Lately I've been feeling so depressed. There's so many thoughts in my mind and so much pain I feel inside. I don't know what to do anymore... I keep on telling myself to keep holding on, to try and things will get better. But I am constantly thinking to myself that I'm just tired of everything and I wish I didn't have to feel anymore.

I don't have money to go see a counselor again. I don't even have anymore anti-depressants. Actually, I do have some, but they expired a year ago, maybe more. But I think I need help or I'm afraid I'm not going to make it. Maybe I can see a counselor at school? ... I wish I had someone to talk to, someone I trust. But then I don't want to burden anyone with my problems. I feel like I can't tell my family either. My mom's been so depressed lately too. I can't tell her how I feel because she's going through her own problems. I don't want to worry her with mine. The second person I'm closest to is my younger brother. But growing up he learned to push away and ignore the sadness and pain from our childhood. I think for him, he'd rather forget and move on... I don't think he knows how to deal with other's problems, especially his family's.

So I figured since this was my blog I can at least write my feelings out. One of things that is constantly in my mind is school. I've missed so much.. I'm so behind. I'm afraid I'll get in trouble... I'm afraid of what my instructors will say to me. I'm afraid of getting suspended from financial aid. I'm afraid of what my employers will say. Why do I have to be this way? Why do I have to be so afraid of what will happen. All I can think of is how my day will play out tomorrow. What will happen. It's making my anxiety rise & I feel so stressed. I'm tired of the pain in my chest that I get from this constant worrying.

Another thing stressing me out is my mom. My mom suffers from Depression too. But lately she's been getting to me. She's been worrying a lot about her granddaughter and she'll start crying cause she misses her. It makes me feel helpless when I see her like that. I start thinking about my aunt who passed away in Feb. 2008. She was also always depressed because of her grandchild that passed away. I'm just tired. Every time my mom gets sad about my niece it makes me want to scream. I wish she could just move on. I understand she misses her granddaughter but what can she do about it? My niece is with her mom and we can't do anything about it if her mom decides to stay living in another state.

My dog Sora is another one of my stresses. I'm so scared... I'm afraid he's going to die soon. And it's my fault. Ever since my parents made my dog stay outside permanently I've neglected him. I would get so caught up in other things that I'd forget about him. And now because of my negligence poor Sora is getting sick. He can't even open his eye, and when I try to get his eye to open it's so hard and he'll start to get scared and try to bite me and then he won't let me get close to him. I'm so scared he's going to get sicker or go blind or die. If he dies I'm going to feel so awful because I know I didn't do a good job in caring for him. And then I feel so worthless because I don't have the money to take him to the vet. I don't even have the money to pay for my hospital bill for when I went to the doctor last week. And I can't ask my parents because they're already helping me with my current bills and they're having money problems too so I know there's no way they'll help me pay for Sora. Maybe I should find him a new home, someone who'll take better care of him. But the thought of not having him makes me sad. I feel like I'm going to be lonely without him because I feel like I don't have anyone else. But then keeping him just so I won't feel lonely is so selfish. He deserves better.

Anyways... I'm afraid. ;_;

Labels: depression, family, life, sora, stress

So I haven't blogged much due to being sick again. >_< Last Wednesday I woke up to get ready for school and my mom stopped me and told me she was taking me to the doctor. So we both went and found out we both had the H1N1 Influenza.

I had been feeling crappy that week... I started with a cough and a sore throat, then came chills, diarrhea, nausea, fatique, etc. So doctor's orders were to stay home till the 20th, today, but unfortunately I've still been feeling sick. I am worried about school though... going to have to seriously talk with my instructors and get caught up.

I was ordered to stay away from people but being stuck at the house was driving me crazy that I had to at least spend some evenings with my friends. Although it probably wasn't a good idea since my bro Miguel had the stomach flu and my friend Cora was also sick. So many sick people! D:

Anyways, hopefully I'll get my full strength back soon and be ready to tackle school... damn. It's gonna take a lot of effort to catch up. ;_;

Do you blush easily?
Ever since I was a little kid I have always blushed easily. It's one of the things about myself that I really dislike. I'm always finding myself blushing easily. I think it's because of my personality. I'm the type of person who is always thinking in my mind. I always have all sorts of thoughts in my mind. Every time I see a person I always think about them, like what they're feeling or what kind of person they are. I'm very intuitive.

