Reach for the Stars

On the TV show "The Biggest Loser," one of the participants told himself and his family that his goal was to be in the final four. When he said this, it got me thinking why not have your goal be to win the entire show? You know usually that is a person's goal. To win. However, as I thought about this idea, I recalled setting goals for myself. When you set a goal, usually you hope to accomplish something that will satisfy you. A medical student, for instance, shouldn't set a goal to find a cure to a disease until she passes medical school and starts working on patients and doing research. Being in finals week, I could set a goal for myself to study all of my economics on one day; but, the chances of that goal actually being accomplished are slim merely because of reality: there is a lot of information to cover. Also, if you set a goal for yourself that is clearly too far out of reach, you may try to reach that goal. While trying to reach it, you may accomplish a greater quantity with minimal quantity. Although you don't want to set a goal out of reach, you also don't want to set a goal that is too easy to accomplish because that will not be satisfying once you accomplish it.

In my opinion, the guy on "The Biggest Loser" had a very positive, rational outlook on life. Entering the show with many contestants, he didn't set his goal outside of his reach. And look at him now: he IS one of the final four. Now that he has gotten to that goal, he can reevaluate and set an even higher goal. I have taken him as a role model. I made a schedule for myself for this week because I have no classes and my first final isn't until Saturday. So I set goals for each day. While making it I tried to be rational, because otherwise I would just get frustrated with myself for not having accomplished my goal rather than being proud and satisfied with the great amount that I did accomplish.

So while the saying does go, reach for the stars, don't reach for them if they are not within your grasp. Don't try and achieve something that from the start you don't believe you can achieve. Set goals but don't set them out of your reach because then you'll never strive for them nor believe that you can attain them. And believe in yourself. Have faith and pride in what you do, otherwise what is the use in doing it.

"No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow."

Today, I awoke energy-less. Nonetheless, I lifted myself from my bed and told myself Today is going to be a good day. Even though I felt physically exhausted, through positive thinking, I psyched myself into believing that my body was full of energy and enthusiasm. The psychology and cognitive processes of humans is fascinating: how we can change our mindset merely through positive mental perseverance.

We all have bad days and good days. Often bad days are marked by low energy and limited significant events; good days by high energy and productivity. Although, I have learned through experience and my upbringing that just because you don't physically have a lot of energy doesn't mean you cannot thrust energy upon yourself. How we feel on a given day is characterized by our physical well-being but also by our mental well-being. Just through mental energy and thinking, we can turn a bad situation into a learning experience; a day with two-hours worth of sleep into full of energy; or a challenge into a defeat. It is all about how you look at life. If you think you are going to mess up on a presentation, more likely than not that thinking will cause you to mess up. If you don't believe in yourself and the positive that can come from life, you will have greater difficulty succeeding and life will not seem as rewarding. It's all about what you convince yourself.

So even though one day may not be the best for you, lift your head up and make it a good day. Don't let something be out of your reach; control your mind and life. And if you don't do or say what you wanted to today, there's always tomorrow. As Maya Angelou said (referring to the quote at the beginning), life goes on.

We all have our families - those to which we were born. But then there exist the other types of families - the ones that we create for ourselves. For me, my biological family has always been a major component of my life. My other families in the past have included my Pinewood family (in which I invested thirteen years to create), my friend family, my basketball family, and the odd acquaintances family (consisting of waitresses, manicurists, and hair dressers).

I have never noticed the extent to which a family is there for you until I left some of those families when I went to college. While I still remain a part of that closely knit family, I am not actively invested in it. However, coming back home for Thanksgiving reminded me of how lucky I am to have people that care about me and how valuable those relationships and families I have formed are. For one instance, my mom and I went to get a manicure and the manicurist that my mom sees every week or so greeted me with a big warm welcome when I walked through the door. Something as simple as this encounter reminds me of the importance of families. Even going to the gym where my mom recently became a member - a place that I have never been before, I bumped into high school teachers. Not until now have I realized how large of a network I have in California. It is comforting to be in downtown and to run into someone I know. The familiarity of the place and the people!

As we journey through life, we build new families when we enter new communities. I am now a part of the Lehigh community and have formed a Lehigh family. While leaving my set of families at home is often difficult, I have my PA family to look forward to seeing.

