wacky hormones, I don't need anything exacerbating the problem.

To quote something from the article I read tonight: "When we are not doing what we know we ought to be doing, and when we are not living the way we know we ought to live, we have a tendency to be unhappy." Well, I'm unhappy, and it's because I'm not doing what I know I should be doing, and I'm not living the way I know I should be living. My time is spent on "that which is of no worth . . . [and on] that which cannot satisfy" in the eternal world (2 Nephi 9:51).

What am I going to do with my new-found hours and hours of unspent time? I'm going to do family history. I'm going to learn to cook healthier food and actually sit down at my table, hopefully with a friend or two, to eat it. I'm going to attend the temple more often. I'm going to pray more sincerely, read my scriptures more diligently, and ponder the words of living prophets and apostles more carefully. I'm going to be more active. I'm going to cultivate and strengthen relationships. I'm going to go to bed earlier. I'm going to serve others.

It's going to be really hard. I know, because I've tried it before. And it was hard. And I eventually (sooner rather than later) fell back into my TV-watching habits. I want this time to be different. I want to be healthier, physically, emotionally, mentally, socially, and spiritually, and I can't do that without removing this negative influence in my life. Obsession and addiction, in whatever form they may come in our lives -- harmful substances, people, activities, seemingly-innocuous foods -- are not healthy. They become crutches that hold us back instead of helping us move forward; they prop us up in our brokenness instead of helping us to heal. Have you ever healed from something? Healing hurts, but it's the only way to be whole, and I want to be whole and not broken.

I would love your encouragement and support. I don't need a watchdog to tell me how disappointed in me they are when I slip up, but I could use a few cheerleaders. If you volunteer I could bring brownies. ^_~

Mourning My Baby

Remember my last post about how much I hate uncertainty? And the one a few more before that when I shared my "compelled to be humble" moment? Well, here's another wrench thrown into the rapidly deteriorating machine that is my life.

Just a few hours after my uncertainty post, as I was surfing the net and watching an old Japanese drama (*gasp* Yes, I do watch other kinds of dramas), I saw the light on my charger change from orange to green, indicating that my computer was fully charged. Since I'm not a fan of leaving my computer plugged in when it's charged (it's bad for the battery and for the environment and your electric bill), I immediately unplugged it -- only to have it suddenly die without warning. I admit to being more than a little confused, since my little battery icon had clearly stated it was fully charged. So I plugged it back in and attempted to reboot it. After an unusually long time, it finally booted, but up popped a little message that said the computer had reset to a date before Jan 2008. So I figured I'd reboot it again and it would hopefully straighten itself out. It never rebooted after that, instead getting stuck on the grey Apple screen that shows up while the computer's booting. Normally it's there for a few seconds, then transforms into the login screen, but it was perpetually stuck in grey-Apple-screen-land.

So I took it into our local Apple dealer to get it looked out. The woman helping me ran a few tests and determined that the battery had exceeded its lifetime of 1000 charges (by 51) and had just died, nothing too strange about that, and would just need a new ($120) battery to work again. Still, that didn't explain why my computer wouldn't boot, because it should work just fine as long as it's plugged into the wall. To make a long story short, I left it with them to examine, and got a call from them last evening. I went in this morning to the very bad news that the hard drive was shot and I'd need a new one ($183, at the very least). The sort-of-not-bad news was that the techs said they'd most likely be able to recover some/most/all (?) of what was on my old hard drive, but of course there's no guarantee that they'll get everything or that they'll get the most important things if they can't get everything. I've been meaning for a long time to get an external hard drive to back everything up on, and it was literally at the top of my list of things to purchase when I finally get a job, but I've been mostly living hand-to-mouth for the last...well, always. If it just could have held out another three or four months! ~tears hair out~ Thankfully, the very most important things, my mission pictures, are backed up on a flash drive, so at least I have those even if I lose all my music (~sob~) and all my documents from high school and college. And I'm pretty sure I have backups of my mission emails somewhere.

Really, though, I can't have imagined a worse time for this to happen. Maybe this will become a good thing when I look back on it a twenty or five years from now, but right now I'm very upset. The only real things I own at this point in my life are my books and my computer, and most of my books are at my parents' house. I suppose I used my computer A LOT in the last two years I've had it, but still. If it could have just held on another year or so, that would have been ever so much more convenient. But I suppose life and challenges don't happen when it's "convenient".

