Category: Musings

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750 Words — Knitting Adventures

First off, no call from Bath and Body Works today, so I can only assume that they were busy and/or still going through checking people’s references. Hopefully they call by tomorrow, and hopefully I get the job so I’m not back on here whining and complaining about not being able to get a job.

It probably doesn’t look like there’s anything missing at first glance.

Today was rather uneventful, but then again, pretty much every day of my life is uneventful. I had planned on going to pick up my Adderall prescription and maybe go down to the Galleria to get my watch fixed at the Fossil store in there. It’s not malfunctioning or anything, it’s just that the decorative ring that denotes the hour, 15-, 30-, and 45-minute marks fell off. (Here’s what it’s supposed to look like.)This happened with the last watch I had — it was the same model, but I got a free replacement watch because one of their store employees derped when changing the battery, which resulted in my watch fogging up. The first time it happened, my boyfriend at the time had just reattached it with epoxy. I’d rather just do the same thing again, but I don’t really do anything that requires epoxy and wouldn’t want to buy some just to fix my watch. At the same time, I feel like even if I brought it to the Fossil store, they either wouldn’t know what to do with it, or the glue that they would use to fix it would only be a temporary fix. I wear my watch pretty much 24/7 and I’m not as kind to my jewelry as I should be, so I’m sure it would just be a matter of time before it fell off again.

I feel like there’s a potentially great watch pun in that last sentence, but I’m not gonna try to force it lol.

This was my first go at the pattern. It doesn’t look bad, but I realized when I was nearly done that I was repeating both the first and second rows for the pattern, when I was only supposed to repeat the second row.

Most of what I did today consisted of catching up on Dodger’s (DexterityBonus) daily “Coffee Time” vlogs while knitting. I had stopped keeping up with all my YouTube subscriptions sometime in February, so I’ve got a lot to catch up on. Thankfully, she started putting her uploads in monthly playlists, which makes it easier to watch and marathon while doing something else.

I felt a bit tired of working on my nephew’s blanket, so I decided to try something new: arm knitting. It’s supposed to work basically the same as regular knitting but with your arms, and projects work up much more quickly because arms are so much bigger compared to knitting needles. I decided to try this triplet shawl that I had pinned on Pinterest a long time ago. Well, after undoing my work 3-4 times, I decided that I’m not really into arm knitting. It’s probably partly because I had trouble dealing with 5 separate strands of yarn (for some reason some of them didn’t unravel from the ball as evenly as the others did), and then I kept ending up with 3 stitches on the last row instead of 2, so I dunno. I finished the project, but I’m not too sure on how it turned out. It might’ve also been the colors I had chosen; they just don’t look as pleasing to me as the various shades of blue that were used in the pattern instructions.

I had some leftover yarn pulled out from the first time I had tried the pattern (and done it wrong), so I decided to crochet a rectangle. I’m not exactly sure what I was planning on making when I started it, but I figured I could maybe make a hotpad — except hot pads are usually square. I often heat dishes up in the microwave to wear they’re too hot to touch when I go to remove them, so for now I’ve decided to use it as a derpy towel/oven mitt type of deal. Otherwise, I think it shows some promise for being a soft washcloth.

I’m really not sure what to think of my handiwork.

All in all, I spent about 3 hours working on this stupid shawl (the crocheted rectangle only took about 20 minutes max). The pattern creator said that arm knitting is amazing for some instant gratification and “it took [her] less than 30 minutes to make [it]”, so that just goes to show how fail this venture was for me. I suppose I should give myself some leeway since I’d never arm knit before, but still. This project took me what, 6 times longer than it should have? Super derp.

So yeah, we’ll see if I’m adventurous enough to try that again, but for now I’ll just stick to regular knitting with needles. Here’s a picture of what the shawl looks like when it’s not draped on me derpily, and here’s a bonus picture of me looking uncertain with derp dog charging in the background.

I tried sleeping on my stomach last night, and I think I was able to fall asleep more quickly in comparison to the past few nights. That may have also been due to me taking this zinc, melatonin, and magnesium combo in addition to my diphenhydramine sleep tablets. I tried lowering my thermostat to 80 Fahrenheit — it was too cold. I had to get up an hour or so after I went to bed to set it back to 83 because it was too cold for me to fall asleep.

That just about sums up my day. Fun fact: I’ve been sitting derpily with my derpy shawl draped around my shoulders even though I’m still not sure whether I like it or not. I keep repositioning it and probably looking all bewildered with an expression that says “I don’t know how to wear this what do I do with it.”

Anyway, I’mma go try to take a quick shower and make a sandwich before Nightmaren starts streaming P4: Golden in 45 minutes. I’ll be back again with a riveting post tomorrow.

DUN.

 

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750 Words — Sleep (Or Lack Thereof)

It’s only 8 PM right now, but I feel rather exhausted. For some reason I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. It takes me a while to fall asleep, and I feel the quality of it isn’t all that great, either. I’m used to this sort of thing happening when I’m on Adderall, but I haven’t taken any for the past month or so because I ran out (picking up the new prescription at the post office tomorrow).

Here’s a picture of Jager. I am never going to be able to get rid of that Maruchan box now. He lies in it way too frequently for me to feel okay with taking it away from him.

