May Gray stresses me out.

(Total credit for this picture is given to miss Dorothy <dorotehh.tumblr.com>)

Hello there, my friends! Happy May! Today we will be talking about taking things easy. Lately I've realized that I've been letting certain, very stressful things rule my life. I've been breaking out, crashing into my bed at 3 o'clock in the morning and dreamlessly sleeping, and running around thinking about EVERYONE and EVERYTHING but the one most important thing....myself! Don't get me wrong, I promote being selfless and caring for others, but how is a person supposed to properly care for other people when they're a mess? Take some time and answer these questions. Are you stressed? When was the last time you sat still and took time to think about yourself? Is your body maintaining homeostasis? Just a few hours ago, these were my answers: Yes. I can't remember. No.

I felt as though I was being suffocated by my own life. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think, and when I tried to sit down to just relax, I couldn't do it. I realized that's it's been forever since I remembered one of my dreams, and dreams used to be a HUGE part of my life! I used to go to sleep just so that I could dream, just because I loved analyzing what my mind can come up with on it's own. 

So I came to the realization that I needed a psychological detox.  I figured out how to do this and wrote down step-by-step instructions on the topic. So here they are!

1. Breathe. Sit down, get comfortable. Close your eyes and take a deeeeeeeeeep breath in through your nose (or through your mouth if you're terribly congested due to seasonal allergies or other nasal problems). Hold it in for a second or two, and then slowly release. Repeat this as many times as you wish. Feeling better already, no?
2. Open your eyes and look around you. What's making you stressed? Is it that pile of books and school papers sitting on your desk, waiting to be done? Is it the fact that everything is just a mess and you don't know where to even begin cleaning? Is it your little sibling running around, making you want to rip all of your hair out? If you can't seem to figure out why you're stressed, just breathe again and focus.
3. Once you've determined what it is that's making you stressed, either solve the problem or temporarily forget about the problem (I did this by turning off my cell phone, which made me stressed because I was relentlessly checking it). Leave your schoolwork in a neat "do later" pile. Clean up your room, one item at a time. Threaten your little sibling until they leave you alone, it doesn't matter! It's just a temporary solution, you can deal with it later when you're feeling calmer. Right now, just take it easy.
4. Soften your surroundings. Start by dimming the lights, putting on some music, lighting a scented candle etc. Open the window if it's nice out and if the pollen won't kill you. Listen to the rain against the windowsill. That always calms me down.
5. Do something that is truly calming to you whether it's taking a bath, watching TV, taking a nap, writing, drawing, anything at all! Just focus on what YOU like to do, and YOU only. For this step I decided to play a little bit of easy-slow melodies on my guitar. Songs like "Details in the Fabric" by Jason Mraz followed by some Margot and the Nuclear So and So's. It really got me in a peaceful mood, man.
6. Then, finally, slowly work your way into fully taking care of the thing that made you stressed in the first place. Rationally think it over and don't worry too much about it. And since you already made a calming and peaceful environment, things should feel a lot better for you! If not, you need to repeat this process again or work on your de-stressifying skills.

And that's it! Your stress has been reduced by about 95% by now. Feel free to use these steps every time you feel like you need a moment to just focus on yourself. You're adding years onto the end of your life by doing this, I'm telling you! Good luck, my friends!

Signed,

Victoria

We all LOVE love.

       
         Happy, happy, happy end of April, my friends! I hope you have enjoyed your spring so far! Let's just say that my spring has been very...eventful.
         Today's topic of discussion is love. L-O-V-E. There are so many songs, movies, books, poems, dreams, and diary entries about love these days (and plenty of days in the distant past), but what is it, really? I am not one to answer this question, but I do have plenty of thoughts on this topic. In my opinion, the definition of love varies throughout one's lifetime. From birth to middle school, love for me was always family-oriented love, the love that everybody has the right to experience whether they are related to their family by blood or bond. This is also the beginning of friendly love, those friendships that you want to last a lifetime just because every second with that person seems to go by ever so quickly and they just get everything that you say and all of your hobbies and weirdness, and they seem to love it. This love is innocent and deeply needed as a foundation for life to come.
       The next level of love lasts from middle school to high school, perhaps even college. For some, this stage might even end earlier, depending on how set in your ways you are. This stage is often times not even considered love, but for me it is. This love is dramatically deeper and more passionate than that of the young school children. This love makes you do foolish things and it makes you cry for endless nights and makes you feel like crap, but you still crave for it over and over again. This love is like a drug for teenagers and young adults, repeatedly harming you but becoming addictive as soon as it enters your body. This is the love that is depicted in most YA books these days, except in those books, many of the couples stay together for the rest of their lives (or at least the authors make it seem that way). It is rare for these romances to last a lifetime and everybody knows it, but when you're in one, nothing matters. You seem to forget everything and lose your judgement and forget about other people and it starts to rule your life so much that when it ends, it's a complete shock. I know that I'm making it sound terrible right now, and the truth is, it's not all bad. It's a necessary learning experience. Events like the first crush, the first crush that likes you back, the first date, the first kiss, the first boyfriend, these things are necessary. They come at different times for everybody, you may think that yours happened too late or too early but it didn't. And I don't know, maybe you're a 17 year old girl that has yet to have her first kiss and you feel like a total loser. You're not, trust me.
         The last level of love involves commitment, lots of commitment. I don't know much about this stage, seeing as I am only 15 years old, but I see it as deciding who you're gonna be for the rest of your life. This love could be a love toward another person that results in a family of your own, it could be a love toward the family that you already have, or it could just be a love toward yourself. Not everyone gets married, and that's the truth. Many people will be happy and completely satisfied with their lives even if they don't choose to marry another person. This option seems much better then being married and divorced so many times that it barely hurts by the last time. Love is a precious thing, and it should not be wasted. Do not throw out your love simply because society tells you that the only way you can be happy in life is if you find someone to be with you for forever. If you don't spend your love on another person, spend it on yourself.
                                       Signed,
                                                   Victoria.

