Page 293: Catching Up

Two Wednesdays ago, I took my first midterm of the year. I also donated blood for the first time about ten to fifteen minutes beforehand. When I got home, I felt like I would die. I didn't, but I slept a lot until I felt fine again. It took about a week before I was completely fine again, but I am still really proud that I donated. Almost 20 years ago, I was hospitalized and given blood transfusions that surely saved my life, besides the birth control pills, so donating blood has always been important to me.

My midterms are officially done and I did well on my Global Studies 101 exam, which means that I actually got a C+. My teacher gave us a 6 point boost, so my official grade is a B. I don't know what the grade on my Peace Studies midterm is, but I feel a little iffy about it. The short answer questions really threw me off (and I didn't really review until right before the test). Now, I'm slowly guiding into that lull of class that most students are in as we enter the final weeks of class. I am still ridiculously glad that I decided to take classes this semester because I feel more and more at home as time passes. I don't know what I'm going to do once this semester is over.

Yesterday, I realized that I have shopping fatigue again. It has become too tedious and exhausting to shop for myself, but I do enjoy shopping for other people. I had shopping fatigue a little over two years ago and the only thing that fixed it was getting job so I was too tired to do anything else but appreciate shopping again. Coming off a year where I spent a lot of money to get past grieving, feeling this fatigue is nice for me and maybe my bank accounts. It's a sign of normalcy that has returned to my life since the insanity of what happened.

Normalcy hasn't been something that I've been consciously striving for. I don't know when I stopped working towards it, but I have and it's been nice. I like thinking about my future and wrapping it around school and my family. It's a bit refreshing to think about what I am going to minor in (which will be history and American Sign Language) and what I'm going to do for Thanksgiving. It's nice to even think about going on trips because one of my favorite vloggers has motivated me to travel. It's nice to be just a 30 year old woman and that's it. I miss Tym all the time, even more so yesterday during a difficult time getting to Target, but I also realized that he took care of me a lot.

While I am fairly independent, I am smart enough to know that I've been coddled and guarded the majority of my life. I enjoy it, but I think I enjoy my independence and diving into the unknown a little more. I've established a new kind of comfort zone and I know not to push myself beyond it too much.

I have a lot more that I want to talk about because the last couple of weeks have been pretty good, but I'll end this post here. I'm doing really well and feeling optimistic. That's the point.

Page 278: An Education

I have been so intellectually stimulated in the past month and a half. I've been to my fair share of colleges (four, I think), so there has been moments when I've been really into what I was studying at the time. However, I have never been this intellectually stimulated when it's come to my education and I am willing to invest everything I have (and will have) to continue getting this "education high."

I've never had a hard time believing that I was a smart person. I heard about my intelligence so much when I was a child, so I don't think I was ever insecure about it, but there has always been a question about whether I was being intellectually challenged and/or stimulated. When I dropped out of high school at 15, my grandmother inadvertently vouched for me when she told my mother that I wasn't being challenged and the boredom was the reason I didn't want to go to school. I don't know if that was ever fully the case, but I do remember not being as engaged as I should have been. I was pretty much waiting to get to college but even then, staying engaged posed a challenge for me because classes were either too easy or not easy enough.

Did I mention that I had really low expectations coming into this semester? I did. I wasn't even sure I was going to be taking classes this semester until the week before classes started, so I didn't have a lot of time to think about the classes I was going to take and how I would feel about them. I just knew that this was going to be the last year I would be able to go to school before my financial aid completely ran out and given that I was still unemployed, I decided to give this year a shot.

I was excited by all of the new student welcoming things and socializing, especially because I'd never been to a big university before and my first days of class at MATC were not as exciting, but I had no idea that I would end up learning so much and contributing to my education as well as the education of my classmates.

My teachers are highly intelligent women (My Global Studies 101 professor is a PhD in Nursing and does study abroad in Kenya, where she also helps people with HIV and AIDS while my Intro to Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies teacher is a Masters' in Sustainable Peacebuilding student who is only a year older than me and was an English and photography major). I get along with a few of my classmates. One of my classes has a huge number of students while the other has a smaller number students, so that balances out. I really can't find much wrong with my classes at all. Even the distance between my classes (one is literally a sky-walk away from the Union while the other one is about a five-minute walk away from the Union) is wonderful.

