Productivity Week: Day 2 - Ceramics and Derp

Leave it to me to let my stress spin out of control.

Last night I went to bed at 1:30am, only to toss and turn until 3:30am. I was cold, stressed, and hungry, so I did what any sensible person would do...

I made myself a waffle.

Aaand then I proceeded to do something a sensible person WOULDN'T do, such as searching the web for apartments, colleges, and job requirements.

Needless to say, I didn't get back to sleep until 5am, but not until I had a sparring of words with my dad before he left for work. He basically told me that I'm aiming too low in my career choice and that I'll never be able to live off of the wage it pays.

(I've decided I want to be a vet technician after the realization that if I don't do something involving animals, I'll be shooting myself in the foot because I won't be following my passion. But that's a DIFFERENT story.)

Imagine not being able to sleep because of stress, and then being told you're pretty much going to be baggage to your boyfriend because of your low yearly wages. 

THANKS DAD.

Well, enough of me bitching and griping about the future and all the stress that comes with moving towards it.

IT'S TIME TO TALK PRODUCTIVITY.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are my busy days, so I don't really have much time or strength to do things outside of class itself. Because of this, I tried to get as much done in Ceramics class as humanly possible. Unfortunately my teacher, Joe, didn't fire up the kiln since last Thursday, so I didn't get to glaze anything new. Ah well, he started it up today, and I'll have 10 new things to glaze on Thursday!

Here is what I did today:

• Made two pinch pots
• Made two more poison mushrooms (one "replacement" in case the other comes out wrong, and a mini mushroom)
• Made an oddly shaped vase, kind of like a triangular cylinder thing with a stretched top and weird texture (it's hard to explain, blah)
• Started my slab project, which I'll talk about more in another post... It's going to be something special!

After Ceramics, I had to read for my next class, Individuals in Society. The book is called Disposable People, and it's probably one of the most depressing books I've ever read.

Basically put, it's a book exposing modern day slavery by giving examples, retelling the experiences of the author on his mission to gather information to write the book, and explaining all the different motivating factors behind each country's system of slavery. 

I haven't even finished the book half way, and I already find it nauseating.

Apparently in the hilly northern regions of Thailand, families sell their daughters into prostitution so they can afford a color TV.

This, of course, is not seen as immoral to their families, because of religious and cultural attitudes towards women there. According to their form of Buddhism, if you are born a woman, you have sinned badly in your past life. Not only that, but you have to repay your parents for birthing you. In some cases, this means being sent to be a sexual slave in the city.

Terrifying stuff.

Anyway, I struggled through the book for an hour and a half, and then went to class.

I somehow managed to get a solid A on my essay, which I literally wrote the day before it was due, and the day of. 

(I know I'm a slacker, but hey, I got a damn A.)

At 7pm I finally arrived at home, had some dinner, and officially shut my brain off. I watched mindless television for about three hours rather than do anything useful. (Seinfeld, Hell's Kitchen, and Unusual Suspects, if you really need to know.)

Maybe not the best end to a day that's supposed to be part of a "Productivity Week," but taking into account that I'm sleep deprived and stressed out of my mind, I don't think it's half bad.

Anyway, it's time to go do my Art Appreciation homework before I pass out.

Let's hope the kiln opens tomorrow!

College, Why Do You Hate Me So?

What a way to kick off the new year...

I've been very busy. It doesn't seem very evident to you all since all you are witnessing is a complete lack of updates... but I have been busy... and very unfortunate.

