I love to read... especially when I first wake up. I feel like it’s getting my juices flowing without turning my brain to mush with TV or reading coarse material and having to constantly kick-box with the feeling that I shouldn’t be trying to take in information that I will be tested over when I am virtually half conscious. This morning I decided, in attempt to avoid my unhealthy habits of last semester (i.e. no exercise of the legs but plenty of exercise of the mouth and salivary glands) I would read whilst power walking on the treadmill. I get down to our workout room and I’m burning my calories, engrossed in my mystery novel. Forty minutes and two miles went by in a blink. I stepped off the machine, powered off my e-reader, and let my body needed a second to reorient.
You know when you get off a moving sidewalk at the airport? You’re laden down with heavy bags and late for a connecting flight in another terminal. When you step off you feel like you have lost the ability to walk and feel more flustered than when TSA felt you up! Well, trying to walk after getting off a treadmill is the exact opposite. I felt like I was floating, like I was one of those “hover round” frisbees. It was astounding how quickly furniture was approaching and how effortlessly I could get across a room. I admit, I probably looked a little silly walking back and forth across the dark study lounge, counting how many steps it would take to get to a wall with a huge smile.
These past few days have been extremely stressful... especially if you are a Theater major-- as ALL the productions for the spring semester are holding auditions in two small evenings. I was trying to unpack the one hundred pounds of clothes on my dorm room floor, clean the unbelievable amount of dust that had adhered itself to my belongings over break, get textbooks, find new classrooms, go to rehearsals and auditions, and finally figure out how to calm myself down enough to form a coherent sentence. Having a month of mama’s cooking and not lifting a finger made me feel like I had just stepped off the moving sidewalk.
Luckily my ol’ responsible, college minded, multi-tasking survival guide brain kicked in. I remembered what I used to do-- write everything down in a planner and let that serve as my memory bank. Then, I’d give each task my total undivided attention. Time started to fly in class. What should have been stressful auditions turned into silly conversations with directors about my grandmother’s house. I was floating through my new routine.
A total surrender of your body and mind to the task at hand is your key to receiving funny looks from janitors as you trounce around an abandoned study lounge. Putting unrealistic expectations on yourself to remember and do everything all at the same time will leave you looking through a greasy window at your flight taking off in the distance.
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