A Dozen Lessons

I do apologise for making myself scarce over the past week or so, but life, it seems, has finally caught up to me. Not only did I start work on Friday (it'll still be another week or two before I work every day- le sigh), but I've also taken the time to write a little more than I normally do.

I guess I'll summarise a few very important things I've learned this week. They're really not in much of an order.

1. There are no such things as coincidences. I suppose this should be obvious, but I'm not sure it is. Everything happens for some reason, no matter how unlikely that reason may be. Even if the reason isn't known at the time.

2. That intuitive sense is downright scary at times. Especially when it's right. Which it is nearly all the time, especially in regards to certain people.

3. Sometimes, giving someone a taste of their own medicine is necessary, even if it's not fun. Actually, it's almost never a fun thing to do. Role-reversal in a situation, although interesting, is quite taxing on one's reserves.

4. It's not a good idea to take on the personality of one of your fictional characters full-force when dealing with a stressful situation. It's far more exhausting than doing this simply for the sake of writing.

5. The best (and most difficult!) way to learn things is be shoved into an experience where it's necessary to teach someone else.

6. Emotions are a tricky thing to deal with. One person may have a completely different emotional reaction than another person when exposed to the exact stimulus (or stimuli... doesn't really matter how many). Dealing with emotions is also quite taxing...

7. Sometimes, you can't just do things alone. It really helps to have someone else around to make sure you don't do anything really stupid.

8. When you're helping someone else with their problems, you tend to forget about your own. This is usually a good thing. Or you realise your own problems aren't as bad as you thought they were.

9. There are occasions where it is necessary to shake someone else by the shoulders and yell at them because what they are doing is downright foolish. There is also a time for diplomacy, being reasonable and talking things out like civilised adults. It takes wisdom to know which is called for in a particular situation.

10. Good friends are few and far between. But they're the kind of people with whom you can be blunt without asking permission if necessary and they're the kinds of people who can be equally as blunt with you. They're such a blessing to have.

11. Sometimes, being an enabler is perfectly called for.

12. When in doubt, pray. Pray for the courage and strength to confront people when necessary, the patience and serenity to leave them alone if it's needed and the wisdom to know the difference.

Those are just a dozen of the things I learned this past week. Again, in no particular order, other than how I felt like writing them. I'm sure I've learned a lot more, but these are just a few that I thought were most important.

Before I go, I will leave you with a quote. You'll probably recognise it...

"Two are better than one, because they have good return for their work; If one falls down, his friend can help him up... Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not easily broken." -Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, NIV

Favourite Quotes

Here are some of my favourite quotations, many of which I've put into calligraphy. Sources will be included if I know them...

• "All memories live on within your heart." I think I got this from a signature on DA, so I don't know where it is originally from.
• "Even the smallest person may change the course of the future." Galadriel says this to Frodo in Fellowship of the Ring.
• "All you have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to you." Another LotR quote and this one is by Gandalf. Though it appears in both the movies and in the books, the wording is slightly different, changing from second person singular (you) to first person plural (we, us).
• "Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft without merit and lost without deserving." This one is from Othello and was spoken by Iago. I don't necessarily agree with what he says, but it's interesting to think about how often someone's reputation is tarnished (or lost) by foolish actions of another person.
• "They may have been lying, but they cannot keep you from knowing the truth." Spoken by Archibald Asparagus in one of the VeggieTales episodes.
• "If a person has a contribution to make, he must make it in public. If learning is not made public, it is a waste." This is from The Chosen by Chaim Potok, one of my all-time favourite books. I honestly don't remember who is talking, though.
• "The things that happen to you which are most awful are often the things you learn most from." This quote is by Hugo Weaving (he played Elrond in the LotR movies). I don't remember the exact source, nor the context of the quote, but I read it somewhere and it is quite true.
• "You'll never have a second chance to make a first impression." Not sure if this is the original source, but it was in one of the deleted scenes in Yours, Mine and Ours. It sounds like something Scott would say to Michael (or anyone else, really), though! I think that's why it caught my attention.
• "A friend is someone who comes in when the world has gone out." I have no idea where I read this quote, but it is probably one of the truest things there is.
• "Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality." This was actually from a facebook application, where they put quotes on your profile. The old facebook, not the new one.
• "My grace is sufficent for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." From 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV). This is a verse that just kept coming up over and over again; I ended up putting it into calligraphy. Unfortunately, it's not quite done yet.
• "It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." From LotR. Bilbo says it to Frodo. I think the quote is in the book, but this is the movie version. Eventually I may have to put it into calligraphy.
• "Love may kill people, but Hate can never save them." Unfortunately, I have no idea where this quote is orignally from. I saw it in a friend's AIM status yesterday and I decided to make a comment about it being a good quote. After that, we ended up having an almost three-hour long conversation about something completely different.
• "One must choose his words as carefully as he chooses his friends." This quote is probably one of the best parts of the Prince Caspian movie. This one is definitely going into calligraphy, if not just to remind myself to choose my own words more carefully when talking to certain people.

