things i've been obsessed with / don't feel bad if you do this too

Part of college, especially being a freshman, is looking back on your life before college and remembering all the places you used to go with your friends after school, places you thought were super cool, places you went out to dinner every Friday and your waiter basically knew your order since it's usually the same thing, the places you would go day-in and day-out that defined your day. 
Well here are a few of the things I have recently been obsessing over/doing every day/doing multiple times per day/doing an obscene amount of times per day to the point that they deserve to be honored on this blog.

1.  Fiber One 90-Calorie Chocolate Fudge Brownies

Sometimes the hunger pangs come intermittently throughout the day and sometimes I feel as if I am being eaten alive by my stomach.

So I discovered the convenience store sells these and I've been buying some every once in a while when I feel starving. And they are literally so good. I go in hoping the same cashier isn't there so I can buy my Fiber One brownies without anxiety that they will say "Weren't you just here buying these?" Yes, I was.

And I can rationalize these purchases by reminding myself of the fact that I'm getting 20% of my daily fiber each time I have one. So there's really nothing to feel bad about.

2. Back Cracking

I have somewhat of a history of back/shoulder/neck related complications sometimes. This part of my body is basically the one part that was not affected in some way by gymnastics. I've had my series of troubles with gymnastic-related injuries, none of which left me crippled, disabled, or otherwise impaired so I continued with it for a while. When I did quit and I started swimming, I never thought I would get any injuries whatsoever from swimming. The swimming brand prides itself as the sport for everyone--old people can do it, young people, in-between people--and once you learn to swim you don't really forget. It's easy to learn, and you can make it as easy or strenuous as you want. Coming from one of the most physically demanding sports with one of the shortest potential elite careers (not to mention the fear lurking in the back of your mind that, at any moment, if you lose your balance or focus, you could break your neck/back/leg/arm/other appendages or paralyze yourself or accidentally kill yourself), swimming seemed free of risk. It's not often you see the headline "Swimmer Drowns At Meet" or "Swimmer Fractures Back Doing Flip Turn" because honestly those things just don't happen. 

But I was wrong, as I often am. As we all often are. I could go into a discussion/rant about how we are never usually right about anything, but I'll save that installment for a later post. I developed rotator cuff injuries in my shoulders from swimming. Since your shoulder is a ball-and-socket joint, that ball being the end of the humerus (your arm) and the socket being part of the scapula (your back), the ball part can sometimes rub against parts of the socket that it isn't supposed to touch, and this is because it's doing an unnatural motion. It causes sort of an abrasion against the tendons which is super painful, as I have had my hip flexors detach from the bone before and it's so excruciating, it's just terrible.

So I saw a physical therapist for a while and she told me all about the interconnected-ness of our bodies and how technically this was a back problem because my back was tight and the muscles were not strong enough. Swimming can loosen your body up in ways that are good, but when it completely undid my smaller back muscles from gymnastics, it caused my shoulder debacle. 

So I have always had tight neck and back muscles from swimming, and a lot of times they are just so tight they get knots and can't be massaged out. So a few weeks ago, I was talking to my friend about these various complications and so she told me she would crack my back. For some reason I thought this was a terrifying proposition, but I reluctantly got on the floor and she cracked my back.

And it felt so good.

It was nuts, she must be a holistic healer or something because how she did it got all of these knots and tensions out of my back and I felt like I could breathe easier and that I had more flexibility in my back.

Now I'll just lie on the floor and she'll know what to do, and we just have a merry, back-cracking good time.

3. Facebook stalking

I was hesitant to write about this, but honestly, I'm done caring about what's socially acceptable and unacceptable with regards to Facebook. So I'm giving it to you straight.

First of all, if you have a Facebook, there is a 100% chance you have stalked at least one individual. It could just be a friend's pictures, it could be a former teacher, someone you are utterly infatuated with, a celebrity you are awkwardly crushing on, etc. If you tell me you are on Facebook and have never stalked anyone you are simply lying.

Now don't be ashamed to admit it. You're simply taking advantage of your resources to find things out. Met someone new and now you're Facebook friends? Stalk. Day after prom and the pictures are up? Stalk. Celebrities on Facebook? Stalk, stalk, stalk.

This is a surefire way to find out some awesome stuff about people that they probably wouldn't tell you in real life, even if you asked. You can also learn what people are like based on the pages, music, movies, quotes, books, events, people, etc. they like on Facebook. You can get to know people better than ever before without really even knowing them. This takes the guesswork out of figuring out if you and another person will be compatible as friends, roommates, boy/girlfriend, in-laws, lab partners, whatever. Obviously, this is superficial to an extent because people only post their best selves on Facebook. I seem so fantastic and exciting on Facebook because I only show you the things that are fantastic and exciting. In movies, they aren't going to show you the mundane and boring things because who cares? But on the contrary, sometimes it's easy to forget that you're putting yourself on display on Facebook and sometimes people reveal more than they intend to, or more than anyone cares to see. Which is also helpful.

So it's only really a month into college and frankly, everyone--every freshman--has a clean slate. You've come here uninhibited by your past self, and for some people that's a great thing because it allows you to create a new version of yourself. And naturally you are meeting a lot of people. Some people you like, some you don't, some repulse you, some intrigue you. And naturally, we want to know more about these people. We want to creep into their lives and get inside their heads. We want to know what they're thinking. We want to know the type of person they are. We want to become involved in their lives in the most passive and sneaky way possible.

And Facebook answers our call. Once we friend someone new, we literally have a key to discover all sorts of things. And I don't see why people think that's so creepy. You're putting yourself out there in the first place, so expect anyone, especially the people you friend, to look at your profile as little or as much as they choose. 

We just want to know. We're really just curious little animals. It's biological. We follow our curiosity. And in a world where people's lives are online and we can peruse them at our leisure, who wouldn't--and who doesn't--take advantage of that?

So I've been joining lots of clubs and groups on campus, 17 to be exact (I am slowly starting to eliminate things on this list because frankly, I don't want to be involved in 17 activities), and I've been meeting so many people. And sometimes you click with certain people, you learn their names, and you go back to your dorm, open up Facebook, and bam--you're in business. And I've actually become rather good at this, quite like a detective. Which is either commendable or completely pathetic, I haven't decided which. But when you get a club email, and the entire list of people the email was sent to is at your disposal, you've basically got hours upon hours of stalking you could be doing. Just lists of names that you could be finding on Facebook and learning a little bit about. I know I've done this on multiple occasions, and when you can, why not? It's not like I asked for school records and did some serious FBI research analysis. I'm just being resourceful. I have literally spent hours stalking people I don't even know who go to this school, just looking at what music they like, what academic disciplines interest them, what they like to do in their free time, where they go on vacation, where they are from, if they like to play sports, etc. I just like to know.

So don't let anyone tell you you're being a creep on Facebook, because that person has probably creeped just as much as you.

4. Ballroom Dance

I'm simply obsessed. What more can I say? I get to spend hours dancing to songs I have known forever, whose lyrics literally breathe life into the fabric of my soul. And I get to dance with nice, chivalrous, and usually not awkward guys. And for those few hours I don't think about anything else, I just let myself drift into the past; into an era I never had the privilege of living in. 

And I can pretend that I was once a part of it, because sometimes I feel like I belong to a different cultural era. 

But then again, if I was from another time period, I wouldn't be able to Facebook stalk anyone.

cheers,

m