Life and Poetry

Last night I slept over 11hrs. It was past 11am when I woke up, and it felt really great. Recently I have tried to take at least one morning where I can sleep as much as I want to recuperate from the busy week and its been very effective. I'm not as tired during the week if I can have just one whole night to sleep, and over the past few weeks I haven't had to force myself to sleep, I just give into exhaustion and rest and when I wake up I'm surprised at how late it usually is. There is something about letting my body rest that helps me deal with other things in life better. I'm less grumpy, I don't stress out as much, I'm not snappy, get less annoyed and just feel happier in general.

This weeks success story is work has been totally crazy and I didn't freak out once. Not one single time. There was a very close call on one occasion when I thought I lost some very important papers but one of the nurse's helped me look and she found them so that crisis was averted. If I found myself getting annoyed with something I would have this pop in my head "do it for yourself". Don't do it because someone asked you, but do it because you want to do it, and my annoyance or irritation would fade away. And I found when I would get too overwhelmed someone would jump in and start helping. 

For example, my last shift for the week was yesterday and it was a really crazy day, like, I didn't go for lunch until 3pm crazy and all of a sudden the nurse's started jumping in and helping me out. Answering the phone, or picking up orders, we just all together powered through a whole bunch of work together and I was able to go for my lunch break and I was really touched. I felt so lucky that I worked with such amazing people and grateful that I didn't even have to ask, they just saw how overwhelmed I was and jumped in to help. I left work a little stress, a lot tired, but proud. Proud to work with such good people, and proud that I made it through a whole week without snapping or getting angry.

I also wrote a poem!! Or I thought a poem. Walking to work one morning I composed a poem.  The last time I wrote a poem (that was good) was about 6-7 years ago. Somewhere I lost the inspiration, every time I would try it would feel forced and I'd scrap it. This is progress! This is more proof that I'm headed in the right direction! 

The sky

Bright pink streaks

Cold chill

Fog on the river

Traffic rush

The world waking up

Leaves crunch

Another morning in September

This isn't the one I wrote that morning, I had forgotten it by the time I got to work, but this is really similar to it. It describes my morning, as a poem!! I wrote a poem!

A.

P.S. Today I appreciated hot showers and ice water.

Appreciation Day

Today is an appreciation day! It could very well be that the caffeine from my espresso has released an extra dose of endorphins into my system thereby heightening my senses into a semi-overloaded state and pushing my body into a minor panic attack, but “appreciation day” just sounds so much nicer. So let’s appreciate! On my way to work I realised how fortunate I was to live in a society that was very much multicultural! All I have to do is walk out my front door and the world is my ocean, from restaurants to festivals, I don’t have to travel very far to experience different parts of the world in my own backyard. And this is an exciting concept for me and I am glad that I have this opportunity.

The other thing I noticed is how green the trees were today. I pass through a super tiny wooded area on my way to work every day and today I stopped looking at my feet and noticed the fir tree’s there were really green; a vibrant, deep, forest green just waking up from the morning mist, shining with the mid-morning light from the rising sun. This was a beautiful sight. And I thought we live in such a beautiful province and its easy to take it for granted, but nothing beats the view of the mountains on a clear day when you are driving down the highway. I wish I had a picture to share but all I can do is hope the image of the trees will be imprinted in my memory for a long time.

Starting the day off on a positive note really helps set the mood for the rest of the day. I think I should add that to my resolution list; to think of at least one positive thing every morning and get excited about it. I think I am well on my way to start my own happiness project in January. There is a lot to be excited for right now in my life and I am going to appreciate it. So I will challenge you too. When something negative happens make an effort to counter that with at least one positive thing, and I’m going to do the same!

Ciao for now,

A.

