{"id":17965,"date":"2019-08-07T09:00:03","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T16:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=17965"},"modified":"2019-08-26T11:13:27","modified_gmt":"2019-08-26T18:13:27","slug":"first-things-first-keeping-the-positive-attitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/08\/07\/first-things-first-keeping-the-positive-attitude\/","title":{"rendered":"<em>First Things First<\/em>: Keeping the positive attitude"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>When I first had the idea for this column, it was out of pure adrenaline. I think that\u2019s how I made most of my decisions in my first year. I followed through with a lot of my first instincts\u2014sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That first-day-of-school anxiety was nothing new to me. The transition into college was a weird and rocky ride, and it was incredibly apparent in my fellow new-kid first years. A lot of the younger students wanted to latch on to that apathetic \u201cI don\u2019t give a shit\u201d attitude they had in high school. Mixing that with the constant stress of post-secondary became incredibly toxic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/First-things-First-full-version.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/First-things-First-full-version-300x225.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-16623\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/First-things-First-full-version-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/First-things-First-full-version.jpeg 700w, https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/First-things-First-full-version-180x135.jpeg 180w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption><em>First things First<\/em> is a column about issues pertaining to first-year students; it appears in every issue of <em>Nexus<\/em> (illustration by Tiegan Suddaby).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>I know, we love to brag about not sleeping and eating salty garbage, but that dedication to treating yourself unkindly will blow up in your face. Whether physically or mentally, it just sucks believing that you need quick efficiency rather than quality treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, I\u2019m the first person to roll my eyes to the back of my head when I hear platitudes like \u201cStay positive!\u201d and \u201cGood vibes only!\u201d They feel more like cop-out answers to all of your problems. Staying positive isn\u2019t going to fix my sleeping schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What is going to help is taking action. Sleepless nights are generally fixed by changing my sheets. Exhaustion at the end of the day can be helped by fruit or protein. And that positive attitude? It\u2019s telling yourself that you deserve it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t put your life on hold; don\u2019t take your humanity away in favour of an okay grade. Celebrate the fact that you\u2019re here now, doing school, and hopefully doing what you want to do. So what if you feel like a stupid baby surrounded by cool people who know what they\u2019re doing with their lives?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You\u2019ll grow into it, as long as you let yourself do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I first had the idea for this column, it was out of pure adrenaline. I think that\u2019s how I made most of my decisions in my first year. I followed through with a lot of my first instincts\u2014sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn\u2019t. That first-day-of-school anxiety was nothing new to me. The transition [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,234],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-august-7-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17966,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17965\/revisions\/17966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}