Continuing from July "The New Guy"

OK last time I left off with I had met with Hannibal and we spent the entire day together. We walked around Downtown, talked, ate and then we both caught the train and went home or rather he went home I went and crashed with a friend of mine. Well after that day he and I kept talking we'd talk on Facebook for hours, we'd talk on the phone constantly we were becoming friends. I know what you're thinking "I thought you guys were already friends" well as I had also said we used to work together and then I left Home Depot to focus on school so we didn't really speak to each other for about 6 years. It wasn't until the summer before I started school that we talked again and then met up with a friend of ours to catch up and then he and I went ice-skating together (where I didn't fall! Yay!). Then after that we didn't speak for about 6 months.

Then one day he texted me completely out of the blue and told me he and his girlfriend broke up, to make an extremely long story short we started talking everyday either on the phone or Facebook and at times we talked 3 or 4 times a day. At first I'll admit it got annoying to hear my phone ring and have it be him, but I guess the shrink mode in me couldn't help it and I'd pick up the phone and listen to him go on and on about his ex.Hannibal also told me it seemed as though a lot of his friends were getting tired of him rambling on and tormenting himself. After a few weeks he seemed to be doing better and then he developed a crush on another girl, and he told her and she not only rejected him but told him they could fool around instead because she was keeping herself available for her ex-loser boyfriend.

Well needless to say then came another set of weeks of him being upset all over again and who was there for him? That's right....me, finally one day I got fed up and ranted and scolded him, (I was having a bad day and I was pretty irritated and I took it out on him) I believe my exact words to him "Oh my freaking god!! Really? Really Hannibal?! How much more of this s*@t are you going to take?! Lyme disease girl is a freaking loser and if she can't appreciate a smart and decent man that's right in front of her stupid eyes then she is F*#@ing moron!! She does not deserve a wonderful man such as yourself, and if she can't see what an amazing man she has in front of her well Hannibal, it's time for you to man up and start moving on to someone who will not only appreciate you but will love having you in her life!!" (Oh and in-case you were wondering why I called her Lyme disease girl its' because her ex-loser boyfriend had Lyme disease and she had to get tested for it. I don't remember if she had contracted it as well)

After a few seconds of silence and me realizing what I had just said I thought "Great! Here I am pissed off about something else and I'm taking out on him, wow I'll be a great therapist and he'll probably not want to talk to me again." I apologized and told him I had a bad day and I shouldn't have taken it out on him, at first he laughed and said it was fine and then said I was right. Then after that day I noticed he hadn't called me or anything so one day I picked up the phone and called him. He sounded as though he was doing great, I told him I guess I had gotten used to all the phone calls that I actually missed talking to him, so we started talking again everyday either on Facebook or on the phone.

Of course I didn't realize it at the time, a few of my friends pointed it out that I was crushing on him, well I didn't believe them at first and then I realized they were right. Well I was trying to figure out a way to tell him, all of my friends were like "just tell him, it's better to find out and stop tormenting yourself with not knowing" well I did tell him... but I didn't exactly tell him...ok truth be spoken I had gotten drunk and texted him how I felt. I know it was not the ideal way of telling him but when you drink you don't think. The next day I saw what I had sent him, not only did I tell him I liked him but I also mentioned Lyme disease girl and reminded him of how stupid she was, but I also told him I wasn't sure what I wanted so that was why I was going to crush the crush. (He had told Lyme disease girl that, but in the end it didn't work out that way)

So guess what happened? Well I tried calling him and waited for hours on Facebook for him to log on so we could talk about it, no luck at first then finally one day I caught him and we talked about it. I told him I meant everything I said (without thinking about the part of me crushing the crush) he said "don't worry about it, people get drunk and do stupid things all the time, no worries." Now before I get the finale I forgot to mention he had just gotten a job at G.E. and he said part of his training would be in Chicago and the rest in...Milwaukee, Wisconsin!! Well since I was going to be close by because of school we had made plans to hang out. Now the grand finale.

Well I'm sure you thought we probably got together right...wrong! Quite the contrary, Hannibal stopped speaking to me, he never called me or responded to any of my texts,e-mails, Facebook postings until a few weeks ago I was on the brink of sending him a carrier pigeon. I had posted a message on Facebook "I see you're still alive good to know" well that was back in August before I left for school, well the week I went back to Wisconsin we chatted online for a few minutes and he told me he had changed his number, he gave it to me very reluctantly. Well going back to the Facebook post his response to my posting was "Yep still alive sorry I didn't call you back." Needless to say I declared him dead after that, because I didn't like how he completely disappeared on me without an explanation.

Actually it wasn't his disappearance that upset me it was more disappointment that he would do that; after I had mentioned how an ex of mine did the same thing and I don't like when people do that. If you're not going to talk to me again well have the decency to tell me to my face and not leave me wondering what I did wrong. He no longer exists to me, I unfriended him on Facebook, erased his number and any other information I had on him. So there you go that's the rest of the story of Hannibal, sorry it took so long to get the rest of the story out but I got very busy after all of this happened. Ok I'm lying I was upset, I kept going over the entire incident over and over in my head trying to figure out where I went wrong but was not able to come up with anything so I threw myself into anything that would keep my mind off the subject. So there you go, so let's see what are my questions for all you... Well first your opinion (obviously) and have you ever done this to someone either declaring them dead or just disappearing on them and if so why?

{On a side note I started this post on October 1st it is now November 2nd and well it took so long to finish this one because I was still pretty upset for a while, so once again sorry it took so long to finish it up.}

One Year later...

Tomorrow night I leave for Mexico, the 16Th is the one year anniversary of my aunt's death. She died last year very unexpectedly, she had cancer a few years and she had surgery, came out of the hospital ready to keep living. Then one day she said her stomach started hurting so she went to the doctor and apparently she needed surgery again because her stomach had swollen up like a balloon. The doctor said if her stomach continued to swell up there was a possibility of it exploding, so the next day she went in for surgery and did not come out alive. While in surgery she had a stroke and then fell into a coma which she did not wake up from. The night before I was in my dorm watching TV waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for my sister to call and tell me that our aunt had woken up from the coma, my family was at home waiting we didn't get much sleep that night.

Then the calls came around 8:00 a.m.and my sister bought a ticket for my mom to leave ahead of us, my dad at fist couldn't make up his mind if he should stay or go; regardless of that they were also waiting for me because I was school in Wisconsin. I remember walking around frantically in my dorm crying not knowing what to grab, I kept trying to call work to see if anyone had gotten there early. I kept thinking "if I were calling the Oak Park Pier 1 Ana would definitely be there by now or hell I would just call one of their cells." Then I realized I had no way of getting to the train station, I was going to ask my neighbor for a ride but in the end my therapist took me. I had an appointment with him that day, which I obviously had to cancel. Before that I had emailed and called my professors to let them know about my situation, but I remember being afraid of missing class because the courses are only 8 weeks longs and I was afraid of being dropped but in the end I was told to not worry at all. I was at the train for what seemed like an eternity because I had missed the 10:30 train, by 10 minutes. The next one was not until 12:30. At first I sat there with my thoughts and that got annoying, and I wouldn't stop crying so I tried calling one of former professors but she was unavailable so I called my mentor and she calmed me down, at least enough for me to get on the train.


