I know this is going to bring out a bit of my dorkier side, but I want to quote Harry Potter here.

"Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy."

Now, to a fellow nerd, one sees the context in the movie. What is happening is that Voldermort has just returned. Harry must realize that he is in mortal danger, even just living. He is the one that will have to fight him later.

As for real life, this seems to be quite applicable. The thing is that it is not in the times ahead. It is now. I'm planning my whole future or so it seems. Grad school is forcing its way into my life. I'm dealing with what seems like a million things right now. I feel like I just want to scream to the world that I'm done. Seriously. I can't handle all of this right now. I mean, if it isn't school kicking my butt, its friends or marriages or babies or something else that is going to drive me insane.

Dating is a story that fits in here. I've been on my fair share of dates lately. I'm pretty sure that the field has been drastically narrowed down, but once again this quote shows its usefulness. I'm going to be honest here. Dating is not an easy thing anymore. You either are the nice girl or the whore. The easy thing to do is just go along with whatever this dude says. This is becoming especially difficult for me. When I look into those eyes or feel the warmth of his embrace or hear the smooth, silky words coming out of a handsome man's mouth, I just want to melt. The thing that I have to decide to do is to stick up for myself. I have to do what is right. I have to go up and say that I'm not dealing with it anymore. And, if history will repeat itself like it has done in the past monthish, they will not see the appeal and decide I'm not worth their time. Well, you know what? You obviously aren't worth mine.

In review of all this and life recently, I notice that I have done the right thing. By no means is it easy. I have lost friends and potential boys over the fact. But at the end of the day, I have to know that all is fine. I mean, in this world you will have troubles. There is no question. It is what you do during those tribulations that shows who you really are. You can be the man or the mouse. Your true character comes out during these times. God gives us a peace. Through all this, the thrill of life is still present. If life was truly good all the time, we would not appreciate it as much. One has to take the bad with the good. It is something that we all must battle. And life is a battle. As so is your heart. You must fight for it. Live for it. Strive to protect it.

I Am Changed to Bring Change

Alright. So not all change is bad. And not all things that seem bad really are. I mean, they can be, but they can be used for good. Not many people know all the hardships I go through on a daily basis, but they truly have made me stronger. If I didn't go through my own crazy depression, I probably wouldn't have the heart for what I am doing now. To Write Love On Her Arms has inspired me to help these people. And it is derrick who has challenged to not just be a butt in the seat. So, you know what? I've been changed. To bring change. That is why I am here. And because I have Christ, I have a hope. I have the hope to live and thrive.

On the other side of things, I'm getting tired of this whole dating/engagement/marraige/baby thing. I mean, does everyone have to get engaged now? So, thats great for them. It really is. I'm happy for you. I really am. But please, you don't have to flaunt it each time you get. Really. You don't.

Love my life. Except for the popcorn burns. Which I'm going to the doctor for tomorrow. :(

Change

Life right now is getting pretty interesting. I know that the world is changing. It has to. New things must be created. I'm aware that the world is turning so things must change. But here's the thing, I'm scared of change. Thats just the truth. Right now I have to get out and actually be an adult. I'm out there doing so many things. To Write Love UNF is slowly coming along. With everything that I'm doing in life, I just can't do it on my own. So, I set up a facebook group asking if anyone would even be interested in being a part of it. I need people. I mean, you can't have a student club without students. Just doesn't work. So, its two days later and there are currently 38 people asking if they can be a part of it. You have no idea how much this makes me smile.

On a bit of a sadder note, I feel more alone than ever. Has everyone left me? I mean, seriously. I have friends, but even they are getting fewer by the days. Maybe its just me going a bit crazy, but I miss people. I feel as if I want to do all these things but can't. I want to go out. I want to be back on the dating scene. I want to go out being pretty. I want to get awesome grades. I want to do TWLOHA UNF. I want to take a road trip. I want to go out kayaking in the still of the morning. I want to travel. I want to go to a different country. I want to experience different things. I just feel like I'm by myself in all of this. But its like one of my friends said the other day. Life is changing for the better. Just think about the good stuff. Don't dwell on the bad. I will be okay. I just have to focus on the good.

