My Tea Has Betrayed Me

I make tea maybe three times a day. Usually before I leave for school, my internship, or work. Other times I make it throughout the day if there's nothing going on. When I make it before I go somewhere, I pour it into my thermos to take with me. When you pour boiling water into a thermos it's really really hot. 

So here's me getting ready for my internship, on the phone with Ryan, and the teapot whistles. I go to turn it off, and pour it into my thermos. The Jasmine green tea bag is already in there. The only thing missing is the sugar. I turn around to grab a spoon and turn back around to face the counter. The sugar bowl is in the corner and as I reach for it, I knock over the thermos full of steaming, boiling hot water.

It spills all over my left leg.

Take a second to take that in.

So I start freaking out, throw the phone down on a nearby counter and scream in pain. Poor Ryan, he didn't know what happened. So there I was, sitting against a counter with a bright red leg. The first thing I grabbed for was ice, cuz the fridge was nearby. I know you're not supposed to put ice on a burn, but it was the first thing that came to my mind and it helped. Several minutes later, when I reached my bathroom, I was able to put wet cloths over my burn. This helped for very brief periods because after about 20 to 30 seconds, the whole cloth was very warm, so I ran it under the sink with cold water for about half an hour. After that, aloe vera was my best friend, and then neosporin.

So now I walk funny and have a huge burn on my leg thanks to my clumsiness and the tea that betrayed me.

Gluten Free is the Way to Be

When I was born in a small town hospital in Poland, the conditions weren't as clean as one would hope. My mom and I caught a disease because hospitals in general carry a lot of diseases, it didn't help that I was a preemie. The way they cured me of whatever disease I had, which basically took all the nutrients from the food I was ingesting, was by feeding me the sticky stuff that stays in the pan after you boil rice. And it helped, home remedy anyone?, I'm clearly still alive.

Fast-forward 22 years.. now I'm not gonna go self-diagnosing myself but lately I haven't been feeling too well after eating anything. My diet was mostly made up of sandwiches, pasta, pizza, burgers, bagels, chocolate, etc. I cut out dairy in my diet very early on, minus chocolate, because it made me sick, easy - lactose intolerance. So that was figured out, but what wasn't was why I was still nauseous after eating normal foods. 

I had a bad burger one day, aka, undercooked, and I lost it. I was sick and tired of feeling sick after feeding myself. I gave up beef and looked toward a more healthy approach to my diet. One day, when Ryan and I were at McDonalds, I decided to do something crazy... I ordered a salad. OMG, right? Gross, I hated salads. But I had one and it was good. Thus started my salad craze. I would come home from school and make a salad for myself varying the ingredients from romaine lettuce to iceberg to chicken to chicken nuggets, corn, carrots, etc. I've been doing this for maybe a month now? I'm still not an expert on salad making so I'm sticking to the basics.

Ok, so I cut out dark meat and pretty much started a salad only diet.. I ate bagels and toast and pasta now. One problem... I still felt sick after eating. When was it going to end?! I swear I tried everything until one day two weeks ago I had dragged my mom to Target with me to pick out healthy foods and I saw those little capri-sun looking applesauce squeezy pouches (I know.. great description), and I said "Hey, these look good and they have a mixture of fruits. I don't care that they're for kids, I wanna try!" After a lot of convincing, a box of GoGo SqueeZe's was in the cart. 

At home we both tried one, disregarding the fact that they tasted amazing, my mom decided to look at the back of the pouch where it said vegan and gluten free. Of course, since my mom can't speak amazing English, she asked what gluten meant... I gave her the only answer I knew: "It's that stuff people cut out of their diet because it's popular to do that now," in a condescending tone. This wasn't a good enough answer for her, so I looked it up on Google. This was the start of the end of my pain.

