Happiness, Day 2

Today's gratitudes:

• My good students. I love chatting to some of my students. Some students don't want to actually have conversations with me because I'm their teacher, but these ones do. Also, some of them have fun while they are working on the lab, which is great to see. Plus it reminds me of myself; often I was like that in school.
• Bonus cash. I love playing in the orchestra because I love music, but it's also nice to get paid to do it. My mom emailed me today saying I got a check for $104 from them for the last concert. Plus, I got more tax returns from Pennsylvania, in the amount of $44. The bonus cash is nice, particularly because I'm trying to pay off my nasty fine from the summer. With 5 orchestra concerts, that adds up to a little less than half of my fine.
• Coffee. I fucking love coffee. So sweet and succulent. Starbucks lattes are the best thing in the world. And I can make them in my kitchen whenever I want!

Random Act of Kindness:
It's hard for me to think of random acts of kindness to do, because I'm already too kind to begin with. Today I let one of my students use the classroom computer to check her Powerpoint? Does that count? Also I called my Grandmother, I hadn't done that yet... but she didn't answer, so I'll try calling again later.

Meditation I'm also finding to be very difficult. My scientific mind is always thinking about things, always working to make sense of things... it's hard to shut that off. I tried it last night before I went to sleep, and I was trying to picture my Happy Place.

My Happy Place is a place I go in my mind when I want to feel calm and serene. There's a field of green grass, and you can smell it fresh. There are sunflowers in some spots, and you can hear rushing water somewhere off in the distance. It's sunny and warm there and lovely.

Anyway, I'll try it again later tonight.

Finally, today's reflection. I went to the gym this morning and did elliptical and stretching. It felt really good to stretch because I was so sore from yesterday's full body workout. I really enjoyed the walk back, because it was sunny out and I was listening to my workout playlist on my iPod.