My Inner Cheerleader

In my opinion, everyone needs to have an inner cheerleader. 

Now you don't have to have them in a cheerleader's outfit, but for me, it works. Plus I get to imagine myself looking pretty dang awesome in an outfit that would NOT look good on me. Tiny skirts plus long legs equals "wow, she's trying really hard isn't she?"

So yeah. Moving on to my point. The other day I'm sitting in my English Lit. course having a freak out moment. My professor is telling the class that "While your paper has to be done before the 4th, I suggest making sure you're not writing it at the last moment. You don't want to have to deal with the paper PLUS studying for the midterm. Unless you thrive in that stress...."

On the outside I'm talking with a classmate, writing down notes, and laughing with the class. The inside is a different story. On the inside I imagine myself to be sitting on the floor with my planner sitting in front of me. My inner self is in sweat pants, a ratty old T-shirt, and my hair is haphazardly pulled back into a bun of some sort. I'm making a mental list of things that have to be done before fall break and trying not to pull my hair out. The place I'm in is nondescript, just a dark space with an unknown source of light shining down on me. My planner is quite a bit larger than in real life, almost half my size. I take my pencil and slowly mark on the blank pages. First off is the days I have to work, so I can properly schedule my free time. Second is the homework for that week, assignments such as my statistics homework, reading specific chapters of the book for English, etc. Then the really hard begins.

Taking into account what my English Professor just told me, I begin to plan when I'm going to write my first essay for the class. Then I remember I need to make time for my reading for the paper in my Religions class and oh, can't forget the fact that I need to finish that one early as well. After all the same day that specific paper is due, I have a blog due, a poem due, and a quiz to study for. In essence that needs to be finished in the next two weeks as well. So I have to make sure to get all the outlining and research done this next week. Oh but then it hits me that I need to study the next week for my first statistics test. On my huge planner I erase the plans for the week to make room for the study time. 

On top of all of this, I have the everyday plans. Things that can't be planned. Things such as my friends baby being born soon, my room getting cleaned, trips to Walmart to pick up necessities and all that jazz.

My inner me begins to pull in her legs and grabs the sides of her head. Yelling out in frustration, she opens her mouth to proclaim "There aren't enough hours in the day! I'm never going to finish all of this! I can't, no more, just don't give me any more to do!" I've officially started to freak out.

Then a big flash of light and the seemingly boring space I've occupied is unveiled as a gymnasium. I see a perky me in a blue cheerleader's outfit holding a bullhorn on the other side of the gym. Her hair is up in a high pony tail and there are mini pom-poms hanging from the base. Three blue stars decorate her temple in face paint. She looks at me and proceeds to yell (through the bull horn) "Oi! Get up off the floor and stop feeling sorry for yourself!"

"Who was the girl who wrote the Harry Potter essay, which was SIX pages, in three hours the night before it was due! That's two pages an hour!"

Inner me stands up and states "But..I had all the research done the week beforehand..."

Cheerleader me walks over and slaps my head with a notebook. "OW! What was that for?"

 "Ignore the extra's girl! We are focusing on the main picture here! Now who was it that wrote that paper? Hmm? I can't HEAR you!!" While saying this, cheerleader me puts the bullhorn to hear ear.

Inner me: "Uh..me!"

"Exactly! And who wrote two different papers for her Tuesday/Thursday classes at the same time! Two days before they were due!"

Inner me starts to open her mouth when cheerleader me puts the bullhorn to her mouth. "Don't even start on the research! I don't care that you finished it two weeks early!  So who was it?"

Suddenly energized, inner me stands up taller and yells "I DID!"

"Who was the one who wrote the analysis on a game she didn't even play, a paper she was sure she'd screwed up on? The paper that got an A and only needed a couple grammatical errors fixed?"

"ME!"

Screaming as loud as she can through the bullhorn the perkier version of myself says "No who's going to write three papers, a poem, and a blog in the next two weeks? On top of all the other crap she has to deal with?"

Jumping up and down, inner me yells yet again, "ME!"

Cheerleader me puts the bullhorn down and cocks her hip. "So go on out there and do it! Oh and bring back A's while you're at it huh?"

Inner me bends over to pick up the planner, which has now turned to it's normal size and closes it. 

What has just occurred is what I like to call Suzie's Inner Mind Theater. It changes to whatever is going on around me, but this is what usually happens when I get stressed. Whenever I seem to get down and feel like the world is crashing around me, I just call on my inner cheerleader. She puts my butt into gear, lemme tell you. I don't know if it's just me, but I think everyone must have some form of an inner cheerleader yelling at them with encouragement. Call it giving yourself a pep talk, whatever. Sometimes a person just needs to be reminded that the world isn't going to come crashing down on top of them if everything isn't perfect.

So I'm still kinda overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I have to do in such a short time, but I know I'll get it done. I just now and then need a good swift kick to get moving.

Oh Memories......

While sitting in Pizza Hut with Laura, my non-blood related sister, I was complaining about the lack of good boys bands the US of A has. We were reminiscing about good times back when we were in middle school and such topics usually lead (with us anyway) to the music we listened to. Growing up in the era of NSync and Backstreet Boys has definitely made me a fan of anyone who can sing and dance at the same time.

Plus, they were hot. 

Ok, one could say that the Jonas Brothers are the lastest boy band, but that's not a boy band! That's a tween rock band wanting to be a boy band. This is exactly what I was telling Laura as we were munching on breadsticks. A Jonas Brother's song was playing and I was asking Laura how we cannot have one single good boy band while Asia apparently is abundant with them. Yup, there are many boy bands throughout Asia and I'm a total lame-o for knowing this.

