Today at school, we had low water pressure due to some construction nowhere near school. I don’t know, don’t ask me. All I know is that when I got there, I really had to pee, and all of the bathrooms were closed. I walked from one to the next to find that they were all closed. Then I finally found an open one. In the locker room by the pool. I found another near the coffee shop, but they kept closing them to clean them. Rumor has it there was one open in the library, too. These open bathrooms were all on the first floor. My classes? All 2nd and 3rd floor.

I freak out when I’m somewhere without a bathroom. When I used to run as many as 7 miles at a time, it was a huge challenge for me because if there’s a porta-potty? It’s probably nasty. If there’s not? Then I’m in really big trouble, because I drink tons of water when I run. This usually meant I had to pound water on the way to the place I’d be running, stopping along the way at a bathroom or two if there wasn’t going to be one where I’d be. And then immediately heading to one as soon as I finished. Most of the time I could handle it during the run. But not all of the time.

I hate being at events or places of business without a bathroom, or with only one bathroom, or with a broken bathroom. At times when we’ve had a broken toilet at home? I had to leave. And most of the time, that’s what it comes down to.

If there’s no bathroom here I’m going to have to leave.

I really considered blowing off the rest of my 2 hour math class after taking my test today because the thought of being stuck on a floor with no bathroom for that long was almost too much to bear. And the weird part about that? I rarely ever have to go to the bathroom during that class. Just the idea that I couldn’t go made me have to go.

So what does this say about me from a psychological standpoint? I have absolutely no idea. My best guesses? I have a tiny bladder, I worry too much over everything, and I’m a little bit crazy.

The plus side of the bathroom situation today? I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen since last semester. Because my journey to an open bathroom landed me in a totally different place to study than usual, and her journey to an open bathroom took her right to me.

And while that’s really pretty awesome and cosmic… they’d better have all the toilets working on Friday or I’m going to have to go home.

I decided last week to try something new. Since the semester started, I’ve spent much of my 2 days a week off up at school trying to get all my work done because it’s been harder to focus at home. I did this especially for the couple of weeks of nonstop construction at the bottom of my driveway. There’s still construction on the other side of our street, but there’s less of it and it isn’t interfering with my life as much as it was. Getting my work done is a great thing, but I have other goals, and I hadn’t been working towards them at all. So last week I made the decision that if I’m going to do things like run more miles, I’m going to need at least one day off a week. A day to myself, to both get my homework done and work toward other goals. To work at my own comfortable, relaxed pace, without so many looming deadlines or strict times I need to be finished.

This is week two of Tuesday being mine. I ran 2 extra miles after taking my daughter to school. I’m getting ready to run some errands with a happy smile on my face for a fast mile that broke my recent best time. After that, I’ll come home and do some homework. Maybe even find time for a nap. Maybe exercise some more. Maybe do something completely different. The point is, I’m making Tuesdays about my own personal wellness. Getting my work done reduces my stress level, but it also leaves me feeling like I’m leaving so many other things unfinished. Thursdays if I need to, I can go to school to study, or just sit here until it’s all done. But today is just for me.

How do you make time for yourself in your busy schedule?

This past Saturday I ran the Lifesaver 5k at my college. The purpose? Scholarship money for our nursing students. I didn’t really see anyone I knew there. I’m just a runner who goes to school there and thought it would be fun. It was my first 5k event in over a year. I didn’t really train for it, and have really only been running a mile at a time for the past several months. I’m ready for that to change, and wanted to see how I would do. And it sounded like fun to me.

It was REALLY windy out Saturday morning. I kept telling myself I’d be hot once I was running. I was right, but I froze until then. They brought out the zumba teachers to warm up the crowd with some pre-race zumba. That’s how my kid kept warm, by dancing. She had a blast. They also had fun kid friendly stuff like face painting.