December was insane at my place of work. Just to give you an idea of how busy the grooming department was, my paycheck was twice that of a usual 2-week period. I was a dog-scrubbing maniac.
December 22, I had an accident at work. I was carrying a small dog to the play area, and I managed to slam my other hand in a big, heavy door. My middle finger and index finger were both hurt, with my middle finger getting a diagonal cut just from the force of the door itself. I ended up dripping blood everywhere and bruising both nailbeds and my finger bone. Needless to say, I couldn't work for the rest of the day and the day before Christmas Eve. I lost the oppurtunity to make around $100 or so, which was extremely upsetting.
Christmas Eve, I got sick with a cold. By the 27th I was feeling pretty much better, and was back at work. Things were slow, but it felt good just to be making money again.
On the 30th I went to Delaware to visit Jon for New Year's. Every year he has a New Year's Eve party with his friends, and we end up eating lots of food, watching tons of movies, and just generally having a good time. We watched the first 3 Star Wars movies, which was great because I don't know squat about it. (I never had any friends who were into it, so I never saw any of the movies.)
Sure enough though, something had to go wrong. I GOT SICK AGAIN. This time I was coughing up a storm, and keeping poor Jon up at night.
I came home on the 3rd, worked on the 4th (all the while being dizzy and completely out of it), and then took a day off on the 5th because of my unchanging state of sickness.

Now for the kicker.
I called my local community college today to see if they got my college and highschool transcripts. I need both of them in before I can sign up for classes, which start on Jan 20th.
NEITHER PLACE HAS SENT THEIR TRANSCRIPTS.
I requested my transcripts early and mid DECEMBER.

I feel like curling up in a ball and hiding in bed.

I just want to go to college and get it out of the way so I can someday move out of my parents' house... so I can pay the rent, make more than $10/hr, have a future together with my boyfriend. Is that so much to ask?
Apparently it is too much to ask, and these damnable people with their comfortable college employee jobs are just sitting, high on life and raking in the dough while not doing what they're being paid to do.
As someone who slaves away at work, always comes in on time and tries to make an honest living, I feel so defeated and frustrated.

All I can do for now is call them and leave them messages, since nobody there ever picks up the phone... and just hope for the best... please...

Back to School... and back to fear.

Tomorrow I'm going to visit UConn Stamford to figure out when and how I'm going to go back to college.
I'm not going to lie... I'm PETRIFIED.

I've had a bad relationship with education.
I grew up bullied in school for being creative and "different" in a snobby town full of clones, but excelled in almost everything.
That all changed when I hit my teenage years.
I started noticing that I had to wrestle with my mind to keep focused. I became easily distracted, and gained a hatred of long-term things, like projects and essays.
Short-term things, I continued to do well at... math problems, standardized tests, short answer questions, and the like.

When I turned 16, it was apparent that something was extremely wrong. Nobody goes from being a straight A student to a kid struggling with their grades without something happening.
Turned out I had two things... major depressive disorder, aka depression, and ADHD-PI.

What's ADHD-PI?
For starters, the PI stands for "predominantly inattentive."

Wikipedia can explain the rest:

ADHD-PI is different from the other subtypes of ADHD in that it is characterized primarily by inattention, easy distractibility, disorganization, procrastination, forgetfulness, and lethargy - fatigue, but with fewer or no symptoms of hyperactivity or impulsiveness typical of the other ADHD subtypes. In some cases, children who enjoy learning may develop a sense of fear when faced with structured or planned work, especially long or group-based that requires extended focus, even if they thoroughly understand the topic. Children with ADHD-PI may be at greater risk of academic failures and early withdrawal from school. Teachers and parents may make incorrect assumptions about the behaviours and attitudes of a child with ADHD-PI, and may provide them with frequent and erroneous negative feedback (e.g. "you're irresponsible", "you're immature", "you're lazy", "you don't care/show any effort", "you just aren't trying", etc.).

The inattentive children may realize on some level that they are somehow different internally from their peers. However, they are also likely to accept and internalize the continuous negative feedback, creating a negative self-image that becomes self-reinforcing. If these children progress into adulthood undiagnosed or untreated, their inattentiveness, ongoing frustrations, and poor self-image frequently create numerous and severe problems maintaining healthy relationships, succeeding in post secondary schooling, or succeeding in the workplace. These problems can compound frustrations and low self-esteem, and will often lead to the development of secondary pathologies including anxiety disorders, sexual promiscuity, mood disorders, and substance abuse.