This week, a public defender came into my Intro to Conflict Resolution class to speak about incarceration rates and how the prison system has, in essence, become the "new Jim Crow" and I was amazed. Here was a lawyer who was my age and doing her best with her education. She was also super intelligent and I was a little in love with her. It was wonderful and may have reignited an interest for me to pursue law further down the line.

It's amazing to me that at the age of 30, fifteen years after I dropped out of high school, I finally know what it feels like to have this kind of mental stimulation in school. When writing became common and repetitive, after I lost my job and no longer had a daily challenge, and now that cooking is somewhat impossible in my kitchen; school came along and I am so ecstatic that it did.

Page 253: The Art of Wanting to Give Up (and Not Doing So)

Last week was one of the hardest weeks I've had in months. I'm good under pressure and find that I work really well in those conditions, but it's only when necessary. Last week, up until yesterday, felt unnecessary and I became a hopeless wreck.

There are very few outside influences that sends my anxiety off the charts. Money is one of them. I loved my job and everything that came with it, so it broke my heart when I no longer felt comfortable there after Tym's death. I blame him and the circumstances, even though he couldn't control dying. Still, he was the only person who could throw me off my perch and he did. Not having a job and not making as much money as I used to has me in a spiral of anxiety and frustration.

I missed two classes last week and that made me feel even worse because I am so content with my school schedule, but I am literally being pulled in two different directions. I can do school and not make any money or I can work and not take classes. When I started this semester, I thought I was doing what God had wanted of me, but I'm not sure anymore.

I thought about giving up last week. I thought about dropping my classes and not looking for work and instead just laying in bed and crying until I ran out of tears. I felt like being in a maze I couldn't get out of, and then I went to class on Thursday and saw an alarming video on war in my Peace Studies class.

Talk about a mindfuck.

When I came out of class that day, I felt even more hopeless than before because that feeling of defeat was on a more global scale. I was sure that the only way that things would get better was if I became President or if God just ended the world. Until yesterday, I was all for God ending the world now. Do you know what happened next?

I remembered that it was my half-birthday.

My half-birthday is nothing special, if I'm being honest, but I think it's special because it's the birthday of an old friend of mine. Until last year, I wished her a happy birthday and she would wish me a happy half-birthday. On my birthday, I would wish her a happy half-birthday and she would wish me a happy birthday. Even though we weren't super close, it was our tradition and that tradition reminded me that there are bad things in the world but there are also good things in the world. I also felt like if I just gave up, I would be letting God and my family down, especially since I was as strong as I could be after Tym died.

I wish I knew what I'm supposed to be doing. I wish I knew that things would be okay. I don't know anyone who likes being scared and uncertainty is a scary thing for me. I'm trying to build myself back up from Hell Week, but I think I'll be different this time. I'll have to be more compromising and non-resistant because there are things that need to be done right now and it'll just keep getting worse if I'm not flexible to it. I've been through situations like this many times. I know how this works and I know that I'm going to have to start fighting again. So, let's do this.

Page 240: My Conflict with My Conflict Resolution Course

I want to start this post off by saying that I am in love with my classes and I hope that this is indeed learning on my part. I hate hypocrisy with a fiery, burning passion, so it would kill me if I was a hypocrite or became one.

*

I am a person with a bad temper. I always have been. I was born with it. Seriously, I was 5 pounds, 8 ounces and screaming my little head off with my fist balled up when the doctors delivered me via c-section. When I've lost my temper, I've grabbed things. I've been involved in house-destroying fist fights. My mother told me at 13 that I would need to learn self-control after a particularly disturbing incident involving me, a baseball bat and a family member that was causing trouble, and what I would have done.

As I've gotten older, I've learned a lot of self-control and I haven't had a fist fight in about seven years. I've learned to keep my temper under a lot of control, even to the point of having to take anti-anxiety medication because all of that anger is turned inward and becomes nausea and panic attacks. If I find myself in a conflict, I shut down. I cut people off. They cease to exist. It works to an extent, so I can keep from doing or saying something hurtful and cruel because I've seen cruelty and I don't want to be a cruel person.

