What's Wrong With Me??

Despite being surrounded by friends who love me, I feel more alone than ever. I can't help but get angry at those who try to cheer me up or snap at those who ask the questions, "How are you??" All it took was for me to walk from Case back to my Northwoods apartment to start crying. Of course, I couldn't show it. I knew at least one of my housemates would be in the living room studying if not two. I couldn't admit to them what I'm feeling. I don't even know for sure what I'm feeling to be honest. It feels like loneliness but it also feels like anger, hatred, and fear. Those tend to rule most of my emotions. I can't remember who said it now but someone once told me that negative emotions are just the absence of happiness. Well duh. But really at this point I feel like a dementor is on the approach because I don't feel like I can be happy right now. I find myself crying, once again, alone in my room wondering if I want to talk to someone about what I'm feeling. I generally run to Chris but he won't be there forever. I don't even feel like he's really there for me now (which is absolute crap because he has been nothing but supportive in my attempt to stop being a self-loathing, pessimistic bitch to the world). I don't feel like I can do this on my own. I need someone there. I need someone who I can trust. I need someone who I know won't judge me. I know that I have these people in my life who will be there for me, who will let me trust them, who won't judge me.... But knowing is entirely different from feeling it. I don't know how to change my thoughts around. I just know that I need to. For my health and happiness, I need to start seeing the up side to things. If you know how to help me, please let me know. Until then... Laters.

