A Moment

I am currently at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Summer Scholars Program at Virginia Commonwealth University. This programs started on Tuesday May 29th and will last until Thursday July 24th. To quickly sum the program up: the HHMI Summer Scholars program is designed to give undergraduate students to take part in a research experience with a mentor. To enable them to do this the program provides housing for the students as well as having several seminars and other events. Each of these events aid them in some way, mainly perhaps a chance for them to really gather just exactly what systems Biology is.

Tuesday- Move in was quite successful. My stepmom and dad helped me carry my stuff up. They left suddenly for I had an orientation meeting at five o'clock that evening. At orientation I met a few people. I already knew two people (Lindsey and Ena) and I remembered another girl from just random appearances though no introductions, I still dont know her name. After the meeting I finished unpacking after I spent a large of time rearranging the room. I disliked the initial setup because every piece of furniture was directly blocking an outlet (which didnt make sense). Needless to say, it took quite an effort to move them all on my own but I did do it.

Wednesday- I woke up early in the morning in an attempt to arrive at the class on time. Sadly I arrived so late that there were not anymore chairs remaining. I had to use a chair from an adjacent lab room. Fortunately for me, I wasnt the last person to arrive. Another girl came in right after me. There was a talk given by the coordinator of the Biology Program (Dr. Len Smock). He was quite interesting). That evening I went to the lab for the first time. It was quite nice looking, yet empty. I spent about three hours in there before coming back to the dorm. On Wednesday night, I went over to the apartment of one of the organizations I am apart of and had a ball. We played a bit of football and I managed to score the first touchdown. I was surprised for I havent played it in like two years.

Thursday-Thursday was a long day at the lab. It was my first full day there and I did several things. I would have had many pictures but I failed to bring my camera to lab. I started off by first taking part in the culturing of the cells. This is an elaborate set of methods that I wont go into, well maybe in another blog post, who knows. Regardless I did another cell culturing this day. I also counted cells using the microscope and a very particular piece of equipment. We also ran into trouble with the Incubator, which is sued to store to the cells in a relative controlled environment. Something was wrong with the sensor for the temperature, so we spent about three hours trying to normalize and stabilize the temperatures. We managed to do that. Lastly, I also watched as we did an extraction of a mouse brain. I didnt like it all, but I still watched it. I felt a little bad for the mouse though. That night I went out with a friend to see the movie Grindhouse and the Byrd Theater. It was an excellent movie that had me laughing and scared the whole time. It was a nice break from the burdens and speed of the week.

Friday-Friday was a rest day. I spent most of the day in the room on the computer and talking to friends. Perhaps the most interesting thing that I did was cook fish. It was so amazing. I will also add up several things later on.

Personal Insight: A Year Later

I decided to retake a personality test that I took a year ago to see if I am still the same person. Needless to say, I am still the same in two areas but I have become less secure and much more emotional.

Extraversion|||||| 30%
Stability|||| 20%
Orderliness|||||||||||||||||||| 86%
Accommodation|||||||||||||||| 70%
Interdependence|||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Intellectual|||||||||||||||||| 76%
Mystical|||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Artistic|| 10%
Religious|||||||||||||||||||| 83%
Hedonism|||| 16%
Materialism|||||||||||||||| 63%
Narcissism|||||| 30%
Adventurousness|||||| 23%
Work ethic|||||||||||||||||||| 83%
Self absorbed|||||||||||| 43%
Conflict seeking|| 10%
Need to dominate|||||| 30%
Romantic|||||||||| 36%
Avoidant|||||||||||||||| 63%
Anti-authority|| 10%
Wealth|||||||||| 36%
Dependency|||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Change averse|||||||||||||||| 70%
Cautiousness|||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Individuality|||||||||| 36%
Sexuality|| 10%
Peter pan complex|||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Physical security|||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Physical fitness|||||||||||||||| 64%
Histrionic|||||| 23%
Paranoia|||||||||||||||||| 76%
Vanity|||||||||||||||| 70%
Hypersensitivity|||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Female cliche|||||||||||||| 56%

Stability results were low which suggests you are very worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious.