Afterwards I was waiting and this man came up to me trying to get me to let him give me a ride to Chicago in the end I told him "Look I don't mean to sound rude, but I just lost someone I really loved and I have to go home and go to the funeral and I really don't want to be bothered right now." Truth be spoken he talked for a while but I don't remember a word he said. I was thinking about the last time I had seen my aunt and how I was a little disappointed that she didn't want to go to the beach with us in the end but in the end we were all saying that it was better that she didn't go. She loved us so much, she was more of a grandmother to me than my actual grandmothers, I don't remember when I told her this but I remember when I told her, she hugged me and told me she loved me.
The funeral was by far one of the saddest days in my life, in Mexico they don't hold a wake they bury the person the very next day; which means that when my sister, dad and me got there, we only had about an hour or two to rest and get ready. I didn't want to look inside the coffin because I knew I would start crying and for some reason I didn't want to cry. I was trying to be strong for my nephews but in the end at the cemetery I finally couldn't take it anymore, I saw everyone else crying even my mom and I though "OK if my mom is crying then it's OK for me to cry." i thought that day was the saddest day of my life, but I was wrong the saddest day was the last night we were there.

In Mexico when someone dies they have a rosary services for a week, and basically what it is, it's a prayer service for an hour every night for a week. I got away with being in the next room babysitting the only baby that did not cry when I held her ( a rarity for me). The last night however I had to be in the room and we had a little memorial setup with lots of flowers, candles, and a cross in the middle of it all. The cross represented her, when the cross was picked up, and her Godparents were sweeping up the ashes, I again tried to not cry but saw my mom and everyone else just bursting with tears, and I was sort of relieved to know that it was OK to cry. It was like saying goodbye to her allover again, I couldn't stand it.

All I kept thinking was "why the hell would you guys do something like this, this feels horrible. Saying goodbye to her once was hard enough but having to feel like you're saying goodbye all over again. I hate this!" After that service I felt so tired, and I could see it in everyone's faces as well. Everyone looked as if they were exhausted and didn't know what to do next, not a very good feeling to have in my opinion. The next day we were on a plane back to Chicago, the next day I was on a train back to Wisconsin but I decided I didn't want to be alone after this. I also was not to crazy about leaving my mom so I commuted back and forth for the entire first semester. When I went back to Wisconsin I stayed in my room for a few hours before my first class and cried for what seemed like an eternity. Went to class tried but failed miserably at focusing.

When I went back to Chicago that Wednesday I called my friend Darien and asked him to meet me. He called me when I got into town and asked if I wanted to go out with him and a few friends for margaritas. "At first I thought Darien doesn't like margaritas why would he go?" I wasn't in the mood to drink, I just I don't know what I wanted to be honest with you, I knew I didn't want to go home right away that much I remember, I ended up waiting for him at the library where I bursted into tears with a friend of mine, thinking "ok I cried, so I won't cry in front of Darien." When he picked me up I tried to act like nothing was wrong but that lasted about two seconds before he held me and I cried for a while. Afterwards we went for hot chocolate and walked around and talked, and that's all I remember now. Here's an interesting fact I don't remember thinking about it after that night with Darien for a while at least until Christmas eve, because that was going to be the first Christmas without her.

Somewhere in between all the crying and all of the rosaries and the food I thought about two things: The first one being me thinking at the funeral, "wow, now with my aunt gone, my mom and sister are head of the family now. My mom is the head when we're there and my sister is the head when my isn't there." The other thing I thought and I told my mom to do was that our sister was going to need us to really stay in touch, especially with the holidays coming up. My mom agreed with me 100%. I do remember other little things but they are not as important as everything else. We leave tomorrow night, "why are we leaving so early when she died the 16Th?" we asked our mom apparently in Mexico you start the rosaries 10 days before and then the actual day of the anniversary you hold a small church ceremony. I know you all were not able to see this but I was sitting crying my eyes as I was typing all of this. Remembering everything and every little detail about that week and knowing we're about to go through it again was very sad; truthfully I'll be surprised if I make it through the week without crying once. So here's my question for you...do you remember every little detail about the saddest days in your life?

This might get published...

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a paper it was more of an analogy between finding and creating the perfect brownie recipe and finding the right college for high school students. Well my professor loved it and suggested that I try to get it published and well I'm going to try but I get the feeling it would not be good enough so, here's my question to you read my paper and telling me what you think about it, and suggestions would be very helpful. So read away....

"Finding the right college is like finding and creating the perfect brownie recipe"
If a high school student came to me and told me they wanted to be successful the first thing I would do is ask why do they want to be successful, and if they told me they wanted to be successful because they want everyone to be envious of them I would tell that they have to go to college, because in order to achieve success you must be willing to put the work in and get educated. Then I would tell them that picking a college is like creating a perfect recipe for a batch of brownies. In order to gain success and achieve their goals a person has to be willing to try and fail, but they also must be willing to fail on more than one occasion; because in order to create a great recipe one must be will to suffer through a few stomachs before coming up with the perfect recipe. “I can’t win anything until I’m willing to lose everything” (Kevin Shultz)

There are six steps one must take in order to achieve the perfect brownie recipe, this includes many trial and errors. Once someone has done the research, put in the time and the energy and has tried countless recipes they will have created brownies that everyone will not only devour but will be completely envious because they were not able to come up with a recipe that delicious. Just as there six steps to perfecting the best brownie recipe there are six steps a student must take in order to go to a college that will help them get ready for the real world and help them to achieve the success they want.

Step one research, in order to create the perfect recipe one has to research and see what kind of brownies are out in the world because not every recipe is the same. There are different countries which may have different ingredients or the country’s ingredients may have a different type of taste to them because they might be grown differently and because of the differences the brownies may distinct taste. For instance Mexico’s chocolate tends to have a different taste from the type of chocolate that is made in the US, in my opinion it tends to taste more like dark chocolate.

A person can also look at award winning recipes online or in cookbooks and they can compare and contrast the differences between the recipes, by doing this they will be able to see which recipes stand out the most. People who post their ingredients on line or have sold their recipes to companies will do it because they want to show the world how they have successfully created a recipe every person will want to have and want to get recognition for it. “Students who rely on performance goals might be motivated to gain recognition for their accomplishment or to avoid the embarrassment of a poor performance.” (Burger, 2008; 199) When students go to high school many of them know they want to go to college but they know they are not only in competition with the thousands of students in the U.S but the millions of other students in different countries who are all trying to get into the same school and because of this they are determined to stand out from everybody else.