And there you have it. Me in a nutshell.
When I was officially diagnosed, I was floored. It was like somebody had observed my life and behaviors, and wrote a description of it.
I tried ADD medications, and had horrible heart-related side effects, leading my psychiatrist to scrap the ADD treatment altogether, and go straight for the neck of the depression.
Two years later, I was depression free, and have been ever since.

But what of my education?
I ended up failing classes in high school, and having to take 5 years to graduate what normally takes 4 years.
And if you've been following this blog at all, you know what happened to me in college... my lack of focus and frustration led to getting tons of incompletes, and eventually it was anemia that screwed me completely over.

Like I said, I'm not going to lie...
I'm scared to death of going back to school.
I have nightmares every week about school... elementary school, middle school, high school, college, you name it.
I either am failing, can't remember my schedule, late to class, missing a test, being kicked out of school, having to escape school, being yelled at by a teacher, being tortured by classmates, or the like.
Don't get me wrong, my life is great right now. I'm not depressed at all. At night while I'm asleep, however, my mind likes to dig up crap from the past and taunt me with it. It's like school-induced PTSD.

I'm wrestling right now about going back to college.
I know I can't ever get a job better than dog-washing without a degree, and it's not fair to Jon to not finish college while he works so hard to do so.
But I haven't changed. I can't focus, I hate projects, I drive myself crazy with my forgetfulness and inability to pay attention to things.
I think I need to try medication again... but I'm scared of side-effects too.
It's one evil or another. Failure, or the discomfort of having your brain go haywire from side-effects... a tough choice.

It all scares me.
Life never gets easy, does it?

Productivity Week - Day 1

Well, it's REALLY been getting to me that I basically do nothing all day. Obviously complaining about it isn't going to do me any good, so I've decided to push myself to be productive this week. In a way I'm testing the waters by trying different things, and in a way I'm just trying to prevent myself from feeling any more useless.

So! Today was the first day of my Productivity Week.
I didn't do too much today, but at least I got something done.
My day started out with having to drop Jon back off at UNH, so by the time we made it home, it was about 11am.
I only got about 6 hours of sleep last night because my crazy and restless mind wouldn't stop its nonstop train of thoughts, keeping me from falling asleep for a while. As a result, I was dead tired when I got home. I tried to stay awake as long as possible, but ended up passing out until 2:30pm.
When I woke up I immediately set up my laptop to play music, and got to work on something I've been putting off for a while... glazing my latest batch of clay goodness.

Glazing seems simple, but it's really a pain in the rear.
You paint the glaze on one side of the clay piece, put it down, wait for it to dry, flip it over, glaze the other side, wait some more... and usually you have to put a second coat on, or fill in parts that you might have missed.
In other words, it's time consuming, and best to do when you have a lot of things to glaze. That way you glaze a bit of one piece, move to the next, and just continually rotate through all of them until they're finished being coated.
Unfortunately I was a bit impatient, and got myself in a few... sticky situations. (Pun totally intended.)
I flipped over pieces that weren't completely dry, had to glaze over a few fingerprints from touching wet glaze, and basically had glaze-coated thumbs by the end of it all.

Overall, everything came out okay except for my snowcone earrings.
I tried glazing the tops of the earrings and dipping them in salt for realism, but it seems that the salt and glaze had some weird chemical reaction rather than dry together.
The glaze is now cracking off and has become greasy. Definitely not good.
Unless I can get some glaze on top of the layer of glaze/salt mix and get it to dry, they're most likely not going in the shop.

At 8pm I was finally done. (I had spent some time talking to my boyfriend as well, so I really wasn't working for 6 hours straight... that would be brainmelting.)

So that's about it for today.
Some other things on my list for this week...