One thing that I did not expect from coming home was to be reminded of people at Lehigh. Yes, I did expect to think of Rosie when I heard "Party in the USA" or Megan when my mom showed me the Brown and White, which she subscribes to. But random people whose names I don't even know, I was reminded of. With my daily routine, I often see the same people studying in the library at 9:30 a.m. or walking to class at 11:00 a.m. Never have I had a personal encounter with them other than exchanging a smile. But as I have seen them so much and they have in a way become a part of my routine, their faces are implanted in my memory. So while dining in a restaurant or grocery shopping in Los Altos, other diners or customers reminded me of those passerbyers in my routinely day at Lehigh. Amazing: how now people that never would have had significance to me three months ago remind me of an alternate community that I belong to.

On the plane back home

Home. How might it have changed from when I left it? Having been three months since I was last there, changes surely occurred. But what might those be? Every day I talk to my mom, so I know what is happening back at home. However, hearing changes is not the same as experiencing them. And small changes that may appear insignificant to her could seem grand to me.

As far as my relationships with people, I have seen my mom several times since I left for college, and I talk to her every day, so that will not be any different than it was before I left or than it was since I last saw her. Delna came to visit me at the end of October. I know, lucky me! When we saw each other, our strong bond had not changed; however, it did take a short bit to click back into how in sync our interactions were previously. I talk to her either every day or every other day, so we are still an integral part of each others' lives. My relationships with the two people, who are a huge part of my life at home, will most likely be unchanged.

I do assume that seeing my classmates from high school will be different. Of my closest group of friends, not many are home because they stayed on the east coast for Thanksgiving (the three of them met in NYC). However, my interactions with the several that will be home will be very comforting to be with old time friends. Since when I was in school with my more distant acquaintances, I didn't hang out with them all the time, it will be interesting to see how our relationships to each other have changed and who has remained in contact with each other. Conversations will likely consist of how you are enjoying college, what you are involved in on campus, what classes you are taking, and so forth...the things that often compose conversations that are considered small talk. Nonetheless, seeing people from my "past life" (as my anthropology teacher would say) will be a refreshing experience.

Daily activities will be the same: breakfast, workout, shower, lunch, and whatever in the afternoon. One thing that many college students have struggled with when returning home (as I have heard since I am yet to experience it) is dealing with a curfew. Often high school students have curfews; however, once at college, they no longer have a curfew or a parent watching over them - that is part of the liberating feeling of freedom and independence that comes with college. Upon returning home, parents enforce that curfew again. This can often be difficult because the student goes from having no curfew to having his freedom restricted. Nevertheless, I do not expect this to be a problem with me because in high school I did not have a curfew, since I often returned home at a reasonable hour anyway.

While I do not face the curfew "problem," I do have the house situation to deal with. My mom is still living in my old house. However, before I left for college, I said bye to my room and that house, expecting that when I returned for Thanksgiving and Christmas the house would no longer be ours. Surprisingly, we still own the hose and my room is still there. While this is a very nice feeling to return to something familiar, I was prepared for it not being so. I have the comfort of my own home to look forward to, but my mom also just bought a new house. So, I am caught in the in-between phase of still having my old home but having the excitement of a new home as well. Things in my old house will not have changed drastically, but, now there will be a new enthusiasm. And I have seen the new house already, which is part of the weirdness to it. We had looked at the house in the middle to the end of summer. Much to my surprise and happiness, three months later the house is now our home. My twelfth home (if I counted correctly) with many more to come.

So, C.H.A.N.G.E. It comes upon us whether we want it to or not. But will the change we expect be the same as what it actually is? That is the real question. The only way to answer that question is to live. Live your life and discover the mysteries to your questions.

Lehigh-Laf Week

This week marks one of the longest lived traditions at Lehigh. Lehigh-Laf Week. For 145 years Lehigh and Lafayette, two of the biggest rivals, have met to test who has the stronger football team. Festivities include bed races, the turkey trot, and the bonfire. All of these traditions make Lehigh unique and bring the student body together. While the activities are fun to engage in, is everyone's excitement about the football game on Saturday or is their excitement engendered by the desire and ability to go crazy?

At first glance, it may appear that Lehigh students are very spirited towards their school and the rivalry. But once we delve deeper into the concept of their excitement, perhaps, not being brought about for the sole purpose of support and spirit, we see a different perspective. During this week, people party more often and feel that they have the justification to celebrate more because of the long-lived tradition. In reality, they are just using the tradition as an excuse. People could party every night of every week if they really wanted to. But do they? No, because they feel an obligation towards their studies or some other responsibility. This week brings the students a sense of freedom and relief from the burden of schoolwork. I would say that a majority of students have this thought process: of rejoicing because it is almost expected of them. So do we do things merely because they are expected of us? No doubt we do. Then there is the question of traditions and spirit. Are people actually excited for the event or more excited for the festivities leading up to the event? As I discussed with one of my friends, we agree that most people express excitement over the festivities rather than the actual event. So there is a false facade put on that we render enthusiasm for something for which we do not.