Gluten is a protein that is found in wheat, barley, rye, and others like those. Meaning, that one who is allergic or cannot digest wheat needs to follow a gluten free diet. The reason I said earlier, "I will not diagnose myself" was because along with gluten intolerance comes Celiac disease on search engines. Celiac disease is where an individuals' intenstines are damaged after ingesting gluten, so nutrients aren't absorbed into that individual's system (sound familiar... scroll up). Again.. not self-diagnosing, but after I've cut gluten out of my diet, I have felt better - so it could just be a gluten intolerance. 

Regardless, that little squeeze pouch saved me from the years of pain and digestive problems I've been experiencing and led me to discover a healthier lifestyle. Peppermint tea helps as well. Long story short, I feel better now!

And also, sorry for bashing those who cut gluten out of their diet; who knows, they might have good reasons to do so, Lord knows I do.

Who Am I?

I made a video! Watch it, it's super awkward and I know how everyone loves watching awkward people (: Enjoy!

When I said I want to be YouTube famous, I didn't really mean it in a money hungry way. It would just be nice to be heard by others and be able to offer advice and be a role model; however, like I said... no ideas in the mind I'm stuck with.

By the way, I am super self conscious about appearing way younger than I am, but I am 22, so I don't know if that's a good thing or not.. I'm not 16, even though in my mind I am.

Owl Spirit

Speaking of spirit animals, I heard an owl a couple months ago. You may think it's completely normal but I was terrified. I mean, I was walking to my kitchen around midnight, so it's dark and spooky. And all of a sudden, I hear "hoot, hoot." I literally jumped and looked around, for some reason maybe thinking there was an owl in my house? It was in the dead of winter, too, and so I looked out my front window and tried spotting it (you know how in the winter before or after it snows, it's bright out at night?) but I couldn't see it because.. well.. it was dark. And then again "hoot, hoot." Right, so by this point I was thoroughly freaked out.

I opened my front door to listen to the dumb think hoot again.. and it did. Yeah, I ran to my room and hid under the covers like a terrified five year old child. I don't know why, but it was extremely creepy. Now, this was probably after I watched some scary movie with Ryan, but I swear there was an owl out there. And if there wasn't, why would I be imagining an owl, randomly? When I don't even think about owls because they are so rare here in Chicago.. in the middle of winter. 

I'm kind of glad I didn't actually see one, because when I was brave enough to get out from under the covers, I Googled images of owls and they are terrifying. Now imagine seeing this at midnight...

daily-owls.tumblr.com

Yeah, not fun. Oh, it gives me goosebumps just looking at this. 

But I also looked up what it meant to see an owl, again because it was so rare to see one where I live and because I believe in that things-happen-for-a-reason thing. Well, I found out that owls represent protection and wisdom. I feel like we all know the wisdom part because of Owl from Winnie the Pooh, but anyway... I was just talking to Ryan about a situation in which I felt like I needed to protect him from someone, which was super odd that I saw that owl that night. I am generally super protective about him as he is about me, but it was so weird that on that specific night I heard that owl.

The knowledge aspect of it fell through, of course... but at the time I thought it represented the fact that I was going back to the way I used to be and was getting some extra wisdom from the owl spirit. I thought things were starting to look up for me. Nope. Ha. The few months after that, leading up till now have been disastrous in many ways, but I don't want to jinx anything so I won't say anything more.

It was just weird that on that specific night that owl came to me in the dead of the night and hooted a couple times to scare the crap out of me. This never happened again. I am probably looking WAY more into this than I should be, but hey, I like finding meaning in things that are arbitrary - it's one of the things that makes life fun.

Spirit Animals - Your Spiritual Guide

So, I know people think spirit animals are a joke, but for those who believe in that stuff, it helps keep you in tune with nature. The concept of spirit animals to me means having an animal as a spiritual guide. Animals have been on this earth a bit longer than we have and they follow a natural cycle that we humans have greatly interrupted. I feel sympathy for all animals and am drawn to their freedom and knowledge of the natural world.

I guess you find out your spirit animal when a specific animal comes to you constantly in your dreams or in real life a deer visits you frequently or a fox shows up at your doorstep every week. Usually the animal will be one that you feel a strong connection with or one that is your favorite animal. For example, my main spirit animal is a polar bear, but his buddies include the elephant and red panda.

