I knew there was a reason I did this!

This is a blog post from Real Simple Magazine. It totally confirms my theory in high school! I was in Theology class one day (catholic school enough said) when the teacher asked me to put my pen down and pay attention. I knew the teacher pretty well otherwise I probably would have done what she asked but instead I responded with a "but it helps me concentrate!" She bought it and my doodling career flurshed through the rest of high school an college. At that point in time I think I just said it because I didn't want to stop doodling and the class was extremely boring but I think ask my education progressed I started to believe it.

meg

Want To Improve Your Concentration? Doodle!

Posted: 20 Jul 2009 06:48 AM PDT

While there was a compelling andimportant article in The New York Timesthis past weekend about the dangers of driving while talking on a cell phone (or text messaging, for that matter), there is one bit of multitasking that actually canhelp you concentrate (although NOT while driving either): doodling!

As anyone who has whiled away a meeting making concentric circles, smiley faces, or loopy flowers can attest, sometimes the idle drawing can be a real boon to your ability to focus on the matter at hand, as well as retain the information, too. Of course, it doesn't always look this way to the outside viewer—and I am sure many a teacher has told a student to quit the doodling and pay attention.

But according to a study earlier this year, reported in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, doodlers retained 29 percent more information than those whose pens or pencils weren't busy. (The doodlers were told to listen to a two-minute-long taped message with a lot of detail in it; later they were quizzed on what they could recall.)

The key, researchers suspect, is that the doodling was idle enough to not distract from the primary task, but also reduced day-dreaming, mind-wandering, or anything else that could have truly hampered attention to the details.

This is welcome news for me, I must say! As a lifelong doodler myself, I've always maintained that having that small outlet in my right hand mysteriously let my brain truly plug into whatever I was listening to, even more than if I was not scritch-scratching away with one hand. I recall that nearly every single spiral notebook I had in high school and college was covered with teeny, tiny ball-point pen circles (like a swarm of air bubbles)—a process of covering every inch of blank space that took months of hard "work."

And to this day, I still have a hard time sitting down for a reading, a lecture, or a talk without simultaneously (or subconsciously) reaching for a pen and scrap of paper to be able to engage in some silly doodles along the way.

Are you a doodler? In what situations? What do you doodle most often—hearts, faces, flowers, your very own name? For some fun withdoodle analysis, check this out.

Photo from Flickr (not my own drawing, alas!)

Paint color personality quiz

I took this personality quiz on, sierraclubgreenhome.com out of curiosity of what kind of colors it would recommend and this is what it told me. I have to say I agree. :-)

Your scores are Vata: 4 Pitta: 5 Kapha: 1
Based on your results, you are a PITTA-VATA:

Pitta is the principle of transformation represented in our digestion of ideas, sensory experiences, emotions, and food. It is associated with the Fire element. People with a predominance of Pitta in their nature tend to be muscular, smart, and determined. If balanced, a Pitta is warm, intelligent, and a good leader. If out of balance, Pitta can make us critical, irritable, and aggressive.

Pitta Characteristics
Mind: Sharp, intellectual, direct, precise, discerning
Body: Medium build, warm, muscular
Skin: Sensitive, flush, acne-prone
Hair: Tendency towards early graying or thinning
Appetite: Strong, can eat just about anything, anytime
Routine: Very precise and organized
Temperament: Passionate, driven, courageous, strong sex drive, good leader
Conversation Style: Speaks to convey a point
Shopping Style: Spends on luxury items
Stress Response: Irritable, tendency to blame others.

Vata is the principle of movement and change. It can be identified as the Wind element. People with a predominance of Vata in their nature tend to be thin, light, and quick in our thoughts and actions. Change is a constant part of life. When Vata is balanced, they are creative, enthusiastic, and lively. But if Vata becomes excessive, they may develop anxiety, insomnia, dry skin, or irregular digestion.

Vata Characteristics
Mind: Creative, quick, imaginative
Body: Thin, light frame
Skin: Dry
Hair: Dry
Appetite: Delicate, spontaneous, often miss meals
Routine: Variable, spontaneous
Temperament: Welcomes new experiences, excitable, friendly, energetic
Conversation Style: Loves to talk!!
Shopping Style: Buy, buy, buy.
Stress Response: What did I do wrong? Tendency to blame oneself

Now paint color recommendations. For the ones they show on the website I do agree with liking the Vata Pitta colors.

Meh, Who knows.

Cheers!