Spring Break Recapitulation

Well I'm back at school and you know what that means.... Yes, less than 2 months till graduation. Oh yea it also means UPDATE TIME!! So here's what happened over the last week (spring break).
Thursday, March 10: Packed and anxiously awaited morning to come so that I could hop on a plane for San Francisco. I had a million and one things to do, not to mention I went and visited Cupcake H at the Condom Carnival. She was working and I just wanted to see how down hill the event has gone since frosh year. I contemplated not sleeping that night so that I could get everything done. I sent a text to Breakbeats to ask if we wanted to cancel practice. I know I did. The general consensus was, "Yes cancel because I'm already on my way home." So I went ahead and canceled practice giving me two extra hours to cross things off my To Do list. Then I hung out with Chris because he always calms me down when I'm feeling like I'm about throw myself out a window just to get away from too many obligations. I don't think I've ever had that much fun before traveling before.
Friday, March 11: Woke up and got straight to work. I had to hide the mice because I wasn't sure if anyone would be checking in on our house. That took a fair bit of creativity. Then I packed the last of my things, went to the Skidshop to get my pay check (aka money for spring break), and headed out to my car. It had been raining so the snow was finally melting into slush and it wasn't too icy. I didn't have much problem leaving but navigating the long term parking structure was interesting to say the least. I finally got into the airport and checked in and got to my gate. Before I knew it I was in SF texting Fink to pick me up. I had a smile that stretched from Hawaii to New York about the next week. Of course I also had butterflies. He picked me up and I was so happy to see him. When we got to his house he suggested we chill in the hot tub (HELLS YES). It was nice to relax and loosen up after two flights and a lay over. Not sure how long we stayed in there because I'm pretty sure I passed out a couple times. After a quick shower I crashed (really early) from jet lag.
Saturday, March 12: Woke up way too early for the west coast. Hung out and watched TV just waiting for Fink to wake up. Once he did we ate breakfast and headed into the city. I absolutely LOVE San Francisco. I couldn't help but enjoy every site and sound that surrounded me. The beautiful buildings, the gorgeous water.... EVERYTHING. It was so much fun to walk around, up and down the hills. We hung out and watch a couple of shows at Fisherman's Wharf. Best Saturday by far. Did I mention we ate at Rain Forest Cafe?? YUMMMM :D We were planning on going out that night but I kinda passed out around 8:30 when we got home from playing in the city. I woke back up around 11:30 but was still pretty tired so we decided to just go to bed.
Sunday, March 13: To be honest, I don't really remember what we did during the day. I remember going to the city for dinner and walking around for some awesome night shots. The reason I don't remember much of what we did was simply that it was starting to get awkward between us. I guess we really didn't know each other that well so we just didn't have much to talk about. We talked about movies and music but our tastes are so different that we both felt like we were explaining everything rather than relating over it. It was rather uncomfortable.
Monday, March 14: Fink had work so I spent the day by myself in the city. I walked EVERYWHERE. I went to SFMOMA and thoroughly enjoyed myself there. Then I walked around just chillin at the Westfield Shopping Center and Embarcadero Plaza. I met up with Fink after he was done with work. Then we went home and watched a couple movies. We didn't really talk much that day either.... I had an awesome time in SF but to be honest, I was kinda glad to be leaving the next day. We just didn't have a very strong friendship to spend so much time alone together.
Tuesday, March 15: My sister and mom picked me up and we headed into the city for lunch. We ended up eating at Boudin down at the pier (YUMMM). Shortly after we headed up to Redding. It was raining practically the entire time. We spent the night in Redding. This was the day of travel... just a small look into what we would be doing the rest of the week.
Wednesday, March 16: Early in the morning we left Redding to go up to Bend. We saw the campus and met my faculty. I was thrilled to hear that I was accepted from the woman who interviewed me. A little out of the ordinary to hear it rather than read it from the letter but awesome nonetheless. After we were done at OSU-Cascades we headed up to Tacoma.
Thursday, March 17: We woke up and visited UPS. Mom enjoyed seeing the campus and all the new expansions since she was last there. We toured the city and went to a bunch of different places. Then we went to the museum of glass!! That was the highlight of the trip!! I am obsessed with glass so I was in love with the museum and demos of how to make things out of glass :)
Friday, March 18: In the morning we took off for Woodburn. We did a little shopping for work clothes (since I am now headed in the direction of school counseling). I found A LOT of really cute stuff and I can't wait to go back to expand my wardrobe :) Then we hopped back in the car and headed down to Corvallis. I LOVE THE OSU BOOKSTORE!!! I will be making some trips west to buy more OSU apparel and things haha. Shortly after we headed all the way down to Ashland. My mom loved the small town life in Ashland and she thought it was a really cute place to visit. I definitely will be back someday soon. I liked it a lot too.
Saturday, March 19: We ate breakfast at Morning Glory, which was INDESCRIBABLE!! The food was massive and amazingly delicious. I wish I could describe it better but it's just one of those places you HAVE to go to. Then we headed out and back down to San Francisco. We spent a few hours in the city walking up Lombard and chillin in the rain at Fisherman's Wharf. Then I had to go to the airport.

That was the (not so) quick descriptions of my last spring break from Skidmore. It's weird to think that the next time I have a spring break I'll be looking to go somewhere away from the west coast rather than towards it. I'll be sure to update you on my last first week back from break soon. Until then... Laters!

One more for February

Yes yes, I know. It's been faaaarrr too long. Here's why I haven't been on in a while... The weekend after Valentine's day I had a horse show. My parents and sister came up for a visit AND it was Chris and Raisa's 21st birthdays. So that was a busy weekend altogether.
That weekend in a nutshell:
Thursday- family got in and I went out to dinner with them.
Friday-Prep for the show, cook dinner for family, mice got in a fight and there was blood everywhere.
Saturday-Show all day, team won 1st, I won 3rd, DK and Rochelle both came to see me (THANKS!! I really appreciate it), buy a second cage to separate mice, and get ready for the birthday party. The party theme was superheroes and there were SOOOOO many people who showed up. Everyone got incredibly wasted because, well let's face it, two of my best friends are turning 21 one day apart. You just have to party hard.
Sunday-Walk a horse, piece together last night, and breakbeats practice. I also had to say bye to my wonderful family but I will be seeing Mom and Rendi soon (spring break to be exact) and Dad I'll see in May for grad.