A post of jumbled thoughts

Slept a long time last night, now I just need to decide which book I will read... decisions decisions... I have so much on my mind recently; so many questions without answers, so many things that scare me about my future that I don't even want to think about anything. I started this book reading thing as a way to accomplish a goal, and then I thought blogging about the experience would be a cool way to share with people about the books I read and what I thought of them and now its turned into something bigger. I thought blogging about the books would motivate me to blog more, but it really didn't, I just felt more pressure of all the blogging I was neglecting. I have to blog because I like doing it, so let's just blog my journey right now. My journey right now is a little frustrating and a lot scary. I don't know if you, who are reading this right now, has ever tried to apply to post-secondary school but it's a little bit complicated. I was so excited at first because I found this really awesome program at the university of Victoria (hereby mentioned as UVic) that got me super pumped about going back to school; then I started thinking.  I know from past experience that thinking can be a very bad thing, but let me tell you, my brain will NOT turn off.

Should I try for early admission? Are my grades high enough? High School was 7 (going on 8) years ago. Can I even do this? How will I pay tuition? How can I afford rent in Victoria? OMG, I'll have to move. OMG I'll have to relinquish my position at the hospital. OMG, I wont have extended health, dental and vision care anymore. How can I go to school and work at the same time? What happens if I don't get in? Should I try and take part time courses until I can get into a full time program? Should we look into buying a place instead of renting? Then I get this knot in my stomach and go back to, can I even do this? I want out of my job, but am I willing to give it up? Can I give it up? I'm not just supporting me anymore, I'm married now. Will my husband be able to find work in Victoria? Will my husband make enough to support us? Should I apply to multiple schools when I really have my heart set on just one?

And on and on it goes in a giant swirl until I feel like my head is going to explode, and then I open my book... or one of my books, since I have about 4 on the go again. I don't do it on purpose, but I find sometimes if I can't concentrate I can trick my brain by switching through books every chapter because it keeps my brain busy circulating through the different stories. But should I finish one, or continue another? I love books! I love reading! I love writing! All things shoved aside, I feel good about this decision. The most important to me right now is how I feel. When I think of everything that has become uncertain in my life, one thing I don't feel is stressed out. Anxious, scared, excited, happy, I feel all those things, but for the first time in a really long time I don't feel stressed out about it. And that makes me feel positive about this direction.

Love and Peace,
A.

The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars

"She said, "I won't be a mom anymore." That gutted me pretty badly.
I couldn't stop thinking about that during the whole Cancer Team Meeting. I couldn't get it out of my head, how she sounded when she said that, like she would never be okay again, which probably she wouldn't." Pg. 117

You really have to think about that. You have to imagine that you had a child and you lived with them and you talked with them and their laugh and the way they cried and the sound of their voice. Maybe you're 45 years old and you have at least another 30 or 40 years left and its just you. You have to imagine how emtpy the house would seem, how quiet it would be; the walls would resonate with pain and sadness. Every time you looked at the empty chair at the dinner table, or the empty bed in the bedroom, you would be reminded of the person who used to be there. You would remember peaking in while they slept and listening to their breathing, in and out, and seeing their sleeping face; how peaceful they looked. And every time you walked through the house you would be reminded of what could never be, and what never was. This emptiness that would gut you and might never go away and every year there would be a birthday and a death day, for the rest of your life that you could never escape.  And people would go on living their lives and expect you to go back to your life but your child never would. Your child would be dead. Every morning would be a cloudy sunrise and every evening a moonless night, the stars would lose their brilliance, the brightest colours would dull; teardrops would turn to rain on a window pane. Cooking a meal would only serve as a painful reminder that you are now cooking for one less. This emptiness would gut you.  And that's why parents should never out live their children.

And that pretty much sums up that book. I would consider this a solid mediocre book. Mostly because it was predictable, I pretty much guessed the ending near the beginning of the book. The writing was decent. Would I read it again? Probably not. But I enjoyed it while I read it.

School, Education and the foggy uncertainty of my future

I never had a plan. When people asked me "What do you want to do when you grow up?" my answer was simple, find me a husband and have me some kids. All those grand childhood dreams of being a singer or a dancer, some kind of musician, never amounted to much. Not for a lack of want so much as a lack of self-confidence. In fact, my whole life can probably be summed up by my lack of self-confidence. I chose things I knew I would excel at so I wouldn't be disappointed if I failed. Trust me when I say failure + low self-confidence is pretty debilitating. I chose the safe route; I was a practical person. I made smart life choices, I didn't accumulate debt, I owned my car, I accomplished things and it made me feel better about myself. Then one day I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, honestly when I walked into my psychologists office on that first day I was borderline agoraphobic. All that internalizing had finally manifested in these awful panic attacks and I couldn't shove my issues "under the rug" so to speak. This is when my journey begins. I won't bore you with all the milestone details but suffice to say I learned that I needed a life goal.

