"Time Off"

I have a huge mental list of things I want to do this summer/ during my time off from school. I think the first thing is to figure out a name for my "time off" so I don't have to keep saying "time off" and sounding like a loser. (Keep in mind, this encompasses a year and a half)

The next few things on my list include getting back into some of my old hobbies that I never had time for during college. That includes drawing (which I have miraculously gotten better at), reading, (because I have around 50 books that I bought in the hopes of eventually reading them...), making jewelry (because I got new beads!), and writing (after taking a poetry class, I am more experienced in the art of poetry... not).

But I also have to keep in mind finding a job and getting more experience in the psychology world so I can get into a PhD program. But this will come after summer. I think I deserve a chill summer of doing nothing. I know most college kids that have graduated (funny how we're still called kids...) are starting their jobs right away, but I don't think I'm ready for that. I didn't get time to enjoy life during college, I think three to four months of life enjoyment is way overdue for me. 

During this time I'd also like to take a trip somewhere to refresh my mind. I was hoping to go to Poland to spend time with relatives and enjoy nature, but due to weird circumstances, I don't think that's entirely possible. Next on my list: Iceland, New Zealand, Ireland, Sweden... haha I'm kidding. Minnesota will do just fine. (:

Poem 5 - Take a Guess What This One's About (:

               Burned Wet Flesh 

The awful screech of a teapot ready
reminded me of something from Poe’s poetry.

Phone in hand, I poured the hot water
quickly but carefully as not to falter.

Sugar was next but what I didn’t know
Was that Jasmine tea would be my biggest foe.

Steaming water danced across my leg
and left red candle drip marks while I begged
for the pain to stop and the bubbling burn to cool.

No amount of ice was the right tool
that would help me overcome what I now know
that Jasmine tea would be my biggest foe.

Last Day of Classes of my Undergraduate Career

Today was it.

Today was my last day of classes at my university. Four years of hard work, three years of commuting, two years of being in my human services internship program, one year of being president of peer mentoring all ended today. I graduate June 15th and it's safe to say that I will be sad.

I really have nothing more to say at the moment because I am trying to take it all in.

Next steps to be determined...

Poem 4 - Prose Poetry

Life would be easier if you were here

 It’s 10:00 PM now – bedtime for an overworked college student. I go to my bathroom and stand in front of the full sized mirror for a few minutes, staring the bags under my eyes until I finally decide to take my face off. Brick rose and alabaster flow down my cheeks into the sink creating a watercolor masterpiece. The bags under my eyes are covered with a mixture of mascara and eyeliner and when I look back up at the mirror I see the devil. But then I find my eyes amidst the massacre and splash cold water on my face to wipe away the day’s mask.

As I slide under the covers I notice

I’m all alone.

Weird Dream

I had a very vivid dream last night which started off with me opening the door to my new apartment. This sounds normal, except for the fact that I'm nowhere near ready to move out, but ok, so I walk into my new apartment. The theme was circus. Now, I don't know what pops into your mind when I say that, but what I mean by "circus" is that everything had bright colored stripes. But it looked elegant and everything matched. It was very bizzare.

So again, even though I just walked into a circus house, that's still not the weird part. What's weird is what happened after I surveyed the area. I walked through my wonderful new apartment, first through my new kitchen, then my new living room area, and as I walked through a hallway to what I guess was supposed to be my room, there was a huge whirlpool bathtub like thing in the master bathroom - like the ones rich people have. It was this large bathroom that looked breathtaking. Ok still not weird. I touched the walls.... which were cloth. There were no walls in the bedroom or bathroom. Just cloth draped over. So I peered through the cloth "walls" and there was a high end hotel/casino!

So in this dream, I basically rented an apartment that was a circus tent in the middle of a hotel/casino. Awesome. It was weird. 

I guess I decided to try out the whirlpool bathtub (even through my walls were cloth?) and when I ducked my head underwater and came back up, I was somewhere else. With people. These people asked me if I was ok and told me that my whole life was a lie.

I don't know what it means. It was really weird and kinda scared me. I mean, I think I can take apart the meaning of the circus tent apartment - the fact that I feel like I have no privacy but the second bit?! I don't know. It's a mystery.

I love dreams and I love decoding them, but sometimes they're terrifying.

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! ):