I have been so busy guys. I am currently about six states away from home and blogging from the ‘rents laptop. I’ll be sure to update soon and include some photos

P.S. I’m so looking forward to this snow flurry tonight!!!

I have so far churned out two pages of my English Comp essay that’s not due for another three weeks. I am enjoying this essay because it gives me a sort of artistic approach to twist ideas and make them seem like facts to convince my reader that yes, I am right and you should believe me. I’m putting ideas in others brains, perhaps of things they hadn’t thought of and really making them feel like they should have known that all along. When I say that I like this English Professor, I mean I really like that way she teaches. She basically told us that the book we are using is incompetent and whatever it says to do, do the opposite. Basically she told us for our persuasive essay that we have to appeal to the negative side to everyone’s emotions, the side that doesn’t rationalize and just believes what they read. We aren’t allowed to use any kind of qualifiers (like “maybe” or “possibly” - we have to be definite, clear and concise with our word choice) and that we need to practice deception in an uncanny way (basically to create the notion that you aren’t saying what you’re really saying because you’re not actually really saying it….does that make sense?)

My essay is on the “No Child Left Behind” act. I will not publicly say whether or not I am for or against it (because eventually I will graduate with my degree in English Education grades 6-12 and I do not want this idea to inhibite me from getting a job years from now because once an idea is published - it can haunt you forever.) I am putting a lot of thought and creativity into this essay and will drop it off to her on Tuesday just to read it and make sure I don’t need to tweak it. I am not at all happy with my last essay (those few last paragraphs will grant me a B instead of an A and I’m not satisfied with that) and I want this essay to really blow my other essays out of the water.

Oh my God (yes this deserves the G-word because it’s hysterical). I have my window open and some little kid is riding up and down the street singing “Pee-u what’s that smell? It’s Barak Obama because Obama stinks. Oh yes, Barak Obama stinks.” heh. Betcha those parents are embarassed! They quickly ran outside and chastised the child for saying it so loud, though many of the people on my street fell the same way. I am going to go over to the library in a bit to do some early voting and then come home and finish my essay. Maybe I’ll work in a little time to do some crocheting.

If I stop worrying about what others think all the time, will that make me less of a caring person? Can a person still care about others if they don’t really care about what they are thinking or feeling? I’d really like to know the answer to this. The past few weeks have been such a self revelation. Yes, I have been working my ass off (that reminds me I’ve got some math homework to do….) and I’m really proud of myself. I know that it will look really awesome on my resume someday to post that I’ve gotten good grades, even if they were at a community college. But I’d really like to voice my opinions in class, I’d really like to speak up and just be like those people I hate. Just once - not care what anyone else thought of me and just…be. I guess that’s how I could describe it. I want to dance and not care if people are watching. I want to walk in a store and not feel like people are thinking I’m fat. I want to just, argh! I don’t know how to put it. The one class I’d really like to speak up in is in my English Comp class. Ever since we turned in those “How am I doing?” survey’s - this Professor has just been awesome - a truly brilliant mind. If I could be half the teacher she is when I graduate I’d be ecstatic. Take that as you want.

But back to my question. If one could just let go of all their pretenses and just let the world move them…does that make them a bad person? Does it make them less intelligent? Or does it just make them a person who is secure in their own being? I have always hated those people that just go out to the bars to drink, have a good time and not worry what a fool they look like. Or those people who can just walk in a room and feel right at home. I want to be like that.

It’s not enough for me to succeed in my job and get good grades anymore…I want that to spill over into my personal life too. I want to learn and be able to express myself. I want to feel self-confident and let others know that I know what the hell I’m spewing about over the phone. I don’t want to second guess myself anymore. People know me as “sweet”, “innocent”, “childlike.” I want them to see me as an intelligent person, then as a nice person. Why is this so important to me? Perhaps if I give myself worth or validity for being who I think I am on the inside then I can let others see that. I spent so many years hiding on the inside because I thought if others saw the real me that they wouldn’t like me… and trust me, being liked its a major part of everyone’s lives.

I worked very hard to fly under everyone’s radar for so long - I want to know how on earth do I blast myself into the “oh my God. Look at me!” I don’t know but if it means having to start talking in class without raising my hand, or going out to bars just to introduce myself or volunteering at a Library just to get involved in my community I want to do it. If it means I have to buy a one person round trip plane ticket just to fly myself to a place I’ve never been just so I could say I went - I want it. There is so much world out there and I keep myself shut in, sheltered. I don’t let myself live and I’m sick of it. I want to excel in every single thing I put my mind to and damn it. I will.

Wow. Did you even hear something from one of your parents that really kind of shocked you? Something you think they never even noticed? My Mom is forever harping on me to go out and meet new people or make some friends (and I’m getting there, honest!) And last night I mentioned going to [New York] City on our vacation next month when we all go up for my cousin’s wedding. She said “Well, we have so many people to see and so many people want to see your sister and [brother-in-law] and we may not have the time.” She saw my face, walked over and said “You really got the short end of the stick all the way around. I’m sorry, Jame.” Needless to say I was sort of shocked.

