I want to like it here.

Lovely tracks keep playing in my head the past few days:

-I hate this school. 

-I should have done more research before coming here.

-I'm so alone. 

-I'm so lonely. 

-I have no friends here. 

-I'm so afraid of having a panic attack in this class....

-What am I going to do?

The more I think it the more it feels like a truth to me. I've always had problems with this growing up, feeling as though everything is worse than it probably is. Though I feel like Lorazapam is the only thing getting me by at this point. I just can't take the quiet. It gives me too much time to think and because I have a tendency to have depression the more I think the worse it gets. 

So this week my goal is to find a club. Finding something to do that will both get me out of this damn apartment and meet people will help a lot. At the beginning of the year I wanted to join a club but gave up when I couldn't get the proper contact information because every time I'd try to go to the office it'd be closed. Today I was lucky enough to actually get in the office and they printed me out a list of clubs. There's 100 clubs here, MOST of which are major specific (though they don't have mine) which eliminated a little over half the list. Then there's hobby clubs, like gaming, trading cards, clay,... mostly stuff I'm not interested in at all either. I think on that list of 100 I circled "International Club" and got the contact information for that adviser. 

That just leaves the sports clubs-- I circled tennis, ultimate frisbee and karate. That made me really excited because I've always wanted to try karate. Of course the office didn't have any of the contact information for the sports clubs.... That's so f*ing typical of Central, you have to get redirected to 10 different people before you can get a solid answer on anything. The lady that would have had that information wasn't in the office. Initially the girl told me she'd get back to me today, but as I was packing up my stuff she said "If you don't hear from her in 3 days come back and see me."  

So I'm really crossing my fingers that she does email that information to me so I can get the ball rolling on this. I'm a little nervous about it because I've never done karate in my life. I'm having a feeling a lot of the people in the club are going to have prior experience. Ultimate frisbee sounds like a good idea too; Jason had brought it up to me last night. Hell maybe I could join both. 

I just need something. Something to meet people besides class because class obviously isn't the best place for that because we don't just sit around talking among eachother. I originally relied on hoping I'd make friends in class and everything would just fall into place but it didn't. Clearly, I have to make an effort here or I'm going to feel like I'm in prison/house arrest as long as I'm here. 

I got pizza today for lunch, sat alone in the SURC again.... Actually when I got the food and I was looking around at the tables I quickly walked back to grab a paper bag so I could just shove the food in and go home. I stopped myself when I realized it wouldn't fit and looked around again. I found an empty spot at a larger table with a few people on their laptops. I ate very quickly, threw half of it away and left. 

Today I did find another outlet of getting out my apartment, though. There's an economics tutor every day at 5:40 that I can go to for getting some clarity on the material. There's also the finite math tutor. I feel like if I try to go to tutoring every day I can both benefit my grades and not feel as depressed of how much time I spend pent up in my room. 

I don't feel like playing the guitar or studying or anything right now.... I think I'm going to take a nap until 2' or so before I can even try to get anything done. Maybe I'll wake up feeling a little better. 

peace. 

Do not be anxious about anything...

Hey, how's it going?

I'm pretty satisfied with my overall performance this week with juggling school and the guitar. Yesterday evening I went to the finite math tutoring center in Bouillon which I consider somewhat of an achievement to have such initiative. He tutors finite 4 days a week for an hour, I am most definitely going to  take full advantage of that. I've decided that I want to get GOOD grades this quarter, better than last quarter where I got straight B's. I'd like to get at least one A this quarter.. that is my initial goal because until I see what the tests are going to look like I can't set my standards TOO high or I set myself up for failure.

B's aren't a bad grade. I don't feel unaccomplished with last quarter's marks but sitting at a 3.1 GPA currently I certainly don't have much wiggle room to fall into a C average, blugh. So that being said, obviously I'd like to pull a 3.2 and above on all of my classes this quarter which means really keeping up with things... especially the reading for my English class, which is the hardest part for me. I'm so glad I didn't major in English, the continual re-examining or sources is so annoying to me. I mean I understand why it's important to make sure you have a reputable source and current data for studies and such but... citing these sources, making sure you're not accidentally plagerizing... is so very, very annoying.

I'm really just not a fan of academic writing-- yet another reason I'm extremely content in the business major. Some of this dry stuff gets confusing at times but I haven't had to write one paper since I got here. That's about to change, I've got my first writing assignment in English 102 due on Friday.

I almost had a panic attack in economics today. Luckily I've made a habit of taking a Lorazapam before that class to make sure I'm at least somewhat relaxed through that and my finite math class. I feel like if I didn't have lorazapam I would be having a much more difficult time with panic this quarter but it really has helped me stable out... worlds away from the fear I was dealing with practically 24-7 around Thanksgiving.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Philippians 4:6

Last night was my second night of making a conscious effort to pray before sleeping. Prayer is something I haven't done nor taken seriously throughout my life. I guess this is why I feel such a powerful amount of emotions behind it. I find it very comforting yet there's still an annoying voice inside my head that will pop in either before, during or after prayer that says "You're talking to nobody. What is the point of this. You're stupid to believe this, etc..." I feel this alone is an obstacle in finding my faith again. From my heart I want to believe. From my mind it's very hard for me to believe that anyone's truly listening. I plan to put the negative thoughts behind me and keep trying.