Things I NEED to do:

- Look at Craigslist to find some possible jobs
- Photograph new clay items and Jon's LOST DVD sets
- Post LOST DVD sets on Ebay
- Post clay items on Etsy
- Try drawing on paper again
- Hook up tablet and try drawing on the computer again

Things I WANT to do:
- Go through old notebooks to find drawings to edit on the computer
- Try to make sprites for a plant for Creatures 3
- Try making larger clay pieces
- Make something for next month's April's Army charity sale
- Post my daily progress on this blog! DERP!

That's all for now. Sleepy time for Maddie...

Brutal Honesty

Okay, I'm going to be horribly and brutally honest right now.
I am a lazy fuck.
Am I proud of it? Hell no.
There's something slightly disturbing about the fact that I can be completely content sitting in front of a computer just about all day, browsing the web, screwing around with Creatures 3, and playing computer games.
Am I going to do something about it?
I try, but nothing ever seems to stick.

This weekend I'm finally going to turn in my job applications to Gamestop and Barnes & Noble. I've been putting it off because I don't want to go to the mall for 5 minutes just to drop off the apps. Since I can't drive, I'd probably be dragged off to a million other stores with my mom anyway.
That's something else I've been putting off... getting my license.
I kind of get the feeling that I'll have to run a lot of errands for the family if I get my license... once again, I'm lazy.

I have to figure out what the hell motivates me.
I'm getting sick of my complacency with my current lifestyle.

I guess I'm going to force myself to work on some clay things today. I made a sale on April 6th, and that made me incredibly happy.
Maybe if I work a bit more I can get another, and that happiness will motivate me to work harder?
I hope that logic works.

"Find Something to Believe In...."

Being in college has taught me a lot. I've learned better time management, how to live on my own and be self-supportive, how to be more responsible, and I think its safe to say my social skills have improved a little bit. I've grown as a person. But I've been starting to think to myself, and I'm sure others have at some point "Am I making the right choice?". This can apply to damn near anything but first I mean it in the career aspect. Do I really want to be a CJ major? Do I really want to work in law enforcement? Back in high school I had a few options for careers: being something CJ-related, a doctor, musician, an actor....blah blah. I sort of felt like I just chose to be a CJ because it was thrust upon me and it seemed like a good idea at the time; basically I'm trying to say that I feel like the decision wasn't really mine, that my parents thought I had an heightened interest in it and just assumed I wanted to pursue that and egged me on, when really I had no damn clue what I wanted to do/be. We're still trying to find our real identity and trying to be happy with who we are during that time.

So now to try to help all of you. I'm going to tell you what I did. Think and ask yourself, and dig deep, "Can I see myself doing this? What do I see myself doing with my life?" I did a lot of self-analyzing, and I still do. Now, I have my own spiritual beliefs, and my own theory on the universe, but I do like to think that there may be hidden signs that you're on the right "path". Take a step back from your life. And see if there is something hidden that you're missing. I really don't want to go into detail about the things in my life, at least not yet anyway, but these "signs" have the meaning you give them. So far, I think I'm making the right choice in my life and I'm going to stick with it, because I don't see a reason not to. I have a feeling deep down that it will be worth it, partly because I've seen a few signs along the way. But the key to this is finding out who you are, because then you can decide what you want to be.

Apart from finding out who you are, there is also finding out what makes you not just happy, but a whole person. These two things are connected: the person you are and what makes you feel fulfilled. So me pursuing a CJ major will make me happy and is some-what related to who I am, but that doesn't necessarily make me fulfilled. This is where things like hobbies come in and things like that, etc. An example: I'll admit I starting watching Man vs Wild from the start and I love watching it. I like how Bear goes into these situations with nothing but a knife, a flask, and the clothes on his back and shows you how to survive with just that. But I really love the outdoors, nature, solitude, etc; its sort of a secret little joy of mine. But I'd never really have the time or money or skill to just throw myself into the wild and have some epic self-revealing journey back to civilization. But I do enjoy the outdoors. A lot. Over this past Spring Break I went on a hike with some friends and I loved it. I did learn a few things about myself too. I'd like to go on more and in new locations, but there is more. I want to give back. That is where fulfillment comes in.

