good bye...

To whom it concerns,

It is never how it seems at first. You think it may be one of the hardest classes or the easiest. I thought this class was going to be easy, but it was not. My college writing 1 was a breeze and I figured college writing 2 was going to be too. After I received my first grade on a documentary summary paper, I got a C. That is not like me at all. My heart dropped when I saw the grade written on the last page of the paper. I was horrified and angry because I knew my work was worth a A. This C made me work my butt off to get myself the next A on a paper. As much as I hated seeing a C on my work, this C motivated me. I am one of the most stubbornest person anyone would meet. So you can imagine that when I got a C, that was going to change. The hardest challenge was to overcome the way I think and feel about certain topics. This was definitely was not my favorite thing to do, but I knew and realized that it was for the better. I was so angry at first that the way I thought was the only way or the highway, but with the help of dr. bonnie lenore kyburz, she was able to gradually make me rethink everything. I do not know how she did this, but I am grateful she did. I discovered how to make complex and articulate complex thoughts. One of my greatest works that showed that I changed from the beginning of the semester till now, the end of the long haul, is the paper I wrote about drugs. The perspective of why people do drugs. I started off hating drugs. Nothing was gonna change me. Anyone who did drugs, I hated them too. It was so hard for me to even get out of the hateful mind set. When I typed out my first rough draft, it was barely three paragraphs long. It was straight to the point and argumentative. No curiosity or understanding or feelings for those who did drugs. After sitting down with dr. bonnie lenore kyburz, we had a long chat about my paper and why I was the way I was. By having this conversation, it opened my eyes and my mind. I started to rethink my own question and how and why people do drugs. I thought about their possible situation, where they grew up, and who were they surrounded by. I listed out ways to why they would have been exposed to drugs. I was so focused on negatives (not saying that drugs are a good thing) and not about the positives, being that it may be their only last resort from all the negatives in their life. Comparing my draft from then to now, I miraculously changed from stubborn to reasonable and understanding. I was able to put myself in a uncomfortable situation and become aware of those who do drugs. I am beyond proud that I was able to get myself where I am today than I was from the beginning of the semester. I absolutely love this class. I am never excited about going to class, but I always looked forward to going. This says a lot because I do not like a lot of things, besides my dog and fiancé. I wish I did not fought and stressed myself throughout the semester because I was missing out on the best way of learning about life, politics and education. I absolutely loved this class. I could not have asked for a better experience and I would retake this class in a heart beat. I was pushed beyond my limits and I would not have asked for someone else to do so. Thank you dr. bonnie lenore kyburz. I am able to say that I love writing.

Looking at my work for the micro-theme paper, it is evident to see the tone I was using was not appropriate to the prompt description. 

A Friend Named Mary Jane 

SMH

high

My chronological order of my emotions from the beginning to the end of the semester:    Felt like I was prepared for CW2

 Then quickly realized I wasn't

             I asked for helped and began to practicing what was brilliantly taught  so I can become the best writer to my abilities

After all the help and writing paper after paper, I felt successful in my writing abilities. From this day on, I am the shiny unicorn that I was shaped to be.

THANK GOD

THANK GOD

This past weekend has been eventful. Besides it being almost the end of the semester, a lot of things happened. First, my boyfriend got a interview for a new job which I was very excited for, then my mother had to get surgery on Friday and then Saturday night, my sister needed to go to the emergency room. I was thankful that my boyfriend was able to help me through this all. Spending time with my mother, carrying my sister to the car and into the house and then staying up till 3 am dealing with my sister and my mother. I am looking forward to finishing the last full week of school and looking towards to sleep well at night.

#stress #freedom

EMPLOYED

EMPLOYED...

