School, yay!

So I just realized I haven't written on here FOREVER. So it's about time for another update. :) Only big difference in my life now is that I'm in school again! Hooray!!!! I am taking two classes in the spring term, a math one and a EE one. My math class isn't too bad b/c I've done a lot of this work before. EE however does not like me at all. But I'm trying to figure it out. This class has a pre requisite that I don't take....so they just assume you know it all...great. Oh well, I think I'm beginning to understand it a little better now. So that's always nice. But we'll see how that goes. I think I'm going to have to get ahead on my homework instead of just doing it on the day that it is due.

I'm also working again, roughly 15 hours a week or so. That's going pretty well. I have plenty to do and we're getting a new TGA!!! WooHoo!!!! I'm really excited about that one. That'll make life MUCH easier on everyone in the lab...but especially me since the TGA is really my thing, haha. Cobalt prep at least is going very well. Although, I was opening up the desiccator and the handle broke off and the lid broke and cut my hands. That was a bloody mess. But now my fingers are feeling better. I've been able to take of band-aids on one of the cuts. The other two are still too big to take off a band-aid. So that wasn't good, but other than that, Cobalt prep is going well!

School and work keep me pretty busy, so I don't have much else interesting to say. I did however go golfing today. Well, I just went to a driving range, but it's the most golf I've ever done. I was awful, haha, but it was my first time ever, so who cares. Although I hear we are going to play 9 holes next Saturday....that'll be interesting. We'll see how that goes. It'll be fun if nothing else. Ooooooh! There's a Thai restaurant right by my apartment now! I didn't even know it was there, but I walked past it when I was walking back to mi casa one day. I am VERY excited to try that out. I Love me some Thai food! :) That's about it, peace out.

Hey, I got some new shoes on!

So I've had the same pair of running shoes since my Freshmen year in High School. But they've seen a lot of miles and as such they've really warn down. And now, I gots me some new shoes!!!! It's good stuff. And here's a song about new shoes to Celebrate. I hope this link thingy works....I haven't tried using links like this before in this bloggy stuff. So we shall see. Oh, and there's a link to the awesome pictures of my shoes on my Facebook. .....I've now figured out how this works. Double click the title of my post and it will take you to the song. It's good stuff! :)

8 November 2009

 I wrote this on November 8, 2009, a few days after I got out of UNI (the psych ward). I showed it to a small number of people back then, but I've decided to publish it for all to see now. Granted, I am holding on to a more recent one, but it will come out in it's own due time...

Nights are always the worst. This is nothing new. Though the constant trend seems to be the need for some sort of release before I can go to bed. If I’m lucky, I’ll be super tired and I’ll fall asleep regardless of what I may be thinking. But that is hardly, if ever the case. The real problem though, comes in finding a release that is healthy. There are many unhealthy releases I have used in the past; cutting, throwing up, punching hard things, hitting my head on hard things, etc. Though none of these are healthy, they all seem to get the job done quite effectively. But that is usually only temporary. I find that things with more lasting consequences, are a much better form of release, or at least self degradation. For example, instead of doing any of those releases, I just stay up all night because I know I shouldn’t and that I will regret it in the morning. The pain from those other things will be gone in the morning, but the fact I’m running on no sleep will be with me the rest of the day and quite possibly the rest of the week. But even better perhaps, is the feeling of guilt, usually caused by Not doing something. Most things you feel guilty about doing are these unhealthy releases, but they don’t seem to last very long. However, missed opportunities have a way of sticking with for a very long time. Sleep deprivation however, is just a minor example. Sleeping pills do a good job of making me drowsy, but they aren’t going to make me fall asleep. They just help. I can force myself to stay awake after I have taken them, though counter intuitive to even taking them, it is still a viable choice. Mostly, this is because when I take my sleeping pills I am busy and don’t have time to think about much. But when I actually try to fall asleep, I have plenty of time alone with my brain; and that doesn’t usually end well. Or at least not in any productive way anyhow. Curiously enough though, a lot of these aforementioned “missed opportunities” seem to come back in my dreams. Most of them aren’t current, they are things I didn’t do a while ago, as far back as a few years. There are only so many that I can remember, but this does appear to be a running theme. So while I’m not only thinking about them before falling asleep, my brain is getting no reprieve once I am actually asleep. And that pretty much sucks, because my brain needs that time to be sleeping and resting, not worrying about past events. But I think they still stick around because they are things the I purposely did. It’s not like I wasn’t aware of the situation. I simply chose not to do something because I knew I would regret it at a later time. And that later time seems to come and go as it pleases. It usually just depends on how busy I am though. So while it seems to come and go as it pleases, I’m sure there is some underlying pattern to it. And I suspect that pattern has a lot to do with how busy I am at the time. Which brings me back to nights and trying to fall asleep. It is impossible, so far as I know, to be busy and still fall asleep. The only exception that I can think of, being the point of total exhaustion. But that is neither healthy, nor very useful because odds are, whatever I am doing to stay busy I am doing a terrible job at because I’m so tired. But again, perhaps that would be the goal of such an endeavor to try to fall asleep. I know I would feel bad about doing bad work, thus prolonging the regret. I was once told “Live your life with no regrets.” This is a great piece of advice, though I find it an easy way to be miserable as well. It basically tells us that if we live our life without regrets, that we will be happy and content with our lives. The converse however, is also true. If we live our life with many regrets, we will be depressed and wholly unsatisfied with the direction of our lives. Which I guess goes to one of those glass half empty, glass half full kind of arguments. But I think that would be grossly over-simplifying the matter. I don’t think it’s a mere question of optimism or pessimism, it goes to the root of who we are and what we want out of our life. Throughout the last few years, that goal simply seems to be unhappy, to put myself down, and to have many regrets. I guess the real question, and perhaps the point to all of this rambling, is why I want this? Why do I not want to be happy? I should want to be happy, right? Isn’t life so much better when you’re happy? I like to think so. But I think I am so out of practice from being truly happy, that I really can’t even comprehend what that would even be like. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I don’t know what it is, or maybe I don’t think that it is even possible? Perhaps I have resigned myself to believing that life as it currently is, and has been, is really the best that it is going to get, and that there’s not much I can do about it. That’s rather short sighted, because of course, there is plenty that I can do about it. But I just keep asking myself, why put forth the effort? Why even try? I’m getting through things alright, perhaps even good. Which reminds me of another quote, “Good is the enemy of Great.” Further, I may have become complacent thinking that good is enough, and great really isn’t worth it. Who am I to complain about “good”? Who can really define “good” anyhow? It’s all relative and subjective. It’s not like there’s some special equation to quantify all of this. I really wish there was though, because that kind of stuff makes a lot more sense to me. Then I could just run some numbers through a program and figure out what variable to change to optimize the results. That would be the nicest thing in my opinion, but alas, that is not really realistic at all. But such is life, right?