Step two once you have done your research and found a few recipes that not only sound delicious but also have a few of the same ingredients, a person should also look for recipes that o have at least two or three different ingredients form one another. The one or two different ingredients tend to be the key ingredients which make the recipe stand out from every other recipe. For instance one recipe may require molasses, while the other requires miniature non sweetened chocolate chips. Then it’s time to take each recipe find the ingredients which at times can be a bit tedious because at times a local grocery store will not carry certain ingredients and because one has to see if the ingredient can be replaced with another one that will help the brownies have a distinct taste, for instance there are a few grocery stores that do not carry molasses or only have sweetened miniature chocolate chips.

Just like finding recipes students should research and find out what types of schools are available to them. They should look for a few schools that not only catch their attention but offer a few things that are completely different from other schools. For instance one school may offer a class in learning Japanese calligraphy while another school may offer a course in learning to make handbags. Then the student should look to see what the college admission requirements are in order for a student to get accepted, for instance some schools may require SAT scores but not require ACT scores, or at times they will not require either one but require the admission essay and possibly a resume to stand out from all of the other applicants essays.

Step three once you have your ingredients it’s time to have patience and put a few recipes together this will require a lot of time because there are moments when one thinks certain ingredients will go well together but in the end the combination can be an awful blend. For example the combination of chocolate and sweet and low sugar is not a very good combination because sweet and low can be over powering and because of this sweet and low will over power the taste of the chocolate and in the end instead of tasting chocolate people will only taste the sweet and low. When looking at college requirements, most of them will require an admission essay a person should writing down a few ideas they could talk about in their essay. They also make sure the courses they are taking in high school will help them be successful in college. Taking only the course requirement in high school and not taking enough extracurricular classes to expand one’s horizons will make a bit difficult for students to want to expand their horizons in college.

Step four once you have the have a few recipes put together then comes the fun part, baking and tasting. Once you have ingredients all together in a bowl take a bit of the mixture to taste to make sure it tastes good. By tasting the raw mixture a person will be able to determine whether or not to even bother baking the mixture because if the brownie mixture does not taste well together before its baked then chances are once you bake the mixture the brownies themselves will not taste good either. If the raw mixture does not taste good then the baker should try to find out what ingredients did not work well together, they should also try to figure out why the recipe did not work. When a student has narrowed down the schools they are interested in they should not only read about the schools but they should also take a tour of the school and see if the school looks as amazing in person as it does in the college catalogs.

Because I can honestly say there were times when the schools sounded great in print but when it came down to seeing them in person there were times when I was not as impressed as I thought I would be. There were a few times when I walked onto the campus and thought “really was the picture they put on the catalog from another school because this looks nothing like the picture.” There were also times when I sat in on a few classes found myself thinking “this teacher is putting me to sleep, could he speak any slower.” Then there were times when I would to go to a school and think instantly “oh wow this campus is so beautiful and so serene.” I remember one of the first things I thought when sitting in Concordia’s classes was “wow this teacher really loves her job.” I remember seeing the enthusiasm as she spoke about the subject and everybody in the class was very engage and excited as well it got me excited as well.

Step five trial and error as I mentioned before a person has to have a few different recipes before finding the right one. This may mean baking four or five different recipes before finding the recipe that makes your stomach scream “give me more brownies!” This also means having other people try your recipe and getting suggestions from other people as to how to improve your recipe. This is also applies to students when they are looking at colleges they should not only visit and read about the college they should also talk to students who go to the school and see why they chose the school.

High school student should also try to remember when choosing a college to go to they should try to write down the reasons they are interested in the schools they have chosen; reasons such as liking how the professors teach, whether or not they like the idea of having to pay to use the laundry machines, or to pay for toilet paper. Whether or not they will also be able to stay in a dorm or save money by living at home with their families could also be a factor in making the decision. They may want to factor whether or not lecture halls will be an issue when choosing a school because there are some students who like their classes to be small because they want to have the ability to have that one on one connection with their professor. They should also remember to choose more than one school to consider because there is always the possibility that when they apply the school may reject them.

Step six the perfect recipe, after attempting many different ingredients and after having tried a variety of different recipes and after having a plethora of brownies by the 30 or 100th recipe a person should be able to choose the recipe that made their stomach and mind melt the minute they took a bite of the brownie. After going through three or four years of high school, taking all the course requirements necessary not only to graduate high school but to be able to go to college and after taking ACT and SAT classes that will help them to get the highest score possible. Then after writing one to twenty drafts of a college admission essay and submitting all twelve of their college application, they will come home from school one day and get the acceptance letter from the school that melted their stomach as well as their mind.

Once they are in college they will have the opportunity to start their career as a college student. In college they will be given the opportunity to take as many classes as they want to help them expand their horizons and give them an opportunity to see the types of careers that are available to them. Then once they have chosen a major they will be able to throw themselves into the major that will make not only make them happy but will give them the success they need.
There were six steps involved in creating the recipe for the most amazing brownies and just like the brownies choosing the right college requires six steps as well. As I said earlier in my paper a person has to have a lot of patience because choosing the wrong college is the same as choosing a wrong ingredient to put in the recipe, one bad ingredient could lead to the worst brownies, choosing a college for the wrong reasons could lead to four to five years of being miserable in college.

Flooding ...the after affects of a long storm

Well you know how I said that I love it when it rains but I hate it at the same time. Well the flooding of the basement is what I hate about it. As most of you know we had a huge storm last night and it did not stop until about 10:30 this morning and even then we still had a drizzle. Well as you can see from the pictures we have a pool in the basement, of course by the time I woke up the water had gone down, slowly, very slowy, but you get the idea. We basically haven't really slept, I went to sleep at about 4 a.m, to wake up at about 8:44 a.m to a phone call from daddy and he claimed to have hidden a pump for us but someone found it and sold it. Now I used to work at Home Depot and like in the business world it's all about who you know. If I would have been there and asked one of the associates to give me a pump or save it they would have done it because A)I'd bribed them with a promise of a baked good, B)they liked me and C)because I'm a girl and mostly about 97% of the store were male and they were horn dogs and I was the cashier they couldn't have; so of course I used that to my advantage, I'd flirt, smile and get my way. Actually I still do that at times when I visit and need a favor from someone there. We have a pool down there. A girl's gotta do what she's gotta do.

