Joie de vivre

I don't make logical decisions when I'm half-asleep. In fact, logic doesn't seem to play a part in my thought process at all. I'm not sure how difficult it is to think "get one of the blankets from the stack on the end of the bed" when one wakes up cold in the middle of the night, but my sleepy solution is never that.

It's apparently to see how tight of a ball I can curl up into, like a pitiful little puppy huddled in a cold corner.

My conclusion is that I am an idiot. At least when mostly asleep.

I heard a little NPR blurb advertising their morning news show ... "We'll catch you up on everything that happened while you were asleep!" It made me wonder when this idea started that we have some sort of an obligation to keep informed and appraised of so much. 

I like news. I like information. And I think it's good to be interested in more than just your local happenings - keeping an eye on national and international stories gives a sense of perspective.  But their innocent little promo made me realize that underneath my interest and enjoyment, I do feel like I'm "supposed" to keep up, and an underlying and subtle sense of panic if I don't.* I go to sleep listening to the BBC. I wake up to more international news. I check google reader and twitter and news sites throughout the day. Sometimes I listen to Deutsche Welle radio in the evening. I catch talk radio whenever I can, read newspapers, read magazines, read anything and everything interesting that I find online, read books on all kinds of subjects. If I can't do these things for whatever reason, I feel like I'm falling behind - like I have to catch up.

In conclusion, to myself: Self, it is good to be informed. But stop this senseless feeling of obligation.


*on the other hand, I feel panic about a lot of things, mostly variations on "must do ALL the things during my lifetime."

Engage. Do not sit back and wait for something to interest you enough to force your attention- be in charge of your attention. Direct it. Think about things. Don't be a passive recipient. Life is not a spectator sport. It's your responsibility to be interested, not entertained.

Don't just survive. LIVE.

(read the whole post, which goes on to talk about raising children with this attitude, here at the blog of my favorite family ever. I haven't seen them in far too long and I miss them! ♥)

I'm sure everybody's done a million of these today, but now I'm curious. So please: tell me what you think I am.

Every so often something happens that makes me realize how different I've become.

A couple weeks ago in class we split into groups of three for a project. One person had to be the leader and organize the information given by the other two students. The other two in my group naturally assumed that I would be the leader of our group. And the scary thing is: I naturally assumed so too.

I've never been a natural leader in my life. I Do Not Assume Leadership Roles. I have rarely been picked out to be in charge of other people. In charge of projects I could do on my own, yes, but not other people. And yet, there I was, taking over with no problem at all.

Every so often I'll be standing with the "girls" at work (the part time ladies), and suddenly I will realized that I'm actually in a supervisory position over these people who are two and three times older than I am. There are times when I'm the only full time person in the building, and...then problems end up at my desk. I am 20 1/2 and they are coming to ME for a final decision on something?!

But mostly I just accept it and only occasionally am I shocked and surprised. And that's another of the things that has changed.

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I'm kind of lonely today.