Growing up sucks in a good way.

When I was in high school, I was like most and didn't care. I did just enough to pass. I didn't take AP or duel credit classes nor did I even think about it. I was an average C student and kept it that way all 4 years. Not to mention I was like that in junior high too. I won't say I wasn't pushed by my parents because they did care about my schooling. I just set my standard and they followed it. When it came to tests, I defiantly didn't study. If I had a project I did just the bare minimum. I was that student. When TAKS test came around I barely passed them, which is scary because your junior year if you don't pass, you don't graduate! Everyone knows you have to take your SAT or your ACT for college applications. I took them, and didn't do so well but didn't care to take them again to improve my scores. Little did I know it was all gonna come back and bite me in the ass. When I graduated, I wasn't very high in my class. I went to start filling out applications for college and my transcript with my scores from everything were rather frowned upon by colleges. When I simply decided to just come to Lee College I learned I had to take all remedial classes that took up my whole first year in college. I knew it was going to set me back. Classes began in the fall and I was still in that high school mind set. I didn't care and quickly learned neither did my professors. I messed up a lot my first semester. I was partying, not studying, gaining weight, just everything in the book. Then my second semester, that spring, I made a major change. I started working the same days. I set a workout schedule up and had hours each day for school work. I stopped partying so much and really changed my life around. Some say I grew up in a way and just realized I was an adult now and I couldn't just live in that life anymore. It took some getting used to but by the fall semester, I had improved my GPA. I had lost 50lbs and I had even gained a whole new group of friends that were in that stage of life I knew I needed to be in. Here I am finishing up my 6th semester, my GPA isn't the best but it is better then what it would of been if I had stayed in that other mind set. I'm graduating from here with a degree and the first of my family to do so. I'm down 80lbs and still working at it. I have a little case of "senioritis" all over again but I am trying! I do finally get to take a summer off and enjoy it before I continue with my school at a university. I just know to look back and see how far I've come and tell myself I changed for the better and grew up dramatically!

Is it worth it?

My research paper is about shift workers. I want to discuss the psychological effects it has on a person as well as the mental and physical result it has on someone. From just seeing my father work as a cop for sixteen years, he developed insomnia. He has such a hard time falling asleep, and when he finally does fall asleep it's not for long. When he switched to shift work in a plant he got to where he didn't even know what day of the week it was. He would get used to working nights then when he was off he would be on that time schedule so it just made him more exhausting for him. To me shift working shouldn't be an option. Whether you work strictly nights or strictly days, not both. The longer a person does this I've noticed in my research that they are more likely to have more health problems. There immune system always seems to get lower and lower the longer someone lets shift working effect there body. My girlfriend works seventeen hour days twice a week and those two days are hell. After being off for so many days and going straight to work days like that are really hard on her body. She tends to feel super sick at the beginning of the week and just wants to sleep then by the end of the week she is feeling better but it's time to work again. After reading a lot of different articles it has gone to show that women is more likely to developed a form of cancer due to shift working more than a man would. We were introduced to a women in the movie that did the shopping commercials at night for many years. She was diagnosed with cancer and going through her treatments for that, but no longer works the hours she does. It also read that the toll it has on a persons body is so harsh! It ages someone very quickly, and makes someone's moods crazy. There is so much information on this, that instead of continuing this research, I think people need to start looking for ways to limit these problems. Come up with alternative ways to get stuff done. I can say so much about the problems it's caused just not so much on ways of fixing things. I plan to talk about different experiments formed to see what shift working does to the body and try and find more ways to help them. Hopefully doing all this research I can give my dad and girlfriend some pointers on how to take care of there bodies so they don't develop anymore difficulties with themselves!

One with the sky

Ian Cheney mentions he "was at the center of the world" but that he had "left something important behind, something he couldn't name." I related myself to this, because when I would lay in my tailgate and look at the stars to just have that me time, I felt like I was the only one in the universe. There was no worries and nobody near me to make me feel stressed. I was the center of the world. When I would leave I would feel like I left that behind. I would want nothing more then to just go back. I felt as if I was leaving myself there. I feel like that's pretty important! When looking up into the sky there is nothing in your surroundings. It is very quiet and just you with loud thoughts. Him wondering, "What do we lose when we lose the night?" I think that he is saying you lose something within yourself. The night sky is between you and it, you lose that connection you have within yourself.
Ann Druyan says, "I worry that our lack of contact with the sky is doing something to us that's very subtle." This goes along with what Ian says. People have different relationships. Someone can have a relationship with the sky. When there is a lack of contact with ones relationship it can just throw them completely off. It strikes someone's confidence. I also relate to this because that "me" time I have with the sky clears my head. Sets my mind straight and back on the right track. It would throw off my subtle and make me insane I feel.
I feel like that's why so many people are worried about the lights and what it's doing to the world. It's not only messing with people's life, but with the environment. It goes to show we have to look at more then just ourselves and realize there is more to this world. More life in our surroundings that needs the stars and the sky for survival.