The next week after that was the death of me.
Monday-Chris's real birthday. I took him out to a bar to use his ID for real.
Tuesday-Massive headaches and midterm for Sociology of Emotions (of course I stressed).
Wednesday-Low and behold, I'm sick. FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC.
Thursday-Fever and body aches. Stayed in bed through breakbeats.
Friday-Supposed to leave for Philly so that I could present my capstone at the Eastern Sociological Conference. But of course the weather decided to bring in snow and cover the ground in gross icy snow so that we couldn't get to the train. I end up not going because by the time I would be able to get into Philly, I would have missed my presentation timeslot. Too much stress to try and figure it out, I just said no :(
Saturday-I go to the hockey playoffs and watch Skidmore get their asses handed to them by Babson. Sad, but still and exciting game nonetheless. Their season is officially over but so it goes. The lacrosse game which was supposed to be at Skidmore on this day was moved to Sunday at 3 at Babson (yea hockey ended their season with Babson while lax started with them).
Sunday-Wished Tyler luck at the game saying that Babson's hockey team pissed me off so I wanted them to kill their lax team. They ended up winning but it was close. Good thing a win is a win. Their next home game is not until March 19th and I won't even be here for it. Spring break ends on the 20th so I won't be back on campus until then. But I will be cheering for them all season!!

So now on to the future... What is there to say?? Mediation training is being completed this weekend so that's very exciting. There's also a Hartwick Show this weekend. WISH US LUCK FOR ALL THAT AND MORE!! Also, spring break is coming up in 2 weeks and I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited. I'm flying to San Fransisco to see Fink for a couple of days. I get in on March 11th and get to spend the weekend with him :) I've been counting down the days since December!! Just a little background on him, he graduated from Skidmore and he was on the baseball team. Yes, he was one of the ones I danced "on" in the stairwell of Wilmarth my freshman year. He went to Australia to study abroad (just like me!!) and we met in intro to teaching last spring. So we've known each other for a while but never really hung out until the pen game in ed103. Then I'm going up to OSU-Cascades and UPS with Mom and Rendi (I think). Then it's back to Skidmore for the Lax and Baseball seasons :D This semester is wrapping up fairly fast but of course I'll keep you updated through all of it.... Well at least I'll try. You'll DEFINITELY get an update for spring break :) And as soon as I hear from OSU-Cascades and UPS, you'll hear from me. Until then... Laters!

Happy Valentine's day

Am I allowed to be cynical today?? I know it's supposed to be all about love and happiness but honestly, IT'S A HALLMARK HOLIDAY!!!!!!!! All this day represents is the fact that Hallmark wanted more revenue so they created a day to celebrate love, which btw should be celebrated EVERY DAY. There are about 20-30 deliveries of flowers on the 3rd floor of case where I work. I have the lovely task of signing for them, calling the recipient to come pick it up, and handing it over when they arrive. Is it a sign that I'm actually feeling kinda sick from the overwhelming smell all the flowers are leaving as they pass in and out of the office?? I know I'm from Hawaii and flowers should be like my second soul but really, having to sift through 30 arrangements searching for the one that belongs to that person standing in front of me awkwardly waiting for a delivery they didn't know was coming on the most ridiculous holiday of the year, makes me a little nauseous. Call me a cynic if you want, but I prefer the term realist. So I don't believe in romantic love. I'm not the only one who doesn't believe it. Chris is my Valentine but I made him promise he wouldn't do anything for me. I just wanted to be able to say that I had a Valentine so I wouldn't sound like such a cynic of I HATE VALENTINE'S DAY. To all of you who are in love, I don't judge you for being super lovey dovey happy on cloud 9, so don't judge me for not wanting to celebrate this "holiday." I'm happy for you and congratulations for finding happiness. Just stop telling me that Valentine's is a special day to celebrate it because it shouldn't be. Every day should be special enough to spend with your special someone. Think about it: do you really want flowers when you expect it?? Or would you rather have flowers sent to you when you're not expecting it?? Would you rather have a present just because?? Or a present because s/he is told to give you a present by a random holiday that says, "Don't forget to love your partner today"??

