Learning to Have Confidence

I want to make the focus of this blog about things I learn, especially about confidence. I struggle with confidence, and I want to learn how to have it, to not just occasionally experience it. And I would like to record what I learn as I gain it. One thing that I recently "learned", or came to understand, from a book called "Being Happy" by Andrew Matthews, is that if we were to care for a three-month old baby, at feeding time we'd feed it. We would do this with no strings attached. We wouldn't withhold food until it did something really smart or or witty. You feed the baby because it deserves to be fed, to be loved, given care and to be given fair treatment. The baby deserves this because it is human. We are human, we may not be cute little babies, but we are human, and we deserve to be cared for. You don't have to have some special talent, or be beautiful, or smart to deserve this. If we learn to treat ourselves as we deserve to be treated, and we show people that we will accept nothing less than this, then they will treat us with respect.

Moderation

So I was thinking today how I often have lost in thought days and or scatterbrained days, and sometimes bad days. They all really come to the same thing, me being focused on me. Today has been a bad day for me. I have a Recreational Class that I thought would help me become more active, and to learn to relax and have fun. But it has become the most stressful class for me, I honestly hate it. When I go there I feel like I'm back in highschool and feel like I'm going to have a panic attack. I seriously close up like I did when I was in high school. After that class is over it's like I've taken 4 steps backwards.
Well I went to get lunch at the U.B. after class and as I was leaving I saw this woman cleaning up something like spilled ketchup. It wasn't until I had passed her that I thought that maybe I should help her, but then I thought about how I had my hands full and didn't want to bother turning around and setting my stuff down; I was having a bad day after all. So I just kept walking. Well as I said I close up after that class, and when I close up I become rather self-involved, and I become thoughtless.
I realized it's okay to have bad days, and be upset about it, and it's okay to get lost in thought at times, but those bad days and lost in thought moments should not consume us. It's important to notice and care about people. I believe it's important to not become the kind of individual who thinks, "It's not my problem," "Glad it's not me," or "Sucks to be you." That's not healthy thinking or living. We want others to be concerned for us, or, at the very least, to show respect for our feelings so we should show that same courtesy to others. No we can't solve peoples problems, but we can certainly help make it easier for those individuals to bear them. So I've decided to work on being more aware of people. When I have a bad day, I'll allow myself a moderate amount of time to be upset, to vent; then I need to move on, because their are loads of people out there who are having a bad day too, and more than likely theirs is worse than mine. So here's to moderation, and looking past myself.

So I haven't written in here for awhile. I've been buys, and every time I come here and think about posting something I end up thinking that it would take too long, especially since I have nothing to say; so I'd end up thinking and thinking and thinking about what to write about, since nothing too interesting happens day to day. But I decided I needed to write something, though I have to admit I don't know what I'd write about. I'd write about why I've been busy, but it is basically just school work, and I don't think it'd be very interesting to write about how I first did this assignment and then I did this assignment, and then I did this one. And now I have this, and this, and this to do. No it's not very interesting.
It's raining today, kind of a slushy rain- it's snowing up in the mountains. The rain/slush, is very cold, my face was stinging with cold by the time I got to my class this morning. Now I am really sleepy- I can hardly keep my eyes open, I just want to curl up under my desk and take a nap- rainy days always do that to me. Also I think it looked like I wet myself because my pants got wet, but the lower half dried while I was in class, but the upper part of my pants were still damp. As I was walking across campus to work this guy looked at me like I was an idiot who didn't know how to make it to a bathroom in time. LOL :P
I think that I'm going to run and get lunch, hopefully my pants are dry enough by now that I don't look like I need to wear a diaper. :)

America

I wanted to say that I love my Country. It's not perfect, we've made some mistakes, some big ones, but for the most part we've learned from those mistakes. Taking a look at America's history we can see that if a whole country can make great changes, so can an individual.
Think about slavery- America didn't start it, but put an end to it. We moved away from the false traditions, and beliefs of our ancestors and created a new way of living, while keeping their good traditions and beliefs.
Women, for hundreds of years, were considered to be less than men, to be unintelligent, and weak. In 1920 women gained the right to vote in America, after years of many brave, and amazing women fighting for it, and suffering for it.
During WWII we put innocent Americans into camps, because their "blood brothers" in Japan attacked us. But we learned that this was wrong; when September 11, 2001 occurred we did not repeat that mistake.

America has led the world in liberty and freedom for all.

These are just a few examples of the changes that America has made. I hope that if we do need to make changes that we won't change in a way that would hinder us, but will be as progressive as the above changes were. When making changes we need to be very careful. We need to be sure that we do not deny anyone freedom, even for the sake of doing something that sounds good. We should study out the consequences of what we want to do; just because we do something with good intentions doesn't mean good will be the outcome. As America is facing some major turning points we should not rush to make a decision about anything, as good as it may seem to be. We need to slow down, and be wise, or we may undo all that our Fore Fathers, and I would add, great women, have done.
As I said above, I love America, and I will always Pledge my allegiance to this country, to the Constitution created by our Fore Fathers, and to the Freedom and Liberty of anyone, anywhere.

Feeling a little better

So we figured out why I couldn't import the video into imovie. I thought that I'd opened up a lot of space, so I didn't think that was the issue, but it was. It was because we needed to empty the trash! So that's what we did, and now we've got the space. I'm importing a video right now. Now we just have to figure out how to change the format of the dvd's that we don't still have the raw footage off, but I'm actually going to have to run to class soon, so that will have to wait.

imovie

I hate imovie right now-especially what I call the spinning techno colored ball of death-which is the equivalent of the little hourglass that pops up when it's downloading something, or taking you to another page. But this colored ball of death is more annoying than the hour glass, because it pops up randomly, and over nothing!! Then I have to sit there waiting for it to go away so I can get back to work. Everything seems to be going wrong with imovie as of late. First off I need to import video from dvd's- earlier I had imported the video from the video camera, and then burned it onto the dvd's, and then because space was limited, I had to delete the video to make room for more. Now we have to figure out how to take the dvd video, ripp it, to change the format, and import it back into imovie; everything I've tried, including HandBrake, and videomonkey, and some other one, I can't remember, have all failed. Well I may have been the one to fail at using them, but still the end result is the same. :S I also need to import video from tape into imove (which is how I did it to begin with) but imovie won't import it, no matter what I do! We have a deadline, and it's coming up soon, and we have no video!!! I don't know what to do. Right now I feel like one upset, tired, no good chica. Anyway I've got to get back to trying to figure out how to do all of this. Grrrr! :(

R.C.

So awhile ago I had this idea, to help me remember my goals, and to keep focused on what is really important to me. I can't remember what scripture I was reading, but it was about Christ and confidence. I decided my motto, or whatever you might call it would be R.C., to Remember Christ, Confidence, Charity, and Covenants. I think there was another one, but I can't remember it off the top of my head. :) Anyway I ended up asking one of the girls I work with, who was taking a jewelry class, if she could make a charm for me, which she did, it is a copper and cobalt blue charm. Then my cousin, who I had talked to about my idea, bought me a necklace, that is kind of like a locket, but it is clear and holds charms in it, and she got two initial charms with R.C. in it. So I now have two reminders, and both have a certain importance to me. It is nice in those moments when I am feeling overwhelmed and I'm wearing one of them to reach up and grab it and to remember not only who I am, but whose I am, and what I want. I think that I'm going to get something like this for some of my friends. :)