The problem with sickness...

...is that my brain gets so bored! I actually really love school purely for the fact that I feel intellectually edified at the end of the day. I crave learning. My favorite Internet activity is hitting the random page button on Wikipedia. I need school for sanity.
Yet when I'm sick, I'm at a loss for an attention span wide enough or long enough to make a difference in my intelligence. Not feeling well has quite the effect on my ability to absorb information. And I hate it. It should be impossible for me to be bored, especially when I'm in the middle of the semester and have so many extra avenues of study I've meant to pursue for so long. But no. No mental capacity for you. Just stare and sleep and wonder when you're going to be able to efficiently wonder again.
Yep, this is probably my greatest dislike of illness. What an interesting thing that the body has so much power to limit the mind. How happy I will be when my inner nerd will be able to prevail in my life once again!

Oh February

What an exciting month! Am I right? It's everyone's favorite. We just adore the unpredictable bleak weather, the increasing difficulty of school, and the emotionally charged Valentine's Day.
Yeah, no. I have to see February as a month of growth. It seems that life is either boring and you feel without direction, or all of the challenges you could imagine pile on. Which is better? I think both are about equally uncomfortable, but at least with challenges I have opportunities to expand my character.
One attribute to focus on is gratitude. I really do believe gratitude is synonymous with happiness. I have a new goal (not a very original one) to start a gratitude journal. I journal my life anyway, but I think starting my day with a perspective seeking gratitude will help me avoid the tethers of entitlement and escape the habit of taking things for granted. I may or may not post entries on here. Sometimes it's a good feeling for your gratitude to be out in the universe.
The one thing I want to say I'm grateful for at this moment is my sweet little nieces that I was privileged to see for a bit this weekend. Harper is holding Gammy's hand and looks up at me, waves, and says, "Hi, Manny." Just a little recognition out of nowhere means a lot. I'm so excited to be an aunt to those two little girls who are bursting at the seams with personality. I adore Harper and Ivy. That's what I'm grateful for at this moment.

This is Hope

Growing up in Alaska, I had the privilege of singing in the Alaskan Children's Choir for four years, or so. My talented sister had participated before and wanted to experience choir also. The song that most impacted me was called The Inscription of Hope. It's lyrics were taken from a fragment of writings found in a cellar in Germany, where Jews were hiding during the Holocaust. If you listen to it, find a version that is sung by children. It's straight up incredible. This is what hope is:

Inscription of Hope

I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining.
And I believe in love
even when there's no one there.

And I believe in God
even when He is silent.
I believe through any trial
there is always a way.

But sometimes in this suffering
and hopeless despair
My heart cries for shelter
to know someone's there.
But a voice rises within me saying,
'hold on my child
I'll give you strength, I'll give you hope
Just stay a little while.'

I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining.
And I believe in love
even when there's no one there.

And I believe in God
even when God is silent.
I believe through any trial
there is always a way.

May there someday be sunshine,
May there someday be happiness,
May there someday be love,
May there someday be peace.

Am I Really 6 Years Old?

Here's a quote everyone knows:

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, he said:

“Man.
Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.
Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.
And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present;
the result being that he does not live in the present or the future;
he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

 Guilty as charged. The health thing just stresses me out. One reason is because I don't even really know what healthy is anymore. But mostly it's because I know no diligence. I don't know how to say no to that thing that I totally know is bad for me, but has instant benefits. I've known for a long time that sugary things make me feel particularly terrible. Does that stop me? Nah, who needs to feel well in the long run when I can taste sweetness now, am I right? This quote reminds me of how easy it is to lack a long term sense of vision. And health is the most elusive vision to have. It's easier to see a vision of a long term career or personal accomplishments. But health means I have to start doing stuff right now and be committed for eternity. I'm too afraid of commitment to sign up for anything for forever. I definitely can't give up stuff that gives me instant gratification. Sometimes I'm convinced that instant gratification is the only thing that's real. How's that for a confession. I totally lack a perspective of endurance. 

You know that scenario where they put the little kid in the room with the marshmallow and then tell them if they can wait fifteen minutes before eating it they can have another one? I'd eat it right in front of them before they even finished the instructions. 

