A much needed break

So this week I have been on Spring Break and it really is a much needed break. School has been stressing me out. Its like every week I have a test and another paper due. Even this week I have to work on two papers and a power point presentation. To add to it my group is still having trouble getting together and the first part of our project is due tuesday.

Today I went with my grandparents to buy a car. I had to wake up at 9am which is really early for me. I didn't even bother to take a shower so my hair was kinda yucky. We got to the place at about 10:30 and spent 3 hours there. I hate car dealerships. The workers are annoying and pushy. But my grandparents did end up getting a good deal on the car they bought.

A busy week

The past few days have been crazy busy for me. On Monday I had to write a response to a hypothetical situation. It was pretty difficult because the hypothetical situation was complicated and tugged at both my brain and my heart.
On Tuesday I had a midterm for my abnormal psychology class. I didn’t really study for that test. I just did the review and read it over once or twice. It wasn’t to hard which was good. I probably got a B on it. After we finished the test we had to wait for everyone in our groups to finish so we could discuss our powerpoint presentations that are due in a little over a week. I found out that my group is not the only one who hasn’t done shit. You are meeting on Thursday to work on it so hopefully we will finish it.
On Wednesday I had my speech class. we didn’t really do anything but takes notes about friendships. What makes a healthy friendship, how to end toxic friendships etc. We watched a few clips from the show Seinfeld. We also discussed our upcoming term papers that are due in a few weeks. The one I am doing is about friendships and how they vary. I have to watch several movies and use those as examples along with professional journals.
Today I had my philosophy class. We watched Star Trek. It was the episode about Data and wether or not he had a right to make his own choices. I am not a fan of Star Trek but it was a pretty good episode. When then applied it to what we were discussing.
Ok well now I am done with classes for the week that means my spring break has started woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Crazy week

Most of the week was spent studying for tests. I have a psychology test on tuesday and i had to read 4 chapters and do 4 chapter reviews. I am still not done but I will finish them tomorrow.

On thursday on my way home from class some dumb girl almost crashed into me. I was in the second left lane and she was in the lane to my right. When we were maybe two hundred feet from the red light she decides to cross over to the far left lane. She came within inches of hitting me. I don't even think she realized she almost hit me, she was too busy talking to her friends. There were seven people in a tiny 5 person car.

I have been pretty damn stressed out the last few weeks. It seems like I have nothing but essays and tests to do. I have another paper due this week and a bunch of other assignments like a powerpoint. Thankfully spring break is coming up. But even my spring break is going to be busy. I have to prepare for two presentations that I have the week after spring break.

Bubba Gump, the beach, and a loaded issue

Saturday, I picked up my best friend at about noon, we then headed to long beach. We were having lunch with my mom to celebrate my birthday since I wasn’t able to see her on my actual birthday. We went to Bubba Gump shrimp company, it is a restaurant that is based on the movie Forest Gump. This was the first time I have gone there but it was really cool. Our waiter was very nice and really funny.

We all ordered some type of shrimp meal and it was YUMMY! It was also pretty expensive. After that we sat and talked for awhile and then went on our way. My best friend and I decided to go to the beach and watch the people surfing. Most of the people at the beach were using those big kite looking things, I don’t know what they are called. We stayed at the beach for about two hours and then we went back to my house. We watched that show Shear Genius. I love this show. I have never seen any of the previous seasons but I wish I had.

On Sunday I spent the entire day researching and writing a rough draft essay about assisted suicide. I never really paid much attention to this topic because it is a very complicated issue but now I can’t avoid it. After I finished writing my paper I just felt like shit. My mind kept going over all the stuff I read and it just put me in a lousy mood.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to me. There have been several times when doing a homework assignment that I started to feel crappy because the topic was a really loaded topic and was emotionally draining. I have always been an emotional person and am easily affected by things I see or read. Sunday night I had a hard time getting to bed.

Another midterm

On Thursday I had my philosophy midterm and it wasn’t too bad. It was open note so that helped a lot but there were still some questions that had me stumped. I also had to make up a quiz for this class. What was funny is that I finished my midterm and quiz before the majority of people finished their midterm.
On Friday I didn’t do anything really. I cleaned up the house, cooked dinner, and did some homework. I also got a package from the UPS guy. The reason I didn’t go anywhere was because I knew the UPS guy was going to come and I had to sign for the package. I wish they would give you a time frame of when they will come. I woke up at 8am just in case he came early but nope he came at 4pm. I always hate waiting. I hate waiting for the UPS guy, the phone people, etc.
Today was pretty awesome but I can’t type anymore, my eyes are about to close.