Meg

Ahhhh Apartment Hunt

It's official! My boyfriend and I are moving in together in July. It is going to be such an exciting experience and huge learning experiment. haha. Any who since my boyfriend finally decided it was ok to bail on his current roommate to move in with me we discussed staying in my one bedroom apartment (floor plan to the left) for a few months and saving up some money then moving into a 2 bedroom place so we don't feel so confined to one space. I am the one pushing mostly for the 2 bedroom because lets face it I like my space and if I start to feel clautstrophobic then I get irritable.

So when Grant first brought up moving in together I emailed the management office at the place I currently live at to see what 2 bedroom apartments were renting for right now. It took a little while to hear back but they said the 2 bedrooms start at 825 and they have two that are available right now if I want to go look at them. I didn't respond for a while becasue that was when my boyfriend wasn't asnwering questions about what he wanted to do (having second thoughts on not living with his current roommate again). So finally after the talk we had this past weekend I felt comfortable enuogh responding the my management office yesterday and told them thank you for offering to show me some places but we are going to stay in my apartment for a little while thinking we could pay month to month until we saved up enough to feel comfortable getting a larger place. So they wrote me back and said great come on down and sign a lease renewal (for another year!).

I immediately forwarded it to Grant because I knew he wasn't thinking of staying there for a whole year and told him he needs to think about if he really wants to stay at my place for a year or not. He wrote me back pretty qucikly and said that he doesn't want to stay there for a year and that we should start looking at places this weekend or this week. Sooo my blood pressure rose and I got a little stressed out. My lease is up in my one bedroom at the end of June. That gives us 2 and half weeks to find a new place, for me to pack up and move out.

So some of you may think that is plenty of time but I am totally the type of person who likes to have a game plan and things planned out a head of time so I know what I am doing. My head last night was spinning with, got to find a place to live, got to find enough boxes to pack up everything, am I going to be able to go to Arches on the 24th and 25th now that I have to move!!!!?

After I got through panic mode went to bed last night and woke up this morning I am ready to tackle this. Today I will be looking for apartments that we can go look at and I will just go from there. I did email back my management office and said "Just Kidding! Can we go see what you have available on friday?" They haven't responded yet but I hope they have something nice because it would be so much easier to move from one apartment to another in the same complex. The second floor plan above is one of the 2 bedroom floor plans at the place I live at right now. It's not too bad. I just hope the insides are decent. They are condos indiviually owned so the interior totally varries depending on what the owner has done to it or not done to it.

The one bedroom I live in now was pretty basic and had all it's original applinces. I posted pictures of it right after I first moved in last july if you want to see them. I have done some improvements though since moving in...Here are some updates:

I painted the walls in the living/ dining area a classic taupe color to warm the space up a bit. Bought the hanging lights and the floating shelf on the wall and re-covered my couch.

Something I am thinking about...

So I am 24, and since I graduated from college life has been forever changing, quickly. Change has been happening not specifically in my life but, my life, and the life around me, my friends, my family all the different aspects that combine to make up my world. Maybe I focus more on the change now then I did before because I am not living from term paper to term paper or semester to semester but when I think about the last two years and how much I have learned I am amazed.

So I think I mentioned, maybe not, in my last blog how I feel like I am being left behind. It seems this year that everything is changing around me and I am still in the same place. A good friend just graduated from nursing school and is starting her new career and I couldn't be more excited for her. My old roommate M2 (Meaghan 2, a nick name she and I were given 5 years ago to distinguish who someone is talking to when we are together) finally got her feet on the ground and is grasping every opportunity offered to her in the career she chose for herself. She is an athletic trainer and is currently working at East High, interning for ReAL Salt Lake and one other place that I can't remember. My beloved Kiwi friend is moving back to New Zealand and taking her husband with her (another good friend) in August so she can be closer to her family. Then last of all my best friend and her boyfriend are moving to San Diego (again in August) for grad school. I on the other hand I am staying here, starting my 3rd year at Sundance, working 9-5 and feeling left behind. I was so caught up on not having anything change for me that I was really kind of sad about it. Happy for all my friends of course! But sad to loose them.

So finally last week my little change was presented to me and my head is over analyzing like it usually does. I went to Wendover with my friends and boy friend to celebrate a birthday and as we were walking from Montego Bay to the Golden Nugget my boyfriend mentioned that he didn't want to live with his two roommates anymore. I was a little shocked because he has been in college party mode pretty strong for the last few years and with all of our friends moving on, if he didn't live with his two roommates anymore I wasn't sure who he'd live with.. So I let it go until we got home at 4am that morning and tried to be sly bringing it back up. I asked him if he really meant that he didn't want to live with them again. He said yeah... then I said well then who would you live with?? (Duh Duh Duh Duhhhhhh). He hesitated and said, well... if its ok with you, you.

