Reactivate Migratory Mode!

I almost feel like I shouldn't even be blogging right now. It's late and I should get to sleep. But I kind of felt like blogging, so I figured that I shouldn't keep myself from doing so when I actually think I might get around to it.

I am halfway through grad school. Actually, I'm MORE than halfway through grad school. I've completed 36 of the 60 required credits for my program. I can't believe that for my last two semesters, I only have to take 12 credits! That's the bare minimum to be full time and I've never EVER had so few classes before. I'm kind of glad about this because I had a terrible semester health-wise in which I spent the entire time so frustrated with myself that I kept time and time again having to fall short of my own expectations of myself. It's a little too soon to tell, but I am hoping that through that awful experience, I've learned to be more patient with myself. I like setting high goals and standards for myself, but perhaps now I can learn to become more lenient when the circumstances aren't quite in favor.

For my last 12 credits, in the spring semester of 2012, I was accepted into a program in which I will do an internship from February to late July. Actually, I wasn't accepted into this program initially, but I got in after I made an appointment with the coordinator and worked out a misunderstanding.

It's good to be able to fight for what you believe you deserve and a big starting point with that is to know what you deserve.

I think I've come a long way in that regard. I have a much better idea of what I deserve and what I am capable of than I have ever had.

When I was younger, I've always had people telling me that I didn't deserve things that I had accomplished. When I got the role of Becky in the school play, Tom Sawyer, in 5th grade, a classmate approached me and said "I can't believe you got the part of Becky." To that, I replied, "Talk to Ms. Moncrief (the director) about that." When I was the 6th grade basketball team that my dad co-coached, he decided that I deserved the "Most Coachable" award. He told me later that he and the other coach considered the possibility that another kid might say I only got the award because my father was the coach. He told me that I earned it, so it would be wrong for me not to get it, and not to listen. It was a good thing he told me that because some kids actually DID do actually that. On top of that, being a younger sibling tended to leave me feeling smaller, sometimes invisible, and I was often picked on. These kinds of things greatly altered my perception of myself for a long time and it's been a tough thing to overcome.

If I were still like that, I don't know if I would have met with someone to discuss acceptance into a program I was rejected from because I don't think that I would have taken the chance to apply in the first place. Applying for things has been getting much easier and every time it feels a lot less like I am forcing myself onto a limb.

I always talk about my standard for myself and how high they are. I forget to talk about how flexible they can be. When I apply for something, I don't think about how it must be so much easier for others to do so, I think "Wow, I've come a long way to bring myself to be able to do this!"

I don't tell people this at all, but in spite of everything, I can honesty say that I am really proud of myself. Yes, I do sometimes feel very weak in comparison to people who seem to have it all so easy- those super type A people who seem to be able to always do so much and are so great at everything they do. I want so bad to be one of those people, but at the same time I acknowledge the fact that it wasn't an easy task for me to get to where I am now. I'm at a point where I can do what they do with just a bit of aggressive pushing and a little boost of confidence. Who ever saw that coming?

Wow, I wrote so much but I haven't gotten to what my title is about.

I feel like I am returning to this blog of 3 years ago when my mom upgraded her place and then I moved to Japan- resulting in three moves that summer. I am putting most of my stuff in storage here in Monterey and moving back to her place during the summer so that I can save a little rent money and be closer to where my internship is (in the San Jose area). At some point, I am going to arrange a new place here in Monterey and move back for the new semester.

My classes for next semester are promising and I'm excited to think about things I can do for my summer internship. Not to mention I am sure my semester long internship in Spring 2012 will be really great, too. I feel like everything is coming together and making the shape of a specific goal.


When I was younger, the future used to intimidate me, but now it doesn't scare me at all.

I am SO excited about what's to come.

Emo blogging

I'm attempting to calm myself down now.

Blogging will maybe help.

I'm having a bit of a meltdown- I know a big part in it's intensity has to do with the fact that I am really overtired. I woke up last night at about 2 am from an odd dream and couldn't get my brain to calm down until around 5. Then I had to wake up two hours later to get to school early because the home internet wasn't working and I had to do some reading for my class at 10.

