Life Is Good

It's been going on two months since I last blogged I'm ashamed to say.  I could say that finals and all really got to me, but honestly it's more been the fact that I haven't been in the mood to just sit down and type.  But I have been pretty busy so that has definitely contributed to the lack of updates of any kind.  In any case, I successfully completed my first semester back at college with all A's which was super exciting.  I honestly don't think I've ever had that good of a semester at college ever.

In addition to successfully passing all my classes, I also passed the test I needed to get into the Veterinary Tech program on my first try.  That was a huge shocker for me.  I had to get a minimum score in four different

areas (Reading, Math, Science, and English) in addition to also getting a minimum comprehensive score of 60%.  The test cost ~$40 to take each time so I really wanted to pass it in two goes at the most.  I knew I could nail the Reading and English sections because those have always been super easy for me, but the math and especially the science would be more challenging.  Going in and taking the test, I was sure that I had failed it.  The science section turned out to be significantly harder than I had expected so I was sure that I hadn't made the minimum score I needed to pass.  But when I finished, lo and behold, I had passed with a 78.7% comprehensive score.  I will fully admit that I cried when I got back out to my car, I was so happy.  I also managed to freak my mom out accidentally when I called her as soon as I got back to my car and I was still crying a bit when she picked up.  She, of course, immediately thought something was wrong.  Whoops!

Doctors Against Down Syndrome - An Essay

Earlier this semester in my English class, I was given the assignment to write an argumentative paper.  We all got to choose our own subjects and me being me, I decided to go big and controversial; I decided I wanted to write about abortion.  From that first idea I slowly narrowed my topic down, going from aborting children with disabilities to focusing on Down syndrome to finally focusing on Down syndrome and how doctors handle telling parents that their unborn or newborn child has Down syndrome.  Doing the research was both fascinating and saddening.  The fact that people seem to have so little issue with a child being aborted solely because it isn't perfect but then have a fit at gender selective abortion makes no sense to me.  And then also reading about how many doctors push parents towards abortion was just appalling.  Despite the fact that I felt a bit overwhelmed with writing the paper and honestly didn't think it was my best work initially, my professor loved it and reading it again, I'm very proud of what I accomplished.  So, I decided to share it, not to brag or anything, but because this is a controversial issue and I think it's one that needs to be addressed.

To Those Who Judge

Last night as I lay in bed trying to sleep but actually flipping through my Facebook newsfeed, I came across an article.  The title caught my attention immediately:  A Call to Action: Your Fat Friend Is Going It Alone.  It was an interesting and very relatable piece for me.  It got me to thinking about how society views and treats fat people.  It brought to mind things I don't really focus on anymore; the little comments I sometimes hear or the criticizing eyes as I walk about minding my own business, all because I'm fat.  I've learned to brush those things off, to not focus so much on the negative, but some days it can be hard to ignore it.

I don't think people always realize just how damaging, how lasting the comments they make are.  I can still remember shortly before my ex and I broke up, asking him something along the lines of did he wish I was thinner or was he proud of the way I looked and him responding, "I wish you were thinner so I could show you off to my friends."  Six years and I have never been able to forgot those words.  They didn't just hurt me, they devastated me.  Many times I wish I had told him how much damage those words caused.  My already fragile self-esteem shattered and it has taken me years to build it back up.  I relied so much on him and others when it came to my self-image.  If my own boyfriend didn't seem to think I was good enough, then clearly I was a hideous creature.  Now I know better than to put such stock in other's words, but that doesn't always make it any easier when I hear the snide remarks people sometimes make.

Awake and Alive

I realize that I really haven't posted anything since last September other than my one post recently so I thought I would give a bit of an update on what's been going on since then since life has changed quite a lot, thankfully for the better.  So back in September I was dealing with a lot of personal issues.  I was severely depressed, even suicidal.  I was cutting again and just generally in a very dark place.  I had hoped to return to school during the fall semester but didn't get everything done in time so unfortunately was unable to take any classes.  I ended up just working.  Honestly, it's a bit of a blur, but I was not doing well during that time.  I tried going to counseling which didn't end up working out but towards the end of December I finally got myself together enough to apply to CNM.  I was accepted and started looking at classes.

It was at this point that for whatever reason I kind of stepped out of the dark zone I'd been in.  Maybe it was just the fact that I was actually making steps towards doing something more with my life, I'm not sure, but I enrolled in six classes which turned out to be a bit ambitious.  Most importantly though, I finally settled on a major.  I've been jumping around with my major since I first went to college in 2009.  I wanted to do photojournalism, then wildlife biology, theatre, and vocal performance, to name a few.  When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a vet because I loved animals so much.  Well, I guess some childhood dreams aren't totally crazy because I'm working my way towards a degree as a veterinary technologist with the goal of graduating in two years.  From there I'd like to hope that I'll go on to pursue my doctorate in veterinary medicine but as that will require going out of state, that's up in the air.  My long term goal is to be able to focus on horses/farm animals.  For now though I'm focusing on just getting the courses done that are required to just get into the vet tech program.

I Found the Perfect Man...But It's Not Romantic

I gave up on finding the "perfect" man years ago.  I don't have any hopes of finding a guy who'd want to date or marry me.  I've learned not to expect any kind of compliments from men, because they don't normally compliment the fat girls.  I basically gave up on men altogether, aside from my dad and my best friend.  I remember talking with a girl friend of mine last year about how "men are pigs."  We were joking, mostly, but there was a part of us that believed that was the case with the vast majority of men.  And then I decided to go back to college this spring and take a Theater Appreciation class and I met him.  A man I barely knew who actually talked to me, listened to me, joked with me, teased me, and told me more than once that I looked really nice or pretty on a particular day.  And there's absolutely nothing romantic or sexual about it, he's just genuinely nice.  I can't tell you how refreshing that is or how much it means to have someone say that to me.  I don't get a lot of compliments on my looks, rarely from girls and never from guys.

I remember being younger and sometimes fishing for compliments when I'd put extra effort into how I looked.  I wanted so badly to be noticed, to be told that I was beautiful because I didn't think I was beautiful, I needed someone else to tell me that I was.  I don't care so much about my looks these days, I don't generally put in any extra effort to look nice.  I'm not trying to impress anybody anymore.  At this point I'm pretty much like, if you don't like the way I look or who I am, you can take a hike cause I don't give a crap what you think about me.  Okay, so not entirely true but I've gotten much better about just being myself and not trying to be someone else or trying to impress others.