Room to Think

I have a confession: I've been putting off writing. Over the past 5 years, writing has become less and less a part of my life, and I'm realizing more and more that it's something I need.  I used to be an extremely reflective person. I prided myself on my introspection and as a result, I was more intellectual, patient, empathetic, open, and relaxed. I think I was a better person because of it. Now I'm impatient, with little time for wasted minutes, and feeling like I'm pressed for all the time. You know how people recommend meditation for health? To slow down in a sped-up world? That's what writing is to me. Mental yoga. And I do it about as often as I do yoga. Not often enough. There was a simple question in my  Spark Notebook  yesterday, and it made me think--as it should. That's what I paid for. It asked: What have you been putting off lately? Inexplicably, it made me sad. And, I had a rare amount of time that I had time to reflect on why.  ...

Happy Tuesday! I'm certainly happy. It was a good day at the new internship, and I only had to sit in traffic for an hour in trade for 3 glorious hours of hardcore volleyball. I haven't played at that level in a long time. I'm positive the endorphins are still flowing. It's also been a long time since I've hurt as much as I know I will in the morning. So in favor of stretching and sleep, I'm going to make this a two-part TEDtalk Tuesday/Wednesday-- just give you the TEDtalk tonight, and continue the discussion tomorrow. Hope you're all right with that. I'm going to go do yoga now before the tendon in my knee decides it's never going to stretch back out again. See you in the morning! P.S. This guy's name is Tim Leberecht. He's a marketing guy. I'm trying something new this week and posting a business talk, instead of my usual technology-psychology-design-video game topics. It's less than 7 minutes long, and full of pictures.  =...

This week's TEDtalk is short, and it's about sleep. For now, I'll just post the video and hope you watch it because it's short, and it's also given by Arianna Huffington at a TEDwomen event. I'm a fan of this video because we're getting to that point in the quarter where sleep becomes less important than better grades. Where we've lost control of our new year's resolutions to do yoga every night before bed, or are stumbling around the internet until the wee hours of the morning as our dogs call to us from our beds. This video is about the value of sleep.  The idea is a simple one.

Happy Sunday! Well, on most accounts, I hope it's a happier Sunday for you than it has been for me.  It's been a mediocre day, at best: full of homework, zero interaction with other humans, and the slight itch of impending doom coming in the next week. Here's a list of things I did today: Woke up late. Made pancakes that made me sick. Ate carrots and drank water to make me feel better. Watched La Femme Nikita. Showered. Ran out of hot water in the shower.  >.< Microwaved leftover ramen for lunch. Drove to campus to be reminded that the library was closed. Drove to south campus to work in the AW mac lab instead. Ate a half a pear in the mac lab during the 6+ hours I was there. Watched Once Upon A Time at 8pm. Made chicken and orzo for dinner.  Ate more carrots. Finished off the box of Trader Joe's cookies I bought 2 days ago. Denied an invitation to lay-up the chassis on the formula car. Fixed my bed just to lie in it. (I intend to yoga ju...

12:34am I've decided that's it's not best or most productive for me to write later than about this time of the night.  Tuesday night got a little crazy--definitely a little out of hand.  And though when I read through those posts, my only thoughts were: "Wow, I can still write cohesively at 3 in the morning!" and "Wow, I can get incredibly carried away" especially when my fingers can manage to keep up with the strings of thoughts as they pass through the ticker in my head that is in charge of motor control. A wordle of Tedtalk Tuesday--Happiness vs. Satisfaction I apologize. I love words. I love having things to say, and multiple ways of saying them.  But sometimes I feel like I should revel more in the beauty of being succinct. Last quarter I took a workshop class where I was required to write critiques for my classmates' work, and in return, they would critique mine.  It was  Kate Trueblood's senior seminar for fiction writing, s...