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?