I’m probably also tired from stressing out about whether or not I got hired at Bath and Body Works. I feel like it has become stupidly difficult to be hired for entry-level jobs. My sample pool probably isn’t big enough to give reasonable evidence of this, but c’mon, I’m more than capable of putting stuff on shelves according to a diagram, and while talking to people isn’t exactly my forte, I’m pretty decent at it when it’s one-on-one. If it’s because I’m “overqualified” since I have a bachelor’s degree, well that’s just even more frustrating!

Anyway, going back to the topic of sleep, a while back, my sister bought this lavender vanilla pillow mist for me as a gift. It’s an aromatherapy product from Bath and Body Works intended to enhance sleep, and when I went for my job interview at Bath and Body Works yesterday, I noticed they had a whole bunch of other products with that fragrance also; I’m thinking about maybe picking up  a bottle of their lotion in that scent. I don’t recall ever really having had trouble sleeping when not on Adderall, so I’m not sure why it’s being a butt right now. I guess it’s probably stress-related, and maybe I’ve just gotten so used to feeling stressed that I don’t even realize when I’m stressed anymore? In any case, I’ve noticed that when I flop onto the couch on my stomach for a rest, I pass out pretty quickly. I’m usually a side sleeper, but since I’ve spent the last few weeks flopping from side to side when I go to bed at night, I’m willing to try out a new sleep position and see if that does me any good.

In other news, I set up the plugin that automatically tweets when I’ve posted a new blog (Microblog Poster) to also post to my Tumblr. So if any of you came from there, welcome to my blog! I’d warn you that there’s not much of interest here on my site, but you should already know that from looking at my Tumblr.

This is my cute nephew, Owen! This was taken when he was about 2 weeks old — I went to visit him over Easter weekend. I’m just glad I like him lol.

I haven’t really done much today besides stress over my job application to Bath and Body Works and work on my nephew’s baby blanket. Oh, I don’t think I’ve mentioned on here that I’m an aunt now! My nephew, Owen, was born on April 11th. I’m actually going to be his godmother also! (I was really surprised when my sister asked me, so it’s a big deal to me.)

This blanket will probably be my biggest needlecraft project to date. The sweater I made my dad was pretty big, but this blanket shouldn’t be as frustrating since the pattern is so simple. It’ll just take a while to get it to a decent size. I’ll try to post pictures up here regularly to track my progress. (I’ll also post on my Facebook, so those of you who know me on there will see the same pictures.)

I’ve been trying to meditate more often recently, especially at night when I’m having trouble sleeping because I keep stressing out about all the things, but I’ve found knitting to be a pretty meditative activity. Counting and keeping track of rows and stitches keeps my mind focused on one thing, similarly to how in yoga, you’re instructed to focus on your breathing while doing the poses. It’s also nice to do while watching TV shows or gaming streams, since I usually choose fairly simple patterns that don’t require too much attention. I’d say that crocheting is also somewhat meditative, but it requires most of my attention since it’s so much easier to lose track of stitch count. I definitely enjoy knitting more than crocheting, but I still appreciate having the skills to do both. They each have their own projects where one method is more suitable than the other, so being able to do both just gives me that many more projects to choose from. Not that I need more. I still have a half-finished scarf that was supposed to be someone’s birthday gift last year. (They’ll still get it! Eventually . . . )

13.5 hours in, and this is all I have to show for it. I’m not sure whether or not to feel that I’ve gotten a lot done for that amount of time. At least it’s starting to look like a blanket!

I’ve been working on it more often, now that I’ve added “Knitting/Crochet” to my Habits list on HRPG. So every 30 minutes that I work on it, I reward myself, and since it’s already a fairly rewarding task, it’s like DOUBLE THE DOPAMINE. Or something. Ionno. Shameless neuroscience reference? Speaking of neuroscience, I’ve added “Read one ADHD article” to my To Do list since I have that folder of all these scientific articles I found when I first was diagnosed. You’ll probably be able to tell whenever that happens, as the content of my post for that day will most likely talk about it at some point or another.

Well, that’s about all I’ve got to talk about for today. The only other noteworthy thing I did was play Diablo III for an hour. The furthest I’ve played so far is the beginning of the third act (out of 4, and for only one character), so I need to finish that game. Since I originally started playing it with my brother-in-law, I felt like it was a multiplayer game experience thing, even though the previous Diablo games were single-player. Not to mention the fact that the Diablo franchise is kinda RPG-ish.

I’ve been going to sleep around 2 AM the past few nights, so I’m thinking I might be tired enough to pass out before midnight tonight. I’m sure tomorrow you’ll hear about whether sleeping on my stomach was a success or a failure.

Hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday, I’ll be able to blog good news about being hired at Bath and Body Works. Otherwise you’ll probably just get an angry rant about the difficulty in finding a job.

DUN. DUN ALL THE THINGS.

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750 Words — Knowing What’s Important

Maybe with this 750-word daily task I have on HRPG, this blog may become a daily blog type of thing. I don’t think that’s particularly good or bad, but it’s just very different from the usual style and pacing of my blog posts — tl;dr and once every like, 6 months. So it might actually be a good thing overall; there would be content on here in between my really long, more thought-out posts, and since some of my longer posts have half been me just summarizing things up until the current time, those longer posts might not end up so long anymore. Ionno. I feel like I don’t do enough in my daily life to have a daily blog, but I guess I can always just switch over to a brain dump if I have nothing to talk about. If anything, it should provide some insight into my thought processes.