Birthday, Precious, and Midterm

So Tuesday was my birthday! I can honestly say that I do not feel any older but when I think about it I can’t believe I am 20 years old. I am no longer a teenager!
Since it was my birthday I decided to skip class, it wasn’t a big deal because we were just watching a movie that I have already seen. Around 5pm my grandparents came over and we had cake and ice cream. Nothing big because we still are going to celebrate over the weekend. I didn’t get to see my mom that day but she did have flowers delivered to me, they were very pretty.

Yesterday I had to go to my speech class. I filmed my drive to school because I made a deal with some other people to do it. It was a pain in the butt to rig my camera to stay attached to my passenger head rest. But it came out alright I think.

When I got to class we found out we were watching the movie Precious. I wasn’t looking forward to watching it because I have always been the type to cry during sad movies. To my surprise I only welled up twice. If I was home alone I probably would have full on cried like baby lol. I have to say it was a really good movie and was very intense. The scenes between mom and daughter had me on edge and scared of what might happen. Of course we have to do an assignment about it. I think it is going to be about the communication between Precious and her mom.

Today I have a philosophy midterm. I have to say school is kind of kicking my butt. I am sooo tired and my brain is overloaded.

Today I am 20

Today is my birthday!!!!!!!!!!! I am now 20 years old. WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think my present to myself is skipping class tonight and just chilling with the family and some friends.

Midterms

I had my second midterm a few hours ago and I must say it was a lot easier then I thought it was going to be. I was stressing out all week studying for this test and it was easy. It was a lot of work but easy. I had to write three essays and answer 20 questions all in under an hour. My hand was killing me after it was over. Now I have another midterm on thursday!

Strange Love

I was watching a show called “Taboo: strange love”, it is about people who have uncommon relationships. The first person they discussed was a man who was married to a life size doll. He calls the doll his wife and kisses her, makes out with her, dresses her, cleans her, etc. One of the things I found odd was that he said he liked having her as a wife because he can ignore her and not feel guilty about it. Another man has 10 doll wives and he considers them better than real people. He says that the reason he has dolls is because he is unable to build relationships with real people. When he brings home a new doll it is pretty odd. He talks to the doll and introducers her to the rest of the dolls. One of the psychologists on the show says that some men have these dolls because they can be controlled and limits the emotions of the men. I agree with this. Men have the tendency to be the dominant one and like to have control. I also see how this type of relationship with a doll can hinder a person’s ability to interact with real women even more. If you are used to controlling a woman (the doll) you will want to have that same control if you ever become part of a real relationship with a real person.

The second relationships they discussed were arranged marriages between children in Napal. Two 7 year olds were shown getting married. The narrator explained how in this one community marriage has nothing to do with love but with money. After the children are married they go back to their life before marriage and don’t even spend much time together. When they are mature enough to consimate their relationship that is when they move in together. It is suggested that arranged marriages are becoming less and less popular because these people are becoming educated. One of the teenage boys who just moved in with his wife says that he is ready to put an end to arranged marriages even though he himself is in one. I personally could not imagine being in an arranged marriage. I think it is important and a human right to be able to pick who we want to have as a life partner and shouldn’t be a decision people make for us based on money.

Another couple they followed was from Sydney, Australia. They were an unmarried couple who lived together and were committed to each other. The only strange thing about their relationship was that they had negotiated affairs. Each one of them was allowed to sleep with other people as long as there was no intimacy between them and the other people. The other person also had to meet the person partner. The couple said this keeps their relationship stronger because they get to have control over what their partner is doing with the other person. I think that this type of relationship can lead to disaster. What if you partner ends up falling for one of these people that you bring into the relationship? Sure there is no intimacy but they still can develop feelings for the other person. I also think I would be extremely jealous if I knew my partner was sleeping with someone else besides me, even if I was doing the exact same thing.

I hate group work, seriously

Ok so yesterday we had to meet in our groups for my abnormal psychology class. Only three of us were there and boy did it get heated. One of the girls in my group is a lot older then the rest of us and likes to think she is the leader. She is the type of person who thinks she knows everything and she is never wrong. Turns out she was. Our topic is stress and this girl told us we needed to research acute stress and PTSD. We believed her because she talked to the professor. well yesterday we all talked to the professor and found out the girl got it wrong. We have to talk about stress over all not just those two parts of it. Our presentation is due in 3 weeks and I am seriously freaking out.

Also this girl doesn't listen. She is very aggressive and if you try to say something she doesn't agree with she gets very defensive. She is still trying to do things her way but the rest of us seem to be on the same page. The good thing is we get to score each other at the end so it should even out.

Stats

Yesterday I had to take a small quiz on stats in my psych critical thinking class. Then we discussed how people use stats to influence people. One of the things we discussed was tooth paste. I remember seeing ads that say something like “63% of dentist recommend this tooth paste”. When you hear that you think wow it must be good if 63% of dentist recommend it. But really that is like 5 out of 7. You also have to think about who they are asking. Are these dentist that get this product for free? Also did they only ask 7 people?
I think that from now on whenever I hear an ad that talks about stats I will have to listen to them a little better.