I've become very interested in trying to improve the world.  On the night that President Obama was elected, I told my sister, my husband and my mother that I helped change the world. Even though I am older and more realistic, I feel like I can do good. It gives me a sense of purpose. There's just something about writing that doesn't fulfill me and I see it as a selfish hobby, a selfish existence, at times. I don't feel this way about any writer except myself, but we're all our own worst enemies. To me, writers can change the world but I can't if I'm writing.

I want to teach. I love children and I feel like I could help them become great people, but even that's not enough for me anymore. I didn't realize this until I started taking the courses I'm in now. The courses enforced in me a feeling that I need to help change the world for the better. It enforced me a feeling that I've finally figured out what I want to do with my life, and maybe this is why I'm here.

There's a small problem that I've encountered, though.

My temper has come back and I am very angry.

It's been like this for a while now, on and off, but my Intro to Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies course has made me become aware of the injustices in the world and it's making me rage on all of the things that are problematic on a global and familial scale. I want to change things, yes, but I also want to solve the problems I'm having with violence. That is not resolving conflict or being peaceful at all. It's also against my faith, so this craving goes against a lot of things. I rant sometimes and it helps sometimes. Shutting down is pretty good, too. It keeps me from going ballistic. My attitude is problematic, to say the least, and I want to change it. It's just hard because it feels like all the wrong people doing all the wrong things have all the power and there's no way to stop them. I feel powerless.

My biggest goal at this moment is to become a better advocate for sustainable peace-building and I can't do that if I'm raging out. Maybe I'll take up boxing or something.

Page 234: The Danger of a Single Story

Today was my first day of class for the fall semester and as previously mentioned, I am taking Global Studies 101: People and Politics as well as Intro to Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies. My Global Studies 101 course was today and along with my fellow classmates, we got down to the nitty-gritty about politics, culture and global issues. There were about 11 issues that are current, but my teacher is a RN PhD who also does research and help lots of people with AIDS in Kenya, so she warned us to let her know when she gets a little too biased about the subject of health.

There was a lot of information to obtain for the first day, but it came down to culture is acquired and culture can be used as a detriment. After the lecture, my classmates and I watched a TED Talk of Chimimanda Adichie, who is a wonderful writer. It was called The Danger of a Single Story, hence the title of this post.

In the TED Talk, Ms. Adichie spoke of how she first read stories about Caucasian children who talked about the weather and enjoyed the sun, and how it was discouraging because there was no one in the stories that was like her. When she was a child, there was also a houseboy that worked for her family and her mother always pointed out how poor the houseboy and his family were, but Ms. Adichie was shocked when she and her family visited the houseboy's home and was astonished to see a beautiful basket that the houseboy's brother made himself. She thought that the family was too poor to make anything.

When Ms. Adichie arrived in America for college, her roommate was stunned that she spoke perfect English instead of gibberish and listened to Mariah Carey instead of "tribal music." According to John Locke and Rudyard Kipling, people in Africa were dark and evil, and Ms. Adichie believed that the single idea in these stories/statements were passed down to her roommate, who made these stupid assumptions about her.

(if you want to TL;DR, watch the video here)

After watching the video, I got to thinking about what stereotypes I may be harboring for the sheer reason of because it was what I had learned. At the age of 30, there aren't many stereotypes, but that's not true of everyone. People are color are targeted constantly because of the stereotypes they are subjected to. Black people are considered to be ignorant, "ghetto" and loud. They eat fried chicken and watermelon. Hispanic people are considered to be the ones who would take any jobs, stealing the resources from this country by crossing the border. Middle Eastern people are constantly considered to be suspicious. After 9/11, I doubt that there has been one Middle Eastern adult that has not been called a terrorist. Asian people are considered to be super smart. Their women are fetishized by the "geisha" stereotype.

These problematic labels were all created by a single story that has been constantly perpetuated throughout generations. There are even more stereotypes that I haven't mentioned in this post, and a lot of people are mentioned in those stereotypes, including Caucasian people.