Maybe I should start carrying my camera around more often. At least then I’d actually use it. Plus, it would provide me with some media to insert into my posts so it’s not just a massive wall of text. Of course, I could always use my smartphone (and I’m pretty sure the camera on my phone has more MP than my camera), but my camera is in a perfectly usable state, and I feel bad for leaving it just sitting in a drawer for most of the year. That, and sometimes my phone and laptop don’t play nicely when I try to transfer files between the two through a USB cable.

Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure the majority of such pics would just be of my pets, so consider yourself warned.

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This is the cover of the Python 101 book I backed on Kickstarter. I only purchased the digital version, though now I kinda wish I’d gotten the physical book too.

Hmm, I should also try to do another song cover sometime. I should actually just practice my guitar more often, in general. I’ve added it to my “Habits” list on HRPG, but since it’s not a daily, I’m still letting myself get away with not practicing as much as I should. Same thing goes with learning how to program. That reminds me, I think there was an updated version to the programming book that I supported on Kickstarter. I’ve been dabbling in programming off and on for the past few years (I think the curiosity started when Nightmaren introduced me to Linux way back in freshman year of college), so buying an actual programming book was kinda a way to motivate myself to study it more regularly. I paid money for it, so I should use it, right?!

I’ve noticed I like to use a lot of dashes and parenthetical statements in my sentences. Since I have ADHD, it always annoys me when I come across such things while reading. However, those tend to be references in scientific papers, and so they usually don’t provide any additional insight to the topic being discussed. But when I’m writing a blog or something, I have thoughts interrupting other thoughts so regularly, that there just seems to be no other way around it — and I can’t just leave the interrupting thought out because I consider it to be worth mentioning also.

Speaking of reading scientific/educational texts, eeeeverything seems important when reading educational texts. I’ve started trying to read through the paragraph first to get the gist of what it’s saying, and then go back and highlight relevant information, but it still doesn’t cut down much on what I think should be highlighted. Sometimes I think, “Ohh, this is important because it gives the reason for why the study was performed, so I’ll highlight it. But the following sentence explains why they do this thing in the procedure, so that’s important too, right? Maybe I’ll just highlight it in this other color, then.” “Sometimes” was an understatement. That’s pretty much what I’m thinking all the time when reading through scientific papers. And then with all that multi-colored highlighting the paper is in danger of looking like a rainbow.

I know, I know, bolded words, section headings/titles, things in italics — those are probably things I should highlight. But that just doesn’t feel like enough to me. What usually tends to be the case is that I either highlight nearly everything, or I avoid the stress of trying to figure out what to highlight by just dunning it. I have started to take notes and whatnot in pencil, but it still doesn’t feel like a streamlined and easy process.

Well, that was an unexpected turn of topic. That was kinda fun. Just typing and not planning out what I wanted to say, or agonizing over wording and syntax. This was nice. I hope you readers enjoyed it on some level too, but if you didn’t, well it doesn’t matter (much)! It’s my blog, I write for me, and so I’ll do whatever the heck I want!

That being said, I do appreciate any comments, and thanks for even taking the time to read my blog in the first place. Until next time (maybe even tomorrow?!)~

I feel like I need to have a sign-off on these things. Maybe I’ll just end it with —

DUN IT.

(Fun fact, I just did a numerology thing on my name after reading the inspiration for Balance‘s online handle and this is what I got. How accurate does it sound?)

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750 Words — Habit RPG

It’s been a while since my last post, and that was kinda a cheat post since it was copy-pasta’d from my Tumblr.

So I’ve recently come across an app called Habit RPG (click here for Apple version) to aid in my efforts to building better habits and getting rid of bad ones to work around my ADHD. I’ve tried a similar app before, but it wasn’t quite so fleshed out, and didn’t have a reward or punishment system, so there wasn’t much incentive to complete the tasks I’d put on the list. There also was no social aspect, and while I’m not a social person in general, Habit RPG (HRPG) has a very supportive social community; plus I’m trying to work on my socializing skills anyway.

I was pretty skeptical myself, but it has worked surprisingly well for me in the two or three weeks that I’ve been using it. You earn gold and silver for completing tasks, and use that to purchase rewards (which you can set for yourself). In addition, once you reach level 10, you can pick a class. There are guilds, and you can create/join parties to take on quests. Completing tasks does damage to the bosses in the quest, while missing an item on your dailies list results in everyone in your party taking damage. Each class has specific skills that come into play when fighting bosses, so the developers have really done a good job into making HRPG feel like an actual game.

The reason why I’m actually writing this post is because I took up a challenge in one of the guilds I’m in (you can join multiple), where one writes 750 words a day. The challenge described it as just having a 750 word brain dump session before the user gets onto actually writing the stuff they want to write for the day, but I’ll probably use it to help me write the thoughtful, planned out blogs that I usually post as well. Besides, it’d probably get tiring to see a 750 word post of senseless rambling every day. Or maybe you guys would find it amusing, I dunno.

