Happiness Project - The Days are long but the years are short.

Literally minutes ago, I finished the book The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.  It is basically a manifesto about the author who created a year resolutions chart, and planned new resolutions to try to complete each month.  For an example, January was dedicated to boosting her energy.  Gretchen made sure to sleep more, exercise better, and to stop eating fake foods as well as to spend more money on healthy foods.  The memoir was fascinating but also interesting to see how hard and unscientific it really is to measure happiness.  Everyone defines happiness differently and everyone has different things in life that make them happy.  An interesting point she came across was to do activities she found fun.  In the past, she was participating in activities because she thought that they were the activities that other people found to be fun.  An ubber dorky thing that she found fun was reading children and teen literature.  Gretchen started a teenage literature fiction book club with her friends and fellow authors who also enjoyed doing the same thing.  I thought this was great because even though she felt embarrassed by her guilty obsession, it was still something she enjoyed doing.  I know we can all relate with this.  I CAN relate to this.  This example is proof that happiness and fun mean different things for different people.

During the course of the book and year, she found more ways to be light hearted, to laugh at herself, to be more kind, and to be less negative.  Because she felt happy she was happy.  Gretchen even at times had to push herself to laugh more or be more kind and it became contagious to herself and the others around her.  Ultimately, by spreading joy to others she was spreading joy to herself.  One of the quotes that resonated with my life and it being the year before I will approach 30 years of age is "The days are long, and the years are short."  My days right now feel very long but I know the end of this year is already approaching fast.  I cannot believe it's already February but because of school and work, my mind is working in overdrive and working more hours a day than it is use to.  I'm not sure if it's ever going to adjust :)

Gretchen created a valuable list of Happiness Tips she learned during her project.  They are as follows:

• To be happy, you need to consider feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
• One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; one of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
• The days are long, but the years are short.
• You're not happy unless you think you are happy.
• Your body matters.
• Happiness is other people.
• Think about yourself so you can forget yourself.
• It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light.
• What's fun for other people may not be fun for you, and vice versa.
• Best is good, better is best.
• Outer order contributes to inner calm.
• Happiness comes from having more, not from having less, but from wanting what you have.
• You can choose to do, but you can't choose what you like to do.
• There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.
• You manage what you measure.
• Loving actions inspire loving feelings.
• The opposite of a great truth is also true.

I feel that for the most part, I'm a really happy person.  I'm content with who I am and have tried to be happy even when faced with unhappy situations.  Life is short and it is too short to be angry and unhappy.  With so much beauty in the world around us, it can be easily forgotten.


She has a website to go to if you want to create your own happiness toolbox/resolution chart:
www.happinessprojecttoolbox.com  She also has a blog that people can subscribe too.

I feel like I sound like I'm one of her endorsers!! :P  When time approaches, I think it would be fun to do my own happiness project.  I think everyone could always use a dose of happiness in their lives!

Lifes Pressing Questions

Hello!!

So a question I have had to face lately is what are you passionate about when it comes to counseling people.  What populations are you interested in counseling?  What makes you passionate?  When the two questions are asked, I usually don't know what to say.  Well, I like to work with adolescents I guess because I have in the past.  Or, I really am interested in music therapy which tends to make the other counselors eyes glaze over.  I feel empty and crappy when I am being asked this by fellow counselors because in all honesty I don't really know the answer to the questions, and I feel like I should. 

In my internship, I have really enjoyed family therapy work.  I have shadowed a therapist a few times who does mainly counseling with children and parents and it has been my favorite to see so far.  Okay, pick your jaw off of the ground right now - who would have ever thought I liked counseling children???   Not in a million years would I ever have thought that this would be the type of counseling I find the most enjoyable. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm not that much of a kid person.  If I was interested in kids, I would probably have married some guy I thought I loved and had some babies by now. Not saying everyone who is my age and who is married is married to someone they don't love. But considering I don't think I found that "one" everyone seems to rant and rave about, I just really don't see the point of having kids.  I don't really even know if I want them - why the hell would I just marry anyone and start breeding?  A hells no to that.

But, I have found something ever so enticing.  I've started writing a book - yeah word.  A book.  I have two chapters (20 pages approximately -seriously that is sometimes what I do in my free time when people think I'm doing homework - I am really that nerdy).  But, I found an MFA program by chance online the other day at the University of Minnesota.  Basically if you get in (which is largely based on the 20-25 pages of fiction writing you submit), they pay for everything.  Tuition, salary, health benefits.  You TA for 3 years while you work full time on your MFA in creative writing.  Which means they would basically pay me to teach and write my book.  In addition to this, they let you read as many books as you want.  I seriously could not think of a better way to spend my life.
No GRES and no English degree required.  The program only takes 11 to 14 students per year which is a pretty small sum of people.  I'm sure they get tons of applications and read copious amounts of bad literature (ahem, probably my book). 