A Miracle In Statistics

I can't believe this is happening. I feel as if I'm going to scream any time soon. Some of you might be dying to hear the story, so I'm gonna tell you. :)

I was in class today and my stats professor comes up to me and tells me that he would like to speak to me after class. I'm freakin out right now. I'm thinking that I've done something wrong or something is wrong in general. I have no idea. Finally the end of class rolls around and I go and talk with him. When I'm talking with him, I am so nervous. I feel as if I'm a kid again being sent to the principle's office. He says that he has looked at my file and thinks that there might be something special there. I'm wondering what the hell he is talking about. He then goes into greater detail. He asks me if I'm interested in going to graduate school. (For those that don't know, to do anything productive and pertaining to psychology, you have to at least get your masters degree.) I reply in a very hasty yes. He then turns to me and then says that he is impressed that I am a math minor. He then advises me that I might want to do a math major with a psych minor. The only thing is that I'm not sure if the college will allow me to do so. Also, I'm afraid that I will be here at UNF longer than I planned on being here. Then I think to myself, why is he asking all these questions. Turns out that this guy is a recruiter for NYU. Thats right kids. New York University. In the very heart of the Big Apple. Once I heard this my heart started to beat like a rabbit running through the forest. So, he tells me that he is going to talk with his buddies from up there and is going to see what he can do. I know that I'm not going to grad school for another two years, but it is good to prepare. If I have any problems, with the dean or with getting into grad school, he said he would be willing to help in any way he could. What a great guy.

I'm scared as ever, but how great is that? I'm going to be the first person in my family to go into graduate school! Thats a pretty big accomplishment. NYU would be a great school to go to, but I'm also looking at the University of Houston along with some others. If you have any suggestions, please, leave me a note.

I thought this was funny. And appropriate in a way. :)

Movie Review and Life Application

Alright. Movie review time. So, as some of you readers know, I work at a movie theater to try and work my way through college. A perk to my job is that I get to see free movies. The other day I went and saw All About Steve. Pretty good movie actually. I loved the underlying message. I don't want to give it away, but here is the jist. There's this girl Mary who is a crossword puzzle maker for a local newspaper. She gets set up with this guy and then follows him partly on foot, then with her friends in an old Gremlin. :) Eventually they meet up and stuff happens and...well, you can figure out the rest if you want to.

But, what I really got out of this is the importance of words. It has dimished in our society a bit, but to a good extent, we still focus on the importance of words. This movie reminded me of my freshmen semester where I took Art of Communication. As you probably guessed, it was all about the importance of words and the way that our society reacts to communication of all kinds, particuarly the verbal kind. Anyways, back to the movie. So, pretty much Mary's whole life is words. In the end, she notices that words take a toll. They can make you sad, annoyed, pissed, happy, stressed, even maybe fall in love. It can bring you up, take you down or maybe even get you a promotion.

I never really thought about the importance of words before. It was simply a means of communication for a long time. I love the fact that whatever noise that comes out of my mouth is premeditated and brings something with it. It could be meaning or showing an attiutude or entertaining. (thank you english majors) But seriously. Think about it. We say words everyday and they always have different meanings associated with them. But think about this. Who gave these words power in the first place? Who made it horrible to curse? Who gave certain words power or no power at all? Just something to think about.

If you want to learn more about this, let me know. I have books all about this subject.

David Bohm's On Dialogue.

Farb's Word Play.

Overall rating: 3 stars

I think this is one of my roughest weeks to date. Everything has popped up. I have three tests, two quizzes and a paper due this week. The only thing I'm excited about is about the end of the week. But, on a good note, I got rid of a paper, a quiz and a test today. Being the dorky person that I am, I did something kinda weird. On my cognitive psych test, I could not remember for the life of me anything to do with Thorndike. So, being the complete geek that I am, I did a calculus problem on the back of my test. (The volume of a rotating shape to be exact.) I can just imagine what my professor is going to say.

On another note, much more sadder than before, I've been feeling really crappy. I'm pretty sure I let another great thing in my life go. Twice in my life I have experienced love. Twice in my life I have pushed it out of my life. They might have been for good reasons, but I still regret these decisions in a way. I wish that I could fix some of these things. But I need to go on. I have to be strong. I don't need a man always beside me. I have one. Granted he doesn't walk with me or talk audioably, but he is always with me. It might just be me. I mean, I'm not exactly one that welcomes love into my life with open arms. I'm always just considered one of the guys. I'm never the girl they want to date. And whynot? Why can't I be that girl that you can sit down and watch the game with? Why can't I be the girl that helps you work on your hidden Chevelle that is sitting in your garage? (sorry, its just the way I was raised) Why can't I be the one that sits by your side when you go fishing for hours? I'm that girl to begin with. Why can't I find a guy that appreciates me for me and will respect me for that?

I would love to find someone like that. I'm sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings by posting this, but it is simply the way the cookie crumbles. I would like to make it work. I have been around some amazing guys (single, yes) that I would love to date. The thing is that they are either gay, taken or oblivious to the fact that I have an interest in them. Good job guys. In their defense, I am quite a complicated girl. Because I have been raised primarily by a man, I am much like a guy. I have more guy friends than girls. (most times because I can't take the drama) I like to do "guy" stuff.