750 words is turning out to be a lot more writing than I expected (approximately 3 pages, as per the task instruction). I might have to tweak it to be shorter, otherwise this might devolve quickly. Then again, the point of the task is to just type thoughts freely as a warm-up exercise, I suppose, so really, I might be defeating the purpose of the challenge by trying to actually write something meaningful. I guess I’ll stop the directed thoughts right here and instead type up my uncensored, scattered thoughts for the remainder of my 750-word quota.

——————————————————————–

Here we go, okay. What should I type. Gosh, stop thinking about things to talk about and just type, already. Blah. Oh, people are talking in the HERPco Haven chat. Ahh, Ang thinks she’ll get to 110 for this SCQ event. I’ll be lucky if I can make it to 100. I really want the 100 level demon. She’s pretty and has a good skill, plus I need more 5* demons for my CQ team. It’s a shame that Hand of God has rather low stats and a low trigger rate for her skill, but I guess what else can you expect for the level 80 demon? Especially since more free players can get there, and Zynga would rather people have to pay in order to obtain the good cards.

Can’t believe I’m talking about AGG here, and that I’m thinking about it so much. But I guess that’s to be expected — it’s become a pretty big part of my life since I joined the +Anima guild in March. +Anima was a pretty good manga. I should reread it sometime. What what, in the butt. Fusk, I hate Dennis for showing me that song. Not that I necessarily dislike it, it had a pretty catchy beat in it, but I mean, it’s talking about butt sex. :/

Besides, it also reminds me of the Rick Roll, and while I also do not dislike that song, the what what song isn’t something I want to remember. And now I cry sometimes when I’m lying in bed, to something something all up that’s in my head, aiii! I don’t know the lyrics to that song, but thas fine. I doubt many do. Makes me think of Cameron every time lol, though I guess I made that association concrete myself by making that song his ringtone. And now I’m thinking of Jinkan no Tanaka, which just reminds me of Nightmaren. Jinkan no Tanaka is also really catchy lol. Can’t remember what ringtone I have set for Churrrlie, though I remember at one point it was the theme for the wise owl in Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask. Oh look, 793 words, I can stop now yayyyyy.

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Phineas Gage

So I’ve been studying for my neuroanatomy final for tomorrow. One of the topics covered in this unit is the functions of the various cerebral cortices. Higher-order function cortices, to be specific.

I have ADHD, which involves an impairment in the prefrontal cortex (PFC).

So while reviewing the slides on the PFC, I get to where we talk about results of lesions to specific areas of the PFC.

I mean, I was already aware of most of this stuff.

But then I saw the name “Phineas Gage” in my notes. He’s the go-to example for what can happen to a person after receiving damage to the orbitofrontal area (OFC) of the PFC.

And then it hit me – I’m ADHD = I have an impaired PFC = I have an impaired OFC = I’M FUSKING PHINEAS GAGE.

I know, it’s pretty obvious, but for some reason I didn’t make the connection until now. And I guess it just stunned me because in general, society doesn’t seem to take ADHD diagnoses very seriously. “It’s overdiagnosed”, “you’re just using it as an excuse to be lazy”, “you faked the diagnosis so you could get the Adderall”, etc. And most are only aware of its effects in an academic setting.

I was only diagnosed about a year and a half ago, and I still sometimes question whether I truly have it, or if I’ve just convinced myself that I do. So I guess suddenly comparing myself to a well-known patient who received damage to the same area in which I have an impairment just made me realize the potential severity of problems that people with ADHD can have.

Ironically, it’s comforting. Of course, I’ll still beat myself up over making impulse purchases, playing video games (or blogging on Tumblr) when I should be studying, being unable to control my temper, not being able to study unless when procrastinating (if even then), spending an hour on an email that should only take 10 minutes max, etc.

But it’s nice to be reassured that my problems aren’t insignificant, that I’m not a failure at life because I’m having so much difficulty doing things that other people do easily or out of habit (e.g., eating regular meals, doing the dishes, taking a shower, getting out of the fusking bed). It’s nice to be able to give myself proof that I have good reason to feel bad about myself.

Wait wat. That last sentence makes sense on some level, I know it does! :<

And of course, this post that was only supposed to take like 10-15 minutes ended up taking an hour (or more?) because ADHD. WOOT.

If anyone’s curious, here’s the link to the paper I used for those paragraph images about Phineas Gage and the OFC. And yes, those of you who came from my twitter, I made a post from the thing I tweeted like an hour ago.

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A Sound Soul Dwells Within a Sound Mind and a Sound Body

 

I got this as a tattoo in December (2013) to remind myself that I need to care for myself both mentally and physically.

 

The title of this post (and the line in the image above) are a quote taken from the Soul Eater manga. It’s a central theme, and in the anime, this line is repeated at the beginning of each episode. I was first introduced to the series during my senior year of high school which was – holy crap – 5  years ago.

I had always appreciated the holistic perspective that this sentence presents regarding one’s well-being, but when I was diagnosed with ADHD and first starting medication for it about a year and a half ago, it became a sort of mantra. Since I was (and still am) prescribed Adderall, I had difficulty sleeping and a suppressed appetite due to the side effects. I still experience those even now, but to a lesser extent — and those first few weeks (or was it months?) were especially rough. In this post, where I first revealed my diagnosis and the sleep/appetite troubles I was having, I even stated that “[s]eeing as a healthy diet, good night’s sleep, and regular exercise are essential in maintaining good health for normal people, the same goes for people suffering from a [mental] disorder.” (Also, wtf, “revealed”? This isn’t some magic show, self.)