Find something that makes you happy and that you enjoy doing, but share your enjoyment somehow with someone. If I show a picture of a bird I saw on some hike to my girlfriend and just as long as she doesn't shrug it off like "Whatever...that's lame....", somewhere inside me that would make me happy because I'm sharing my experience with her. With all that said....I'll leave this here and let you mull over this. This isn't a clear cut guide to happiness or anything, but it may help you. Take from this what you will.

"Find something to believe in, and find it for yourself. When you do, pass it on to the future."
"Believe in what?"
"That's your problem."

I Should Be Sleeping

I really should be sleeping, but I feel way too restless...
...not just in a "I can't sleep!" sort of way, but also a "what should I do with my life?" sort of sense.

Things have changed a lot.

For one, I am most likely not returning to college.
Before you judge me and label me as a college dropout, that's really not the case.
Originally, I left college because of my anemia and planned to return once I got better. It took about a month for me to realize that I really didn't want to go back. It wasn't that I wanted to laze around at home all day and leech off of my parents. It was that I really wasn't me anymore, and I wasn't truly happy.
Let's face it... School is one extremely long journey that ultimately leads to a college degree.
Not a job... a degree. The degree is a tool that is used to get a job, and usually you get a degree so you can get the job of your choosing.
The thing is, college only complicated my ideas of the future instead of condensing it into a decision.
I really became lost in all the possibilities, and though some classes were incredibly enjoyable, others were pain-staking and annoying. All of the work and stress really made me wonder what I was really working for.

The truth is, I don't know what I want to major in.
I don't know what kind of job I want.
I don't know what I'd like to train to become, and I don't know what I want to spend the rest of my life doing.
Stress to do well, stress due to my health, stress of the future... it all adds up.
It also really detracted from my life.

Without college, I realized, I was nothing.
I was nothing but a student, but when that's stripped away, I'm nobody.
I don't have any real hobbies, goals, ambitions, or anything else.
My one goal in life was only to graduate college for a degree... but that's an empty goal, and that's really no way to live.

Taking this time to recover from my health issues has really helped me realize what in life I actually value.
With all the stress from college gone, I've gotten a lot more in tune with what I actually want in life as well... not just what is wanted from me.
I've come to the conclusion that I want to get a real job. I want to have something to be proud of, I want to bring home a paycheck. I want the satisfaction of knowing that I am capable of doing something out in the real world.
I want to further expand my art. Since my recovery from depression almost 3 years back, I've barely drawn anything, let alone actually worked on art. Of course, I've done some polymer clay work for Etsy, but definitely not enough. I want to try to get back into drawing, digital art, maybe even perler beads... those look like a lot of fun. Either way, I want to produce. I want to share my work, sell my work, whatever. As long as it isn't just sitting in my mind somewhere, that's fine with me.

Do I really want to never go back to college?
No, not really.
I'd like to go back someday. My credits are good for the next 8 years, so there's always the option to go back.
For now though, I feel like I need to prove to myself that I can self-provide and that I'm capable of... well, living.
I need the success that I stressed so much over... because honestly, it's 4 years to get a degree, and that's kind of disheartening and discouraging at times. But a week for a paycheck... that's almost instant gratification in comparison, and right now I need that.

So why am I so restless?
I'm brainstorming all of these things I should do.
I want to try out perler bead art.
I'm thinking of all the things I can draw when I get my new tablet.
I'm planning new things to make out of clay.
I'm mulling over job possibilities.

Now that I've written this though, I'm finally getting sleepy...
That's a good thing, I think.

Hooray for eBay!

Ugh! I've been staying up way too late, as evidenced by my past few entries...
The problem is, now when I actually try to go to sleep early, I can't sleep!
I just tried to fall asleep and failed miserably... So, here is an entry.

As you know, it's summer time, and I need to make some money.

Financial Woes and Polymer Clay

As you might have noticed at the top of this page, I'm planning to open an Etsy Shop...