I grew up in Jersey but at the young tween age I was moved (against my will, really) to Florida. By my senior year I was finally starting to accept things and enjoy life. I had a few friends - and then my sister moved down that year and moved across the coast (to where I am now). My parents decided that they wanted to move closer to her and started looking for a house over here. I was doing everything to see if I could afford to live by myself. A hundred-fifty dollars a week wasn’t going to cut it and so I had to uproot myself yet again and move with them and I lost all of those friends (I talk to some of them still - and while they all get to hang out I had to start over…again). So while my sister has these friends that go back from the time she was five - I have friends that maybe go back to the time I was fourteen if I’m lucky. To have one of my parents acknowlegde that they didn’t consider me when we moved really kind of made my anger-level on that aspect get better (at least a little bit). It’s because of those things in my life I decided a long time ago that once I had children I would do everything in my power to keep them in the same school and area their entire lives. While sometimes it can be enriching to move around and learn about different cultures, I think that as a child the stability of knowing where you’re home is, where you fit in is more beneficial than being cultural-savvy.

So, I went to the Halloween party the other night dressed as Abby from NCIS, my lab coat from CVS really came in handy (no I didn’t turn it in when I quit) (photo behind the cut)

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I am so relieved. I got a B on my math test on Monday. I was so worried that I’d flunked it - I am really not good at fractions. I can’t tell you how many times I did my homework and redid my homework and never got the right answers. I’m really proud of myself - and this chapter should be a little easier….hopefully. We also wound up watching Harrison Bergeron in my English Comp class. What a weird movie, very twisted. The angle of the movie is slightly sarcastic…almost a sort of parody of actuality. I really disliked the end of the movie…a lot. I felt like it was rushed. It was just like climax - end. To put it in a visual perspective, in my opinion it was like going up a steep mountain and then once getting to the top there was no slope downwards, it was just a sheer cliff right to the base of the mountain.

I think I’ve finally gotten that stomach flu that I’ve manged to avoid twice now. My sister and mother had it (didn’t get it). My coworkers had it (didn’t get it) and then this past weekend my mother had it again and all of the sudden tonight in math class, the world spun, I got very hot and clammy and I nearly passed out (but I was able to focus on my work and was able to concentrate enough to block the ‘urge’). I’m surprised I made it home in once piece and I don’t remember the drive home whatsoever (which is really, really, really bad). I almost passed out a second time after I got home and had to lay down with a cool towel pressed on my forehead. This really sucks because tomorrow (yes tomorrow) is a Halloween party that I’m invited to and I really want to go but I may not be able to if I can’t kick this bug.

Me, the girl who proclaims not to drink actually had a drink yesterday. Two actually (it was happy hour). I went out with a group of people from work and when I got there they kind of plopped the drink menu in my hand and looked at me expectantly. “This one is fruity, Jamie, you’ll like this one.” My co-workers know very well that I don’t drink or drink very often and only like fruity drinks and I wound up ordering a Calypso Cooler and it was pretty awesome. I know that I like rum (Malibu Rum) and this had Rum and Peach Schnapps in it, so I thought hey, it’s got to be good…and it was. I get super quiet when I drink and one of the girls leaned over and said “What, you talk a lot at work, and then when you get a drink in you, you shut up?!” We all had a good laugh over that one. It’s true, I am a motormouth, always have been.

Today I have to work on my fractions and I’ve finally just gotten pretty good at them (okay, do you know how hard it is to solve an equation that contains multiple fractions that are over fractions?! with variables?), I’ve got a test on that on Monday, I’ve also got to start doing my research for my comparison/contrast essay (I’m doing it on corporal punishment on children [i.e. spanking]) and this topic will be used for my persuasive essay. Personally, I feel that kids today get too much handed to them and parents are too afraid to deal with their children and just get walked all over. I feel that some children do not get the correction that they need and never learn that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction (one of the laws of physics). I am not for beating a child - I just feel that sometimes parents need to grow a backbone. I don’t know how to encorporate this into my essay though, because I don’t want to come off as “Yes! You should hit your child, always!” and I don’t want to come off as wishy washy and not make my point.

Alright, so it’s nearly eleven o’clock and I’m wasting the day just sitting here typing on my blog and I’m hoping that I get through with all of my math homework and some basic research for my paper today so that later on I can try and finish this yarn I’m using so I can move on to the next color. A few of you may remember that I had made a beautiful carrot and mocha colored Afghan last year, but I had left it over at the apartment and I realized that I didn’t have my own Afghan, so I’m working on a new one. This one has what I call the Grandma stitch (you don’t yo, you just put your hook through the next loop and yo and pull through two, I learned this from my grandmother). It makes a very, very heavy blanket - so in order to lighten it, I am also incorporating a triple stictch - so overall this blanket will be medium weight.

Edit: Here’s a great tip for everyone so they don’t get embarassed like I did. Make sure you double check your sources to verify if they are correct. Don’t let a bad source make a bad you appear uneducated and misinformed.