Britt's Four Steps to a Fabulous Life:

1. Be happy.  Sometimes I feel this is harder for me than for other people.  I'm working on it.

2. Find someone who makes you come alive and laugh often.  And who is just as happy taking you out to dance the night away as he is to quietly sit by the fire with a glass of red wine, reading a book and holding you close.

3. Doing a deeply fulfilling career that helps people.

4. Making a positive influence on as many lives as possible; making anyone's life brighter if you can.

I wish I was doing all four of those steps in my life right now, but I recognize the absence of several of those steps.  I guess there are waiting phases in life, too.  I'll just keep telling myself that.  In truth, life is okay right now, but I feel like it could be a lot better.  For starters, I feel that I'll never be blissfully happy while I'm in school.  School is not my best environment emotionally.  Yet I realize the importance of school in terms of it getting me what I want for the rest of my life.  What is 5 more years of subpar happiness compared to a lifetime of doing something you love?  I just don't know what or if there's anything I can change to make it better, or if I need to just wait it out.  I'm at quite a crossroads in more ways than one, and some of the decisions are proving to be very difficult to make.  Remind me, how do normal agnostic people make major life decisions?  : P

What are your four steps to a fabulous life?  I might even allow you five.  ; )

Gay in Iran Documentary

Part 1

Part 2

**Update**

You can donate to help rehabilitate animals harmed by the wildfires here:

http://www.zoo.org.au/news/save_injured_wildlife

****

Rescuing Baby Koalas and the Tragic Loss of Human Life

Sometimes it's the little things in life that make you cry.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090212-burned-koala-photo.html

And the audio link on this site is absolutely heartbreaking yet beautiful.  A good 5 minutes well-spent:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100714467&ft=1&f=1004

I desperately want to go rescue baby koalas from the wildfires of Australia.  I'd also love to go help rescue the people there, of course, but that's generally left to the experts.  I don't mean to minimize the tragic loss of human life by any means.  However, people, it seems, are usually the first to be taken care of in situations like this, and the poor, innocent animals often are left to fend for themselves.  If I could, I would go over there this minute to help.  On NPR's site comments, one person was outraged about how people focused on the koala story instead of hundreds of people dying.  I can feel the pain in that, yet it reminds me that as humans, death toll numbers are often so "far away" and surreal to us.  News stations often don't release the graphic details about people suffering that they might about the animals.  In the audio clip, the reporter didn't say a whole lot about details regarding the people, other than that whole towns have been incinerated by the wildfires and that folks, instead of saying "See ya later" are hugging and telling everyone to "Be safe."  Which is incredibly tragic.  However, hearing about koalas desperately hunting for water and walking around scorched forest floors on burnt paws gives such a vivid visual picture.  Maybe the visual picture is what made people respond to that story more.  Maybe the fact that it was unusual.  Maybe people are deeply uncomfortable with their own mortality and therefore choose to focus more of the plight of animals than the tragedy of 200 human deaths.

I contacted the animal sanctuary to see where would be a good place to donate to help animals injured by the fires.  If they send me any more information on that, I'll post it.  And I'm trying to find a site accepting donations to help people--if you find one, please let me know.  

Don't Divorce Love.  Love cannot be voted away.

Petition the Supreme Court to invalidate Proposition 8.

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

If you think you have a rough life, just go here:

http://www.fmylife.com/

Most days I feel more lumpyass than badass.  : p  

Too bad the ice cream won't make it go away.

Confessions

Man, nobody's blogging anymore.  : (

Oh well, I guess you shouldn't do it for anyone but yourself.  Still, it's fun when people participate.  Then again, I can't really talk b/c I average about a post every week or two.

It's weird, I love stories, but I feel like I'm not very good at writing them.  I used to think I was a good writer until I was thrown into the bigger pond of college.  Then again, maybe if I did it regularly, I'd be better.  We're all our own worst critics.  Maybe I'll start writing a little bit every day (though probably not posting every day).  It would be a tragedy for the Girl Who Loved Stories' life to go undocumented.  I think everyone owes their children stories.  We need to know where we came from.  I wish I knew more about my parents when they weren't parents.  Do the stories really get that fuzzy through time?  Or does their very nearness, the way stories hang on the tips of our tongues, drive parents to hold them as secrets, because they're the last secrets they have from us?

The thing is, blogging doesn't fully capture all of my stories, because I often water them down since they're public.  

I've been noticing a need in my life for better self-care.  Particularly in terms of cooking/getting better meals for myself, exercising, relaxing, and being more organized.  All that feels a little overwhelming, though.  Organization makes me feel smothered and tied down.  Yet it is so helpful for basic, daily functioning.  Curse the artist in me.

Contemplating going to grad school feels REALLY overwhelming.  And I don't know if it's overwhelming because of the nature of the degree I may want to pursue (Clin. Psych. is super competitive), my lack of knowledge of it, or if it means I'm not cut out for it.  I wonder if it's overwhelming for me sometimes b/c I am so artistic/creative and it is so scientific and structured.  I don't know if I'd learn to live with and love the structure, and draw creative elements into that, or if it would stifle me.  In some ways, research really appeals to me despite its very scientific/structured nature because there are so many questions I want to answer about people.  And I wonder if I'd like that structure once I learn how to do it better.  I need to go shadow someone and ask them all these questions instead of writing them down on my blog.

I also feel a bit overwhelmed with school, mostly because if I never heard another thing about teaching, I'd be ecstatic.  Yet I feel the driving urge to excel b/c I need those grades to get into grad school.  On so many levels it would be appealing to take the easy road and just get whatever job after I graduate this May, but I don't know if I'd be truly happy with that plan.  I might be really disappointed later on.  

But life isn't bad these days, sometimes I just need to write all these things down.