Spring Break

Sorry I haven't written anything in forever! I just got back to school this week was my spring break. I'll update soon. Have a great week! :)

Happy St. Patty's Day!!

Love and Other Drugs

I watched the movie Love and Other Drugs last night...probably one of the sadder movies I've seen since the Notebook, and that's a pretty bold statement. I was taking a  break from studying and just wanted to watch a movie and fall asleep, so I rented this movie. It was so good, it was about a guy (Jake Gyllenhaal) who is a drug rep and openly sleeps around, and he meets a girl (Anne Hathaway) at a doctor's office and they both agree to have a strictly sexual friendship. Then, after a while they both start to develop feelings for each other but Anne Hathaway is constantly pushing Jake away because she has early level one Parkinson's disease and she thinks he is going to leave her when her sickness becomes too much to deal with. It was a great movie, I really enjoyed the humor and Jake and Anne had a really phenomenal connection and their characters were very believable. 

Even though it may seem easier to run from your problems...the only way you're going to become a stronger, more wise person is if you stay and deal with the problem. Try and fail as many times as it takes for you to finally succeed. When you are stuck in that moment when giving up seems like the only option, take a step back and think of all the reasons why you wanted this one thing so badly in the first place, and I promise you'll have a change of heart. I sure did!

Just a little hope for this rainy Wednesday...

"May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day.

May songbirds serenade you every step along the way.

May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that's always blue.

And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through."

-Irish Blessing

Relax

Nothing like sitting on the beach on a sunny day, 

with the waves crashing and sparkling in the sun

*******

 “The waves of the sea, Help me get back to me.”

-Jill Davis

Words

Have you ever said a word over and over again 15 times in a row and that word starts to lose it's meaning? Try it, pick any random word and say it out loud over and over again. The word starts to sound weird after a while doesn't it? I think this same concept really applies to words that are said when you're in a relationship. Not just a romantic relationship, but also friendship. When in a relationship, there are certain special words that when said too much, can start to lose their meaning. Those words become progressively less and less special. Take the simple phrase "I miss you." If someone told you multiple times a day how much they missed you, it starts to lose it's meaning. Hearing something every once in a while really makes you believe that the person does miss you, as opposed to them saying it every other minute. Then you start to think does this person really miss me, or are they just saying it because they think they have to?

I think the same thing applies to objects such as presents, flowers, etc. Take flowers for example, if you got a bouquet of flowers every day from someone, how special would you think that is after a while? True, flowers are pretty don't get me wrong, I absolutely love them, but aren't they meant to be a symbol of affection and love? Every once in a while flowers are such a great gift to receive but in my opinion I think they are meant for special occasions when the time is right. I can find happiness in the smallest of gestures and it doesn't take much, but I think what really makes me happy are those little surprises, those random text messages, and the occasional "I miss you." It's a real shame when things you thought were beautiful in the past start to lose their meaning because they're thrown around like it's nothing.

Opinionated entry, I know, but I think life is best lived spontaneously and when everything is planned out or things are done because you think you have to, those things start to lose meaning. Just a thought for this sunny Sunday. Enjoy :)

"We built a tall, tall tower towards the sun, towards the sun

took some words and built a wall, and called it love, called it love

 And somewhere in all the talking the meaning faded out
Oh I wonder when did it all stop making sense
I don't understand, cause I remember we were so sure, so innocent

Oh but that was then, can we ever go back again?
You're speaking a dead, dead language, you don't sound like yourself
I hope it's just lost in translation, why don't you show, don't try to tell"

- Joy Williams

Weight

Whether you mean it in a concrete way, or an abstract way, if you really think about it "weight" plays such a large role in our society today. It could be physical weight, the "weight of the world", or even the weight of lies, no matter what it is, it plays a role in your life even if you don't realize it.

If you quote the song "The Weight of Lies" by the Avett Brothers, they say:
"The weight of lies will bring you down and follow you to every town, cause nothing happens here that doesn't happen there, when you run make sure you run to something and not away from, cause lies don't need an airplane to chase you anywhere"

I think everyone can relate to the last line "lies don't need an airplane to chase you anywhere." Everyone has told a lie once in their life, it has either been a little white lie, it could have been a huge lie that caused a lot of problems, or it could have been a lie that has stuck with you to this day. If you're trying to run from a lie you've told, like the song says, lies don't need an airplane to chase you anywhere, the are with you for the rest of your life. If you're trying to build a lasting relationship with someone, there's no way it's going to survive on lies. Even if the truth never comes out to the other person, like the first line in this song "the weight of lies will bring you down." So if you look at the bigger picture, in the long run, lies never benefit anyone even if it starts off as something small.

At other times, you could feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. You and your significant other just broke up, your best friend and you are in a fight, you're getting bad grades in school, you have no money...it could be a combination of almost anything, but I'm sure everyone has had those days. Every once in a while I think everyone has those days where they just don't feel like themselves. I think those are some of the best days you can have. I know... why would one of the worst days you've had be your best? Well, I think they are great because though you may not be fully engaged in your social life, it gives you time to reflect on yourself and what's going on around you. It gives you time to really pin point what is lacking in your life and gives you the opportunity to better yourself. So next time you're having one of those off days where you feel like nothing is going right, take a second to really think about why you're feeling so down, and take that chance to say to yourself "Tomorrow I am going to wake up to a new day, and I'm going to be a better me."