A break from that crap. I've been learning a lot more about life due to my psych classes. I love how people are defining things. I love how my professors talk about life and how the mind works and how to help people during different situations or stages in life. It really is astounding how complicated how the mid is. I know you didn't come to my blog to learn about psychology, but here it is. You should see where we come from. Not all of our workings has to do with someone laying on a couch and us asking them "And how does that make you feel?" We are so much more than that. You are so much more than that. My professor gave some key definitions that I am going to have to show on the test tomorrow morning. A couple of my favorites are as follows.
Purpose - the courage to envision and pursue goals guided by conscience without being paralyzed by guild or fear of punishment.
Wisdom - an active detached concern with life in the face of death.
Despair - signified by fear of death, not being happy with what you have done in life.
How amazing is that? I mean seriuosly.

I Shall Be The Hopeful

TWLOHA has a fairly new shirt out, as shown below.

I will be the hopeful. So much stuff is going on in life that I have to be hopeful. It seems like life is falling apart, but I know I can't go back to the way things were. I can't. If I did, my life would be worse than it is now. Hopefully sometime in the future I will be able to have things the way things were, but for now, I have to be strong in my position.

September 10th was World Suicide Prevention Day. This really got me thinking. I have lost friends to suicide. I will not lose another. This is another reason why I want to go into psychology. Why I want to open my rehab center. Why I want to help others. No family, no friend, no acquaintance, no teacher, no doctor should go through that pain, seeing what happens or what comes out of that particular action.

People don't know what is really happening in my life. And I'm sort of fine with that. I'm just going through a lot of pain. A lot of decisions must be made. For one of the first times in my life, this is truly my decision. I'm not consulting my parents. I am paying for these actions. This is truly something that I must do. Not my parents. Not my friends. Not my doctors. Me. I must do this. I hate to deny this access into my life to the people I love dearly, but that is the way it must be. I will tell you along the way what I am willing to divulge.

In conclusion, my heart is still breaking. Not only for romantic reasons, but also for humanity. I cannot stand this pain, but there is worse pain than this. I just want to help those who are going through this pain.

Help me Christ to get through this season in my life. Thank you for bringing me new friends and for continually sending the old ones back. Without which I would not survive. Let me show love to the world. Help me to get through my days with the hope and joy that I have in you.

I feel like my heart is about to just fail. It has been broken and now it is facing yet another hardship. Its bad enough about life, but now that something else is wrong with me physically, I feel as if I'm going to scream again. I have to go to the doctor soon to check everything out. My heart hurts. I've been crying for four days. I want to stop. Life seems to be nothing but pain. The other day I saw this man with a tattoo on his neck. It said "Love is pain, but sometimes the cure for pain is pain itself." Little did I know that this would be applicable to my life in a few days in the future. What seems to get me through these days is the love that I am receiving from my friends, both here in jax or around the USA. I am blessed to have these people in my life. Without them I would probably go insane.

Even though my life is absolute crap at the moment, I am reminded of what Christ tells me. I am never going to have a situation that I don't have the potential to handle. I have been given a spirit of courageousness, not of timidity. I can handle this. It will just take a bit of time. As long as I keep myself busy, I think I'll be okay. I've been coping in different ways than most people. Take these past couple of days. My ways of coping is:
1) cooking large amounts of food. Those of you who have been around me lately know that the other night I cooked pork wrapped in bacon in a mango sauce, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, diced potatoes in a buttermilk cream sauce, bread sticks, salsa, queso and two different salads.
2) working out till I about drop. I'm exhausted. I lift weights and did a bit of boxing.

I'm working on this. I'm trying my best. I need to get over this. Life is testing me and I want to soar above expectations and soar on the wings of the eagles.

It's Amazing How Life Works Out

This week seems to be a week of reflection. I've been looking back on my life and I'm starting to realize something. Yes, I've had hard times, but you know what? I love my life. It is my gift. A couple of days ago I started to freak out and had a quarter life crisis I guess you could say. Everyone around me is either getting engaged, married or popping out a kid. This is great and I'm happy for everyone, but I'm only 20. My ovaries aren't going to dry up any time soon. I have time. All the same, I look back and I see my life could have taken different turns. For example,

1. I could have been married by now. If I would have kept a boyfriend and not scared them off or dumped them, I could have a nice shiny rock on my finger and most likely a kid either crawling around or in my belly.

2. I could have been a contender.... (sorry. Had to do it)

3. I could have been a professional weightlifter, on my way to the olympics. Yeah I know. Pretty excellent. I could be having full training days, watching every single thing I eat, and no life.

Now someone might look at these and think Why didn't you do one of these? They both sound like excellent options. Or someone is probably asking why didn't you take up the olympic offer? How many people get the option to do that in their lives? I answer you with this statement. I love my life. I am content with it right now. I love the fact that I am in school, pursuing my dream. I have a wonderful guy in my life. I'm working a job, trying to put myself through college with no debt once I get out. I'm busting my butt to try and make it. Of course it is hard, but I love every minute of it. It took me a couple of days to realize this, but I'm good now. I think. I wouldn't trade a minute of it.