I've been thinking a lot about personalities lately because in my Human Relations class it's what we've been talking about lately. I took the Jung Personality Test a couple of weeks ago and my personality type is INFJ - Introverted Intuitive Feeling Judging. After doing some research in this type I was like "wow, this sounds just like me". But I've always known the way I'm at, after all, I'm always thinking about my feelings, emotions, and thoughts.

Anyways, back to the blushing thing -- I hate it. It happens all the time. One example is when I'm in class. I hate being put on the spot. Or if a teacher asks a question and I answer it I find myself blushing while and after I answer. Another time was when I was talking to this really cute guy I had a crush on. We were just having a regular conversation, but I could feel my face starting to get hot and flushed. And to make things worse, he even asked why I was blushing! I'm like, wtf?! Why the hell are you asking me this? It only made it worse. Oh, and my response to him: "Um, I dunno, I just blush easily". >_<

I'm not stupid though, I know why I blush. It's because I always feel that I'm going to be judged. I'm always afraid that someone is watching me and thinking stuff about me. I think this connects to my social phobia/social anxiety.

I've been actually noticing that my social anxiety is getting worse and worse. I'm so tired of it. I've known I've felt this way since I was little. For those who don't know what social phobia/social anxiety is, it's a psychological problem where one is constantly afraid and thinking that they're always being watched & judged/thought of and it makes day-to-day life hard.

For example, I'm afraid to go to the grocery store alone. I'm afraid of walking down the street alone. I'm afraid of having to call someone or some place on the phone because I'm afraid of what the person will say or think when they pick up. I'm always telling myself that I don't need to worry, that no one's looking at me and thinking about me. But I can't help it. I get so scared and nervous. Plus I'll also get nauseous and my anxiety gets high. I've heard that cognitive-behavioral therapy works best for this sort of problem. I'm hoping that once I get back into the routine of school and work and can balance things without a problem that I'll find a therapist for help. I just know if I can get this this phobia problem fixed that it'll help with my depression and my blushing. .. well, I hope at least.

On another thought, I'm at school right now and I'm supposed to be thinking of a topic for my essay. I'm supposed to write about a certain group I belong to that the dominant culture may find as a "waste of potential" or don't provide any assets to the main society. But I'm supposed to be writing on how my "group" is misunderstood and just hasn't been viewed correctly and need to prove that my group isn't a "waste". For example, like, lets use the idea of potheads/pot smokers. Before I was in the same mind frame as the dominant culture. I thought people who smoked pot was stupid and wasting their lives, or were evil or didn't care about anything except drugs. But a couple of years ago I met this person who I'll refer to as M. M was so smart, hard working, funny, protective, open-minded... just a great person over all. I was so surprised when I found myself sitting in a room with him and he suddenly started smoking pot. I started thinking to myself : M isn't stupid... M isn't wasting this life... M isn't evil... and M told me he'd never do any other drugs except pot because he believes pot is safe. He suddenly started explaining all the statistics of how there are more alcohol-related accidents/deaths then there are of marijuana use. I soon realized that just because M smoked pot, he wasn't a bad person.

This is the type of essay I'm guessing we have to write. Something that shows the main part of society and how they view something as bad because they do not understand it, when in fact a certain group can actually prove to be intelligent and provide assets or talents to society.

I'm still not sure what I am going to write about. And with 12 minutes until class starts I'm most likely not going to know yet. But I guess it's time to head to class. Until later~ =)

Labels: life, problems, school

So I'm currently sitting in my classroom waiting for class to start, which is supposed to in like 15 minutes. I supposedly came in an hour early so I can read the articles we had to have read by today and to think of a statement thesis for my upcoming essay that's due Monday.

I have absolutely no idea what to write about. I can't think of anything. This is what our essay is supposed to be about:

Write an essay that addresses the following: What doesn’t the current dominant culture know about you and a group you ‘belong to’? What are the special assets, perspectives, or characteristics of the group to which you belong that end up being “wasted potential” for our culture because these things are not viewed, perhaps, as assets by the dominant culture? How can some of the characteristics of your group be seen as distinct advantages, talent pools, etc? Be sure to give specific examples to help support your discussion.

I don't know what to do. *_* I liked how my last English class we could write about whatever we wanted as long as we stuck to the type of essay it was supposed to be (ex. classification, descriptive, etc).

