One Week Down...

Only fourteen to go.

I can say with confidence that this week was one of the most stressful I have experienced so far. (That is, in my life. Not just in college.)

I was IN class 43 hours this week, and working on homework the other spare moments I had. One thing I learned about myself in the last 5 days is this - that stress makes me flaky and forgetful.

On Thursday alone I managed to:
-Accidently leave two notebooks I needed at my apartment when I went to campus for the day
-Accidently leave my insurance card at the CVS pharmacy counter
-Accidently leave the STOVE ON at my apartment when I went home to get the two notebooks I forgot in the morning
-Accidently leave one of the needed notebooks at studio when I went to the meeting I needed it for

This is not ok. I can't just leave the stove on for 3 hours. I know it is normal for me to be stressed when I am not used to a routine but I want to get to the root of why I get this way, what I can do about it next week, and how to prevent the overwhelming feeling one, five, and fifty years from now. College will not be the only stressful time in my life - there has got to be a better way to manage stress than by making haphazard lists on the backs of receipts and flitting around like I have never taken a college course before.

So WHY has this week been so stressful? WHAT parts of my personality make me this stressed? HOW can I prevent this in the future?

I have determined that my fatal flaw this week has been my lack of balance. My stream of consciousness is a rollercoaster with peaks of productivity obsession and valleys of laziness bingeing. The problem with this is the valleys of laziness last much longer than the peaks of productivity. I spend three hours working really hard and then "reward" myself by spending the next 8 hours doing absolutely nothing. I spend 5 minutes typing up this blog post, then 20 minutes on facebook. A solution I am going to attempt this week is to make a more intentional to-do list with specific "rewards" for projects accomplished. All rewards will be limited to shorter spans of time than I am currently allowing myself and if I feel myself going off track I will turn back to my to-do list and choose a different task to complete in order to maintain productivity.

When it comes to the rest of my life, I think it is important to use the calmer times in my life for productivity instead of putting things off. There are so many things I could have done this summer that I didn't do and (surprise!) they still need to be done and I now have far less time available to do them. I also hope to adopt the practice of short spurts of intense focus. Growing up my mom got my brother and I to help clean the house by doing a "10 minute blitz" where she would set the timer for 10 minutes and we picked up/cleaned as much as possible in that time. I still do the "10 minute blitz" when cleaning my room at my apartment, but I think I can adopt it into my schoolwork as well (maybe "1 hour blitz" instead of 10 minutes - see how much work can get done in 1 hour). Setting a time limit and shutting out all distractions for that amount of time should help me to get more done in less time, whether it's math homework, cleaning my house, or any other less than desirable activities. It will also make my opportunities to relax more refreshing.

SERVE Retreat

This past Friday and Saturday were the start of SERVE 2.0 - a new batch of freshman interested in community service and making their mark on the VT community. It is so fun to be around other people who see their college years as more than just a time to party and skip class, but as a time to jump into a new environment and become a part of it. Virginia Tech makes up almost half of the total Blacksburg population (with over 30,000 students and around 40,000 non-student, year-round residents). One thing I love about service here is that I get the chance to get to know some of those 40,000 - families from my church, Bob and Emily and their friends, children in the schools, etc. Blacksburg is my home for 5 years but it is their home indefinitely... where they spend their holidays, raise their families, bury their loved ones, and invest their time. What a gift I have to offer here; to offer my time and efforts to bettering this place and to invest in others who are also willing to give generously of their time and efforts.

A part of the retreat that I loved was getting to know each student's story - how they developed a desire to serve others and what factors in their lives impacted who they are. From formal activities like creating name-tags expressing their interests to just getting to know the students one-on-one during down-time, it is inspiring to see the passions of each individual. My hope is that each student will find ways to get 'plugged in' to the organizations that are in place that focus on their passions. There is a place here for those who love children (Daniel), those who feel called to preserving the environment (Steph), those interested in fighting to end cancer (many), those wanting to work with the homeless and orphans (Gaia), etc. Each student has a story that got them to this place and each story is equally important. If each of the 12 (plus our CAs) make a mark in an area where they are interested, the ripple effect in this community will be incredible.

I am loving these quotes from Washington University on service and plan to reflect on some of them during the semester - maybe a good project would be to have the SERVE kids eventually develop their own quote for their personal views of service?