Well, I don’t exercise any more than I did back then (i.e., not at all), I’m doing fairly well at maintaining a consistent sleep schedule — or at least, I have been for the past few weeks — and while I still don’t eat as much as I should, at least my weight loss has finally plateaued. In terms of taking care of myself, I haven’t really improved much. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve made much headway on being productive, either. At least, not for my own sake. I’ve known this for a while, but I’m much better at caring for myself and being productive when it’s for someone else.

I never would have expected to spend so much time on a trading card game.

Which explains why I went so overboard with making spreadsheets and stuff for a guild I joined at the end of February. Seeing as it’s really the first guild I’ve ever been in, I’m still astonished at how much time and effort I’ve put into it, especially since it’s a phone game. I’ve mentioned once before how I always found it difficult to connect with people the few times I played MMOs, in spite of the anonymity that should theoretically allow me to look and act however I want. Apparently I’m as bad at talking to people online as I am in real life.

But I guess I’m not as bad as I once was. I seem to have gained some self-confidence, since it’s become easier to befriend people than it used to be. I’m more laid-back and easy-going than before — and if you’ve only recently met me and think I’m neither of these, then just imagine how bad I must’ve been in the past. I’m sure that holding an officer position during senior year in a student organization with a flamboyant president who has a flair for trolling — and just having them as one of my closest friends for 4 years — played a large part in that. But I feel that the majority of this progress was a result of coming to terms with having ADHD, and thereby being able to understand myself better from that perspective. Having become more accepting of myself in light of that, I’m more comfortable with the idea of talking about my personal shortcomings and struggles. This is partly to reassure others who are having similar difficulties, as well as to hopefully find a self-improvement partner who will keep me accountable and provide encouragement (and I the same for them). Because trying to bootstrap your way to a better you just doesn’t work when you have a bunch of things you want to improve.

And I think this is why I’ve become surprisingly close to a few of the people in my guild. One thing we all seem to have in common is our low self-esteem. We are all self-deprecating, and it makes me so sad when they talk that way. Having done the same thing many times, both on this blog and IRL, I know how mean we can be to ourselves sometimes. When we talk about each other, we focus on the good qualities the other has, but we are reluctant to let ourselves believe each others’ words, because “they haven’t seen how [insert negative adjective here] I am.”

So my main purpose in writing this post is to tell us all to stop listening to ourselves when we’re in the dumps and have only derogatory marks to say. Because we’re wrong! Everyone has their off days, and we’re not as lowly as we think we are. The things we dislike about ourselves, we can change. It’ll probably be hard as fusk, but it’s possible, and I’ll help in any way I can. And don’t even try to convince yourself that you’re not good at anything, because we’ve all shown that we, at the very least, have the capacity to care a great deal about others. The ability to accept and appreciate each other in spite of each others’ faults. And if your low self-esteem is anything like mine, you feel bad for making others worry about you, but feel glad that they do, and then feel bad that you feel glad about someone worrying about you.

So don’t make me worry about you, and just listen to me when I say that you’re better than you think you are.

Believe in me who believes in you.

And if all that was too tl;dr to read, then I think Pink sums it up perfectly.

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Is This a Cop-Out?

It’s been a few months since I posted my last (public) blog post, so I suppose it’s about time that I made a new one. I kinda cheated on this one, though, since it’s mostly a copy-pasta of a message I sent to someone I’m subscribed to on YouTube. To be fair, I spent a lot of time on it; then again, I can spend an hour writing an email that should take 10 minutes.

The content of the message isn’t really anything new in regards to myself. As for the person it was sent to, that would be David So. He is a comedian on YouTube who posts weekly vlogs; one of his new year’s resolutions is to become fit, and so he’s started a series of fitness vlogs for accountability.

Like usual, my message was intended to be short, but turned into a wall-of-text. I’m not really one to interact with people on the internet. As one friend put it, I use the internet, but I’m not really a part of it. Commenting on videos (or anything, for that matter) is pretty rare for me, so sending messages to people I don’t know IRL — that’s like a once-in-a-blue-moon type of event. Anyway, the most recent fitness vlog should provide you with a more fleshed-out idea of why I felt compelled to randomly message someone I don’t know on the internets.

 

 

 

“A sound soul dwells within a sound mind and a sound body.” This quote has kind of become my motto, and I think it really fits with the theme of this week’s FFF. In order to feel good or be happy about oneself, you have to be both mentally and physically healthy.

 

Humans don’t come in just one body type, so being fit isn’t going to look the same for everyone. Mental and physical health affect each other more than people probably realize, and for that reason, I especially admire that you chose not to focus on weight changes in defining your fitness goal.

 

My motivation to become fit actually comes from a desire to be more mentally healthy. Towards the end of college, I was diagnosed with ADHD; I think one reason why it wasn’t obvious during my childhood is because I played sports, and my parents always made sure I ate properly. In college, on the other hand, I didn’t eat healthily, nor did I exercise regularly. Looking at it that way, it’s no wonder that my brain suddenly wasn’t able to effectively manage life.

