Month: October 2017

 

We all know the feeling. We get out of bed, shuffle to the shower, scarf down breakfast and get ready for our trip to school. After waiting in the dark for the bus or the train, we get in. Oh look, a seat! This rare sight brings a glimmer of hope to our otherwise dismal morning. You sit down ready to relax and nap on your way to school… and then it hits you. The smell. The stench of body odor, urine, and God knows what else that you realize is currently surrounding you. Next, the sounds. The baby screaming at the top of its lungs, the guy playing his music or video out loud without headphones. You might think something like “why me?” or, “I hate my life”. Now I know better. I know this is actually a good thing.

As someone who has had to witness things like this every day, it really bothered me for a long time. I don’t wear headphones on the train because I think it’s too early for music and I like to get to experience what’s going on around me. Now, who in their right mind wants to experience what’s going on in the train? Well, I do! I say that because getting to be a part of these everyday annoyances has really helped me to realize something. Because that homeless person who smells bad on the train car hasn’t had the opportunity to take a shower in a while. I can take one every day. That screaming baby, when it’s not screaming I’m sure it’s very cute and makes a lot of people very happy. Besides, babies scream and we can’t stop that. That man who is blasting his music probably had an even worse morning than me and he’s just trying to get through it. And then I take a minute to look and see all these different people, the diversity of culture, religion, ethnicity, and it makes me think how maybe this isn’t so bad. Where else in the world can I experience this conglomerate of sounds, smells, and people? I should be grateful for what I have and for what I’m able to be a part of every day. I should be grateful for the experience of taking public transportation.

Since the beginning of time, society has had it’s fair share of problems. Some of which include economic despair, disease, natural disasters, and political leaders. But there is  something that has managed to plague all society, and has resided within us since the day we were born, slowly eating away what makes us who we are. This dreaded plague is known as social anxiety. It affects everyone, and can arise in a variety of ways. I’ve struggled with this plague throughout most of my life, and I am finally winning the battle. Finding a cure for this horrible disease within your own life is the only way to truly be free.

To my knowledge, I feel as if everyone faces some sort of huge challenge that arises in their life. But I didn’t expect my challenge to arise so soon in my life. It’s nothing serious, but it does affect my everyday life. I have the opportunity to go to college with no cost. This is something that I wouldn’t have if my family had decided to stay in Mexico. My parents came to the US when I was one and a half years old, which was 16 years ago. 16 years of calling this country my home and 16 years of not seeing where I am truly from. I would tell you more about my country but I lack the first hand experience of actually being there. The only information I have are the stories that my mom and dad talk about almost everyday. Right now there is tension between immigrants and the president of the US. Even though it’s seen in a negative light, I think this tension is great because of the fact that I can see the numerous support that people are willing to give. In some ways it has the power to bring us together as a country of immigrants. So instead of seeing my status as a challenge, I will be see it as an opportunity.

*Beep *Beep

My alarm wakes me up at 7:00am. Why did I set my alarm for 7 in the morning if my first class isn’t until 10:45? Oh yeah I still have to write a monologue for first year seminar, and finish studying for that Sociology midterm. I really shouldn’t have wasted my time last night binge watching old Louis C.K stand up routines on youtube. I swear that I remember telling myself back in highschool that in college I’ll start taking my academics seriously. Well I’m halfway through my first semester in college, and nothing has changed. I still wait till the last minute to do assignments, and don’t put the effort into studying for exams. I keep telling myself that I’ll do my homework early, and actually study for exams, hopefully one day I actually will listen to myself. They weren’t joking when they said college will be a lot tougher than high school. It feels like I just graduated last week. I really miss being able to pass all my classes, and still have time to play a sport, but that time is sadly over. I’m not going to beat myself up over my performance this semester, because this is just the beginning, and there’s always next semester.

I am obsessed with the future, and I’ve been that way as long as I can remember. When I was younger, I was terrified by the concept of permanent damage. The idea that a single mistake could render my body slightly less useful until the end of my days petrified me. there was a brief period during my childhood in which I was too scared to play in the playground because I didn’t want to fall down and permanently damage my legs, I also remember doing regular vision tests to make sure my eyes were in pristine condition. but despite all those eye tests, I still need glasses, and despite being as careful as I could, a few months back I had to have a surgery on my ankle, despite all my fear I’m still damaged. Fear doesn’t prevent bad things from happening, if anything it just makes the good things less memorable. Being so consumed by fear of what the future might hold, made me see everything as a threat, and that in turn made the present just as terrible as I was afraid the future might be. All my time worrying about the future didn’t do me any good, because anytime that I think about the future I’m ignoring the present. Ignoring all the wonderful things around me and instead choosing to focus on things that might go wrong. Everyday I try to catch myself whenever I start thinking about the future because as boring as the present might seem, it’s real, and any thoughts I might have about the future aren’t. I think at least for me, focusing on the present is the key to a happy life.