I know so far this hasn't been an update but since the last time I updated you only two things happened.... 1: I placed second in my class for riding (it was a practice show so it doesn't count towards or against anything). 2: I helped out with mediation training this weekend. I LOVE MEDIATION TRAINING!! It makes me feel so much better about everything. This coming weekend my parents and sister are coming up to visit for the real show on the 19th. EXCITING!! Cookie G's birthday is on the 20th and Chris's bday is the 21st. We're gonna have a ton of stuff to celebrate this weekend. I feel like time is going by so quickly but at the same time so slowly. I don't really know what to think. I can't wait until spring break. I get to visit Fink for a little bit in SF, how awesome!! Can't wait to see you sweetheart!! (For the record, we're not dating or in a relationship, we just call each other sweetheart.) I think that's all for now. Until then... Laters

Update you?? Update me!!

Hey everyone?? I know I haven't been updating you in a while but I have a very good reason for that. First, life. Let's take this category by category.

Classes: Not terrible, not awesome. Sociology of Emotions is turning out to be quite the interesting class. So many majors thrown into one class to learn from one another. Dance for the Child is kinda amazing. I'm in the class with so many of my friends that I thought I would never see before I graduated. Of course my ex and his current gf have to be in that class acting all couple-y together (BLEH!!) but I still have fun regardless. She likes to give me dirty looks because she's also in my Pilates class with me. Oh and did I mention my ex is also in my singing class too?? WTF mate?! (Yes I just stole that from the end of the world). Oh yea I should also probably remind you that my ex doesn't like to acknowledge that I exist. So.... recap, this semester will be entertaining to say the least. One thing's going for me though... SO377 Presenting sociological research. I absolutely LOVE my major and the people in it. We've gotten pretty close last semester and we will now be getting closer when we travel to Philly together in 2, count 'em, TWO weeks!! We'll all be presenting our projects (or something we've done for our major) and we'll have a blast. Too bad it's on the same weekend as so much more... Which brings me to my next category, Grad School.

More like grad school apps: I heard back from OSU Cascades and I am invited to the personal interview day. This means that I qualify to be accepted at the school, I'm just waiting to hear back from the program to see if I got in. EXCITING!! But again, too bad it's the same weekend as my presentation in Philly :/

Riding: I'm showing this weekend and next weekend (both home shows). This is the first show of the semester and it's a practice one but one that matters nonetheless. I've fallen in love with the sport and can't help but want to ride all the time (regardless of how many times I complain that going to practice is such a pain). There are 4 shows this semester and only 3 of them can I possibly go to. The fourth is the same weekend as the conference, the interview day, AND West Point's Formal (yea I was invited but of course life gets in the way and says "too bad so sad, you can't go"). Like I said, the weekend of the 25th just has wayy too much going on. But on the plus side, my parents and sister will be visiting the weekend of the 19th for my home show that counts towards my points :) again, EXCITING!!

Friends: I made some new friends this year and this semester I am thanking every God that could possibly exist for them being in my life. The first one I am so blessed to have in my life is Chris. He has kept me so incredibly calm for the first month of school. Everyone knows that I stress way too much. Chris has been the one to somehow manage to get me to breathe, take a step back, kill him if I must (JK), and just relax. It really helps me out to be part of Fight Club with him because we're both trained mediators and conflict coaches so it's nice to be able to talk to someone and have him surf back what I say without letting his own biases or judgments rule what he wants to say. Thanks Chris (who btw is my valentine this year :P). Also I'd like to acknowledge Fight Club for being the crew to step up and help me out with my newest passion of helping high school freshmen. Nick, Nat, Johanna, and Chris are so great in helping me give conflict resolution and awareness workshops. I couldn't have done it without you guys!! I can't wait for our next adventure together :)

I think that's all I have for an update for now. I'll keep reminding myself to update this blog as the semester goes on.... Until then, Laters!