I've had lots of pain lately in my neck and right shoulder. I don't know why exactly, but although it's gotten better, the pain has been randomly choosing to flare up. It's really infuriating because of course I need to read a lot for my classes. It's REALLY hard to keep up with the reading when you can neither look down at the book or comfortably hold it up. I've also had a head cold lately which has made it hard to concentrate- another struggle in my already difficult plight as a grad school student.

I'm taking 16 credits and working about 12 hours a week... I'm usually on-the-go Monday through Thursday from morning until evening. Then after that, I have tons of reading and work to do until about midnight and on Fridays and the weekends. I'm fine with this, actually, I like being busy and I like what I am doing. I am the type of person who kind of thrives when just a bit overextended. However, with these complications with my body slowing me down I begin to feel like the mountain of work is insurmountable and that I am falling short of everyone's expectations of me... and worse- my expectations of myself.

After pushing myself, my fatigue, my bad concentration, and my (for some reason) irritable stomach through four hours of work which followed the class I had this morning, I was driving home. I was driving through the tunnel and planning to stop briefly at Nob Hill to get some food, when all of the sudden my right shoulder pain flared up REALLY bad. It hurt to use that arm on the steering wheel and even just the weight of the arm was bothering it. I was so annoyed because I wasn't even doing anything out of the norm to it and I certainly didn't need to add that to the day. I had to buy food with no appetite for eating whatsoever and then I finally went home. I stepped through the doorway and felt that I was away for a week instead of just around 10 hours.

I have so many things I need to catch up on this weekend because of the difficulties I had with my neck and getting sick. I felt already so overwhelmed. Plus there's the MIIS career fair that everyone says I should go to tomorrow and someone who was one of the chaperons when I went to Japan for the first time with the sister city foundation died and his funeral is this weekend, too. I was so overwhelmed- do I secure the future or show respect for the past that played a huge role in where I am now? And with SO much work to do in the present how can I do any of those things?

So I got home tired and overwhelmed and just kind of broke down.

I was on the phone with my mom a little while ago during perhaps the worst part of this little breakdown. She kept reminding me that I am doing well and that she would DEFINITELY be telling me otherwise if I wasn't.

I don't know why I have so much self-doubt. I don't know why no matter how much I achieve, I never feel like it's enough. I don't know why although I keep striving to better myself, I still can only think of myself as inadequate (at worst) or "passing" (at best). I know I spent my childhood and youth around lots of people who would respond to my achievements with things like "I can't believe YOU of all people won~", "you only got this because someone else refused it", and "you only got this because~"... but I know these things are ridiculous and they shouldn't have affected the way I look at my achievements so much.

I've learned to live and even thrive with the self doubt- working to try to prove it wrong and silence it. It has been a strong motivator in my life for years now. The bad thing is that my self doubt causes me to think that other people think poorly of me- when I keep pausing in my day to day hustle and bustle to remind myself that the only thing I am fighting here is the nagging feeling in my own head. No one thinks poorly of me- at least that I know of. I am not being judged so strongly by outside sources, but in my own mind. This is something I am unaware of, but I find myself projecting these thoughts onto other people all of the time.

What's frustrating is that I know how lucky I am. I have a comfortable place to live, food in my (ingrateful) stomach, I am safe and relatively healthy, and for GOD SAKES I am one of the small percentage of people on this Earth who can say I am where I want to be and doing what I want to be doing. I can also say with no hesitation that I know I will be heading to even more things in life that will make me very happy. I am aware of suffering in both faraway and nearby places and I know about people who are rightfully frustrated because they just can't get where they want to go. I know rationally that I earned being where I am although I can't feel it. Amidst all of this good fortune in my life there's STILL that doubt. Who am I to have this doubt? I feel like I have no place to get like this when overall, things are going so well. Why can't I just be ok with being sick and sore and not be able to read over 100 pages a week sometimes. Why can't I be as patient with myself as I am with everyone else?

