Crying

I don't cry much and when I do it's usually just a tear or two. I don't think there is anything wrong with crying. I think it's good and it can be therapeutic; it's just not something I do often. Well apparently crying actually releases toxins which is why you sometimes feel better after crying. Pretty cool, huh? Did you know we produce between 230 and 450 cups of basal tears (the kind that keeps your eye from becoming dry) a year? Kind of crazy, eh?

For more interesting facts about tears or to see where I got my information from you can go to http://health.howstuffworks.com/crying.htm

The amazing human mind

One of the classes I am taking this semester is Sensation and Perception psychology. It has been really interesting so far and think it will continue to be interesting. Today, the teacher used a really neat example of how we sense and perceive things. I had seen this example before but it never ceases to amaze me.

"Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabridge Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny ipromoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a ttoal mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?"

I think because of all the technology I have access to that "thinks" for me, I forget how capable the brain is, but when I think about all that we are able to do, it is absolutely overwhelming to me.

Pictures

Occasionally I get in the mood to write. Write about life, love, sadness, laughter, anything that comes to mind, really. Usually the things I write when I get into one of those moods are short and to the point, but I kind of like it that way. This afternoon I got to thinking about something I had written about pictures a year or two back.

"Pictures are worth way more than 1000 words because there is nothing like looking back at pictures of your five-year-old self with your old best friends and wishing you could have just one more moment with them."

I don't have a picture from when I was five on my computer, but I do have one from either my 8th or my 9th birthday party
Even though I love the friends I have now, it's hard not to wonder how life would be different if I was still friends with any of them, or if I even still talked to any of them. I am so thankful that even though I have no recollection of this particular day, I have a picture that captures that moment perfectly and am thankful that in 10 years, I'll be able to look at pictures of me now with the friends I have now and will be able to recall the second of time the picture perfectly captures.

Joy and pain

I have come to find that in my own life, the single thing I take for granted the most is other people. When I moved away from home last August, I didn't realize how much the relationships I had would change. A funny thing happened when I didn't live 10 minutes away from my best friend anymore; we hung out less, but we talked a lot more, and our relationship kind of did a 360. Things weren't bad before, but they're so much better now, and I think it's kind of funny that God used distance to bring us closer. God also saw fit to use geographic closeness with another friend to bring distance, and even though it's been hard and incredibly painful at times, I know that God has a purpose for this. In the joy of closeness and in the pain of distance, I will choose to be thankful for the ways God has used these relationships to bring me to Him.

The things children say

While working at an after school care for a little over a year, I heard some pretty hilarious things come out of the mouths of several kids. I also got the chance to hear some amazing questions from them. One afternoon while doing a devotion about Adam and Eve and the first sin with the kids in my class, I was particularly surprised at the depth of one of the questions I was asked by one of the girls in my class. "Why did God create satan if He knew satan would rebel against Him and cause Adam and Eve to sin?" I was pretty surprised to hear that come out of the mouth of a 9-year-old and didn't even know how to respond. I told her that I didn't know and that we don't always know the answers to everything. I hated that I couldn't give her a real answer, but I continue to be thankful for the way children have no reservations about asking questions.

I love me some hand sanitizer

I admit it, I am verminophobic. What, might you ask is verminophobia? It's not the fear of vermin, but the fear of germs. Though I do not particularly have a problem with the germs I get from eating or drinking after people, touching doorknobs, faucets, desks, or any other thing that has had another hand on it grosses me out. I feel like I can almost see germs crawling all over these surfaces, especially during flu season. I was told by a biology teacher in high school that using hand sanitizer over periods of time can actually cause germs to become resistant to hand sanitizer, however the same teacher also told me that all children of a brown eyed person would have brown eyes. Regardless, I have been using hand sanitizer routinely for the past few days and am hoping it will keep me from getting sick.

Cell phones

Yesterday when I began this blog, it wasn't something I was too sure if I would keep up with because I feel like updating a blog on a regular basis can be somewhat time consuming. However, since I first thought about doing a "thankful" blog yesterday afternoon, I have begun to realize how much I have to be thankful for and how often I forget to be thankful. Even if I never have a visitor, I am hopeful that by choosing to be thankful in all things, big and small, I will begin to see my outlook on life change.

Today when a sign on the door of my speech class incorrectly said the class had moved to a different room in a building across campus, I realized how thankful I am for cell phones that give me the ability to call somebody who is sitting in front of a computer to tell me what's going on. It turned out that I had read the sign wrong, but I was able to make it to class while the teacher was still calling roll, and I suppose all is well that ends well.

Even the small things

Through a series of events over the past five days, I realized just how often I am tempted to complain, and how seldom I choose to be thankful. I noticed how much better life looks when I put things into perspective, so instead of complaining about how annoyed I was that my carpet pooled with water when stepped on, or that there was not any running hot water in my apartment, I began thinking that I was thankful to have carpet, and to have any running water at all. I realized how lucky I am that I had the problem of not having warm water. There are millions of people all over the world who do not have access to water at all, much less clean water.

What if we all took our complaints and turned them into blessings or things to be thankful for? How much better off would we be? What if for one day nobody complained, but was instead thankful? What if while climbing 61 stairs to get to my Psychology class, I was thankful that I had legs that work rather than complaining about how hard or annoying it is to climb 3 consecutive flights of stairs. Or what if instead of complaining about all the reading I have to do for my classes I chose to be thankful for two eyes I can see with and that I have the ability to read?

What would happen if we all did this every day? What if we took time to be thankful for even the little things? What if we could change our days, our lives, and maybe one day, the world, would we?