I have been pretty stressed out lately, and noticing a few indicators of anxiety neuroses.

anxiety:  "an unpleasant emotional state for which the cause is either not readily identified or perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable"   

yay.

I started to ask questions: When did these start? Why am I so sensitive? Why do I feel like I am stressed or anxious all. the. time? 
How come some people can calm down and not me? (apparently, only 18% of Americans. SO 82% of Americans are anxiety free most of the time! no fair!)
and
Why do I only ever use the left-hand "Shift" key?

That last one has been bugging me for a while now, actually.

Anyway, I started looking back on my life and noticing flare-ups of stress, but a general anxiety blanket over most of my thoughts starting around high school.  So naturally I thought it must have started around there. Something about the universally traumatic experience of post-pubertal development within a public high school plus braces plus orchestra minus cool equals inevitable generalized anxiety problems. 

BUT, as I pointed out earlier, not everyone has these chronic problems. Clearly.

And then, remembered for a completely different reason, a fully formed memory floated into my head:..... (bubbly dream sequence harp playing)...

I was walking behind my church, leaving after some post-Mass event or other, and I was worriedly asking my mother what I would have to know to make my First Communion.  I remember that it was warm and sunny outside, with fluffed pine straw in the landscaping to the right of me and the carpool lane on my left. I remember seeing everything from my much smaller 7-year-old height and the hum of the generator behind the old gymnasium. 
And I remember someone telling me "...you're going to be quizzed on all the priest's homilies. I hope you were paying attention..." 
and all of this, the carpool lane, the generator, the pine straw swirling around me as anxiety scooped me into it's dizzying arms.
 ...I haven't been paying attention, I worried, I'm not going to get it. I'll never get it. I'll be old and wrinkly and no one will give me the Eucharist...

Something in his voice (and the laughter that followed the statement) told me he was kidding, but I couldn't undo the worry. And I didn't - not until I finally did make my First Communion a few agonizing months later (during which I spent every Sunday willing my attention to the priest at his pulpit and begging my brain to remember it). 

And so the pattern goes.

1. Evil thoughts.
2. Needless worry
3. Needless worry
4. must calm down.  CALM DOWN.
5. Oh no!! [insert worry here] is about to happen...
6. Oh, what? [insert worry here] already happened? And everything's fine? Oh. Phew.
7. repeat. ad nauseum.

 Moral of the story: Claire has been like this for a while.

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm about to graduate from college. 
 

procrastiknitting, meet procrastiblogging.

Things that I am thinking about right now:

1. I don't want to be writing this paper.  

Prompt: If you'd been put in charge of raising you, what would you do the same and what would you do differently? What "risk factors" do you think you could have avoided? 

Seriously. "Tell me how your parents messed you up. Be explicit. Also, be explicit enough to fill 2-3 pages single spaced."
I told my mom about having to write this and all she said to me was "Don't let me read it. I don't want to read it."  Relax, Mom. I'm trying to figure out a way to write this paper but not write this paper.



      2.  ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT IS COMING BACK!!  

I feel like shouting it from the rooftops! Which I could probably do because we have access to the fire escape.
 
      3.  I would rather be using this time to finish knitting my sweater.

I only have the sleeves left to do. Well, and 8" of the right side...but if I play my cards right, I could be finishing that to.night. If I ever write this damn paper.

This is what it's going to look like. (pictures to prove my skill later)

OK, no more procrastiknitting or procrastiblogging.  Time to settle into this awful paper.

Good night.

one more New York story

I'm trying to decide the best way to tell this story. It needs to accurately convey my emotional states through every point: exposition, rising action, climax, denoument, the whole enchilada*. So here goes.

(*side note: don't ever use the phrase "the whole enchilada" in an essay on an exam about Skinner's learning principles, or your professor will leave the comment "...no" next to it and [along with the receipt of a crappy grade in the first place] reduce you to a shapeless mess of low self-esteem noodles in tepid weak sauce)

The last advice Mallory gave to me before heading to New York for the first time ever was

"Make sure you get a window seat on the left side. You'll get to see Manhattan from the plane as you fly in!"

So when I checked into the airport and picked my seat at the ticket printer, of course I got the last left-side window seat. 30A. Success.  Boy, I thought, what a super lucky day for me.

As I boarded the plane, I realized I was not so lucky after all.  For some reason, this was the stupidest plane ever and there was a big ole jet engine obscuring my view.

I took my window seat and began to read my book.  The man in the seat next to me (the aisle seat - this plane had a [][]  [][][] set up) sat down as he was chatting to his friend. They were play-arguing about how many apps he had on his iPhone.