Now don't get me wrong, I like my job. The people I work with are amazing and I consider myself very fortunate to work with such an awesome team, but the stresses of my job are bad. My best description is an abusive relationship,

"I can't tell you what it really is
I can only tell you what it feels like
And right now it's a steel knife in my windpipe
I can't breathe but I still fight while I can fight
As long as the wrong feels right it's like I'm in flight
High off of love, drunk from my hate,
It's like I'm huffing paint and I love it the more I suffer, I suffocate
And right before I'm about to drown, she resuscitates me
She fucking hates me and I love it.
Wait! Where you going?
"I'm leaving you"
No you ain't. Come back we're running right back.
Here we go again
It's so insane cause when it's going good, it's going great
I'm Superman with the wind at his back, she's Lois Lane
But when it's bad it's awful, I feel so ashamed I snapped
Who's that dude? I don't even know his name
I laid hands on her, I'll never stoop so low again
I guess I don't know my own strength"

That's right, I share this kind of relationship with my work so you can understand how, when I realized this, I felt the need to change it. But how? What dream is this? My job is great, I get a decent middle class wage, a pension and full benefits, it doesn't make sense to change jobs. I argued with myself,  how will I pay for school, what will I even take? For months now I have been pondering this one seemingly simple question. What will I even take? I had dreams once but none of that will make me money. I need a practical job, I told myself. A practical job for a practical girl who can set up back into her zone of practicality, logic and comfort; I need something I know I can do. So for months I battled with it.

Things changed when I finally got this book. My friend suggested it to me quite a few months ago and I just recently got it, its called The Happiness Project. I'm starting to become a believer in "When you are ready for something, the universe will drop things in your path pertaining to it". If I had received this book at any other time I probably would have missed out on what it had for me. And what it had for me was one sentence

You can change what you do; you can't change what you like.

I really thought long and hard on that. I can't change what I like. Well, if I can't change what I like then whats to stop me from making money doing it? I really had to ask myself, "Why can't I make money doing _____?" and I was surprised by the answer because it was myself. I am the reason why I can't do that, I'm the only one stopping myself from doing what I really love to do. And for the first time in a really long time I got excited. I also got scared, very scared, because all of a sudden my future became quite foggy. If I was going to make money doing something that I loved then I had so many options, but off all those options my most practical choice was writing. I love writing, I know I'm good at writing, I've had lots of compliments on my writing and I have lots to write about. I have a blog and I'm currently writing my way through a ton of book reviews. I don't have some grand novel of fictitious and amazing characters sitting in my desk, but why do I need that to write?

And now here I am looking up schools and deadlines and application processes and student loans. I'm thinking of all the traveling I want to do and how I can write about it. I am thinking of all my life experiences and I can write about that too. My life is full of uncertainties and I feel happy. For the first time in 25 years I am full of confidence. I can write about all of this, everything, and there is nothing stopping me anymore.

Burned - Ellen Hopkins

Ok, I’m a little resentful towards this book. I’ll lay it out right now, its not going to be a happy review. You follow the main character who is a girl in a very southern, traditional Mormon family. Her father is an alcoholic who beats his wife and she has lots of brothers and sisters. I read a lot of complaints saying that it was a total misrepresentation of the Mormon religion, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the main point of the story. Nothing would change if they were a different religion. There are so many different sects to any form of religion I hardly think someone who isn’t familiar with it will assume every family is a carbon copy and every church or meeting place is as well.

