Stressing -- I don't stress too much usually, but I am always aware of what I am supposed to be doing and in general I try to get it done before it is due or I feel bad that I may not ever get done due to an emergency. Of course, the emergency never materializes, but I feel better knowing I can move on to the next thing.

I was slow on getting the newsletter done this time, and felt bad when I realized I was missing a couple of things that had I worked on it earlier, I would have spotted earlier. Oh well. It is done now and on its way to Donna.

I am really not stressed even at work, more frustrated with the changes and no time to put those changes into effect or evaluate how they are working. 17 conferences to schedule a week (I do not see how this is possible, but team leader insists on doing it this way, and god forbid we want to pull someone, add yes but remove, no way.) Then we are supposed to have lesson plans in by 4 on Friday but with no planning time how??? Good thing I bring work home, but it defeats the purpose of team planning since my team is not here. I am a team of one who shares LOL But then again, I don't have to do them as far in advance, but I do not like waiting until Thursday to get the lessons for the next week. So I sit here and pound out my frustration silently.

*I want an old old typewrite with the keys you need to use a mallet on so that they hit the paper.**

Fed Ex is getting me upset right about now too. A package slip was left on Friday, *final attempt*. WHOA! What happened to attempts 1 & 2? Well they say, "Don't know." After much hemming and hawing, they finally say, "OK, we'll deliver Tuesday. Sign the slip and leave on the door."

Is today Tuesday??? No. I thought not. However, tonight there is yet another *final attempt* slip. Yet another call and I am told, "Our mistake, they should not have come today. They will deliver tomorrow." **Wonders what I will see on my door tomorrow.**

I begin classes again in January. I have no idea what to expect, don't know many of the instructors listed, that will be more stressful than anything. We all want to know about the instructor so we know what to expect and what to do. Anyone know the people who do the Media Specialist IT Masters?

Being a wife and mother never made me panic. Moving to unknowns was just an adventure. Teaching fills me with wonder at what my students know as well as what they don't know, and what they misunderstand, wellllll. But when I think about my son getting ready to move, it terrifies me that he might not be ready. His older brother did fine and so will the younger one, but this one for all he is clever and capable is more of a homebody. I am scared I will scare him into staying and doing so for the wrong reason, but ultimately, I believe he will make the right choice for himself. On a practice ASVAB (Military test) he scored a 94 today, the possibilities of what he can do is scary, and he has decided on being a maintenance officer. A potential brain surgeon operating on engines instead. (irony?)

I had a stress-free weekend. Shopped, which is usually stressful because I dislike it as passionately as others crave it, went out with friends, my devils choice was a Mango Margarita (ow! alright, stop twisting. it was 2) *yummy* and then yesterday after the newsletter was as complete as could be, I baked. Need to do some more. My kids even made their own zucchini loaves, *reminder to self - teach how to crack eggs* that was the funniest. If I had been stressed, watching two teenagers crack eggs was hysterical. One got his cracked but it didn't break the membrane, had to pick at it like a scab. The other, cracked and splatted everywhere. At least they measured and dumped flour without a need for biological clean-up.

Well 30 minutes have passed as I reminisce the weekend, many stress relievers are not illegal but. . . Now I need to feed animals and relax under hot water, it will also thaw out my tootsies that are going blue from sitting so long.

Donna, you reminded me about chilly brrrrr weather in bedrooms. My parents house was three storeys, and I was at the top. My window was cracked, and the cold water tank was in a closet there too. (For those who don't know, this was in England). I woke up one morning, sun sparkled on Jack Frost's artwork, and the ground I could see was white with a mist rising. Rainbows from the sun caught the ice trails on the glass and I stretched, shivered, and embraced a day. Almost ready for school, I decided to use my lipgloss. It had sat all year on my "dresser" the top of the water tank cabinet. Warmed and really liquidy in summer, it was now a solid mass inside a glass tube.

I know I invented words, but isn't that what writing is about? Make words fit and make words as needed, poetic license LOL

See all in January if not before at the Christmas Bash.

stress

Stress is just sucky. Like I feel all bah humbug right now. There are all sorts of poo issues hanging over my head, and I had to run 4 errands on the way home from school, and my husband talks soooo much I can't catnap. Only 5 hours of sleep doesn't bode well for me on Monday. AND - he is bogarting my laptop.

