it's all in the mind

whenever i hear that phrase i think of this:

i love that movie :)

     anyways, i wanted to talk about meditation. i grew up with parents talking to me a lot about auras, chakras, and meditation. they would be meditating on the ground and i would sit next to them with my legs tied up like pretzels, trying my hardest to think about nothing. i was never any good at it. when i asked my mom why it was so hard she just said it would get easier with age. well, i'm 29 years old and when i try to have a blank mind, that's when i have the petulant brain of a caged monkey on Ritalin. it's probably even harder now than when i was a kid.

Lies, I tell you! Lies!!!

     just before i started grad school i was taking a yoga class at csuf twice a week. the guy was very sweet and spiritual. he would try, occasionally, to lead us in a meditation at the end of class. the ones where we were just supposed to stare at a spot on the carpet and think of nothing went the worst. i always have a song in my head. and if it is the rare occasion that i don't and i notice that i don't, then like an ipod set to shuffle a random song pops into my head and it's impossible to get it out. every ridiculous thought i could have comes to me when i'm trying to clear my mind. it's like i'm mocking myself. "i can't believe i thought i could meditate. soon i'll think i can exercise regularly and eat healthy. pffft!"
     the meditations where we were visualizing something went better. but he kept using imagery that didn't work for me. He'd say, "you're in a calm lake," and i was always like, "no i'm not." i would try and it wouldn't work. eventually i would give up and just see dance in my head that would go to the song that was stuck in my head. it's still calming, but not what i was going for.
     i would do the best with chakra meditations. i think because my parents had taught me some since i was little: visualizing healing light filling my body, pretending that black smoke was leaving my lungs (which symbolized all the negative energy inside me). i even would use it at school. way back in high school i started visualizing my body being filled with radiant gold light before a test. i don't know if at actually changed anything, but it calmed me down and put me in the right state of mind to take the test.
     the first time my yoga teacher had us do a heart chakra meditation, it was incredible. focusing all that energy on my heart and visualizing it glowing with beautiful pale green light that emanated outwards just felt amazing. i was giddy for the rest of the day. it was probably one of the best days of my life and yet that is the only thing i can remember about it. everywhere i went i was smiling and felt so filled with love. i was so happy every time he had us do that meditation.
     i did it occasionally at home after that. one time i was visualizing the light growing and growing till it went beyond the planet and into the whole universe. i then had an image in my mind of every person on the planet emanating radiant loving energy till we swimming in it and our hearts were connected so that you couldn't tell where one person's light ended and another person's began. every person on the planet, joining together and glowing with loving energy that filled the universe. it was lovely and it filled me with hope.
     i know it's hard to feel love for every person. people to bad things, make mistakes, and lose sight of the good in them. but i think god has more love, understanding, and forgiveness than we could ever imagine. the best we can do is try to feel that for each other. fill our hearts with love and send it out to everyone.
     it's easy to get caught up in the stresses of life. i've been doing it a lot lately. but i want to try and do this meditation once a week from now on. i want to feel love for no reason because i know i really do have plenty of reason.
   

soft and squishy

     i have a big music library and i constantly make new playlists. so to keep things interesting i often put certain playlists into rotation while avoiding others at any given time. lately i've been listening to a rock playlist a lot. it's fun but it doesn't really help me relax at the end of a long day of summer school. and these particular teachers are very good at giving me tension headaches. so i started listening to an old playlist called "soft and squishy." it really does the trick. if you are stressed and need a little musical help (and have Spotify) i recommend checking it out.

those silly kardashians

    so i do watch Keeping Up With The Kardashians. i don't always know why. obviously, tv is an escape and watching someone else's family deal with all their drama can make me feel better about myself and all the crap i deal with regularly. but sometimes the sheer stupidity does bug the crap out of me. i know lots of people think that it is all fake and scripted, and sometimes i hope for their sake that it is because they occasionally make the worst decisions and biggest mistakes. i can't comprehend it sometimes.
     there are lots of random things that they do that bug me and make me glad i'm not related to them. the fact they they often drive without wearing seat-belts really bothers me. the way they shorten words unnecessarily or say "bible" to let the other person know that they aren't lying is so annoying. and then the way they treat eachother: playing pranks on each other or "teaching someone a lesson," makes me really glad they aren't family. plus they have terrible communication skills and often can't have an affective heart-to-heart with each other without yelling and saying horrible things first. but when they make terrible, life-ruining mistakes i really wanna smack them around for awhile.
    so i just saw an episode with Kris and Bruce having lots of drama in their relationship. weeks prior Kris had run into her ex boyfriend and he really wanted to meet up with her to talk and she decided not to because she didn't want to hurt Bruce. In this episode, Bruce runs into the ex-supermodel Angie Everheart at a golf course and they decide to play a round of golf together. this turns into a regular game because Bruce is enjoying the company of a woman that doesn't constantly nag him and yell at him like his wife does. so Kris decides to follow him one time with Kim and sees him flirting a little with Angie as they play golf. She gets all upset and plans a meeting with her ex. at the end of the episode you see the beginning of her dinner with her ex where they are drinking wine and he is whispering in her ear about how much he has missed her over the years.
    how big of an idiot do you have to be to not see that dinner and drinks with an ex is much worse and could lead to way more terrible mistakes than playing golf with an attractive friend? you can't even get that intimate when playing golf but drinks and sitting side-by-side with an ex as he whispers in your ear can lead to bad things really fast. and if you go down that road of "well if he's gonna do tha,t then i'm gonna do this," before you know it you have convinced yourself that he is cheating so then you cheat on him when all he is doing is playing golf and giggling with some nice attractive person. i understand being hurt. i wouldn't want my husband playing golf everyday with an ex-supermodel. but i would just ask him to put himself in my shoes and try and limit the friendly games to once a month. i wouldn't have dinner with an ex behind his back. i can't imagine this not blowing up in her face. she is such a drama queen and man is she gonna get some drama this time.
     i do occasionally worry about younger girls watching the show and looking up to them. they don't have careers that anyone can have. they basically are paid to just show up and they have businesses thanks to the family money they were born with. only one of them is in a healthy marriage, Khloe,  and she isn't exactly the poster child of healthy communication either. i know the drama they create makes for "good television" because watching a healthy family communicate and spend time with each other would be too uneventful to put on tv. but shouldn't there be more examples on tv of healthy, happy, mature adults leading lives that you would want your kids to have so that you are glad they are looking up to them? the most important role models are a person's parents, but shouldn't tv help a little bit instead of always showing what not to do? i know this has all been said before, but man did that last episode annoy me. i had to take a break half way thru to get away from all the bitching. ugh.