Kids Birthday party

So on Saturday I went to a birthday party for my best friends nephew. I got there at about 2pm but we didn’t go down to the party till about 2:30. I haven’t been to a kids party in years so I had to get used to it. It was really loud and there were kids running around everywhere. My friend and I were in charge of pictures and video. We spent the time taking pictures and getting video of the kids playing games. Some of the kids were kind of crazy. One little boy when it came time to hit the piñata went nuts. That kid seems to have some bent up frustrations. After the party we watched some movie and then I went home. When I got home I had to study for an upcoming test.

On Sunday there was another birthday, my grandmas! I started the day by going to buy her a pie, ice cream, and flowers. We didn’t go to her house until 5pm so I spend most of the time before that cooking dinner. I made scalloped potatos, lemon chicken with an avocado/sour cream/lemon sauce and bisquits. It was soooo yummy! When we went to my grandmas we ate dinner and then had pie. The pie was sooooo good too. Then it was time for presents. My grandma doesn’t like to get presents. She says she has too much stuff as it is but we always get her something anyways. After talking awhile we went home and I had to do more homework for my critical thinking class.

I know I got a little behind on my post but for some reason I haven’t been able to log on to my blog for the last two days. Oh well.

Crappy night

What a crappy night. I went to sleep last night at about 11:30pm. This is fairly early for me. The reasons I went to bed so early is because I wanted to wake up early so I could get some stuff done before I go to a birthday party. Well early in the day my brothers girlfriend sent me a message asking if I knew where my brother was, I told her no but I knew his phone was dead so that’s why he wasn’t answering his phone. They ended up getting into it over the phone once he got home. She was accusing him of cheating and a lot of other crap when really he went to the convention center with one of his long time friends. After charging his phone for like 20 mins he left again.
At 1:30am my phone starts ringing, and it’s my brother’s girlfriend. As soon as I answer I can tell she is drunk. She starts asking me if he is at home and I honestly didn’t know so I had to get up and go look, I told her no and that his phone was dead again so that’s why he wasn’t answering his phone. I went back to sleep only to wake up to my brother texting me saying she was pissed off and she would probably call me again so I should just put my phone on silent. I did and finally went back to sleep. Then at 3am my brother is knocking on my door asking to borrow my charger and is complaining about his girlfriend. When he does finally let me go back to get it is 3:30. I wake up at 7:30am only to hear him and her fighting once again. I don’t get why my brother stays with someone who doesn’t trust him.

Fear

I was talking to one of my classmates yesterday before class started. We were talking about how some people are terrified of flying because they fear crashing. Really there aren’t many plane crashes but the reason people fear them is because if your plane crashes you pretty much have no chance of surviving. This brought on a conversation about our fears in general. One classmate was telling us how she is terrified of the water and how “If my plane was falling in the water I would have a heart attack before we even hit the water because I would be terrified of what would happen if I survive the crash and am forced to be in the water”. I found this to be very amusing.

Campus Attacks

So yesterday when I got to school I noticed that there were signs on all the doors that led into a building. When I stopped to read it I saw that a female student was attacked on the way to her car the night before. Tuesday night I had class but when I got to school it was cancelled, the time I would normally have gotten out of the class was the time the girl was attacked. Luckily the girl was able to get away and she is fine. They haven’t found the guy so walking to my car last night was kind of scary. Where I park and where my classes are held are about an 8 minute walk away from each other. You would think that there would be a lot more security roaming the parking lot and campus after someone gets attacked but my whole way to my car last night I only saw one security officer and he was by my class not in the parking lot.

Walking through all the cars to get to my car was nerve raking. I knew my chances of getting attacked were slim but I still made sure I had my keys out and my mace ready. When I reached my car and locked my doors I was so relieved. When I was driving out of the parking lot I saw a lot of women walking alone and not really paying attention to their surroundings. You would think that after someone got attacked they would pay attention and not have their headphones on. I have a night class again tonight but this time I plan on walking with someone else to my car.