HELLLLOOOOOO SHOPAHOLICS

It is that time of the year where America becomes broke all at once. Happy Black Friday to all. Since I pretty much quit my job, I am helping out my sister by working at her job Land's End for the day with my boyfriend. Not to mention, I had gotten into a minor car accident the other day. All I wanted to do was to fill out the paper work, but apparently getting hit by the car was necessary to get the job. Thanksgiving was a good turn out. Every girl in the family apparently did not bring their boyfriend's to dinner so I did not feel left out.

#stillsalty #mademoney #spentitall #broke

AT LAST

AT LAST.....the weekend is here. Betcha y'all thought I was gonna sing "my looovveeeeee has come along_______" 

Well...this weekend for me my love has disappointed me. As cheesy as the song is, I had bittersweet sweet feelings this weekend. I was happy that I did not have to go to class, but I was not happy that my man gave me false hope that he was going to spend Thanksgiving with me. He got me hyped about spending time with my family when he decided to ditched me the last minute. You can imagine how upset I was. I just wanted to have him for Thanksgiving since I was not going to have him for Christmas. I am secretly hoping something pops up and his plans are cancelled.

....is that too selfish?

#justwantaperfectchristmas

WRONG

Wrong---Wrong---Wrong---sounds familiar?

Reading "Art in Island" written by Laura C. Mallonee was really  enjoyable, especially when she provided photos within her article. On the other hand, deciphering her diction is much harder to understand. For such a small article, I could not believe that writing a summary analysis paper would be 3-5 pages long because there is only 5 short paragraph. I feel that writing this paper is going to be struggle for me once more again. Let's see how this ends...

Anything agrument related is my favorite topic. I love arguing and debating. When it comes to understanding the elements of argument, I am not confident what it is exactly, but I will do my best with arguing that I do indeed understand. If I was to say what it is, the elements of argument is having the resources of support to back up the statement that is being made. These sources also need to be reputable in order to support the full claim that is being made. I have heard of this before all through my education. It is commonly taught the same in all my classes.

I am very aware that I know a lot about argument because I am always defending myself everyday, even if it is something simple. I typically end up googling what I am trying to prove right or wrong. I am usually good with defending my case because I do find credible sources that trumps their case. I am ready for my argument essay. I am ready to argue.
 

stay high...

Let's just say I am super proud of what video and I hope who ever is out there enjoys my creation!

https://splice.gopro.com/v?id=7pLdlynp0

This process was a long haul for me. I figured that writing one page was not going to hard, but I was wrong. I really thought that I did a good job with my first draft until I had to write it out like five more times. Each time I wrote a new draft, I just keep getting more frustrated each time. I wanted to give up, but if you know me, I am not that kind of person. So with that in mind, I seek out for help at the writing center and then talked to the lovely dr. bonnie kyburz.

Setting aside time and editing the draft that I had at the time, I was able to finally wrap my brain around my mircotheme. I was able to finally see it and understand it for the first time. I do not know why I was so upset throughout the entire time I was trying to write this. My opinion is still 'don't do drugs,' but I can understand why people do it. It amazes me that I can say and see from that perspective cause I am very strong headed. I honestly think that was pushing me back from it all is that I know people that only had the worst outcomes from it all...DUI's, homeless, jobless, jail time, over doses, deaths... My boyfriend really helped me understand and opened my eyes about the topic because he is one of the people that I know that had a rough time in the past and is paying the consequences now.

After presenting my final work, I was able to finally breathe. I felt trapped with this paper. I was so happy though that the over all project was more of a life lesson. It opened my eyes and really made me more curious. My video really showed how both the deep, dark side to drugs and having quotes that was "positive" about drugs helped express the overall lesson that I learned...understanding people's choices and reasoning.

Headless

Running Around With My Head Cut Off

I am at the point where I am even clueless about my microtheme. I know what I want to write about, just having the problem how to write it and how the grader is going to like my writing. I feel that my topic is a good topic, it is just not showing through my writing apparently. I have really been struggling with this paper because I am now on my third draft and hoping that I do not need to rewrite a forth.

