Are College Students Stressed Out?

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How is Rising Stress Impacting College Students?

In My House, the "Dog Days" are Just Starting

Putting my dog outside at this time of year is a true exercise in frustration. I’ve recently finished reading “Marley and Me” for the second time, just to assure myself I am not the only person who has owned a mentally unstable dog.

All summer long, we endure the threat of thunderstorms, knowing that Zelda will go wild at the merest hint of thunder or lightning. She has become so hypervigilant that when I turn on the fluorescent light over my kitchen sink, the little flutter of light before it comes fully on, Zelda will launch into unstoppable barking, convinced it was lightning. But as the weather changes and fall appears on the horizon, the anticipation of fewer thunderstorms only ushers in the next season of phobias.

First, are the leaves. Zelda can see them drifting down from the trees, through the large living room window. Convinced that these are invaders of some sort, she runs back and forth in front of the couch, barking. She’d jump up on the couch and perhaps go right through the window but for the imposing pile of objects, such as folding chairs and boxes I have put there to keep her off. Occasionally, I have guests and only after some time goes by do I realize they are standing, not for their health, but because the couch is still barricaded.

Once the leaves start falling, birds start to migrate. Now one bird flying overhead is enough to get Zelda straining on the end of her chain, barking and jumping in a completely ridiculous attempt to catch it. Birds in huge migratory flocks, especially big, fat noisy geese, will cause Zelda to jump and bark to the point of wild-eyed exhaustion and foam around the mouth. Add to this the normal squirrel activity increased tenfold by the approach of winter and my dog becomes nothing but a barking, jumping, slobbering golden blur in my yard. On a good day, she gets all the other dogs in the neighborhood barking and jumping along with her. On a rainy day the golden blur becomes a muddy mess who wants nothing more than to run around me in circles, wrapping my work clothes with her muddy chain. When I finally capture her and get her back in the house, I have to hold on to her tightly, as she sometimes goes galloping wildly through all the rooms, muddy feet and all, making sure there are no leaves, birds, or squirrels visible from the windows. Even now, as I type this, she has just collapsed for a nap after barking herself silly at leaves falling outside the window, and cars that have the nerve to drive down "her" street. Once she wakes up, I'm sure she will go into the kitchen and bark at my parrot, who has been here in the house as long as she has. Yet, for some reason, each time Zelda goes into the kitchen to bark at the evil dishwasher, she acts surprised that there is a caged bird in there. My bird long ago learned how to hold on for dear life as Zelda launches herself into the side of the cage. Yes, the Dog Days of fall are here, time for me to put in my earplugs.

What I wrote in September 2001

Here is a link to what I wrote in September 2001. It is dedicated to all those rescue workers who lost their lives, and those who continue, everyday, to risk their lives to save others.

http://members.aol.com/westwind16/tribute.html

Memories of 9/11 - part two

I called my office to let them know I was going to staying with my sister until she heard from her husband. As it turned out, they were sending everyone home anyway. At my sister's house, we spent the rest of the afternoon riveted to the television - in almost complete silence. We just could not believe what we were seeing. Toward the late afternoon, her kids began coming in from school, full of anxiety, wanting to know if their dad had been heard from - what was going on. Each of them seemed to know someone their age that had a parent or loved one working in or visiting the city that day. My two younger children, who were in high school at the time, reported several classmates breaking into hysterical sobs - realizing that mom or dad worked in the World Trade Center. They reported that from a particularly high vantage point in Monroe Township, the plume of smoke was clearly visible.

I stayed with my sister until we finally heard from her husband - he and some fellow UPS workers had seen what they could of the devastation from the roof of their building, and then started the long trek home. They walked, they got on ferries, they were directed to buses. He wasn't home yet, but he was enroute. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

I returned to my own house to find that almost the entire high school football team, and a good deal of the cheerleaders (my daughter was a cheerleader) was gathered there. This normally boisterous group was subdued, upset and confused - just clinging to each other in mutual grief and fear. My oldest daughter finally got through on the phone from her dorm room at Montclair University - she could see the smoke and an eerie glow from her window. Her boyfriend, an EMT in Old Bridge had already left with the rig to join the long line of ambulances that were ready to help to legions of hurt and wounded that never came. A night of not much sleep rolled over us. Soon, we would learn just how terrible the toll hade been, who among our community was nevr coming home from work. Our hearts wouold break and our anger would rise. But on the night of 9-11-01 I tried to sleep as the numbing feelings of shock and helpless disbelief coursed through me.

And today, 5 years later, I can still feel it. I will feel it the rest of my life

Memories of 9/11 - part one

The day started typically, the alarm clock at 7, a sleepy arm reaching to turn on the tv, and the Today Show filling the bedroom with sound. Usually, I am rushing around getting dressed so that I can be in my Princeton office by 8:30. But on September 11, 2001, I had a 9:15 AM appointment with my doctor and was afforded the luxury of moving a little slower. I only remember one thing about the pre-attack portion of the Today show, and that was the promise that Arnold Scwartzenegger was going to be on shortly, to promote his new movie, “Collateral Damage.” I took a longer than usual shower and came back to the bedroom and the TV and Matt and Katie just in time to see a shot of the World Trade Center in flames. “This must be from the movie,” I thought. “Great special effect, it looks so real.” Then, as the shadow of another plane hitting the other tower crossed the screen, I realized that Katie Couric was screaming, and that this was no movie. This was real. I stood there, wrapped in a towel, hair dripping, staring at the unbelievable. It took a few minutes for me to shake myself out of shock and get dressed. All the while I stared at the television. People were talking, but I don’t remember what they were saying. Somewhere in the back of my head a little reminder was going off – “doctor appointment, doctor appointment…”

I arrived at the doctor’s office to find the staff in tears – both nurses had family members working in New York and were unable to contact them. There was no television, so they had WPLJ radio playing over the office intercom. Scott and Todd’s morning show was on, and they were describing what they were seeing both on their television screens and from whatever windows they could get at.

My doctor came bustling in, hugged her staff members and announced that one of her children was also in the city that day. Her face turned very serious as she told her staff that they needed to be strong and brave, to do their jobs like wartime nurses. She told them that during WWII she had seen how medical personnel set aside their personal worries to attend to the business at hand. She said it was time for them to do likewise. She then hugged them again and motioned me into the exam room.

At that moment, the horrified screams and shouts of the radio deejays told us that the first tower was falling. “It’s gone,” they kept saying. “The tower is gone…”

My exam passed in a blur, my health issues seeming insignificant. Going in to the office seemed a pointless waste of time. I sat in my car in the doctor’s parking lot wondering what to do when my cell phone rang. It was my sister, hysterical. She was unable to reach her husband, a supervisor at UPS in Manhattan. Remembering that sometimes he would take deliveries, and that the World Trade Center had been on his route, she was beside herself. I needed to be with her.

Sometimes I Just Hear Things ...

So, yesterday, I am in the Galleria in Ocean Grove, enjoying the artwork, when I hear two loud adult male voices, coming from the direction of the window that faces the alleyway between the buildings. Here is exactly what I heard:

“All I want to know is how do you come out of the house and not know that your pants are off?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”

I'm not sure I want to even know ...