September 02, 2004 - 10:46 p.m.
Safe for Now, and Other Musings
Well, we're out of the "Cone of Uncertainty" now. We cancelled our hotel rooms. My apologies to anyone who lives in Augusta, but I'm really glad that I won't be spending my Labor Day weekend there, holed up with two cats and mindless television. When I told my father that we might have to evacuate, he said he didn't think I'd be able to find a quiet place to do homework in a motel during a storm. He's probably right. I had visions of me in the bathtub, surrounded by Shakespeare and Jane Austen. I'd much rather be sitting in my new red chair.
I just had to scan back through my diary entries to make sure I hadn't already gone on at length about my new red chair. It's my first piece of "grownup" furniture, in that it's the first thing that I've purchased new with some consideration for it lasting more than a school semester. I really didn't want Hurricane Frances to come and ruin by chair after only a week of its residence in our house. The chair purchase is part of my plan to make reading for school more pleasant, and I'm very pleased to report that it has worked. I now have a nook in the bedroom, separate from my office where papers are written, to curl up and read for as long as I can stand it. I've gotten through Moll Flanders, The Taming of the Shrew and Pride and Prejudice this way in the first two weeks of school, not to mention numerous criticism articles. I'm not behind at all, and hopefully after this long 4 DAY weekend the university has so graciously granted me, I'll actually be somewhat ahead.
I'm still worried about my stress management, but I'm seeing a counselor tomorrow morning for some tips. I'm hoping for the magic trick that eliminates all my feelings of anxiety and stress naturally, but I'm not holding my breath for it, either. My hair stylist recommended kava kava as a natural alternative to Xanax, but some brief internet research has me a bit wary of it. I'm awfully demanding of myself, and it's very hard to let go of my personal expectations. But when I don't or can't meet a goal, regardless of its feasibility, I beat myself up about it. Okay, this paragraph is stressing me out. On to something else...
Or maybe not. I think it's time to curl up in my red chair with the new Carl Hiaasen book (decidedly not for school) and forget my worries until bedtime.
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