"Me" Time

There was a time in life when I used to go deer hunting. My family had a lease out in the hill country, and let me just tell you the sky was the best part. We had many deer leases over the years and the sky was always beautiful. There was one thing about the night sky in Llano, TX. It was different then all the others, it made you think. I always seemed to get left in my deer blind a lot later just because I was further out then the rest, so it took longer to get to me when it was time to come in. It didn't bother me by any means, because I could just look up and see something so pretty that I could of probably laid out there all night. Even when I would finally get back to camp I would get my sleeping bag and go lay in the bed of the truck just so I could keep looking up. Night time has always been an escape for me and when my mind just runs in circles, but it was different with this night sky view. I was still going a million different ways, but it all seemed to make sense and just help me through a lot about life. I have never been one to talk about myself so keeping things in was what I did best so it just felt nice to have my time alone. Now there were times when I would have friends laying there beside me and when we would stare up, deep conversations always seemed to come up but for a good reason. It seemed to clear a lot of my friend's heads and they realized why I enjoyed doing that every now and then. I have always still done it but at home. It's defiantly not the same for the mare fact that the sky is lit up more by city lights rather then just the moon light, but it still is something I do to clear my mind. You, best bet if I had the chance to go back to the hill country and have just a few minutes by myself to think and just have that "me" time, I most defiantly would! I really enjoyed astronomy when I was younger and when that lesson came in my science classes I tended to do much better in that category and it kept me interested. We had this Star Dome that we would go into and it was a lit up version of the stars and consolations, so it was defiantly a plus for me to name the different things when I did have my "me" time. I also felt pretty cool around my friends, just because I could kind of teach them about the sky. Of course they made fun of me and called me a nerd, but it was a side of me I enjoyed.

Intimacy to a Beautiful Level

Dick Davis in "A Monorhyme For The Shower," takes a whole new level on a women in the shower. It is clear that this women is someone he has been with for some twenty odd years. He states in the poem that the twenty years have gone by so fast. This women he describes is someone he is very much attracted to and very much in love with. From the very beginning when he describes that the women was someone he would not ever approach to a women he has children with to the this day. The only reason I can come to conclusion about that is because him saying "Childbearing, rows, domestic care--"(Davis9). She is someone with childbearing hips and domestic care, meaning she knows how to care for life. He goes so in dept about detail with this women. Puts sexual thoughts to mind, and very sensual thoughts as well. It is very tasteful, yet very mysterious at the same time.
Edward Nobles in "Popular Mechanics," takes a very sexual moment and compares every mechanic detail in site. Its a beautiful piece of work that makes such a passionate moment and shows the meaning of it. It is very clear what is happening, a man is between a women's legs, yes we see that. But my question is why is he using his surroundings to talk about? To me I have come to the conclusion that when your in such a passionate moment everything seems to slow down, every little thing stands out. The dust, the chair legs, marbles, even a penny rolling across the floor is so obvious in the sexual moment. It is a moment that he is sharing with this women. Some may wonder how you can see everything else while sharing this sexual experience with someone, but if ever in the situation, there is meaning behind it. Not everyone in intimacy shares such a passionate or more vulnerable moment with that other person. It is something special at happens with one or many, whatever you must choose.
Together these two poems share a great deal of intimacy. In a different way, but so alike at the same time. With the two going in to so much detail with each shows similarity. Davis is taking every detail of his loved ones body and making it tasteful when Nobles is taking every detail of his surroundings while sharing such an intimate moment with his loved one. The both take sexual moments to a whole new level, and make it so likable to read and so make similarites between the two.

Plain Confused

"The Poet," by Tom Wayman puzzled me significantly. In the title I first thought that it might be about the poet himself, but has a read there is no way this person could write this. I asked myself if a poet was having difficulties writing something and this is what they saw. Someone losing there position on worksheet or page in a textbook? Is it someone who has just many disabilities and their describing them? To me it was a little harsh that someone wrote flat out that they don't understand what the hear or read. It is rather sad someone can't handle a yes or no question. Into the second stanza it reminded me of someone who has Alzheimer's with a difficult memory. It could be an old person with this disability, then i ask myself what if it is a small child. Although most children can tell a story from a picture. "May recognize a word one day and not the next," that questioned my whole thought on the poem. I was rather anger at it, because I couldn't grasp the concept of what this person was trying to say. What message is he trying to obtain. I jump back and forth from line to line, reading out loud, going back and forth on who is this relating to? I am just so confused. It is trying to make a point, but what point? It could be talking about a whole institution of people maybe with learning disabilities? Maybe even a nursing home with patients who are just not the same as they used to be. Im really just so lost.

