Stress Scale – Nerdy Edition (LOTR)

This week has been stressful. The last six weeks have been stressful. Thank you, grad school. But I would rather be here, working hard, than doing anything else in the world. Except maybe chilling with the Brits, seeing the Pope, and touring Europe. I digress.

At the same time, I keep thinking about a piece of paper that hangs in the student workroom at school…it is a stress scale, numbered one to seven, with “one” representing “no stress” and “seven” representing something like “so stressed I could cry.”

It’s a great stress scale, but it doesn’t quite fit my needs. The numbers don’t adequately express the particular brand of stress that I deal with regularly. So, I give you my own twist on the stress scale:

"THE LORD OF THE RINGS" STRESS SCALE

NO STRESS

⇓

1 – Attending a Hobbit birthday party

2 – Left home without a handkerchief

3 – Missing some spoons from my nice silverware set

4 – Feeling like butter scraped across too much bread

5 – Someone doesn’t appreciate, or even know, what “taters” be

6 – Gandalf just told me I inherited the worst gift ever and now I have to destroy it

7 – My friends just decided we are going to try to walk into Mordor

8 – I can feel the Eye of Sauron on me

9 – My life depends on solving a riddle and I definitely can’t think of the answer

10 – I stole treasure from a dragon and now he’s chasing me and wants to eat me

 ⇓

ALL THE STRESS

I like this scale.

Do you think it would be valid to use this as a stress-rating scale for my master’s thesis? It's a tough question.