Weekly Wisdom

“You are what you do. Not what you think. Not what you want. Not what you dream. Not even what you believe. You are what you do.”

(Anonymous)

Good Times in Gettysburg

Over the weekend, my mom and I drove up to Gettysburg for my

bro's family weekend shindig. Despite the fact that it rained all day Saturday, we had fun anyway. I got a sweet Gettysburg Family Weekend button, we took a quick trip to Maryland to get some fun drinks, and my mom got to watch the Penn State football game. We also met up with my aunt, uncle, cousin and her friend for "cocktail hour" in our hotel room.

Anyway, Sunday turned out to be beautiful so my mom, bro, and I decided to take a drive through the battlefields. With all the fall colors in full swing, the battlefields were spectacular. I had a lot of fun taking pictures of them with the special color filters on my camera. These pictures are of the monument dedicated to the soldiers from Virginia that fought in the

Civil War. I guess the soldiers deserve its hugeness, although I think that the fact that General Lee was also from Virginia could have a little something to do with it. He was kind of a big deal to the Confederacy. That's him on the horse at the top of the monument.

We also found the Pennsylvania monument which was pretty cool because the name of one of our ancestors is written on the wall.

While I was taking this picture (below right), I overheard a convo that was both funny and sad. You see, this statue is on a large rock and there is a sign under it that says "please don't touch the rock." This is because the rock and statue are part of the memorial to the troops of New York who held down the fort at Little Roundtop. Anyway this girl climbed up on the rock, I guess it was so that she could get a better picture of

Devil's Den, which is in the ravine below. Her dad yelled at her to get down, to which she responded with something to the effect of "It's ok, I'm only going to be up here for a second." When she took her picture and got down off the rock, her dad pulled her aside and said, "You know, I don't know which is worse. The number of people who died here, or your attitude. But, I'm thinking that it's your attitude."

Harsh. I hope her picture was good.

Virtue is a Virtue

We got Chinese food the other night and my fortune was pretty interesting.

"Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it."

This is such a great saying, even if it did come from a fortune cookie. We often know what we have to do and how to do it, but that doesn't always mean that we actually do whatever it is that we should.

Take me for instance, over the past year I got fat. Not super fat, just fat enough that my middle sort of spills over the top of several pairs of my pants, just a little, but enough to make me feel very self-conscious. Oh, and I'm pretty sure that I look about 3 months along when I wear a dress.

Now, wisdom tells me that the obvious solution to my not-so-little problem would be to eat better, snack less, and get some hard-core exercising done.

The skill part would mostly involve me, good shoes, and a treadmill hanging out together for about 4 miles a day.

But virtue has been failing me for about 2 months, which is about how long it's been since I decided to implement my new eating and exercising regimen. In September, I decided to go to the gym every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after class. I even put my sneakers and gym clothes in my car so that I would have them after class and not have to go home. Unfortunately, my shoes and clothes are still sitting, neatly folded, on the back seat in my car. They still smell like laundry. I'm still fat.


I guess I need to work on my virtue.

A Journey into the Wilds of my Dad's Office

I was feeling a little crummy after my class this morning so I decided to journey over to my dad's office to see if he had any tea that I could make. Fortunately he did, unfortunately he only had Celestial Seasoning's Peach Apricot Honeybush and Wild Cherry Blackberry, both very weird flavors. He also didn't have any honey or sugar, both essential ingredients for the perfect cup of tea. I decided that Peach Apricot Honeybush was better than nothing and maybe the honeybush part would make up for the lack of any actual honey in his office. It didn't.

My dad's office is a mess and that's putting it lightly. But it's also full of character (and pictures of me and the bro when we were little and super cute). He says that the chaos in his office represents his life... take from that what you will. But the coolest part of his office is the mini-research lab in the back. Now, no research has taken place back there since before I was born and my dad occupied this office, unless you count documenting how much stuff one man can manage to squish into a space the size of a large elevator. But it still has all the fixings of a research lab, complete with a safety shower and test tube drying racks attached to the wall over the industrial sink. It was to the test tube rack that I forced my way through the wreckage to to get my coffee mug. Among the millions of mugs hanging on the rack (well it was like 15) I found this little gem. It has a picture of a woman in a bathrobe and slippers sitting at a computer desk with the caption...

"If the computer gets a virus, can I take a sick day?"

Classic.

Sing a Happy Song!

Everyone should have a playlist called "Seriously, Laughter is the Best Medicine" or "For When You Just Have to Scream... Sing These Instead" or something to that effect.

These playlists should be filled with music that not only makes you happy, but makes you so happy that you just can't help but laugh out loud. Failing that, it should at least make you smile. Your playlist should be filled with songs that you know all the lyrics to, and preferably sound even better when turned up really loud.

These songs don't have to be "typical" songs like those you regularly hear on the radio. My ultimate "happy" song is I Swear by All-4-One. Random? Yes. I don't know why, but something about that song just makes me smile and want to start belting it out... even when I'm so angry I can't even think straight (yes, that does happen to me occasionally... hard to believe I know). There were several occasions last year when this song came up on my iPod while I was walking across campus and I literally had to restrain myself from doing a full on, eyes closed, crouching down, belting out rendition of "I Swear" in the middle of Brinser field... with people around. Crazy, I know. To illustrate how impressive that is, for those of you that don't know me, I never sing in public. Ever. Unless I am in a crowd large enough to drown out my voice... or under the influence of "liquid courage"... Also, I generally don't dance in public either, unless I'm on a stage and the dance is choreographed by someone other than me and I have been practicing for at least a couple days first... or I'm wearing my party pants :)

Fireflies by Owl City is another great addition to either of the aforementioned song lists. There is just something about this song that's captivating. I don't know what it is about this song but I listen to it and it just makes me happy. Yesterday it came on right as I was about to turn onto my road and I drove around the block twice just so that I could hear the entire song. I mean seriously, who couldn't love a playfully electronic song about fireflies?