Orderliness results were very high which suggests you are overly organized, reliable, neat, and hard working at the expense too often of flexibility, efficiency, spontaneity, and fun.
Extraversion results were low which suggests you are very reclusive, quiet, unassertive, and secretive.

The Trait Snapshot: depressed, introverted, neat, needs things to be extremely clean, observer, perfectionist, not self revealing, does not make friends easily, suspicious, irritable, hates large parties, follows the rules, worrying, does not like to stand out, fragile, phobic, submissive, dislikes leadership, cautious, takes precautions, focuses on hidden motives, good at saving money, solitary, familiar with the dark side of life, hard working, emotionally sensitive, prudent, altruistic, heart over mind, unadventurous

Generally speaking, this is, once again astoundingly true. I do feel this way on the inside and I do try to not reveal myself to others. Most of all is that I am actually very afraid of everything around me. Of course you wouldnt know this because, yet again I keep it all in myself. And of course I am ultimately lonely, which is ironically the reason why I even write these lengthy things that no one would ever read, I dont think. Its like I have permanent depression and hypersensitivity to emotion and stuff. I dont know, which is why I cry about my horrid self every night as I go to sleep and write horrible things everyday.....

A Struggle To Survive

The past few days have been quite tough to live through. With me completely trying to stay away from the thing that I love the most, it has become harder and harder to focus and to even enjoy things. I sometimes feel like throwing in the virtual towel and calling it quits, but no I must continue. The point of entirely pulling myself away from this entity is to become stronger and better. I can live without it, I don't need to succumb to its power all the time. It will not rule over my life. Unfortunately all of this is easier to say than to actually do. I have woke up in the middle of the night after enduring horrific nightmares about it. What must I do to even break free from this. It is becoming more and more painful as the days where on. Although I can remember how exactly it was to indulge in this, I still want it. I desire it more than anything in the world. However, I must continue to stay strong, persevere, and stay determined; determined that I can last more days without it. I have already managed to do this with soda, which was quite easy because I was never a big soda drinker. But this, this is more than I can take. Me and this were like one in the same. I never went a day without it.

What is this that I am striving to rip out of my life? It is simply candy. I have become a slave to candy! I have been taking in extremely large amounts of candy ever since middle school daily. I was eating so much that it even changed my entire eating patterns. My eating patterns are now that I simply eat, at most one meal a day and even some days I went without eating a meal. Instead I substituted eating several pieces of candy. It is hard to resist the urge to eat candy, for candy tastes so good. The skittles, gobstoppers, nerds, starbursts, and even lemonheads, it is all so good! I have, right now, gone three days without candy.

A Fragmented End

The sunlight has finally come out of the clouds and shown its marvelous rays of hope on us. The weights of oppression, the anvils of depression, and the dumbbells of unfairness have been lifted up. I feel like I can finally take the shackles off my feet and dance. Yes, for some reason I feel exceptionally happy. Everything that I have been talking about over the past few days has finally decided to let up its grip and let me move on to bigger and better things. Although it is just a short reprieve, it is good to be able to finally breathe. The vicissitudes of the world will not continue to hold me down now.

Another Step Closer

When people are tired they just like to give up and move on. Sometimes it is not worth the struggle to continue to persevere once you run out of energy. When you look at the big picture as a whole, that which you are trying to get, becomes even much more of a struggle to ascertain once your down to the last straw. It seems that my entire time at home has been filled with me feeling tired and wanting to throw in the towel. In brief, several events characterize why I feel the need to just not care about anything anymore.

