Happiness project for April

It's 2:57 AM as I started typing, and I wish to steal a 3 minute break from my "grudgingly difficult" research paper I've been working since 2AM.

God! I need your help. My mind seems stopped working and my stress bars are full. Haha! Enough for my happy go lucky attitude. I felt that every tissues of my body had gone stressed. A final examination by tomorrow and a critic and mini research to work on.

Everytime I wanted to work on my topic, I can only felt so strange about myself making excuses (like going to CR), standing and reaching for a chocolated drink) and ended up never finishing anything.

And now, obviously, browsing net and writing my feelings in here. And so I reached for Gretchen Rubin's book "The Happiness Project" and flip through the pages.

It is composed of 12 Chapters, a chapter dedicated for each month. April's happiness project is about lightening up. Actually, this is all about Parenthood but even though I am struggling my final requirement for my course work (as MS student), I can relate with this chapter. That's exactly what I need right now. To lighten up.

How? What are the listed ways to lighten up?

The article suggests some practical ideas that I myself can practice while living through this highly stressful times:

1. Sing in the morning. I wanna sing and create a positive vibe, filling my self positive energy.
Off course, this also goes with smiling (or forcing myself to smile) and eventually feels good inside

2. Acknowledge the reality of other people's feeling
I can relate with this one. As a matter of fact, yesterday, my room mate invited us to a dinner and its purpose is to be together, however, what I only remember were not how the food really taste but all her rumblings about her performance on her subjects. Listening to her really drains my energy and lead me to higher stress. I just regret it, I should have not come to that dinner, instead just stay and read. All my positive hopes were died down. Just because I heard her say some negative things. I worried about my performance too.

This one. I should have behave the other way around. Sometimes listening and cheering her up can mean cheering up myself too. I should acknowledge her feelings instead of resisting to take it and end up being a loser. I felt so much of a loser, now what I can do is to acknowledge this feelings of mine and take some time to breath. What  did after the dinner is that I walk around the park alone, just stare at the beauty of the night, prayed to God and ask Him for help because I am very much worried, and most importantly, I promised Him i will help myself too.

3. Be treasure house of happy memories.
This one felt good. I love this, and since I only pass by my studentship in MS only once, why not focus on the things that makes me happy about? I love, really love doing research, analyzing data, and arriving at some essential conclusions. Right now, I wanted to go back to my work (haha!) just because I know exactly how to do it and I have high confidence that I can write my report with clarity and smart-ish content. That is what  the reason why I am here. Because I have knowledge on these things. It's a chicken!

4. Take time for Projects
As a child, I always have projects in mind and i write them down. This time i am almost grown up and ready to face the real world, I do have list of projects which I can just start after i submitted all these requirements! Yes! I am so excited with projects, such as business projects and self improvement projects. I also have some materials for a project I badly wanted to make and send as a gift to the love of my life.Okay, I need to finish this on time so that I can start making my projects.

1. COMPRE project - my specialized notebook
2. GOING HOME PROJECT - i just need to sort things and send these to home. i miss home and this excites me a lot!
3. THESIS project - study stat analysis, finish the data encoding, and start the writing process
4. Fitness and self improvement project - includes swimming lessons, jogging for destressing, enrollment for laughter yoga this summer, and of course, sleep exercise - the best one.
5. Business project - I wanted some few sources of funds. I have lots in mind to start with.

okay, i think, i exceeded the 3 minute steal break. haha! But you know what, its worth it! i love writing down morning pages.

<3 with lots of smile,
Banlin