Stress???

I tend to stress in advance. This does not imply that I complete assignments early; I simply finish stressing early. I stressed over my paper, you know the one due tomorrow, at some point last week, so now, even though it's still not finished, I'm not stressed. It will get done. At some point I have mastered the ability to lull myself into a false sense of security, believing I can truly complete great feats in a short period of time. It's nice to be calm, though I have wondered if it's something like shock and not really the calm composure I'm convinced I possess...

I don't like this topic. It's great for this time of year, but thinking about why I should be stressed is making me a little panicky about the work I haven't finished yet. And there is nothing to eat. Which brings me to my form of stress relief. Beauty and fitness magazines tell you to exercise to reduce stress. How does taking time away from the things I need to be doing reduce my stress? Should I leave my crying baby to take a run around the neighborhood? So I can worry about her while I run, since clearly I have left and she must be at home alone? No, the only true method of stress relief is food. Now I know your going to tell me it doesn't really fix things. It's a temporary solution. My response to you: the solution is only temporary if you stop eating before the cause of the stress is removed. Bags of Cheetos and plates of brownies have fallen victim to this method of stress management, and frankly yes, it made me feel better. Then there's that skinny person that says, "What about how guilty you feel for what you ate afterwards?" Guilty? About food? God created me with needs, like food. Why should I feel guilty about that? Besides, by the time I've stopped eating (an activity I can complete while working on almost any task I might add), I will be so relieved to have completed said task that the euphoria of being finished with a taxing assignment or moment of tension will more than compensate for the fat and calories I have consumed.

Now if you will excuse me, I have a paper due, and I'm out of cheetos.

What me, stress?

Success after 21 frustrating minutes trying to get into blogger!

Passwords are frustrating little buggers. What is meant to try protect you ultimately stresses you out. I have so many passwords it's not even funny. There is my password to login to the network at school, then my school e-mail account, the AR password, my website login, my VSU e-mail account, my two yahoo accounts . . . then there's the the Bank of America pin, my online id, my Chase and American Express account passwords. Then most importantly, my iTunes password. I have finally come to the epiphany that I need to streamline my accounts as much as possible, so now I am trying to make all of my school accounts the same and all of my outside school accounts the same. But then you get the stupid ones that require you to have at least one number, and it must be at least one digit. GRRRRRRR!!!!

I used to smoke to alleviate stress, but I gave that up about thirteen years ago. Now my drug of choice is coffee. I am also an advocate of retail therapy. When I am stressed, I find that there is very little that can't be solved with a coffee from Starbucks and a little retail therapy. For example, yesterday, despite the fact that I have a research paper AND a final exam on Thursday, I desperately needed a venti Peppermint Mocha Twist and a trip to Books-a-Million, Old Navy, and Walgreens. Four boxes of Tazo tea, one collection of all six Harry Potter books (for a student at my school that the teachers are buying Christmas for), four pairs of pajama bottoms, one hoodie, and one tank top later, and I had the energy to finish reading O'Hare for my research paper. Plus that venti Peppermint Mocha Twist is a (RED) product, which results in a 5 cent donation to Africa.

Another way that I alleviate stress that costs absolutely no money is to spend time with my absolutely fantabulous golden retriever Lorelai. She is very good at keeping it "real" and keeps me laughing. (Ask Donna and Wes.) If I were a better mother, I would take her on more walks and runs. Typically, I take her only out when I am REALLY stressed. (Don't feel too sorry for her; she has a Nana that walks her every day except Sunday.)

I wish that there was a way to keep myself from getting stressed. I am a terrible procrastinator. I have always been this way, and I have never been able to just do my work in advance. I truly believe that there must be something in my brain that causes me to wait until the last minute. I thrive on the pressure. But, I often wonder why? Why do I cause myself to almost have nervous breakdowns? Why do I wait until the last minute to the point that I have to staay up all night? I love sleep. Why would I want to deprive myself of it? Maybe I need to go to a therapist to work out my time management issues. But then again, if I went, then they might figure out what a freak I really am and want to keep me for observation.