Class Cancelled

Yesterday I went to class and I got there about 30 mins early. I wasn’t the only one early so I at least had people to talk too. About 10 mins before class started someone walks in the door and says “you guys do know there is a sign on the door that says class is cancelled”. I was pissed. Usually I don’t mind if class is cancelled but when you are supposed to watch a movie that a test is based on and work on your project with your group it kind of sucks. I only have this class once a week so missing one day really gets you behind. SO this means that next week we are going to have to make up for it and probably stay a lot later then we usually would. I was also annoyed because I had to drive all the way back home during rush hour. Anyone who lives in Los Angeles knows that you have to double the amount of travel time during rush hour. Blah

4 hours of sleep

Yesterday I woke up at 7am. I went to bed at 3am so I only got about 4 hours of sleep. I didn't do much, just cleaned the bathroom, washed the dishes and looked through the news paper because I needed to find an article to discuss in my critical thinking class. By the time I left to go to class I was exhausted. Driving to school was horrible, I felt like I was going to fall asleep any second. When I got to school I got my second wind so to speak.
The topic of the day was stats. Yuck. We didn't spend too much time on it so it wasn't too bad. After that we discussed some of the articles people brought in. They varied from female officers raping juvenile inmates, to putting warning labels on food.
On my way home I decided to take the streets. When I passed over the bridge by my house I was so glad I took the streets because the freeway was backed up for miles. There were helicopters everywhere and when I got home I turned on the news to see a big rig had crashed. I was planning on going to bed early but I stayed up till 2am watching YouTube videos and talking to someone on livewire. Yea it was a pretty boring day.

A long drive

Yesterday I had breakfast with my mom and my grandparents so I had to wake up pretty early for a Sunday. We were finished by 10:30 and I had nothing to do so I asked my bff to do something. I picked her up at 1 and we decided to just drive. We drove to Whittier and all through the hills and took some pictures. We then drove some more and ended up in cypress, then we drove to surfside beach to take some pictures. After that we went to long beach and decided to grab some dinner. We found a place on yelp and decided to eat there. We ordered our food online and went to go pick it up. It was on a very busy street and it took us 10 mins to find parking. We walked into the place only to find out we had to walk down the street to their other location to pick up our order. The food was really good but I doubt I would go there again. It was too much of a hassle to get there and it wasn’t worth the price. After that we went back to my house to watch Whip It and eat a pint of ice cream each. My tummy was stuffed after all that.

Traveling

I have been lucky enough to have been able to travel a little bit. When I was 10 or 11 I went to New Orleans, when I was 14 I went to Hawaii and when I was 18 I went to London then Paris. I have also been to Las Vegas, but that’s only a few hours away. I feel very lucky to have been able to travel because I know there are so many people who aren’t able to. My best friend for instance has never been on a plane and the farthest she has been is Arizona.
This summer since I won’t be able to take any classes I am thinking about going to Vancouver with my best friend. It’s not a very long flight so I think it would be great for her first trip. If we can save enough money then we would like to actually drive to Vancouver so we can make some stops along the way. I would love to be able to go from La to San Francisco, San Francisco to Portland, Portland to Seattle and then Seattle to Vancouver. I have never driven more than 2 hours at a time so I don’t know if I would be able to handle all that driving.
I have never been on a road trip before so I am pretty excited. I also here Vancouver is an amazing place to visit so I am really looking forward to going. We were originally planning to go to New York but I figure we can go to Vancouver for double the amount of time for the same price. We haven’t made any solid plans yet so we will see what happens.

Winter Olympics

I have never been a huge fan of the Olympics. I would usually only watch the events that had people I knew of in them, like swimming. I know who Michael Phelps is and I know who Amanda Beard is, so I watched them during the summer Olympics. I don’t think I have ever really watched the winter Olympics. This year I decided to watch at least one event of each sport. So far they are more interesting than I thought they would be. Luge is actually pretty entertaining to watch and it seriously gets my heart racing because I fear one of them will crash, especially after the death of that one Luge person.
I also find some of the snowboarding to be really fun to watch. Figure skating can sometimes be enjoyable but it really depends on whose skating. The first day of figure skating the first couple up was a couple from China. They were married and have been extremely successful but they have never won an Olympic medal. I usually root for the USA because that’s where I am from but I was really rooting for these two to get the gold and I believe they did. Some of the stories of these people are so amazing and it makes me feel happy to see them succeed at something they have worked their whole lives towards.

Yesterday I took the long way home

On the way home from my philosophy class yesterday I decided to take the long way home. I wasn’t really tired and I was enjoying singing to myself with my radio blasting. I went through some of the quiet streets that have little to no traffic at 10pm. When I was about 2 mins away from home I stopped to let three guys cross the street. They were walking so slow and kept staring at me or something behind me. I was getting kind of nervous because these were three gangster looking guys who were all much taller and bigger than me. The kind of people my brother used to hang out with, during the time when he used to get in trouble. All of a sudden they stop and start yelling, I look over my shoulder and there are 4 other guys running towards them. Next thing I know the guys who were walking in front of me started running and one guy from each group started getting in the others face and started pushing each other. One of the guys ran and the whole group followed. I seriously was freaked out. As I went over the bridge from that city to my own I saw several cops speeding towards the area I was just in. I don’t know what happened but I do hope nobody got hurt.

