Knowing that pretty much everyone's had a fever before and everyone knows the feeling of being absolutely convinced you were going to die, it was a horrible experience feeling worse as the day progressed. Towards four in the afternoon I needed tons of coffee to be able to stay awake but still I had absolutely no energy. Then I felt worse and worse and worse. Towards seven I thought I couldn't stay up anymore and decided to go to bed early. At 20:00 I was in bed, suffering. I was so hot, but cold at the same time. I was dizzy and could barely get comfortable. I was so thirsty but thought I was going to get sick. I finally managed to fall asleep, waking only an hour later to feeling like crap, blistering hot and completely uncomfortable. This night was going to be awful...

Running out of fruits? That's OK, I don't feel like going shopping today. Out of veggies? Whatever, I can go tomorrow. Ran out of proteins, meat, beans? No need to go shopping yet.

I'm busy working on assignments...I just ran out of coffee? Holy mother of God! Where is the nearest shop?

Economics

As some of you may know, today almost all job, internship, or placement applications in the early stages are done purely online. You apply online, you send your documents online, you are evaluated online, and only once you are in, say, stage three or four will you meet someone face to face.

I am currently looking for internships and many of these placements have online tests to evaluate your knowledge and application of information that is specific to the information. What I have found more and more is that these tests focus heavily on mathematics and economics. In fact, the one I took today was pure economics. I have never taken an economics class or had much interest in understanding it beyond supply and demand theory so clearly I was not made for the test.

I had 21 minutes to answer 21 multiple choice questions about economic situations and graphs that I needed to interpret or calculate something from. I sat there reading the stuff out loud and speaking to myself because I have never taken anything as hard as that 21 minute test in my life. I sat there thinking, what on earth was that? how does that work? how can i calculate that? what is going on? and i didn't even understand the terms they used, like Revenue..... I shouldn't be allowed near economics.

Dear Work,

Although I appreciate your attention, please stop piling up on me?

Sincerely,
Me

So, like I said earlier in this blog, sometimes you learn tons about yourself just by looking at the lack of something in yourself. So, since last Thursday I somehow didn't have any meat to eat, nothing at all, not even ham or something. I assume you know how much I love meat...
Anyway, today I woke up starving and nothing I had to eat was good enough. I looked around the store and still nothing appealed to me. Then I realized, I want chicken and steak and schnitzel and hot dogs and pretty much anything that has meat in it.

And thus I learned I will never be a vegetarian.

Fun days and fun nights

Thursday night, 3am, a loud noise shocks me awake. It was the fire alarm. Thinking it might be a test, like it is every Friday between 8 and 10, I waited and counted to ten. It should turn off before ten seconds are over if it is just a test. But it wasn't. I climb out of bed and stand in my room wondering what exactly I should put on to stand outside. Whenever the fire alarm goes off, unless it's a test, we need to go outside until security allows us to return. I walked outside into the cold and waited the thirty minutes before security allowed us to go back in.

Friday night, 3:30am, a loud noise shocks me awake. It was the fire alarm. Thinking it might be the test that takes place on Fridays I waited and counted once more. But it wasn't. This time I looked at my phone and checked the time. Fantastic, I had to go outside again. Shortly after 4 we were allowed to go back in. I was freezing and had trouble falling asleep again. 

But finally, around 4:30 I was able to sleep only to be awoken again at 4:45 by a quick test of the fire alarm for some reason. Great. 

Friday morning, 8:30am, the fire alarm test. It woke me and I was annoyed... But I guess this was what we were expecting. 

I had class at 10 and upon returning I thought I deserved to take a nap. At 3 in the afternoon I took a nap and slept really well. At 3:30 I was awoken by a loud noise..... You get the picture...... 

Let it be

A lot of people engage in self-destructive behaviour rather than letting other people destroy their lives instead. It's the jobs of others to ruin your life so don't take the joy away from them and stop the self-destruction. One such behaviour is focusing on what you don't have and what you can't achieve rather than what you have and making the best out of it.

Classic example are those people that are never satisfied with their belongings, never satisfied with what they see. The constant complainers or people who need to find the faults in everything.
By focusing just a couple of times on what you don't have and what you can't do you open a flood door of negative things and thoughts. You allow yourself to think of more things you don't have and can't have, can't do and won't do. So next time you feel negative focus on what you actually have and how grateful you should be that you even have that.