A Jaunt Down Memory Lane

I was going through my documents folder on my computer this afternoon when I realized it was a little messy. As I started to tidy it up, I opened a few folders I haven't looked through in years, the ones containing all my papers from high school and my first few years of college. I started opening them and reading them, and boy, what a hoot! I have a pathological need to take myself hyperseriously, and it shows. But anyway. I opened and read one particular essay I wrote for my favorite English professor of all time, the amazing Dr. Bradshaw, during my very first semester of college. I don't remember exactly the assignment; something about narrating a small, seemingly insignificant moment. I wrote mine about the moment it really, truly hit me that I was graduating from high school. Now, seven years later, having just barely graduated from college (but having yet to have that same moment of realization about graduating from college), I thought that it was a timely piece of writing to pull out and dust off.

* * * * *

Photo from the Fuller Partners' website, here.

It was a trip I'd taken a thousand times before.

The car windows were rolled all the way down, and my arm was draped over the side of the door, weaving in and out of the stream of air that rushed past. Sweaty hair, pulled back into a messy ponytail, whipped back and forth with every gust, leaving stinging trails across my cheeks. Outside, the sun shone fiercely in its slow, daily trek to the west. The azure sky burned a brilliant blue. A few wispy clouds hung determinedly to the horizon, but the vault of heaven remained clear of any friendly clouds that might wander across the path of the sun and cloak its blazing wrath. Denied their rightful place high above our heads, they had settled for sending their moisture to saturate the still air down below, smothering us in what felt like a hot, wet blanket.

The radio blared yet another song about a guy and a girl falling in love, or maybe falling out of love; it was hard to be sure. Beside me in the front seat, my sister sat looking out at the familiar trees and houses flashing past her open window. She pulled absently at the clammy tee-shirt that clung to her. “How do you think practice went?” she asked over the sound of the radio and the rushing air.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I replied, shrugging. “I think we made some improvements, definitely. T-man seemed happy with what we got done.” I, too, pulled at the tee-shirt clinging to my sticky, sweaty skin. A bead of moisture escaped my hairline and rolled down my cheek; another traced a leisurely line down my neck. “Considering that it’s about fifty million degrees outside, he should be happy we didn’t all collapse and die of heat exhaustion.”

She nodded. “I think things are finally coming together. There are still a lot of rough edges, but I think we’ll do well on Saturday.”

I glanced at her briefly before turning my eyes back to the road. “Yeah, me too.” 

* * *

We traveled down the same road, the two of us, this time going in the other direction. Not much had changed, if anything at all. The placement of the cars in the driveways, maybe.

This time, the windows remained up, so as not to muss meticulously arranged hair, or displace carefully chosen clothes. Instead, the air conditioner quietly blew chilled air across our faces and ruffled the filmy fabrics of our best black pants. I curled my feet in my high heeled shoes; the cool air was making my bare toes cold.

My sister flipped down the passenger-side visor, peered intently at the mirror attached to the back of it. She looked down quickly and rummaged through the contents of the bag perched precariously on the seat next to her. “Where is it, where is it…stupid mascara,” she muttered.

I glanced over, amused. A little foundation and eyeshadow was all that was involved in my toilette. “You were supposed to do all that before we left.”

She waved a hand at me absently, and continued digging. “Yeah, but I didn’t get to put my…ah hah! I found it!” She held it up triumphantly. “I didn’t have time to put any mascara on before we left, I had to eat.” Her mouth open and eyes wide in concentration, she carefully brushed the black goop onto her eyelashes. She finished and thrust the wand back into its tube. “I wish we could wear lipstick,” she complained. “Makeup just doesn’t look right when you can’t do your mouth.”

“Come on,” I said. “You know that’s not practical. You can’t wear lipstick because if you did, your horn would slide all over the place and you couldn’t play. And it’d get all in your horn and would be the devil to clean.”

“I know,” she sighed. “But still, it would be nice to wear it just once.”

* * *

The same trees and houses and cars I had seen countless times slid silently past the window of the car. In four years, nothing significant had changed.

I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat in the back of the car, tugging at my skirt, trying to pull it down over my knees. The scratchy wool resisted my efforts, stubbornly riding up again. Skirts, I thought darkly, are not my thing. I sighed and shook my head a little, blowing a few loose strands of hair out of my eyes. Despite the care I’d taken to pin it back, my hair was just as stubborn as my skirt in the matter of staying where I wanted it.

A hand involuntarily rose to scrub at my eyes, but stopped just short of actually touching them. Nuh uh, I thought sternly at myself. No touching. Don’t smear mascara and eyeshadow all over your face.

Mom and Dad chatted amiably in the front seat, occasionally directing a comment to the backseat and my sister or me. I was reaching for my chapstick when it hit me.

“I’m not wearing any lipstick,” I said blankly. “I’m not wearing lip gloss, either.”

Mom looked back at me, confused. “So?”

“So,” I said, “so…I can wear lipstick. I don’t have to play tonight. I’m not in the band anymore, so it doesn’t matter. I’m not wearing any lipstick,” I repeated dazedly.