Love/Hate Relations

In "Please Come Late," Hugo Williams describes to be someone who is trying to let go a loved one. This person is having a love/hate relationship with himself or herself. They are trying to except the fact the the other is not coming. Although in the same way wanting them to show up. They tell themselves to suffer, to wonder, to beg, but then second guess themselves and try to tell their mind it is to late. They tell themselves that the other is thinking about them, well hoping at least. At the same time wishing they don't cross their minds, therefor they can let go. As they try to occupy their mind with something else, yet the problem is still there. It just will not go away. As this person is in their mind going crazy, they are still in love, but not being able to recognize is much easier. There was still passion here when the relationship began to dissolve. Of course more for one then the other. As much as they want to, they want to hate this person, but they simply can't. It continues to eat them alive. "Hate Poem," by Julie Sheehan is explaining someone having a whole lot of hate for something. Every little thing is a bother, but it takes caring to hate. Every bone in this body hates you, every little thing they hate. Just like in "Please Come Late," I see it as another couple, where he or she is trying to hate the other. This is obviously a relationship gone bad. This person still cares though, just as much. They just have a different way of showing it. They believe that telling themselves all the things they hate, or that hates the other is going to help them cope with the fact that the relationship is over. Either poems mention about wanting the other back. Although in "Please Come Late," the person goes back and forth in their mind about whether or not they want the other to show up or if there is even still thought there. In "Hate Poem," it is all strictly HATE! This person seems to be really tore up inside being as hate is used in every line practically. It makes you wonder what happened in this relationship that was so bad to make one hate. In "Please Come Late," you get a sense of passion just because the person is so back and forth. But in "Hate Poem," there is no turning back, they hate. Like mentioned earlier, it takes someone to truly care to give the time and energy to hate someone. If there wasn't so much care still there, hating them wouldn't even matter. They both approach the same thing, but in there own way most defiantly.

Ever After

The poem is about a husband and wife who split up. The relationship has changed. We don't know which of the two spouses changed. Could of been one? Could of been both? One has come to terms with not knowing the other anymore, to not knowing what the two as a couple has become. Each individual no longer knows what they are.  There isn't an "us" anymore. There now individuals of their own. From love at first site to complete strangers. It even states that they are separate now. I think there either going through a divorce or had gone through one. The word ex has already been put to a label. It is not only a word put in front of husband or wife, for this now separates individuals. It has a whole new meaning that is now in front of there once know husband and wife to ex-husband and ex-wife. It almost seemed like even if there were happy moments it was never talked about, about being together as one.The brief talk about a wedding states that they were happy at one time. The detail about sweetness of layers in a white cake, makes me believe that is the only time of happiness, but in spurts. It came and it went. Then slowly one thing began to cause change and unhappiness. One after another and just kept on. I also believe that who ever is speaking this is the one having a harder time then the other. They weren't the one who changed. They want to believe they stayed the same and tried while the other didn't. The other who doesn't care that they were no longer an "us".

A Mother's secret

Throughout the whole book I was very curious in why the mother was so unhappy. I tried to see more of her point of view then anything. I mean her husband was a doctor who later in the story got a very nice raise. That didn't seem to cheer her up, it was almost just a small distraction from her unhappy self. You never saw them talk until later in the book when she is yelling at him and his new form of communication was to just leave and go to work. Which I did not blame him, I wouldn't want to be griped at all the time like that. She always seemed to hate on David. No matter what he did he was always getting in trouble. He could barley say a word to her without getting his head cut off! The only time you saw her facial expression change was when she was hosting a party or playing bridge. I thought seeing the way her mother treated David would explain it. Her mother must of treated her the the was she treats David right? That didn't seem to really be it either. She really hated her life. After David had his first surgery and was in his room, mother decided to come in and act nice, somewhat that is. It was almost like she was trying to help her guilty conscious because we learn David has cancer, so in her mind being nice before he "dies" helps her. She always seemed to do that to, make it about her. Many years after that when David was seeing a shrink for his problems he discovers one day after coming home early, his mom in bed with another women. A women we had met in the beginning of the book who mother was actually smiles around. It then explained everything. Answered all my questions, but then made myself ask new ones. Mother was hiding from herself. She was unhappy in her marriage to Ed because he was a man. She was clearly a lesbian and in those times it wasn't talked about. Just the look on mother's face when David walked in was almost like a sign of relief. She didn't have to hide anymore. Her secret was out and she knew it, and was just waiting for that moment. Mother just wanted to be able to be herself and she couldn't.

