I'm Back!

I'm very sorry for my absence from my blog. I can't believe it's almost been a year since I've written here! Reading a few of my old posts like "Who I want to be" made me cringe, not because of my inexperience with blogging, but because I'm still the same person one year ago, dealing with the same problems. 

So what has happened while I was gone? Well, I'm a vegetarian now. Officially since August 14th 2014. And I'm going to be an undergraduate student this fall. That's all I know for certain. I wish I could put all these labels away and tell you if I've changed mentally or have any new aspirations. But, I honestly don't know if I have anything to say.

I'll tell you what I do know though. I have more things that I care about and I think I'm building confidence in myself - that I can stand up for myself and my beliefs and not care about what people think about me. One year ago, I was afraid of putting too much of my thoughts out for anybody to see, because I hate being harassed. But, I'm going to get harassed anyways. It's just a matter of how I deal with it today versus how I reacted in the past.

Now that I've come back, I might want to start on a fresh page. So, to all my readers please don't be surprised if I lead you to a new blog. I'm in between deciding the topic of my next blog, so until then, bear with me while I keep experimenting on this one.

Who I want to be

It's funny.

Sometimes I can't think of the person I'm going to grow up to be. And it's funny because I look at the person I am right now and I think: where do I want to go?

The answer can be simple. As simple as a sentence or a phrase or a word. I want to go....[ ______ ].

But, sometimes, I manage to change up the question I am answering. I look at the question as a Great Inquisitor descending on me and tearing me apart. So all I do is not answer anyone who asks me who I want to be when I am older. Usually, I tell them I'm not sure. Sounds like an okay answer. Sounds like an answer to a conversation that I don't want to continue. But that's okay. Because I still don't know where I want to go. And so, I'm stuck. Standing here between a rock and a hard place.

I could be complaining, but who is going to judge me? This is my life. This is my story. These are my choices. So let me think for a moment why I think it's funny when I answer "Who do I want to be?"

Recently, I vented on a sheet of paper - all my thoughts about myself. And I felt torn a bit. I wanted someone to tell me, to read this piece of paper, that what I was feeling is okay. We all have those kinds of tearing feelings sometimes. And learning how to deal and soothe them is what makes our perspective better.

Maybe what I was considering in the question all along was the wrong way. Maybe I have to stop using the word maybe.

Okay.

Perspective changes everything. Perspective changes nothing. Who I want to be changes with perspective. Who I want to be is to understand what I like. What I hate. And channel it into something I find for the moment bearable. So, I'll take a breath. And appreciate the life I have now. And maybe someday, I will find this question actually funny.

Releasing my stress by Breathing

1. I'll try using drapetomania five times in a sentence. (Cool, cheat)
2. I must create a more posts with new words like drapetomania , yum.
3. Drapetomania reminds me of dracula with an ape doing some weird tomato crazy things.
4. (Courtesy of Wikipedia:) Drapetomania was a supposed mental illness that caused black slaves to flee captivity.
5.  There's too much real shit in the world to spend time thinking about drapetomania, so let's just drop this.

Too much stuff on my plate is how I feel today. There is plain too much stuff. So many expectations from teachers, from myself and the irrational necessity to impress my friends.

The first thing I remembered when I woke up today was 'I have a Chemistry test second period. Shit. Why did I have to fall asleep at 10.30 last night when I could have spent a couple more hours studying. Urgh. There's no use complaining now. I got up, listened to some Lady Gaga pop (Do what you want (with my body)), bounced around to get my blood flowing and started reviewing. I had an hour before school. I thought 'I might as well try and do theory'. Sometimes in life, things don't go the way we plan them out to (and I could improve my planning drastically), but the point is to never give up and just keep going and get yourself through this.

What I've realized recently is that I use the words "Sometimes" and "I don't know know" and more specifically (sarcasm here) "things" so often in my typing it's uncountable. I'm not sure of things (and there we go again) 100% of the time - but that's okay I guess. Not knowing how certain things are in my life doesn't change the person that I am. Now, back to the story I was telling you about taking care of my stress.

I got to school, biting cold and my feet hugging the second snow on the sidewalk. Some poor unfortunate soul in my class forgot there was a test today. Drats. Good luck to them studying in First period. I, for one, needed it, and bad. I was already freaking out - trust me, you couldn't tell from looking at me, but I've got a serious case of anxiety issues. I blank out on tests and end up scoring a 60 (sometimes even less, but I aim for the 85's range). Yeah it's bad. Not terrible terrible bad, but considering my several hours of studying were reduced to nothing because of anxiety dust... yeah, I've got a bad case of the nerves. I decided to fix it. With the help of dealing with stress in Health class, I've tried Tai Chi and Deep Breathing and a whole lot of just focusing on your breath. You can think of anything really while breathing. I think about what my role is in the universe. Well, I've tried that once. It was fun, I tell you. What I've tried since this September is deep breathing. Like this (you can try this with me): And it's important to do it slowly and with meaning.

"Breathe in for three" 1,2,3...

"Breathe out for six" 1,2,3,4,5,6...

"Feel your breath in your belly as you breathe in" 1,2,3...

"Release all the stress in your body" 1,2,3,4,5,6...

1,2,3...

1,2,3,4,5,6...

...

......

