Anxiety Fire and Snake Tornados

As someone that suffers from anxiety issues, sometimes getting through the day without vomiting can be a challenge. My anxiety is sometimes triggered by things that haven't even happened. But they could happen, and that's what sets me off. Usually though, my anxiety is sparked by me panicking over whether I have forgotten to do something, or if I did something wrong. 

Once I get thinking this way normal social interactions become awkward and weird, as I tend to say the first thing that comes to mind rather than an appropriate response. 

Then they start staring at me.

And then I know I did something wrong.

And they keep looking at me.

And I just stare.

This usually seems to result in the other person slowly backing away, while I go back to my anxiety riddled thoughts. And of course, this awkward interaction later becomes the fuel for my anxiety fire.

Being anxious is probably one of the worst feelings in the world. It feels as if there's a tornado of flaming snakes in your stomach topped with unpredictable sweating. If you are fortunate enough to have never suffered from anxiety, you are either an infant (do your parents know where you are?) or you need to get out more. Let's all acknowledge that anxiety is an actual issue for people, and agree not to look at the person with the squeaky chair with judgmental eyes. Unless of course it happens repeatedly. In that case, that jerk deserves your harsh judgmental eyes. Let's all just agree that it's the worst and move along with our day.

Guest Blog: Kristen's Visit to the Doctor

A note about this post: Recently, Kristen has told me a highly amusing tale about her visit to the doctor, and after asking/ bribing her with food (which she grabbed quickly and ran into a dark room like a flea bitten raccoon), she has agreed to write the story for this blog. Enjoy.

My entire life I have always had some sort of medical annoyance or injury going on. Nothing major ever, just an allergy to bubble bath here (which ruined my childhood) or an accidental self inflicted hammer injury to the knee there (thanks a lot, Lindsay). However, no matter the injury, no matter the illness, I always refused to go to the doctor. Even when I took a wall vent to the face, which looked a little like this:

Thankfully my important documents survived.

Or when I chopped my hand open on my mother’s birthday.

It may have been the worst birthday, but it was also the most exciting.

So it was a pretty big deal when I forced myself to go to the doctor after days of agonizing throat pain and a fever that just wouldn’t quit. I forced my then boyfriend Trent to drive me to the doctor. I figured it could double as a date cause I’m cheap like that.

The paper bag date was the only one that topped it.

So on we went to the doctor, with me wearing my entire winter wardrobe in the middle of a blazing St. George summer to try to ward off the chill I couldn’t escape. When we arrived, I had to fill out some paperwork. Which was nigh unto impossible in my chilled, trembling, low blood sugar haze of near death.

My known allergies.

Finally, after watching what seemed like the entire National Geographic catalog about elephants, we were admitted to the back. The doctor poked me in the neck with his doctor stick while muttering about white girls. Or gills. Or spots on my tonsils. I don’t really know. He decided I needed to stumble down to the blood drawing room of horror because, really, I hadn’t suffered enough.

Now, something I should note here, I have tiny veins. And when I’m nervous, my veins contract. When I’m cold, my veins contract. And here I was nervous and freezing, so I’m pretty sure my veins were the size of half a human hair at this point. The nurse looked at my both my arms, trying to figure out where my blood was. Finally, she just decided to poke me with the hope of finding blood similar to how one just digs hoping to find oil.

There be oil in them there veins!

After twisting and digging around she finally got a bit of dusty blood from me. The second the needle left my body, I bolted out the door in a panic looking for a bathroom in the unfamiliar building so I could upheave every scrap of upheavable upheavables. And then some.

Unfortunately, as stated above, the building was unfamiliar to me. At this point I was so desperate I started flinging open every door within sight. I finally couldn’t take it any more and picked a random door and ran in screeching as best as I could with my mangled throat “I need to puke! Help!”

A flustered woman in a white lab coat thrust a garbage can in my direction just in time. She and Trent stood there looking at each other awkwardly while I heaved. Once all of my organs were in the garbage can, she muttered something about getting some water while backing out of the door as fast as she could. Once she left, I took in my surroundings. It appeared I stumbled into one of those lab rooms where they look at x-rays. It was pretty dark in there. Either that or my vomiting broke my eyes.

The remainder of my day is something I don’t really remember. I’m fairly certain we went to say hi to my future mother in law, who worked in the building at the time. I’m fairly positive I laughed uncontrollably at inappropriate times during the conversation. And then maybe sobbed on the way home. I’m not sure. Honestly, to this day I still don’t remember if we went and got a prescription or if I even got a diagnosis. And that my friends, is why I don't go to the doctor.

Evaluation of Package Design

In this class we used a program called Blender to create 3D models and animations of various packages and relating objects. 