"I've got everything I need. Why would I put anything else on here? ...yeah I know, that does sound cool. But I don't need anything fancy! I've got what I need, I'm happy, leave me alone!  hahaha"   

Hmmm, I thought, that is the most sensible iPhone user I've ever eavesdropped on. A few minutes later, he broke the silence between us, the pointed silence created between two people on public transportation (and that's all a plane is, really. Public transit. Just like taking the bus!), to say

Plane guy: Don't let me hog the arm rest. I'm always hogging this thing.  (friendly smile)
Me: Oh, no, I'm fine. Thanks though.
      (inner monologue): Shit. Now when he does hog the arm rest I'm not allowed to get upset about it. ...Wow, I am pretty crammed up against this window. I look like I'm trying as hard as I can to be as far away from him as possible. And he's just trying to be nice. (I try to loosen up my body and unroll from the ball I have hunched myself into.)

 Then, a few minutes later:

Plane guy: So, whatcha readin'?
Me: (tilts book to show cover) It's one of the Game of Thrones books. It's the second one. It's pretty good. But I don't usually read fantasy so... I dunno. I like it, I guess. (inner monologue): Why am I talking so much?? I'm one of those annoying plane people. No. Wait a minute. Why is this middle-aged man interrupting my precious book reading time by asking stupid questions?  ...He must be one of those nervous fliers who talks to people to pass the time and distract him from worrying about his impending fiery death.

So, in an act of kindness from the "hey, this guy could be Jesus" school of thought that I learned from my mother, I indulged his chatting.  We talked about what I was studying in school (a lot to say) and the city of Atlanta (less to say) and local sports teams (even less to say).  He asked my advice about schools and SAT scores because it turns out his "friend" sitting in the aisle next to us was actually his sixteen year old son.

Eventually, I realized our conversation was none too interesting, and I began to check the time more and more frequently. But I kept smiling, because I had no way of escaping the conversation (I couldn't think of a cleverer way to say "Can you please stop talking now, I'd like to read at least two pages of my book before we land, thanks.") But as I've learned before, my please-let-this-conversation-be-over-soon smile is virtually indistinguishable from my you're-my-favorite-person-ever smile, at least to people who don't know me.

As the plane began to lose altitude, I finally got my first view of the city.

taken by snaking my camera-arm around the sleeping woman in front of me

Then the man next to me turns to me to shake my hand.

Plane Guy: I just realized this whole time we've been talking and I don't even know your name.
Me: Sorry! I'm Claire.  (no last names. my momma didn't raise no fool)
Plane Guy: Claire? Claire. nice name. I'm *****.   ...hey listen, Claire. I was wondering, I'd like to have your number. 

UM WHAT. wait, wait, wait. Maybe this man is just trying to be nice. He knows I have never been to New York before, and he probably wants to exchange numbers in case I get lost or need help. Or maybe to give to his son? Claire, you never should have told him you've never been to New York before. He'll probably murder you. Don't give him your number. WAIT, unless if you don't give it to him you make him angry, leading him to murder you. Walking on a razor's edge... 

Me: Um...O...K.... it's ***-***-**** (give him a fake area code. genius. that way, there's no hesitation when I roll off the numbers, so he won't get wise and murder me on the plane.)

Plane Guy: "yeah, I was thinking we could grab lunch sometime at Atlantic Station...
WHAT. NO.

...maybe grab a glass of wine...

FULL OF RUFIES AND POISON????

...you are old enough to drink, right?"

CREEPY DUDE, you KNOW I am in college. Also, your 16 year old son is watching you try to make lunch plans with a 20 year old girl from the plane. I WILL NOT BE HIS NEW MOM.

At this point,  I am refusing to move my head at all. I am staring straight ahead, towards the front of the plane where the stewardesses are ushering people off the plane. Away from other creepy passengers. To safety.

Me: Um, no, my birthday is in a month.
Plane Guy: (playfully) Well you do eat, don't you?
Me: Um... (the blood has drained from my face) yeah (I am petrified by uncomfortableness and fear of upsetting a potential murderer)

Plane Guy stands up and begins to get his belongings from the overhead bins. (Thank you, Jesus)  He has stopped talking to me and I am using the silence as an opportunity to plan my escape route. Then he looks over at me, and adds as an afterthought:

Plane Guy: Hey Claire, ...you tall?

How the hell am I supposed to answer that? I believe I replied something to the effect of

Me: uh, kinda, but not as tall as my DAD or my THREE BROTHERS. They're tall. And pretty muscly. Quick to anger too. And as protective as mother geese. So, I dunno. Does that answer your question?

