Ball & Chain

Depression is a real drag. (No pun intended.)

The truth is, it’s hard for me to do anything most of the time. It varies in intensity from day to day; but I usually suffer from a chronic case of laziness and lack of motivation.

When I say it effects everything, I mean everything. It’s really rare for me to be able to focus on anything. Things that I can focus on are hard to start as well. I rarely ever start things purely on my own motivation. A good example is crochet. I can crochet for hours, but it’s rare for me to start purely on my own. I love art related activities in general. I usually have encouragement from another person when I get around to them. Even then, it is very hard for me to start. Almost everything makes me feel like I’m dragging a ball and chain around.

Homework is hard to do. Well, I guess that is an under statement. I grew up with various people helping me do my homework up until college. I really doubt I would have gotten as far as I did through high school and before without that help. I think my worst year was the 6th grade. I actually don’t know how I got out of it. It’s a miracle they didn’t hold me back. I did literally almost nothing in that year.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t have a solid form of depression back when I was in grade school. I was probably more lazy than depressed. I feel like I was better at doing things that required me to memorize a lot of info. I think things were less of a drag to me back then. My first year of college after things started going downhill with my best friends my depression started kicking in. I completely bombed my first year of college after high school. I mean straight across the board E’s. I had no motivation to really try and I had no clue what I wanted to do for a career at all. I was paralyzed mentally and couldn’t unfreeze myself. The college was even kind enough to let me repeat my first semester, but I couldn’t do it. I had no discipline. I took 3 years off after that and it’s been an on and off struggle when it comes to motivation ever since I returned to school. I also have a huge problem with procrastination. No doubt caused by my lack of motivation.

I know very well that it is impossible to get anything done when you are waiting for the perfect opportunity to come around. That perfect mood so many of us are waiting for is a fantasy. That opportunity will almost never come around. The sad fact is that you have to push through it, and that can feel nearly impossible sometimes. The fact that I haven’t failed every semester will tell you that I am in fact capable of working hard. I have pushed through before. Like I said, it’s hard for me to start stuff, but once I get into things I can usually stick with a lot of things and pull through if I know how. In school I don’t always know how, and that has a real impact on my motivation, and of course my performance. Stuff like writing large papers, and any form of math or hard thinking in general is really hard for me to push through. I’ve had to face failure quite a few times because a lot of the time I just can’t bring myself to do hours of homework a lot of the time.

The few times I have managed to push through that stress were some of the most rewarding in the end though. Though, the effort made me feel like I was slipping into insanity in some cases while I was working. The things that confuse me are usually the things that end up causing me the most trouble. Procrastination and I are best friends too often. When I defeat procrastination, it feels great.

Enough about school for now. I will get more into that in another post.

Believe it or not, I even struggle with fun things. I have this really big problem with skipping through things. I skip through books, I skip through music, and I even skip through Netflix shows. Sometimes I am just to eager to get to the point and find out what is going to happen. This is also one of the side effects of when I fail. When my lack of motivation, laziness, and procrastination end in failure; I am often a little too eager to get back into fun. I then end up becoming impatient and try to hurry through that fun. I am in a hurry with a lot of things. That probably doesn’t help my motivation.

I’m not impatient with everything mind you. I’m actually extremely patient with a lot of things and in a lot of situations. I’ll elaborate on that some other time.

Relationships are mostly out of the question for me. Most of the time I have very little or no motivation to socialize. Even when I want to, the drag I feel is nearly impossible to resist. It’s rare for me to want to spend time with people and to be honest, I don’t really enjoy the process of making friends. I’d rather just keep the ones I already have most of the time. Sometimes I meet people I want to be friends with, and even talk to a lot; but that is very rare. I hardly ever talk to anyone except for people online. Random people, not friends. I don’t even talk to my family that much to be honest. The time and effort it takes to make relationships drags me down a lot and I’m kind of awkward. I value relationships I do make so much that it hits me extremely hard when I lose them. It’s hard for me to relate to a lot of people and I’m not particularly knowledgeable in anything. I get so confused when trying to form new relationships that my anxiety kicks in and I end up having to give up a lot of the time; on a lot of non family relationships. I don’t even have the motivation to talk to my best friends.