So the final question is - if I get in would I go?  Yes.  Am I going to apply?  YES!  So... you mean to say you would have two masters in two different subjects but the equivalent of years in school to be at the doctorate level but no PH.D.  Okay... a sad, morose yes to that.

BUT why the change of mind?  BECAUSE, when anyone asks me what my passion is it always falls back to writing and books.  I cannot shake it.  I have tried to shake that bad illness plenty of times and it's impossible because guess what?  It always comes back to this.  Being a counselor would be just fine.  I would enjoy it, I might be okay at it, I might help some people, and it's a million times better than anything I have ever done in my life.  But is it my passion?  That is where the real question comes into play.  Because - I'm not 100% sure.  I would hate to live in that uncertainty without trying my real love and passion.

MFA people usually end up teaching at the college level or writing books.  I think I just want to keep delaying adulthood.  I'm really getting fantastic at that.  We shall see!  All you can do is try :)

http://creativewriting.umn.edu/program/ I heart this program.

I googled my name today and this is what I found...

First Google Page
1.  My Facebook profile was listed first.  This of course is not surprising since I think my obsession of Facebook is getting out of hand.  I blame this on the fact I'm couped up doing homework all the time and I take breaks and look at Facebook otherwise my mind would explode all over the place with counseling knowledge.  Anyone that likes Zombie's or watches the Walking Dead KNOWS this can get pretty gruesome.

2. LinkedIn profile.  I never use this and typically forget I even have a LinkedIn account.

3. My Twitter account.  I'm such a big user I have made two posts since I have opened my account up.  I think it's the fact I don't really know how to use it or know anyone who has twitter except for celebrities.  I would tweet at Celebs but they have a bazillion followers, and I don't want to get my hopes up that Chef Chuck Hughes from Chuck's Day off will come over and make me some delicious food.

4.  So the first page of my googled life is really lame.  It shows nothing of my accomplishments except for crappy social media sites I use.

2nd Google page

1. OKAY.  This is getting better! It has me listed on the Advising website at WSU - Finally my grad assistant acomplishment is showing up.

2. My 5K results for the goodview gallop!  Yes I came in 14 place overall over 342 females.  I am extremely thrilled with this accomplishment to only find out it shows up like 15th place on google searches for me. I was a little irritated my running achievements are showing up so second rate.  C'MON google! You are better than this!!  http://www.mtecresults.com/runner/show?rid=4955&race=452

3rd Google Page
OKAY google.  NOW I have a bone to pick with you.  I won first place for my age group in the warrior waddle 5K race this fall.  It was cold out... so cold I almost died of hypothermia (Alright, I am being a bit dramatic).  BUT I WON A MEDAL! Do you know how exciting that is for me?  I use to come in last place at every cross country race in high school.  I was horrible... I was terrible!  Now I could run circles around people.  DAMNIT google!  http://www.winonadailynews.com/article_6b1481c4-fd14-11e0-a3f3-001cc4c002e0.html

And I must admit - this was fun.  But it was also a distraction from all the work I have to do today.  Anywho google.  Until we meet again. 

Crazy Semester

So, I have started my new semester!  It has been crazy busy with 20 hours at my new internship at Gundersen Lutheran and 20 hours at my graduate assistantship in advising.  Not to mention the three classes I have on top of that.  My life, for the next 5 months, will probably be nonexistent.  And I love life and being around the people I love!  Well just people in general.  I apologize in advance for my absence to everyone and more than likely this blog. 

Here are some pictures I found today:

HAHAHA - I'm a dork.  I found this really funny! And I'm guessing it's my lack of sleep and my hours piling over the work.


So... This is all you get.  This is what it will be like for the next 5 months. *Tear.  Is it May yet?

The Devil All the Time - Donald Ray Pollock

The book "The Devil All the Time," by Donald Ray Pollock is a masterpiece.  This is his first novel and I would definitely coin it with the term Breakthrough Novel.  The story is gruesome, descriptive, clear, and concise.  The author writes three different small stories and sub plots than at the end of the novel the stories converge into a final end.  I think this would be a difficult novel to write because he uses third person omniscient.  The reader has narrations and view points from many different characters which can be confusing and hard to keep track of if written incorrectly.  Pollock has the ability to write from many different characters viewpoints while having three different stories happening essentially at the same time which is very impressive.  When I see this and it works so beautifully in a novel, I want to jump through the book and give the author a big gigantic hug!!!

The book was so good I read it in one day.  On the flip side of that, I have off work from my assistantship and I have no class.  Reading a book in one day is not a difficult feat for me considering the amount of free time I have to do so.  However, I don't think that really would have mattered I could not put this novel down.

