Laziness or Over-Stimulization

Pondered throughout the day about the various topics for tonight's blog discussion. Had narrowed my list to the subjects that obviously mattered the most and then the urge to nap crashed into my humble residence. I got home from school at 4:27 p.m. and I was in the bed relaxing at 4:30 p.m. And quite literally I just got up. Am I lazy? I would like to think not. Rather, my mind is over-stimulated with things that may and may not matter to the point that I'm exhausted all the time. When I think it is a physical experience. My heart rate elevates, seriously. My body has this natural reaction of fight or flight even when I simply thinking. Plus, the physical symptoms are compounded by the genre and quantity of my thinking, which as a born-again pessimist are not generally of the click-your-heels-together fashion. Oh me. The 'thinks' I do to myself. On the flip side, at least I'm a thinker. I at least I'm not doomed to a life of superficial actions. It is what it is and it could always be worse.

Funny, yet true, story.
Background: My friend, Jennifer, whom you will probably come to know via this blog teaches 2nd grade with me. And although we exist on opposite areas of the building, we do have our students collaborate during recess. On Monday, one of my students had decided not to speak to me the entire morning. And this behavior really isn't out of the ordinary, in reality it's quite typical, so I wasn't alarmed. UNTIL we went to the playground and he talked frequently to Mrs. Casebolt (Jennifer). So she jokingly whispers to me that he must like her better. Being of the ridiculously blunt nature, I turn and ask my student if he likes Mrs. Casebolt better than me. The little bugger answers yes! So we all laugh and he runs off to play. 

Story: On Mondays and Wednesdays I keep some of my lower preforming students after-school to tutor. So I've got Mr. I-Like-Mrs.Casebolt-Better with me this afternoon. He and I are joking and working, when I ask him why he liked Mrs. Casebolt better. Without missing a second, he reaches over and grabs a piece of my hair ever so gentle-like. He asks why I colored my hair red. Then he asks if I could please let it go back to the way it was on the first day of school - blonde (which I'm never a blonde, but my natural hair color includes tons of god-given highlights). I told him I had already decided not to color my hair anymore and he smiled. Then he asked me if I could let it be long again like it was on the first day of school. And again, I told him I had already decided to do that, too. He jumped around gleefully and said he would like me then. Note: Mrs. Casebolt has long, blonde hair! This is what we encounter 5 days a week. These random, albeit hysterical, conversations with 7 and 8 year olds. And people wonder why elementary teachers are so nutty.

Back to me: So I wake-up from my nap with "Dear Prudence" by The Beatles stuck in my head. I've always wondered how and why songs can come from thin-air and then reside in your conscious for so long. I know that clinically it would be something to do with neurons firing and misfiring and the conclaves of our memories. Yet, those truths are unfulfilling.  How does your mind pick your mental soundtrack? How does it determine the length of the playlist? How does it determine when to hit the start and stop buttons? Neurons firing does little to explain the phenomenon.  And now I'm singing "Something Like a Phenomenon". Great.

Some of the most productive years of my life are stored on these drives.