Fro Yo and Flannel Sheets

Yesterday I decided that I am going to live by a new motto: "Don't take life too seriously!" This occurred to me after wondering how to react to the fact that every single class for my program of study was full before I was able to register for anything. My first reaction was to calmly e-mail all the professors from each class to see if they would over-enroll and let me in. As I began receiving response after response of the same news: "Sorry, I already have a long waiting list and I'm prioritizing second-year students", I began catastrophizing. My thought process went something like this:

"I'm not going to be able to get into any classes this semester so I'll have to take 3 years to finish this program instead of 2 so I may as well just quit the program and go back to work because even if I do finish the program I won't be able to get into a clinical PhD program because I haven't been able to do any research and I've already been here for four freakin' months!"

I carried on like this for awhile, alternating between calmly assuring myself that some course would open up and frantically envisioning my embittered life as a master's program drop out.

When I got into my rental car later that afternoon, I caught the tail-end of a radio commercial presenting a string of people listing their New Year's Resolutions and heard this: "... not to take life too seriously". Eureka! That has been my problem all along. I drove home feeling triumphant over this resolution I had just stolen from some anonymous person on NPR.

That night I smiled as I replaced my thin, cotton sheets with new, clean, bright purple flannel sheets dotted with smiling snowmen. I then proceeded to walk down to the frozen yogurt shop on the corner to buy a bowl of freezing cold yogurt with all sorts of berries and granola piled on top. Frozen yogurt and flannel sheets make a most incongruous pair, but when you aren't taking life too seriously, it really doesn't matter.

As a side note, there are many frozen yogurt stores to choose from in San Diego and many people have their loyalties already parsed out to either Golden Spoon or PinkBerry, but I would highly suggest the tiny Tutti Frutti yogurt shop in Hillcrest located at the dip in the 'Y' where Park, Robinson, and Indiana streets meet. It's self-serve with many flavor and topping choices and they charge by weight so you can take as much or as little as your pocketbook will allow. They also recently began making smoothies and acai bowls, which I haven't tried out yet.