Just like many of you I have grown up playing many different sports. From little league baseball to high school football. But no sport was more challenging and fun than Track and Field. I started running track my freshman year at Xavier High School. The main reason that I had joined was the fact that my brother had done it for four years before me and said I should give it a try. So I ended up trying it and it was one of the best decisions of my life. I jumped into training after my Freshman football season and took it from there. Day in and day out I went to school, practiced, and then studied at night. This routine was strenuous at the time, but I soon came to realize that I had some of the best times of my life during these days. Some of my greatest relationships were forged with the guys training right beside me all those difficult days. There is an unparalleled bond you make when you undergo the same trials and tribulations as the man next to you. You build a mutual respect for one another through your efforts to reach the same goal, which was to drop the best time that you possibly could. An unique condition that Track and field has is how it’s an individual sport just as much as it is a team sport. The point of the sport is to be the best athlete you can possibly make yourself, while at the same time trying to bring your teammates up as well. Without Track and Field I wouldn’t be the person I am today and I wouldn’t have all those fond memories that I will hold onto for the rest of my life.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest

For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men–

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?

I never really liked cats

In fact, I would’ve much rather

 Been friends with bats


Their long evil stares

Their loud screeches

Their spiteful scratches

Are not things that I’d search for


I never imagined owning a cat

Or in other terms,

A cat owning me just like that


Even if I did adopt a feline

It won’t do tricks

It won’t lengthen my lifeline

And it won’t be fun on trips

All in all, I found no amusement with cats

Period.

That was all until a small kitty came

Tiptoeing across my backyard

In no rush and unusually tame

For a stray sweetheart


They named her Rosie

I named her Athena

Rosie was too cheesy

Ebony with a milky stripe

Running from her top

To her bottom

She was born a goddess in my eyes


As usual

Luck and karma joined forces

To teach me a lesson in being humble

Love comes in all forms and doses

Athena’s a perfect example

Everyone tends to overthink.

But a select few tend to overthink their overthinking.

Like spending 3 hours overthinking what they should present for a class assignment, thinking that every idea they’ve come up with is uninteresting or irrelevant or too impersonal to convince anyone that this is what they actually think about life.

On a typical day, these over-thinkers will spend their time constantly scanning every environment they awkwardly walk into, nervous that someone else is scanning just as thoroughly-critiquing, or more specifically, critiquing them.

But all of this critiquing is not coming from some stranger, all the critiquing is happening in the overthinker’s head, they’ve experienced the 7 stages of grief before they’ve even had the opportunity to form any sort of concise, verbal response to the over-thought question they were presented with just 5 seconds prior.

I know what you must be thinking, “I relate to this, we all overthink.”

I’m not discrediting any sort of anxious experience that anyone in here has faced on a typical day, because lets face it, this is college and we walk out of here just needing a nap and an entire box of frosted flakes.

This is to the over thinkers on steroids, who within as little as ten seconds convince themselves that the anxious tapping of their foot on the floor is enough to distract an entire class, or enough to piss off the person sitting next to them, or maybe even that all of this leg shaking will eventually wear out their leg muscles and that they’ll end up in a wheelchair, unable to walk, considered a handicap, thinking they’ll never receive any sort of attention, meaning they never get married and die alone in a studio with 7 cats all while thinking that nobody is going to remember to give Clawdia her dietary cat kibble.

But hey, maybe everybody does this.

Or maybe I’m overthinking this….

The first time I got lost
I am going to tell you the story about how a jump scare led to me being taken to the Emergency Room in 7th grade. I used to think leaving my house with straightened hair was a necessity. My mom always said she would throw my straightener out.
This particular week, they had called my mom two times that I had been late to homeroom. My mother was mad and gave me one last warning.I didn’t believe her. Next day, I snooze my alarm and my mom wakes me up. Instead of a good morning she quickly says “You have 40 to make it to school”. In reality that means I have around 20 minutes to leave and 20 minutes to get to school. By the time I showered, ate breakfast , brushed my teeth I had passed the time limit. I had just started straightening my first section when my mother comes in and unplugs and takes my straightener away. My bright idea was to sneak into her room and take her curler which opens into a straightener. I was quickly straightening my hair, when I reached my bangs, all of a sudden my door slams open and I jump. That jump causes the burning curler to make contact with my eye. I’ve been used to burning my forehead or hand when straightening, so I thought my eye lid would be fine as well. My mom says there will be no straighteners in this house anymore , and sends me off to school. My eye is still burning so I wet a cloth but I stay quiet. The cloth soothes the burn, but my eye is watering and I can not keep it open.
The good thing is, since I was late my dad drove me and I made it to the last five minutes of homeroom. There my teacher asks what is wrong and I quickly tell her the events. She sends me to the nurse, even though I tell her the nurse won’t do anything.
When I go see the nurse, she yells at me that the curler must have touched the inside of my eye because there is red and something white was starting to cover my pupil. Instead of being alarmed, I said the first thing that came to my mind. Which now that I think of it, it was really silly and uncalled for. I said, Can I go after my Italian test next period? She laughs and calls my mother and I already know it really is the end of my straightener era.
After a long wait, I see the doctor, and he shines this big purple light infront of me. This thick gel ointment is put in my eye and he says do not blink while he holds my eye open and takes a tool to remove the obstruction to my eye. When he finds out how the accident happened,he says it’s okay to go home, recommends us seeing an eye doctor and tells my mom no straightener for awhile.
Since then, no accident has happened and I’ve quit straightening my hair, only because Its too time consuming and I’m lazy.