Snu the Kitten

        Once upon a time, there lived a little kitten named Snu. Snu was the cutest little critter ever. Being abandoned at birth, Snu had wandered around until she was taken in by a pack of stray dogs. Perhaps it was the initial display of bravery the little kitten had shown, but the dogs had decided that she was worthy to be part of the pack.

        With that, Snu's life began to take flight. Quite literally. Barely 2 weeks after being adopted into the 'family', Snu had began to develop her primal instincts. But she chose the wrong prey and ended up being dragged into the air when she clamped down on a wild duck's leg. Being stubborn, Snu didn't let go as the bird took flight, with the pack of dogs below suddenly adopted human behaviour and stood at attention as they saluted Snu to her death.

        That was not the end.

        The duck was very aware from the beginning that the kitten did not belong anywhere. Snu had an unfamiliar scent on her, due to her being a feline that mixed around with dogs. The duck sensed that Snu was still young, and took her in as one of her own. By now, Snu was quite scared to death, hanging in the sky by a duck's leg. After another 2 minutes of flight, the Duck Queen(sudden character development!) landed in her kingdom of ducklings and....male ducks in general. Snu released her clamp onto the Duck Queen's leg and collapsed on the ground, exhausted from holding on.

         When Snu awoke, she felt the soft down feathers of ducklings cuddled up against her belly. It was so warm and fine, but it could not suppress her hunger. Snu was a sensible kitten. She realised that the fact she wasn't dead was a sign that the Duckdom was a peace zone, so to speak. So Snu got up and ventured out to the river, where more than half of the ducks were. The Duck King spotted her, and nudged her to the river side, despite Snu's instinctive fear of water. There, he taught Snu how to float and catch fish. After only 6 attempts, Snu nabbed her very own fish with a swipe, hitting the fish out of the river and onto the river bank. The Duck King was impressed.

          However, there was a sudden storm. A huge gust of wind blew, and began to sweep everything away. The ducks all waddled to the river and anchored themselves by half submerging their bodies in water, but Snu could not do the same. It was not before long, when Snu began to get swept away by the wind. a tumbling ball of fur. The ducks in the river quacked in unison to bid farewell to their newfound brother.

         Drifting along in the wind was not as great as flying while biting onto the Queen Duck's leg. While flying, Snu was clear of all obstacles; the only danger was falling 15 metres to her death. Drifting was a different matter though. Snu ran into almost every possible obstacle --- trees, rocks. fences, people even. It was a whirlwind ride for Snu as she once again passed out mid way.

         What happens to Snu now? To be continued...

Stress

Sources of stress  

      Stress has become something that many people have to deal with as of late. Ultimately I feel that its not just your usual activities which you consider a bore that are your sources of stress,  but many other things as well.

      However, let's talk about the main sources first. 

      Work or studies

       Certainly everyone alive would have some form of responsibility to deal with, and with the exception of those who are retired, people would normally have to deal with working stress or stress from studies. These two parts of our life can be said to be the most important and have the most effect on us. This is mainly why we are so careful when dealing with these two matters, and that makes us stress out. Though as long as the right attitude is adopted, these two should no longer be a source of stress.

      Friends

       Friends have a major influence on our life, and though most of the time they aren't a source of stress, they can be. Usually in growing teenagers who lack the capacity to make decisions while unaffected by their emotions, the wrong group of friends can be an influence on your lifestyle, often for the sake of appearing cool or popular. The stress often arises when a teenager has conflicting emotions, primarily caused by internal conflict while deciding whether or not to conform to their friends' ways. For example, Tommy started smoking, even though he knows it bad, due to constant pressure from his friends. Friends don't always have a negative influence, even though the influence may end up having a bad effect on the teen. A teen may start to feel pressured from not being able to be as sporty or as academically adept as his friends. This is the most common type of stress in teenagers.

       Society

        Another thing that all humans face are the humans around them. A person always has to adapt depending on what kind of people they are dealing with. While everyone would be under pressure to do so, there are particular groups of people who get extra stressed out in the situation, namely socially inept people. The reason why this is such a big deal is because we all have to learn to conform to others no matter what stage we are in life. You always hear all the motivational talks going on about being yourself and how it would build your confidence if you learn to make other's accept you for who you are. But clearly that is not the issue as everyone has to conform to someone else sometimes in their life. Clear examples are dealing with a difficult teacher, impressing your annoying boss, putting on a front around family members et cetera. Some people find trouble in facing these kind of situations.

        Yourself

          When all of the above combine, you arrive at the worst kind of stress--- stress that originates from yourself. As you start to realise that you are subpar, or you cannot deal with certain situations, you become stressed out as you try to figure out why. True, the onus is on you to improve yourself, and to a certain extent stress would be healthy. But a lot of the time the stress from overthinking things makes a person start to doubt themselves and their abilities. Self-inflicted stress is the worst type as it normally sprouts from external sources of stress, making it the hardest to reduce as you would have to deal with all the external stress first before actually dealing with the internal stress.