On Being Hyper

Hang around me for at least a few hours a day for a few days and you will soon learn that I am extremely hyper...even without the caffeine.  The caffeine is just the drug that keeps my preferred level of hyper up there.  It wouldn't matter if I cut it out, I would still be this crazy, hyper person whose brain is more random than a thousand cheetahs juggling chainsaws aboard a carriage on its way to Caracas.  So I just leave it in the diet.  Occasionally, I'll cut it out for about a week, get some headaches, and then be back on it as soon as the week is over.  But this is not about my not-addicted caffeine problem.  This is about me being hyper.

People tell you to just "Calm down," but I don't see how that's possible.  Taking away my hyper is like taking away Tigger's bounce.  It makes me feel sad and depressed.

Don't you just want to cheer him up?

I mean, yes, I do have times where I am sad or upset about something, but I usually bounce back out of it because I can get cheered up easily most of the time.  I mean, a couple times I've sunk into these three day emotional crises where I just felt upset about something, but it always went away and I was back to normal, hyper Katrina.

But, honestly, I think most people who aren't hyper don't really understand how it feels.  Not every hyper person is actually ADHD, although almost all of us still get called that jokingly because we

Yeah, if you didn't see that one coming, you ain't hung around me long enough.  I have literally changed topic mid-sentence more times than I can...Oh, by the way, I've started watching Duck Dynasty now, which seems like a weird thing to write on a nerd blog because Duck Dynasty is like this anti-nerd...You know what's weird?  People used to make shows where the nerds and the hicks were made fun of, but now they give them their own shows.

Okay, I will try to stay focused.  But, really, the problem with being hyper is that we have all this energy built up inside us.  Some of us are actually really, really smart.  But you have to think that you take the smart and combine it with hyperness.  It's like your brain is moving a million miles per hour and it just takes these jumps all the time.  No one around you can understand the logic of how you got there but you.  But I've already discussed my dotted line of logic when I turned this blog from an MK blog to a nerd and MK blog.

But the worst part about being hyper is not the part where your brain jumps ahead.  That part you can back up and explain how you got there sometimes.  Other times, you definitely can't.

The worst part also isn't when you have to abandon your dorm room before your roommates kill you because you have too much energy to be trapped within those walls with three other people.  Although if it's cold out and you have to go take a walk around campus to burn that excess energy, it can be difficult.  But maybe, you know, you'll find someone and be able to talk to them and keep them from actually doing their homework.

No, the worst part is when you get so excited when you're talking that you start jumping.  I mean, I should have grown out of this when I was seven, but I still do it.  If I have something exciting to tell to a friend or get excited in the middle of a conversation, I will literally start jumping up and down in place.  Like a kid.  Now, maybe this isn't too bad if it's one or two little jumps and then it's over.  Me, I can sometimes keep jumping more times than that if I'm really excited.  I am fully aware how absolutely immature this looks, but turning it off would require concentrating and telling myself to calm down, and when I'm super excited, my brain is focused on one thing and can't really focus on the jumping.

But, come on, other hyper people jump, right?

Yeah, but they don't have a keychain collection on their backpack:

Now, like most collectors, I consider my collection to be a thing of beauty.  I mean, each keychain means something to me, and I'm so very sad when I lose one or one breaks.  However, do you know what sound multiple keychains make as they bump against each other while their owner walks down the sidewalk?

Every person who attended Northland between January of 2009 (when I started wearing my backpack to class) and May of 2012 (when I graduated) can tell you.

Clank, clank, clank.  Jingle, jingle, jingle.

Ah, Northland in the morning:  the birds sing, a soft breeze dances through the rustling leaves, in the distance you can hear the whistle of a security guard on his rounds and the hum of engine of a staff member on his way to work.  Then the tranquility breaks as Katrina leaves the girls' dorm for the day and begins making her way to the dining hall, key chain collection clanking.  I call it my early warning system.  You hear the clanking, you know I'm coming.  And if I want to move silently, I have developed a system whereby I can hold all my keychains in one hand, silencing them, so I can effectively sneak up on you and scare you half to death!  MWAHAHA!

So, you can imagine, multiple times it would happen:  I would be wearing my backpack when all of a sudden a brilliant idea would hit me, and I'd get excited:

"Ooh!  Ooh!  Ooh!"  Katrina jumping, keychains clanking until she finally gets attention or her message out.  A twenty-year-old girl jumping up and down, jingling like she's the caffeinated ghost of Jacob Marley.

Sorry we had to make the Disney reference

I kid you not, it was probably one of the most ridiculous sights I caused on a regular basis in college, and that is including my lack of dance skills or singing ability while vacuuming lecture halls and listening to music on my iPod.

But you know, I still didn't mind because I'm me.  I wouldn't want to change myself because I'm comfortable with being crazy, with being me.  Sometimes, I do have to put on a more professional or formal side, but when I'm most comfortable and lounging around in a hoodie and jeans is when you get to know me.  And, yes, I will probably say the most airheaded things you ever heard come out of a smart person.  And, yes, I will suddenly point out a random bird I saw fly past in the middle of talking about World War II.  And, yes, I will most definitely at least once start jumping up and down babbling about some crazy idea that just hit me.  But if you can put up with all that and still hang around me all the time, we just might end up becoming frie...

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