When I find a guy I like it’s a bit different, but I think I should talk about that in a separate post.

This might sound weird, I don’t know. The things I usually want to do the most are sometimes just as hard to do as the things I don’t want to do. Like what I said above about art. I always want to do art related stuff, but it’s so hard for me to actually start and do it. I don’t particularly dislike learning or even being social. It’s just very hard to navigate the difficulty, confusion and my lack of motivation. I should probably mention that I hate cooking. I eat pretty healthy despite that fact. One thing I do have a lot of motivation and respect for is staying healthy. You only have one body and you should take care of it. I highly encourage people to prioritize health. Not just physical health, but mental health and if you are spiritual, spiritual health too. Those make up your entire life.

Anyway, I think my brain is trying to quit now. This was really hard for me to write. I knew I absolutely had to push myself however. I try extra hard with certain things like this, and my French study. I’ve actually made improvements in both. Also, this might surprise you, but exercise is one of the things I have the least amount of struggle with. Well, maybe not, considering what I wrote above. I still have to push myself, but I’ve managed to become better about fitness. That is a huge triumph for me. I used to never exercise.

I am slowly learning to push through things. I still have a long way to go with everything though.

Grammar advice and corrections are welcome on anything I write. I am no pro at writing. I just love to write.

I Hate Papers

Let me tell you a bit about my struggles in school. I’ve had plenty of hard times while attending University. I’ll just stick to this semester though for this post. This semester I am taking Ethics & Values, Nutrition, and English. I got off to a wrong start from the beginning.

My Ethics & Values Class is a lecture class. We have lectures on Mondays and Wednesday’s and then on Fridays we split up and each of our groups is lead by a Teachers Aid. In these class sections on Fridays we go more in depth with what we learned earlier in the week. Rather than just listening to lecture we get to give our opinions as well and sometimes debate. The class is built around learning about different philosophers. We have different readings from these philosophers every week or so. We have had a few papers, and I’m working on my final one. The tests are on what we have learned during the lectures.

Nutrition is a class I chose to take online. It’s basically a lot of reading, quizzes and a few tests. I’ve had to try and retain a lot of info. I’ve never even met my professor. He looks pretty athletic from the photo he sent us though.

My English teacher is pretty old fashioned. He doesn’t allow technology in class and has made us learn how to research topics offline in the library. Most of the class is built around service learning. So I did 20 hours of volunteer work at an elementary school library. I might go back during the summer and do more. Our main research topic revolves around our volunteer work. I was going to research child literacy, but I got behind this semester and have had to give up on English. It took me too long to find a volunteer job to do so by the time I found one I was already very behind. The class is basically just volunteer work, grammar presentations, papers, and reading. It might sound easy, but for me, if I had tried to pass I would have failed my other two classes. That is my biggest reason for giving up.

Just my other two classes alone have hours of reading. A few weeks ago I read 8 chapters in my text book for my 2nd nutrition exam. In the space of 4 days I did over 20 hours of reading. It was at that time I realized I couldn’t pass my English class. On a stage it takes me around 2 and a half hours to read a chapter from my nutrition textbook. It takes a couple more hours to read the material from just one philosopher from my Ethics and Values class. Plus I have all the lectures recorded and have to review those.

I’m still not sure if I will pass anything at this point. There is so much info I have to remember.

I am working on studying for finals the last two weeks. I will never forget how a bunch of papers in English class nearly sunk me in every class. I hate papers, I really do.

Anyway, I will update on my school situation at the end of the semester. I have other things I need to write about. I feel too scatterbrained to ramble on about this stuff right now.

I guess for now I'm alright with posting whatever I post on my Wordpress blog on here. 

Journey

Remember Quizilla and AOL journals? That is where my blogging journey began. Sadly, both of those old journals from high school are gone. I wasn’t able to salvage either because by the time I wanted to they had been shut down. Quizilla changed a lot after Nickelodeon took over. I joined before that happened.

