Smiling

Well this week started off very busy- extremely so. But once I got past Wednesday, things calmed down. I was able to keep a very good attitude even as I staid up until almost one in the morning doing homework on Tuesday. Granted earlier in the day, I started to stress and freak out a little when I realized how much I had to do. But I decided to take a break from my homework and make biscuits  which relaxed me and I haven't really stressed out since.

Friday I had to get up super early so I could compete in Dance Sport. I only got to the second round, but I was dancing quickstep, which is a lot of fun. I had work that afternoon, setting up for Passover. I will be doing this for the next three weeks. It's a fun shift, but we are not allowed to get subs. Which normally wouldn't be a problem, I so need the hours, but I was hoping to be able to go home one of these weekends so I could go through the temple for the first time. But it looks like I will have to wait until April, right before finals, or wait until the semester is over.

Friday night I went over to a friend's apartment and we just sat and talked for hours. Saturday was a lovely day. I slept in. Didn't really do much. Then went and saw The Hobbit at the dollar theater with a good friend and then went back to her apartment where a group of us had a very nerdy but thoroughly entertaining/hilarious discussion about The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings/J. R. R. Tolkien. We then watched Beauty and the Beast and talked for hours.

I am finding that I very much enjoy not being in my apartment. Not that I have a problem with my apartment, but I feel like I am in it so much, that it is such a relief to leave and go see other people.

Well I set off the smoke detectors in my apartment today. I tried broiling chicken for the first time. I had no idea what I was doing and ended up filling the apartment with smoke. I've decided I'm not going to do that again. From now on, chicken shall be pan-fried. But the fact that I cooked chicken at all is a good sign, because I've been eating a whole lot of peanut butter lately. I hope you can't get peanut butter toxicity, because I seriously eat a lot.

Guess what I learned this week? Smiling is innate. It is not something we learn, it is something we are born: the reflex to smile when we are happy. Cool huh?

Also learned that I was one of only two people in my class who didn't think that their adolescent years was a time of storm and stress. My family has noted this about me too, how I strangely loved my middle school years, how I never really went through an awkward stage. I was just happy with life. I realized that it wasn't until I got older that school overtook my life and I associated myself with being an extreme "stressor." And as my professor was asking me why I didn't think my adolescence was a time of storm and stress, I realized it was because things didn't really bother me the way they do now. I assumed the best out of everyone. I didn't hate anyone. I didn't have a whole lot of friends, but I was happy with the friends I had. School wasn't hard, and when it was, of course I would stress a little, but I knew it would always turn out in the end. Things just didn't bother me the way they bother me now. Now if I get a bad grade on a test, I assume the worst, and feel doomed. It's interesting to see how much I've changed. And so I've been working on not letting things bother me any more. I hope that when the next round of midterms comes along, I will not stress out as much as I usually do, that I will maintain my happy personality that is more natural for me.

Because smiling is something we are born with, and stressing out about a test is something we learn to do. And if we are born with the ability to smile, I can only assume that it is much more important for us to do than stress out over tests, otherwise God wouldn't have given us the ability to smile even as infants.

So smile and remember that you are loved!