I know that I haven't even touched on what I will learn in this class, but a single story can be more dangerous than you know. I am definitely reflecting on what I've learned, what I've shared and how I've encouraged stereotypes. I hate the term "learning experience," especially because of the many times I've heard it this year alone, but I guess my class and today has been a learning experience for me. I have to check my stereotypical thoughts at the door, and I look forward to that because I will benefit so much from it. If I can benefit from it, I'll be able to help others benefit from it as well.

What are some of the single stories you have heard?

P.S: Did you know that today, 21,000 children have died? Did you know that African-American men in Harlem have shorter life spans than people in Bangladesh, Japan and Algiers combined? Did you also know that the U.S is #29 when it comes to the rating of our healthcare and that our GDP is $48,000 while Kenya's is $1,600? The more you know...

Page 232: Goodbye, August

Yesterday, I literally scoured the internet to find out what day my father's birthday was. I promise I'm not a bad daughter. I simply thought that his birthday was today and not August 30th.

I'm a bad daughter.

Forgetting my late father's birthday aside, August was a good month. It was a full month. I strengthened my mind by playing lots of Tetris and Quiz Up. Then, I destroyed all that new brain power by watching Sex and the City as well as vlogs. I broke my social media vacation and applied to lots of jobs. I hung out with my sister and went to see a scary movie that made me scream at the beginning and completely underwhelmed me at the end. I finally renewed my library card and visited the library for the first time in at least two years. Last week, I had an internship interview. It went well and would've gone better if I was a full-time student this semester. Still, the internship coordinator loved me and I think she would've made an exception if she could have. From the résumé to my personality, she loved me.

I spent the weekend going to Best Buy, literally. I went there yesterday, Saturday and Friday. I also went there today and I was more than relieved to have everything finally settled so I don't need to go back. I had to replace my headphones, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was that I had a warranty for a DSLR I no longer have and I wanted my refund. The customer service people at Best Buy kept screwing it up, so that meant for various trips. I was highly pissed off yesterday by what I thought was complete incompetence. Finally, it was fixed, though, so I don't have to go back there for a while. I'm so happy.

This week, I start my classes and I'm excited. I didn't even think I would actually be able to go this semester, but a last-minute surprise came through and my classes were fully paid for. I'm taking Intro to Global Studies: People and Politics as well as Intro to Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies this fall and one of my classes is actually in an old hospital. I'm pretty excited about it, to be honest, although I'm a little worried about ghosts. My class is during the day, but still.

I feel like these classes will be a challenge to me mentally because the syllabi show that they will evoke emotions in completely opposite directions. We all know about politics at this point, and we know that they are not easy and not peaceful a lot of the time, so I'm going to have to deal with that in my Global Studies course. Then, I'm going to have to go into my Conflict Resolution class and learn how to become a peaceful part of society the next day. I really don't know how to feel about that, even though I am a person who is always up for a challenge. I hope that I can work through some of my feelings about what I am studying and what is going on in this country. It won't be easy. I really won't, but college isn't supposed to be easy. Right?

By the way, I started writing again. It's baby steps currently, but I've been slowly getting through the fog. I feel like something is being lifted off me, even though I can't wait until I start doing more. Maybe it was a summer thing and now that summer is almost over, the weight of not writing is lifting. That's what I hope it was. I'm ready for the fall and all the tranquility I happen to find during these months.

Page 35: In Which Natasha Gets Real

I, uh, I've been having sort of a visceral reaction to my job. It's weird, but I am no longer fond of my job when I'm not working and I'm happy when I'm there. My job and I are in a very peculiar relationship right now. That being said, I plan on leaving soon.

Before there is any overreaction, I know that it's really weird for me to be so in love with this job and then announce 15 months later that I'm quitting. Right now, this is just a plan. I have not turned in any notices.

I'm tired and when fronted with a choice between school and work, I'm choosing school because I worked hard to get into my school. I essentially spent my entire leave back in November working on getting into this school from spending money to get my transcripts to buying my transcripts to bringing them to the admissions office to dealing with financial aid to picking and choosing my classes. It was tough to do all of it, but it was really worth it. I love my classes and I'm happy going there.