Both were pretty much just about high school and boys I liked. Silly stuff like that. I think my AOL journal talked more about high school than my Quizilla journal, but I don’t remember clearly sadly. I’m not super sad about my Quizilla journal being lost, but my AOL journal was a loss to me because I had more written in it.

So that is where my blogging origins are. That was clear back in 2006 when I started being a heavy internet user and was a senior in high school. Time flies really fast!

Almost 10 years ago in August 2008 I created my first WordPress blog. I think I created it on another account than what I use now though. I blogged on wordpress for a couple of weeks only I think. I moved to Xanga not long after I started blogging in the same month. I had a little interest in Xanga before WordPress, but it wasn’t until I checked the site over a second time that I discovered I liked it more than I thought.

Xanga was my favorite blogging site and I’m still sad that it is what it has become. I blogged on Xanga from August 2008 all the way to when it had it’s terrible reboot. I tried other blogging sites like tumblr, the old version of blogger, livejournal, WordPress again and a few others. In 2011 after Google re did blogger and made it better I started blogging on both Xanga and blogger. I nearly left Xanga a whole bunch of times, but I always came back. I think one of the reasons why is because people read what I write. It was easy to be discovered on Xanga. I even made it onto the front page a couple of times! Also, they had this really cool feature where you could upload audio. I used to do Audio blogs on there too.

My username was Empathic_Heart, those were good times. I’ve been on blogger ever since I lost Xanga. Same blog, different place. I didn’t import to my new wordpress because I consider this blog to be my private blog now and I have a desire to start over with my blog on wordpress. That is an entirely separate blog. A lot of things happened last year and I didn’t write at all. I feel like I should leave that era of my blog in the past for the most part. That is why I am mostly not writing on here much anymore for now. I might post here and there.

Anyway, I’ve tried a few of the newer blogging sites as well, but I just decided to stick with blogger and WordPress. I’m happier that way.

And now onto another era of writing. I can’t wait to see what I make of this.

Social Flip

My social dynamic has gotten all messed up over the past 15 months. After I lost the friendship of someone I liked at the beginning of last year things got weird.

I’ve never had a problem with being alone so far as I can remember up until that point. I used to think of myself as an introvert. I thought of myself as one for years. Even a loner sometimes, but not always. Now I hate being alone. I used to spend a lot of my time alone. I don’t interact and do stuff with people very much outside of the internet and I’m still pretty quiet, but I hate being alone now. Just so you know, I consider myself to be an ambivert now. An ambivert is in the middle of being and introvert and an extrovert.

I’ve noticed I usually won’t even play single player games like Minecraft anymore because I have to be alone in the normal non multiplayer modes. Games like Portal and Portal 2 are alright because at least I’m talked to. I’m still adjusting to my social changes and it can be hard. Honestly, I don’t have much of a social life. It’s been like this ever since I graduated from high school almost 11 years ago. I’ve made online friends, but we don’t talk or hang out in games or anything much anymore and like I said before, I don’t talk much. Also, making new friends causes me extreme anxiety and discomfort. Mostly because I tend to make a lot of mistakes. I’m pretty awkward sometimes.

I had great friends growing up, so it’s not like I don’t like people. I just don’t click with people often. Forming relationships is hard for me. I guess it’s going to take time to adjust to my social changes. It’s been a long time since I hung out with anyone. Maybe I should just embrace my new gravitation toward being social. And I say new gravitation because earlier in life when I was social I didn’t have this much of a need for it. I’ll just stick to being around people for now, just as a start. I probably shouldn’t pressure myself to interact and talk beyond just hanging around for the time Being. I had close friends, but I’m super rusty when it comes to making new ones. I’ve kind of forgotten how to form close relationships.