Update 3

DC, here I am!!

Saturday: New Year’s day. Everything is closed and there’s nothing to do but rest up and eat.

Sunday: Sightseeing and navigating the city. First stop, Smithsonian. Union Station and the Postal Museum were first and the international spy museum was after. There are a million and one things to see and do in every museum so we only made it through about half of every museum throughout the week.

Monday: Tour of the Pentagon and Capitol. The Pentagon was AMAZING!! I have always been interested in learning about the military (and now with my new friends and reconnected friends I can learn more) but after the Pentagon tour and all the museums that praise our troops I am incredibly fascinated and impressed with the military. I like learning about them and especially love seeing them all doing what they love to do. They’re so passionate about protecting our country and speak so highly of everything… I’m just inspired by them (I know it’s cheesy but hey that’s me). Of course I would NEVER consider going into it because I’m WAY too soft and too much of a mediator, but it’s still interesting to learn about. At the Capitol we had one of Senator Inouye’s staff take us on a tour. This means we went to a bunch of offices and the appropriation room of Senator Inouye. I can’t really remember what else we did because after a week of viewing a ton of museums and trying to do as much as possible they start to blend together.

Tuesday: Tour of the Archives, visit to the natural history museum, visit to the American history museum, and tour of the Washington monument. The butterfly exhibit was closed until Friday so I was pretty upset at that. Everything else was pretty amazing though.

Wednesday: INAUGURATION TODAY!!!!!! We spent all day in the Capitol watching the inauguration of Representative Colleen Hanabusa. It was amazing. So sorry to Senator Inouye’s staff who had to be trapped in his hide-away office with our crazy family. I hope you enjoyed yourself laughing at us haha.

Thursday: Department of Interior tour. From 9am to 4pm we toured the city. We went to the WWII memorial, Arlington Cemetery, Korean War memorial, Vietnam War memorial, Lincoln memorial, lunch at the old postal building, Washington Monument, Jefferson memorial, and FDR memorial. It was a lot of walking, a lot of cold, and a lot of fun!! Again, I am VERY impressed with the military after visiting all these memorials, especially after visiting Arlington Cemetery. I loved the stones being all perfectly aligned like soldiers standing at attention and the changing of the guard of the tomb of the unknown soldier. It was so amazing to watch and feel the power of the entire place. I wanna visit the cemetery again soon. I absolutely LOVE it there, as weird as that sounds haha. I also came down with a terrible toothache, which exhibited all the symptoms of an absist (or something like that). Idk what exactly it is, but as far as I understand, it’s an infection that is causing me a great deal of pain in the root of my tooth. I haven’t been able to sleep through the pain and I actually resorted taking Tylenol. Yes, I’m taking medicine to ease pain… but it’s not very helpful because as soon as I eat, it hurts again. I’m hungry and tired but I can’t really do anything about it until I get it checked out.

Friday: Tour of the White House and visiting the air and space museum. I enjoyed it a lot but with the pain from the tooth I couldn’t help but go back to the hotel early. Although, I did get to visit my butterflies before I left :) that was pretty much the highlight of my day and when my tooth didn’t bother me as much as it had been. Of course, when I left my tooth was killing me once again. I didn’t go to dinner this night. I took a shower and packed and then passed out… hard core.

