on a clean room

someone really smart once told me that the state of your desk/room is the state of your mind.

like always - the state of my room here in hamilton has been a mess. i did laundry on friday and didn't have time to put it away before jetting away to barrie for a bulk of the weekend. my shelves were collapsing from me piling textbooks on it in an aggressive fashion. my bed - unmade as always.

i realize that my room at home is often in disarray, and that's probably why i could never study in it. but, now sitting in a freshly cleaned room, it is refreshing. at least there's a part of me that feels organized and on top of things - in control.

in class, that's one thing we discussed about why it's important to respect and give self worth to a patient. because often they're in situations where they are completely out of control. and if you give them something to hold onto: maybe it's a routine, maybe it's a decision - anything that's THEIRS. they gain stability, and they can once again feel in control... of SOMETHING, of ANYTHING, even in a situation that is completely overwhelming.

so, in my clean room, there's a sense of accomplishment, a sense of control - i know where everything is, i cleaned and organized this room. i can tackle anything.

bring it on finals. i can take you.

on being profound

for people who don't know me too well, or see me in my 'thinking' stages, i am often quiet, and seem relatively deep in thought. and when people ask me what i'm thinking about - i usually reply with 'nothing'... because more times than not, i'm not thinking about anything that i feel is profound or is worth saying.

not to mention, even if it was, i don't have the eloquence to verbalize and articulate what i might be thinking, because my mind works a heck of a lot faster than can be translated into words.

but i realized something today. it's not about profoundness. you may read my blog or my tweets and be like - DUH! most things i learn or realize are not new, startling discoveries. they don't really bring new perspective on things in general.

but for ME it's growth. it's movement. when i'm deep in thought, i am trying to figure something out. i'm waiting. waiting for the sudden AHA! feeling when some concept finally clicks in your mind.

It's like when a puzzle piece fits - actually FITS; none of that forcing it to fit because it look like it should. there's a sudden shift in your mentality, that allows that piece just to slide smoothly and conjoin with another piece. Anyone else could've seen why those pieces go together, but it's not until you feel the pieces 'click' into place that you yourself realize... and actually understand.

when i'm deep in thought, i don't try and make a breakthrough for humanity - i am trying to make a breakthrough for ME. hey, if my breakthrough HELPS humanity (or a friend) then all the better, but that's not the point of trying to think out an idea, it's not the point of blogging, journaling. the point is to help me get from where i am *down here*, to a different place *slightly above down here*. it's not always about big leaps. sometimes it's about those baby steps.

on sticky note reminders

during class today (yes, during class... i am an awesome student)... i made a list of things to do... for today and the rest of term... and man. it was a bit overwhelming.

there is so much to do... but i decided, no matter how extensive this list was, i had to keep these things in mind:

oh sticky notes how i love thee

on mondays

i usually hate mondays.

the definition of monday (literally) is the moons day... and in russian, the term used for monday was the 'day after holiday'.

and that's what i feel. every monday comes around and i feel like i need a new beginning - i need a day to 'get my affairs into order', set my life straight again.

after a fun weekend (the nature of weekends are that they are fun), i need the time to re-adjust into my reality. it always kinda sucks, like waking up from a good dream.

but order is good. i realize i've started to look forward to my monday nights. Aside from the fact that Gossip Girl, Big Bang Theory, How I met your Mother, House and Heroes (though i only watch this last one on occasion) all air on mondays, i've really come to enjoy this 'reset' button i get every week.

- reflect on goals on what i need to do
- think about what is due and start working on it
- pay my bills/sort out my financials
- think about groceries i want to buy
- plan my next weekend

i like new starts. a fresh page. a re-shuffling to get things back into a way that i like. so it's only natural i'm growing to like mondays. (i know it's argued that sundays are the first day of the week... and in many aspects it is, but, i've ironically seemed to have chosen monday to be *MY* reset button)

i am an anomaly, cuz seriously, who the heck likes mondays? To be fair, i still strongly dislike monday mornings. but... monday nights? they're cool. hello week! here i come.

on doing things my way

i realize that i have a very systematic, and... almost eccentric way of doing things. For the most part, things end up alright. in the END i'm thorough. in the END it pulls together. but sometimes, the journey is just messy... and people looking on think i'm a bit crazy.

my summer job ended with a ridiculously quick switch over where i had to hand off a lot of my things to a new co-op in a one day switchover. As the term was ending, i realized that though things ran relatively smoothly while i was there, the way i went about doing a lot of things was not exactly the best - i.e. the order in which i did things, or my organizational skills etc.

i also found out today, that something that could've been done to make the process more thorough, i didn't do, just because i was so pressed for time. it was frustrating for me to sit down and listen to my successor tell me what i neglected and how he was doing my job better than me. what he doesn't know is how much politics there were over the summer, how fast paced things were then, how long it took me to establish what i even handed to him. i kept telling myself... well if i had been there longer, if i wasn't in a rush, i would've done it! but to him, my discombobulated way of doing things was wrong, and that was his solution for fixing it.

and as much humility it takes me to admit it - their way might be better... might be more efficient. and that's what gets me. i WANT to do it my way, because i think i'm right. i want to do it my way because it makes me feel better, smarter, superior. i want to do it my way because it means i'm RIGHT. but i am not always right. i am not always the best.

i think i'm so used to doing things on my own, in my own way that i FORGET that other people don't understand. i FORGET that some things... i CAN'T do on my own, and the way i'm going about things... well people can't help me. people can't follow me through my process because it doesn't make sense to them. to them i'm back tracking, then moving forward, then back tracking then jumping 10 steps ahead. my mind in non-linear and it shows.

but i need to realize that... just as people have to accept how i think, and how i need to do things my way... that other people have their way too.