 

Medication helped a little bit, but due to the side effects, I wasn’t eating enough and lost a lot of weight. The severity of it didn’t hit me until even the act of getting out of bed took considerable effort and energy. And by then, taking medication was pointless since I was so fatigued.

 

After a few weeks of not taking my medication, I’ve managed to gain some weight back. Over the past year or so, I’ve gone to counseling for strategies to work with my ADHD, and to address my low self-esteem issues that could inhibit my progress. By increasing my physical health, I hope that I’ll eventually be able to wean myself off of medication once I’ve established the mental strategies to overcome the challenges my ADHD presents.

 

I have been subscribed to your channel for a long while (I think, maybe from the beginning?!), and I have always appreciated the food-for-thought that you so deftly incorporate into your videos. You are funny, open-minded, and insightful, but not above acting like a fool, or afraid of admitting that you have faults. For those reasons, you are relatable; so when you say that we’re all capable of achieving our goals, people believe you.

 

I guess the point of this message is this: seeing your determination and dedication to overcome something that has been a defining characteristic for a majority of your life encourages and motivates me to be just as persistent in my struggle.

 

David, thank you for all the laughs and life lessons. Watching your videos is something I always look forward to. You’ve got my support, and I look forward to seeing you reach your goal(s).

 

– Praxis

 

P.S. Sorry for the wall of text — it started out as a comment, but it apparently wanted to be an essay instead.

 

All right, so maybe it wasn’t as much of a wall-of-text as I thought, but it sure looked like one in that tiny text-entry box on YouTube.

In other news, I’ve started practicing guitar again, so maybe one day I’ll serenade you — except the guitar will probably drown out my weak singing voice. I’ve also kinda been wanting to do some vlogging, so we’ll see whether or not I’ve gotten markedly better at “public” speaking.

Ummmm, I’ve also got this photo-blog thing on Blipfoto. I know, I know. I’ve already got this blog, why did I make a photo-blog on some other website? Ionno, it’s proven to be slightly easier to keep up with than a traditional blog. Maybe since each post on there is associated with a photo, it keeps me from over-thinking things. And since most of my posts are done from my phone, that also keeps me from writing tons of unnecessary stuff.

Also, also, did you notice? I finally figured out how to center embedded YouTube videos. I’m so pro at blogging.

Well, it’s 5:20 in the morning, so I think it’s safe to say I’ll be skipping class today. Wheee~

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I’m a Scientist, Not a Doctor.

After spending most of August cramming for my second retake of the infamous MCAT, life as a grad student has been pretty. . . lazy? I know I have lots of stuff I could be working on for classes, but it’s hard maintaining a grip on time when each class only meets one a week. And considering that I already have difficulty with that as is, it’s probably fairly safe to say that grad school is totally throwing me for a loop.

I’ve only just realized that it’s time to start registering for spring classes, and that was because the administrative assistant of my grad program kindly sent out an email informing grad students of if, along with the necessary forms we’d need to fill out in order to register for classes next semester.
 Safe to say I was completely surprised, and I’m still not sure I’ve accepted this information.

Gotta love thinkgeek.com
A friend gave me this research as a birthday present. It is easily one of my favorite shirts now. In fact, I’m wearing this shirt RIGHT NOW (while writing this blog).

 So I’ve been kinda MIA for a few months. My summer was pretty busy — graduation stuff, visiting home because we discovered that my dad had prostate cancer (luckily, we found it in the early stages, and he was able to have it surgically removed), and cramming (again) for the MCAT.

I’m sure you’ve noticed the title for this blog by now (if you hadn’t already — should’ve been the first thing you read, right?), and you might be wondering what that means. After all, didn’t I just say that I spent part of my summer cramming for the MCAT? The SOP for my application to the master’s program even said that I was planning on entering med school following completion of the program, so I obviously was pre-med and wanted to be a doctor. There it is. Was. I was pre-med, and I wanted to be a doctor. Past tense.

I briefly mentioned in my last vlog that I started working in a lab at the end of the spring semester. Maybe if my summer had been less busy (I was driving from Dallas to Brenham practically every week in June), I would’ve noticed sooner that I really enjoyed working in a lab. Well, that lab in particular, but working in that lab also made me realize exactly how much I love learning about neuroscience. Apparently I love it more than helping people. Or, at least, more than helping people in a career where I’d undoubtedly be full of self-doubt and always wondering if I could’ve done this, or should’ve done that. I wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of residency and working long hours. Yeah, the nuggets of happiness and fulfillment that come from seeing that you’ve made a difference in someone’s life are amazing, but I don’t think I have the type of personality that’s able to withstand the emotionally taxing aspects of being in medicine. I already make sure that my self-esteem stays kinda low, I don’t need all of that stress to make it even lower. I just know that I’d be the type of doctor who lets medicine completely take over her life, always stressing about her patients and being unable to maintain a healthy distance from it. As someone who intends to have a family at some point in the future, that’s not fair to anyone.

In retrospect, reading this book probably also helped me decide to go for a PhD. It’s fiction, but the stories are all based on the author’s med school experience. It’s a quick, easy, and well-written read, so I recommend you at least check it out. (Clicking on the image will take you to the author’s blog post for her book.)