Saturday: I woke up and my tooth hurt EVEN MORE!! It’s ridiculous how much more pain you feel after being numb for a couple of hours. It started to snow just as we were leaving the hotel and my family ran out to take pics in it. I couldn’t move because the pain paralyzed my body a fair amount. We loaded up the vans and went on our way to the airport. Uncle Walter called his son who's a dental specialist or something like that so that I could get the pain all figured out.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig: I was in a TERRIBLE amount of pain. I was airsick and nauseous and my tooth hurt a lot. I went straight to Uncle Wade, Uncle Walter's son, and told him what was going on. He went to work on my mouth right away. Turns out I have an abscess. For a few months or years (when ever it was that I got my filling on that particular tooth) bacteria has been eating away at my tooth and has finally reached the roof of my mouth and behind my nose, which is why I was in so much pain. Uncle had to open up my tooth to clean it all out and after he was done I could barely breathe from the pain. It went all the way the center of my brain. I couldn't stop crying and I still had to wait for a while to get my pain killers. BTW I'm finally able to swallow pills... it's amazing what you can do when you're desperate. Anyway... now I'm feeling MUCH better but I still get nauseous and dizzy when I take my medicine (stupid side effects) but it's better than feeling a crap load of pain. I think that's everything to bring you up to date... so I guess I'll keep writing as my break continues on its adventure. Until then... Laters!

update 2

Christmas was when the REAL exhaustion took place. I had to try to schedule a bunch of hang out sesh’s with my friends since they left before I got back from DC. Special shout out to Zan for being there for me through EVERYTHING despite being blown off and ditched by me…. Why ARE you still my friend?? Haha JK. I know I don’t acknowledge you enough Zan but I really do love having you as one of the few I still talk to from MPI.

Sunday and Monday night: Hung out with Isaac and the Kalaheo crew for Jed’s 21^st birthday. MAN-O-MAN was that fun. Jed, do you remember what happened this night?? I have some of it on film :) again, a lot of it is on fb for your records lol. It was a crazy night of Kailua bar hopping. For the record, yes I was one of three girls with 15-20 guys, most from Kalaheo if not all, and majority of them in some branch of the military. There were even four of Jed’s friends from the Naval Academy out here to help celebrate. On Monday there was only the crew I knew… the ones from Miss Outstanding. I liked that night a little better because it was more my pace and I wasn’t with a bunch of people I didn’t know. Nevertheless, I made some new friends and reconnected with old friends I never thought I would see again :). Also on Monday night I went to Colin’s house to hang out with a bunch of MPI kids who, again, I never thought I’d see again. It was nice to see them all again even though I didn’t hang with them in high school that much (I didn’t have a life in high school and I still barely have one). It was interesting to see how everyone changed. A pretty eye opening experience haha. *For the record, I saw Zan this night so I didn’t TECHNICALLY ditch out on him completely :P. I promise we’ll meet up again in the future Zan… Even if I have to fly to where ever you’re stationed when you become some crazy Navy officer haha.

Tuesday: Hung out with my Tony Stark and went to dinner with the fam. Not much to say here since Tony and I talk a fair amount… even if I am drunk dialing him 75% of the time haha ;) I’ll see him again when I get back from DC.

Wednesday: Saw Erin and Dr. Grandpa Moose Kelso :D This was a fun day. We hung out and talked and just got caught up with everything that was going on. We talked a lot about the future, which seemed a lot more daunting this time since it was literally just a hop, skip, and jump over to the present. Kelso is headed to med school—CONGRATS!! And Erin is gonna apply to become a CSI (So exciting to hear that she’s doing that since I’m obsessed with that show. Just please don’t ruin the show for me, Erin haha).

Thursday: Packed and cleaned the birds’ cages. That’s pretty much it.

Friday: LEFT FOR DC!! So sorry to everyone who left already and I didn’t get to hang out with you. Mandi, I’ll be sure to come see you sometime in the near future. Idk when or where but I’ll track you down after graduation and visit again just for you :). Leanna, I’ll hang out with you when I come back (you too Erin). Carolyn, WE MISS YOU!! Stop saving the world for a couple weeks and come hang out with us!! Everyone else, keep reading for the updates on the exciting week in DC. Until then… Laters