There's nothing else to do but to just let the rest of this emotional hurricane finish it's little rampage. Then I'll look over my information about the career fair to decide if I should go or not and look for a place online where I can leave the Sister City Association chaperon's family a message. I'll do my best with the reading and other schoolwork because my best is all I can give any time.

Deep breaths... I think I am starting to really calm down. I actually really do think the breakdown was probably about 97% due being overtired and in pain. Most of the time, I am really grateful for where I am- even if I do often feel overwhelmed with the loans hanging over my head and out of depth around some of the other MIIS students.

Please no lecture-y comments. If you post any, I will definitely reconsider letting you in on my problems in the future. Especially since I am perfectly aware that I am just kind of bouncing off the walls emotionally due to sickness/fatigue/everything else and this is not a proper representation of how I usually am.

Phew... emotional breakdowns make me thirsty.

name meaning thing

From http://www.paulsadowski.com/numbers.asp -

---------------

There are 18 letters in your name.
Those 18 letters total to 88
There are 9 vowels and 9 consonants in your name.

What your first name means:
Swedish Female Youth.
Shakespearean Female 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' A lady of Verona, beloved of Proteus.
Latin Female Young. The feminine form of Julius. A character in Shakespeare's play 'Two Gentlemen of Verona'.
Greek Female Feminine form of Julius: Downy. Hairy. Derived from the clan name of Roman dictator Gaius Julius Caesar.
French Female Youthful.

Your number is: 7

The characteristics of #7 are: Analysis, understanding, knowledge, awareness, studious, meditating.

The expression or destiny for #7:
Thought, analysis, introspection, and seclusiveness are all characteristics of the expression number 7. The hallmark of the number 7 is a good mind, and especially good at searching out and finding the truth. You are so very capable of analyzing, judging and discriminating, that very little ever escapes your observation and deep understanding. You are the type of person that can really get involved in a search for wisdom or hidden truths, often becoming an authority on whatever it is your are focusing on. This can easily be of a technical or scientific nature, or it may be religious or occult, it matters very little, you pursue knowledge with the same sort of vigor. You can make a very fine teacher, or because of a natural inclination toward the spiritual, you may become deeply emerged in religious affairs or even psychic explorations. You tend to operate on a rather different wavelength, and many of your friends may not really know you very well. The positive aspects of the 7 expression are that you can be a true perfectionist in a very positive sense of the word. You are very logical, and usually employ a quite rational approach to most things you do. You can be so rational at times that you almost seem to lack emotion, and when you are faced with an emotional situation, you may have a bit of a problem coping with it. You have excellent capabilities to study and learn really deep and difficult subjects, and to search for hidden fundamentals. At full maturity you are likely to be a very peaceful and poised individual.

If there is an over supply of the number 7 in your makeup, the negative aspects of the number may be apparent. The chief negative of 7 relates to the limited degree of trust that you may have in people. A tendency to be highly introverted can make you a bit on the self-centered side, certainly very much self-contained . Because of this, you are not very adaptable, and you may tend to be overly critical and intolerant. You really like to work alone, at your own pace and in your own way. You neither show or understand emotions very well.

Your Soul Urge number is: 5

A Soul Urge number of 5 means:
The 5 soul urge or motivation would like to follow a life of freedom, excitement, adventure and unexpected happening. The idea of travel and freedom to roam intrigues you. You are very much the adventurer at heart. Not particularly concerned about your future or about getting ahead, you can seem superficial and unmotivated.

In a positive sense, the energies of the number 5 make you very adaptable and versatile. You have a natural resourcefulness and enthusiasm that may mark you as a progressive with a good mind and active imagination. You seem to have a natural inclination to be a pace-setter. You are attracted to the unusual and the fast paced.

You may be overly restless and impatient at times. You may dislike the routine work that you are engaged in, and tend to jump from activity to activity, without ever finishing anything. You may have difficulty with responsibility. You don't want to be tied down to a relationship, and it may be hard to commit to one person.

Your Inner Dream number is: 11

An Inner Dream number of 11 means:
You dream of casting the light of illumination; of being the true idealist. You secretly believe there is more to life than we can know or prove, and you would like to be provider of the 'word' from on high.