Anyway, I’ll figure this out. It’s just weird since I’m not used to not wanting to be alone. It’s a weird adjustment. Even back when I had close friends I often required a good amount of alone time. I still get worn out by being around people, but I can’t really say I always dislike it all the time. In fact, a lot of the time now I’m okay with it. Being around people can be a lot of fun, even when it’s tiring.

Loss

Today is the anniversary of the day I lost Sam as a friend. I chose today instead of New Years to start writing because to be honest he is probably a big part of why I haven't been able to write. For a while I was writing in an actual journal last year, but decided to destroy it. Somehow I felt like having no record of last year was a good idea. Now that it is behind me I actually don't mind talking about last year. Oh, and you don't have to worry about the journal, there wasn't much in it.

I'm not going to give you all the details, but basically Sam's dad died and I went to the funeral. I made the mistake of going to the luncheon after the funeral services and then I made things worse by acting like it all went well for us. There has always been somewhat bad communication between us. I sent him a message that day that made everything sound like it went peachy. I was pretty clueless and was totally unaware of his feelings. I can't tell you what exactly I wrote because I deleted our messages last year, but it didn't turn out good for me in the end. He decided to part ways and blocked me on facebook as well. We managed to talk a little bit again 2 days later and at least we parted on somewhat good terms. That day still haunts me and the last few times we texted. To add insult to injury I was way late to the public part of the funeral, where they give the eulogy and stuff.

I still miss him a lot. The above is all anyone is going to get out of me on that subject though. I'm not so confident he'd be happy with me if I shared all the details of that day. I think doing so would probably cause me to lose motivation to write again anyway, so let's just leave it at that. It is more complicated than how it ended. Our relationship was weird from the beginning.

I've been out of school since last spring. I failed 2 out of 3 classes that semester. I was just on a total slump last year to say the least. I've even lost interest in psychology. I don't really know what I'm going to do as a career anymore. I have no solid interest in anything and I don't think I have much motivation or confidence right now. I m pretty sure things will clear up if I do well this coming semester though. I am still pretty optimistic. I'm pretty sure I'm just confused because so much went wrong last year. So, for now I am not going to worry about my future career. I should finish all of my general education classes first. I have so many doubts about those classes it isn't the right time to think about a career.

Today was dark and gloomy. I've been playing games and watching YouTube videos all day. I can't wait until my life picks up a bit. I don't really like being out of school, but it has been necessary. I am glad today was laid back. Anyway, I guess I'm back.

Hair Care Headache

Over the past two days things have been fun. On Thursday we went up to Salt Lake City to see the Christmas lights on Temple Square. The whole family was together (except for Tim). We had tacos at Paul and Kayla's house before we went. One kind was fish and the other was beef and bean I think. There was cheese, lettuce, guacamole, salsa, and some kind of slaw made with cilantro, and something else. Everything was great. I got to study some French while I was there. I focused on nouns. I have no clue how I did it with all m nieces and nephews together making a LOT of noise. There was a lot of screaming and stuff. The family got into a political discussion (I stayed out of it) and when they were done we agreed it was time to go to Salt Lake City.

Here are the couple of pictures I got.

We went around temple square and visited the visitors center, the tabernacle, and the Joseph Smith Memorial building. I got separated from the family and went to the south visitors center because that is the place where I first talked to Sam when we were in high school. We went to Temple Square on a choir trip and I spent  lot of time around him so whenever I go up there I have a lot of memories of being with him. That day was the day I decided I was going to ask hi to preference in the 12th grade. I can't believe it's been 10 years since that day happened. My feelings for him are as strong as ever.

When the family and I decided to go home Linda, Violet, Jax and I went to the City Creek Center and got chocolates from the chocolate factory (Violet got a chocolate marshmallow I think). We then went to our car and went to McDonalds. The line took forever. I got chicken nuggets. Violet got upset because her straw was bent and she couldn't get it in her juice. It was really cute. At first she got upset because she couldn't get the wrapper off of her straw. She was so tired.

That was yesterday.