I got my Crest Pro Health!!!!

So we went to Wal Mart and I got my super amazing toothpaste back! And I got the whitening kind. Never tried this variety, but it seems to be cleaning just as well. So I'll take it! And I'm sure you all have noticed the marvelous change to the look of my blog. I think it's way super amazing and AWESOME (as is everything I do, haha). But now, I'm looking for input. Does anyone think there's anything, font/color or otherwise, that should be changed to make it more......reader friendly?

Bananas are Yellow and I miss my Crest Pro Health

So the subject doesn't have much to do about anything really. Though I do miss MY toothpaste. Haha. I am now using some Colgate Total plus Whitening. It's pretty good stuff, but it's not my Crest Pro Health. Haha. I am definitely a Crest fan and not a Colgate person. And that is that. So I've been a very good boy about going to the gym! I'm supposed to go to the gym to help gain weight and be healthy and such. I know, being healthy. It's an evil plan that my doctors have for me. Though as I've said before and I'll say again, I'm ready to do everything to make myself healthy for once. Both Heather and Holly said the 30's are easier than the 20's, but I'd like to see if I can make my 20's decent. :) In other health news, my surgery is not giving me any problems any more. At least in the last 3 weeks. So that's really good! I still have the awesome scar, which is totally cool. I'm even gonna try to work out my abs today! That's how good it feels! :) Oh, and I finished all the paperwork and it all got approved and such for my triumphant return to BYU. I'm gonna go back at the end of April for Spring term. It'll be super good fun and amazingness. It'll be nice to be back at school and Healthy for once. Hoorays! And I'm wearing a cool shirt today, if you were wondering. :) Peace out for now.

All We Are, we are

As some of you may know, the first three words of the title are a song by Matt Nathanson. I'd suggest listening to it as it is really good. But to continue to what I really want to write, it does have a good message. All we are is exactly who we are. And this sounds simple and perhaps even stupid, but that doesn't matter. The true beauty in this is knowing who we really are and enjoying every second of it. For too many years, I've tried to lie to myself, convince myself, or otherwise change my perspective of who I was; that I didn't need to be happy and abandonment is no big deal. Now that's just two, but they're probably the biggest. Sometimes, if not always, it takes a life changing even for one to make such changes and realize they've been lying to themselves all along. For me, that would be cops storming into my bedroom. Scary as all get out, but necessary. And after all of this, and the help I am currently receiving I've been able to realize that one simple truth: All we are, we are. So enjoy it and make the very best of the person that you are! Or at least work towards it, that's my goal anyhow. It will take a while, but it is a goal I foresee myself accomplishing. :) Peace out for now.

Psych Ward......again!

So as all of you know already, or I assume you do, I was in the psych ward from Thursday night till Monday afternoon. This time I was in the one down in Provo and not in Salt Lake. This one is a lot more prison feeling and the food wasn't as good. Oh, and I couldn't get all the Dr. Pepper I wanted. But other than that, it was good. And actually, there was one great thing about this place. They follow this "lifetrap" philosophy thing. It's all out of this book called "Reinventing Your Life." This book was basically life changing for me.

I went to UNI after an anxiety attack so that I couldn't even try to attempt suicide. But this time, I had actually tried to commit suicide. Two cop cars, an ambulance, AND a fire truck came. That pretty much scared the crap out of me. Especially since I am really afraid of cops and he was the first one to arrive. And of course a lot of people were standing around looking to see what happened. So then I walked myself into the ambulance, crowd watching, and went to the hospital. They put me in the pediatric room. That was awesome. It was all decorated with Finding Nemo stuff. SOOOOO COOL. And Happy. So the social worker finally came in, and it wasn't Randy this time. Whew. He's the idiot who kicked me out of the ER in October. Anyhow, this nice new social worker came in and told me basically that I was gonna be staying there. So I did. And then I got all my nice reading and thinking and praying in. And there were a lot of group therapy things that I went to as well. And in the end, I've decided to make some much needed changes in my life that will help me to be MUCH happier and hopefully keep me out of the psych ward in the future. Oh, and they added Wellbutrin with my Prozac. That's the other change. Guess we'll see how that works. Anyhow, that's once again my life as it stands right now.