It's 3:40 AM, and what am I doing?

      I'm studying for Biology. This is not a book review or a sentimental post, this is merely me stating what I have discovered in the past few months.
      Sleep. What is that again? Oh yeah, it's a rest period for the human body. A state of tranquility for most. An escape from what's real to the realm of imagination called dream land. Yes, that. I vaguely remember a time when I actually got a sufficient amount of that thing we call sleep. 
     So I have a quiz tomorrow. A vocabulary quiz. Such a simple thing that I have had so many times before, with grades ranging from a fifteen to a ninety-five, but never a hundred. I am not a hundred/A+ student. In my school, 98% of the population is made up of kid geniuses/A+ students. The other 2% are regular teenagers, perhaps slightly smarter than average. I am of that two percent. I am sad to say that when the teacher mentions the range of grades on a test, I am at or around the lowest grade. I wish for the circumstances to be different, but that's just the way it is.
    What am I trying to say? For the 2% of us that are not geniuses, getting A's and sleep is utterly impossible. I do all of my work, study myself to the point of madness, and it's still not enough. So I've taken sleep out of the equation. And, guess what? Poof, no D's, no F's. Only a middle-ranging C (Not even a low C!), and a low B. The rest are B pluses and higher. Isn't that uncanny? If I keep this up, I'll have straight A's by June!
      Seeing as it is now 4 AM and my alarm will be going off soon, I will not even make an attempt to sleep. In the morning I will simply splash my face with ice cold water and load up on coffee and be on my way. Ah, success at its best.
                                             Signed,
                                                       Victoria.

Across the Universe.

      Across the Universe by Beth Revis is yet another futuristic book with advanced technology, controlling rulers, etc. The first chapter actually takes place in present-day America with Amy and her parents. You are instantly sucked into a scene that just radiates with Science Fiction. As Amy watches her mom being cryogenically frozen, the setting and situation is described. A new Earth-like planet was found that is believed to be able to sustain life. A city-sized ship was built to start shipping people over to the new planet, but there is one problem; the journey is 300 years long. That's where the freezing part comes into play. In order to settle into the "New World", they must have experts in every area, from agriculture to weaponry. All of the "essentials" are frozen and stored on a separate level of the ship. Both of Amy's parents are essential to the project. Amy, however, is nonessential. She must decide whether she wants to abandon everything she knows on Earth to be with her parents, or if she will instead stay with the rest of her family, her friends, and her boyfriend. An intense ride; and that is only the first chapter.
       In my opinion, this book was thrilling to the very last page. I felt that in the end, nothing was truly resolved, and that is acceptable since it is the first in a trilogy. It's is a great read for fans of Matched and The Hunger Games! Read it and be amazed!
                                  Signed,
                                            Victoria.

Wither.

Hmm....where to start? Wither by Lauren Destefano was not bad....actually pretty good if I must say! I know, I have failed to have negative feedback in any of my reviews, but I can't help myself!
To start off, Wither is yet another book about a fucked up future (excuse), but this one has a little bit of a twist. This less than ideal future was actually created as a result of mankind's efforts to fix the world. You see, a cure was found for cancer, and STD's, and plenty of other stubborn diseases of our time. But there was an unpredicted twist to the cure. The generation that first received the treatment lived long and happy lives, but the generations following them certainly did not. For some reason that is unknown, every single female born after Generation 1 die at age twenty, and the males at twenty-five. Yes, a morbid concept, but extremely suspenseful! This flaw in humankind just gives the people a reason to live life to it's fullest (if you can afford to do so).
Anyway, the main character, Rhine, was swept up and taken into a life of glamorous polygamy (yep, i know). You see, polygamy is popular in these futuristic days, for they are trying to make as many babies as possible in the short amount of time that they have. The problem is, Rhine doesn't want this life. She already has a brother that she loves. She is content with her un-glamorous life. So she has to find a way out.
Exciting, eh? For those of you who liked Matched, Wicked Lovely, or Entwined, this book is perfect for you!
                  Signed,
                              Victoria
P.S. I'm in the process of reading Across the Universe by Beth Revis. A review will be coming soon!