Organic Chemistry

Sorry I haven't written in a while, I've been busy studying organic chemistry :( it's no fun! I'll write probably on wednesday if I get some time. Have a great week!

Friday!

Hey everyone,
So today is Friday and it's always a good day when you know you don't have classes tomorrow :)
I don't have anything exciting I want to write about really, just wishing everyone a happy weekend! I'll leave you with one of my favorite songs in the entire world! The lyrics ae really beautiful. Enjoy!

"We're like noughts and crosses in that opposites always attract" 

Colder Weather

He said I wanna see you again
But I'm stuck in colder weather
Maybe tomorrow will be better
Can I call you then
She said you're ramblin'
You ain't ever gonna change
You got a gypsy soul to blame
And you were born for leavin'

Well it's a winding road
When you're in the lost and found
You're a lover, I'm a runner
We go 'round 'n 'round
And I love you, but I leave you
I don't want you, but I need you
You know it's you who calls me back here

Distantly Close

In a previous post I mentioned the speech we had to do in my communications class, well today was the last day of speeches and it was a tough one. It seems so strange that I do not know any of these people personally and yet I feel like as a class we've all grown so close. Everyone's speeches had something to do with living life to the fullest because you never know what tomorrow is going to bring. A number of people shared very personal stories about family members and illness, which brought out a lot of emotions in the class. For example, I won't really go into detail but today a girl spoke about her mother being diagnosed with breast cancer and accompanied the story with the song "Only the Good Die Young" by Billy Joel. In the middle of her speech our teacher literally got up and left. Everyone just looked around very confused and the girl continued her speech. After she finished, our teacher came back in and was crying a lot. She mentioned how her mother recently got diagnosed with breast cancer so it was just a lot for her to listen to. Then after a few minutes this one girl got up and handed her a bag of m&m's and said "I'm really sorry about your mom, this is all I have." It was such a simple thing, just a bag of candy, but I feel like since our class really has gotten kind of personal, the girl wanted to try and comfort our teacher.

Nobody in our class knows each other on a personal basis, and yet I somehow feel close to all of them simply from just listening to their speeches.

The speeches about losing family members to illness made me really realize something. There I was sitting in class, not in the best mood, and I'm listening to all these stories about losing parents, a family member getting diagnosed with breast cancer, and other hardships, and I started to wonder...why I am in such a bad mood, what's so bad about my life? I haven't lost anyone close to me, nor I or anyone I know has a serious illness, I should be happy. I shouldn't be sitting there over-analyzing petty situations and letting little things get to me. I have so much to be happy about and for that I am so grateful. It's funny how something so random, like your communications class, can make you realize so much. So here's a list I came up with in my head, which made me feel a million times better:

Things That Make me Happy:

1. Walking by someone on the street who is smiling to themselves- My favorite!
2. The Sun and the beach
3. Spring Time
4. Laughing so hard your stomach hurts
5. My friends and family
6. My medium bold hazelnut coffee from starbucks
7. Walking to class with my ipod on playing my favorite song
8. Meeting new people
9. The color pink
10. Baseball season (Can't wait for April 1st, first regular season game for the Red Sox!)
11. Chocolate milkshakes and french fries
12. Anything that involves chocolate
13. Sitting on the balcony of my building and watching the sun go down
14. Birds chirping- another sign of spring!
15. Fruit salad- random, but how can fruit salad not make you happy?!

 And the list goes on, but those are just things I thought of throughout the day that made me smile. Make a list of things that make you smile, I guarantee you'll feel wonderful by the end of it. Have a great evening :)

Changes

The world is full of change. Whether it's your scenery, friends, mood, the weather, everything's always changing. They could be positive changes, or negative changes, but either way you must learn to cope with them. Since the middle of my senior year up until the present I have gone through so many changes that are still hard to cope with from day to day. I lost a lot of people that I spent my entire life with that I thought were my friends, I'm experiencing my first year in college, all the while trying to juggle my friends, family, new relationships, old relationships, and most of all just trying to keep myself happy.

The way I see it is you have two options. 
Number one, you can sit there and dwell on how badly you want things to go back to the way they were before. Holding grudges and caging bitterness inside you will never, and I mean never, get you anywhere in this life. Every day there are some people who will go out of their way to make you miserable. I have learned a lot about those kinds of people, and the only reason why they try to make you miserable, is because they are miserable themselves. I do not see how that is a life. I don't understand how a person can live their life solely to make everyone around them unhappy. Be the other person, be the person who lives their life solely to make other people around them happy, but more importantly, live your life to make you happy.

And option number two...you can take these changes, turn them into a learning experience, and move on. Even though I went through some tricky experiences throughout my senior year and up until now, I feel like I have really learned how to take each negative and positive experience and turn it into a lesson. I do not regret a single thing that I've gone through in my life. I know for a fact all of the people who used to be in my life were just passing by and they left me behind a stronger, more experienced person than I was before.

The topic of change has recently been a big part of my life. I'd like to think I am in control of everything, I'm stubborn at times, and I like to figure things out for myself. But when something out of my control is happening, where does that leave me? It leaves me to prepare for another change. Another chance to become stronger, another chance to learn.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference."

-Reinhold Niebuhr