Curls

6 days ago, I sat in a chair getting a haircut.

I didn't trust the man cutting my hair at all. He was hard to understand- not just because of his accent, but his method of communication itself seemed rather flawed. Not to mention every time someone walked into the shop, he would spin around quickly to greet them. I found this very disconcerting considering he had sharp objects near my head.

I really missed the place where I used to get my haircut in Japan. It was always very gentle and, although the communication was all in Japanese, I trusted them not to mess up my hair (or stab me accidentally). I hadn't realized how much I would miss that place until I was in this other place.

I ended up there because I told my mom I wanted a haircut and she told me that a place in Prunedale which usually charges more was having a $12 special. While that would be about the same as a Supercuts haircut, I figured that it would likely be a better haircut for cheaper. As a grad school student, naturally, the chance to save money drew me in.

At one point, the said that after he is done cutting my hair he will show me a way I could do my hair for going out.

'Sure, why not?' I thought.

This is what he did....

He took a HANDFUL of mousse and put it in my hair. This alone made me cringe- I don't like having a lot of product in my hair and even when I do put some in, it's only a tiny amount which I sometimes even dilute with water.

Anyway, he covered my hair with mousse, got out a curling iron, and began curling my hair.

I just sat there; my expression irritated.

I've never liked or wanted curls in my hair.

Let's flash back to my childhood, shall we?

Like many other kids, I didn't like to eat the crust on bread (I still don't actually, come to think of it, but I eat it anyway). When my mom and her sisters were younger, they used to be encouraged to eat bread crust by adults who told them that it would make their hair curlier. As the story goes, this was enough to convince them to eat the crust from the bread.

So, naturally, some of them tried to pass on this encouragement to me.

This had an adverse effect- I did not want curly hair, so hearing this made me believe there was even more reason to avoid eating bread crust.

Years later, I watched the movie Mulan and started to envy straight Asian hair.

I was always easy going when someone wanted to curl my hair, but I would always get rid of the curls as soon as I was home again.

Anyway, the guy at the salon I was at tried to charge me eight additional dollars for the styling. I told him that he can't charge someone without telling them and he brought the price back down to $12.

I went back to my mom's house and the mousse-y, curly hair was bothering me. I wanted to determine what I thought of the haircut, but the ridiculousness that I had no wish to replicate was getting in the way. So, I used my mom's shower, washed the mousse hair, and regained my rights to the top my head. It felt like sanity and control re-entered my life.

A few hours later, my mom and I were at the mall in Salinas. We passed by a booth selling straighteners and curlers. A saleswoman was trying to get us to stop. I thought it would be nice to have a good quality straightener, but I don't feel like I have the money to spend, so I kept walking. However, I realized that my mom had stopped and began talking to the woman- I was trapped.

My was was obviously the one who was interested, but since she has very short hair, the saleswoman kept asking me to sit down so she could demonstrate on me. I thought this was ridiculous- she curled part of my hair once and I asked her to straighten it again. From this, you would think that she would understand that I have absolutely no interest in this straighteners ability to also curl, but she curled my hair a second time. My mom was the one who was interested, but she continued to insist on using my hair to demonstrate when that really only communicated that my mom couldn't do these things to her hair anyway.

I really didn't get who exactly she was trying to sell the product to and I was really glad to finally get away. I was baffled that two people curled my hair without my permission in one day.

And that's the story.

It seemed more interesting in my mind.

(I'm willing to bet $238239 that Bethany thought of at least one comment while reading this.
By the way, I don't dislike other people having lots of product in their hair or curls- I just don't like either of those things for myself.)

Keeps getting better

It's way too late to be blogging right now, but I've had this blog in my head for a while and I kind of feel like if I am ever going to get it posted, I should just do it.

At this time in my life, I can say that I truly believe that life is getting better. I'm really enjoying grad school. I'm finding it is in many ways better than JET, which was better than college, which was better than high school. I find myself more inwardly open and able to find niches and friends and in places and through the years my environment has changed gradually to one that has more and more niches and friends available.