Seriously, one group has thirteen members. Thirteen!!! Juuuust a bit overkill maybe? Possibly? Though that one guy was cute....

Moving on. 

So while we're discussing how the boy band era seems to be behind us and how we (ok, well *I*) wouldn't mind having a decently legit boy band again, the next song starts to play. For the first 30 seconds, everything is normal, but then we are suddenly thrust back through time to 2001 with NSync's "Pop".

Silence reigned at our table and then laughter erupted from our mouths. There was no rhyme or reason to it, just pure luck that one of our favorite songs from that time had issued forth. We ended up spending the next minute laughing so hard tears came to our eyes. Then we proceeded to dance (as much as you can in a booth anyway) and sing along. We gave no notice to anyone else sitting in the restaurant or the people who waited on us. Since we've been working on our Remembrance essays, it seems that the more I spend time talking with my family, more memories have been talked about and shared. 

I sometimes wish I could go back then, maybe re-do some of my less than stellar moments. But then it hits me that, at times like this, situations would be different. It was those moments, among my average and stellar ones, that cause these random spurts of laughter and joy. Maybe if I changed something, I wouldn't have been sitting in Pizza Hut earlier today laughing about boy bands. But if that's the case, I'm glad I made the decisions I did.

A Race of Two Kinds

In class today we talked about family. What family meant to us and all that jazz. Well, this particular discussion just happened to stir up a whole bunch of memories of family. I felt like sharing two, mostly because I find them funny and also because they're two of my favorites to tell.

When we had to draw the floor plan of our house (no joke people) this was the first memory that ran through my head. I happen to have a house where you can walk in a continuous circle through the living room, dining room, kitchen, and the hallway in between the living room and kitchen. Forget the rest of the house, this is where I tend to spend most of my time on the phone. Ever since I hit that mystical age where the phone becomes glued to your ear, I find myself walking around this circle in my house while chatting. I've done this since middle school and I seriously doubt that it's going to change anytime soon. Well, it so happened that my best guy friend in middle school had a similar layout. It was even in the same order of sorts!

Again, ignore the rest of the house.

So we're just chatting away one day and he asks me "So whatcha doin'?" Rolling my eyes at his question (he asked me that almost every ten minutes back then) I replied with "Well, I'm walking around my house talking to you!"

"Oh...wow. I'm doing that too. Where are you in your house?"

Wondering where he was going with that I told him the truth. "I'm passing through the Kitchen." His response?

"I'm in the living room.....I'm winning!!"

Next thing I know, we're having a race through our separate houses that seemingly has no end. Randomly yelling out "Kitchen!" "Hallway!" "Dining ROOM!!" didn't seem weird at all. One thing I happened to forget was that my dad was downstairs working. So it's no surprise that after a few minutes of rapid running above his head, my dad walked up to find out what was going on. The stairs from the basement lead directly to the Kitchen, so when I entered, full hilt into the room I had to skid to a stop at the sight of my dad glowering down at me. (This, obviously, was before I gained my height advantage.)

"Just. What. ARE you doing?"

Gulping I squeaked out "Uh...having a race..?" Meanwhile my friend on the phone kept yelling "Living ROOM! Suz? Are you there? I'm winning you knooooooooooooow!" Dad, thankfully, just shrugged and told me to stop. Apparently he has no memory of this incident.

So besides having to stop random races, my dad was also there when I had to learn to ride a bike. About a week before my ballet recital, my dad takes me out to the black top to work on my yet-as-non-existent-bike skills. Before leaving the house, my mother gave a stern warning to NOT let go of my bike. I was in no way ready or confident enough yet and ergo, I would fall. So we start off, me sitting on the bike peddling away and my dad holding on to the bike while I got my balance equalized. After a few times back and forth across the black top, dad asked if I wanted to try any more or if I was ready to head back in. I wanted one more try, and as I started I felt very free, as if I was riding on my own!

Turns out I was. My dad suddenly thought that it was ok to let go, and as I turned to tell him how much fun I was having my heart stopped when I realized he wasn't there. Then, my confidence left me and my bike toppled over. I had scraped my knees and noticing that I began to cry my head off. In the end, my mother was more annoyed that I had to have band aids under my tights than the fact that my confidence in riding my bike was shattered.

Skip ahead a year and I'm still not riding a two wheeler. I loved to ride with my sister and her friends, but on my little trike of a bike I was always trailing behind yelling "Hey! Wait up!" So one day my sister finally snapped. It was a Sunday, and we had just changed out of our church clothes when my sister threw my bike helmet at me and said "Hey, get out here. You're going to learn how to ride a bike."

Despite my protests, she had me on that bike and slowly going in circles on the flat top of the driveway. Then instead of that dreaded black top by the street, she had me learn to balance by coasting down our sloping front yard. When I complained and said I would fall all she said was "Look, we'll make sure there are no sticks in the grass and so if you fall you won't scrape your knees. It's not going to feel good, but you won't need band aids!"

Needless to say by the end of the summer I was riding that two wheeler like a pro. My sister had done what our parents couldn't. She glued the pieces of my shattered confidence back together.

Then again, it might've been due to our close relationship. I practically hero worshiped my sister at that age. It kind of goes with that unspoken rule of little siblings. You must impress the elder sibling!!