returning

Taking a break from my massive amounts of work to record two unrelated fannish things:

i. I dreamed that I was in a sled dog race that ended in Chicago; my mum had to drive me to the airport but kept missing her U-turn, so eventually I decided to get out and walk. I ended up at the rundown bohemian flat of an AU wherein Ray Kowalski and Stella were still married. Ray went into the bedroom to chat with Fraser, and because my brain is a cruel mistress I did not join them but rather stayed out in the living room talking with Stella, who inexplicably had long brown hair and was so unremittingly awesome that I understood exactly why Ray Vecchio wanted to end up with her. And then we went to see a Harry Potter musical together. I don't even know.

ii. There is another new Doctor Who trailer! (It starts at about 0:22.) gf;lsdfkfsd. ( Excitement for Christmas: RISING. )

The YouTube sidebar also has a preview of Tennant's Hamlet, but I feel this is somehow secondary.

unwind

By Saturday the twelfth I will have completed 90% of my work and can hopefully stop feeling as though there's a meltdown imminent. In the meantime, though, Aria's five ways to briefly unwind from academic stress:

1. The tried-and-true scouring of the internet for entertaining things. Some current favourites: *Hark! A Vagrant; *Autocomplete Me; *Muppets Studio; *ADORABLE BBC Doctor Who Christmas indent; *A priest, a rabbi, and an ATA user walk into a bar ...; *New Moon parody that ships Edward/Jacob. I never pretended to have taste.

2. Hoarding little bottles of girly drinks and attempting to write porn. Caution: don't try this on week nights or your future self will hate you.

3. Watching comfort telly. See re: my previous statement about having no taste; my comfort telly ranges from "Anything with Paul Gross in, provided I don't have to hide behind my hands too often" to "Scenes from the High School Musicals" to "I think I need to watch a lieutenant colonel is being beaten for the twentieth time."

4. Going to the gym and biking or running until there's no room at all for worrying and cataloguing everything I still need to do, and the only thing left is if I can get my body to behave, I can get my mind to behave too. I run longer on loud Hugh Dillon music than I do with anything else, but YMMV.

5. Sleeping. Sleeping as much as I possibly can.

I notice that when I'm stressed out I tend to spend as much time alone as possible, but I think that's fairly healthy; this way I don't take out my stress on my friends, and I have the time to just settle into myself and center. What do you guys do to reduce stress? I'm very much in keeping-the-panic-at-bay mode and I'm always up for more calming and happy-making.