Who needs balance when you have chocolate cake?

I DO!!! when i did youth ministry for a time, one of the lessons i grabbed from the YFC curriculum was on balance. you took a quiz on four areas of your life: spiritual, social, physical and mental, to see where you stood on each. the goal of the quiz was to fall somewhere in the upper-middle of all of them. if you found you were high on one end and low on another, you could re-organize your priorities accordingly. with my life, i have found that balance seems to be the key for me. usually, i find i am lacking in one area at a time. i attempt to fix it, therefore, neglecting another, and then frantically trying to re-focus my energy on that...........it tends to be a vicious cycle, a vicious cycle that is usually manageable. i can usually tell when something is being neglected because i feel unsettled. i can definitely tell when things are balanced because i begin to get the urge to do something stupid to throw it all out of whack again :) lately i have been feeling unsettled, so, naturally, at two o'clock this morning, i couldn't sleep. i started to think about the different areas of my life to see which one was off-balance with the rest and came to a horrifying realization: THEY ALL ARE!! there is not one area of my life that is balanced or focused or on target with where it should be......not even close. it's a wonder i get through each day. the truth is....i don't. i float through each day like a zombie, doing the bare-minimum to simply survive it. my diet is aweful, i have gained weight and feel extremely uncomfortable with myself physically (not because i'm obsessed with it but because i know how my body should feel and i'm not even close to that right now), i haven't been keeping up on my homework because nothing has been "due", and i keep arriving late and unprepared, i'm letting work stress me out beyond what it should, nothing is a priority right now - i just float to the next thing and sit. i haven't done a devotion in over a week, or been to church in two months, ( i have conversations with God every day, which is how i came to the revelation of my present-day, unbalanced existence). i have not been in touch with close friends for quite some time, or returned calls, or really care much about making or breaking plans. i have grown comfortable with the fact that i have run out of clean clothes and my apartment is a disaster......the list can go on and on, but i'll spare the details. that's just the major stuff. while i understand that some fine-tuning is in order, i can also be realistic and understand that it's not going to be completely different overnight. i know i am capable of going into overdrive and turning everything around by this time tomorrow, but eventually i would grow weary and jump back off the wagon and become lazy again. this is not a quick fix situation. it's a matter of finding the small changes i can make in each area to grow closer to the desired level of balance.........i'm not looking forward to the work involved, i'm sure that's why i continually stall the inevitable, but i will feel better and get more out of the things i am involved in. in addition, i will be a better influence on the lives of those i encounter on a daily basis. i will be better for me, and better for them....most of all, i will be better for Him. looks like i better go, i have to do my laundry, walk a bit on the treadmill, eat a balanced meal, do some kind of homework, call an old friend, make plans with a new one, and go to bible study........sounds like a pretty well-balanced night. hopefully that means this headache will finally go away...... ~PEACE~

Would you stop looking at me, please?

To tell you the truth, i have no idea why i just thought of that title for this blog. it seems to fit perfectly, however. i have rehearsal in a bit, so this has to be short. i got a part in "the little prince". i am the rose at the beginning of the play, she is talked about and the very significant part of the the little prince's entire journey. it is a great story, and i'm happy to be a part of it. or maybe i'm just happy to be significant...... i went on this testing thing that i saw on another blog and found out funny stuff about me, that i already knew....it's one of those tests that can explain exactly who you are by asking twelve questions...unfortunately there were two questions that two answers applied to me at the same degree, so i tried the test both ways, and, of course, got two different responses, and, of course, i found they both applied to me in different ways: 9 - YOU ARE A PEACEMAKER you are emotionally stable and willing to find common ground with others. your friends and family often look to you to be the mediator when there is a conflict. you are easy going and accepting. you take things as they come. avoiding conflict at all costs, you're content when things are calm. 4 - YOU ARE THE INDIVIDUALIST you are sensitive and intuitive, with others and yourself. you are creative and dreamy...plus dramatic and unpredictable. you're emotionally honest, real, and easily hurt. totally expressive, others always know exactly how you feel. ah, truth to both, but, just like horoscopes, probably a bit of truth in every one. these are probably just the two that contain the most truth about me. my mind is swimming with words and emotions and puzzle pieces that have yet to find a home right now......my head actually hurts. i feel the need to rest, but only because i know that is not an option. it seems the very thing i need to do is always the last thing i want to. i'm beginning to change that around a bit, by changing my thinking on the matter, however, it still comes to haunt me every so often. rehearsal will be good......my part is small, and i can sit and do whatever i want while the others are doing their blocking, then i can also get my blocking down so i can begin to memorize the text with the blocking. memorization is always my biggest hurdle in a play. i love improv, so i like to make things different every time, but you can't with an actual play. don't get me wrong, i love to committ to a character, the problem always comes in the delivery of the dialogue and the dialogue itself. we concentrated on anger today in our acting class....not my favorite emotion, but a worthwhile experience to say the least. i realized something today in both my acting class, and my poetry class, and i'm sure it applies to my directing class as well. i always thought with art you either have it or you don't. the truth is, it can be learned, and, even if you have all the talent in the world, it still has to be honed in so it's appropriately utilized. i never knew that. i never knew there was technique, and basics involved with poetry or theatre, but there is. that is what devides the trained from the untrained. i have also found that it's actually something i want to take the time to learn. wierd. i have to go to rehearsal...peace.