and yes, i will keep watching. damn kardashians.

celebrity crushes

     i still remember my first celebrity crush. i think i was in 3rd grade or something, and i had a huge crush on Jonathon Taylor Thomas from Home Improvement. he was about my age, cute, and i thought he was really funny on that show. i think i even wrote him some dorky fan letter at some point. ah, those were the days.

     obviously, that was a long time ago and my crush is over. i've had many over the years, i doubt i can even remember them all. One of the big ones i had in my early twenties was John Mayer. i found him attractive, i was into his music at the time, and whenever i saw him on interviews he seemed to have a pretty good sense of humor. that crush has also waned over the years. partially because i just haven't been feeling his music lately. but i also don't think this hat has helped him to stay on my list of crushes :)

     not long ago i started crushing on Zachary Levi. he had a tv show i loved called Chuck. it was a really fun show where he played a dork turned spy. i loved his character, he was to sweet, dorkie, and funny. Zac started a company called The Nerd Machine (thenerdmachine.com) and they go to Comic Con  every year. i wish i could actually go cuz he meets his fans and plus Comic Con would just be awesome. but i always have fucking school keeping me busy. i still think he just has the sweetest smile.

and then this is just fantastic

   my most recent crush is on someone more often heard than seen. he is Josh Robert Thompson and he is the voice of Geoff Peterson, the robot sidekick on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. he is also known for his impressions including Morgan Freeman. he is very funny on the late late show and is entertaining to follow on twitter. i was very surprised the first time i saw what he looked like. he's so much younger and cuter than i was expecting.

     it's nice to have a crush on a celebrity. i find these crushes pop up when i don't have anyone i'm crushing on in real life. if i'm not dating anyone or flirting with anyone, or if i'm in some sort of social situation where i just don't get to see a cute guy i like regularly then i end up getting one. it gives me someone to daydream about. and i do love to daydream about guys. it's fun thinking about how we could meet, what fun things we could do, and places we could go. and it's all much more entertaining than listening to lectures for 6 to 8 hours a day.
 
so the next time you're out having a drink, like katie and i did last night :

(sangria time!!!)

say a toast to your celebrity crushes and for all the smiles they have given you over the years.

study break

do you need one too? well here you go!

these are definitely my favorite youtube videos. enjoy!!!

these days

     i hate days like this. i'm so sluggish. i can't bring myself to do anything. i miss how i felt in undergrad. i don't remember being this tired back then, or having so little desire to do the work i need to do for school. i should have more desire now that i'm in grad school learning how to do what i want to do. and i had that energy at first. i hit the ground running. but now i feel like i'm barely keeping up.
     i know that the symptoms for ADHD include this feeling of not being able to start the work and get going. but i never had it so bad before. when i'm under a lot of stress like during a test my ADHD and reading disorder can get really bad. sometimes i have to read the same sentence over 5 times. but can sustained levels of stress that have been caused by just being in grad school be the cause of these other symptoms? can it be the cause of why i lack the energy to do work i would have been happy to do 2 years ago?
     i was hoping to see my psychiatrist this summer to talk about my options as far as medicine for days like this. but of course i waited too long and now she is on break till august something, which is after summer school is over. and summer school is such a short and intense period. 3 classes in 5 weeks. doesn't seem right. before the end of every school day i have been having these really bad tension headaches. i come home and feel so shitty i can't bring myself to do all the work i need to do. next week is our third week and we already have midterms. that's just crazy to me.
     i know that i could probably decrease some of this crappy feeling by eating better and exercising regularly and blah, blah, blah. but i feel too shitty to start. i don't have the energy to cook some amazing and healthy meal. i don't have the energy to exercise and it's so damn  hot in my apartment during the day that it probably isn't wise anyways. and somedays, like today, i barely have the energy to get out of bed. ugh, i hate these days.

adorable baby videos

my friend's baby is cuter than your friend's baby!

baby gibberish:

her monster voice and adorable face:

and the first time i made her laugh:

just a silly song and some goofy faces and i got her to make the best sound :) love this baby girl and i love watching her grow up. she just gets cuter every day.