Now what I find interesting is the fact that water tends to come in slowly and yet somehow it's able to knock things that weigh a good 20-30 pounds over onto its side; or the other thing happens and the water knocks the lids off the totes and everything comes out or stays in the tote because it's full of water. So my plans for today have officially been cancelled because now after calling and calling and calling some more stores asking to see where in the hell I could find a pump or rent, bribe whatever needed to be done to get one in the end to come out with nothing. I spent about 2 1/2 hours calling every Menards, Home Depot, Ace Hardware store trying to find a pump and every place I called were completely out. By the time I called the 20Th store I didn't even use full sentences I went from saying"Hi does your store have any pumps to buy or rent?" to calling and saying "Hi, pumps you got any?" Up until Ace hardware store teased me and had me believing they had one (of course they didn't)I didn't even know what it was called or that apparently there are a couple of different ones. I learn something new everyday.

The first one is the one everyone either owns or wants and that one is called the Utility pump, with this one you just set it onto the floor and turn it on and the water goes through a tube and gets rid of the water. The second one is the one people could use but only if they have a pit, to my understanding and I like to think I got the idea, you put it down in the pit of where the water is coming from and manually pump the water out. Now I just got a call from my sister apparently Home Depot is out of everything one needs to get the water out, hoses, tubes, pumps everything. After living here for 19 years you think we would have bought a pump right? Well we do have one but A)we don't know how to use it and B) we don't have the necessary tools to use it properly. I can hear the water going down, I can hear my sister cracking jokes which as usual we do when we're in crisis mode. We joke because what else is there to do but laugh about a situation in which you have no control over.

And of course I'm kicking myself in the butt quite a bit because after the first flood of the season we got lucky and the water didn't get as high as last night, but that get me to clean out the attic and put my school totes there instead so that I didn't have to worry about re buying some of my school things...nope. So now not only are we going to have clean and wash like there's no tomorrow but we'll also have to check to see what I can still use and what I'll need to re buy. So here's my questions to all of you what are the after affects of a long heavy storm? And what do you do to try to not panic? And what were your plans for today that now because Chicago is almost 90% flooded according to the weather channel have either been altered or cancelled?

New guy...

Like right now I'm actually thinking about someone and here's the best part it's not my friend Darien or my ex that I wrote when it finally hit me that he and I were broken up. I'll admit even though we had broken up I was still a little hopeful that he would come around and want to be with me but it wasn't until my birthday when it really hit me for the last time that he and I will never be together. In fact I'll catch you all up a bit now unfortunately I don't remember exactly what was said because this happened over a few months ago; but after we broke up we still talked to each other and tried (but failed)to be friends and on my birthday after getting many happy birthday texts, Facebook posts and phone calls I even had a few people text me at midnight the night before my birthday and throughout the entire day I noticed he did not acknowledge my birthday (not even a day later like a few people did). So I texted him and told him my birthday wish was to be with him, and unfortunately I do not remember exactly what he said but it was something along the lines of "you say you want to be with me now, but after a while you'll think twice about it. But seriously hope you're doing well" Or something like it, it was actually very confusing I wanted to cry that day I wanted to throw the pinata I had bought that day and just watch it break into pieces. Because that's how I felt, I felt as though he had taken my last ounce of hope and broken it into a million pieces.

So after my birthday I decided to forget him, no more friends no more anything with him in my life. Now here's the person I'm actually thinking about right now, I met him about 7 years ago at Home Depot he and I both used to work there, {ok just as a side note the lights are acting as though they want to go out so hopefully that won't happen, but I thought I'd share that with all of you} We hung out a couple of times and at first I thought he was boring and strange, but at the same time I always thought he was very sweet. We worked together so it was hard to not see each other, we talked every now and then I left to focus on school and we lost touch with one another for quite a while and then last summer I was helping my friend Meg fill out job applications online and I was signed onto AIM and he found me. We talked for a little while, and then decided to get together him, me and another mutual friend of ours, it was the longest 3 hours of my life. I felt as though I was pulling teeth to get either of them to talk, all I kept thinking about was "when is the time to say ok I have to get going?" After that day, I didn't speak to...(we'll call him Hannibal) Hannibal for a while then one night I was in the school library studying when I received an instant message from him on AIM and we decided to get together that weekend and go ice skating. I had fun, suck at ice skating but fun nonetheless. After that we found each other on Facebook, didn't speak very often until one day I get a text from him telling me that the girl he was seeing cheated on him and they broke up. I hate when girls do that, at least have the decency to tell your boyfriend why you cheated.

After not speaking for months and all of a sudden getting this message I felt horrible for him, I wanted to get on a train that night and see him but I couldn't because I had class the next day, so as luck would have it a friend of mine was suppose to host a makeup party but in the end it was canceled but by then I had already bought my ticket so I went home but crashed at her place and saw him. I spent the entire day with him, you would think after talking to him on the phone 28 times and talking on Facebook about 14 times that week I would have gotten sick of talking to him but no I didn't. He looked so sad... To be continued... Ok I started writing this in July it is now October and in the next blog I will tell you what happened after that meeting because it did not end the way I hoped it would.

The rain...

If there's one thing I love more than food, movies and reading, is sitting at home in my room and listening to the rain fall. I have to admit this is one of my favorite things to do when I'm either in my dorm or completely alone in the house. I don't know if it's the sound of the water coming down really fast or the sound of the thunder but it relaxes me. I even love walking in the rain, I feel as though my mind is in another universe and I'm able to put things into perspective, hell I'm able to get the answers to things that I sometimes feel is right in front of me but I don't want to see them because I'm not ready to face the truth.

I may love the rain but I also hate it at the same time. There's a reason why I like to hear it when I'm alone, if my parents are home my dad starts to panic and act as though he had never had to deal with a storm, and get into arguments with my mom. Also if it's a really bad storm our basement tends to get flooded so he starts to panic about that as well. He'll go looking outside the window, he'll go outside for god knows what reason, he'll go downstairs a million times and he'll do this until the rain is over. Here's the thing he doesn't panic about the flood reaching the living room or us drowning nope he worries about our air conditioner breaking down, because if the air conditioner does not work he feels as though he will die. Now don't get me wrong I myself do not like it when the air conditioner isn't working, which is the case at work right now. 3 of our 4 air conditioners are broken and the store is ok but when we're running around trying to get things done it makes it a little harder to not think "my god is it hot in here!" I've said it before and I'll say it again winter is sooooo much better!!

Now don't get me wrong when I'm by myself I check on the basement periodically to make sure everything is on top of something so that they don't get ruined, but I'm not freaking out about, even when our cable loses its signal I either grab a book or pop in a movie because luckily (knock on wood) we've been fortunate enough to not lose light in our house like some of our neighbors. I take that back we've lost the power once in the 19 years we have lived here, so there you go. Our lights will flicker as though we're going to lose it but it doesn't it. Right now I'm trying to imagine myself back in my dorm either reading or watching a movie while the rain is coming down and not having to deal with all of this drama. Truth be spoken this is one of the reasons why I like being away at school and I can not wait to go back. 4 weeks 6 days till I go back. It's not coming here fast enough. So here's my question to all of you what do you love but also hate at the same time because people around you tend to ruin it for you?

An investment...