I'm not going to lie- I've been stressed and overwhelmed. There is a lot to do and think about as a grad school student. My typical life methodology is to take things step-by-step, but it almost feels like some other students were gifted with extra legs and can take several steps at once. In a way, though, I thrive on that. And, from what I can tell, I'm doing rather well.

I'm pretty sure I've adapted to being at MIIS faster than any other place I've gone to school at or worked at. Maybe it was due to the challenges I faced living alone in Japan, perhaps I am just not phased by things as easily as I used to be.

I'm single and I'm fine with it. I always hear about people feeling empty without someone to be in a relationship with, but I don't feel that way at all. I feel that there are no vacancies in my life. Instead I feel like my life is already full of really good people- all taking up spaces that they belong in. They're not replacing anyone- where they are is unique to them. I might look at a guy and think he's cute and perhaps be a little interested in him. Maybe I might feel a little sad if he's not interested in me, but I wouldn't feel like I'm lacking anything without him.

Society has a lot of expectations.

How you should feel about being single, how you should dress, how you should act...

That's another blog.

I feel like I am too overtired to write this blog. Perhaps I shouldn't have tried.

Not a real blog

Just a few past blogs of note that motivated me a bit when I found them again--

Applying for a scholarship in 2007.

Visiting my old elementary school also in 2007.

I'll post a real blog sometime soon. I've been writing one in my head and I've been determined to write it. I just haven't had the time.

*sigh*

A long awaited update.

I forgot what the template to this blog looked like.

It's been over two months since I last wrote a blog. It's funny- just a few years ago, the blogs just kept coming, but now it just doesn't seem to work that way anymore. I haven't been much of a blogger in years and I am not sure exactly what happened to that.

I thought that returning to student life would mean a return to blogs because my blogging habit pretty much ended when my undergrad life ended, but here I am halfway through my first semester as a grad school student and the blogs have not returned.

But there's no reason for me to fret about it. What's done is done, but it won't stop me from now and then trying to revive the blog creature in my brain.

In a way, I feel like it's never completely died. I've been writing blogs in my head all of the time in the past 2+ years, it's just been that by the time I'm sitting in front of a computer, the train of thought is already miles (or kilometers) away.

I've written a few papers for school so far. It felt strange to be back in the world of writing papers, so it was a little difficult at first. Quickly, I rediscovered aspects of it that I like and ones I really don't like (ex. figuring out how to do citations).

The school has offered me work study, but I've only applied to one job that I haven't heard back from. I'm beginning to feel a lot like I did as an undergrad- like I just want to be a student and I really DON'T want to work at the same time. I'm still fully intending to work, but I still wish I could focus entirely on academics.

Although I seem to be doing well in school, I can't help but feel kind of behind compared to many of the other students. I get the impression that most of the other students at the school have more precise goals and ideas of where they want to end up. For me, I've been studying Japan and Japanese for so long and I want to use my time at MIIS to learn about many other places and cultures.

This week was kind of unusual in that I found myself thinking about potential things I could do in the not-too-distant future. I have random spurts of inspiration every now and then. It's from those times that I can figure out what I plan to do next. I didn't really have any experiences of that in my post-Japan life until this week. As much as I've been enjoying my time at MIIS, it seems like I miss out on a lot having no idea what kind of direction I want to take.

Last night, I was supposed to work on a news article report for my Japanese class, but then ended up doing it much later because I was suddenly struck with the desire to plan the rest of my MIIS semesters and look up some internships. I figured that I've been waiting for months to get that kind of frame of mind to show up and it's worthwhile to neglect a little schoolwork in its favor. Because of that, I was up to about 1 am working on the news article report. Still, I think I made the right decision.

After this week, I have an idea of a region I might want to specialize in conflicts in and an institution that I would love to to an internship with (although I am not sure if I would be able to get in). I've also decided that I want to add a new aspect to my education at MIIS. So, I have a few things to talk to my adviser about.

Between chats and a phone call, I completely lost my train of thought. There was something else I was going to say.

I suppose that means this is it for now. Hopefully, I'll blog again soon.