Moving on, she has this spurt of rebellion where she starts dating a non-mormon boy behind her parents back and gets shipped off to her aunts for the summer. She is very pessimistic about things like love and affection but she wants to believe there is something bigger out there than the violent and abusive existence she is stuck in. She has no supportive friends, family; even her study group leader stonewalls her when she tries to ask questions. Then she visits her aunt and she finds something she’s never experienced before, which is love and praise, someone telling her she’s good and not worthless.

It made me believe for her that her life would get better, could get better. This book strings you along the whole time giving you hope that she can escape. But no. She doesn’t. At the end of the book everyone she loves is dead. Dead. They’re all dead. And to top it all off her family abandons her. This book made me feel really good and in the final moments near the end it dumps a whole pile of shit all over you and then a big steamroller drives right over top of you just for good measure. I don’t recommend this book unless you really prep for the most awful ending you could imagine.

I thought the book was about redemption and finding yourself and it was, but there was no need to end it so cruelly. Her life was so bad, so awful, she was treated like a maggot, she was abused physically and mentally, when she tried to change it and make a positive effort to have a better life it doesn’t, just more bad shit happens to her, culminating in 2 awful and uncalled for deaths. I was so disappointed. The title of this book is appropriate I guess. If there is any lesson it’s to not put yourself out there and try not to hope things will get better because you’ll just get burned. I would say it was a good book, just you know, DON’T read the last several pages. 

Crank - Ellen Hopkins

I liked this book, even though I found it a little disturbing at times. In case you don’t know, because I didn’t, Crank is a low grade Meth, cheaper and less pure than crystal. I found this book a little scary because the girl could be anyone. It could be you, me, my neighbour, the story was real. Working in a hospital I see what drugs can do to a person and you always wonder why and how. This book gives an example of how an ordinary teenager can get sucked in. It made this book very sad, seeing who she was and what she became. I know its fiction, but I just wanted to hop into the book and help her. It’s the 1st book in a trilogy, but I doubt I’ll read the other two, mainly because I like happy endings, and this one doesn’t seem very happy. How Meth can destroy a person and the damage they leave in its wake. 

What I really loved was the writing style. There are no chapters; everything is poems. I’ve never read anything like it and it was a nice change. I would think it might be hard to convey an actual story in poem form but Ellen Hopkins does it so fluidly, expressing just the right words to portray any emotion. If you are interested in reading different writing styles and don’t mind a bit of a sad story I definitely recommend it. It was a real eye opener for me since I am so green on the subject. Can’t remember what I gave it on good reads but I would rate it a solid 4.5/5 at least.

Update and The Catcher in The Rye

I know I've been absent. I could make up a bunch of excuses but the truth is I just haven't taken the time to sit down and write any reviews, and let me tell you they are piling up!! So expect me to post a bunch in the coming days :D I did that crazy thing where I borrowed a ton of books from the library and felt like I did nothing but read for 4 weeks. Now that I've slowed down a bit, hopefully I can become a bit more consistent with writing the reviews as I finish the books. Or you know, at least post twice a week. I have really enjoyed all this reading, even under pressure. When I didn't feel like reading I read anyway to reach my deadline and honestly, after I got into the book, I didn't even mind! I've read so many different kinds of books and my list just keeps getting bigger, it seems like there is always a book to read and I don't know if I'll ever catch up, or want to.

I started this as a goal to reach 500 books before my 26th birthday but I've discovered a whole world of books I didn't even know existed and I'm loving it! From classic to contemporary, fantasy to reality I can't seem to devour fast enough. I even feel smarter, haha. So without further ado, here's my very small review on The Catcher in The Rye.


The Catcher in the Rye

I didn’t like this book. It wasn’t a bad book; it’s just not my kind of book. I don’t really have much to say about it either. I think my biggest problem with the book was the main character. I couldn’t relate to him and I didn’t really feel bad for anything that happened and honestly he was really annoying. I pushed through the book to finish it, but by the end of it I just couldn’t stand to listen to his thoughts anymore. I understand that it was written during a different time and his character was obviously written that way specifically but I just couldn’t get passed it. He just seemed to whine and it turned into a constant droning in my head about how everyone was so fake and how he hated everyone for it. And after 200 pages of it, I was just glad it was over.