What I do like about this class is that I can write more personal stuff and express myself, but I'm not liking the topics that much. For this current one, I can't think of what type of "group" I belong too, I don't really like to think of myself as belonging to a certain "group" etc... I hate labeling myself like that. =/

No clue. This post is just kind of random cause I needed to rant before class starts and plus typing something out that is bothering me helps me feel a little bit better. So.... 10 mins to class starts... I better start thinking!!

Labels: essay, school

So I've been feeling pretty terrible these past few days. I woke up Sunday morning with extreme heart burn. A few moments after I got up from bed I found myself running to the bathroom and throwing up. Turns out I must have gotten food poisoning. I spent Saturday night hanging out with my brother & his friends. We were taking shots of vodka.. I think I probably took around 3-4 shots & drank a 16oz can of Mike's Harder Lemonade. After all the drinking that night I got home around 10:30pm, ate some leftover Chinese food my older brother had bought that day, and played some games online until I went to bed around 1am. Then around 6am Sunday morning I woke up feeling awful. My first thought was that it could have been the alcohol, but after I started getting sharp pains in my stomach I figured it wasn't that.

So I've had a pretty bad case of food poisoning. And I mean the full package! .. nausea, abdominal cramping/pains, vomiting, diarrhea, chills, and fever. It's already Thursday & I'm still feeling bad. It's not as bad as it was before... but I am still having the stomach pain and nausea.

What really pisses me off is that I've missed most of the 2nd week of college. You have no idea how upset I am! I mean really, how other people are (or might) going to view it:

"Wow, it's only Yesenia's 2nd week of school and she's already missing classes and getting sick."

And my view:

"Fuck, I'm in so much pain!"

I dunno, I guess with me it's always on my mind that I'm going to disappoint people. I've been told not to worry about that and that I can't please everyone & to just try my best. But it just makes me sad. I've been out of school for a year, these past few months I was stressing out waiting to find out if I'd get the financial aid for school, and luckily I did. And then last week I find out that I even got state work study on campus and now found myself with both attending school & with a new job. I couldn't be happier & thankful.

But then this stupid sickness got me, and now to me, it just looks like I'm showing a bad example of myself. I don't know. I know it's not my fault I got sick, stuff happens. But I'm just so upset. I mean, last week when school started I told myself that I'm going to be extremely focused this year. I promised myself to go to school every day, study hard, work hard, and not have to come up with excuses. I wanted to prove to myself and everyone else that I changed. I want to change.

Maybe I just over think things too much. Maybe I'll be okay. Yes it may look bad that I'm missing school when school just started, but after I overcome this, I have the rest of the fall quarter to prove to myself & others that I can stay focused in school.

I guess another thing that upsets me is that some people say, "Well I still go to school/work even when I'm sick." And sometimes I wish I could just tell them , "Yeah, well good for you". I mean I've gone to school sick before. But damn, I just knew I wouldn't be able to take it if I had gone this week. Monday & Tuesday I was running to the bathroom every 15-20 minutes. The pains in my stomach were so sharp I couldn't think of anything else except the pain.

I dunno, I really hate myself right now. I wish I wouldn't of gotten sick. I wish I could go back in time and not have eaten anything Saturday night. I wish I was strong enough to go to school and just deal with this sickness. I wish so many things. And I know I can't change time or anything that has happened. All I can do is believe in myself and just keep trying. I'm so tired of caring and worrying about what others might say. I got to stop thinking negatively.

I don't want to have the whole "it's not my fault I got sick" excuse in my mind. I'm not going to blame it on anyone or anything. It's my fault and I acknowledge that. It's my fault I went out drinking Saturday night. It's my fault I came home & ate that food. And it's my fault I've missed school. Those were my choices and I just have to tell myself to accept the consequences, if any.

All I'm going to do now is catch up on my homework, get myself feeling better & go back to school without any fear of who I may have disappointed or inconvenienced this week.

GOOD LUCK YESI! XD

... Oh, and just for the sake of making myself or anyone reading this feel better:

..... yeah, I feel better now.

Labels: life, school, sick

So I have finally gotten some time to blog. I've been so busy this week and I've hardly spent any time online. I do occasionally twitter via text, but if I'm ever in front of the computer I pretty much only check my e-mail, myspace, facebook, and deviantart. And it's only to view messages or comments... never really to play around. ;_;

But the reason is because I'm back at school. I mentioned last Friday on all my social-networking sites, that I got my appeal approved and was granted financial aid for the new school year. I was so happy, yet nervous to be going back.

