Relax, Take it Easy

Dearest Readers,
In the midst of this end of the quarter palooza, the students of Ohio University are losing their minds. When any college’s semester/quarter/quadrangle’s is coming to a close, all students start to take the plunge off the deep end. The worst part is, however, you feel guilty for giving yourself a break.
When I am super stressed over [fill in the blank 250 million point project due tomorrow], everyone recommends I take a breather. Take a breather?! If I take a breather now I will get behind in XYZ, then I will fail all my classes, have no career, and end up living cold and alone in a dark alley. Seriously though, melodramatics aside, we don’t allow ourselves a chance to breath, because we are constantly worried about the next thing.
Growing up in the generation of immediate access to everything from news to entertainment, we think in drastically different terms then our predecessors. Everything has to be done now.
The consequence of thinking we can’t give ourselves a break is we don’t actually take productive breaks. We think okay two minute break, let’s go on facebook…and we end up trapped there like computer zombies for the next two hour….whoops….c’mon, we’ve all done it. That time you could have spent actually doing what you wanted to do: calling a friend from home, exercising, knitting, whatever suits your fancy, was instead spent stalking people you barely know. Thus, you feel guiltier for wasting even more time, so you focus harder, and the soul-crushing cycle continues.
So now that I have spent most of this post expressing the problem, you as a responsible reader are probably expecting me to offer up some semblance of a solution. Oh clever reader, you really give me too much credit. All I can say is, I am still struggling to find the solution myself.
I am visiting home this weekend, and I find myself feeling guilty for not doing homework. This is the first time I’ve seen my family in eight weeks, and I can’t stop reading court cases to spend time with them?
Lesson to be learned: College is the time to find the balance. I don’t want us to be the generation of workaholics, so we need to use our breaks wisely. Howabout instead of two hours of work then “five” minutes of facebook, we actually give ourselves an hour to exercise or call a friend. Let’s do something crazy here and actually aim for sanity!
As for me, I’m off to an evening with the family and I will (try) not let myself feel guilty for enjoying it. Tra la la!
Blissfully yours,
Adorkable

What is it Good For? [Curling I Mean]

Dearest Readers,
While many of us enjoy the winter Olympics for the downhill skiing, the figure skating, or the snowboarding, I’m here today to talk to you about curling. In layman’s terms, the sport is essentially shuffleboard on ice. It consists of hurling rocks down an ice path, while your teammates use a broom to clear the stone’s path to a target. One team tries to get more stones on the target than the other. The question of the day: what kind of sport is this?
Now don’t get me wrong, I respect all athletes. (As someone with no hand eye coordination, I respect those who can communicate between their brain and their limbs). Still, I am curious as to how this sport came into existence and how people discovered that their life would be spent as a curling athlete.
While discussing this in my dorm’s common room, we came up with several theories. One day someone said, no shuffleboard you are not enough! I must play you on ice for added challenge! I will wear special shoes, not skates, and use brooms for funsies!
This may be an Olympic sport, but I have no idea what they do for the rest of the year. How did they even become involved in curling? Who scouts these athletes? You sir, look like you would be an excellent curler, I can see that you have a natural talent for sliding objects across tables…yay hurrah! Do they have coaches? Yes, I've been curling for about 30 years now.
How do they train?? Do they lift? Imagine going to your boyfriend’s house and when his parents ask you what you do for a living, you say that you are a professional curler….yeah hokay, that’s not going to go over well.
Another important aspect, the reporters speaking about curling during the Olympics spoke about their knowledge of strategy in curling….how do you get vast knowledge of curling? Do they wikipedia it immediately before hand? If I say I have a lot of experience with shuffleboard, could I be hired as a journalist reporting about curling?
Please, all curlers out there do not be offended, it’s not that I don’t respect you, it’s that you fundamentally confuse me. I'm sure, however, that this same confusion could be said of any sport. Who invented bocce ball? Why do people ram into each other for a 'pigskin'? And who ever thought that putting blades on your feet and skating around would be a good idea? It's all absurd if you take a moment to think about it.
Lesson to be learned: You may have a hidden curling talent that you don’t know about or you could be the inventor of a new sport that just might make it to the Olympics. What are you waiting for?! Go!
Confoundedly yours,
Adorkable

