Because Forrest Gump is the longest movie in the history of the world (aside from Benjamin Button)

I'm going to update my blog.

It's that time! Now usually when I tell you that I'm going to do a picture dump I can practically hear the groaning. Lucky for you these pics are actually interesting. I'm not even going to explain them so just enjoy. So buckle up... unless you aren't in the car in which case buckling up is probably unnecessary.... unless you're so distraught by the subject of this post that you are going to receive electroshock therapy... in which case you should probably buckle up... unless you have issues with claustrophobia in which case you SHOULD NOT buckle up....unless you're getting ready to go two-stepping, in which case you should probably buckle up.

 That was painful enough. Now back to whatever you were doing... unless you were watching Tree of Life, in which case, I probably don't even have to tell you... just stop and eject it now.

What can I say

except I'm so sorry. The people wanted bruise shots and  I sadly, did not deliver. I'm a failure. I'm worthless. I'm.... lazy. So here it is, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've all be waiting for. Prepare to be dazzled and doozled and amazed and bamboozled... here is my paint interpretation of why my balance beam bruise looks like today............ (those dots are the drum roll... and yes I'm aware that's not what percussion music looks like)................

yyyyyeeeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh

#bruisewatch2012

#brusiewatch2012

It's come to my attention that maybe actual pictures are too much for you squeamish folk. In place of photos I will post daily paint pictures instead! Get ready... it will be amazing. 

#bruisewatch2012 Day 2

I've decided to start #bruisewatch2012 for all of my devoted followers. This way you can stay up to date on the progress of my balance beam bruise (I love when alliteration just happens naturally). 

So here it is.... Day 2

You can see that the outer rim is becoming darker as the days pass. As a whole the bruise is rather spotted and elderly like.

Come back  tomorrow to witness history in the making. And remember to tag any tweets on the topic with #bruisewatch2012

The story of how I was likely scarred for life physically and unquestionably scarred for life mentally

It was a beautiful day. We spent the afternoon hiking the trails of Cameron Park and hammocking on the river side. The warmth of the sun rested upon us as the breeze brushed over our faces. The background noises were of children laughing cheerfully and dogs barking with joyful vigor. All seemed right in the world. 

Then the sun began to hide behind the darkening clouds and the breeze turned into a biting wind. We packed our things and took to the road. It was getting late and our stomachs growled in anguish. We returned to our homes to wash up and headed to dinner. The evening was pleasant but still something loomed darkly over us; it was a dreadful feeling of travesty soon to come. 

Okay but seriously, what I didn't know was that in about 5 hours, I was about to be in the worst physical pain I had ever experienced. It was ZZZ take-a-date and true to the weirdness of ZZZ we went to a gymnastics facility. People went in like normal civilized humans...

and immediately turned into this.....

They were jumping, climbing, wrestling, flipping, etc. There was a VERY large amount of people and they were everywhere, doing everything.

I however, with a mild and self diagnosed anxiety disorder, hung back and observed the mayhem. I decided to do a cartwheel... oh what a mistake. 

I was successful.... at first. So I took to the widened balance beam. Success. I moved to the narrow balance beam a mere foot from the ground. Success. Then higher. Success. Higher. Success. 

Then came the voice of the man I thought I loved. 

Aaron: You've done it already, now do the tallest one!

Me: I can't, I'm too nervous. If I fall from here I could break something!

Aaron: It's all in your head. Do it!

Me: Okay, one more time!

It was like that moment in the Olympics when the favorited gymnast falls and everybody gasps.... only it wasn't anything like that because I'm not an Olympic gymnast (something made very clear to me after this night) and instead of gasps, I heard laughter. I, mortified and in unspeakable pain, tried to laugh it off and hobbled to the restroom to find this.....

Sooooo yeeeeah. 

I look like the girl from "A League of Their Own"... anybody? 

And that is how I became scarred both physically and mentally. And how I learned that the best advise doesn't come from deranged monkey people in a gymnastics place. 

Warning. Serious blog post, hopefully to be followed by not as serious blog posts.

Today in my internship seminar we talked about the importance of self care.
Social workers, due to the intensity of their work, often experience compassion fatigue. Basically we hear other people's struggles and problems and pains so often that we begin to exhibit signs of depression because we are not properly handling the excess emotions. We use self care to step back and take time for ourselves to ensure we don't fall prey to this phenomenon. This may mean painting if you're a painter, writing if you're a writer, or baking if you're a baker. I however, am a blogger; a blogger becoming fatigued by an annoyingly busy schedule. Due to said busyness I have convinced myself that I don't have time to blog.

But I LOVE blogging, because even if I'm the only one who reads my posts, in the dark, at night... it still brings me joy. So this is my way of saying, I will be blogging more frequently in order to combat the hectic-ness that has become my life.

I'm blogging to slow down. I'm blogging to be creative. I'm blogging to laugh. I'm blogging to keep my roommates from finding me in fetal position whispering to myself that I just want to give up... because, no matter our major, or line of work, don't we all feel like that sometimes? Whether it's organizing an annual Christmas musical, going through the interview process for acceptance into graduate school, traveling every single week, doing all of the miscellaneous jobs in the office that end up on your plate, or juggling school, work, and an internship, we all experience fatigue and we must all find the joy that counters it.

Let this not be my way of saying that true joy comes from the words I spell out on a webpage. Because when I am captured by the world, I have a God who rescues me and holds me in his hands.

"You will seek me and find me when you seek with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the Lord, "and will bring you back from captivity." Jeremiah 29:13-14

I felt like Doogie Howser the whole time I wrote this. Imagine I was typing it on a blue computer screen and this was playing the whole time (click play button below and reread entire blog post)

Attention society, I've solved all of your problems.

You know when you have those nights when everything in the world is running through your mind and you can't fall asleep and you have amazing thoughts and then you fall asleep and when you wake up you think, "I should have written it down!" because you can't for the life of you remember? Well if you wake up in the middle of the night and remember your dreams, Freud says don't write them down. BUT, if you have an amazing world changing thought before you fall asleep, you should jot it down. And this is the thought I had on the cusp of sleeping a few nights ago.

I've determined how to solve crime. Forget dramatic trials, forget OJ pleading innocent while his isotoners are still warm, forget the blind woman who can't tell if the car is metallic mint green. No need. I've solved it all.

Has anybody played signature bingo? It's one of those awful ice breakers that EVERYBODY hates, but you have to play so you slowly walk around the room pretending like you're participating and hoping one of those weird hyper-competitive or socially uninhibited people finish quickly. The gist is you have a "bingo" card with random things on each square like, "I'm adopted" or "I've been to all 50 states" and you have to walk around and find people who can sign those honestly. Here's an example:

You get the idea?

Great, so I've figured out how to solve crimes. All people are naturally competitive (or at least that's what you believe if you grow up in a family even remotely like mine). So we play off that and we put a whole bunch of likely criminals in a room together and we hand them BINGO cards like this:

I was running out of crimes, hence "loiterer" and "insurance fraud"

So we explain the game to them and say the first one to get a "black out" wins. So naturally, because they all want to win, somebody will say, "can you sign anything on my card?" and another person will be like "yeah! I've totally got weed in my car right now" or, "Yeah, I'm Casey Anthony". And voilà. Crimes. Solved.

I'm a genius. (and by genius I mean I misspelled genius the first time I typed it out)