A few weeks ago, I was told that I should consider taking time off from Grad school because of all the debt that I am accumulating while going to school. I was told that unless I am going to school to pursue a career in the medical field that putting myself in this debt is not worth it. I'll admit I am pretty deep in the hole but it's not like I am throwing my money away on things that I don't need, it's my education. I am putting my money into something that will help me have a better future. My best friend Darien once told me "If you ever need money, just ask, I don't consider it throwing money away I consider it a good investment. You're a good investment. Because I know you'll actually make something of yourself." Well I thought about this quite a bit recently, I've also thought about the crazy investments people make all the time and how they may lose all of their money but in the end they are still able to keep their heads above water. People invest their money in cars, homes, condos, and many, many credit cards,and are not only trying to pay them off, but they keep in the back of their mind that they will be paid off eventually. "It doesn't matter what you do the reality is everyone is always in debt, if it's not a home, it's a car, if it isn't a car, it's credit card debt, but an education is a debt worth having." Why shouldn't I invest my money into something that will help me to afford a home and a car in the future? Our American economy themselves are in billions of dollars in debt but instead of drowning and giving up our American economy is still fighting and trying. It hasn't given up, it's still surviving and so will I and every other undergrad and grad student out there putting themselves in the hole for something that will not only help but benefit them as well. I have decided to not giving up despite what a few people are telling me, I know what I am doing and it's possible that maybe in the end I will be in debt for the rest of my life, but as my mentor told me this week " So unless you become a doctor an education is not worth the money? That's bleak and pessimistic. Yes, it will be a burden, but a manageable one. Yes, it will take a long time to pay back, but it will be in small pieces, and that's what paying the bills is all about." I am not giving up and neither should anyone else...So here's my question to you...What are you investing in that people say you shouldn't be?

If someone would have told me...

If someone would have told me that I was going to be going to school in Wisconsin, I would have said "no way that will never happen." If someone would have told me that I would be a part of the Concordia family, I would have said "No, I'll be at Roosevelt." If someone would have told me that I would actually like living in Wisconsin, I would have said "Hells' no, it's SO boring there." If someone were to ask me if I would actually miss Wisconsin, I would say "Yes, but Chicago is and will forever be my home, no matter where I live." I came here almost 9 months ago, and at first I loved the idea of just being able to get away from things for a little while, then one night it really hit me that I was not at home anymore, that for the first time ever I was alone and then I was sad and scared. For a while I kept questioning whether or not I had made the right choice, in the back of my mind I already knew that it was, but I would still sit in my room and ask myself "how the hell did I not only get into grad school, but managed to come here as well?" There were even a few times when I went to chapel to not only cry and ask "What am I doing here?!" I would also pray for strengh to at least make it through the year before I made my final choice. If someone would have asked me would I come back next fall, I would have said "I don't know." The first few nights I was here I had nightmares like there was no tomorrow, I would also wake up in the middle of night and forget where I was. I also had to get used to my bed, because it was a twin, when I was used to a queen size bed so a few nights of falling off were just awesome!;-/ Then my classes started, and truth be spoken I almost fell out of my chair that day, luckily not many people saw it. Then came the issues of making friends, work, money, homework, meeting expectations, dealing with death, learning to get by on little money, learning to keep myself busy and so on and so on. Out of all these things the ones I had the most difficulty with were making friends, and learning to keep busy. Then somehow it got a little easier slowly but surely, I still struggle with these two things...but now I can honestly say if someone were to tell me Roosevelt accepted me, I would say "well that's awesome but I'm already in school and I love it and I don't care if other people say Wisconsin is boring." I can not tell a lie, as much as I really really like Wisconsin and probably can grow to love it, it's not home. Chicago is my home and I CANNOT wait to be home for the summer but then again I'll admit this my secret to you, I will start to miss Wisconsin. Who knows I might actually sit in my room in Chicago and say "what the hell am I doing home?!" I doubt I'll fall off the bed, but I do expect to wake up every now and then and have to remind myself that I'm home. So here's my question to you...If someone would have told you...whatever what would you have said?

I thought I was done with high school thinking

I'm 25 years old going on 26 and yet there are still times when I think like a kid in high school. For a few weeks now I haven't spoken to my friend Stacy. I had tried calling and emailing her during break but heard nothing from her. My first two thoughts were "is she mad at me again? or did something happen to her?" Because I know of her conditions the second thought was the one that scared me the most, but I have to admit part of me also kept thinking that she was mad at me for some reason. Well that was about 4 weeks ago, and today I finally got an answer. She finally emailed and out of respect for her I will not say why she hasn't been coming to school. I will say that she is on leave for now. I'm happy to say that she wasn't mad at me but I am sad to say that I hadn't seen or heard from her because of the second reason, I don't know exactly what happened but I'm sure she will tell me when she's ready. I have to admit I find it hilarious that as I said I'm 25 and yet at times I still think like a kid in high school. "Is she mad at me? What did I say? Why won't they tell me to my face?" Things like that still pop in my head every now and then...I'll admit I don't like when people are mad at me, especially when I know why they're mad at me, but then again I don't think many people like it when someone is mad, angry, frustrated, upset with them. In my case it makes me feel as though something is wrong with me, I begin to question whether or not I am a good friend or if there are things about me I should try to change...but of course when I start thinking about both of these things I look at the friends I have now and think "If there were something wrong with me, why would my other friends still talk to me?" Then after a while I get a headache because I can't come up with a different answer other than "I'm not a bad friend" most of the time this is all I can think of to make myself feel better, which is interesting, the fact that I need to feel as though I am a good friend, when I may not be to some people is a little disturbing to me. There are plenty of people who say they don't care what people think of them, or they don't care if someone is mad at them, I'll admit I'm in between. On one hand I do care about what people think and on the other hand I don't care; I will admit it usually will depend on the person telling me. Erikison and Freud would both say it's because of something that might have happened to me as an infant, which could be the case, it could also be because of my childhood years in grade school and the lack of friends there and the ones that I thought were friends weren't. Maybe Freud and Erikison were right about the fact that a person's infancy and childhood play a vital role in the transition from child to adult. But then again that's just me, so here are my questions to all of you why do you believe people tend to value other people's input on things? And are there times when you think like a kid in high school? And is it possible that we always have moments when we think and possibly act like kids in high school no matter how old we get?

THE BIGGEST HOLIDAY OF THE YEAR IS COMING...OSCAR NIGHT!!!