I can see what I am doing wrong, but I also see where I can be right also. I guess it comes down to how I word things and probably would have helped if I did not give my opinion in the first draft. My opinion seems to be the main problem, but I have not really restated it in the to the other drafts. I want to know if my topic is garbage now because of my opinion? if it is...I think it is very unfair if that is the case. I really thought this paper was on a topic we hate. The example used to explain the microtheme paper started with "I hate" which is what I used in my first draft.

I am confused now...

Suffocating

Struggling...like putting on a pair of skinny jeans

This microtheme for being so "TINY" is really kicking my butt "BIG" time. Just when I thought I got the paper down, something always seems to come back biting. Literally every time I try to write something that I think it is great, then I pretty much get told my paper is garbage without having to say the actual words. Trust me I get it....paper sucks, move on.

Soooo for this "TINY" project, I have re wrote my paper two times and I am planning on writing another draft. I do not know what to do any more. Should I re write my topic of the paper? or just stick with what I have and work off what I have been writing? PPLLEEAASSEE someone, something....give me a sign.

Bottoms UP

Breath—

Everyone... breath in and breath out. It's FRIDAY! This has been the first Friday that I can finally say "IT'S FRIDAY." The sigh of relief to finish my management exam and to turn in my paper was the best feeling I've had in a while. I couldn't believe that it was possible to get the paper done and study (sorta) on time. Although I did break down and cry a total of three times, those cries was worth it. Not only did it relieve stress, but it made me see how much my "boyfriend" does care about me. As much as I probably freaked him out, he never left my side.

Bring on the next project cause I'm ready.

Cheers. Let the weekend begin!

Check List

Lets Get Personal>>>Not to Personal

As I continue to work on my summary documentary paper, I find that it is very overwhelming. I get flustered even thinking about it. Instead of breaking down like I did, twice, if any one was wondering... lets see if a check list will prevent me from having another.

THINGS THAT I HAVE DONE AND NEED TO DO BEFORE FRIDAY SEPT 30TH:

• Pick out a documentary and watch it*                                       
• Re-watch the documentary and take notes*                                
• Select important scenes*                                                             
• Open Word and start typing*                                                                                                
• Have a mini break down*
• Wipe off tears and grab a snack*
• Continue typing*
• Attend class to realize that my paper is potentially garbage*
• Continue typing*
• Ask for help*
• Revise my paper*
• Continue to find more help*
• Use advice and revise*
• Have another mini break down*
• Continue to ask for help again*
• Revise some more
• Pray 
• Re-read paper one last time
• Pray some more
• Turn in summary documentary paper

* = completed the task

Seriously, WHY

MERP

I'm starting to get a feeling that every Wednesdays are not "hump back Wednesday." Unfortunately it is much worse. Luckily I wasn't schedule to work this week because my boss wanted me to "catch up" on everything..yeah that wasn't the case at all.

School was a joke. I feel like Lewis knew that I didn't have to work till Friday night so it found a way to keep me at school every single day. Something always came up out of no where and I had to be there in person to deal with it. I don't think I would have mind so much if I lived on campus, but I don't. I live with my parents/boyfriend which is 30 minutes away from the school. I get the commute isn't far until you calculate all the traffic and lousy drivers on the street. I literally fill up my gas every five days from all the driving back and forth to school and work. I'm so terrified to look at my credit card with all the gas I've been needing to buy. If gas was back down to $1.14 or heck even cheaper, I don't think I would be as worried.

I'm at the point now of having to decided to figure out if I need to cut back on hours at work, get a new job that is closer to Lewis or just become a bum and live life in peace with no worries. As much as I would rather take the easy way out and be a bum, I know I can't. It wouldn't be beneficial for me, my boyfriend, or my parents. It's just sucks that nothing is handed to you and things are just "simple" when it comes to living. Simple to me is that once we graduate high school, we are automatically assigned a career path that we have to take. This career will be able to cover the cost of daily living and spending expenditures for you and your family. You'll be assigned an arranged marriage with your soul mate and a house that is all paid for you to live in with the love of your life.