Another Rockin' Semester......

It looks like another rockin' semester is in the works. I thought it was going to be kinda "eh" compared to last semester, but i think i will be pleasantly surprised. i haven't really gotten back into the school mode yet...i even forgot to grab my book and paper and stuff for my class yesterday...i had to borrow from the computer lab...but it went well...it was public speaking. unfortunately, i have managed to arrive late to every class i've had this week. who arrives late on the first day? apparently, i do. i had originally scheduled a four hour night class - accounting. who does that besides a crazy lady? i wasn't really looking forward to it, but i need it eventually, anyway. then, a friend told me the professor i had for that class was impossible - to understand and to pass without a but load of outside work. i hate outside of class work. i know that's what a majority of college is, outside work, but not to actually have to go through the book and teach yourself everything - in accounting. so.....i was searching the on-line registration, and just happened upon an english class i had previously tried to get in but it was closed. there was one opening in the class - so i signed up. it's a poetry class - ROCK ON! i just got out of it, and it is going to be awesome, it will be outside work, but, chances are it is work i am already doing, on my own time: reading and analyzing poems, and maybe taking a stab at writing some of my own. we'll see....... fate is in my corner, well, not fate, more like faith. the intro to directing class i wanted was completely full with a waiting list of more than ten students. i happen to jump on the computer at the same time that someone dropped the class and managed to squeeze in before someone from the waiting list was contacted - that's awesome! i also am in an intermediate acting class with the more brilliant actors from svsu. in my intro to acting class i was somewhere in the middle, which was good - i am now at the bottom of the barrel staring up in ernest. i am going to learn a ton in this class and be stretched yet again from my little box that has grown increasingly bigger with each risk i take. lastly, i am taking a public speaking course. i am deathly afraid of that class. i do realize, however, so is everyone else who is in there. there will be some brilliant speakers, there will be some not so brilliant speakers. we're all there for the same reason, to get better. i like to think that is what we all have in common, and puts us all on the same level, no matter how brilliant we are or are not. you ever have those moments where something seems so perplexing, then suddenly your mind clears the sun peaks from behind the clouds, and the answer is staring at you as if it had been there in plain english all along? i get that more and more as time goes on. i got that today while analyzing an Emily Dickenson poem for a quiz (that's right..we had a quiz..never mind that i had just signed up for the class today and missed the first one...but the professor said if i bombed it i could make it up somehow....that's reassuring :) anyway....i was staring at her somewhat obscure language and grammatical structure......suddenly i began to write, and as i wrote, more came to me and it began to make sense.....i know, an emily dickenson poem began to make sense!!!! that's crazy. now, the way i see it, i am either completely right on with comparing the "narrow man in the grass" with a skeleton, and a "House of Prose" with the ordinary and uninviting status quo, or i am way off and will be mortified when the somewhat obvious to everyone else answer that is completely different from anything i was thinking of is revealed. i somewhat hope i am wrong......isn't that funny? all through school we write something we perseve to be brilliant and hand it in knowing that the teacher is going to be moved to tears and read it aloud to the class the next day, only to be crushed when we receive the paper back with a red marker all over it and a note telling us that we got way off track and must have not been paying attention when the directions were given...whoops. what happened to brilliant? more like brilliantly off focus. in this case though, i hope there is red marker all over challenging me to dig deeper and look harder, or stop looking so hard and perceive what is staring me in the face. if i am right, the professor might expect more than i can give, and the class might, too. in a class like this, i would rather sit in my own little corner and listen to what others bring to the table, giving my input but giving it in a way that no one would know it was mine, not because i fear i will be wrong, but more because i fear i will be right. is that silly? maybe. theatre is not a practical major - bull. i've never felt like i was being more practical than right now. everything and nothing makes sense. i am no longer searching beyond myself but within myself. i can share real experiences and truly get to know the inner workings of my classmates. i am vulnerable but safe, open but real. if nothing else...i feel at home. 2005 is definitely going to rock.