Christmas Countdown

In case you don't follow me on other social media, I recently discovered that there are exactly 100 days between my birthday and Christmas. As I have a fondness of counting down the days to Christmas, I was A) happily surprised by the coincidence and B) shocked that it took me 21 years to figure that little connection out. (In case you were wondering, there are 71 days till Christmas.)
I don't have any exams this term, so I'm going to be done school on December 5th. I'll have almost exactly a month off, and I'm quite looking forward to it. I have many plans, most of which involve some form of creativity. I'm hoping to work on two quilts. My friend asked me to make a quilt out of t-shirts she doesn't want to throw out, but doesn't want to wear. The other is a quilt that I've been putting off for about 5 years, for a lady at church. That quilt will be much more time consuming and difficult than the t-shirt quilt (hence why I've been putting it off).
And of course, I'll continue my tradition of making a gingerbread house from scratch. I'm thinking of doing a gingerbread train this year. I feel like there's a lot of potential with things that you can put in the carriages of the train.
Back to reality, I had 6hrs of class today. This was particularly harsh because I usually have Fridays off. The timetable this week was messed up because of two 'reading week days'. I'm not feeling too stressed about schoolwork this term so far. It definitely helps that I'm only taking two courses. One course is worth 4 credits, so I have the workload of 5 courses. But only having to worry about assignments, groups, and due dates for two courses instead of five is making it easier.
I am hoping to get some 3D printing done this weekend. I'm currently printing 3D tiles for the board game Settlers of Catan. I've done one so far and it turned out really well, so I'm hoping to print one for each resource by the end of the term. I'm also tweaking a keychain I made last year. Interestingly enough, a friend asked if I would print some #GBDA keychains for her this weekend - she wants 6! I'm happy to do it, but you can only print one thing at a time and 3D printing is a long process (a Settlers of Catan tile takes ~3hrs). So we'll see how it goes. At least once you've started the printing, you don't have to do anything till it's done. I might be spending a lot of time on campus this weekend. But to be honest, I don't mind it. There's hardly ever anyone there on the weekend, so you basically have the building to yourself. And now that they have massive beanbag chairs, it can even be comfortable :) I'll set my laptop up and watch the last couple episodes of Stranger Things.
Until next time!

369. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?
Ever since Emily went to New Zealand, I've been wanting to go! So New Zealand. #screwschool

So Will You Be My Life Support?

(title taken from Sam Smith's Life Support)

I am emotionally unstable right now. Case in point: I was taking a walk around campus to stretch my legs before class and I was listening to Sam Smith and I started crying (not a lot, but there were definitely sobs). I've never been like this before. I'm pretty sure it's a mix of everything that's been going on over the past couple weeks. I haven't been in my routine for over two weeks now and I don't like it. Although I'd much rather be at home doing nothing, I'm glad I'll be able to get back into my routine. Unfortunately I can't get back into my routine quite yet because I'm trying to catch up on work that didn't get done this past weekend. I have a midterm later this week and another one early next week, and I haven't started studying yet. And this basically leads back to my previous post about stress and not being able to cope.
This weekend I'm going on a day trip to Niagara Falls with my international peer mentee. It looks like it should be fun. The only thing I'm worried about it my mentee is bringing a friend so I'll probably become a third wheel on this expedition. But it should still be fun. And it will be a big step towards the 20hrs we need to spend together this term, which had me freaking out.
I'm just praying really hard that this all works out.

316. If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?
Benedict Cumberbatch (and his wife and baby).

317. What do you think about most?
How I'm going to survive what's coming up next.

318. Ever had a poem or song written about you?
Only poems that start with "Roses are red / Violets are blue..."

319. Do you have any strange phobias?
Not that it's really strange, but I fear the unknown in the not knowing what's happening kind of sense. I don't fear the distant unknown. But more like if we're going out for a day, I need to know when we're going, who's going, why we're going, when we'll be back, etc.

Can I lay by your side, next to you, and make sure you're all right?

(title from Lay Me Down by Sam Smith)

All I want is someone to look at me the way they look at each other.

(emotional rant to follow)

Something I've been struggling with recently is getting stressed with school work. I know that it's completely normal to be stressed about school, but it's not something I've really experienced before this year, so I don't know how to handle it. And occasionally I'll get so stressed that I can't even attempt to approach anything. There has been more than one occasion where I've cried myself to sleep because I'm so overwhelmed.
So far, nothing has actually failed to happen. I always manage to get myself together and finish what I need to finish. And in all of the "waves" I guess you could call them, of stress that I've had, I have made it through. But despite knowing this, I still get worked up about it. It doesn't help when it's group work and I can't control everything and know what's happening and when.
Something that I think is related to my stress is time passing. I have honestly never felt time pass so quickly in my life. This term is half over and I'm freaking out about that. I feel like I've done nothing over the past month. I keep thinking about how I spend my days. What did you do today? Everything I needed to (usually). I followed my routine. Well, that's great and all, but what did you do today? Nothing of any significance, that's for sure. I feel like my life is passing me by and I'm not doing anything. My weeks are the same, day in and day out. I have my routine down to such a specific schedule that I don't know what day it is. Maybe that's why time is passing so quickly. Because I've reduced each day to a schedule. I try and work things in. Especially over the weekend, I try to do something special. I yearn for contact with people, but once I have it all I can think about is the work I need to be doing.This weekend I did a lot of things, hanging out with friends and such. But it's still all gone already. Tomorrow the next week starts, and I'll go through the motions again. At least after this week, it's reading week and I can turn my brain off for a week.
As I'm writing this, I think that maybe I should forget my routine, and shake things up a bit. But I know that I wouldn't be able to handle not knowing when things are going to happen. Having a routine helps me plan how I'm going to do the things that aren't in my schedule. A routine is a definite must have. And now I sound like a magazine trying to claim that this year's colour is orange.
Well, this attempt at a distraction has been fun, and surprisingly revealing to myself about my thoughts. I don't know what you'll think of it, and I'm trying to tell myself that I don't care.
Never let Heather loose with her thoughts and a way to document them in the public eye.