In anthropology class, we were discussing holidays. When we were younger, we knew Thanksgiving and Christmas as holidays of eating big meals with our families and giving thanks or receiving gifts. But do we truly understand the meaning and origins of such holidays? These two ideas - Lehigh-Laf Week and holidays - both involve and present the ideas of traditions and their true motives.

Along the same lines are the quirky things that a team or group of people adopts. My club basketball team, for example, has a cheer where one girl says "How high?" and the rest of the team says "Lehigh!" While a few members may know the origins and significance of this cheer, the majority of the team members have no idea where it came from. Nonetheless, we continue to cherish it as something that bonds us together. In life, we often do not know the meaning of our actions, but rather do them because it is what is expected of us or what our group is doing. In my opinion, this is very myopic of us. We should act because we have motives that incline us to do so. It's like the saying, think before you speak. The thought behind this is to find logic in your thoughts before sharing them with the world. Similarly, think before you act. You should know why you are doing something and not just do it for the heck of it.

As we emerge as adults, we learn to live with different stresses in our lives. When I first came to college, it was the stress of adapting to a new environment, making new friends, and living away from home. However, as I am in the thirteenth week since I've arrived, those stresses have calmed down substantially. I have battled the stress of four-o'clock exams, the stress of missing home, and the stress of not being able to sleep because of loud neighbors. But the stresses never stop do they. Nope.

This week we are attacking the stress of registering for classes. For the first semester freshman year, Lehigh put our schedules together for us so we didn't have to deal with getting the classes we wanted at the time we wanted. But now, we are given the challenge of creating our schedules and figuring out what classes to take. While for some people this may be simple because they are given a strict curriculum of what courses they have to take for their major (and often those courses are large lectures), for others - such as me - it is much more complex because I have no freaking clue what I want to do with my life; and once I do figure out what classes I want to take, they are mainly small classes so it is less likely that I will get into them. The trouble with situations like these is that I let a small task such as registering for classes escalate into something larger. I look at all of the classes in the course catalog and tell myself that I am screwed because I have no idea what I want to do with my life, whereas some of my peers have the rest of their college career mapped out for them and then they know what they want to do with the rest of their lives as well. But me. I'm clueless. As this situation approaches me, I have to continually tell myself that it will all be fine. And of course it will all be fine. Just living in the moment of now, it does not seem like life is going to be as simple and carefree as I would like to make it out to be. Sometimes we have to pause life for a second. Take a step back. Look at what we are facing. Evaluate it and absorb it all. And then step back into reality and continue with life. Because at the end of day, everything is going to be fine. And even more than that...everything is going to be wonderful and JUBILANT!

The Bubbles of Life

Natalie stood 1/3 my height and spoke as quiet as a mouse. She was my little girl who I babysat at Parents' Night Out tonight. I did a service event where each volunteer is paired with a kid and spends the night playing games with him or her. So Natalie was mine for the night! Intrigued with arts and crafts, she created every artistic creation that she could - a fan, a mini windmill, a mask, a crown, and an airplane. Watching her in pure happiness as she did something so basic as drawing on a crown brought delight to me. We played board games, did a scavenger hunt, and bowled in addition to all of those arts and crafts. In particular, when she and I played wac-a-mole with Liz and Natalie's sister, the expression on Natalie's face was priceless.

Part of it is related to the little Lehigh bubble that I am living in. No matter where I go, I seem to be living in a bubble. The Pinewood bubble. Now the Lehigh bubble. But it isn't a bubble unless you keep yourself trapped inside of it. Doing community events such as this one exposes me outside of the bubble. I haven't spent time with little kids in such a long time that the change of pace and environment was much needed. When I went to NYC previously this semester, seeing people of different age groups from elders to babies and of various economic levels from poor to very affluent brought me back into the real world. At college no matter where you are, there is much consistency and you can tend to forget what the world is like outside of that little bubble that you are inside. However, opportunities such as Parents' Night Out expose you to the real world again. It is all about what you choose to do. If you choose to stay inside that bubble, then realize that it is your choice to not go out into the community and change your life. It's all up to you. Your choices, your life.