People and Ambulances

On my way to class yesterday I heard an ambulance coming up behind me. So I made sure I was in the clear and pulled over to the right side of the road and waited for the ambulance to pass me. I noticed the car that was in front of me didn’t pull over, he/she just stopped. When the ambulance came up to the car, the person still didn’t move for a good 45 seconds. This pissed me off for two reasons. Reason number one, if an ambulance is waiting behind you with the sirens blaring YOU MOVE. You don’t just sit there and wait for them to do something. The second reason this bothered me was because the ambulance driver could have gone around the car. Yes the ambulance has the right of way but when you are potentially holding the life of somebody in your hands just go around the stupid car with the driver who doesn’t have a clue. Don’t be stubborn and wait for the person to move. Okay I just had to get that off my chest, rant over.

Phobias part 2

In my previous post I mentioned some of the phobias a few people had. Well we continued to talk about phobias and my Professor told us a story about her daughter. When her daughter was 15 she came into her mom’s room and asked her what a blow job was. Her mother told her what it was and the daughter had a look of disgust on her face. She then asked her mom “do they really expect me to do that?” and the mom said something along the lines of “honey, once you start dating it’s all over, you have to do everything”. The poor girl began to cry. The girl is now 20 years old and she still has never even seen a man’s penis aside from in films and stuff. Her mother thinks she really does have a fear of them now and she blames herself for it.
One classmate told us how her daughter has a fear of sugar. If she sees a bag of sugar she freaks out and starts crying. As far as I know I don’t have any phobias. There are things I am afraid of but nothing really freaks me out. But I haven’t exactly been in every situation so it’s possible I have some phobias I just haven’t discovered yet.

Phobias

Yesterday I had my abnormal psych class and it was one of the best classes yet. The topic of the day was anxiety. We discussed phobias and all the other stuff associated with anxiety. My Professor is terrified of the woods. As she says “nothing good happens in the woods”. She was telling us how once when she went to Elk California they had to pass by the woods. They noticed a lot of people going in and three days later when they left the wedding they saw several cars parked at the edge of the woods and she just assumed “those people never came back”. And a classmate of mine is freaked out by Vampires. Now he can watch movies with Vampires but even costumes freak him out. He is about 6’5 and 300lbs, not someone you think would have a fear of anything. He was telling us how every time he goes to six flags on Halloween he walks through the park with a clenched fist.
I will post more about this later but right now I have to write a journal for my speech class.

Frustrated with School

I was just informed by my abnormal psych professor that this summer my school will not be offering classes for the first part of summer. The second part of summer will have a limited amount of classes available. There will only be 4 psychology classes offered but there are 18 classes for flag football. I think this is ridiculous. It seems like all the classes that people actually need are over looked by classes that only a select amount of students are interested in.
It’s hard enough to get the classes you want during the normal semesters, but now that they are cutting summer classes I doubt I will be able to get any of the classes I wanted. I am a football fan but I don’t see why they need 18 classes for it! They are also offering 26 music appreciation classes but only 8 math classes. My professor encouraged us all to go to the office of the school President and make complaints. They don’t listen to Professors so hopefully they will listen to the students since we are the ones taking the classes.
I also found out today that they are increasing the price of parking permits once again. I am not sure how much it’s going to be but last semester the cost was $20 and this semester was $25 so I am guessing it will be like $30. I think that schools need to get their acts together.

CPK, Cats, and Trolleys

Yesterday was Presidents day so that meant no classes WOOHOO. I picked up my BFF at 2pm and we went to Michaels to buy some frames and then we watched the movie Nine. I was looking forward to watching Nine but it was a disappointment. Then we went to go grab some food. It took us forever to decide what we want but we decided on California Pizza Kitchen. We ordered the food online and we each got a salad. We also bought the shrimp rolls and the hummus. We did the curbside pickup and were about 25 mins late, we were worried they would throw out our food but they didn’t. We ended up spending about $47 plus tip. Really it wasn’t worth it. The salads were great! But the appetizer weren’t worth the $7 and $9 we spent on them.
We then watched Two and a Half men, and it was the episode were Charlie runs over a black and white cat which he thinks is his fiancés cat that has been missing. Turns out it wasn’t but she does have a cat just like the one he hit. After we watched the show we decided to drive around, it was about 10pm. We were driving and a black and white cat just like the one on the show ran in front of my car literally a foot away from the front of my car, I had to slam on my breaks to avoid hitting it. I had to pull over just so I could calm down. I always fear I will someday hit an animal and I honestly think I would feel worse about hitting an animal than a person.
After that we drove to another city and spotted a place with an old trolley. We tried to take a picture of it but it was way too dark and it wasn’t in the best area so we couldn’t stay long. There were a lot of guys walking around just staring at us so we decided to leave. Like 20 mins later I took my friend home and that was the end of my day. Nothing to eventful happened but that damn cat sure got my heat racing.

