Coping Mechanisms

So, as yet another wave of school craziness gets ready to destroy me, I have been thinking a lot about how I deal with stress. I've narrowed it down to three categories.

1. Grasping for control

a. Plucking my eyebrows - It is one of the few things I can control in my life. My skin won't do what I want, my designs won't do what I want, but my eyebrows... they will submit or be destroyed.

b. Organizing - I will clean everything around me repeatedly in the course of a day. Yesterday, I tested and cleaned all of my rapiodgraph pens. Then I did my laundry. Then I sorted my receipts. Then I sat there, and wondered why everything was still so messy, so I tried to organize everything. Again.


2. Endurance

a. The Goo Goo Dolls - I will listen to the Goo Goo Dolls (primarily Dizzy up the Girl, but sometimes Gutterflower as well), on loop, for as long as it takes to complete a project, a paper, anything. I don't know why, but it's my work music, and has been since high school, when I would put off papers until the night before they were due (I got better in college - I would put off term papers until a couple hours before they were due. I was a bad example as a Writing Fellow). Anyway, my point is, if I ever write a book, if I am ever honoured for a huge achievement, or if I manage to place in this design competition I'm currently participating in, a lot of it is because the Goo Goo Dolls have never ever let me down - which is more than I can say for most things in life.

b. Water - lots of hot water. I will drink several liters of hot water a day if I'm at home, which thing is better than what I do at school, where I have recently succumb to drinking soda again. Soda is bad. It never is as good as it promises to be, overstimulates you with all of its high fructose corn syrup, and then makes your body and your brain sluggish. It never seems to make me feel less thirsty, either. Yet I still drink it. I seem to do a lot of things that are just bad for me. So yes. It's best if I just stay home and drink plenty of hot water. Wonderful hot water that keeps me from feeling completely dehydrated, which thing is a normal occurence when I stay up too late (apparently I'm an old Asian lady in more ways than one).


3. Avoidance

a. Sleeping - I take naps because my body assures my brain that when I wake up the monster will be gone. My body lies. This is counter-productive, as it just gives me even less time to work.

b. Blogging - I will blog and read blogs to avoid work. I figure, hey, blogging is more important than school, because it maintains some semblance of contact with friends who I miss and never see (even if they live nearby). Relationships are more important, right? Well, yes, they are, but blogging is not really the best way to 'maintain a relationship'. It is, for the most part, a one sided thing - not a forum for a discussion, more a platform to display. At least, it is on my blog... because very few actually visit it and leave comments (well, they don't visit my real blog page, just the facebook notes page) by the by, thanks for visiting!

c. Reading - I will look for books at the library on my most stressful days, with the rationale that I will want books to look forward to after my projects are done, and they will motivate me to work more efficiently - the sooner I finish the project, the sooner I can read. Sadly, I tend to not wait to read the books, and end up spending my time reading instead of working. I should have been a book critic, but I don't think I like the same books as most people. Not to mention that my writing skills have steadily declined, as this post demonstrates.

So there you go. My coping mechanisms. Have fun with that.