I then waited for everyone else to exit the plane, hoping that this man would get far far ahead of me.  Then, just for good measure, I hid in the women's bathroom for about 20 minutes.

Welcome to New York City, Claire!

In love with the problem problem:

Why I <3 my classes.

As a freshman I took a class called Intro to Academic Writing, because I was naive and listened to my previously-unknown-to-me Honors adviser, who said that since I had already completed my English requirement with AP classes I should take this intro class to help me write papers in college. I unwittingly signed up, and did not realize until the first or second week of classes what "Introduction to Academic Writing" actually meant. It meant reading journal articles, analyzing "academic" writing styles and teaching me a trick called the "quote sandwich," which I still use in all my papers to this day. However, the most important thing I took from this class was "the problem problem."

In an article by Gerald Graff, he describes the "problem problem" in the academic community as the "tendency to make seemingly obvious assumptions explicit" and a "general obsession with searching for problems where often there do not seem to be any." I was relieved in reading this article that someone else had noticed how "academics" tend to create issues where there don't seem to be issues simply to have something to write about, and thus securing their employment through "searching for problems where there don't seem to be any." While in this class, I discovered a resentment towards academics, or perhaps my professor, for writing things I had to read about which did not need to be read about at all. Perhaps this is more the case in liberal arts disciplines, perhaps not. I just knew I was fed up with reading articles and writing papers about “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adults." Do we really need to analyze how people revise their writing? It happens, it's over, move on.

More recently, however, as I began seeing the problem problem as the underlying architecture for every college course I have ever taken (and therefore higher education in general, I believe), I realized that I do not hate the problem problem as strongly as I thought. In fact, I LOVE it.

Case in point: Happiness.

This semester, I am taking a class called Happiness. That's it. That's the whole name of the class. It is a Psychology class AND a Philosophy class, so we have two professors, 70 students (which is about as big as it gets at CofC) and a whole curriculum of the problem problem.

I noticed in my Family and Childhood Issues class that Psychology is about a lot of unknowns. Most things can not be measured in this discipline, and most of the things that can be measured can not be measured reliably, like happiness. We spent most of the class supplying questions as answers, discussing what influences a child's development: "What about his SES?" "Maybe there is a history of illness?" "Parental discord or harmony?"
My Happiness class is slightly more concrete, but only because Philosophy is a different discipline. Instead of inventing questions to define the situation, each person invents answers. That is why each Philosopher has his own "ism" or theory he is associated with.  There are dualists, idealists, hedonists, and anarchists. So when you get a group full of Question majors in a room with a group full of Answer majors, interesting things happen.

I love this class. I love all my classes because of the problem problem. When there is nothing left to write about, make something to write about.
And read that book, because so far it is excellent.

chew it over

I find myself puzzled by nervous habits. Possibly because my own do not follow any normal or average pattern. I don't have nervous tics or pull out my eyelashes when I stress over school or money. I bite my nails. An oh so common affliction many disregard as even a vaguely interesting personal tidbit. People don't even take the time to find it disgusting or unladylike anymore. Of course, from my mother or more commonly a grandmother, I hear a disappointed sigh when my nails are sighted as if to say "oh what a waste, she could have been a hand model." Sometimes these words actually follow the audible sigh.

It's not as if I can't help it either. As evidenced by my frequent remissions, I am fully capable of stopping if I am in the right state of mind or if I really like my nailpolish. My friend Naomi claims to be in total control of this bad habit, yet doesn't care about the state of her nails. Obviously she does it because she likes it or wants to, which in an odd way every nailbiter does, and does so because she chooses to. In fact, I am ashamed of my stubby nails because I feel like it says "look at me, I can't control myself from being gross." And then of course, I can't help but remember Freud's psychosexual stages and the corresponding "stage" of development (I do not, for the record, agree with Freud): the oral stage. This means theoretically I was understimulated as an infant when breastfeeding so now I am stuck trying to make up for it but putting things in my mouth (in layman's terms).

It makes some sense that I transferred from thumbsucking to biting my nails, and I refuse to ever smoke a cigarette because I fear that is the next logical stage. Which, if that is the case, might cause some minor, tiny, health problems but give me great nails.

I am puzzled by my bad habit because it has uncommon fluxuations. Normally, when people are busy or stressed out, they have a nervous flare up and chew to the quick. I, on the other hand, tend to have worse nails when I'm bored than during finals week. Maybe because my house during the summer is more stressful than college life during finals. That's very likely, in all seriousness.

Hm. maybe I should watch a thriller and let them come back a bit.