Adult life

Looking back through the years of living with my parents has changed my views on adults in good and bad ways. I feel like watching my parents growing up helped shaped the person I am today, also in good and bad ways. I have a mother who has always been there for me and done everything she can for me to become a mature adult. I have an amazing stepdad who began taking care of me at a very young age. My biological father wasn't so much in my life, but his actions showed me what not to do as an adult.
I always remember it being just my mom and I. She was a mother who had to work all day everyday, but still managed to feed me dinner and tuck me into bed every night. She is the strongest person I know. She really did everything she could for me when we had so little. She made it seem like we had so much. She taught me how to appreciate the little things, to take every obstacle in life and make something of it. I'm very grateful for that too. I wouldn't be the person I am today without her. I remember her always making me dinner, and often times it was the same thing for a couple of days but it was a hot meal for us to have together. Today, that just shows me that it is possible, to take the littlest possible and make it something more. She is my rock that's for sure.
My stepdad came along a couple years into my life. At first I wasn't sure about it, because I hadn't really had a male figure in life. My mother was always the one adult in my life who did both the mother and father duties. When it came to punishment it was a rude awakening for me, because he had a deeper voice and a more stern like method about him. That showed me that the men in life or the father in the house hold was supposed to be the one to take care of the problems.
I never remember my biological father and mother together. So when for awhile I just thought all duties were my moms. When my stepdad came into the picture it was like the duties split. My mom still took care of the cooking and the cleaning of the house. My stepdad would worry about the yard work and "fixing" things.
Growing up I did look at adults in different ways. As I got older though watching my mom do her mom duties and my stepdad do the dad duties it showed me that that's who things are supposed to go. That the memories of my biological father isn't normal for adults. That there are adults who do have there life's together. I think that's why I try so hard to be like my mother in the strongest way because I want things to go as smoothly as possible. Of course there are gonna be obstacles but viewing adults has shaped my adult life.

Childhood Memories

From a very early age I can remember sharing a room with my mother. It was just her and I until I was about three years old. She had always told me I had my own bed in her room but I always seemed to end up back in bed with her. We met my what is now stepfather right around my third birthday. I celebrated it at his house with family and friends. When it came to time to open gifts I was told to go upstairs to what was gone be my bedroom. When I opened the door it wasn't just an empty bare guest bedroom anymore. It was now my room! There was brand new furniture, a Barbie doll house and a princess themed bedroom suit. I had never had a room of my own so I was very excited!
A couple years had passed and my fifth birthday was coming up. We were moving into a new house as a family. I was at school on my birthday and I remember getting picked up from school and taken to the new house. My parents had been off work that day because they were trying to move all our stuff in. I hadn't really been in the house yet so I only remember it being bare up until we got there. When I walked in, I walked straight to my room and when I opened the door it was a complete transformation from my princess theme at the old place to a crayon themed room painted red! I had a new bed which was a red bunk bed. There were blocks on the ground and giant crayon piggy banks. They had also set up some balloons and presents with cake on the little table set. We had only lived in that house for a short period of time because we had a new family member come a long and we needed more space.
So here comes moving time into our newly built house. I didn't really get a theme for this room until a later birthday, I don't remember my age so much but I was in intermediate school I think. I came home from school and I wasn't expecting a new bedroom suit because I had already opened presents. I went to my room to out them up and my parents had painted my room and gotten a new comforter for my bed. You could say it was more "grown up" like for a girl my age becoming a teenager. My room seemed to stay the same for awhile, up until I got into high school and we were moving again!
When we moved into the house I live in now, I just got a new blanket for my bed. I didn't paint, nor get new furniture. My new blanket though, you guessed it, was given to me for my birthday. My senior year I had decided to paint my room and just move the furniture around, I didn't really act on it though. I had been out of town for my eighteenth and when I got home I wanted to unpack and nap. My door was always kept shut when I was gone but this time it was open and I could smell fresh paint. I started smiling cause I knew they had done it again. I pushed my door all the way open and it was like a totally different room. It was like my third birthday all over a again! It was a totally different color, there was new furniture in a different arrangement then before. It had new sheets, blankets, and pillows! I even had a brand new flat screen hanging on the wall! It had to of been the best transformation since my third birthday getting my very own room.
This has always been something I could remember very many details about. It made a very big impact on my life at a very young age and I think that's why my parents carried on the tradition. Just writing about it brings up more details I couldn't remember before, but its something we talk about often in my family. Especially around my birthday, which is coming up next month!