I love quotes. I've recently started keeping a list of random quotes that come up in conversations with friends. The best ones happen late at night when everyone's already tired, so most of us get pretty silly then. Including me. Heh, especially me sometimes! But there is a reason why I am the keeper of the quotes list when my friends and I hang out...

I will also have to go through and figure out which CS Lewis quotes I like, as well as which quotes from Star Trek I like the best. Maybe I'll make a separate entry for those, as there are a multitude of memorable and good quotes from those two sources!

Objects Remind Me of People

I am writing this as I am eating breakfast and preparing for a job interview today, so please bear with me if this is slightly incoherent.

As I was falling asleep last night, I was thinking about the multitude of objects I have lying around my room. Funny thing is that a lot of these objects remind me of various people, whether they're connected or not! So I think I'm going to make a list of a few of these objects here...

• Tiger was actually the first thing that came to mind. He is my sister's stuffed clownfish and whenever he is around, he always reminds me of her.
• Not only do I have a teal shirt that reminds me of my dad, but my calligraphy stuff also reminds me of him. He was the one who originally introduced me to calligraphy, though it took a much more intensive study as a fine arts class in school to actually get me to really enjoy it.
• Wedge, my albino penguin, reminds me of Toni, as Wedge was a gift from her. Yes, Wedge is named after the Star Wars character of the same name.
• Samu, the little stuffed orca, always reminds me of my brother. I'm not sure why. Maybe that's because Samu is smaller than a lot of the other animals and right now, my brother is smaller than everyone else in the family. I doubt that'll last for much longer, though!
• My pink sheet (the original one I received!) and a stuffed giant microbe remind me of my chemistry teacher from high school.
• I have a yellow scarf that reminds me of one of my friends. She has a scarf that uses the same yellow yarn and both were gifts from different people.
• My notebook reminds me of a friend from high school. She was the one who actually gave me the notebook, but there's a long story there that I don't want to go into right now.
• The beaker I have in my room reminds me of my roommate. And of one of my other friends from school. He's also a science major. We always spend a lot of time in the lab and are in the science center until unearthly hours at night.
• The bag that I carry around with me all the time reminds me of one of my other friends, except that we don't actually talk very much anymore. When she invited a bunch of people to Thanksgiving dinner, I was crocheting the strap and finishing it up after dinner that night.
• This isn't exactly in my room, but The Count of Monte Cristo reminds me of one of my other really close friends. It was the first movie we saw together. And one of the objects I fiddle with reminds me of him too.
• I'm not going to go into details, but quite a few objects remind me of my mom. <3
  

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it was just a few of the things I was thinking about last night as I was falling asleep. I didn't end up going to bed until about 11:30, but I was asleep less than half an hour later and I slept for 5+ hours solid. In other words, it was a good night~