Some Thoughts on Self-Awareness

Something strange happened to me on Thursday.

I did something which I have always believed I am bad at, only this time I was good at it.

It was a class presentation, which I have always dreaded and have in fact dropped certain classes for upon learning that they would be required. My confidence has really been boosted over the past 10 months so they no longer give me a sickening pit in my stomach; however, I'd still prefer to sit and listen quietly than stand up and speak.

The first strange thing was that out of the three members of my group (we gave a group presentation, each of us talking about a different aspect of our subject), I seemed to be the least nervous. I am slightly older (1-3 years) and have a bit more college experience than most of the students in my classes now since I am a 3rd semester senior, so it may have been that my own anxieties about presenting have become muted while my classmates' are still fresh. However, having never been the "confident one", it felt totally alien to be reassuring the other group members and attempting to calm their frazzled nerves.

What was really strange, though, was that on the elevator after the class was over one of my other classmates (whom I have never interacted with before) turned to me and said, "Your presentation was really good. You made eye contact and were so confident. I was like, 'I want to be like that'". Not only was I incredibly flattered, but I was also quite taken aback- me, confident? and not just passable at presenting but good enough for someone to actually admire me? This did not fit with my image of myself or my skills at all, and as I walked to my car I thought, "maybe the person I've always believed myself to be is not who I actually am".

I've found that throughout our lives we seem to accumulate a list of traits and qualities that we assign to ourselves. Some are told to us often enough that we internalize them, others we discover or diagnose on our own. Especially now that social media plays such a large role in our lives, we are encouraged to define ourselves in our profiles, about me's, etc by a list of adjectives rather than letting our personalities come out organically through our interactions.

One of the biggest ones for me has been that I'm shy or introverted. People have told me this so many times over my entire life that it is just a facet of my identity now. I am pretty introverted, I like my alone time, and I was definitely a shy kid- but having this specific idea of myself cemented in my brain totally blinded me to the ways in which I am not introverted. It even caused me to believe that I was naturally predisposed to be bad at certain things- things like presenting in front of a class. The fact is, though, that many of the things I have self-diagnosed myself as bad at I am actually decent and even good at. It just took an unbiased stranger to bring it to my attention.

Often people say that you should not be concerned with the opinions of others, just concentrate on how you view yourself. I have found, however, that the way I view myself is frequently inaccurate. I have a list of things that I believe myself to be, and when those things change (or are simply not true) it can be difficult to see the discrepancies. I think sometimes other people can see us far more accurately than we see ourselves.

I'm so glad that girl complimented me in the elevator, because it brought me a bit closer to understanding who I am and what I'm actually capable of. The past two years have been a whirlwind from which I'm still in the process of re-emerging. I'm recreating and redefining myself, but it's easy to get lost and be unable to see or notice the changes. That interaction was a reminder to try to see myself objectively- to let my personality and abilities speak for themselves, rather than stuffing them under preconceived ideas of what they are.

<3 Em

motivation... i can haz it?

I have been suffering from a serious lack of motivation recently... not in terms of this blog (i'm totally motivated when it comes to that haha), in terms of life. I turned in my last essay of the semester last week, and ever since I've had the biggest trouble convincing myself that it's necessary to go to school. or wake up. I've been staying up late and then sleeping in until like 10 or 11 every day... so not my style. I'm usually up bright and early to get started on the day! it's pretty sucky.

I blame it on the fact that I hate this apartment, and it's always a mess in one way or another because that's what happens when you live with other people. In the morning I just think about what's waiting for me when I wake up... a messy kitchen to make breakfast in, a pile of laundry in the closet, a mess of books next to my bed that I need to catch up on reading for class... and it's enough for sleepy me to convince motivated me that really, 30 more minutes can't hurt. I just don't want to get up and deal with the mess. It doesn't help that every time I do get super motivated and deep clean the apartment, it's back to square one by the end of the week. frustrating! I can't wait until next fall, when it will be just me and stew and our cute new puppy in our beautiful little apartment with the breakfast bar and the patio and the jacuzzi and the french doors. Hopefully that will be enough motivation to start getting me back up at 6 or 7.