Just another day

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day and I spent it at home. I have never been a big fan of Valentine’s Day, even when I am in a relationship. I always think it’s kind of dumb how people go all out and make a big deal out of one day. I much rather have a boyfriend who shows me he loves me year round and surprises because he wants to, not because it is expected of him. Anyways, I watched the Olympics pretty much all day while I worked on another art project. I finished the first one but now I need to buy a frame for it. That’s what I am going to do today.
My second project is going a lot better than the first, because I am finally getting the hang of the materials I am using. I will post a pic of the completed project tomorrow.
It’s funny how on this blog I write as if I am talking to someone but really there is probably nobody reading this but myself lol.

Flowers

Yesterday I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing. One of my best guy friends wanted to meet up for lunch with a few of our friends. When we arrived at lunch he had flowers for all the girls. It was a very nice lunch at one of the local diners. The place isn’t anything fancy but they have some of the best food. It’s funny how you can get a great meal at a local place for $6 but having the same meal in the center of Los Angeles will cost me $20.
After we ate we all went our separate ways and I went home to work on a art project. Its taking me longer than I expected because the drying time between each step is pretty long, but hopefully I will finish it today. I also tried to make pesto pasta last night. It didn’t turn out like I wanted so I threw in an avocado and some mayo, it really turned out good after that. I spent the rest of the night just watching movies, I had to go to bed early because I was supposed to have breakfast with my mom and grandparents today, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Birthdays

In less than a month I am going to turn 20. I keep getting asked what I want to do for my birthday but I honestly have no idea. When I was younger my parents would always throw parties for our birthdays but we haven’t done that since I was like 15. Mainly because I kind of got tired of it. I remember on my 15th birthday my boyfriend at the time was supposed to meet my family but he got sick that day and was unable to come. This was probably just a lame excuse to get out of going but whatever. That relationship only lasted about another month after that.
So back on topic. I have no idea what to do for my birthday. I think it falls on either a Tuesday or a Wednesday and I have class both those nights. My best friend says we need to do something fun but I am out of ideas. I know I will probably have dinner with my family sometime before or after my birthday but I don’t know what to do with my friends. Birthdays just aren’t as exciting as they used to be. Probably because I realize that time is flying by and I still haven’t done much with my life. I am looking forward to leaving behind my teen years and hopefully my 20s will be the years when I really do the things I want to do and make the changes I need to change.

Neglecting my relationships

Lately, I have really been neglecting my relationships with my family and friends. Ok well not lately, it’s been about a year or this. In the last year I have seen three of my closest friends only a handful of times. A lot of this is due to them being away at school but even when they are home I don’t make much of an effort to see them. I guess I felt I needed a break from my friends because we used to go to school together and then do stuff together on the weekends. I didn’t think this break would turn into me seeing them once every few months. I have decided that I need to put more effort into seeing my friends. I have, however, been spending a lot more time with my best friend who I had kind of drifted away from for awhile. I am happy to say things are back to normal between us.
Now my family. I guess it all started when my brother went to jail a little over two years ago. It was a really difficult time for my family and put a big strain on us. I stopped going to family parties because I felt like if they wouldn’t go see my brother then why should I bother going to see them. I have never had a great relationship with my dad’s side of the family with the exception of my grandparents, so distancing myself from them wasn’t difficult. I am now starting to improve my relationship with my dad’s youngest sister, although it is kind of difficult because she can be a little too pushy at times.
Now that I am almost 20 years old I feel like I need to act like an adult. I need to work on the relationships I want to keep and cut off the relationships that are doing me no good. I have done this once before with someone who was once a good friend and it wasn’t easy so I am not really looking forward to it.

Explaining bad behavior

Yesterday in my speech class we had to write a journal about attributional patterns and how we explain the disappointing behavior of our friends compared to how we explain the behavior of someone we don’t like.
I personally often dismiss the bad behavior of a friend by saying something like “oh, she is having a bad day or week”. While with someone I dislike I contribute their behavior to them just being mean people. I believe I do this because I want to see the best in my friends. I am the one who picked these people as my friends, if they are mean people then what does that say about me.
When someone I do not really care for does something that is mean, disappointing or cruel than I usually say it is because that person is just a bad/mean person. I think people do this because we want to justify not liking someone. It is a lot easier to not like a person when we actually have a reason to dislike them. It is also a lot easier to say negative things about people we don’t like or even know. For instance, we see someone speeding down the street. Most people just assume they are speeding because they are impatient and have no regard for the safety of others. However, if a friend of ours is speeding somewhere then we are more likely to say something along the lines of “oh, she must have an emergency” or something like that. When it is people we care about we are pretty much willing to make up any excuse possible to make them look good.