How can this class be improved?
One thing I would recommend is to teach Blender at the beginning of the semester, rather than at the end so people can have a little more time to figure out the basics. Since I greatly enjoy pushing buttons I figured out quite a bit on my own, but I think that teaching it sooner would be beneficial for those that are hesitant to slam their palm on the keyboard just to see what happens. 
Also, let me just say that I was greatly disappointed that the professor didn't bring his R2-D2 replica bot (replibot? Can we please call it that?) to class. If R2 could have somehow taught the class or at least do that one scream he does when he is shot, that would have made me massively happy. In case a recording for said scream is needed, may I just say that I do an excellent impression. Feel free to ask my siblings and neighbors if you need to. I'm sure that my neighbors enjoy hearing me imitate R2 screaming at 1:30 in the morning, and will give me a shining recommendation. 

What were the greatest strengths of this course?
I think that by using Blender in the class, it reminded us as designers to think of objects in a 3 dimensional way rather than as a flat object. It did for me anyways. I'm aware that other students hated Blender and it has possibly made them homicidal, but I think that introducing new software is a good way to teach students to adapt and think in a different way. Now that I have used Blender I see all animations differently, and it's a view I never would have obtained otherwise. 

What were the greatest strengths of this instructor?
He is extremely easy to get along with. He was great to work with, and was always more than willing to answer any questions. He also took my sassing really well. This is great because I usually manage to offend people rather quickly. He was good to sass back and poke fun at himself. This was good, because my main form of communication is insults that are not meant in an insulting manner. Well, depending on who you are anyways. He was also very knowledgeable about the subject he taught. You can tell that it is something that he is genuinely interested in, which makes him more effective as an instructor. 

Evaluation of Publication Design

Publication Design refers to designing things with multiple pages, like magazines and such. That is what this class focused on.

How can this class be improved?
This class was a lot of work. For the final project, I spent an average of 8 hours a day working on it for a week straight. This made me a little insane, and made me have a similar temperament to a rattle snake being poked with a stick. I think if we started the final project a little sooner this wouldn't have been as much of a problem. Or maybe I should manage my time better. I dunno. Between staring at the wall and drawing cartoon pyromanic pigs, my schedule is pretty full. If I could attach a photo of pyro pig, I absolutely would just to prove how busy I am. (For the purpose of this blog a photo of pyro pig is below. Fingers crossed they add a photo attachment option for class surveys in the future.)

You're welcome.

What were the greatest strengths of this course?
I liked that we had time in class to get constructive criticism from the professor and all the students. That helped a lot, and I feel that that helped move my designs in a better direction. I also feel like the printer should be given some credit. That printer was spitting out full color stuff all the time in multiple classes, and kept going strong. Someone really should award it with trophy of some sort. Or give it some ink or something. Whatever it is you give to well behaving printers. I've never owned a well behaved printer, so I wouldn't know.

What were the greatest strengths of this professor?
She related to the students well. She was easy to talk to and get advice from. I asked her a few times for some ideas for my designs, and she is very good at thinking of things on the spot. Her ideas for my designs always improved them in some way. I also liked that she kept a pretty relaxed environment in class while we were working. Nothing beats watching Anna Kendrick and John Krasinski lip sync battling while working on layouts. My hat is off to you, madame (I'm not actually wearing a hat, but we can pretend. I prefer we pretend it's a sombrero).

Evaluation of Prepress and Print Production

For those of you that don't know, Prepress and Print Production refers to preparing files for printing so they don't print out looking insane. This class focused on using Adobe InDesign, which is a program made specifically for page layout. 

In this class there was a particularly annoying student that everyone hated. I refer to her a few times in this survey. This particular student is a typical dumb blond stereotype. She has the brat voice and complained constantly, often about how she hates creating things even though she is studying to be a Graphic Designer. She also told the professor that she hated his class, and she tried to bribe the professor and other students to do assignments for her. 

How can this class be improved?
Well the first thing that comes to mind, is to not schedule it at 8:00 am. As a creature of the night this made me feel slightly homicidal, which made me snippy about assignments, and much less tolerable of my classmates. I'm thinking of one classmate in particular, but I'm fairly certain that the entire class has mutual feelings toward this particular individual. I feel like if this person had been thrown out or at least muzzled in some way, that would have improved the class. 

What were the greatest strengths of this course?
I actually learned a lot about print preparation, and I feel like I learned more about InDesign. I've gotten to the point where I feel physically ill when someone gives me a file that really should have been put together in InDesign. So I guess this course has given me a new source of nausea that most people won't understand, which further ostracizes me from the general public. But I suppose using the words nausea and ostracizes in the same sentence has a similar effect. 

What were the greatest strengths of this instructor?
His ability to refrain from punching students (well, one student. Let's be honest) directly in the face. Way to keep your job, sir!