The biggest holiday of the year is coming or at least I consider it the biggest holiday of the year. The Academy Awards! The biggest night in the film industry, the one night of the year when actors and actresses, producers, directors,writers, foreign actors, writers come together and be told whether or not they are the best. The funny thing aside from the films they get judged on they also get judged on their fashion sense (especially the women), their hair, makeup, tuxedos, shoes, everything and anything possible. The one night of year where regular folks like me can get all dressed up and pretend that we are part of the Hollywood light for one night and cheer for those we want to see win, boo those we didn't want to see win. We get to see how actresses believe they have fashion sense when in reality some need major help. I know it seems silly to people that there are people like me and my family who look forward to Oscar night but truth be spoken a lot of the actresses who are nominated or go to Oscar night are women I look up to and I feel as though I am showing my loyalty to women who are helping me get through my days, especially my days through school. Silly yes I know but it feels as though everything they do to get to their dreams is everything I have to do to get to my dreams. They need to work very hard to prove themselves as actors to the Academy Award Board, who give the final grade on whether they not only get an Oscar nomination but whether or not they get the Oscar. I have to do the same thing, I have to work very hard in school to prove to my professors that I not only deserve an "A" but deserve my diploma in the end. My diploma is my Oscar. So here's my question to you...what is your Oscar?

Worried...but I love my earrings

My best friend Darien finally gave me the Sapphire earrings that he had told me he had gotten me but I didn't believe him at first because I am one of those people that I don't believe it till I see it. Well I have to admit when I saw the box I thought "OH MY GOD, HE WASN'T LYING TO ME!" And actually I ended up saying it out loud completely by accident, in which Darien responded "What?! You doubted me?! Why would you do that?!" I have to admit once again I love the earrings, they are soooooo beautiful and even if they weren't real(which they are) I would still love them and I would still love him. Darien gave me one of the best presents I had ever gotten, now I don't mean I've gotten crappy gifts for Christmas but these are really special to me. Aside from my parents nobody else, including many of my ex's have ever gotten me jewelery or real jewelery for that matter and he did. I'll say this much he has good taste. I spent most the day with him on Monday and that day I saw many interesting sides to him...I saw his sweet side, his irritated side, his stressful side, his parental side, his political side and out of all his sides the one that stood out the most and I'm just spit balling here but I believe I also saw his moronic side. He told me two stories about two women both of which he's interested in, girl number 1 is his ex-girlfriend aka his first love,(from high school) who is unhappily married and has a son. Girl number 2 has a boyfriend, but here's the interesting part to this girl, Darien left this bit of information out (why... I'm still trying to figure out) but according to a mutual friend of Darien's and myself, who met girl 2, she is an 18 year old college Freshman who is a replica of his ex-girlfriend (of 3 years) whom he broke up with about a year ago. Coincidence I don't think so! Now here's the thing I know that both of the relationships with these girls are going to end bad, he said it himself he wants a relationship with girl 2, which means he wants a relationship in general which makes me worry a little more about girl 1. I don't know why but something tells me that because of their history girl 1 is going to try to make Darien her safety net, especially because he is doing so well for himself. He works at AT&T, he just recently got a promotion, which also means more money, and he just recently moved into his own apartment; so basically if girl 1 plays her cards right with him and is able to break him, she would basically be taken cared of. Truthfully...I'm worried that he isn't as over girl 1 as he claims to be and I'm also worried that girl 2 is going to be a bad rebound, and even though he claims to have it under control I can't help but doubt him. So here's the thing ordinarily I have questions to ask all of you to help me figure out a few things, but in this case I don't have any questions because I'm not sure what to ask for... but because I can't end this blog without any questions to ask I'll leave all of you with these questions...what do you think? And what should I ask?

Giving things up for Lent...

I was raised Roman Catholic and I have to admit when it comes to Lent aside from meat on Fridays I don't give any else up for Lent. I remember being in grade school and every year the whole school would go to church for the beginning of Lent. We would have a ceremony, and every year the priest would ask the students to raise their hands if they were giving up anything else for Lent besides meat on Fridays. I would always keep my hand down because meat was the only thing I gave up. Then aside from the church ceremony, we would be given a list of things that we didn't have to do but would supposedly help us to give up certain things for Lent, like chips, cookies, soda, watching too much TV, things like that; which I never did, and truthfully I still don't do. Aside from giving things up for Lent we would also be told to try to do some charity work. Those were always interesting because some of the things I remember seeing, I would think to myself "I can't do this stuff I'm just a kid." Some of the things I remember seeing on there were help the homeless, do some volunteer work, raise money for the homeless. I always wondered how they expected us to do some of those things, we were kids, and because we were kids we really couldn't do anything without our parents permission or without our parents. Regardless of that I would still go to church every Friday for prayer service, go to church on Palm Sunday and give up meat for 3 days prior to Easter Sunday. When I was in 8Th grade I played the Virgin Mary when we reenacted Jesus being hammered to the cross. Then many years later I graduated grade school, graduated high school, graduated college and over the years I noticed that I started stumbling when it came to Lent. There were times when I wasn't able to make it to church on Ash Wednesday to receive my ashes, at times I would forget that I wasn't suppose to eat meat on Fridays or the 3 days prior to Easter Sunday and I would go and have a double bacon cheeseburger. So here are my questions to all of you...I may have been raised a Catholic and I still believe and respect everything I've been taught and I've gone to Catholic grade school and Christian colleges and I know why we're suppose to give things up for Lent but part of me can't help but wonder how is giving up things for Lent suppose to help us become better people or better Christians for that matter? And if my stumbling has made me a sinner?

Unable to stay angry...

OK so as all of you know one of my recent blogs was how angry I was at my friend Darien for not meeting me on Tuesday like we had originally planned. Here's the thing as angry as I was, I sat on the train watching a movie and I went from thinking about how upset I was to thinking about the time when I really sad about something and he tried cheering me up. He pretended to be a musician and playing on his imaginary guitar, he looked like such a dork. I sat on the train and thought about the many hugs we have given each other, how at first he was one of the few people who supported my education choices;(actually when it comes to our education we are both very supportive of one another) and the countless times he has been a sweetheart. I found myself laughing at all of our dumb meaningless conversation as well as the dumbest debates on the planet. Actually whenever we're together we always, never fails get into the strangest debates. For example during Christmas break we were walking around the neighborhood and we were looking at all the homes that had Christmas decorations on them and I said (and I still firmly believe) that multi-color lights tend to look better than gold lights, Darien disagreed. In fact he was dead set on trying to convince me that gold lights tend to look better than multi-color lights. Every house we saw whether it be gold or multi-color lights we would argue about why our preference was better. I would say this debate went on for about 5-8 blocks until we...actually this is one of the many things we don't agree on. Now don't get me wrong we don't always have meaningless conversations, in fact he is one of the few people I can actually hold a decent conversation with about almost anything. In the end I sat there thinking about all of this and I found myself saying "one day, one measly day he doesn't up. Out of how many times he has he always managed to make time for me? How many times has he been there when I needed a shoulder to cry on? How many times has he been there to make or attempt to make me laugh? He has always shown up." Which is very true as busy as we both are, one way or another we seem to always make time to see one another, or we text one another like crazy, in fact I had to change my text messaging plan because of the many texts we send one another; which to be perfectly honest is more than what I tend to do for other friends. (When I really think about it, I realize I'm being unfair to my other friends. I tend to make more time for him than I do everyone else. That's not fair at all.) By the time I got back to school I found myself saying "I can't stay made at this bastard. Why can't I stay mad at this miserable bastard?" ( my exact words too)I asked a friend mine this and she had an interesting response to this she said that maybe we've become to dependent on one another, that we're possibly replacing our exes with each other...which could be true. So here are my questions to all of you why wasn't I able to stay angry at him? And is it possible that he and I are becoming dependant on another because of the lack of relationships?