Group work

Yesterday I had my first mid-term of the semester. It was for my abnormal psych class. I spent the day studying and at 4:30pm I left for class. It was raining the whole way to school but once I pulled into the parking lot it started to pour. It takes me like 5 mins to get from my car to the building my class is in and by the time I got there I was pretty soaked. But it could have been worse, it’s a good thing I had my rain boots and umbrella. Class started at 5:30 and we had till 7pm to finish our test, most people finished in about 40 mins so we had to wait till 7pm to go back to class to meet with our groups.
The group I am in consists of 5 girls and our topic is stress. I have the task of keeping in contact with everyone and updating everyone on times to meet up. My group members are pretty unique. I am the youngest at 19 and the second youngest is 21. One of the girls in my group is 38 but she seriously looks 28, and she has a son. Another group member who I believe is in her late 30s used to be severely depressed but she had Electric shock treatment or ECT and is now a lot better. She seems really happy all the time. My last group member is 26 and she has two kids. One is 6 the other is 2 or 3. This girl has gone through a lot. She hasn’t seen her family in 10+ yrs has lived on the streets and has used every drug under the sun almost. She really has turned her life around. She is taking care of her kids, has an apartment and is in school. One thing I like about my group is that everyone seems willing to put in the effort to do a good job. Our first out of class meeting is on Friday and 5:30pm. We are only meeting for like 30 mins just to touch base.
Today I have my speech class and I haven’t done my homework so that’s up next.

Study, study, study, blah!

I didn’t do much yesterday. I took pictures of some birds and I had to do four study guides for my abnormal psych class and study for my midterm today. I am pretty nervous about this midterm because it counts for a big chunk of our grade. I have always found it weird that our first midterm is only a month into school, especially since a lot of people have just got their schedules fixed a week ago. The study guides took me pretty much all day. When I was finished I started working on an art project for my best friend. This certain project is a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be. It’s messy and takes a very long time to do. If it goes well hopefully I can start making them to sell on ETSY.
Oh yea, and for the last two days my brothers girlfriend has been spending the night at our house. I don’t really like this girl very much because she is pretty crazy. She has a bad temper, is the jealous type, and is nothing but drama. Even yesterday when my brother was cooking breakfast she started harping on him about something stupid. When she is at our house all she does is stay in his room and doesn’t even bother to say hello to me. I find this pretty rude, if you are going to spend so much time at my family’s home than you should at least acknowledge us. I once told me brother I didn’t think she liked me much and he said “I don’t think she likes me much either”. I honestly have no clue why he is still with her.

Freeways, gun shots, and cops! Oh MY!

I spent the day with my best friend on Sunday; we went to a few places and then had Greek food for dinner. First, we went to Joann’s craft store, the closest one is about 12 miles away so I had to take the freeway. Yesterday’s trip resulted in us getting lost a few times. Taking the wrong exits, merging onto the wrong freeway etc. My best friend always says we need to record ourselves to capture all the stupid things we do. Once we got to the store it was a big disappointment, they only had one thing I needed, so we decided to go to Michaels instead. On the way we saw a car that was ridiculous. The pic in the corner. Again TOM TOM got us lost, well not really but we did turn into the wrong shopping center. After we went to Michaels we went to go get some food and headed to my house, that’s when all the crazy stuff happened.
At around 11pm 3 cop cars arrived at my neighbor’s house, this happens pretty often because they are always screaming at each other. My dad has a police scanner so we hear what they say. Every time the police are called to this house, all they say is “yup the couple on _____ street”. Well when the last cop pulled up we heard several loud shots, at first I thought they were coming from my neighbor but next thing I know all 3 cop cars are speeding off towards another part of the city. We listened to the police scanner and they had no idea where the shots came from or who did it. It was scary taking my friend home because she lives in the same general area the shots came from; we saw several police cars patrolling the streets.
When I got home I decided to do some homework and once again my neighbors started yelling. The cops came two more times and then there was silence for a good 2 hours. At 3am I hear them yelling again and the cops came again, this time they took the guy to jail. Before I went to bed I couldn’t help but think about how some people can remain in relationships that are so screwed up. I always fear that I will end up like them, but I don’t think my best friend would let that happen.

Blue

Yesterday I spent the day babysitting a lost blue pit bull. We have security cameras in our front yard so I always see what is going on in front of our house. I saw that my dad was pulling a dog out of his front seat so I went outside to help him. When I saw that it was a pit I was kind of nervous but I quickly found out it was still young and very sweet. He didn’t have any tags so I decided to stay in the front yard with him until his owner came looking for him. My dad told me that someone was trying to take him before he jumped into his car but my dad could tell he wasn’t the owner because of the way the dog reacted to him.
This dog had so much energy. He kept jumping on me and biting my hands. Not any serious bites but kind of like teething bites. I gave him a plastic container filled with water and instead of drinking the water he tore the container apart. 5 hours and one chewed but chair later a teenage boy came driving by in his car with his dad. Once he saw the dog he slammed on the breaks and was overjoyed to find him. He told me that he had gotten home late and must not have closed the gate properly so Blue (the dog’s name) got out. He thanked us several times for taking care of his dog and promised to get him some tags.
It’s funny how timing works out. If my dad wasn’t outside, the dog would probably have been taken by someone and the owner would never know what happened to him.