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Dearest Readers,
From my perch on the seventh floor of Alden library, Athens looks like the quintessential winter wonderland. Snow piles delicately on tree branches, which stand in stark contrast to the blue sky. Snowflakes land on eye lashes and hats and shoulders (like dandruff only cooler).
Yet the students complain of the following: ‘It’s slushy,’ ‘It’s cold,’ ‘I can’t feel my [insert limb here].’ Granted, I have had those days. I have woken up on the wrong side of the bed and the early morning walk is frigid and unpleasant, but seriously kids this is gorgeous and wintery and FABULOUS!!!
Think of it this way: When you were younger, snow was the equivalent of kraft macaroni and cheese (aka the best thing ever). You would run about, fall over, make snow angels, create forts, have snow ball fights, build snowmen, careen on your sled, and return to your home numb all over, cheeks a fabulous shade of tomato red, exhausted and utterly satisfied. Now come on college kids, we all know that we are still just as immature as our younger selves (we prove that on a daily basis), so what happened to this love for the snow?
I know we have school work and homework and blah blah blah blah blah. Part of college is learning to live better: to balance the work with the social, the homework with the fun. It’s sounds horrendously cliché, but what happened to living in and for the moment?
Lesson to be learned: Give yourself an hour to romp in the snow, because wailing someone with a huge snowball and watching it slide painfully down the inside of their jacket is just as satisfying as ever. I promise.
Blizzardly yours,
Adorkable

Waiting on the World to Change

Dearest Readers,
As you all know, unless you have been living under a rock for the past 3 weeks, a shattering earthquake hit Haiti that landed a 7.0 on the Richter Scale. The quake left thousands who were already impoverished homeless and left many more searching for family and friends in the aftermath. The travesty led to one amazing result: immediate world-wide attention. Red Cross, the Marines, and the pocketbooks of America jumped in to save the day. While this result was overwhelmingly amazing, I feel that we as Americans are overlooking one small problem: Why did it take an earthquake for us to help save Haiti?
In my Anthropology class last quarter, we read "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder (who is a man in case you wondering...it threw me off too). The book is essentially a biography of Paul Farmer a man who has been working in Haiti for over 20 years. His organization Partners In Health opened and operates a free health care clinic to prevent the spread of tuberculosis and other curable diseases in Haiti. Paul Farmer's concept boils down to this: if we have a cure, why should anyone, anywhere have to die from this disease? Everyone deserves Free Health Care in the eyes of Paul Farmer. He opened his clinic, Zanmi Lasante, in Haiti an hour north of Port-au-Prince (the main site of the recent quake), which aids everyone regardless of their monetary situation. Not to mention, Farmer is hiring Haitians and training them to work in the clinic, thus he provides both job opportunities and health care in tandem. Partners in Health has expanded to include new countries like Peru and new problems like the AIDS epidemic. But this little rant on my love for Paul Farmer and Kidder's book (which you should all go buy right now...DO IT!) is merely a digression from my overall message. It took a massive earthquake for us to give Haiti the attention that it has deserved for the past 20 years. Granted, there are a lot of problems in the world, and there is no way to solve them all. However, should it take thousands of homeless people's pictures plastered on television for us to donate money, should it take a genocide in Sudan for us to finally help?
Though the world's problems seem insurmountable, especially to an 18-year-old with a college budget, Paul Farmer's message is that all people can change the world (gaggable and cliche...I know, but isn't it precious?). Dedicate yourself to one cause and pursue it. Giving money to the red cross is great (heck I did it), but there are millions of organizations that could put our $10 college donations to better use.
Lesson to be learned: Read the news, talk to professors, and read up on the problems of the world to find the cause of your choice. Sometimes I feel like I can do so little to help the world, but if all I can right now is be aware, sometimes that is enough. Because when the Haiti quake hit, I knew exactly where my money should go.
Peace and Love,
Adorkable