Now if the obligation is based on relationships, I follow through without doubting it. I can do my job and my school work just because I want to uphold a respectable person's expectations of my task at hand. But I have no responsibility to myself. It's a weird thing. I can't figure out how to care for my own sake sometimes. It's growing on me, but I'm nowhere near my peers who are running marathons and volunteering their time for a million little things. I think that may be one reason why I'm so chaotic. Why care about my own world when I can be so involved in the interesting world of others?

(That post evolved in a curious manner, now didn't it?)

This Week: Bloody Triangles

Insanity. Let’s be honest, I really would choose to be insanely busy than bored out of my mind, but it is quite a draining life. Some great stories came out of this week.

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First off, there’s the love of my life: Philosophy. My Epistemology class on Tuesday had me rolling with laughter (in a philosophical sense). Dr. Huenemann disproved the existence of triangles in an illustration of Descartes’ Fifth Meditation. So many great quotes that I will now attempt to pull from memory. I seriously write down every funny line he pulls, it is a wonderful highlight to life for your teachers to be uproarious.

He began by asking a student, “Do you believe in triangles? Is that too personal for me to ask?”

He then made the checklist of requirements for triangles consisting of 1) They have three sides, 2) they have three angles, and 3) those angles add up to 380 degrees. He then prompted us to “go around with this checklist to see if things are triangles,” and did an impression of him intensely assessing things around the classroom, as if in doubt of there being any real triangles.

My favorite part was when we “precisified the triangle into nonexistence” by defining the definition further. What is a side? A line, he said. He wrote on the board, “line = one dimensional direction.” He concluded that since a one dimensional thing has no width that you can’t see an actual line or side. So we’ve never seen a real triangle, because you can’t see one.

So maybe all the triangles we think we see a representations of the concept of a triangle. But where does the concept of a triangle reside. Many students said in their mind, being forced to concede that triangles exist in some non-extended space (contradiction) in their mental sphere. Dr. Huenemann was happy that we had to “create a new space” for triangle to exist. “If triangles cannot exist in a type of space that we know of, then where are all the triangles?”

Another good moment was when he said “We’ve had angle inflation, each angle (of an equilateral triangle) used to be 59 ½ degree in Archimedes day.”

He also went off at one point saying that there really is only one triangle. Your geometry teacher asks you what the angles of an equilateral triangle is and you say “Each one is 60 degrees.” “Aha! But I wasn’t asking you about that equilateral triangle, I was asking you about this one!”

Sometimes Dr. Huenemann asks me why I’m shaking my head. It’s because his explanations are hilarious. He is wonderfully outlandish examples too, he referred to a donkey with peacock feathers for ears last class.

The other treasured story from this week was on Wednesday. I must note that I have some of the most considerate people as friends. Kelby, that gem, was incredible and took my shift on Tuesday night so that I could be rested for my doctor’s appointment in the morning. Seriously, that was a big deal to me, it’s hard to work graves during the week, and she had to work three in a row because of me. Also, Marissa saved my bacon by coming with me to the doc’s. I am nervous in medical settings that around focused on me. She, however, freaking adores anything medical because she is totally meant to be a nurse someday. Hint.

We get to the specialty hospital which really is more like a hotel than a severe medical facility. My doctor is awesome, a woman who is like 6’ and well put together. I go down the hall with Marissa to get my lab work done. I’m working so hard to not think about the needle in my arm. Marissa told me later that they took like six or seven vials that red stuff. She is doing an excellent job distracting me with some exaggerated drama and I make it to the finish line. Then I feel it coming on. The nurse tells Marissa to go to the fridge to get me some orange juice.

Next, I’m having a delightful dream and am suddenly struck with annoyance as people repeatedly yelling the same word incessantly across a field. They were really interrupting my business. Then I slowly came to realize that the obnoxious word was, in fact, my own name and the four nurses were right next to me. Yep, Madison had passed out.

After being all cute and motherly, these ladies put me in a happy red wheelchair, took me to the ER to be monitored, and hooked me up with some graham crackers. That was the life. Marissa had grabbed all the available types of juice and was laughing her head off at how pathetic I was. I couldn’t stop laughing either. I must be pretty adorable when I’m utterly pathetic. An experience to be treasured, that’s for sure.

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In conclusion, this week = WIN.