StressBusters

Think MythBusters. I've heard lots of strategies proposed for busting stress. Mostly, they involve aggression, but of course, they escape me. Humor escapes me. It's hard to be funny when I'm pissed off that Hildegard's is closed early. I guess I should have called. I WILL call, I promise, before the January Write Night. If I can keep the house clean, and I should be able to do so, we'll do Write Night at my house if we need to.

Hmm, what else? I don't know. I feel stressed. Imagine that?

Stressors:

• papers to grade for 1102H-A; I think I've done six, which leaves me with eleven to finish by Wednesday
• two papers to grade for 2060, late papers that still need to be finished; actually, there should be three papers to grade, but one is still missing. I wonder if it will be turned in at all.
• a grant to write: Rebecca and I met to work on this today. It looks like we're up to a twenty-five page grant without having completed certain sections. Still, we've never had this much of the grant written this early.
• waiting for the pizza to arrive. I ordered two much: two medium pizzas and cheese sticks for four people. Well, maybe Wes and Beka will help with the food. I keep looking to my left to look out the window to see if the pizza goes is pulling up in front of the studio. That's somewhat distracting.
• candy making--I have to make two batches of Oatmeal Gem Delights before I go to the all-day candy making on Saturday.
• final exams to grade for two sections of 2060, but they don't necessarily come in until Thursday afternoon. I'll definitely have to use a rubric to get through those in a timely manner
• 17 poster presentations to grade Wednesday during the final exam; that won't be hard, but I have to type up the rubric I'm using and grade while being friendly and smiling and chatting with folks (chatting is tougher than grading)
• averaging all these grades once they're completed
• meeting with the director of grants and contacts to review the budget and the actual grant
• writing observation letters for Shane and Matt
• reading and responding to the 1101/1102 syllabi
• writing other very important letters
• getting Lindsi's and Rebecca's signatures on the final draft of the grant

Usually, lists help me, but tonight the lists are stressing me out. Maybe I'll do a list of stressbusters instead.

Stressbusters:

• a hot bubble bath, so hot it's hard to breathe and my skin is boiled-lobster red or maybe cherry Lifesaver red
• a grande, nonfat caramel mocha
• typos: I accidentally typed "nonfact" mocha and kind of liked the way it looked
• sleep, but only once I warmed up in the Artic expanse that is my bed in the North Pole that is my room--yes, the window was open last night when it was 29 degrees outside. The dog had to come in, but apparently, we had to almost go outside. That's just wrong, isn't it?
• reading a good novel, good as in trashy, not good as in artistic and thoughtful
• laughter: Rebecca and Shane are threatening to slide the cushion onto the floor (Look at what all y'all are missing at Write Night in the Studio! Earlier, Rebecca was planning a sleepover, but you had to be here to be invited.)
• a clean house--I cleaned house all day Friday. Cleaning doesn't de-stress me, but being in a clean house does. Periodically, I look around and enjoy the house. It won't last, but for now, it's awesome.
• funny emails, particularly ones involving pictures, like the one Lindsi sent drawn by a child whose mom sells shovels at Home Depot or the video about men being sent to the doghouse for buying practical rather than romantic presents--even though I've never been that woman
• leaving work and having nothing to work on after hours, except spending time with the hubby--that rocks!
• afternoon naps--okay, I'm not a huge fan, but I took two this weekend, and they were incredible

Okay, I think I'm out of stuff to say. Now I'm just waiting for the pizza and Diet Coke. Actually, I'm more excited about the Diet Coke than the pizza. It's been a long day.

Stress, who? Me?