Do clothes and makeup make us confidante?

How confidente are we when we walk out of the door in the clothes we wear? One of my favorite shows is on TLC it's called "What Not to Wear" I have gotten a lot of ideas to not only add to my look but change certain things about it as well; to make me not only look but feel better about myself. I see many of the people who are nominated as candidates for the show and I noticed they all have a two things in common, they tend to have low self esteem about themselves which is one of the reasons why they don't make an effort to look their best because they tend to feel as though they are not worth it, which in my opinion is not true, everybody is always worth looking good. The second thing I notice is that because most of these people have low self esteem they tend to find clothes that do not help accentuate not only their bodies but their persona as well, they tend to find clothes that make them look horrible and look as though they have no fashion sense; when in reality they do they just don't know how to bring out their fashions because their low self esteem has taken over their mind. I believe one of my favorite episodes was one where the mother completely hated her hair cut and because she had set in her mind that old hair do was better she went to her hair saloon and had them apply hair extensions and dye her hair blond, she did it because she felt that her new beautiful hair would not grab a man's attention. After she was done she went from looking like a beautiful mature woman to a woman who is trying too hard to look sexy. Now when I first started writing this, I thought all people ever do is spend money to look and feel beautiful because they have low self-esteem issues, but after this weekend I got a little different perspective. I do believe people go through all of that crap to feel amazing but it's more than that...I can't really describe it but this weekend I went shopping for a new dress for Easter and for dinner with Darien. Now at first when I chose the dress I thought "it's cute, it's pretty, it'll do, but then my friend suggested to add a belt and suggested how I should do my hair and make-up infact I even got a free make-up consoltation. I know I'm a pretty girl, but having said that after I got the make-up done and I put the dress and shoes and everything to go with it; I thought "wow, I not only look beautiful but I actually feel beautiful too." It's amazing how a little make-up and a pretty outfit can make a person feel as if they're the most beautiful person in the world and give them that boost of confidence they need to not only feel beautiful but desireable as well. It also give a person a feeling of actually belonging. So here's my question to all of you how beautiful do you feel when you walk out of your house in your outfit and make up?

Waiting...

There are many things I wait for, I wait for dinner while my mother or a friend cooks it, I'll wait for weeks for a good movie or book to either come to the big screen or to come in the mail, I wait for the train as I wait to get back to school, I wait for money to come in and typically I am very patient but here's my question how long do I wait for a friend before I call quits and go home? I made two appointments today to visit with two good friends, whose names will be changed to Mark, and Darien. Mark showed up after he got of work, he even called to a) make sure I was at the designated place and to tell me that he needed a cigarette so he was going to be a few minutes late. Mark was considerate enough to call me and let me know so that I would not be sitting there wondering "where is this punk?" Very sweet and responsible. Now the other one is my best friend Darien, who incidentally called me this morning very excited to tell me that he had found my Christmas present, which are Sapphire earrings. Now when he first told me what he had gotten I didn't want to believe him until I saw the earrings because I've had men in the past tell me they had gotten me a present for whatever reason but what a coincidence when it came time to giving it to me they would either A) forget them day after day or B) misplace them. So most of the time I would get very excited but then would wind up disappointed because in the end I realized they never got me anything they were just pulling the old "I got you something but..." and usually I got this line whenever I got them something and they weren't expecting it. Now typically I don't really care whether or not a person gets me a present because I love to give people presents especially when they don't expect them. Now you may be asking yourself if I don't care then why am I ranting well here's why. I told him I'd be at the designated place around 3:00 I told him he told me to call him when I had arrived; which I did I texted when I had arrived and settled in. To which he responded that he was in class, which I didn't know about, so I thought and responded "oh ok, well I'll be here for a while get here when you can." That was at 2:45, I thought "ok, in my experience classes on Tues and Thurs tend to run a later than classes on Mon, Wed, Fri because typically those classes only meet twice a week. So I thought "ok he might be done around 4:00 or maybe a little later so I'll wait" Meanwhile my awesome friend Mark looked really tired so I told him to go home and get some rest, that was a little after 4:30 and still no show, no call from my friend Darien. So I thought ok well maybe he's stuck in traffic or something I'll give him a little more time, finally at 5:17 I texted him asking if he forgot about me, to which he reapplied no 'I"m still in the process of moving." To which I said "Oh" then he responded "sorry kiddo". I responded "It's ok." Even though in the back of my head I was thinking "why didn't you tell me any of this before?! It would have been nice to know that I might not see you at all today!" I'll admit it's 5:58 and I've lost feeling my butt because I've been sitting in the same chair for almost 3 hours and yet now I am not only waiting for him, but now I'm waiting for a movie to start just to give him a little more time, in case he is able to make it. Ok now just to remind you this is the same Darien that I have mentioned before, the one that I love very much as a friend and as more. So here' s my question "how much longer do I wait?" Do I continue waiting in hopes of not only seeing him and these so called earrings or do I call it a night and go home? Here's my other question "why the hell do we do this?' Why in the hell do we sit and wait for men? Why do continue thinking that if we continue waiting that they'll show up when the reality is they are not going to show up.

A blessing in disguise?

I am 25 years old and I have been working since I was 16, I'm in grad school and not only am I in school I am actually living on campus as well. I guess you could say I'm getting the actual college experience that I didn't get a chance to have as an undergrad. Now I quit my crappy little job, because I thought I had a job lined up here on campus in the end it was a bust. So now I have applying to every possible position available here at school, and just now as I sitting here and reading my email I remembered how a year ago I said "I wish I didn't have to work, I wish I could just go to grad school and just focus on school." Now the only reason I was working was to keep up with my bills, but here's the best part I'm getting a bit of money back from school and I did the math in my head and calculated everything from tuition loans that I am currently paying back to credit card payments as well, and if I did my math right and I like to think I did I might be able to make it for the next four months without working, now granted if I do get a job that would be great, but considering I really don't spend a whole lot of money here and we've just started tax season, which means a little extra cash as well and when I go home for spring break I'll be working at my crappy little job; plus I also have my parents and worse case scenario I ask them for cash every now and then but I don't think I'll necessarily need to do that, but that would mean I could actually make it this semester; I could just focus on school. As hard as this is to believe but I think not having a job might be a blessing in disguise. Of course I know I'll have to tighten my belt and watch my pennies which I know how to do very well, but maybe I should consider taking time off from working and just focus on school and take better care of myself and sort of be able to relax. So here's my question to y'all should I take consider my not working a blessing in disguise?