My sister stared at me, then said slowly, “You’re right. You’re not in band anymore. You’re graduating…”

You’re not in band anymore.

The words echoed silently through my head. I’m not in high school anymore, I thought, sitting back numbly. I’m graduating.

I call this my Victory Series: Announcing that I'm official DONE with my undergrad!

This is me on my very last day of classes, 26 April, going into my last college class.

This is me today, right before my very last undergraduate final EVER.

And this is me afterwards. I mean, I guess I'm happy or something. Or something. Yeah.

And this is what I did to celebrate. I call it The Taste of Accomplishment.

Full-blown panic is starting to set in.




Three more days, three more tests, and one more paper to graduation.

What Comes After

That's the question I'm asking myself right now. I'm graduating from college (finally!) in May, and I don't really have a plan for after. I have a broad, this-is-what-I'd-like-to-do idea, but for the first time in my life, I'm really not sure where I'm going to be in six months. Oh, there have been periods of a few months when I was at loose ends, but this time I'm looking at a big, fat question mark right over the part of my future labeled "the rest of your life".

People keep asking me, "Asian Studies? What are you going to do with that?" I'm rather sick of that question, to be honest. I understand why people ask it - who really knows an Asian Studies major, after all? - but it's annoying when I don't know myself. And then there are those who have a thin, polite veneer over their "What a useless degree!" faces when they ask it, which is even more annoying.

The only real, concrete goal I've ever had for my life is unattainable at the moment. I'm working toward it, but it's not something I can achieve on my own. In the meantime, I have to do something with my life. I have a feeling my parents aren't that anxious to let me live at home while I spend my days watching dramas and waiting for "someday". I can't say that I'm that anxious to do that, either.





[Source]: Photo by Macarena C. here on flickr, with these restrictions

The End of Summer

Summer has never been my favorite season. I much prefer the milder temperatures and back-to-school bustle of autumn. But the thing I do love about summer is the long hours of sunlight, and sitting on the porch lazily watching the sun set and swinging my feet. Summer evenings are especially gorgeous here in Utah, when the sun sets in a blaze of red-orange-yellow-pink glory behind the mountains. I love the slight chill that creeps into the air as the sky gradually darkens, and the ch-ch-ch-ch-ch of the sprinklers as they spray arcs of water across the lawn.

My last year of undergrad starts Monday. The evenings are getting chillier, despite the 90+ degree weather we still have during the day. September is less than a week away. Autumn is right around the corner now.

The Semester Ends: The Saga Begins

Well, the title is as good as any, I guess. It worked for Twilight, it can work for me. *cheeky grin*

Here I am, at almost three in the morning, updating my blog because my roommate is still packing and I'm procrastinating going to bed because I know 625 is going to come awfully early. I know, it doesn't make any sense, but there you have it. I think I shall patent it and call it "AnnMarie Logic", sell it and get rich. Sounds great, huh?

I'm glad this semester has come to an end. It's been a hard one for me, in various ways. I've never been a particularly self-motivated person, but this semester has seen me reach new heights of sinking to the depths of procrastination and self-gratification. I need balance. I need to get used to my life the way it is now. It's crazy: I feel like I went on a mission as a teenager with not too many cares and came back to a world where everyone expects me to act like an adult. Is that what I am? I don't feel like one. I still want my mommy to take care of everything for me. Maybe part of it is being a sophomore when most of my high school classmates are graduated or graduating.

I had my don rag today. It went pretty well, actually. Better than my freshman ones, I think. I think I'm a better student in class this time around, though I didn't really try at all this semester. Think how much better I could do if I really tried! My Greek tutor was very impressed by how quickly I got up to speed in that class. I can't take much credit for that, honestly; it's mostly due to a website called Perseus and A. T. Murray's translation of The Odyssey. Still, I'm not a total moron. But he was right to call me out for not being prepared enough sometimes, because it's definitely true that my translations weren't my first priority. Well, not my translations of Greek, anyway. I won't comment on the amount of time I spent doing "language study" this semester. It's probably better left unsaid.

I'm glad to be going home. But somehow, it's just won't be the same, I know.




*sigh*

I'm always sad when September ends

...but I really do love October. October is such a yummy, plummy, mysterious kind of month. All the trees explode into color and the air gets crisp. People wear sweaters and hoodies and drink hot chocolate, and no one wears short shorts or sandals anymore. I never feel like the world is dying when autumn rolls around, like some; I always think of it as getting ready to wrap itself up in the chill, white blankets of winter snow and falling asleep. I sympathize. I love bedtime! I love getting into my jammies and snuggling down in my bed under my blankets. I love breathing in the cold air in the room, and the contrast between it and my lovely warm self. I love jackets and peacoats and hats and mittens and crunchy leaves and all that comes with autumn!