I guess the bottom line was that I couldn’t see myself as being truly happy if I were to pursue medicine as a career. I don’t think  I would dislike it necessarily, but I too easily see myself being perpetually stressed about patients, or not being able to spend time with my family for a birthday or holiday because I was unable to request the day off. If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I already have trouble maintaining a healthy balance between work and personal life, so I’m sure I would be much worse at it as a (medical) doctor. I know I’d burn myself out.

So I’ve spent a majority of this semester just hashing that whole thought-process out, making sure the idea of pursuing a PhD wasn’t attractive just because it was novel. I’m still trying to convince myself that I’m not “running” from medicine as a career, or that I’m too weak-willed to overcome the rigors of medical school. Part of the strategy for that is telling myself that it takes some degree of strength to face these faults and make the decision that’s right for you.

Anyway, if that all was a little tl;dr for you, here’s a nice, quick, bullet-point list giving the main reasons for me deciding to go for a PhD instead of an MD/DO.

Why I chose PhD over MD :

  • I love neuroscience.
  • Studies are more self-directed. (I learn what I want. Meaning neuroscience. Just neuroscience.)
  • If I work as a TA/RA during my PhD studies, it covers my tuition and gives me some extra to live off of. (I can lessen the financial burden on my parents.)
  • Work hours are more flexible. (I work when I want.)
  • Medicine is still an option after finishing my PhD.

I will say that I’ve been pretty happy since making the decision to pursue a PhD, and that I’ve also been much more proactive in finding out what I need to do to apply to PhD programs than I ever was for the med school application process. Now I need to work on getting myself focused on classes again, as well as establishing a more healthy lifestyle and getting back up to a healthy weight. ‘Cause holy heeby-geebies, I’ve really lost a lot of weight since starting Adderall last fall. It didn’t hit me how big the amount was until I found myself spending consecutive days mainly in bed because I didn’t have the energy to do anything else. In fact, I missed my class last Monday because I got nauseous whenever I got up or even sat up for any length of time. Even lying in bed was getting tiresome. At one point I fell asleep on my bedroom floor. Using a 3-skein yarn pack as a pillow. Yep.

I’ve been alternating days off of Adderall this past week, and I’ve found myself eating so much/often that I’m thinking about adding a “mad-munchies” category to The Watch Glass where I document all the stuff I’ve eaten that day. (I’ve actually kinda been doing that already through the Android app for Blipfoto. Maybe I’ll just stick with that. Also, I have way too many different social website accounts.) I also started counseling again through my university’s counseling center (12 sessions/year are included in the tuition), so hopefully I’ll be able to get myself back on track. I’ve definitely seen an increase in motivation to do mundane things (like cook for myself lols) since my mad-munchies fest, so that’s a good sign.

Note to self: don’t ever vlog again while driving. What are you, stupid?

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Negatives of Medicine

Disclaimer (10/28/13): I wrote up this list sometime during the spring semester (after a related Journey Into Medicine class lecture), but had planned on fleshing it out more before posting it. Now that I’ve decided to pursue a PhD, I’m publishing it as-is, and also post-dating it to the last time I had edited it.

  • Stress levels in med school, residency
  • Expectation to appear professional at all times, to ALWAYS look put-together
  • Inevitable meltdown(s)
  • Crying = weak
    • Gender double-standards
  • Expectation to deal with problems on our own
    • But then work as part of a team to care for patients
    • “Every man for himself”, self-centered culture
      • Discourages asking for help
      • Unwillingness to do something for another person if there’s no personal gain
    • Expectation by patients and fellow doctors (society as a whole) to prioritize work over all else, even to disregard personal health save for extreme debilitating circumstances
      • Because any work you don’t get done = more work for someone else
      • Or lose revenue from appointment cancellations because you’re out sick
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The Blog Where I Try to Make My Life Sound Interesting

All right, here’s the outline of what’s sure to be a tl;dr post. (There was originally more to the outline but then my tl;dr post was becoming too tl;dr and I had to break it up because I’m fail.) Summary:

  • End of fall semester
  • Winter break
    • WoW all day every day
  • Start of spring semester

So in my last post, I was all conflicted about whether I truly have ADHD, or if I just convinced myself that I do, which then caused me to subconsciously adopt behaviors indicative of ADHD. I spent the last few weeks of the semester kinda out of it, probably. I continued to experiment with Adderall dosages, which also means that I was subject to its side effects also (mainly loss of appetite and trouble sleeping). Which meant that I didn’t eat enough — and I already have poor eating habits — nor did I sleep enough. I also suddenly had to deal with another health issue that cropped up; I got medicine for it. Like the Adderall, it suppressed my appetite, but what’s worse is that it did not play well with the Adderall at all. After two days of trying to take the two medications together and feeling completely nauseated and miserable, I decided to hold off on the Adderall until I finished the other medicine (10 days or something like that). The best part is that it didn’t even fix my problem! (Which resolved itself over winter break.) Anyhow, with all that going on, I don’t know how I managed to get A’s in all my courses. Some were A-‘s, but I had expected to get a B+ or something in those anyway, so I’m very pleased with how my semester ended.

Brad apparently wants me to be more acquainted with alcohol.