After church on Sunday we arrived back home. During dinnertime we sat around the dinner table to eat, and instead of having a nice discussion about good happy things, we talked about the same thing that has been plaguing the household for five years now. I did not really like the conversation, but I had to sit and endure the talk. At first I did not know what the parents were talking about, but soon I realized that they were tired of me and my brother not doing the things they said (i.e. respecting them). I can honestly say that I have been doing at least to the best of my abilities everything that they say. Still it seems that it is not good enough for them. If they say put the plate on the table and I do it, they will still not be happy. They are more concerned with how you do it, versus you doing it at all. Therefore, I could put the plate on the table, but they will be like, I did not want it there but over there. On the most basic level that is how it is. You have to be meticulously perfect for them, and even then it still is not good enough for them; no matter what the reason there is always something wrong. Now a few things they do accept, but then I hardly ever get any recognition of any sort for it. For example, it almost seems that they were not even pleased that I was valedictorian in high school, that I mowed their lawn for countless times in the heat and cold, and that I even made it my next best goal to strive to keep the house clean. They only focused on the bad, the nasty, and the ugly. Nevertheless, this is what the essence of that dinner conversation was. Because I had been feeling this way for over five years now, I still said basically nothing at all to them. If I said something, they would counter it with something useless or completely say that what I was talking about does not apply here. I was physically and mentally tired from going through these types of things for several years, so I just accepted what they said and moved on. I cannot do more than my best for them.

I feel like giving up in the struggle for searching for money to pay for school. My parents have to understand that we should all just face the situation and figure out the best way to pay for school. Ironically they talk about the pain of paying for college when at the same time they are investing in new furniture, upgrading and buying a new car and truck, and even renovating the house while ignoring the college factor. Then when we talk about a mere $4000 to pay for school they act like it is an extremely large investment. I was a bit agitated over this during the summer before school, but I soon got over it. It was their money, so they could spend it however they wanted. I just looked for more and more scholarships. As I looked for more I became quite perturbed over the mass number of scholarships that I applied and continue to apply for that I will not get. The fact is that so many people apply for them that your one little application becomes lost in the masses. It is better to apply for the ones on the local level versus the national level. I did manage to get about 20 scholarships that all virtually paid for my first year of college, but for my next five years of school, I will have to figure out someway to pay for my room and board costs. With the odds against me, I do not want to apply for another scholarship, but I have to since the parents said it and I do not really want them to pay for school.

Communication presents this elaborate and complex problem in the house. Sometimes I just do not even want to bring things to my parent’s attention, especially things that are good and beneficial for me, because even just bringing it to them is this long series of steps. It is almost as complex and lengthy as the process of trying to pass a law. One simple yes or no answer could take as long as days to weeks for my parents. Now this is good in some respects because they like to cover all the bases of the decision, but for something that requires fast timing, it becomes quite the problem. The latest thing that I had to bring to them was for my summer program. I had to make a list of things that I needed and show it to them. However, once I made the list it took in excess of five hours to even show it to them. Now, there were a few things in the way, such as a visit from my aunt and a meeting out of the house. However, once things calmed down, I could not even talk to my step mom about it. Fortunately I was able to show it to my dad. The household is perhaps the only place in the world that I experience most of the vicissitudes with life. One day everything can be quite peachy, the next day it feels as if I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Ultimately, in order to stay calm and last through these vexing days, I must strive to remain optimistic in all circumstances. Though, I have managed to channel all my anger through my work, which sometimes has produced results contrary to what I wanted (for example, instead of horrible grades, I made extremely good grades when I was most angry, though when I am happy I make lower grades).

A Step Closer

Today I was actually one more step closer to a complete and total breakdown. However, this time not from the unbearable pressures of the world, but rather, it came from being completely annoyed by silly little kids!