Stress – a topic par-excellence for me today. Porqué? As the VSU set well knows, this is the week of finals. That means that papers are due, or papers will be returned. Grades must be in by next week. We’re down to the short rows. (For the non-redneck, non-farm-raised, that means that when you’re harvesting your crops and begin to get near the corner or end of the field, the rows are usually shorter.) Near the end, but not the end. Still some work to do. I usually get tired near the end or just plain sick of working on a project or paper. I liked the old quarter system better. By time you started getting sick of everything, it was over. The most stressful thing just now is the angst I’m feeling about not knowing. Not knowing what, you may ask? In English 7000, in which I am a student, I am waiting to know my grade on a monster of a paper that I turned in last Wednesday. Did I do good enough? (I know it’s supposed to be “well,” but screw it.) I made a spreadsheet to figure my grade and have entered in several different scenarios. Provided that I get a 95 on my second journal, according to my calculations, I can get an 82 on the paper and somehow, through the magic of averages, by some "miracle of rare device" ("A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!"; gratuitous Coleridge reference #1), get an A for the class with a final aggregate score of 89.5. (That sentence structure you just saw is what is known as a "proviso" clause in Latin. "Provided that" intimates a conditional situation. You render it with the adverb "dummodo" and follow it with the subjunctive; the main clause would be in the indicative.) But this is cutting it close now gradewise, but that’s “A”-OK with me. (That’s supposed to be funny because it's a pun. Some say the pun is the lowest form of humor. I disagree.) And why might I be stressing about all this? Because, the way I see it, I’ve been busting my ass since August in this class and driving back and forth to Titletown USA (This is for Sir Shane: "We ain't trying to read no books."), burning up gasoline; I’ve read eight books for the class (Si, yo dije OCHO!); I’ve written out dialogic journals that fill two, 100 sheet spiral notebooks: the first notebook was front and back.

The frikkin’ paper was about the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I’m so sick of that g.d. albatross that I could, I don’t know… Twenty-nine pages not counting the works cited PAGES. Three pages of citations. Any you know what, the paper just is what it is. “Que sera, sera.” (That's France-talk for "what will be, will be.") I bet if I had time to sit down and watch a Doris Day movie, I’d feel better. I know the monster paper isn’t my best work, but it’s not that bad either. I’d never written a paper where I had to do a review of literature. But I did it. So automatically, the temptation was just to copy and paste a bunch of that crap from the lit. review into the paper. And tempted I was. That’s just what I did. I took fifteen pages of what was nothing more than an annotated bibliography really and made it into a paper. But you know what, as bad as it is, it’s got to be BETTER than some of the journal articles I read while researching the topic. When I get some more letters behind my name, then I can tell ‘em what’s what.

Well that’s enough about that. But, you know, there has got to be a better way to write about literature and do literary criticism than the dry-as-dust research-style essay. I’ve always wanted to write something like:

Then Wordsworth was like, “Your damn poem sucks ass.”

Then Coleridge goes, “No it don’t; you’re not the boss a me. I’ll write what I want!”

Wordsworth fires back, “It’s your fault that Lyrical Ballads didn’t sell worth a shit! If you weren’t trying to bed down with all your friends’ sisters you might could write something decent once and a while. And it doesn’t help that you’re high as kite on dope all the time.”

Coleridge retorts, “You know what, bitch, you can take your frikkin’ Two Part Prelude and cram it where the sun don’t shine! Hell yeah, mofo!”

What I want to know is how does one talk in italics?

So how to deal with stress? I’ve been told that I am the most laid-back, uptight person ever. I’m not sure what this means, but I think I know. It seems contradictory. But what’s not a contradiction, that’s what I want to know. Everything and nothing at the same time. Sounds strange, but it makes sense to me. On the surface, I may seem calm, cool, and collected. I seem to have that devil-may-care attitude. But that’s not how it goes. If you don’t believe me, ask Shane. He’s been witness to several melodramatic meltdown episodes this semester. It’s kind of ridiculous the way I act. Beneath my calm exterior lies a seething cauldron, boiling and bubbling, toiling and troubling, with uncertainty and woe. (That's a Macbeth allusion in case you didn't notice. Refer to lines 4.1.20-21. But I know that you know. I don't ever want to be accused of plagiarism.) It’s not a fun place to be unless it is. Woe have I for the future; for not measuring up to some high standard I’ve usually set for myself; for letting someone down; for not keeping my end of the deal; for hurting someone’s feelings; for creating bad karma; for the past; etc.; etc.; et-damn-cetera.