Today I went to work. We were busy and so i had to help roll, make bon bites, and also cinna sweeties. I did a bit of cleaning, but not much. I hung around the mall for a bit after work and listened to music, then I headed home on the bus. I stopped at the store to get some deodorant, and Conditioner. I realized that Dove hair care products have sulfates, so i had to buy some shampoo as well since I've been using Dove for my shampoo as well. I am really picky about my hair care products because I am growing out my hair. It took me an hour to decide on OGX Coconut Milk shampoo and conditioner. OGX has a fantastic line of hair care products. I am excited to try the one I got out. It was a hard decision because the store had so many hair care products. I nearly went back to using Giovani hair products, but remembered they leave my hair staticky. I do not like really statiky hair. Here is a picture of my new hair stuff.

Oh, just in case you are wondering, I use Secret brand Gel deodorant.

I called dad for a ride when I was done at the store, but he was out shopping, so I headed to Dairy Queen because I was hungry and wasn't sure how long I was going to be stuck at the store. I got a grilled chicken sandwitch, onion rings and a marshmallow sundae. He was able to come and get me soon after i ate.

For the rest of the nigh I've just been watching CSI Miami, playing games on my phone and snacking on various things. It has bee fun having everyone over and things are just going to be more fun over the next week and a half.

Totally Worth It

So for a while now I've been planning on going through my entire blog to fix pictures, videos, and edit mistakes. It is a huge project and I've just started doing it. I never imagined how hard it could be. I have started by beginning to download all my photos off of my blog. It is going to take me a while, but in the end it'll be worth it. After I am done I am going to fix all the pictures. After all the pictures are fixed I am going to export my blog to Wordpress because it is easier for me to edit on there than it is on here. After I do the initial edits I am going to export my blog to a different wordpress blog and I am going to do name changes and remove loacations so I can share it with the public and still have some privacy. That is the last thing I'll have to do.During all of this I am going to be filling in some post gaps as well.

So that was why I didn't write on Tuesday. I was busy downloading pictures and attending to my blog pretty much all day. When I am done I will have this blog, and a public wordpress blog. In the end it'll all be worth it. My blog is very important to me, so I don't mind spending large amounts of time attending to it.

The past two days have been exciting. Linda, Jax and Violet got here yesterday. They are staying for two weeks. Linda took me to work today and we went shopping at Hot Topic, Michael's Craft Store, and T.J Max. It was fun looking at everything. I was able to improve my Christmas list because of this. I have a lot of stuff I want, but don't ask for a lot of it because I know mom and dad can't afford it. I'll post my actual secret Christmas List sometime tomorrow.

Today at work I think I acquired more minor chemical burns. I am going to buy some gloves soon so this never happens again. I don't want to make my skin dry any longer by exposing it to chemicals! I've never had dry hands before. I only stayed for an hour today and finished my cleaning list. I really need to get a picture of that for you next time. I could have stayed longer of course, but I wantd to go shopping around with Linda. I am glad i didn't miss out on that.

there seems to be an influx of snacks around the house. I have snacked on chocolate cookies, cinnamon bears, chips and even acquired a bag of Cheeto's from Linda not to long ago. This is the hardest time of the year for us to diet. I am going to be careful that I don't go overboard and eat too much this year. I'd love to LOSE weight and not GAIN weight by the end of the year. I have ten more days left until the new year and I am going to take advantage of it.

Anyway, so that has been the last two days. I can't wait to see what happens next. I need to go shopping again soon so I can get some hair products and other stuff. When I do that I'll show you what I got.

The Eight Ounce Discount

Someday I should take a picture of the cleaning list Trevor has for me at work. I go down that list of things every week. I have 3 days to finish the list, but honestly, I can do them in one two hour shift. I am usually pretty thorough with the things I have to do as I don't feel any time pressure. I usually try and space the tasks out over the week. There are other people that do some cleaning when I'm not there, so I don't usually have to worry about certain things not being done. One of the obvious ones is sweeping. I usually save sweeping for Friday because doing it at the end of the week just makes more sense to me.