Natalie's innocence brought me back to my childhood years. We were talking about holidays and - what do you know - we both share Christmas as our favorite holiday. As we reveled in our favorite holiday, I heard Natalie talk about Santa Claus. Good old jolly Santa! I miss setting our Christmas cookies, a glass of milk, and our wish lists on the fireplace mantle; staying up late in hopes to see Santa come down the chimney. And then that got me to thinking...when do kids find out that Santa Claus isn't real? Of course it is different for each person, but in general it is around the same age. Each stage of our life could be seen as a bubble. A bubble sheltering us from the influences outside of that life that we are living in the moment. Amazing how our lives can change so drastically with something as simple as Santa Claus. In life, we are constantly going through changes. Only with changes can we progress and develop to become (hopefully) bigger and better people. We learn from our changes and adapt according to the situations. So think fast....here comes life!

Fear

Fear. According to Merriam-Webster, fear is an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger. But what is in a definition? Fear to each person means something different. To me, fear means loneliness, death, failure, presentations, long dark alleys, and shots. While some of these are greater things in life such as death and failure, they are nonetheless something that I worry about on a weekly basis. What if we will not make it to see another tomorrow? Or what if we do something that causes us to be disgraced by all? In the Scarlet Letter, the main character was ousted by society because she was thought to have been an adulterer: failure. What if the things we do are not accepted by our friends but we believe them to be good and justifiable? Should we continue to follow our beliefs or should we comply with our peers to be accepted by them? I say follow your heart, confront your fears, and your life will follow from there. If you do not follow your heart, then you will have nothing carrying you through life. And if your peers do not accept you for what you want to be and do, then perhaps they are not your true friends.

So while we all encounter the fears of life in the long-run, we each fear little things in the short-run; whether they be spiders, darkness, or alcohol poisoning. Today for me, it was shots. Well not only for today but forever in my life I have feared and hated shots. Part of the reason I hate them is because of the anticipation. I know that it is "supposed" to hurt. Therefore in my mind, I have implanted in my mind that it will hurt and that I need comfort. Every time I went to the doctor to get a shot I always had my mom hold my hand to comfort me because of my fear. And up until now, I always had that comfort there to support me. Once when I got the gardasil vaccine, I fainted. Yep...fainted alright. And luckily my mom was right there next to me. So perhaps I have a greater justification for harboring a fear of shots inside of me. But what is the purpose of that fear? Is it because this small event could lead to me encountering my long-run fear - death? But when I walk into the doctor's office or up to the vaccine clinic, I am not deeply thinking about death in the back of my mind. That this moment could mark the end of my life. And am I fearful of actually getting the shot or am I fearful of the anticipation of getting the shot? Perhaps the latter.

As I am now out on my own in college, I no longer have my mom there to hold my hand when I get a shot. Today I went to get the H1N1 vaccine. My mom told me, just pretend that I am there holding your hand. The comfort of having her think of me eases my nerves, but do I really need that comfort or is fear entirely mental in this situation? Comfort is always nice; but my fear is completely mental here. Can I not mentally overcome the fear? I sat down in the chair. (This was my second shot that I got at college; it was given in a general common room, similar to a situation that others may have encountered when they got shots at Walgreens for example. But I had never been in this type of situation before so it was an entirely new experience for me - and slightly intimidating instead of the personal connection I had with my doctor in the enclosed room.) Nonetheless, the action of getting the shot was painless. And it took merely 30 seconds - if even. So perhaps I was just fearful for nothing at all. Fear, I believe, is culturally constructed. If I had not know that shots could be painful when I was little. If I had not heard from my friends that they got a really painful shot. If I had not seen a little girl crying after she got a shot. If I had not been offered a bribe of icecream for getting a shot. If these events had not occurred, then maybe I would not have that fear of shots. So don't be fearful of something because others are fearful; be fearful if you feel it deep inside yourself. And even so, try to overcome those fears.

Face your fears. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."

Welcome!

Welcome to my first blog post. I created this blog mainly because as a first year in college, I am going through a lot of changes that I have never encountered before; some of these are results of being in a different geographical area of PA and others are from living on my own. This blog is designed as an outlet, hence the name - PAuse Life Now...Get it! PA for Pennsylvania. And the blog is going to be an escape for me to write about anything that I am thinking about. Often it will be something that I encountered during the day and my thoughts behind it; or it could be an outlook on life. Who knows where this will go? Thanks for reading!