Maddison's Musings

Thanks to the school year ending, my sleeping schedule is completely messed up. The other day, I pulled my first successful all nighter and managed to stay up for 29 hours before crashing and getting 20 hours of sleep. Since then, I've basically become nocturnal- not a good thing for someone going on vacation next week to California and attending Vidcon, a three day YouTube convention. 

Thanks to my now nearly nocturnal habits, I've found myself awake in the middle of the night with my thoughts. It's actually really nice and relaxing, since nobody is awake and it's just me, my book, and my thoughts (this new schedule is the perfect reading time! I can read uninterrupted for hours, and I've gotten more reading done in the past week than I have in the past year- it's delightful!). I've realized that my thoughts can be fairly random and not gonna lie, they're hilarious, so I've started writing them down in my notes. Today, I've decided to share a few of my favorites.

 I want to experience an earthquake. Does the earth rumble and roll? 

Do iguanas have feelings in their tails?

Why don't more people smile at others?

What was the first word spoken?

Do camels feel the weight of their humps?

How are my Webkinz doing?

How are all of my old online accounts doing?

What happens to the things we throw away

Why did I think I would run into quicksand more often than I do?

Why was Indiana Jones afraid of snakes?

Why do I remember that he was afraid of snakes?

How is Elmo doing these days?

RAVIOLI RAVIOLI GIVE ME THE FORMUOLI.

Do you think the Whig party called their wigs whigs?

What was Blue's last clue?

Why does my head start to feel the pressure of my brain after a while?

What happened to Barney?

Wait, didn't Barney hide drugs in his tail?

Or was that a rumor?

Why am I so funny?

What would happen if humans had tails?

Would we be able to control them?

When will the US get their head out of their asses and tighten gun control laws?

On that note, it seems like a good place to stop and discuss the latest happenings in America recently. As many of you know, the largest shooting in American history occurred on June 12th in Orlando, Florida. A man walked into a gay club and opened fire, killing 49 people. Not only was this a direct attack on the LGBTQA+ community, but it was an attack on America. President Obama called it an act of terror AND an act of hate. It was devastating, especially since Christina Grimmie was shot and killed the day before in the same city. As a member of the LGBTQA+ community, this attack hit far too close to home. The youngest person killed was only 18 and had just graduated. The guns laws in this country are way to lax, and I think we should take action.

There was a 15 hour long filibuster in Congress yesterday, ending in them deciding to do something about gun control, but that isn't enough. I urge you to contact your representative and tell them how you feel about gun control. I watched Hannah Hart's newest video (which you can watch here) and felt inspired by her call to action and contacted my representative and told them my thoughts. It felt empowering to know that my voice was going to be heard and that I could do something- and I'm only 17!

I know that you probably didn't plan on this post becoming so political, but this is a topic that hits close to my heart, and it's honestly scary, so anything helps. If you just take the time to watch the video and/or contact your representative, we can help bring on change in this dark world. I'll also attach links below on how to contact your representative.

Thank you for reading and hopefully taking action!

Contact Your Elected Representatives About Gun Control

Did Your Senator Vote for Background Checks?

Tweet Your Congressperson

More You Can Do

Extra Reading

~Maddison

Enjoy these snaps from my snapchat the other night when I was thinking these thoughts:

I only have three more days left of my junior year, and the prospect of being a senior and applying to colleges and all of that is utterly terrifying, to say the least.

Some of my friends are already booking senior pictures, and we're still juniors! I know what I want to do with my life, and I'm STILL freaking out about senior year and all of those responsibilities. My course load for next year is filled with AP classes so that I don't have to pay as much for college, but at least I requested an off period as well.

Not only am I going to be a senior and applying for colleges, but I'll also be getting a job and praying I don't go bald or grow gray hair from stress. Sure, there will be fun things next year, but I'm honestly just hoping I can breeze through it without too much stress.

Senior year aside, this post is meant to reflect on my past year as a high school junior. People constantly say that junior year is the hardest, but in all honesty, I didn't find it too bad. Sure, there were definitely stressful moments, but nothing too bad. I heard APUSH would be the hardest class I ever take, but my teacher was great and I ended up with an A in the class. As long as you did the work, it wasn't a difficult class, and that applies to everything: do your work, and you'll pass.

My junior year was a lowkey year. I spent most of the time laying low and trying to get good grades. I didn't have mounds of homework every night, and some nights I had none at all. Being on a block schedule really helped too, as it allowed me to schedule out my homework instead of having it all on one night.

Overall, my junior year was pretty good. There were ups and downs, but it definitely wasn't the worst. I'm just excited for summer to be honest. I need the three month break filled with travel and concerts.

~Maddison

It's May tomorrow, so you know what that means: AP Exams. Yay.. But in all reality, these next two weeks are going to be intense. I have three AP tests that I've signed up for, and I just realized that I also happened to sign up for the SAT the day after the APUSH exam. Fantastic. In all honesty, I'm just ready to get these next two weeks over with.

On the plus side, all of my homework is done except for the basic studying for exams and stuff, so that's good. Yesterday, I finally turned in my very last guided reading for APUSH and I've never been so happy.

With all of these exams coming up, it's important for me to remember to stay calm and to procrastinate less. That being said, the chance of me not procrastinating is fairly low, but maybe if I post this I'll actually feel motivated to do it.