I've actually started wearing the plastic gloves we use for the various food tasks when I am cleaning. At first it was just for the window cleaning with Windex, but lately my hands have been getting dry. The water we use to clean the dishes mixed with the soap we use to clean our hands has been the culprit I think. That is two kinds of soap and some bleach water. You can put two and one together and see I am probably smart for wearing gloves. We use Kirkland dish soap to clean the dishes, and bleach water for the sanitizing. I'm not sure what hand soap we use, but it is pink and I think I hate it.

Anyway, after work I walked around and listened to music. I missed the bus i was going to take, so I went back inside the mall and just kept listening to music until the next one came. I went to the store and got a bread bowl and some cheddar broccoli soup for dinner. I had to wait for the bakery and deli to put more soup out because they were out when i got there. I thought about getting some canned soup, but more often than not the sodium count discourages me. I try to avoid high sodium food if I can.

When I was going through the checkout with my food I noticed the price was a little funny. The soup is something like $5 for 16 ounces and the bread bowl was $1.50. I noticed that the amount said $4.21. I thought I had just been given a discount, but had a feeling that I was wrong. Now this is where I had a choice. I could have just gone with it when I looked at my receipt and saw that they charged me for an 8oz soup and not a 16oz soup. I could have walked away knowing they made a $2.50 mistake. I turned around the told the cashier about the mistake instead. She called the manager and I payed the rest and felt good about it. I am glad I chose to do the honest thing. I would have felt like a thief if I hadn't.

I put my stuff in the cart and waited for my ride to come. I got a call from mom before and she told me to call Laura for a ride since she forgot she had the car and couldn't come get me. Laura had just drove past the store on her way home from getting a pizza. I had to wait for a few minutes. Mom ended up coming back instead which I don't mind. I don't really care who I get a ride from. So when I got home I had soup in a bread bowl and the rest had pizza. Laura cut my bread bowl open for me since she has worked in a few bakeries.

I have just been watching chemistry videos on YouTube ever since. It has been a pretty good day today. I am pretty sure I am very thankful for my conscience today.

The Brief Silence

I have enjoyed my homework free days ever since school ended this last week. It has been nice to have a free Sunday where I don’t have to do any homework for the first time in months. I know this silence and peace will only last for 3 more weeks, but I’m just going to enjoy it. I took a long nap after church today. I slept soundly and dreamed vividly. I think my brain is finally realizing that it can rest, and it is ready to embrace that even if it is only for a few weeks.

Over the past two days I’ve just been doing lazy activities. Playing games on my phone, updating my blog, eating chocolate, and reading. I am looking forward to reading many more books over the next three weeks. I feel like I could read non stop right now. I have been working on a book called “The Last Dance”. You can actually read it on the wattpad website or app. I am planning on reading the Leven Thumps series again after i finish “The Last Dance”. These two things somehow got left behind months ago and I never finished them, so I’ve just decided to re read. It is extremely rare for me to just stop reading a book and I don’t know why this happened.

Anyway, I don’t know what is going to happen over the next few weeks, but I hope some interesting stuff happens.

Fun With Live Streams!

I try not to play around with the facebook live stream function too much because they take up a lot of data. Today I went to the store and I got some bagels, cream cheese, and chocolate. I let people watch me while I was shopping and it was a lot of fun. I got some everything bagels, some plain ones, one strawberry and one pineapple cream cheese, and the chocolate was one blueberry akai dark, and one 85% chocolate. I think I am getting quite fond of the strong chocolates. I think I might want to mess around with bakers chocolate sometime and see what I can do with it. I do love baking and I wouldn't mind delving into the realm of making sweets. I think that would be super fun.

I did go to work today, but left early because once again I ran out of stuff to do and I don't like to just walk around asking for stuff to do because I think that is kind of silly. I think that I need to think up some extra stuff for times when I get stuck. Maybe it's time for me to organize the shelves above the dish washing sinks again. Anyway, I don't know.

I went to Villa Italian kitchen for lunc today and had a stromboli. It was a spicy one with chicken, cheese, tomato sauce, peppers and olives. I try not to eat there too often because the calories are crazy!