Unlike the previous rainy day, which gave a premonition of things to come, more specifically a dreadful day, this day started out bright, shiny, and windy. I was prepared to really seize the day. I went out with my brother to the Adopt-A-Spot clean up at Wilson High School. I had a startling and thought-provoking conversation with an old friend from high school, Christa. Amazingly, she will attend Virginia Commonwealth University in the fall for Biomedical Engineering; I may get to see her then. For the moment that we were at the event, we scooped up countless cigarette butts (I hope that all cigarettes in the world get banned, incinerated, and nuclear bombed, that way they would never be on the ground again). I inquired about several things, and received further confirmation that most things at the school remained the same, although now, most the people who were going to be graduating were going to attend University of Virginia (hm really?). This conversation concluded swiftly, and I was reunited with old members of the Youth Advisory Commission. I was a member of the commission up until I graduated last year. It is a nice group that aspires to help out with the city events and get more youth involved in Portsmouth city’s events.

We ran off to church suddenly and I decided to, instead of going with my dad and brother to their swimming lessons at the local Girl’s Inc. facility, I chose to stay at the Fourth Baptist Church and volunteer with their health fair/blood drive. Boy was I in for a surprise, literally the time of my life.

Because there were apparently not enough adult volunteers, I was tasked with helping out with the popcorn machine, while my friend Dexter operated the snow cone machine beside me. I had little experience with the popcorn machine. It took me no time at all to make it right. People thought it was tragically nasty because it lacked salt. I was going to put salt on it, but I was informed that we were at a health fair. Ergo, we had to sacrifice taste for health by ignoring the fact that we had flavored salt and to act as if we lacked it. I managed to add some bits of salt to it because it was nasty. I cannot imagine how people who do not eat salt (since apparently everyone at the health fair is plagued with a heart disease that prevents any salt in their diet!) can eat popcorn. In order to give it out you have to make it good. It was up to the person to decide if they wanted to blatantly ignore the fact that this was a health fair and get something that would please their taste buds and make them feel indulgent.

My annoyance level began to rise at this part of the day because the adults were all cramming around trying to make sure that I made it right. Of course I did because they were all starring down my necks. The thing that got me though was how some people blatantly said right in my face that it was all right. I was thinking how in the world you could say such a harsh remark right in my face. I could see if it was at my fast food restaurant and they said it, but right here in front of me, no way! Of course, I could not speak out in rage for they were the very people who knew me to be timid and kind. Therefore, I just brushed it off. Luckily I took out my rage through the making of popcorn. Unfortunately for me, when I get into a rage I do things perfectly and so much better so this caused more people to flock to the popcorn.

The day grew longer and soon I was called into the church to undergo a Glaucoma testing. I really didn’t want to leave my station as it was fun to stand in the wind and make popcorn while listening to the people’s remarks, but I digressed and under the urging of my friend’s mom went in to get tested. I was slightly disturbed over this for I knew that I did not have Glaucoma or any other eye disease for I had my eyes checked a year ago. I was not also going to get any other test done that day. They offered the Sickle Cell test, which I knew I had not had because I have not been sexually active to contract since my last test for it. I was not going to give blood because I do not really like blood nor believe in the giving of blood, it is life energy we are giving away. The test lasted about thirty minutes and I made it through. One funny thing to mention is that I had too use an excessive amount of the eye numbing solution because I kept closing my eye cause the solution stung (even though the guy said it wouldn’t). I felt so silly.

I ran back to my station and nearly wanted to close it down and throw people away. The machine was in an utter state of ruin, figuratively. I had to make more popcorn because there were now more people than ever. There was trash on the ground everywhere. There were even twenty billion kids swarming around. I would have been all right with the kids there, but they were talking so loudly that I wanted to do something, which I will not say. Now I did say to them a few times to stop shouting and go away. They did at first but then they completely got out of hand and stayed around. I had to get adult powers to come and remove them but then they came back. At this point I gave up. One other thing that set me off the line was that the power cord was in the water and unplugged. This resulted in burnt popcorn because there was popcorn popping when it was unplugged. Everyone knows that burning popcorn is an unforgivable sin, so I had to quickly rush to do something or else there would have been divine intervention. I had to completely remove myself from this environment for it was bound to produce some horrific results as the children continued to pour in. I made myself some good popcorn then I left.

