A Treatise

During my senior year at Wellesley, I often talked about Carol Dweck and her work's impact on me. Here is a short treatise on:

How psychology changes lives

One of the most influential people in my life is a woman named Carol Dweck. Carol is a social psychologist currently working from Stanford University. I've never actually met her in person, but her research about mindsets and failure helped to change my perception and understanding of myself. I grew up believing that failure was bad, and that failure in any way was a sign of my ineptitude as a human being. I had to avoid failure at all costs because I needed to uphold my image of being "smart", of being a good daughter, capable, put together, a good role model, etc..

Reading about Dweck's work opened up the floodgates for me in a sense - it helped me to better understand where I was coming from, why I was the way I was, what I could do to move forward. From her work, I understood that failure is not a condition in which I am eternally bound; rather, it stems from a mindset from which I was capable of breaking through hard work and perseverance. Looking back on my senior year, I have to say that her work was an important part in my pulling through thesis/antithesis - not only that, but it helps inform me in the ways that I think about education and instruction.

Sounds lovely right? And I held to this pretty firmly. I shared this with others who would listen, and I encouraged others to look at her work and research for themselves.

I even wrote up a nice little blog post about it, see?

But after writing this, even in my thinking of writing this, I realized how empty and meaningless our world's psychology really is.

Another Treatise, then:

How the Gospel changes lives

One of the most influential people in my life is a man named Jesus. Jesus is the Son of the Living God, wholly man and wholly God, who walked the earth more than twenty centuries ago. He currently lives in a time and space that I can't quite understand, everywhere and everytime, and also in me. I've never actually met him in person, but I have met him many times, and his life, death, and resurrection have changed my perception and understanding of myself. I grew up believing that failure was bad, and that failure in any way was a sign of my ineptitude as a human being. I had to avoid failure at all costs because I needed to uphold my image of being "smart", of being a good daughter, capable, put together, a good role model, etc..

Knowing Jesus opened up the floodgates for me - it helped me to better understand where I was coming from, why I am the way I am, what I could do moving forward. From the Gospel, I understood that failure is a condition in which I was eternally bound; it is not something as simple as a mindset from which I can break through merely hard work and perseverance. Indeed, it is impossible to escape through any way, except by the power of his life, death, and resurrection. Looking back on my past twenty-some years, I have to say that his work - his Father's work - his Spirit's work, are the most important and dare I say only real part in my pulling through thesis/antithesis - not only that, but it is the only thing that can give me hope, strength, and a future.

Sounds lovely right? And I hold to this firmly. Yet I do not boldly share this with others who would listen, and though I wish to encourage others to look at this for themselves, I do not nearly as often as I wish.

I only wrote up a nice little blog post about it, see?

But after writing this, even while thinking of writing this, I realized how empty and meaningless our world really is without it.


I am but a work-in-progress... and works-in-progress in the agile cycle are iteratively thrown into the fire.


Lord, throw me in.

Upcycling Lightbulbs

Do you have a bunch of old burned-out lightbulbs lying around? Here are some projects you can do to upcycle them! 

Hanging bulb vases - so pretty!

How To make the Hanging Lightbulb Vase - FreePeople

Simple vase! - arte.sano Instructables

Terranium - arte.sano Instructables

Salt and Pepper Shakers - Esprit Cabane 

More hanging vases - Esprit Cabane

How to Hollow Out a Lightbulb - TeamDroid

Our house uses energy efficient lightbulbs, which don't lend themselves well to such projects because they're filled with mercury which can keeeel you, but we do have a few old bulbs like the above that could use a makeover. That said, I think those spirally energy efficient lightbulbs would look so pretty as a vase!! If only they didn't contain nasty chemicals...

Anyway, this had been added to my list of projects! Which is ever growing, and currently kind of stuck on Project Mittens..

Awesome Sleeping Resources

Two of my favorite web sleep resources right now: 

Sleepyti.me ~ A lovely, simple little tool to calculate how much sleep you should get, and what time you might try getting up in order to complete a good number of full sleep cycles. This also works the opposite way around, a.k.a. what time should you sleep if you need to be awake at such and such time?

AskMeEvery ~ This is absolute genius - a cellphone-linked self-accountability system, whereupon you determine the question you must ask yourself each day, and are prompted via SMS to tabulate your results. You can view your progress or lack thereof via a simple plotted graph. 