I’ve discovered that various chemicals can relieve stress for a short time. Nothing illegal, mind you. I’ve divided the options for stress relief into two categories. It’s really simple. You just choose something from each category and partake of the two simultaneously. The first category: Coors Light, Heineken, Bud Light, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, vodka, red wine (preferably Tuscan*), or white wine; basically, any alcoholic drink will work. It’s your call as to what you prefer. The second category: Beechnut chewing tobacco, a Montecristo or Macanudo cigar, or even a few cigarettes. Now my formula can be a problem if you don’t abuse the hell out of tobacco products. I'm sure you're wondering how one goes about chewing tobacco and drinking beer at the same time too. It's a seemingly grotesque yet near-superhuman buccal feat that is only the province of and only can be accoplished and executed by the reddest of rednecks. But, yeah, ATF. Alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. That’s what’s missing. Maybe if I walked around a fired a pistol into the night like Lord Byron used to, it’d help too. I’m really not crazy; it just sounds like it on paper. Really I’m not. I hope I’m not scaring anyone. Will you still be my friend? Maybe if I just listened to .38 Special while self-medicating/poisoning myself, that would connote the idea of "gun" and be a lot safer. But the secret formula only really works when you choose something from BOTH categories. I’m not actually an alcoholic, but it sure does make things easier sometimes. Especially around 9:00 PM or 8:00 AM when you need to wind down.

*Tuscan - Tuscan is our English rendering of the Italian Tuscano, an adjective used to refer to the region of Tuscany. Tuscany is that part of Italy that lies between the Arno and Tiber Rivers and the ancient home of the Etruscans. The Romans referred to these peoples as the Tusci or the Etrusci; in modern Italian, the Etruschi. The Greeks called them the Tyrrehenoi. The Etruscans called themselves the Rasna or Rasenna. It is also interesting to note that Norse runes resemble the Etruscan alphabet. It is my theory that during the late Bronze Age the peoples of Nothern Europe were in contact with the people of Italy for the purposes of trading metals, though the Alps surely posed a formidable barrier. The early Italic peoples were master metallurgists as testified by the remnants of mines and slag heaps on Elba and such place names as Piombino, a still-existent town in today's Etruria. The name comes from the Latin plumbum, or lead, thus the chemical symbol Pb. Note also how the Latin pl and fl goes to pi and fi in Italian. Flor > fiore (flower); flumen > fiume (river); plumbum > piombo. For instance, unleaded gasoline is benzina senza piombo.

Which brings me to my next topic. I don’t know how I did it, but I had another paper due this Thursday, and well, actually it is still due since it’s not Thursday yet, but I am kind of finished with it except for proofing and editing. (The pluperfect seems to make more sense in the second independent clause of sentence preceding, but it messes up the time sense of the sentence! I think you understand. Yes, I know you do.) But anyway, the second paper is about Che Guevara, the Argentine revolutionary who helped Castro overthrow the Cuban government in 1959. Well somehow I was able to quote Paradise Lost twice. It just worked and I was real happy with how it came out. (I purposely left the comma out of the sentence preceding this parenthetical intercession because I saw somewhere that not using a comma before “and” with two really short independent clauses was OK. Edith Hamilton does it all the time in her mythology book.)

Now stress can really make you sick too. Once upon a time when I was in the banking industry, I stayed sick all the time. Constant stomach aches. It got so bad that I went to the doctor. I had to undergo the colonoscopy and all that fun stuff. Nothing physically wrong. The doctor told me to quit my job. Several years later, I did. For a career as a teacher and student. It’s the student part that’s wrenching my gut right now though. I stopped getting stressed out about my 1101 class I was teaching pretty quickly. I wonder, I wonder if she’s graded my monster paper yet. Got to go check my e-mail.

(What a sorry ending! I guess I just got tired.)

Write Night

Okay, folks, tonight is Write Night. Let's play with Stress as a topic. Perhaps you can share your favorite stress-busting technique. Or maybe you can imagine stress as a person and write about it. Maybe you want to write a poem in honor of stress. You can describe its death. Maybe you want to imagine your favorite stress-free happy place and take us there through your words. Be creative. Have fun.

As always, you may choose to ignore this prompt completely. That is one of the benefits of freewriting, after all. Write whatever you want.

If you choose to write in your notebook, please consider posting at least a line or two from your notebook on the blog so that we can share your words. And please consider responding to the writing of others on here.

See you soon--in person or on the blog.