Every night I just pray for the anxiety problem to continue to improve. I ask for strength to get through my classes without feeling like I can't breath. I also ask for safety.. I'm so clumsy and careless sometimes about how I do things. Like I'm so focused on WHAT I need to get done at any given time that I sometimes don't use as much caution as I should. I have so many close calls where I almost fall on ice or fall down stairs or even knocking hot pans with oil off the stove. I think back to my head injury and realize how being a little careless can cause major impacts... I'm just trying to live more cautiously, which isn't a characteristic that comes naturally to me. 

Today I've got quite a bit of work to do. It's almost 2.. I've got to do some economics review, guitar for 90 minutes, read a section of my finite book then go to the tutoring room again at 5:30. I'm doing well in that class but with the free resource there I feel like I'm half-assing myself by not taking advantage.

peace. 

Your face looks famished.

Yo.

Today was a good day, got a lot of work done.. Definitely more than what I would anticipate on a Monday but that's what I have to do in order to validate skipping my legal class.

Wow, suddenly I feel panicked in writing this. I hope I do not associate blogging with panic, now, the purpose of this blog is to get me AWAY from panic. But maybe the feeling of being very inside my own head is what's scaring me. I'll turn on some happy music.

Anyway let's see, what I got done:

-Called the post office. Then ran down there.... 9:30 am. They jacked my mail so I called them and they told me they had my mail on hold. So I drove down there, and... somehow there was no mail there for me. I'm like, okay then why did you call me down here?
Okay, I shouldn't say "jacked my mail." In all honesty, I hadn't checked my damn mail box in two weeks, but don't tell my Mom that. Especially when I am expecting a somewhat important piece of mail. Tomorrow I'm going to make sure to check it. I need to start checking it at least once a week or I could miss out on some important things... My roommate never checks the mail so it's my responsibility. All of the mail that's come has been for me anyway.

-Finished accounting assignment. Sort of. . . I was feeling facebook-y after my math class, ate a bunch of food, and it wasn't until about 11:00 that I actually started on what I needed to get done. One of the problems was ridiculously long, but luckily Holtfreter didn't notice at all.
I'm happy to say I got full homework credit in that class, perfect attendance too. The same can't be said about my legal class, but unless he changes it tonight I've got 100% participation.

-Studied accounting flashcards for a solid 40 minutes. Tomorrow I go into the process of trying to better understand Chapter 12, do a few of those assignments, then probably re-do some assignments in Chapter 15 as well. That's going to take 2-3 hours but I'm going to divide it out throughout the day like today so that it's less overwhelming.

-STARTING to make a little progress on my math... I am still having a hard time getting my calculator to do what I want it to do, and apparently I have to get it set up properly for this thing called "vars" that makes no sense to me. I'm just trying to master these kind of problems right now.
I will probably need to seek outside help on Thursday. This will probably be the first and only time I'll go to the math tutoring center. I keep on talking about going there but usually by that point I understand the material to the point that I don't need it. I always hate this part of the math quarter where there's two back to back tests, it's a pain. At least I don't have to do that in accounting.

-Practiced for 70 minutes. I've gotten a lot better on Wherever I May Roam, but I'm probably not working on pentatonics as much as I should. I'm really not in the mood to do it tonight but tomorrow I'm planning on doing a solid 40 minutes of just pentatonics and working with the backing tracks.


So it's almost 10 and I've just been chilling now, drinking my tea. I only took one lorazapam today and one half Bronkaid instead of the two that I had to take the past couple days to deal with the anxiety. I talked to Seth F. today and he told me that he used to have hour long panic attacks and told me he could offer some suggestions with dealing with them. I hope that when we hang out when I come back into town for Christmas break we can talk about that so I can gain even more methods in dealing with it.

I'd like to say it's almost completely under control now. I described to Katelynn and my Mom that my mind is too fickle to stay focused on something as natural as breathing. I'll be breathing until the day I die, so why focus on it? But it seems labored breathing is the first symptom to feeling the panic attacks come on, and when I let them get out of hand my limbs tingle, my heart beats faster and faster and I believe there's something sincerely wrong. Almost like there is a lump in my throat and it becomes to easy to believe that it could get out of hand...

This is Kristin, she has schizophrenia which she she openly discusses on her channel, including some of the common misconceptions people have about schizophrenic people. This video in particular is about school anxiety, and I used to really like to listen to it because her voice is pleasant but now I feel I can actually relate to it. Panic is by far one of the worst things I've experienced (well, maybe not as bad as the years of depression I faced but it's pretty tough) but I'm lucky there's a vast amount of people that have gone through it as well that are willing to share their thoughts on it.

I can happily say I did not have any panic attacks today, though I did notice feeling the breathing sensation during my accounting class and wanting to get out of there quickly. Once the Lorazapam kicked in I was able to overcome this anxiousness and feel peaceful as I quickly jotted down all the answers to today's homework. That's what it's there for.

I'm pretty sure one of my first highschool crushes is now addicted to meth. Out of curiosity I looked up his profile on facebook and he looks quite... famished. I can't explain it, meth heads evolve into zombies over time, it's quite sad. 

It's about time for me to go to bed now. Goodnight everyone, I'm hoping by this time on Wednesday I'll be writing to you about how I did well on the accounting final and have nothing to worry about but I've still got some major studying to do before I'm ready for 10:00.

peace.