The rest of the day was a bit more lax; I managed to cool down with a trip to McDonalds and a trip to Sam’s Club. I even managed to find the TV that I wanted for the price that I wanted. I cannot wait to get it.

Today, I learned that in order to stay calm during the times of great disturbance, that the best thing to do is to simply remove myself from it. If I had stayed any longer no telling what I would have done. I would have probably decided to take out my anger on the kids. Although they were deserving of it, it would not be right for they were only kids and did not know the great annoying things that they were doing, for example not throwing their trash away and pouring it on the ground. Not putting trash in a trashcan is an unforgivable sin! Ultimately, we should strive to stay calm while under these circumstances. Once we notice that we cannot continue to persevere then we should remove ourselves from the environment.

A Break Down

Rainy days, though they are my favorite type of days weather wise, are perhaps more often than not dreary days. Perhaps this is why people dislike it when it rains, for it, the rain, gives them a premonition of things to come. Unfortunately for all of us, the premonitions are always of devious sorts. I tend to try to ignore these premonitions and look towards each day as being one filled with promise--promise that is accessible, reachable, and obtainable. Not only do I look at each rainy day in this respect, but all days in this respect. It does not make it easier to live each day, but rather, easier to think each day, no matter how the previous day nor how the morning started off, I can keep a clear mind.

Unfortunately, my outlook seemed to be tested on this day. Oh let me tell you, it was tested and tested really well. I woke up so late that I wanted to off myself. How could I sleep more than 30 minutes later than I wanted? I wanted to wake up at ten o'clock, but loe and behold I get up at ten thirty-seven. That was thirty-seven minutes of my life that I just wasted sleep, what a sin I committed. I literally wanted to slam several books at the computer for managing to keep me up that previous night talking to friends and then playing games past the two o'clock hour. However, I managed to keep my cool after breathing in heavily.

The goal of the day was to simply go out and mail a letter. However, being that it was Friday and that I cannot drive until one of the parents comes home with the car, I found myself in yet another jar of bread and butter pickles. To top the pickle jar, mailing the letter incurred upon me a trip to the post office. Due to the spiraling costs of gas, I figured that the United States Postal Service had to raise the cost of a stamp. Yes folks, we still have a stamp tax even after the American Revolution, the war in which America gained its independence from Great Britain, it seems that we fought to get rid of something that is now back in place, what’s up with this!?. The stamp rose to an astounding 41cents (previously it was 39cents, which has been raised countless times in my short lifetime; I believe it was raised even less than two years ago). What this equates to, is simply that my stamps at home (even though I had none, but my step mom had one), were now not enough to cover even the cost of mailing one letter. Therefore, I have to run to the post office and get a 41-cent stamp.

The time to go to the post office came fast, literally one hour before it closed. To my utter horror, we had to go to the library because of my brother's library book that was due. I am not going to go into the details, but it is a book he claimed that smelled too bad to read--which under normal circumstances would be believable but he had the book for over four weeks! Therefore, my brother, my dad, and I rushed to the library. My brother, Byron, wanted to check out a book so we spent about 15 minutes going around. Had I not been trained to be patient, I could have imagined that I would have erupted into a fury. Needless to say we were out in no time and made it to the Post Office, which was across the street.