I was surprised for sure. In the last 3 months or so moving in together has been on my mind but more so in the distant future. Grant and I always joked around about things like, IF and WHEN we move in together we have to have solar panels on our house or a giant jetted soaker tub in the bathroom things that aren't really tangible right now but would be once he was done with school and had maybe been working for a few years. That and a few months a go when I started looking at houses online and I would show Grant house I liked something we talked about was how I want a house but I am not sure I want to live in one alone. He said something to the point that he would live with me but not yet.... which is why I was surprised.

So to wrap up a really long introduction I think Grant and I are going to be moving in together this summer. I think its a big change! In fact I think its a big deal but I am not sure if it really is. The friends I have told have said that's great good for you... but haven't really been into talking about it with me because they are all so busy with their own things. So to look for the advice I was hoping to talk out with my girlfriends I started looking at articles online. They can be freaking scary! I know the statistics for the number of couples that break up if they live together before they are married and those are pretty frightening but I have also seen the success stories that are a part of my life. My parents have been married for 27 years and lived together before they were married. Same with my aunt and uncle. They are coming up on 25 years of marriage and lived together for 3 years before they got married.

So we have to sit down and talk about why he wants to move in, what his expectations are, who cleans what and such, if he is doing it to save money or if he just wants to live with me to be with me kind of stuff. I know his heart is in the right place but I have this urge to totally drill him and his intentions to make sure that we aren't jumping into this too fast. I am trying to educate myself as much as I can on how living together can be a good thing and a bad thing so that we can make the best of it. I am going to say Yes I have no doubt about that I just want to make sure he and I are on the same page when I do it.

So cheers to my change. I am sure I will let you know how it goes.

A little update here and there

O it has been a while. I keep waiting for something exciting to happen that I can blog about but really how often in life to really really exciting things happen? Exactly.... So here is a blog about the little things.

Life is just rolling along. I have deffinetely settled into my day to day pattern of getting up going to work, going home, making dinner, relaxing, going to bed, and starting all over again. How boring! I really want to be one of those people who go out and do fun things like hiking and biking after work... it's a work in progress.

In my defense though work has been pretty busy and a bit stressful. Things are constantly changing and I never know when I am going to get thrown for a loop. For the most part it is good I am starting to be recruited by other departments to help them with projects which I have been dying for since I started working here. My first year was mostly focusing on learning my job and focusing on doing it well. I wasn't really able to branch out much which after looking back it makes sense I actually think it was very helpful. The transition came when I got a new boss last September. Having a new boss is a huge transition. Or atleast it has been for me. Going from someone who was training me and helping me learn my position, who knew everything to more or less being on my own and having someone manage me who doesn't really have a clue about anything...is a challenge. I have had to remind myself a lot that this is my boss's first year. It is amazing but it has been a great opportunity for me to step it up and stand out to my co-workers and my boss's boss. Hopefully they have noticed. I love being needed and hope to become a excellent asset to the company.

The downsides have been the budget changes. Because this year the economy has been bad we have had to cut the budget 3 or 4 times just to make sure that the Institute is doing ok. I have been working really hard with our budgeting department to enforce our new spending policy and to make sure that everyone understands which budget they should be pulling money from for things. In the beginning of it all HR made sure we all understood that they were going to cut everything first before they even thought about cutting programs or staff. For the most part that has been true although last week our Festival coordinator was let go due to "restructuring" in the festival department. I don't think there is going to be any more "restructuring" but the girl who left was a good friend of mine and it was really sad to see her go. I have no doubt though that she will land on her feet. Farewell Nyna! I love you!!

Other then work, there are little variations in my schedule depending on the day. I am playing indoor soccer right now in Woods Cross on a co-ed team with my boyfriend on Wednesday nights. It is a lot of fun I miss participating in team sports like I did in high school. It's also the best form of exercise I am getting right now. It can be very frustrating though. For example (prepare yourself for a rant) on a night when you only have two girls and you have to have two girls on the field at all times so you have to run around like a crazy person, play well, and not getting a break to catch your breaths in a 50 minute period. It gets even better when your running around like a crazy person and the boys have two subs but still aren't running much or dropping back on defense to help you! Then you loose. :-( I've noticed since playing that the girls who run the team get very stressed out every week trying to make sure we have enough players so the scenario above doesn't happen very often. It's kind of sad that they have to police people like they do, it makes me wonder if the people who sign up to play really even want to play? I have to admit I am glad I am not a team captain and that all I have to do is show up and enjoy myself. Isn't that what a recreation league is for anyways?