Oh, and did I mention there was a race there, too? Right. The race. This was the most pleasant event I’ve been to yet. Nice and small. Most people were there because they wanted to support the nursing students, not just to spread their egos around. The amazing volunteers that cheered everyone on had the best signs to get us through it. I smiled through a good portion of my 3 miles. That isn’t typical for me. The weather was perfect and the sky was amazing. I’ve been known to start snapping pictures of the sky when pulling out of that parking lot after my classes, because the clouds are often quite perfect there. Running with that view was incredible.

No one ran over me or shoved me. I didn’t feel compelled to outrun anyone around me or compare myself to them. I only needed to walk through one water stop to re-hydrate. I set a nice, steady pace and stuck with it. In the end it turned out to be my best ever time at a 5k event. 36:25. I was the 50th female, 12th in my age group, and 100th runner overall. This may not sound like a big deal to some of you, but it’s very good for me. I was more than pleased.

I will definitely run this event again next year, I think it’s my new favorite! I’m feeling a renewed sense of longing to run that I hadn’t been feeling as strongly for awhile. Feeling the ache in my muscles this weekend reminded me of how badly I want to get out there and run like that more than just once in awhile. Looking forward to adding in some more miles this fall.

Or maybe I’m not, but I’m going to do it anyway. I’m running the Lifesaver 5k at my college this Saturday. After overcoming an ankle injury and now feeling completely, happily adjusted to my fairly new shoes, I can’t resist the thought of getting out there and running a race for fun. My last 5k in public was over a year ago. I haven’t been running more than a mile or two at a time lately, and it might take me forever, but I’m getting out there anyway, just because I want to. I don’t do nearly enough things just because I want to.

I need some. I love school. I love going there. I love learning. I love having homework to do (usually). I love the idea of taking science classes soon, and playing with physics so I can see what this whole kinesiology/physical therapy thing is going to mean to me. I still love psychology and want to be psychology still, even though I thought maybe I was over it and this was just the easiest way to get a degree wrapped up quickly. I still want to know what makes people tick. Or twitch, whichever may be the case.

And lately? When the city is digging up the end of my driveway with a jackhammer and blocking my street so I can’t come home? I just want to sit at school in the english building or the art building because they’re so quiet and I can think there. But I don’t want to sit and write papers on Freud or Adler. I want to sit there and write poetry and create something you can’t touch. Except for the piece of paper and the ink. You can touch those. But the poetry you can’t really touch.

I guess the problem isn’t that I’m not inspired. It’s that I’m inspired by the wrong kinds of things right now. Maybe that’s ok. Maybe wanting other things that aren’t really part of the long term plan are ok, so long as I keep moving forward, and find time to write papers on old dead guys I like reading about but am sick of writing about.

While waiting for my psych class to start this morning, I started to ponder my own theories about personality. The first thing that popped into my head is what does it say about me that I’m always so early to my Personality Theories class? The reason I’m as early as I am is because I dropped the class I had before it. So I arrive at school about an hour before it starts. I like to beat the un-moving staircase traffic, so I head to this class about 20 minutes before it starts. What it really probably says about me is that I’m a weirdo about being on time. For pretty much everything. There’s  specific time we must leave the house for everywhere we’re scheduled to go, unless it’s just for fun. My family eventually learns these times after asking me when we have to leave a couple hundred times. They ask me because I’m the weirdo that makes up these times so I don’t walk in late. Last semester my English teacher had lots of fun with my anxiety about being on time by taunting me with statements like “if you don’t beat me up the stairs you’re getting a tardy.” Things like that? They almost make me pass out, until I realize you’re joking. Really. Then it’s hilarious.

