Things have changed....

I was reading over some of my old posts and I feel that things in my life have really changed. I look back at old little me and think, "wow, if only you knew."

So, here's what's new. I have been diagnosed with social anxiety. That's not really new because I think that's something I've pretty much had since fourth or fifth grade, but now I know that it's real. Which means that I allow my feelings to have value and meaning. Which honestly sucks, it was so much easier when I was operating under the impression that I was a vulcan.

To help me with my social anxiety I was prescribed to have an assistance animal (That's why I went to the therapist originally) and now I have a puppy. Her name is Harriet. She's a German Shepherd mix thing. She's an adorable pain in my ass. She's about 14 weeks old. Here's a picture from when I first met her back in September:

When Harriet and I first met

 

 

 

 

 

It took about a month to actually bring her home to my dorm (Yes, I am still attending Soka). This is a picture from when she first moved in:

Harriet when she moved in

And here's a picture from the last weekish:

Harriet and I from the past week or so

As you can see she is absolutely adorable. She even has a facebook account, you can be friends with her if you want. :) Her name's Harriet Lief. Harriet's Facebook

Her only problem is that she doesn't like to hang out with me when I am anxious, which means that as an assistance animal she sort of sucks. I think it's just a puppy thing that she'll grow out of, because the rest of the time she's stellar. She's sleeping next to me right now.

Part of acknowledging my emotions is that I'm much more aware of when I am unhappy and generally down for no particular reason and being aware of what makes it worse. One of the things that made it worse, substantially worse, exponentially even, was my Chinese class. Oh MyGod, it was awful. I hated that class and doing all the homework. Honestly, I don't think anyone is actually reading this, but I'll pretend you know me. I am not one to give up in school. I do my best and my best is frequently pretty good. But I was straight up failing this class. It got so bad that one night I just cried on the bathroom floor for 2+ hours and wasn't able to pull myself out of my dramatic pit of despair. It was after that night that I decided to withdraw from the class. That's right, I backed out, gave up, extricated myself.

I've felt a lot better since, I mean I'm still not cured of all my problems but getting rid of that class certainly made the rest of my issues at least more confrontable.

Having dropped Chinese I now have more time. I was taking 4 classes now I'm taking 3. That means that I can do things like train my puppy and write. I am going to try to do nanowrimo.

I haven't written since I learned that there was actually something different about me, and I feel like having a mental illness makes my art (writing) more meaningful, which I'm pretty sure is BS. But anyways, we'll see how it goes.

Another part of all this self-discovery I've been shoved into has been realizing that I should just succumb to my nature and concentrate in humanities. I've always enjoyed my humanities classes the most (unless Dr. Gruhn was teaching biology) and I should do something I like. I'm good at other stuff, and I can pretty easily get day jobs, or just work at Kovar's (which I honestly don't want to do my whole life as much as I enjoy working there).

I have this likely erroneous idea that I can't be successful/happy/have any noticeable income unless I find a way to insert myself into Corporate America. So maybe I want to be an editor or a publisher at some major publishing corporation. Like Scholastic, or Harper Collins, or Penguin. Those would all be decent jobs that I wouldn't be ashamed to tell my friends and family about.

 I think that's all for now. I'm doing nanowrimo so I'll be writing a lot but I'll try to post on here every once in a while. I think that it would be good for me.

I may have some excuses

So, I would have posted sooner but...
I couldn't get the photos on my phone onto my computer
I didn't feel like it
I did write in my novel
I was actually socializing.

That last point is probably the most phenomenal excuse. I went to a party last night, like a real one where people laughed and drank. I was a little uncomfortable at first but I powered through, and I had conversations with people, and I laughed. Oh, and we played Cards Against Humanity, and I got second place.
Another thing I learned last night is that I am incredibly innocent. This is always something that I expected, but wasn't really aware of how blatantly obvious it is to everyone else. I am ok with being innocent, it's another thing to know about myself.

Let's see, also since my last post I went on a hike. I went halfway up a small mountain, found a rock, and read for a bit. I also called my friend and we talked for a bit. It was a nice day. And I didn't get rained on.

Today I am going to a graduation party for one of my co-workers who is graduating from high school. I worry that me and one of other girl will be the only ones there, but we'll just have to wait and see. I have a feeling this party may be more awkward because no one will be slightly inebriated.

Well, that's it for this post I guess, I'm not really feeling bloggy right now. I just though that it would be good to keep you updated. Because I care, you know?