So I'm back at WWCC. School started on Monday (9/21) and my schedule is as followed:

• 8:30-9:20 am -- English Composition I
  
• 9:30-10:20 am -- Fundamentals of Digital Art
• 12:30-1:20 pm -- Human Relations

I'm so happy to be back. However, I am finding myself a little overwhelmed! It's probably because it's the first week. I still have to get used to things. I mean, after all, I missed attending the 2008-2009 school year, and the last time I was in school was during Winter Quarter of 2008. So since around April 2008 I haven't been in school. Well, besides those couple of weeks I had during the summer of 2008, which I ended up dropping.

Anyways, my classes are pretty good. I'm a little worried about English. English has always been my favorite subject, and I absolutely love to write. It's just that now the writing style is going to be different, and of course, more advanced. My instructor is pretty cool. I like the way she thinks & describes things. But I'm guessing the reason I'm having trouble staying focused in her class is because it's just too early! XD Hopefully I'll get used to it soon.

My second class is Digital Art. My instructor is Nanqi. I'm pretty comfortable in that class because I've known Nanqi since 2005. I've had her for an instructor when I took a Illustrator class, Dreamweaver class, and a Flash class. She's also my college advisor AND was my employer when I worked for Web Weavers. Plus she's a really great friend. :) I always struggle in art classes that involve things like making stuff with your hands. But since we'll be using Photoshop & Illustrator as tools in our artwork, I hope it'll be somewhat easy!

My third class is Human Relations with Biagi for an instructor. I actually took a class from Biagi my first year of college, back in 2005. And it was actually for my first class too. I never really talked to him so I don't know him too well. I didn't really have an opinion about him my first year, but now that I'm taking Human Relations I'm finding out that he's a pretty interesting person.

So all my classes are pretty good. If I had to pick the one I liked least it would be my English class. I mean, honestly, I LOVE English. Like I said, it's always been my favorite subject. I just don't feel comfortable in the class. I don't really know anyone there, and it's always been hard for me to make friends. I get so shy with new people and so nervous. So I pretty much just stay still the entire time in class and no one really talks to me. It's kind of lonely, and I think that's one of the reasons I'm having a hard time focusing. But I tell myself that it's okay if I don't talk to anyone in the classroom. Passing the class is my top priority.

Even though I may not talk to many people in my classes, I still get to see my friends afterwards. It was great seeing my friends Martha, Jon, Terry, & Brian again. I spend my 2-hour break everyday with Martha. I've ran into Terry & Brian a couple of times too. So I'm not entirely lonely there. ^^

So now that I'm back in school, I have LOTS of homework. *_* So much reading these boring articles every day. And taking notes. ... So I'll probably be spending a lot of time offline.. which is a shocker cause every day I used to spend at least 6+ hours a day online.. But I'll try to blog more often! And of course the occasional twittering. =)

So summer is coming to an end... or is it over already? Hmm... well, pretty much over. When summer is over, it also means the end of going to yard sales. I have a rather odd like & dislike for yard sales. I mean, I've found pretty neat stuff before, but even with all the "treasures" I find, I still have an extreme dislike for yard sales. I guess it all started when I was little.

When I was little my parents used to wake me up super early on weekends. I'd always be waken up at 7 am, or sometimes earlier, and usually given 1/2 hour to get ready. I used to hate having to wake up earlier. In my mind, weekends were for sleeping in and taking a much deserved break from school. But no. I had to get up early, get dressed, not have time to eat breakfast, and then having to sit in a hot car while my parents drove all around town looking for yard sales. Once we'd find a yard sale I'd have to decide if I want to be stubborn and stay in the car, or get off. 80% of the time I'd get off.

The first thing I would do is immediately look to see if there were books. If there were any books, I'd head over there. I didn't care about anything else I might like at the yard sales. Books was my first priority in yard sales. I guess it's because I have always loved reading. Since I was little I'd always hide in my room and lay down on my bed with a book. And thanks to yard sales, I was always able to get some great books.