Broken Hearts

Something that has recently been on my mind lately is something that has already been discussed in my life. My heart needs to be broken again. I've slipped into that spiral of contentment. The only thing that I seem to care about is my own selfish desires. I want to see the hurt out there and do something about it. And I want people to look at this world and see that people need help. As Christians, we are called to this. We are called to these people. How can we sit anymore and not do anything? What good is a whole bunch of lights in one place. We need to go out. We need to do something.

How can you know about these children being tortured and taken from their homes and forced to be soldiers and not do anything. Not even pause and pray?

How can you know that this is what people are doing around you and you just look and turn your head, pretend that it is not there? This is real life. Deal with it. Be there for your peers. Be the hope in their life.

To Write Love...UNF

My past is exactly that. My past. My present is the gift that each day brings. I haven't exactly been the best in the world and I am fully aware of that. I have struggled with depression for about 10 years now and have been making improvements in the past year thanks to my friends, family, therapists, and an organization called To Write Love On Her Arms. During my darkest days, these people would make sure I was doing well, showing me love that I didn't know that they were able to give.

A little bit before Christmas of last year, Derrick (from Access) gave us each a task. We had been talking about things that should break our hearts for a while on wend. nights. It seemed that God himself was looking at me, poking me, urging me to do this. I would simply look to the sky and just look, saying Really? Anyways, after much arguing, I knew my cause. To Write Love on Her Arms was not only something that dealt with something that broke my heart, but it was something I already had some experience with as it helped me.

Then came my decision. I emailed TWLOHA and asked if they were interested in doing chapters of this non profit organization on college campuses. I knew the hurt that I went through. I never want any single person to feel this pain by themselves. I see the hurt on my peer's faces walking to class or their cars. I want to help. I feel as if I have this light and I need to share it. What good light when it is kept in one place? Unexpectedly, I received an email saying that they would love to do this. Another affirmation from God. This kept on hurting more than you know. And so the process began.


As I worked more and more with TWLOHA, I realized that this is what I want to do with my life. I want to help people get through this. I know the hurt and I feel like I can relate to them on a real level. I've been there. I want to help. I was made for such a time as this. Then came some thoughts into my head.


1. What if the pain I was feeling was not for me? What if I was given this pain to help other people not experience by themselves. What if this pain was not meant to torture me? What if it was there to help?

2. What if my life is an answer to someone else's prayers? What if someone 10-20 years ago had this same passion? They might have been praying for ages, waiting to see this happen? Have they been praying that this campus would find the light and get through their depression, addictions, self injury or even suicide attempts?


All this time I was wondering if this was real. How am I supposed to do this? I mean, I'm just one person. How am I supposed to do all this by myself? Getting a whole campus to come out and talk about suicide, depression, addictions, etc is not going to be an easy task. Getting them to get help is an even harder task. If you look at the facts, 121 million people deal with depression worldwide, 18 of those are in the US. God just seemed to kinda give me a smack in the face, telling me that he will provide. Lo and behold, my roommate (the most amazing one ever) volunteered to help. Blessing from God she is. Then, everything just seemed to fall into place. It was amazing. I was able to go to the conference for TWLOHA and met some absolutely amazing people, experiencing the most love ever. I was challenged and encouraged and broken and elated. Such an awesome time.


If you are wondering about the status of this, keep tuned. To Write Love UNF is coming...slowly. There is much work to be done and I would love help. For more info, see the website twloha.com.

Love is there. Hope is present. Rescue is possible.

Photography

I know I'm not that good, but I love taking pictures of whatever I see. I thought you could use a preview of whats to come, so here it goes.

The roses in Paris

A paso in Spain


The best picture I think I have ever taken. (La Rabida)

A streetway in Trujillo, Spain

A gateway into another land - Spain

Friends

I have the best friends in the world. If you don't believe me, thats too bad. They helped me through good times and bad. This is my little thank you to all of them. Y'all are amazing.
These are my "Nerd Buddies" as we are called. Friends since high school, they still are the best. We still keep up with each other. The only male is married to an absolutely amazing woman, the others are like me and on the journey. Thank you all!

As for current, my colleagues as you call them are wonderful. They have opened my eyes to wonderous things such as technical music pieces, crazy literature, David Tennant, plenty of your mom jokes as well as things that you might not want to hear. :)

My Favorite Place

I was fortunate enough in my life to be raised in a home that was able for me to be able to travel. Student Leadership University was something that I knew was going to impact me when I first arrived. SLU is a leadership program (as the title insists) that takes high schoolers and tries to give them a 10 to 15 year head start in life. In my third year of this adventure, I was able to visit London, Paris, Normandy and Oxford. I found that my favorite place in the world was here. Standing inside Notre Dame, loving the architecture and people calming down for once, admiring the past, anticipating the future.