Recently I came down with a fever that I have no idea how I got - a summer flu if you may. One moment I was healthy as a horse hiking along the foothills of the Rockies, the next i am bed-ridden, down with a flu that took me by surprise. The last time i had a bed-ridden affair was a one-day fiasco in Vancouver that I knew I would catch from my nephew. That was hardly a flu because I was well the very next day ready to take off to Denver (which included a 3 hour drive to Seattle).
Nevertheless, what prompted me to write this blog is what I learned from the whole affair. This requires a little back story, so please bare with me.
I started feeling a sore throat in the early morning hours on the 1st day and I wondered what i was going to do. How was I going to tackle this when my husband was leaving to New York that very morning and I would have no one else to comfort or look after me. I pleaded with him to stay, though not as much as I wanted to as I knew it would be hard for him to leave his very visible and very high-strung client. He left. But before he did so, I asked him to get me some medication and a water filter. That's right! A water filter! The old one was starting to smell and was leaving behind a metallic taste in the water. He got them. And I knew I was wise enough to have stocked up on cans and cans of soup. So I let him go. I was prepared to fight this summer fling.
I was however not prepared for what I would come to realize.
The 1st day, I took the medication every 6 hours and was drugged so much that I could barely think about food. But i knew i had to fight this, so I inhaled the soup and snacked on some fruits throughout as I was awake. Most of the day, I slept it off. Come the 2nd day, I started off very much drugged that it took all my will power to stand up straight. After coming down to earth, I started thinking - which may or may not have been a good thing. What caused this and how do i prevent it, how do i get better faster? As I pondered these questions, I realized this happened to me before when I was in Houston. The only difference was that I had at least 1 friend whom I could count on and I was keeping myself in a social circle there as I was volunteering at the Houston Geological Society. So now i knew what the cause was; it was depression, something that caught me off-guard. I had fallen into a depression since I quit my job and this had weakened my body. Now the question was, how do i fight this.
As I thought about it, what was opposite to depression? Happiness, right? Where better to elate myself than look to the most social networking site - Facebook. So i got on and quickly saw that my best bud had mentioned that she cherished me and my wisdom. I can always count on her to cheer me up even if she doesn't know it. So Facebook cheered me up, but........ at a cost! It increased my fever. I wondered why and I realized that I was using up my energy to feel happy. So now what? Then I thought about Buddha after all these years for no reason at all. I am not a religious person, but there are times when I look up to him for wisdom. He taught about the middle path. So I took the path of neutral thinking. This is so much harder than it sounds and you will only realize that in times of situations like this how hard it is to think neutrally. Even as I was listening to music, if it wasn't a more neutral song, it would affect my mentality deeply. When you are at your most vulnerable, this neutral stance is guaranteed to help you through. It was tough as I went from wild thoughts of sadness to elation of looking through old photographs. They did not help. My neutral thought was my aunt. I am not particularly close to her, but for some reason it worked. And now here I am on my 3rd day writing this out with no signs of the flu other than some phlegm.
So with a little bit of courage, medicine, rest and neutral thoughts, I flung the summer flu high!
Here's a list of what I think are some neutral songs in no particular order. Hope they make you feel calm too!
Fata Morgana by Imperia
Fuck You by Lily Allen
Fahrenheit 451 by ATB
Bad Blood by Bastille
Aberdeen by Cage the Elephant
Speed of Sound by Coldplay
December by Collective Soul
Aerodynamic by Daft Punk
Most of Enigma's songs are pretty neutral like - The Eyes of Truth, Turn Around, Beyond the Invisible, Dreaming of Andromeda, Northern Lights, Voyageur - some of my favorite Enigma songs aren't included though as they make me want to skip along to it lol
Lord of the Rings and The Dark Knight soundtracks are all pretty neutral too
Can You Hear Me by Hybrid
Berlin by New Politics
1901 by Phoenix
Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden
Black and Yellow by Wiz Khalifa
Silver Tongue by Zulu Winter
Of course this list is my own opinion which depends on my memories of what I associate with it and doesn't make me want to skip along to or swing my legs to, dance to or make me feel sad or that I need a booster. Some of them are however some of my favorite songs, I guess because they have a more calming effect on me.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Back after 2 years! Bonjour a la Rockies!
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| Bonjour a la Rockies |
It seems much longer than 2 years ago I put my thoughts on nature/geology/travel on a blog. A lot has happened within those 2 years and it has been a roller coaster ride. I want to get back to blogging about nature again. Maybe not just nature, life in general too i suppose with a little bit of geology. I will try to keep this blog up as I just read one of my drafts that I had started on my visit to India. It was very interesting and now i wish i had finished it if not published it. But alas, i cannot finish it now since I had written that a year ago. What a shame!
Being in between jobs and my husband traveling for work, I find some time to idle whilst i work on several things. And so i'm reborn again online with my blogging.
So what happened within the last 2 years? Here's a summary:
- Got married to my boyfriend of seeing him for 2 years
- Graduated with my MSc in Geology
- Traveled to India twice
- Saw a Sri Lankan wedding in Sri Lanka (my first)
- Started working with one of my friends to set up a home for orphaned girls in Sri Lanka
- Started volunteering with a water organization which ended up getting me an Executive Vice President position
- Got published on a different blog for my work
- Terminated my position with the water organization
- Went on a road trip from Los Angeles to Maryland
- Can add to my list of travel to New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Utah and Vancouver
And now here I am looking for a job again. As i wait to steer my fate onto a new and exciting job, I've decided to keep active. Here's my current list of activities - don't be envious ;)
- Still working with the home for girls in Sri Lanka
- Helping out on some water projects in Sri Lanka with another Foundation
- Started music class - decided to go back to learning to read & write music and learn some classical pieces on the piano
- House hunting in the Denver metro area
- Learning about the geology of Colorado more closely
- Reading various histories on the British, French and Austria
- And of course staying active
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