I have many polar bear stuffed animals around my room and I feel particularly drawn to them; also, one visits me in my dreams at times. As for the elephant and red panda... I love elephants - I collect little figurines and stuffed animals, yes I'm 22, of them. The red panda has always fascinated me and always will even though it's on the brink of extinction (save the red pandas!) I guess I just feel a special connection with these three animals in specific.

• The elephant spirit represents gentle strength, loyalty, and love of family, partners and friends
• The polar bear spirit represents flexibility in terms of change - also is a creature of dreams
• The red panda spirit represents seeing through peoples masks or in other words, truthseekrs

A nice list that includes a variety of animals, visit this website as well as this one for a more complete list.

This may all sound silly, but there's something about an animal being a spirit guide that is so alluring and primitive. I don't know too much about this topic, but I do know spirit animals or spiritual guides stem from the Native American culture. This culture in general is fascinating enough, but being an animal lover myself, I am drawn to the idea of spirit animals.

Animals are so innocent and natural that it makes them great spiritual guides. These furry things are so pure and are themselves guided by nature, which is a good reason to follow them. To me, animals are better than humans and having an animal guide is a really cool concept - especially taking example from them because of their purity. Young children and animals are great sources of innocence which as we grow older, we lose that innocence. Humans strive for the things they don't have, so it makes sense that we look toward something that has what we want.

Basically, animals are cooler than humans and we need guidance in terms of spirituality and what better place to look than those furry creatures who know a bit more about nature than we do.

Side note: I wrote an earlier version of this post, but it got deleted, so this is what was left in my memory of the wonderfully written previous post. I'm a bit disappointed at my carelessness, but at least I remembered some of it. So if this post sounds a bit... unorganized, this is why! ):

I'm Graduating? What?

Yeah, I'm graduating in June. Graduating college. Going off into the real world. 

Many of my recent posts on here have been me freaking out about life after college, which is a valid fear because that life for new grads is full of the unknown. But it's mostly filled with unwanted babysitting jobs and living at your parent's house until you decide to get a higher degree in your chosen field. 

For me, this fate has been fast approaching. It's April now, and I graduate in one.. two... two months, not even. Wow that's terrifying. What's more terrifying is that everyone seems to have a plan.

What's my plan...? 

Well, my plan is procrastinating from making a plan. I had a plan - graduate school for clinical psychology. That plan got quickly crushed by realists who informed me that it is near impossible for a newly graduated undergrad student to get accepted into a PhD program in clinical psychology. Ok.

So, I played around with ideas about being a counselor of some sort and applying to a master's program. No, my brain wouldn't accept that. It wanted to go all the way - PhD. Thanks brain, for setting such an unrealistic goal for myself.

Whatever, so I've settled on taking a year off (let's see where this leads...) and hopefully I'll get involved in stuff that will boost my resume. Other than that, I've got nothing. I hope to find some sort of a job, probably babysitting, to make some money because grad school is expensive and maybe focus on the more artistic side of myself for a change. Grad school applications are due December 1st, so I got a full seven months to do this. Oh, why does that feel like it's not enough!?

Because it's not. 

Maybe I'll just become a writer and see where that takes me...

Poem 3

      Agoraphobia

I plunge into the ocean of my mind,

terrified of what I might find.

There in the depths are things

that should not be uncovered.

I lie awake at night and I’m drowning.

The thoughts crashing into me,

bringing me down.

I’m falling deeper and deeper.

As I pass through the layers of the ocean,

it’s getting harder to breathe.

I am suffocated by the water

that is filling my lungs.

Huge beasts, ten times my size

float around effortlessly –

Dancing and twirling gracefully.

They hover over me, mocking me.

I look right and I see blue.

I look left and I see blue.

Just ocean as far as the mind can see.

It never ends.

I can’t swim.

I can’t win.