The story of the worst weekend in recent history and how I made up for it in one afternoon

This past weekend was quite possibly the most stressful of my life. I was given an impossibly hard task and spent two full days thinking I was too incompetent and unintelligent to complete the task, for which I had no training and no written instructions. Turns out, I'm NOT a failure (!!!), it was the assignment that was unfair. I spent the weekend literally sick with stress and spent so much time and energy wallowing.

SO. I'm making up for it. Rebuilding all the self-love I tore down for two days and taking time to restore to normal levels of stress (which are still too damn high).

Today, I took the afternoon off. Got myself lost and ended up in Boulder. Hiked around Chautauqua Park. Ate a ton of pesto pasta (my first (successful) pesto attempt). Watched more than one episode of a show because I had forgotten what the luxury of binge-watching felt like. Bought the sparkliest nail polish I could find (makes me feel like a mermaid). Didn't even LOOK at my to-do list because that stuff can wait sometimes.

Check out that rainbow, yo.

REMINDER TO MYSELF AND EVERYONE ELSE, TOO: TREAT YO'SELF. That does not necessarily mean buy that really expensive thing you want, it means remember that you deserve more than you might be giving yourself.

Here's my list of treat m'selfs that I'm stickin' to:

1. Setting a time each week to drop everything and watch American Horror Story with Jack. 
2. Buying Green Mountain coffee instead of the generic kind because it feels like home, even if it's a bit more expensive and the only options are hazelnut and half-caf. 
3. Getting out of Greeley at least once a week. For my sanity. Even if it means just driving 20 minutes to Loveland and seeing the mountains in the distance.

Making tiny adjustments can make a huge difference. I will NEVER (probably) have another weekend like that one. 

Rest, Recharge, & STUDY MY BUTT OFF

This week is definitely one of the most stressful weeks of grad school as of yet. Two exams this week, one next week and a big ol' paper due on top of that. Everyone handles stress differently. I'm currently working on choosing how to handle my stress. I don't want to be helpless to it, I want to be able to channel it into something productive.

It usually comes out in tears, sometimes in cookie-eating, sometimes on other people, which I HATE. I hate when other project their own frustrations onto others. It's not fair, it's not productive at all.

This morning was a perfect example of how I wish I could handle stress all the time. I've got a big exam tomorrow, so I let myself sleep in past the time I usually go to the gym and instead did a home yoga workout. Then I made protein pancakes and made myself get through at least 2 flashcards before flipping each pancake. I went through the whole stack of flashcards before the pancakes were even done and then I let myself enjoy them flashcard-free. Another quick read-through of all the flashcards and then I fried up some wontons for lunch so that I could go straight from class to the coffee shop to keep on the study grind.

About to head to class. I've already been up for three hours, but I feel calm, stress-free, and less-panicked about the exam tomorrow. I'm not ready yet, but treating myself to a low-key morning recharged my studying batteries and I'll be ready to go again soon.

YAY GRAD SCHOOL, I'M TIRED

Vestibular testing and cheese.

Yesterday, I helped out with one of the upper level grad classes by being their vestibular testing guinea pig. They were doing the "caloric reflex test," testing the vestibulo-ocular reflex, which helps stabilize images on the retina. It involves wearing these big-ass goggles that track your eye movements and laying down while a continuous stream of water is squirted in your ear to flood the canal and purposely make you dizzy. The professor had me lay down and the goggles had me in complete darkness. I was visibly nervous, so she said "it feels sort of like a night of drinking. Some people pay for that feeling, you know." I laughed haaaard, and then the water hit and after 20 seconds or so, I got dizzy. It felt just like having the spins. I could feel my eyes wiggling around trying to find something to focus on, which is the point of the test. It measured and graphed my eye movements, which basically showed that my reflex is normal and blah blah. I got chocolate at the end. 

So that was yesterday. 

Today, there is not enough cheese in the WORLD. There's too much work and not enough cheese. Never enough cheese. Also, I didn't realize how good we had it in Vermont with Cabot. Generic grocery store cheese is not really cheese, it's like a tasteless sponge that is artificially orange and wrongfully labeled extra sharp when in reality there is no sharpness at all. Wannabe, faker cheese. Rant over. For now.