The Post Office was the test of the day! Ignoring the exclamation mark, I can bluntly say that it was not that fun. It was filled with confusion, massive imbroglio even. I ran inside, expecting the trip to be less than one minute, and was approached with two sights, both of which were not that good: the line on the inside was long and then the line for the automated machines was long. I managed to make it up to the 41-cent stamp machine and saw the newest innovation, the Forever Stamp. Apparently, for people like me who are annoyed by the rising costs of postage in the United States, they have decided to try to buy us over to their cause. These stamps are deemed to last forever, meaning they will be able to account for whatever cost the postage for one standard letter may be today and tomorrow. However, the catch is that you have to insert $8.20 into the machine for a book of stamps. Moreover, loe and behold, on this rainy day, I had only a twenty dollar bill, a five dollar bill, and a one dollar bill. The machine does not accept 20's! "Curses, Blasted, Fudge Cookies," I yelled. I then went to the normal machine and had to wait about ten minutes or so for the woman in front of me to count out her money. Machines are funny for they are always hard to understand how to operate, especially the money hungry ones. No matter the way your money, they always spit it right back at you. To get it to go in, you have to master the art of throwing it into the machine gently and having a perfectly crisp dollar bill, usually no one has both. For me, of course, the woman had neither. All that I remember is that I had to give her some of my money because it would not take her’s. I stepped up to the plate and threw my money in. I was in another pickle because now I had to choose a combination of 39-cent stamps and 1-cent stamps to equal the price of a 41-cent stamp. With only a dollar bill, I put that in and bought two 39-cent stamps and four 1-cent stamps. This was the only good thing that happened thus far. Now was the weird part. I’m used to using self adhesive stamps, so when I saw that I could not peel off these lick-on stamps for about ten minutes I was ready to bash my head on the doors and scream out loud. I cooled down again and breathed in heavily, and then I ran into the line, (which after spending twenty minutes doing this entire charade) that was empty. I asked the post woman how to put the stamp on and she said to lick it. We had a laugh for a long time as I licked and handed her the letter.

As I look back now, this day was extremely tragic, a few things really could have made this rainy day not as hectic and unfortunate as it turned out to be. First, had I woke up on time; I would have felt more refreshed and not had to waste the world’s limited supply of oxygen by breathing heavily not once, but twice. Second, had I had a car I could have gone to the postage office in the morning and gotten a stamp, or, if push came to shove, sent it out via USPS. Third, had the price of gas not gone up, the price of postage would not have gone up, ergo, I would not have had to use a stamp and could have just asked my step mom for the stamp. Fourthly, had we not stopped at the library, I could have had more time to fumble around or either just line up in the line as I originally planned. Fifthly, had the machines not been so money hungry and stupid, I could have gotten a stamp faster or have even gotten a self-adhesive stamp. Maybe even lastly, had the United States kept the Stamp Tax from ever coming back, since they did fight against it when it was enacted by the British, I would not even have needed to go out to get a dumb stamp for mail anyway, and thus this cascade of events would have been prevented.

What was gained from the events of today shows that patience is really a virtue. However, with a quick to anger attitude and events falling down everywhere, someone could have really chose to break down today in the middle of the Post Office. Ultimately speaking, that which was gained is simply that the weather did not dictate these events to happen, as premonition would suggest. So though, I did not keep my mindset of seizing the day, I still proved that one could make it through the rainy day with a clear mind, simply by breathing heavily.

Every New Day Offers Many Revelations

My time at home continues to go on as if I were living in a virtual bubble of sorts. Honestly, it does seem that at times the world just revolves right around me and things happen. Shopping sprees, movie releases, new items on the restaurant menus, and even the opening of new rides at theme parks, it is all ignored while people sit at home. Although it does seem that way, it is not always so. For example, I managed to receive a phone call from another friend, Phylicia. It was a welcomed surprise for we decided that we would go to our old high school (I.C. Norcom High School) and visit a few teachers. Because I was not doing anything at home except exploring the world through the worldwide web, I exhilaratingly said, "of course, let's go now!". She agreed and within minutes we were on the way to school. Thanks to the powers of spontaneity, we caught a bite to eat at McDonald's (one of the best fast food restaurants out there). So, through a nice change of events and the powers of spontaneity I managed to get out of the house for yet another day with a friend.