When I first started using AskMeEvery, I asked myself how many hours of homework I did each day. But this information was ultimately useless to me. Now, I've been asking myself how many hours of sleep I got each day. The results for this past week have been pretty sad. 

I'm doing better!

This is not something I'm proud of. Let it be known that Lulu will [try to] get lots of sleep henceforth, with lots of sleep as defined by whatever sleepyti.me tells me is good via its shade and tint of green. 

8:15am=good! 5:15am=not as good. 12:45am=why are you doing this?

One design suggestion: they should show the first few options in
RED and then reprimand me the user for my his/her poor life habits.  

Oh the wonders of technology! May these resources be as useful to you as they are to me. Do any of you have favorite resources out there? Please share! 

The end.

Catherine and Hope - Reprise

Current thought: I like to clip my nails, and I also like that my nails grow quickly so I can clip them more often.

Some other things that relax me: 
- Clipping nails
- Painting nails
- Knitting
- Cooking
- Cleaning
- Sleeping (well duh)

My most recent nail adventure: Cosmic Nails!
The galaxy was at my fingertips.

This past weekend Hope came over to play! We got to run around in Boston and in fountains, explore the Freedom Trail, eat lots of food and see a good show. The week before, Catherine and Jean also came to visit - we ate lots of food, went to a concert, and took super quick driving tours of Boston. Oh, and lots of pillow talk for both. I just learned this term. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!! *insertincoherentyelling* Both times after they left, I felt really really sad though I shouldn't be surprised - it's always sad when good friends leave, especially after they live with you for a few days.

I love having people I love come to visit, and I love when people I love meet each other. The first time my worlds collided, my mind was blown and I couldn't handle it. But the more it happens, the more I love it. PLEASE HAPPEN MORE.

All said and done, I'm still recovering physically from the last two weeks. I look forward to finally sleeping and getting to breathe again. Maybe after Thursday. I intend to not get sick, but knowing my immune history, perchance not. But it's ok! I'm fine, Mom. :)


And no, I don't like clipping other people's nails. Unless it's a baby's nails, in which case I would like to do that but I'm also scared I'll hurt the poor child and thus I don't really clip anything or wait until they're asleep.

Patterns

[This post is inspired by Lifehacker]

I've noticed a pattern in my dreams recently -- there's been a theme of not knowing what to do with what I've got, not knowing how to use my skills and assets, not knowing how to solve a problem... Just last night I dreamed something akin to the Hunger Games (another pattern in itself -- why are my dreams always like this?? I haven't even read it.), and I was faced constantly with this feeling of "omg this sucks I'm going to die" rather than my usual "Yeaaah adventures!!" I generally remember emotions in my dreams very well (as opposed to in real life haha -- but really, I'm trying!) and I've noticed that the overwhelming feeling in my dreams of late is that of a pervasive directionlessness, joined with frustration and an overall color of burnt sienna.

More patterns in life: I love problem solving - challenges excite me, and I love tackling something that I find difficult or elusive or overly ambitious. At an extreme, if something feels almost impossible to me, it's probably something that I will latch onto and try to tackle (however consciously or willingly), and typically not with the careful foresight and analysis that should accompany it.

I am competitive. Perhaps I don't seem to be (or maybe I do -- do I? Not sure), but I can take the most meaningless activities and make them unnecessarily cut-throat. That said, I mean this in solely play-environments. Though for a while my family (thankfully no longer) and family friends valued competitiveness in terms of grades, GPA, SAT scores, trophies, medals, and extracurriculars, that is not the sort of field I want to compete in. That makes me very sad -- maybe because I now associate that with a sense of worth - i.e. if you have higher grades or salary or what-not, you're automatically better? Or if you've created more artwork than person B in the last month, you're a superior artist? Far from it! But if you're going to play a sport or game or anything else, have at it! It's the attachment of worth to any accomplishments that sets me off.

All these now written out... I've been feeling quite at odds with myself. I want [to do/be/have] a lot of things, and in my typical too-excited-and-not-enough-thinking way of jumping into things, I often bite off more than I can chew. Thus, part of growing for me means learning to recognize my limits, to think more thoroughly before I leap, and consider more carefully before I accept a challenge. Though it's no excuse, I think this does help to at least partially explain why my plate is often overflowing with projects to do, people to see, places to go - perhaps why I often feel like I'm running madly behind life, trying to keep up with and not be dragged along by time.

More thoughts are swimming, but I will have to sieve through them another time... Good night.