A lazy day

Yesterday got off to a pretty crappy start. I woke up at 5:30am to the sound of my dad getting ready for work and my brother banging on my door asking to borrow my phone charger because he left his at his girlfriend’s house. I tried to fall back asleep but it took a good hour of playing Tetris on my Droid to finally knock me back out. I finally woke up at sometime after 10am, and so started a very uneventful day.
I should have worked on several study guides I have for my abnormal psych class but I didn’t feel like it. I was going to go do some shopping but it was raining pretty hard and I hate driving when it is pouring rain. It rarely rains in SoCal and when it does people either love it or they hate it. I love the rain, always have. What I hate is how some people drive like lunatics when it rains. You would think they would be more careful since the streets are wet and you can’t see very well but nope, I guess some people are adrenaline junkies.
I spent pretty much the whole day watching Law and Order: Criminal Intent. I have to say I was really bummed when I found out Vincent D'Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe will be leaving the show, they are the only reason I watched. I also read today that Christopher Meloni will be leaving Law and Order SVU. I can’t imagine the show without him.
The only thing I did today was cook dinner. I made teriyaki salmon with vegetable stir fry. Ever since my parents split I am the one who cooks dinner for my dad, brother and myself. It took a long time for me to get the hang of cooking but I think I have finally got the basics down.
I also decided to keep this blog anonymous. I know this will probably never be read by more than a handful of people, but I still feel more comfortable knowing even if someone I know reads this they won’t know it’s me. Unless of course they are able to put together all the small facts I write here.

Philosophy and a Drive

So today I had my philosophy class, I didn’t really want to go because I was so sleepy. I usually wake up at 10am but today I woke up at 6am so it kind of threw me off. I missed class last week because I wasn’t feeling too good so I had to make up a quiz. I have to say it was pretty easy. Of course most quizzes are easy when you get to use notes! Today we learned about several different philosophers including Socrates. So far I am really enjoying this class. It is a lot different than I thought it would be. My professor is a little boring at times, probably because it is a 7-10pm class and he had been teaching the whole day. It is amazing how much this man knows. He goes on and on about all kinds of stuff and never has to look at his notes. He is in his 60s and he really enjoys telling us about his childhood and how he used to play with tinker toys. You can tell his students really enjoy his class because although he keeps us till 10pm (usually they let us out 30mins early) only one or two students ever leave early. This is one of the few classes that actually make me think and question what I thought I have always known.
I got in my car at about 10:10pm and as I was waiting for my windows to clear up I noticed a few rows away that a guy couldn’t start his car. Immediately several people came to help him. It really makes me feel good to know that there are still people who are willing to help someone in need.
Five minutes into my drive home I got stopped at a railroad crossing, this happens to me like once every few months. Most people wait a minute then make a u-turn because they hate waiting, I on the other hand don’t mind. After the train passed I drove another 10 minutes and two of the three lanes were closed for construction work. This resulted in another 10 minute wait, but I got to see some hot guys getting down and dirty, so I can’t complain. Once I was passed that it was pretty much smooth sailing the rest of the way home accept I saw two fire trucks and an ambulance at a building which caused a few people to be rubber necks. I got home and was shocked to see that my brother was actually home for once. Usually he is out till the wee hours of the morning. As soon as I walked in I heard my dad’s dog pounding on the door to let her in, so I did. Man did she stick today. Now I am just here typing and eating some leftover Greek food. YUMMY!

A little about me!

I am 19 years old, almost 20
I live in Los Angeles, Ca
I have an older brother who is 22
My parents are recently separated
My neighbors are my grandparents
I have 3 dogs, 1 tarantula, and 1 turtle
I go to a community college
I am a psychology major
I drive a 2001 Mustang
I am a DIYer
I love love love to travel!!!

And…..

I have had the same best friend for almost 16 years!

Why?

So this is my first blog post. The reason I have decided to start writing a blog is because I wanted to be able to vent my feelings and just work through my everyday problems.

The past two and a half years of my life have been pretty difficult and things are finally starting to look up, with a few exceptions. Many of the things I went through over the last two years or so have resulted in me becoming a pretty closed off person. I have always been an emotional person and I used to be able to share how I am feeling with people but now I keep my feelings to myself and I have realized this isn't healthy for me.

Writing this blog will hopefully help me feel more comfortable expressing my feelings like I used to.