Luckily, the fact that there are only 16 days of school left (that includes today and finals) is a nice little boost. I'm equal parts excited and terrified for summer though... it's going to be crazy busy and technically I'm going to be in school for 5 weeks of it... and then I'm going to be responsible for keeping 30 young adults happy and full of healthy delicious food. so much pressure!! anyways, i'm getting off topic...

What do you guys do when you lack motivation? any tips? I'd love to hear 'em.

Farewell and Hello

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Stew and I spent the weekend in Prescott. I'll go over the whole trip in more detail later along with a whole bunch of pics, but for now I'm just going to talk about the main reason we were up there- our friend Michael's going away party.

Stewie spent pretty much the whole day over there but I decided to hang out and have dinner with my parents first and then go over there around 8 o clock. There were so many people there, both friends and family, and new people kept coming and going. I really had so, so much fun because I got to catch up with SO many people that I usually don't have time to see while I'm in Prescott. It was such a blast- at least up until the very end when Stewie and I had to leave (at 5:30 am mind you) and a wave of sadness and emotion just swept right over me.

I've known Mikey since the first day of 6th grade (almost a decade ago!) and we've been friends since. We haven't always been super close and in recent years he's been more stewie's friend than mine, but he's still a wonderful person and an important figure in my life. He's probably one of the last people I ever would have considered would join the military, but a few months ago he signed up. I know he's really excited about it and I'm happy for him, but realizing that this person I've known for so long is leaving and will probably never be the same again was overwhelming. Not to be melodramatic or anything- I mean it's only bootcamp for now- but I honestly believe the military changes people in a way that is difficult to avoid or reverse.

So, anyways, I got all teary when I was hugging Michael goodbye and looked like a total fool... and then by the time stew and I got home at 6:30 I was so sleep-deprived and emotional that I just burst into tears when my mom opened the door and spent the next hour sitting on my bed talking to my parents about everything. I'm so happy I have such wonderful, supportive parents who are there for me when I'm such a mess :)

Today I feel kind of crappy and worn out... which is why I want to take the time to just say goodbye to all the exhausting, annoying, sad, difficult things of the past and say hello to the hope of a beautiful summer, a great next school year, and future days filled with love and happiness. Farewell complicated yesterday, hello beautiful today (and tomorrow!) Life is hard, and sucky, and people change and leave and make us sad and upset... but after all that is through all the wonderfulness of life is left. So here is to appreciating life and not getting bogged down in the stupid crap. I'm moving forward and keeping my head held high. Thanks to my friends, my family, my boyfriend, and everyone else who keeps me going.

We Are Family!

yay for corny titles! Yesterday, while I was spending the greater part of my afternoon wading through a sea of blogs, looking for ones to give the Versatile Blogger Award to, I had a small revelation. That revelation is that we- the bloggers of this world- are like a family! A community, at least. This seems really obvious but for some reason I had never really thought about it before.

Here's how I see it: I'm a blogger, and most of the people who follow me are bloggers. I follow a whole slew of other bloggers. So yeah, there are readers who don't have blogs, but for the most part, readers are bloggers. We all have become immersed in this culture, one way or another, and fallen in love with it. We document our lives, our families, our crafts, our recipes, and we search for like-minded people and take a peek into their lives. We're like a big network, each of us with our own little corner of the universe that stretches out in a whole bunch of other directions through the blogs we follow. We sustain each other! and we should continue to do so.

While picking blogs to give the award to, I wanted to make sure I chose mostly bloggers who have less than 100 followers, like me, because they're the ones who will really appreciate and benefit from the award. And then I got to thinking, why don't I search for new blogs more regularly? There are SO MANY blogs out there about so many different topics, that unless you've got thousands of followers you're pretty much lost in the abyss. We should be helping each other out, actively searching for blogs that interest us and following them if we like what we see! I know blogging is an exceptionally vain activity, but I also think it can be very altruistic if we decide to make it so. I'm sure everyone knows the joy that comes with getting a comment (especially from someone you don't know!) or receiving a new follower. We should give the same joy back. We are a community, we support each other, we should help each other grow.

That's how I see it, at least. It's kind of a comforting image, really, imagining all of us bloggers as one big family :) I encourage you all to go out and find one new blog to follow today! I know I'm going to.

Happy blogging!
Love,
Em