Honestly, how simple will it be if life was already planned out? You wouldn't have to think and stress yourself out trying to find the perfect guy or deciding on what you want to be. Some would say that life is planned out depending because of their faith or religion that they follow. Being a catholic myself, I don't fully believe in the things that we claim that we do. The mantra I follow is that shit happens and life goes on. If that was God intentions then I'm kind of stuck with it. Like after the last two weeks straight so far has been SUPER TERRIFIC for me.

There has to be a reason why I've been stuck dealing with bad and uncomfortable situations these past weeks. I just don't know what's there to come for me...hopefully something good in return.

Lesson #5: Think of your future goals and make a check off list. The more you check off, the closer you will be to your fuuutttuuurrreee—

Just remember to worry less and smile more

Mic Drop

 Welcome to Hell Week

I'm sure many of us can relate. Let me lay out my schedule that I had for this week.

Monday: School, work, sorority
Tuesday: Work, sorority
Wednesday: School all day
Thursday: School, work
Friday: School, Work

Tell me...where do I breath? I don't. What I do do is break down crying—in my "boyfriend's" closet. Yes, that's right, crying like a baby and trying to grasp for air. My breaking point was when we got assigned two papers that was due on Monday. I was clueless on what to exactly due because I have never done a summary paper. I was already stressed from all the work I was doing (school and job). I couldn't figure out when I was exactly going to have time to do these papers.

I'm a tough girl more than half of the time. So for me to break down crying was like a first and for me to cry in front of someone, it had to be really bugging me to make me get to this point.
As pathetic as it sounds, I ended up crying to my boss because when I was trying to explain how my week was, a river of endless tears started streamed down my face at work. I'm so embarrass that this happened that my boyfriend doesn't even knows and I literally tell him every little, stupid details about anything.

The ending to this week wasn't so bad just because my boyfriend and I got tickets to go to the Cubs game in Sunday for our anniversary.  

Lesson #4: Don't try bottling up your emotions. It's stressful and has hard as you may try, itms going to end up coming out one way or another. Keep it real and stay true to your self.

Walk It Out

A Walk to Remember

Don't start "aww-ing" everyone, at least not at once.

As we all know, this past weekend was Labor Day. Well for me, it wasn't really a break. I got stuck with baby sitting my boyfriend's dog. Yes, I know that no one is ever "stuck" with doing something, but in this case I kind of was. At first I was being nice, but as usual guys don't ever get a HINT.

I had always spend Labor Day weekend with my family by going to my camp ground, Woodhaven Lakes. You can probably guess that this didn't happened...well you're definitely right. So my family left me Thursday night to go camping since they realized that I want going to be able to join them this weekend. Also my boyfriend had left the next morning to head down to ISU. This is a whole other topic that I can keep on talking about, but I'm going to keep it short and save this talk for another time. Let's just say I'm not fond of his best friend...

My boyfriend needed me to watch his dog on Sunday. You may ask why I didn't go with my parents then came back early so I can watch the dog. I have my reasonings people. One I had school and two, I worked Thursday and Friday night. It made no sense for me to go for a day on Saturday, just to come back to get the dog Sunday morning from his parents. Since I was home alone all weekend, I was really pissed that I couldn't be with my family. I just felt the it was so unfair because I mentioned to my boyfriend that every year I go camping for Labor Day. I apparently I wasn't clear enough because he felt that going to ISU was way more important. As a girl, I didn't let it bother me at first, but he soon came to realize the I was not happy at all.

Sunday comes around the corner and I have to pick him up from the train station. Not only was it scared to go pick him up very late at night, I was super pissed that my whole weekend was ruined. I ended up just blowing it over because I was to meet my boyfriend's dad side of the family the next day.

