2/1/2016 0 Comments A begining...There are things that I don't want to think about: I have one real friend here in Portland and I'm completely lonely. Growing up, I was my parents "shadow", a euphemism for a child with a timid, shy demeanor. Growing up, that was okay. There was always a friendly classmate that introduced me into their life.. tugged me along.
Honestly, I don't know how to make friends. I think it just begins with a "hello." The difficulty in this is that nobody seems like they want to hear it.
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12/22/2015 0 Comments Ability (more on this later)It can be difficult to imagine what we haven't seen ourselves do before. We don't want to let ourselves down so we say that we will try. I don't think trying is good enough. We must trust ourselves.
12/22/2015 0 Comments ImprovementThere is an immense pressure on all of us to construct an image that “we have it all together.”
I am not asking you to stop improving. I think it is clear that I am always working to improve something. If you feel like you should be doing better, take a second consider what motivates you to change. Do you really want to be doing better or do you want to create a better image of yourself? Is this about improving as a person or looking better to everyone else? 12/22/2015 0 Comments Failure and AchievementIf I look at failure as the absence of achieving a goal, I would presume that my high school experience was a total failure as I didn't accomplish when I set out to do.
High school was not easy and to look back at my time there and think.. “Marisa, you should have done better” is just counter productive. Achievement is abstract. It is not defined as a concrete object. If achievement were an object, one object, I don’t think any one of us would get it. We all “achieve.” Take whatever journey you want, you will find achievement. 12/22/2015 0 Comments A Quote:"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, until it seems as though you cannot hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn." -Harriet Beecher Stowe 12/20/2015 0 Comments UpdateMostly, this is a personal blog. It is sort of like a journal.. with links, and photos, and formatting.
Apparently I do have views.. but I think they may be robots. Really, I like to look back on what has happened in my life. So, during my first term.. I was loaded with schoolwork. I lived in a house with fourteen people, got an apartment, got a roommate, made a budget (did not do this while traveling...), rented a Uhaul and bought furniture, got a cool job and managed to get a very good GPA. I began to train for climbing. Emotionally, sometimes I feel depressed but I think I am doing pretty well. I made a few friends. I am hugely introspective and contemplative, more so than I have ever been before. There is more but thats the significant life stuff. 12/20/2015 0 Comments Plant Based DietI became a vegan because I thought it was the right thing to do. I knew that if I did not eat meat or any animal products I would be contributing to a healthier planet. At the same time, I was working on organic farms that raised animals. Cheese came from the goats that I walked. Eggs came from the chickens that I build coops for. Meat came from the livestock that passed away due to illness. In my opinion, this is the ideal way to incorporate animal products into your diet. The reality is that most of us do not live on organic farms. We do our shopping at a grocery store where most animal products come from a factory farm. These factory farms are unacceptable environments for an animal to be raised in and perpetuate the global change crisis. I do not want to participate in this.
In order to stay out of this practice, I decided to eat a vegan diet for at least one year. After a year and a half of observing myself on this diet, I have decided to make a change. I will not be introducing meat into my diet at the moment as I have no desire to, and I do see it as unnecessary in most, even local and organic, cases. I will, however, begin to consume other animal products that come from local, organic farms. This will be not be often. My body does not react well to animal products, especially diary. Meat and dairy is slow to digest and often causes inflammation in the body. However, ethically, I consider this consumption okay for me. I may buy cheese at a farmers market once a month or if I am working on a farm, I may drink milk. I am implementing animal products on a very small scale. I will still eat a plant based diet but I do not want to consider myself vegan. I would like to become more critical in my actions. Practices may be wise or unwise depending on the situation. It was helpful to be a vegan as I did not want to, and still don't want to, eat animal products from factory farms. I did not want to explain why I would drink some milk but not eat pancakes. I think that I have enough experience and capability to explain this now. 12/9/2015 0 Comments Doing NothingToday I didn't do anything.
Alright, I did a few things but I didn't try to do anything. I can't be lazy everyday.. at least in the modern society I am living in. Most days I'd rather be productive with a capital "P" but I really do enjoy a good day of nothing when I'm in the mood. Those days probably come about once a month or so. I went to the library, got some books, worked on job applications, watched a bajillion documentaries and now I am here. I am switching up the Wednesday <-> Thursday blogs for today and tomorrow because I haven't yet figured out what direction I would like to take my Holistic Health page. I have to do some good hard thinking about that. I am arranging my schedule for next term as the class I waitlisted a few weeks ago removed me from the waitlist. :( If I don't get into that class I will be going to school TWICE a week. Two classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and one online class. Now now, what does that mean for me? Well, it certainly opens up the doors for a little travel. Not like SE Asia travel but maybe Washington, California.. Idaho. That is, if I don't have a Mon.-Fri. work schedule. Yeah, and jobs. I need one. Non typical stuff: I have been pretty focused on climbing. For the past three-ish months climbing has been basically only for enjoyment. It is still that way and I plan for it to continue like that 90% of the time. I would like to increase my focus 10% of my climbing time, however, on improvement. I'll keep you updated. If I work on that as I work on most things then it will be an interesting report. I also have a little documentary schemed up in my head. I don't think I can call it a documentary.. it's like a short interview series(?). Okay, Goodnight, Marisa 12/8/2015 0 Comments No Social Media.It has been about three weeks since I used a personal social media account. I was hesitant to delete my accounts as, in the past, they had been useful tools for communicating with people I don't see often (like extended family and friends from travel).
It is true that now I can't communicate with many of the people that I have met last year. Consider, though, if I wanted to maintain the relationships, I could have asked for emails and phone numbers prior to deleting my accounts. This ultimate disadvantage is not more important to me than is abstaining from social media. What has my experience been life without Facebook and Instagram? 1. Less comparison. My life has been enormous effect when I compare myself to others.. a unfortunately inevitable effect of using social media. In doing this, I have lessened my opportunity to compare which decreases the power of a habit. 2. More time. I won't say that I have enormously more time, as I didn't use social media too frequently. I did use it at short intervals between work. Without this option, I am more effective. Time dedicated as a break is used in a more productive manner. Thats all, Marisa My first entry this year was "Why I am Going to College". My premise was that I was ready and excited. I wrote, "Do what excites you, whatever it is. Life can be simple like that sometimes." Should I have more reason to go to school?
ONE of things I want to do in my life requires a college degree. Many other things do not. And I don't really buy the idea that college helps mature you. You can better yourself in many ways. But I have sort of determined that I am going to question anything I do. If I were to, for example, begin my study of herbalism, I would be just as unsure as I am now. In summary, I am still excited about anthropology and this "college" life. Meanwhile, my excitement about all there is to do in this world distracts me in a way.. makes me question what I am doing. I think everyone thinks these sort of things. On another note, all of this thinking is guiding me in the right direction. For example, I have learned that I want to be more active in my studies. (Yes... I know getting a degree is a form of action.) Because of this, I am discussing and researching internships. |
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