Listen, I'm watching Friends and it's nearly midnight, so this is going to be short, but I'll post tomorrow maybe gotta blast and continue on the tradition of being a bad blogger.

~Maddison

Since my very first post in September of 2013, I have managed to post at least one post every single month. Until now. I didn't post a single thing in March. I half wrote one post talking about my love for the movie Inside Out, but I was soon distracted and abandoned the post, and then for the rest of the month I couldn't think of anything. It also didn't help that my computer just completely froze up and died (and still hasn't been fized yet-I've been using my dad's computer for three weeks now), so that also led to the lack of posting. Before I knew it, April was upon us, and I realized that I forgot to blog.

In all honesty, the title is a lie. I did stuff in March, I just don't know how to explain it. I went to see Troye Sivan in concert last month and I had one of the most amazing nights of my life, but for some reason I couldn't quite put my emotions into words. Same with the Special Olympics. I had such an amazing time outside all day and cheering on my buddy, but I feel like that's all I could say because that's all I did all day and I can't talk about my buddy because of confidentiality stuff, but I love Special Olympics and that experience is something I will never forget. I've also done a lot of homework over the past month. Too much homework for such a distracted person. Take today for example: I did absolutely no homework this weekend. Granted, I don't have anything due tomorrow, but I sure as heck have a ton of stuff due on Tuesday and Thursday. I could've worked ahead at least a little bit, but my utter lack of motivation stopped me.

Speaking of homework, AP exams are happening soon, and we've already started reviewing for most classes- especially in APUSH. I'm not too worried about the APUSH AP exam, since it is mostly fact-based and my teacher uses mnemonics to help us retain the information, but I am worried about doing everything within the time limit. It's the same thing for English- I know all of the material, I just am worried about the time limit.

What else has been new? I have no idea. Remember that bullet journal I was talking about and how much I loved it? Yeah, that fell apart after two months, like it literally started falling apart. I bought a cheap-ish notebook (like $6 at Target) and it wasn't a spiral bound it was just a normal bound notebook, but the pages kept falling out and that annoyed me. Also, the pages themselves were weird. So basically, there won't be a bullet journal post. I feel like it would have worked really well if  had a different notebook, but hey I tried it so that's nice.

I've found out that I love cooking shows. Especially competitive ones or anything including Gordon Ramsey. I mean, who doesn't enjoy watching a British man cursing for 45 minutes? I don't know about you, but I personally love it. I was watching Kitchen Nightmares and I like watching how people react to different things. But the nice thing was how the restaurant owners start out hating Gordon, but then in the end they're so grateful that he came. I also enjoyed watching Worst Cooks In America, Chopped, and Cutthroat Kitchen, but sadly I've watched all of them on Netflix.

This was really just a random stream of consciousness post, and I'm hoping to have something else up by the end of the month, but who knows. Until next time, I hope you're having a wonderful day.

~Maddison

This is a really personal subject for me, but I need advice and I can only turn to the internet where hopefully I'll find someone who's dealing with the same struggles. If you have anything that can help, leave a comment below or chat to me on twitter/tumblr (@maddisonsimmons on both places, also in the drop-down menu above under the green heart).

I've been a worrier my whole life and a few years ago I was diagnosed with a pretty bad anxiety disorder. The hardest part is going to school. During my freshman year of high school I would wake up feeling sick and nauseous nearly every day. I missed so many days of school because I felt too anxious to get out of bed or I had to go a doctor's appointment for gastrointestinal tests. Eventually, it got less severe, and with medication and therapy I was able to overcome it last year, even in a new state. I was doing really well this year so far, until last week. I was sitting in class, doing absolutely nothing when I was overcome with intense waves of fear and nausea. I knew it was a panic attack, but I couldn't do anything about it- hell, I couldn't even ask my teacher if I could go to the restroom because I was too scared to get up and walk over. I quickly texted my mom, asking for her to call me out of school, frantically awaiting her response. By the time I made it to my next class, I knew I was going to vomit. But again, I was sitting in my desk overcome with fear and sweating because my teacher was trying to teach and I couldn't just get up and leave. Finally, I got released, and on my way to sign out of school I had to step into the bathroom and throw up. It was awful, and it's only gotten worse since then.

I missed two days of school last week, and every day this week I've felt scared and sick. Yesterday, I even spent an hour in the nurse's office trying to calm down. I hate this so much and I know that I can't miss school because if I miss class I'll be behind, but if I can't focus in class because of my nerves. then how is that helping anyone? Honestly, I'm really scared to go back to school tomorrow. I don't want to feel sick or nauseous anymore and I just keep thinking that I'll throw up again. It's especially worse on days when I have English, since that was the class that I threw up in and feel trapped in.

I have no idea what to do. I don't know why I'm feeling this way. Nothing has changed in the last few weeks and I just feel lost and scared. I talk to my mom about it, but I don't know, there's nothing I can really do. If anyone has suffered from the same thing, how do you cope? I've been googling it, but nothing's really helping. I'm sorry this is so emotional, but I have no clue how to fix this. I might delete this post after a while just because it's so personal, but while it's up, any help or advice you have would be greatly appreciated.

Also, I've tried deep breathing, but it only works sometimes. I'm also still taking my medication and have tried using peppermint essential oil on my wrists to help, but nothing seems to be working.

~Maddison