Anyway, I've been eating entirely too much chocolate lately...

Awakened From Silence

to say that I've been bad about writing this year would be an under statement. I know I've probably let down the few people that actually read what I have to say, but sometimes things like this happen. Good news is that a new year is upon me! I am definitely writing every day next year for sure. I'd love to post for 365 days in a row for once. That would be fun and I need to gain the patience.

I don't know what I'm going to do about all the missing gaps. If at any point in the future you read this post and then notice that most of the posts between July and now are there then I decided to just insert them. I do that a lot now if I don't post. Usually I can write things in a way that it looks like they were always there. Anyway, sorry I've been lazy. Another thing I could do is go back and post monthly or two week recaps of everything I didn't post. That is a possability I am considering instaed of just going back and doing individual posts about everything I missed.

I am looking forward to relaxing, I need a break. This semester was hard.

The Discussion

Today was my last day of school this semester. I had my english final where I turned in my reflections paper and we discussed the class. I am totally proud to have made as much progress as I have this semester. I feel like I've gained patience for writing, and for homework in general. I've learned how to word things better, how to do research, how to format citations and references, and how to not stress myself out about big assignments. This semester has been both challenging and fun. I made sure to tell my professor that. I gained a lot from Chase Grant, he was a good teacher and he didn't make everything complicated.

We all got a turn or several turns if we wanted to talk about our thoughts about the class. We talked about what we didn't like and what we did like. 

After class I had work. I just did a lot of cleaning really. More of the usual. It has been gloomy today. I hate cold rainy weather.

I got some chocolate today to celebrate the end of the semester.

I don't normally do this, but here is a copy of my reflections paper.

(Star) Liahna Rowberry

Chase Grant

English 1010-058

December 9^th 2016

            Throughout this semester, I have grown in many ways. As I was looking back on my first paper I remembered feeling very nervous. Research has never been one of my strong points. For this I did a paper on the EpiPen controversy. Mylan had been raising their EpiPen prices and I decided to research that. In this paper, I learned how to state the points of view from other people. Usually when I surf the net people’s different points of view are what I am most interested in. I combined that with my bad research skills to help make things work out. As I was looking the paper over one last time, I was able to correct incorrect words, remove unnecessary phrases such as “pretty good” from the wording, and get an overall picture of my progress. For this paper, I started to really work on my wording. Back at the beginning of the semester I feel like I was a bit long winded. This is a bad habit I get from blogging. This paper was just the first step to practicing getting to the point. I still have some work to do when it comes to talking about other people’s opinions, but throughout the semester I have grown to understand this process more. I have learned how to check my sources validity as well.

            As I was looking over MP2, I realized a lot of the shortcomings I had in MP1 appeared still, but in greater numbers there. This was more of a free write so my tendency to want to add rich detail and tell about everyone and everything just got out of control. I was also using excessive use of the phrase “pretty good” among others which I have forgotten. In the beginning, I wanted to talk about both my best friends, I even gave the background story for my best friend Rebecca and not only Amanda. Amanda, Brooke, and Devin were the important ones however, and so in the end I ended up cutting Rebecca for the most part. Another thing I was able to fix on my last revision was commas and a few incorrect words. Sometimes I don’t put in the best words and phrases when I am telling stories. I could still use some work, even on this paper I had to omit unnecessary words like “probably” and be more concise. To be frank, my current revision of MP2 is a lot more concise than it was when I first submitted it. I’ve noticed that I’ve gotten better and condensing since I wrote MP2. I am feeling more confident about my ability to write now. I have also noticed that I am becoming more aware of my mistakes.

            This class has been a real growing experience for me. When I first started, I was very nervous. This is how I usually feel about English classes. They are one of my biggest weaknesses. I was able to work on a lot of my weaknesses this semester. The first one came when MP1 came around. I learned how to use my ability to find other people’s points of view and include them in a paper. I also worked on some light research. This helped me get my head into research. I was ready from the beginning to confront that challenge. MP2 I worked on not being so long winded, and being more concise. MP3 was when some of my major struggles were faced. I started to learn how to carefully read a source and write about what I learned from it. I did MP3 on Tetris, something I am a big fan of. MP4 and MP5 were the major turning points for me.