Case and Point

Sticking to the path of self discovery I love observing people to see whether they realize what they do that is otherwise not a very socially acceptable action. I mean, for instance, those people that perpetually interrupt others or phrase their sentences in sexist or racist ways. Especially when around people you do not really know I think it is of utmost importance to be aware of your action. Yet still many are not.

I always try to pay a lot of attention to how I phrase things and know sometimes it may come out wrong and I try to correct it. But there are those people who even after a telling look from another fail to recognize their mistake or inappropriateness and continue on without change. I try to also make sure not to tell jokes that might hurt the feelings of those around, but others think sexist jokes or racist jokes or jokes against someone's culture are OK even if I only just met them. Way to make a situation awkward. 

There's just... just so much to complain about!

I guess this is more of a post complaining about others so I'm going to go on about that because some people even after being told what they do is not OK still do it, aware even. 

Case 1: Person X keeps interrupting stories or comments to either say a smart-ass comment or fact that should make them seem smart but makes them seem rude. Also, keeps interrupting to one-up the story. One-upping someone is a term used when someone always comments by trying to tell a more daring or dramatic story or making themselves the centre of conversation once more.

Case 2: Person Y comments about their internationality and explains how she even cannot believe, along with other people, how trendy she is and how many countries she's seen. Impressed by your own travels and trips is not an impressive trait and makes you rather more annoying and self-involved than interesting yet this person continues to believe they are the most fascinating person to ever roam this planet.

Case 3: Person Z believes that interrupting others to make a point and then rudely shushing them is acceptable even when they are the one who should be shushed. Going on to tell a story full of information that is false is another trait of theirs as they tell stories that can be verified by others, for instance me, but then changes details in her favour and it would be absolutely rude to correct them. Yet still is oblivious to the arrogance and lies they tell. 

Some people are so oblivious and unaware of their actions that are transparent and make them look incredibly stupid.

Evolving

Some days where you can do nothing but over analyse your last conversation, repeat the scene of your favourite show, or think about what you want to eat next are a blessing in disguise. While it is a blessing disguised under layers of boredom, lazyness, and more boredom it is, after all, a blessing.
I don't know what you do when confronted with such days, but what I do is try to better understand the human being. At times I study communication styles and the differences from country to country. Sometimes I look at facial expressions and learn how to better identify lies. Other times I focus more inwardly and try to better understand myself.

When trying to understand yourself I have come to learn that identifying those aspects of your mind and character that are absent tell you more about who you are than those that you choose to present to the world around you. For instance, if you are an extroverted person, generally happy to speak to lots of others, that is commendable and all, but what about your physical reaction to speaking to strangers? What about the forwardness or character you show them? Do you exude confidence or show a more silent side to those around you?
Applicable to many different fields, it seems that negative space and absence of something can share an equal amount of information as the presence of something. In my case, I always thought I held grudges. I thought I would not be able to forgive people for little faults, thought I wouldn't forget their mistakes and hold it against them even when I didn't want to. But after thought and racking through my memories I learned today that unless you faulted me greatly I don't hold grudges. That made me think, why is the ability to hold grudges absent in my character? How is it that I, even though for the longest time I was convinced I could, could not feel angry at people for their human mistakes?

But that's exactly why. Because their mistakes are human. Why should I hold a grudge against someone that made a mistake. They didn't intend to hurt me, they didn't intend for their actions to have long term consequences. Now, don't start arguing with me about how certain murderers or criminals didn't intend for their actions to have consequences etc. That's not the same topic of discussion. What I am talking about here are the mistakes that are still legal. Say, for example, someone phrasing a sentence in an unintentionally hurtful way and attempting to explain that this is not what they meant. Let them explain.
Stupid spontaneous things that in the end harm friendships and destroy relationships, I find it easy to forgive them. I find it easy to forgive the mistakes of one friend to another even if it sets our communication back a level. But nonetheless, I do not seek to terminate the friendship.

The only person you are hurting and punishing by holding a grudge is yourself. I don't worry about the grudges others may hold against me unless I seriously deserve it, so why should they worry about the grudges I hold against them. So, I forgive and remember that we're all moving forward, evolving, changing. And it's all for a reason.