And so on... I just keep going until I have a true focus in my head. For me, it didn't work instantly. The longer you do this, the easier you can make yourself get focused faster and clear your mind. But this is how it works for me and I'm trying. When I went into 2nd period Chemistry class. I was in an ocean of calm. I did not recognize myself. I went in and aced that test. Surely it's at least an 80 (but I'll aim for higher next time!). Tests tests tests. They don't change who we are, but we can change the way we perceive how much effort we put into them. I just remember, "You are worth it." Say that to yourself when you get frustrated. It works.

Friendship, work and school

School. That one word can send shivers down my back and make me shake in my jeans. No, it's not because of bullying. It's because I'm scared of seeing a new light in certain friends. You see, last week, my Science class had a lab and we had to form groups of 4, so that the teacher had less reports to mark. Instantly, I saw conflict within our group - because the communication between us was terrible. I asked my friend Cathy* if she wanted to work together and she shrugged "sure" in an uncaring monotone tone. I was glad because I had the chance to work with someone smart and I hoped we would be able to grow as friends together - we've known each other for 5 years now. I was about to invite my friend Elaine*, because she looked really anxious that she wouldn't be in a group. But, as soon as Mr. Russickty told use to start, Elaine jumped out of her chair to invite Carlos to work with her. My reaction was semi-amused and semi-angry that she didn't consider to work with us first, since we've sat in the same row for months and helped each other over many question problems. Well, whatever, I didn't mind that much as long as she was happy working with a new partner. I just wanted her to know that I was here to work with her. Personally, the people who make our groups don't matter as long as everyone does the work they need to do.

So Cathy and I had a head start on our lab, gathering our materials, and setting up our work space. Later Elaine and Carlos asked to work with us because there weren't enough tools to work with. Cathy and I welcomed them with open arms and we carried on with the instructions. I was a bit angry at how Elaine chose her work partners, but I calmed down when I told myself that people just need to cooperate, and Elaine leaving us didn't have any mean intention to hurt our friendship together. We wrote down our data carefully, throwing away the thin dotted paper where our results were recorded.

The biggest place where the conflict started for us was online - when the group created a shared document for the lab discussion. It's crazy to me how anger is created over typed words and mis-communication is left in the database, never discussed face to face. Elaine typed up our numbers and the rest of us waited for her to finish before we got started on the graphing and discussion. We vaguely split up our workload so that everyone had a responsibility to take care of. We agreed to have it done over the next few days.

Everything was going well, until Mr. Russickty told the class that the dotted paper needed to be handed in with the rest of our discussion. My mind blanked. Cathy's hand shot up so fast, I didn't have time to process what was happening.

"Mr. Russickty, what's going to happen if our group 'lost' the paper?"
"Well, your group is going to have to redo the graphs and your whole discussion."

What happened to our paper? Our lab was due tomorrow and we had no paper or proof that we did the lab at all. Cathy, who sat on my left, started to grimace, clenching her palms into fists and I could see that she was about to cry.

I touched her shoulder. "What's wrong Cathy?"
"We're not going to be able to finish by tomorrow." She didn't look at me, but her voice was frustrated and I could tell she was putting a huge pressure on herself.
"Don't worry, we'll be able to do it. Graphing's not even going to take that long."
"Yes it is! I have an speech due tomorrow and I haven't even started." Cathy's eyebrows were furrowing closer and deeper together. I'd never seen her this frustrated.
"Hey Cathy, calm down. Carlos, Elaine and I can take care of it. Don't worry. It's just two lab graphs."
"No! I have to do it. There's just too many things tomorrow..!"
"Cathy, you can depend on us. We can do this as a group. I'll text you tonight to let you know when we're done."
"No. I have to do this myself."

I took my hand off her shoulder. She wasn't listening to me and my advice didn't seem to calm her down. Elaine, on my right, was mute. Her eyes were glossed over. I thought it was best if I just left the situation alone and heal itself. I was frustrated -why couldn't Cathy relate to the group? I thought we were in this together; we're not a one man team. Cathy told Mr.Russickty our situation and we were told to redo the lab at lunch. She even got us an extension. Even still, she wasn't happy. I decided to confront her.

"Cathy, we could graph this on our own. I don't see a problem."
"Well, your graph was missing so many things. Circled dots, no equation. I had to redo the whole thing."
"Yeah, I understand, I could have changed those things. They only take a few minutes to add."
"Your graph wasn't very good."

I didn't see any smiles on her face. None at all. She was disappointed in me, I could tell. But why didn't she just text me to let me know that I could change them myself? I felt like she took my whole work and redid everything - which is what she did. I was assigned it, but she redid it anyways. What's with that? Do you treat your group members' works like they aren't worth anything? Wouldn't you try to let your member know instead of changing it within a short notice? I was angry at her and how I wasn't able to tell her how I felt. I was confused: was this a problem with our friendship? or did we not know how to cooperate as a group? The next thing I knew, I was crying over the phone.

Have you ever had a time where school work and friends just don't mix? Sometimes when you're in the same school work group as a friend you discover new work traits that you might not have seen before. And that's okay. Because experiences with our friends let us learn more about them. You learn how you deal with group conflict issues and start to improve your relationships.

Welcome to teen life story! The stories here are all written by real teens with real experiences and real problems. From one teen to another when the things in our life become overwhelming we all have different ways of coping and finding solutions.  I hope you learn alot from me and from me to you. Lots of love sent your way :-)