           I learned about how to cite sources and how to format the cited works page. This has been one of the biggest problems with papers I’ve done in the past. I was also able to learn how to space a big assignment out and not try and do it all at once. I learned patience and how to read extremely hard articles very carefully. I learned how to make an outline for a big paper, something I’ve never made use of in the past, and I learned how to put everything together to demonstrate the collective accumulation of my knowledge over all the papers. Am I perfect at everything? Definitely not. However, I do feel better about my weak points. My wording and research skills still need work, but they are getting better. This class has been great for me and I am starting to put everything together. I hope someday I will conquer all my shortcomings when it comes to writing, I do have quite a few of them. I am very glad that I have been able to be here and learn so much. I have a lot more confidence than I did at the beginning.

90/100

Today I went out to see if I could figure out something to buy with my $25 gift card. I couldn't decide yesterday, but today I went to Michael's and Barne's & Noble to look around. After searching through Michael's fora a half an hour I decided that I wasn't going to buy anything. I am going to ask for a few things for Christmas though! What I ended up getting was a French grammar and a step by step French work book (both of them are workbooks). I think these two books will compliment my French study and help me improve. I still have a lot of work to do for sure. I had a lot of fun looking around at everything today. I love going out, and it was extra nice because I am done with all my school homework and all I have to do is go to my English class tomorrow to talk about class and turn in our final papers. I've already finished that paper, so I am carefree today.

Speaking of school I got my grade for my French final! Here is a picture of all my French exam grades.

I am so glad I did so well. Just to clarify though, that lost 10% was because I did poorly at the actual conversation part. I am not very good at speaking yet. I am actually taking the conversation class next semester to fix that. I know without a doubt I can improve.

So that was today. I also went out to aet at Subway before I went shopping. I was so hungry when I got to the mall.

When I got home later I just relaxed and took a nap. I was going to go to Natalie's concert, but I'm still burned out from my French Final yesterday. It was hard, but my effort wasn't in vain!

Oops! I Forgot!

I am so tired and worn out. I had my French final today and I really hope I did well. I am pretty sure I did, but you never know really unless if you are super good at something of course. My exams this semester have been a bit of a roller coaster. I took a nap earlier, but I'm looking forward to sleeping again later.

I got my customary post exam ice cream today. I got Oreo cream with graham cracker bits and chocolate flakes. I think I am getting bored of that flavor now though. I might just try something brand new next  time I have an exam next semester.

Today I went to Savers, but didn't find anything to buy today. it looked like everything was picked over today. I shouldn't be surprised, because a thrift store with a 50% sale is crazy. It would have been nice to get something today though. I got a $25 gift ard from work today for getting employee of the month! Well, one of 3 anyway. I was going to use my money on Savers, but I think I'll probably use it on something else. I don't really mind that. Maybe I'll spend it on crafts, or books, but I don't know yet.

Today I got to skip work, and I am glad because I am looking forward to being able to relax.

Oh yeah, I had a stress management final today as well, but accidentally forgot about it. Lucky for me we weren't really doing anything! It looks like I'll be fine. I hope that something like this never happens again.

The Final Mountain

Today was my last day of studying before my French exam tomorrow. I am very nervous and hope I will do alright. I have been studying all day and plan on waking up early tomorrow to do more studying before my exam. I think I'll do pretty good, but I won't know for sure until I see the exam.

Anyway, I went to Church today and accidentally fell asleep in the second hour again! Ugh! I am going to crack down on that, I just need to go to sleep earlier. The fix is pretty simple and I know I can do that. I am not surprised I was so tired today though. Studying this hard is well... hard! I only meant to rest my eyes a bit, but I guess that isn't wise when you are worn out at church.

Anyway, not going to write much today. Here is a cool ambient noise video I've used for studying in the past.