What I love so much about this novel is the rawness of all the characters.  It's set in Ohio in an extremely small, backwards, hickish town.  The characters all make poor choices in this book and at the same time are super religious.  Many feel that God will save them even as they commit acts of murder and sin.  The dialect and dialogue the author uses is spot on and so real it makes you feel like you are standing with the characters like the devil on their shoulder watching their next move of poor judgment and decisions.

I did some research on the author, and this happens to be his first novel.  He is in his mid 40's-50's and lived in a rural town in Ohio called Knockemstiff and worked in the paper mill from 1973 to 2005.  He now has his MFA from Ohio State University, so it makes me wonder if some of the stories he writes about are stories from his past.  The stories could be embellished stories of people that lived in this little rinky dink town. I remember the advice always given to future authors - write what you know.

For some reason, seeing this eloquently written novel of someone who worked as a laborer for many years, gives me hopes for writing :) Chuck Palahniuk had a similar start to his career working in a factory and taking a break from journalism for many years.  I love the way both of these men write, but I have found it's not really my style.  I want to write something that everyone can read, and Palahniuk definitely has his own shtick and way of writing.  I admire him for weaving tales in the outrageous, uncomfortable nature that he does.  This book was a good read!

Twas the night before Eggnog Extravaganza

Twas the night before Eggnog Extravaganza, in Madison WI, not a creature was stirring, not even a Bdawg.  We were all nestled in bed as dreams of honey whisky, endless bowls of jello shots, warm delicious cups of eggnog with peppermint stir sticks, bottles of leftover sloe gin, and beer from a keg danced in our heads. 

When out from the hall, there arose such a clatter, just a dude who wanted to drive, who wasn't driving a Saturn.  Good friends who also wanted to drive, disconnected the wires, and wrote penis all over the windshield with peppermint whipped creme patties.

On Brinza, on Elstad, on Bdawg, on Felsing, on McManners!

The rest of the night was hazy and full of cat fancy magazines, a large amount of beer pong, and way too much CT.  The end of the night ended with some icing and water bottle dumping while most of us still dreamed in our inebriated states.

Did that really happen or was that just a dream?  I guess we better find out for ourselves at the next Eggnog Extravaganza next year!

To all a Merry Christmas and a VERY Happy New Year! 

Death of an Atheist

http://m.winonadailynews.com/news/opinion/article_d2967ec8-2b87-11e1-b1f2-0019bb2963f4.html

This article was posted in the Winona Daily News today.  This article WOULD be posted in the Winona Daily News today.  Of course, it in turn would be re posted to facebook and while I was reading the article my blood started to flow and the hair on my neck started to stand on end. 

First case in point, what mediocre writer would sit there and post something bad about Christopher Hitchens, one of the best writers ever to live.

Next case in point, I HIGHLY doubt that atheism is the smallest minority group for religion.  If it is, I wish this writer would have provided proof of some sort (ha maybe that's the atheist in me), or at least some research on this.  You can have an opinion but if you can't back it up then don't post it like it is a fact.  I'm sorry you can't just believe a fact is true if you haven't seen it before.  I do agree that it's possible, if you combine all religions.  You know - like Buddhism, Hinduism, Scientology, and so forth.  In that case, of course it would be the minority but I know this writer is only talking about Christianity, the only religion that matters, right?

In addition, I was really angry by how they said that if there is no God than why do we do community service?  What would be the purpose to do community service?  So basically, atheists are these terrible, bad people that are not good enough at heart to want to do community service unless the holy lord command them to?  This may come as a huge surprise but I'm going into a field called counseling that helps people.  Everyday I plan on doing service to people to help them get better.  My wanting to do this never ending servitude to people has NOTHING to do with religion.  The author tries to provide a meaning for this by throwing a scripture of some sort but if you are atheist this argument comes up very flawed and short.  The problem with spouting off bible verses to someone who isn't your religion is pretty in affective.  If they don't read it, or believe in it, then the information is moot.

I'm pretty sure Christopher Hitchens didn't think anything at the end of his life like what this writer posted.  But, I guess if he doesn't need proof about God than I guess he wouldn't need proof about what Christopher Hitchens was thinking and feeling before he died.  He can just believe he knows and that can be his unfortunate truth.

The most important thing about being alive is to be a good person.  To have an appreciation and acceptance of people who are different than you and have different beliefs than you do. Atheism is a belief.  It may be one of the most looked down upon views a person can have. But it's not any different than believing in a religion.  People need to honor others beliefs and be respectful even if it's not the most popular and sought after view around.  Because if you aren't doing that, in theory, are you being a good person?  If you really want to get into Heaven maybe it's time you learn to practice and live what you preach.