Alright, I'll talk to you folks later.

I do it for the fans

Well crap, I was going to go to sleep but then I realized I had missed a couple days on the good 'ol blog. I don't want to leave you folks in the lurch.
But really, in mostly seriousness, I am writing this because I have found (And my mom may mention this every once in a while) that you need to make yourself do something to build up will-power and self-motivation. This is something I have had trouble with lately, mainly in the waking up at a decent hour so I have a chance to see more than a couple hours of daylight and in the accomplishing anything while I am awake bit of life. So, I am doing two things to help me get going again. As you may remember from my past posts (If you don't you'll just have to read them or take my word for it) I am decently self-motivated person and a hard worker to boot. But of late I've just been very good and my relatively easy job. (That was an awful thing to say, and I have made some mistakes, but I'm doing alright.)
Anyway, the two things I am doing (And I notice that they may be helping already) are: 1) this blog thing, and 2)The 30 day ab challenge. So far it's not much of a challenge aside from the tricky part of actually doing it. But I am five days strong so woot woot.
But my real goal is to reassert myself in the proper timezone, finish Elphire and Sila (I can do it, I have like 20,000 words or so left until I think that this part of the story could be considered wrapped up.) And then in July I will feel free to start on a new writing project with sassy, possibly mildly depressed, character that is in my head. I hope they stick around long enough for me to write her/him. Sometimes my characters will just wander away. And I wonder why I am so afraid of commitment I won't even go on a date. I can't even keep my half-baked characters around long enough for a chance at an adventure that I make up.

Well this is sort of like novelling.

I am trying to write, this is not usually an issue for me. But the last few days it has been, I don't know what's gotten into me. I usually write at the coffee shop, with coffee (Obviously), but since that didn't work last time (and I am feeling incredibly lazy today) I have stayed at home and am trying to work. I made myself chocolate milk for something to drink but I finished my milk before I had had even worked up the motivation to open my word document. I have managed 643 words in the last hour. I guess that is an ok amount, but they have all been forced. I want to be immersed in my story. You know what I am talking about? When you don't see your computer screen anymore, you just see what you are writing and you can feel what your characters are feeling. It's more like you are watching the story unfold than unfolding the story. That's what I want now. Sometimes it is nice to pick apart the story connect dots that don't seem like they could be connected, but not this time. I want this one time to be effortless.

Ok, new subject. I have applied to Semester at Sea. I really really want to go on the Spring 2015 voyage. It would be an amazing, challenging, ridiculous, impossible adventure. Mainly it may end up being impossible because there is no way that I can earn the money required to go on that trip. So, if I get in, I am applying for the Presidential Scholarship. I have gotten the advice from a couple people that I need to be very specific and detailed in how to carry out my plan. My goal is to collect The Most Important Stories of the World. I want to go to people at every port and talk to them, and get them to tell me what they think the most important story is. That is specific as I am going to make it, the story could be about their own lives, their communities life, it could be a legend, or a fairytale, it could be a religious story. Anything. The challenging part of this project is 1) The whole language barrier, I can't expect everyone I meet to speak English. 2) Getting myself to walk up to someone and getting them share with me something as personal as their most important story. 3) This bit is the least difficult for me, but, compiling all the stories, keeping them organized. I would like to write about my experience gathering the story each time as well.

Alright and my last topic. I work at a To-Shin Do dojo, my job title is Office Ninja, I'm not even joking. But To-Shin Do is about more than just the physical self-protection aspect of martial arts. That is a huge part of it, obviously, but it's also about protecting your self from yourself. For example, not beating yourself up about mistakes you make. Allowing that they happened, recognizing that it was your fault, determining how to avoid it in the future, and moving on. This self from self protection also comes in with the people you associate with. (Everyone I associate with is awesome so I don't have as much to worry about here) But if you are with people who make you feel bad about yourself all the time, then change that situation. You should be an environment where you feel comfortable feeling happy. For me the most challenging bit of this is opening myself up to people enough so that I feel like I know them, and they know me. For a long time while I was here I didn't really know anyone and no one made any particular moves to make sure they knew me. They all had lives here already, I was new and didn't know anyone. Now after two months I am enough part of their lives that I have began giving out my number and have been invited to different activities to do outside the dojo. So that's fun.

This whole blog post is basically just procrastination from writing, I think I'll be getting back to that now.