Of course, to anyone who's never heard Chinese Children by Devendra Banhart, well you should. The sooner the better. This is a song that not only will make you smile after about the first 5 seconds, but it will make you start to giggle after about 20 seconds, laugh after about a minute, and then keep laughing for the duration of the 5 minute song. It is unquestionably one of the single weirdest songs I have ever heard in my entire life and it will forever be a solid member of my "Seriously, Laughter is the Best Medicine" playlist.

So the next time that you are just piping mad and hate the world and everyone in it, don't reach for your Remington 22-shot gun, don't reach for your car keys, don't reach out to the nearest window or mirror with a clenched fist, instead reach for your iPod (or equivalent) and save yourself from jail, a potential wreck or speeding ticket, or a lot of pain and either bad luck or a costly home improvement project, with your perfect laugh/smile inducing playlist.

I'm Sorry

I've recently been informed that I am an apologetic person. Perhaps too apologetic.

I guess I could see how people get that impression. I do tend to end a lot of sentences with the phrase, "I'm sorry!" or "I'm sorry?" or even "I'm sorry..." I do tend to just say sorry/apologize to people, often for almost no apparent reason. And, "I'm sorry" is often the response you will get from me if you say anything from, "You just punched me in the face" to "I lost my puppy" to "We're out of milk."

But, I ask you, what's so wrong with that? I guess if I just punched you in the face, that's an understandable "I'm sorry." Obviously I should say I'm sorry, because that's what I've been taught to do since pre-school when I learned all my morals. If you tell me that you lost your puppy, I say I'm sorry because I feel bad about the fact that you lost your puppy. So, I say I'm sorry, not because I think that it's my fault that you lost your puppy, not because I stole your puppy and I am apologizing for taking it. Instead, I'm sorry because I have pets of my own and I know that I would be upset if I lost Kitty or Frisk or even Sam, so I feel bad that you lost your pet and am empathizing. When we're out of milk, the sorry refers to the fact that I also use the milk and I should have noticed that we were running low and picked some up from the store on the way home.... See it makes sense, right?

I guess it doesn't always though because half the time that I say "I'm sorry," I get the response, "It's not your fault." Well duh. Of course I know it's not my fault when you fall and scrape your knee or you get into a car accident or you accidentally (drunkenly) spill cranberry juice (mixed with something else) all over the front of your brand new, bright white party dress. But I'm sorry doesn't always have to mean I did something and now I am sorry for the fact that I did it. Can't it also mean, "I feel really bad for what just happened to you and I wish I could do something to help you even though I know I can't"? Can't it mean "it shouldn't have happened to you and it sucks that it did"?

And then there were those times in college when I would, 1. apologize to the class when I took 10 minutes longer than anyone else to finish my molecular lab practical and 2. apologize to Dr. Yorty for turning in a test that I knew was not going to be an A, possibly be a B, and most likely going to be a C? In this case, the sorry to the class was for the fact that I was keeping them from going home early. The apology to the teacher was because I was sorry that despite all her attempts to pound the information about PCR and DNA sequencing into my brain, I had still forgotten a significant amount of the information and had therefore probably failed.

All in all, I guess what I'm trying to say here is that saying "I'm sorry" is not always cause for the response "that's ok, it's not your fault." Nor is it a phrase that can be overused. In fact, I personally believe that most people don't say it enough. So, the next time you're in a spot where you see someone who needs a little empathy and comfort, try using the phrase, "I'm sorry" and see if it doesn't make you feel a little better too.

I'm taking the plunge...

Well after months and months of procrastination... I've taken the plunge. I've finally started a blog of my own.

But I never realized how hard it would be to start. Seriously. First, you have to come up with a catchy title. I literally agonized over this one for several weeks. I was constantly running possible titles through my head... in the car, in the shower, in ballet, wherever... but nothing seemed good enough. It was awful. I really wanted to start a blog, but I didn't have a title. Then. Inspiration. I found my title. I think it represents me pretty well. It doesn't quite make sense but at the same time it totally does. Some people see the glass as half full and other people just wear glasses... I do both. Usually.

So now you have a catchy title. Are you finished? No way! Now, you have to come up with a URL name that works with your title without being crazy long. But you can't just come up with any old URL because inevitably someone else has already used it. I wanted glasshalffull, but that was already taken. One of my suggestions was somepeopleseetheglassashalffull but that's soooo long, and looks kinda funny too. So then you have to pick a new URL or add some numbers or in my case leave out a letter... I promise I know that full has two L's.

Then, of course, you have to deal with the layout. Which template do you choose? How do you customize it so that it doesn't look like a cookie-cutter copy of everyone else on blogger? That's the fun part.

I would suggest to anyone who wants to start your own blog that you can't over-think this whole start-up process. It's totally not worth all the frustration and agony that I went through (well not really agony, but you know what I mean).

Of course, once you have the title and the URL and you've made your layout pretty and picked all the colors, you have to write your actual posts. In my case, I'm not really sure what I will write about. This blog doesn't have a theme like architecture, fashion, or cooking. I don't have anything profound to offer to society at large. I don't have any strong opinions on politics that I feel the need to expound upon. I just have me and my ramblings that probably no one will care about. All I can hope is that the three people that end up reading this won't think that what I'm writing is crap, both idea-wise and writing wise. If it is, I'm sorry!