Are people suppose to be friends or yes people?

What is a friend? Why do we have them? I've always thought friends are people who are suppose to be honest and be there for you when you need them, but sometimes I wonder if that's true. Lately it seems as though one of my friends doesn't want a friend she just wants someone who will sit there and lie because she doesn't want to hear the truth. Now granted nobody likes to hear the truth, hell I don't like to hear the truth but I would rather hear the truth and try to change then sit there and pretend everything is ok when it's clearly not. My friend who's name will be changed to Stacy does not get the hint that she isn't well. She is emotionally unstable and keeps letting herself get hurt by her "ex" or truthfully I don't know what he is. This boy and I use the word boy because he is not a man. This boy keeps treating her like crap and they keep "breaking up" but then she is, I'm sorry to say, dumb enough to take him back. Now I'm not saying it's entirely his fault she is just if not more to blame than he is. Now typically when a girl breaks up with a guy or the other way around the dumper will try to avoid the dumped. In this case Stacy keeps trying to have a relationship with this man and here is why he doesn't want her he has an arranged marriage. And Stacy can not get through her head that their relationship will never work because they not only religion differences they also have culture differences, she's white and Christian, he's Hindu and here's my favorite part she is closed minded and believes that things should be her way, and is not very open to changes. She is emotionally wrecked and she also has trust issues, she doesn't trust anyone but herself, when she told me this I told her straight out that she cannot be a counselor if she doesn't have an open-mind. Now I decided to give Stacy a little test last Friday when we hung out, I told her that in order for her to get the ball back in his court, especially because again they were "broken up" I told her to not talk to him for the entire weekend, well of course I knew she wasn't going to follow through and then she tries to justify why she was texting him and then ruined our night. We ended up leaving around 9:00 because she started to get sad, now out of respect for her boss, I just said fine we'll leave because I didn't want to confront her in front of her boss. I kept quiet in the car and just like I knew she would because she always does she brought him up and I told her the same thing that I have been telling her for about 2 months that this guy is not going to take her seriously, he is not going to commit to her, blah, blah,blah,blah and here's my other favorite part I am not the only person who has been telling her this. Oh no her boss and a few of her other friends have been telling her this as well, and because of this she is not speaking to some of her friends. And tonight it seemed as though she was trying to end our friendship because and I quote "I am not emotionally stable enough to be able to stand here and have you call me narcissistic and I like that your blunt but at times I just don't want to hear it." So I told her something that I have been wanting to tell her for weeks, I told her "I don't bring up your "ex" you always bring him and you bring him up because you not only want to rant but you're asking for advice but unfortunately I'm not telling you what you want to hear. You want me to tell you "fine go ahead be with him" well unfortunately I'm not going to sit here and lie to you like you want me to, especially because I can see that he is hurting you, and that you are not well." What is the point in having friends if they're not going to be honest with you? Why have them then? Why not just say I don't want a friend I want a lackey? So my question is are friends suppose to be honest with you or are they just suppose to tell you what you want to hear instead of the truth?

When it goes around does it really come around?

Today I had lunch with my best friend whose name will be changed to...Darien. He and I met in high school and at first we both had the idea that we hated each other when in reality we didn't. We became friends during community college but it was mostly because we were in the same clubs; so in reality we knew each other because of high school and because we were in the same clubs. Then I transferred to a four year university, we kept in touch with the occasional phone call and or email then we lost contact for a while and then about two years I sent him an email and actually got a response from him, one that changed our friendship for the better. We went from supposedly "hating each other" to being acquainted to one another to becoming best friends. Funny how that happens but I will admit that I've had or rather still have a crush on him but I've gotten better at hiding it. Now I know what you're thinking... "why don't you just tell him?" Well I did about a year ago I finally told him I had feelings for him and his response was... well he's my best friend for a reason and basically it's because he didn't have the same feelings for me. Which is fine, I don't let my feelings for him stop me from seeing other people, I've gotten to gotten to know Darien very well and I have to admit it's nice to have a friend like him in my life. He's one of those friends that you know will be there when you need a shoulder to cry on or just to let you rant when needed, and I speak from experience on both of these accounts. He has let me cry on his shoulder on more than one occasion and the one thing I love about him is that he lets me cry and does not push me to stop. He is an amazing man and I love him very much for that. Now the reason why I am posting this question today, he told me a very interesting story, after I finally told him a secret I had been keeping he told me one he was keeping as well and no he does not have secret feelings for me on the contrary a girl he used to like years ago while we were at Community College, who in the end didn't not return the feelings at the time. Well apparently he didn't take the rejection very well for a while which I didn't know, but then he got over it and got over her. Well this year that same girl told him just recently that she has feelings for him. And like her years ago he does not see her that way. Now I know this girl and I know for a fact that she will get over it and will eventually move on; but here's what I found interesting years ago he told her he liked her and took her on a great date and after many years she would compare all of her dates to their date and in the end she developed feelings for him just to get rejected. So this is why I ask the old saying what goes around comes around, does that really happen? He liked her but she didn't like him and then many years later she realized he was a great catch and was an idiot for not taking the bait while she had the chance, she tries to reel him now but in the end gets rejected just like he did years ago. What do you think? When it comes to dating does it really come around or are just idiots for not seeing things sooner?

Why not me?

I just had a revelation...or more like a breakdown about the fact that my ex-boyfriend and I broke up for good. We broke up over a month ago after 2 years of flirting, and making out we finally became a couple this past July just for it to turn into a long distance relationship because I ended up moving to Wisconsin, and he moved back to North Carolina. We broke up or rather I dumped him because it finally hit me that even though we were "together" if you could even call it that, we weren't and we were never going to be. He was never going to introduce me to his family, in fact I don't think he would have even acknowledge that I was his girlfriend if anybody asked him. I was just going to be some mistress he had in Chicago because according to him his family is very racist and would never accept me and he wasn't willing to fight for me. If I hadn't mentioned wanting to see him, during Christmas break I would have been left as the dumb Hispanic girl in Chicago, while he married someone his family did approve of aka a white girl. What the hell was I thinking? I wanted to be with him more than I have wanted to be with anyone and in the end I got my heart broken by this so called man, and now I have to sit here and wonder "why not me?" I hear this everyday "you're so smart, you're so sweet, you're so cool, you're a great person, you're a beautiful person, you've got a great future ahead of you blah,blah,blah,blah...BLAH FREAKING BLAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! If I am all of these things and more than why wasn't it enough for him? What more did he want? What is wrong with me? So my question for you is what is wrong with all the women that can't find a decent man? What makes it so hard for a good woman to find a good man?