My last final was during the week before Christmas, so I don’t think I got home until the 22nd or so. Christmas didn’t really feel like Christmas this year. Christmas Eve with the extended family didn’t have the festive vibe compared to previous years. Apparently the explanation as to why Christmas didn’t feel like Christmas needed to be a post of it’s own. It’s all about my family’s dynamics (password: “family”). Anyway, I had 3 weeks for winter break. The first week I spent at my parents’ house because they had the week off on holiday. I remember watching lots of movies, and then some post-Christmas shopping at the mall (to look for good deals and presents for my dad’s birthday in January). The second week was spent at my sister’s house in Austin, most of which was spent playing WoW with her and Brad. On New Year’s Eve, we played pretty much until midnight — or I did, since I’d just gotten a one month subscription because it was being offered super cheap that weak and needed to lvl up my toons to where they could take main-story quests. And then I went back to lvling up my toon while Brad played some D3 and my sister fell asleep.

Living it up on New Year’s Eve playing WoW in the footie pajamas my sister gave me for Christmas.

The last week was spent back at my parents’ house. During Thanksgiving, my mom had requested that I make a beanie and scarf for my dad’s Christmas present. I wasn’t able to do that in time for Christmas and had to give him something else. Luckily, my dad’s birthday is in January, so I had a second chance. Since his birthday was after the start of classes, my mom also wanted to celebrate his birthday before I left. Since I was on break and had so much free time, I was in charge of making a cake and wrapping the presents. We (I) planned on celebrating the Friday before classes started, to give me as much time as possible to finish the scarf. Now, I’d managed to knit the hat during all the movie-watching the first week of my break. I’d started the scarf, but obviously didn’t make much progress during the week spent at my sister’s house. I worked on it somewhat on Monday and Tuesday, though most of Monday night was spent obsessing over finding a way to get my dad’s cheapo brand LED TV to work with his outdated surround sound system. Due to overnight shipping being unexpectedly and exorbitantly expensive, Wednesday morning I had to pick up my sister’s wedding invitations in Houston, then drive to Austin that same day to help her assemble them since Brad was visiting his family out-of-state. I planned on driving back to my parents’ house on Friday.

Not too shabby-looking! Especially since it was the first time I'd ever decorated a cake.
Not too shabby-looking! Especially since it was the first time I’d ever decorated a cake.

We definitely didn’t work on invitations Wednesday night; I think we just watched movies until we fell asleep, and I spent most of that time working on my dad’s scarf. I’m sure we didn’t get up until sometime in the afternoon on Thursday, and we didn’t start working on the invitations until close to midnight. Or maybe a little after. We finished them a lot faster than we expected — within 2-3 hours. I think it was because we had FRIENDS running on the TV while we worked. Which we then sat and watched until we fell asleep once we were done. Or my sister did, at least. I went back to working mindlessly on my dad’s scarf. Thankfully the FRIENDS dvd automatically starts playing the episodes after a certain amount of time on the menu screen, otherwise I would’ve gone crazy listening to the theme song repeat over and over. Around 5 or 6 in the morning, I stopped knitting and took a quick nap, after having nodded off while knitting so many times before. My progress was frustratingly slower than expected and it was Friday and I was supposed to go home that day and I still had to bake and decorate a cake and what the heck how am I supposed to do all of this stuff —

IMG_20130111_213920
My dad opening his birthday presents — stuffed in a shoebox that had recently held a newly-bought pair of boots. After wearing the hat and scarf for a while, he said that they made him feel hot. My mom was like, “Good! Then they’ll keep you warm outside too.”

But I managed somehow. I left my sister’s house a lot later than I’d planned, but I managed to finish the cake and the scarf without either turning out too ugly. Sped the 1.5 hours home and ate dinner with my parents, who lovingly waited for me so that we could all eat together. And then I went back out to my car to sneak in the cake and scarf without my dad noticing. Needless to say, the presents weren’t wrapped, but it’s just paper and we only had Christmas paper anyway. Aaghhhhh why do I fail at summaries? Like anyone really cared to know all those little details. I write for forever. I JUST HAVE SO MUCH TO BLOG ABOUT BECAUSE I HAVE NOBODY TO TALK TO. ;; So, beginning of spring semester. I got an internship at a hospice where I basically am a volunteer whose only responsibility is to be friends with the hospice patients. I’m in an MCAT class and I’m supeeeeerrrrrr behind on homework and stuff. Meaning that I haven’t started. My car had a sudden weird breakdown a month ago involving brake calipers and overheating causing a failsafe to kick in that shut down my engine and there was some huge rats nest in my engine and I’m finally taking it to the dealership tomorrow but have been driving it sparingly since that incident and it’s like noooormmmaallll. But apparently it’s total bs for my car to have had that problem since it’s a 2009 model and those problems are power-train related and are supposed to be covered for like 100,000 miles and my car’s only around 35,000. Oh wow, look at how quickly that devolved I’ve been up for 36 hours run on sentences forever. And there was this one night that it snowed and I was like “Oh shi–” and went back into a knitting frenzy to make beanies for my friends that were supposed to have been their Christmas presents for like 2010. And then the weather got all warm like it was trolling me and this semester was supposed to be easy but it’s not and I’m losing my marbles. More reasons contributing to loss of marbles to be covered in next blog post.