Labor Day arrives and I am super nervous. I'm stressing out now about my first impression on his family. I went through four outfits before deciding on THE outfit. We end up going to the city to eat at "Yolk" for breakfast which I highly recommend. Then from there walked to Lincoln Park Zoo. Passing by all the complexes, my boyfriend and I were just endless dreaming of getting our own place one day. We were throwing ideas out left to right. It was so romantic. As we walked through the zoo, we were sharing our aspirations and dreams. It was really nice to know that he sees me as part of his future. The really really cool thing is that he was being serious about it.

By the end of the week...I became more than just a "girlfriend."

Lesson #3: Things are never as expected. Sometimes you need to hop on the next train and see where it takes you.

Float

~JUST KEEEEP SWIMMING, JUST KEEEEP SWIMMING~

This is truly all we can do...just keep on swimming through life and dodge whatever is coming your way. The famous, wise fish, Dory, perfectly lives by this mantra and is the prime example of following through her own advice. Not so many people can say that they just take life day by day or even follow others or their own advice like Dory does. I wanna say that I do, but that is never the case sometimes.

In "This is Water," the speech throws reality in everybody's face unexpectedly...kind of how life really is. You never now what is exactly going to hit you until it may be too late to do anything about it. Not only did this opened my eyes and changed my perspective on how I view my own life, but I realized that I should not focus on how crappy I think my life may be. Honestly, more than half of the time if not all the time, others definitely have it worst than me. "This is water" did a superb job with delivering the message of "life."  The use of rhetoric, moved the audience with the tone that was vocalized by the author which made it authentic. Along with background music that followed through with the linguistics, hearing this speech not only got me thinking and teary eyed, watching the video itself was a different matter. The video/images that was used were very realistic. This made it easy to help the audience relate to everyday life situations that we face.

It amazes me how much we as an individual focus on ourselves only, even though we consistently judge everyone. We may not even notice that we are doing this, but this is a constant battle we face on a daily basis rather it's judging ourselves or others. Life is all about judging and worrying about ourselves and we shouldn't stop according to "This is water." It is clear that we have to be mindful that others may be in the same boat, if not, they probably are already sinking to rock bottom.


As sad, happy, angry and lovely life may be, never stop caring about yourself and be lucky that you're even alive to witness all the terrible and wonderful crap life has to offer.

Lesson #2: Stick and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt... Before you go out and start judging everyone hard core, just stop and think~ what makes you superior than them? Why do they deserve to be judged and made fun of? Do you even know why they are the way they are? ~ be thankful for the opportunities that life has to offer. You never know what others are going through.

Luckily Survived

WHAT A WEEEEEEEEEK!

Let me just start off by congratulating everyone for surviving their first week back from summer break. It took a lot of strength and fake smiles to get through it all!!

I am one of those weirdos who apparently (tries) set goals for the year, but seems to never really accomplish them... I am about to prove myself wrong because I am determine to stick to my goals!
Goal #1: Focus on my studies (like for real this time)
Goal #2: Do not let the little things frustrate me
Goal #3: Try to loose weight (at least like a pound so I can brag)
Goal #4: If I forget about what my goals are...then I should hope for the best.

Returning back to school was a sweet surprise because I was shocked to how well it all went. All my teachers inspired me as cheesy as it sounds. I absolutely loved hearing my teacher's life path stories of how they ended up teaching...me. It was interesting that none of my teachers actually wanted to be a teacher. It was apparently an accident. This definitely opened up my eyes.

This past Wednesday, I got the opportunity to express all my feelings in my journal during CW2 (College Writing 2). I am really appreciative for this time because I had a lot of my mind. I was even more grateful that the comment discussed in class was able to spark some useful discussions like dealing with judgements, learning from your mistakes from the past and understanding that nothing is ever going to go your way all the time.

I will embrace upon this discussion and never forget this week.

Lesson #1: There are going to be many bumps on the road. It is up to you to learn how to roll with it.