Going to visit the school was a nice refresher from the boring events at the old house. I was able to see a few people from when I went to the high school. I saw that a few of the teachers that taught me were still in their respective rooms and fields Strangely the basic set-up of the school was the same. The only difference was that there were now more people in the hallways. I hadnt changed much for I do think that I still looked like I could be a student there. The classrooms and school as a whole seemed to want to become more technologically advanced with their addition of overhead projectors; while I was there we were lucky to have had overhead projectors. I guess they were trying to make the school seem technologically modern. I was surprised by the number of people who remembered me. I thought they would have forgotten for I had deliberately not chose to come back and visit the school until I was at least out of the school for one year. There was virtually no reason as to why I would want to visit the school so soon. I hadnt even been out of school for one year--visiting would make it seem like I was still in high school. Some people, I am so lead to believe, visited the school multiple times, successively. There didnt really seem to be a reason to visit, except to keep up appearances. But perhaps I should have, since I have a fear of being forgotten someday. Now that I think about it I do feel bad for not visiting.

Now that I think about it, I believe that there is perhaps something striking about how I think. I seem to always refer or resort to making decisions based on feeling bad. Feeling bad for something is perhaps what always gets me in the end. It makes me do things that are perhaps the ultimate good or sometimes and in some cases not good, though still not bad. There are tons of things, that I realize, that make me feel bad. From hearing about others stories of scoring horribly on tests, scoring higher than me, wanting stuff they cant possibly have, to even leaving abruptly in the midsts of conversations, there is just an entire enchilada filled with all of these things that make me feel bad. I always try my best to avoid making decisions in the midst of feeling bad but it is quite difficult after thinking over possible consequences from making the decision. Ultimately the underlying thought behind all of this is simply: how would I feel if I did that to myself or even how would I want others to respond? Or in plainer English, I respond based on how I would want others to respond to me or think of me and such. However, this is maybe perhaps the place where my dilemma starts at for then I begin to feel bad for others and then for myself and then I end up in a jar of pickles of difficult decisions (and usually these are quite simple decisions, such as for example, throwing the trash away or leaving it on the floor, not that exactly but decision on this low level.)

The night concluded with me arriving back home and then staying up for quite some time chatting online and playing with my Nintendo DS, which I have not been able to do for quite some time. Chatting online is always fun, but sometimes it just gets so overwhelming and then with guidance and advice being thrown at from every person I talk to, it makes my head spin in many circles. I have come to realize that there is so much stuff that I dont know that everyone else seems to. Have I been under a rock for many eons? Possibly a rhetorical question, but I do not know the answer to it. Or maybe I just blatantly avoided hearing things I didnt want to hear?

All in all, the day was different for the powers of spontaneity reigned supreme, and of course, I did manage to do a bit of personal reflecting.

The Beginning

The first year of college has been completed and the grades are finally beginning to pour in. The first year of school at Virginia Commonwealth University has been something that was life defining and perhaps very intriguing to say the least. From the joyous times to the depressing times, I managed to finally define myself and discover truly what living is about. Although there was little guidance, I do feel that I managed to succeed this year.

My time at home thus far has been quite a change from the fast pace of life at school. Usually at school, I would have been out at anytime walking around with friends, eating at weird hours, or simply in the room watching my favorite shows on Fox or Jetix. Here at home, however, it has been quite different. Rather than watching much TV, I still manage to catch key episodes of American Idol and Heroes (both of which end next week), I have spent much of the time talking to friends on the AOL Instant Messenger or either playing video games or simply watching videos and surfing the internet all day long. I managed to go to a friend's house (DeAnna) on today so that was a welcome change of pace. It was quite fun seeing her. I haven't seen her in nearly a year (perhaps the last time was a little after graduation or at her birthday at Captain Georges and the late night trip to Virginia Beach afterwards, who knows). But no doubt, tonight we had a bit of fun, I hope. Lakeisha was there also, so we definitely had quite a ball with out makeshift photo shoot and TV watching.

All in all, my break has turned out to be quite the opposite from life at VCU. Currently I do wish to return to VCU, for there I feel like there is some purpose, some goal, some sort of urgency and business with life. At home it is like time stands still while the world revolves around me, perhaps that is how I feel currently, living a life with no urgency at home. I do go back to VCU in about two weeks for the summer research program.