My job hasn't become any harder than it was, but some of the people make it really hard to be happy there. On top of that, I'm just a little disillusioned. It feels like everything I'm doing is in vain. I don't want to get promoted. I don't want any prizes. I just want my work to be acknowledged and it's not. So, it feels like I'm not going to get much further there. That much was true when I got my $.12 raise. The funny thing is, it's really one or two people that has corroded any positive feelings with my job and it shouldn't be that way, but it is.

School and working full time are completely different entities, but I don't feel stifled at school. I'm not getting paid at school, but I can advance there. I can go there knowing that my work is being noticed by someone. I can be free there. I can be free at my job but only during my breaks and lunch time.

Right now, it's up in there when it comes to whether or not my feelings about my job will revert back to love and I don't like giving up, but I don't have much fight left. I want to save it for something that I feel would be worthwhile.

Page 15: In Which Natasha Is A Bit Overwhelmed

I'm a little overwhelmed.

I look at the clock and find that days are going by so fast. I start school in 11 days and I don't know if I'm ready. I'm nervous, but ready is something I'm not sure I am.

At work, I am doing exemplary, but I feel like there's something lacking. I don't like my direct supervisor at all and I don't like how passive-aggressive he is, but I'm still struggling with wondering if he is enough to make me quit this job. I don't want to quit and if I had my way, these people would have to pry me away from my cubicle, but I also don't want to lose it on anyone.

I've also been in search for the perfect computer, again. I think that the perfect computer, though, is Isla (the one before Petunia). My mom doesn't like the way that Isla handles and all the computers I'm searching for is identical to Isla. Isn't that ironic?

I had to disconnect myself from my FitBit for a while. It's getting too obsessive and since I've missed a couple of days because the battery died, I feel like I am slipping away from it. I knew it would happen, but I think I just need to either start again or give myself a freaking break.

I want to believe that this time of the year is what is overwhelming me. I'm dealing with school and Peak Season at work. I want the best of both worlds, but what am I willing to give for it to happen? Even that question is a bit overwhelming.

School: Past, Present and The Beautiful Future

I will be starting this class on Tuesday.

In January, I decided that I wanted to return to school and I chose to go to the University of Phoenix. After some false starts back in the Fall, I became an official English major at the school. I've gone through two classes so far and since peak season was going hard at the time, I passed one class and failed another. Then, I took a leave of absence through most of April.

I would still be on a leave of absence if I had known how to properly be on one, but I kept having to resubmit the form and it became too annoying, so I decided that I would just return to class. This class, Technical Writing Fundamentals, was a class I chose to return to.

I never truly studied writing in school. I have had a couple of creative writing classes, but I never studied any other kind of writing in college. So, I decided to fully pursue it. I may not be writing a novel anymore but I am still interested in learning how to become a better writer. This class is where I'll start.

In pursuit of learning everything I want, I've decided to do something a little crazy:

I'm going to be attending two schools at the same time.

In the fall, I will a special student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. See?



I got this letter on Friday night and to be honest, I was so happy to get it. I never thought that I would receive an acceptance letter from UW-Milwaukee but here it is. There's a caveat, though. I'm not going to be seeking a degree. I'm just going to be attending classes there as a non-degree seeking student. Since I am currently seeking a degree somewhere else, I don't need to earn a degree at UW-Milwaukee, but I'm still going to go to class there.

UW-Milwaukee is a school that's been part of my family for some time. My grandmother sent my mom and her sisters there when they were 18. My aunt graduated from there. My mom met my dad there and most recently, my younger brother graduated from there about two years ago. I was supposed to go there before my brother but that didn't happen until now. Better late than never, though.

I started registering for classes and it was really hard to find classes that I could take that wouldn't overlap with my work schedule. There were so many I wanted to take but I won't be able to in the fall, so I decided to start with two: one being on campus and one being online. Here is my schedule:



As of September 2, I will be studying grant writing and going to a semester long fiction workshop. Isn't that insane?

To be honest, I thought of returning my old school and studying culinary arts again. I think I still may but getting the acceptance letter from UW-Milwaukee pretty much changed everything and I knew that I couldn't say no to this opportunity. I'll be paying for my classes up front, but I don't care. I'm going to my dream school, finally!