Get Organized 12-26-12

Hello all.

For today's blog, we were assigned the task of organizing something in our lives, and then addressing some points that relate the the task.

What I organized:
 I took on the task of organizing my makeup drawer. After coming back from a trip which involved throwing randoms bits of makeup in a bag, and then throwing it all back in a drawer when I returned, the drawer was looking less then satisfactory. I decided to clean and tidy the whole drawer up.

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While I was cleaning my drawer, I felt in control, It didn't take me very long because I knew where everything needed to go. Everything has a place, and it should always be in it's place. Things like this little shred of obsessive compulsive. Why? My room is a disaster area. I'm not kidding. Whatever signs they're putting up in NY because of Sandy, they should put one on my bedroom door. But when it come's to small places like my makeup drawer or my backpack, they have to be perfect. Not a pen out of place, all my notebooks have to be in order from biggest to smallest. I wish I could apply this obsession to my entire room. :/

After completing the project, I feel slightly more in check. Although I don't feel completely relieved, because after all, it was only one drawer out of my entire room, I do feel better because It's one more thing I can tick off my list. I know it sounds weird  but I  like being able to see my makeup drawer spick and span, not an eyeshadow out of place because it's the one thing in my life that I can count on being organized.

I fell like through this project I've learned that I'm slightly more obsessive compulsive than I expected, but still the messy Jordan that we all know and love. I really wish I could become an organized person, but I don't know if I could do it. Trust me, I've tried. Numerous times. There's just something extremely daunting about trying to organize your whole life. Oh well. Baby steps.

-Jordan

Metacognition: Am I too closed minded?

     This year in academy, we've done a lot of thinking about ideas that we see frequently in literature and the world around us. I've noticed as we discuss these topics in class, that I'm not one to look at other peoples opinions. I'm very closed-minded. For some reason, I can't stand poetry. This is likely due to the fact that I am closed minded. People keep telling me that maybe if I looked at the poem in another way or try to look at it from the poets perspective, but for some reason I can't.
    I really wish that I could open up my mind a little bit more because I feel bad and sometimes even stupid because I can't understand where people get their ideas or opinions from.
    As you can imagine, this tends to cause problems. Being closed-minded this year and in general has made it a lot harder to learn and understand people's opinions. I think that if I learn to be less closed-minded, that I can get a lot more out of this year.
   I'm wondering if being closed minded is the same as being pessimistic? I don't see myself as a pessimistic person, but could that be the base of my problems? If I learned to see the glass as half full instead of half empty, maybe seeing other perspectives would come easier as well. I think that my life in general would improve if I started to become more optimistic, and out of all of my classes.
    I haven't noticed my closed mindedness before, so I'm wondering if it's something that I've started to "have" recently. If so, I really wonder what caused me to not accept other ideas. Like I said, I've always seen myself as a fairly optimistic person, so I'm really wondering what brought this on.

   In order to try and stray away from this, I'm going to try and look at everyone's opinions evenly, no mater how much it pains me. ;)  I really want to look at everything with open eyes and be able to view the world like everyone else does. It bothers me when I can't see where people get their ideas, so if I try and open up my thinking a little bit more, I think that my life will be a lot happier and easier.

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