I remember once at a yard sale I found a entire collection of encyclopedias. The whole set only cost me $1. I remember them so clearly. They had a funny old smell to them. They had beautiful dark read hard covers. And, they were from the 1960s. I loved the old feel to them. I actually used them a lot. Not really for school, but for personal enjoyment. I remember getting them all out of my book shelf and stacking them together to make forts and houses for my dolls. If I needed to reach for something I'd grab a bunch of them and stack them so I could stand on top of them. But I did also read them. Whenever I was bored, which was quite a lot, I would grab one and lay in bed and just read them. I would randomly open it and look for something interesting to learn and read. My favorite was the "D" encyclopedia. I loved going to the "Dogs" section. It had 3 full color pages of different types of dogs. My other favorite section was the "Dolls" section. It also contained about 3 colored pages showing different types of dolls from all over the world. It was so cool. I was never bored looking at them. My parents used to think it was weird that I read encyclopedias for fun. But I was always fascinated by them. So much information in one book. I loved it.

However, my constant use in them wore them out. The covers started getting loose and falling off (probably from me always stacking them and standing on them). I remember how sad I was when I threw them all away. But I was hardly using them. I think it was most likely thanks to the Internet cause I could search and find cool stuff on there too, and those books were so old.

In my quest to find more interesting books, I had found my new favorite author. It was at a yard sale in my hometown, and they had a box with a few Piers Anthony books. Piers Anthony is a English American writer who writes Science Fiction & Fantasy stories. Back then I used to be really into fantasy books. I still am, but not as much as before. Before I wouldn't read anything else for fun unless it was fantasy. Anyways, back to the books... I remember seeing the cover of On A Pale Horse as well Bearing An Hourglass. Those were book 1 & 2 of the Incarnations of Immortality series. I also found Virtual Mode which was book one of The Mode series, all by Piers Anthony. I bought all 3 and started reading them immediately. I fell in love with them right away. I was completely captivated that I had to read both entire series. It took longer with the Incarnations of Immortality series because there were 7 in total, and I had to have my public library special order them. I loved those two series a lot that a couple of years ago I purchased both complete series on Ebay because I wanted to own them. I still read them a lot, and I'm so happy I found those books because I probably wouldn't of ever gotten into Piers Anthony.

I have bought so many books from yard sales since I was little. Most recently, I got 11 books at 3 different yard sales last weekend. I've only been able to read one, which was Ghost Girl by Torey L. Hayden. I started reading it Wednesday afternoon and finished it yesterday around 4:30 PM. I was totally hooked. I'm so glad I got that book, because I remember it was all the way at the bottom of this box and I didn't really feel like taking all the books out to look. But I'm glad I did because it was a pretty good book. It was a little strange. It's based on a true story, where the author is telling her story of when she was a special educations teacher in a small town. She had this one student, 8 year old Jadie who didn't speak to anyone at school. She also never walked straight. Torey was able to get the girl to start talking and she learned that Jadie thought she was a ghost and that the reason she was always hunched over was because she believed that she had to hold herself or her guts would fall out. It got more interesting because the more the girl would talk, she would say weird things, especially sexual things, and talk more about blood and killing and pain. She would also always draw this weird symbol. The teacher started looking into it and believed Jadie and her sisters were being sexually abused, but she also started thinking that the people who were harming them were satanic or doing it for ritual purposes. Jadie even told the teacher of how she was tied down and her small kitten was pulled apart on top of her and she had to lay there with the blood and guts of the cat all over her.

Jadie was always asking for help from the teacher, who she believed was God because she was strong and believed Jadie and didn't leave her. The teacher, Torey, couldn't really do anything without any evidence and the girl refused to talk to anyone about it. At the end (SPOILER), Torey was able to convince Jadie that she also needed to help herself and tell the social services lady everything that she had told Torey. Jadie and her sisters were put into foster homes, and Jadie was able to grow up happily and even go to college to study English Literature. Her father, who like two years after the kids were taken away, was arrested for molesting a little girl in their neighborhood. It was definitely a good book to read.

So anyways, even though I hate the thought of having to wake up early to go to yard sales, I guess I'm thankful cause I've been able to read so many new books and have made so many memories, such as the encyclopedias that kept me entertained when I was little, and the books by Piers Anthony who opened up a whole new world for me. So even though summer's at an end and I won't be able to look for new books at yard sales, I can wait till next summer, and for the meantime, look for new books at Goodwill, and continue reading manga, which is what I mostly do during the fall and winter seasons.

Labels: books, childhood, memories, reading, yard sales