So soccer is good. What else? Umm.. I am desperate for spring to arrive. A couple weeks ago it totally teased us with nice weather and it has been crappy snowy guck ever since. COME BACK SPRING!

Things with my boyfriend are good! I am glad becasue he seems to be the only stable relationship I have right now (excluding my parents, they are great!). My two closest girlfriends are leaving me in August and even though I knew it would happen some day I am taking it harder then I thought I would. My best friend for the last five years, roomate for 3 years and sister to my boyfriend (practically family!) is moving to California in August for grad school. I am so happy for her she has worked so hard to get there but now that she is going out to visit the schools she was accepted to and is talking about when she going to move and stuff I realized that I am not going to have any close girlfriends to go shopping with on the weekends or vent to about the stupid things my boyfriend and his roommates say when they are drunk. My other friend leaving in August, although I have only known her for a year and half has become a really good friend, she is the wife of my boyfriends good friend and we all hang out and do double dates all the time. She is from New Zealand and is moving home with her husband in August so she can be close to her family. Once again I totally get it I never would have been able to make the committment to move to a foreign country like she did in the short amount of time that she did it in. August is going to be a sad month. On the bright side I'd like to think I make friends fairly easily so I will be ok after they are gone and I will still be in touch of course.

So as a result of my saddness and stress from work I went out and bought paint to repaint my apartment last weekend. I needed a good stress releif and exercise wasn't cutting it. I will post pictures of it painted later when I get home with my camera. It looks pretty good I think. I hope it is a good improvement for the apartment because I didn't necessarily get permission to do it. ;-) Honestly though I have been waiting for 8 months to get permission for the building management to re-culk around the tub in my bathrrom and it hasn't happened yet so I figured this landlord really doesn't care about the apartment as long as he is getting his money. Part of wanting to paint is also because of my obsession with HGTV and wanting to re-decorate everything! Initially I thought why invest the time and money in re-doing a property that isn't mine it's not worth it and ideally I'd like to buy a house but don't have a down payment yet to do so. I am obsessed with Realtor.com and frontdoor.com though. I like to look at the houses I wish I could buy. Soon though. The more I look at the houses the more dedicated I am to trying to save up for one. I just hope the good interested rates stick around for a while.

So that is a summary of the little things. It was long and probably half the explanation I could give for all the things I talked about but it is just a little update here and there. :-)

M

Can you ever really say the stress is over?

In my position I don't think so. I mean maybe if I miraculously channeled Buddha while I was at work and the silly, ridiculous problems I solve on a day to day basis did not bother me at all. But I find being a "yes" person for my company a constant challenge. On the bright side my patience is amazing.

Anywho to the real story. The 2009 Festival is over!!!!! Wooohooo! After 16 straight 10 hour days of work I am finally able to relax. I have to say that the 2008 Festival is winning on a scale of which one I liked better. It's kind of funny becasue when I first started working at the Sundance Institute everyone told me your first festival will be the hardest and they will get easier. I don't think that was the case this year. There were a few factors that made the difference. For example, 2008 I received lodging in park city which totally helped on the exhaustion level. After a 10 hour + day I could drive five minutes and be able to relax. 2009, no lodging. worked a 10 hour day and then had a 40 min drive home every night. Then getting up an extra hour early to make sure I got to work on time. I didn't think it woudl make that much of a difference because really I make the drive everyday anyways but when the days started to add up it hit kind of hard. There were deffinitley a couple mornings driving up the canyon where I had to constantly remind myself that falling asleep while driving is fatal! Thank goodness the weather didn't much up the roads. Second big difference, well on top of driving as you can imagine I had to fill up my car a lot. In the first week of the fest 3 times in a week time period. My car gets decent gas mileage too. In 08 we got Per Diem's to help supplement us moving up to Park City where everything jacks up the prices. This year no Per Diem so while I was spending a crap load of money on gas to get to work I just ate the cost. My reception team was really bummed too becaue they missed out on everything above. They felt like they weren't important within the company. They knew they were, you take away someone directing calls, office supplies and internal customer service and company falls apart. They just wish that our co-workers would recognize that everynow and then. The woos of being at the bottom of the food chain. I just felt bad that my team moral was so low and I am not sure how to fix it.

On the bright side of it all. It is over. We got tons of compliments from people who came to the festival this year saying it was great. A lot of visitors came in and said thank you for all of our hard work. In the end that makes it. Also seeing how happy the filmmakers are. They are so gracious and excited to be a part of something like the festival.

Here is a pic I snapped driving over Parley's Summit one morning when the sun was coming up. That sunrise made driving to work in the morning worth it.