So as I was sitting there thinking about all of this (when you have 15 minutes with nothing to do, you think about weird stuff. Come on, you do too. You can only refresh your facebook and twitter so many times before your phone goes dead or you realize no one wants to talk to you – whichever comes first), this lady comes in and confronts a man about where he is sitting. No, I’m not kidding. She walks up to him and asks him if he’s going to be sitting there from now on (I gather it’s where she’d been sitting) or if he’s going to switch again. She stated that she likes to pick a seat and sit there the whole semester and could he make up his mind so she can do so. She said all this with quite some attitude. I couldn’t believe she unveiled her issues like that right in the middle of Personality Theories. She knows we all just assessed her, right? And diagnosed her in our heads with a number of interesting disorders. It makes me laugh because some of you (or probably just my husband) remember my English class issue with the seat stealers who took over my seat (and the girl next to me’s) about a month into the semester, which in turn caused me to steal the seat next to them, which caused a semester long battle between the girl and guy who had been sitting on the other side of me for who would make it to class first and get to sit in my row. I was outraged at these annoying seat stealers! Why did they want my crappy seat in the back of the room that was the only easy to slide into open seat when I pranced in nearly late on the first day of the semester? Why would someone do this after a whole month of sitting on the other side of the room?

I never had the guts to tell them off. And didn’t get a chance to steal my seat back until it was too late… I’d already started to like them. And you can’t steal a seat from someone you know and like. So I enjoyed sitting with them for the rest of the semester, and came to know them by their names instead of as the seat stealers. What does this say about me? That I’m a huge chicken. The lady in my class? Not a chicken, and also not off to a good start at making friends. Maybe she doesn’t need any. I didn’t think I did either, but I’m glad I made some anyway.

I’m sure I’m going to have many more interesting revelations over the course of this class.

The political kind, that is…

After what, about 16 years as a psychology major (that should probably be illegal), I’m having a hard time facing the required American Government class. I really hate politics. And I picked the absolute wrong teacher, who wanted to grade us mostly on group work, and kept adding assignments online with no clear directions and no talking about them at all in class. I made the decision to drop the class yesterday, and I feel suddenly stress free. I’m going to have time to really focus on my psych class, and math. And then next semester I’ll have to start all over again, and enroll in government with a different teacher. I’ll be seriously researching who to take in the meantime, because it’s already going to be a hard class for me, so why make it harder?

In other news, I’ve finally hit the mark of 30 lbs lost today. I think another 20 will put me in happiness, so today I begin working on that goal. I refuse to give up and settle for half way there this time.

I’ve been fighting an ankle injury for a couple weeks now. Without saying enough to jinx it, I think I’m finally on the mend. I can’t wait to be able to run more soon. I’m not sure I’m really the psychology kind of scientist anymore either, because at this point I want to know how to fix things like my stupid ankle. I’ve really been shifting to a more physical, tangible kind of science. If I already had a degree in physical therapy, I’d have known what to do about my ankle and headed down the right path sooner. I’m ready to be able to apply that knowledge to myself and others.

So with that it’s off to school to learn something and work on furthering my degrees.

School started back today… a few notes from day one of the new semester.

For starters, my sociology teacher from last semester cut me off on the way in.

I saw this guy in the hallway when I walked in the building that looked like Weird Al and was wearing pink jeans. Salmon pink jeans. I knew right then that he was going to be my political science teacher. I was not wrong. I’m not sure I will like this class much. We’ll see how it goes. Also, the classroom is by the pool but no window. Bummer.

My teacher for personality theories is really nice and funny. A little too soft spoken for the half deaf girl that has attended too many rock concerts in her day. The class will be hard but good. A little weird that we are going to write papers he promises he will not read. I like feedback. But I guess if it means I’ll get the points, and I know I wrote a good paper… No, it still feels funny. But I’ll get it done, and maybe learn a little something about myself in the process.

Math is my least favorite subject usually but it was the highlight of my entire day because I’m taking class with Lindsey! We got separated for a bit in small group, going to have to make sure that doesn’t happen again. This class probably won’t be “fun”, but we will get through it together.

No classes for me tomorrow, but I may go up to school anyway to study. It’s quiet and cool with comfy couches everywhere. I think it may be a better place for me to get a good start on the piles of homework already building up. My house has too many fun, distracting things like good places to nap.