What If?

    I've been thinking a lot about my life and all of the what-ifs I run through my head daily. What if I hadn't dropped out? What if I were skinnier? What if I were prettier? What if I'd gotten a degree? What if I'd put some effort into making friends while I was in school? What if I'd given more of a shit about my future when I had more power to control the outcome?

               

         What if?

        

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    But we can't live our lives based on what-ifs, can we? If I spend all of my time thinking about what if I had done things differently and what if I was a different person or looked a different way or lived a different life, then I forget to live in the present. Does that make sense? I mean, I do it all the time, and the next thing I know I've missed out on something amazing. And then that's just another what-if distracting me from another potentially wonderful moment.

    I tend to forget the things that are still good in my life- in this small moment of my own infinity. I'm like a ghost in my own existence; I'm there, but still so far away. I've missed so many opportunities to embrace the beautiful life that I DO have, and I'm trying to move past that. I may be larger than I want, but my body is healthy. I have a job that I love and a roof over my head. I have a dog that adores me and never ceases to cheer me up. I have two (relatively) healthy parents who love me and support me, even if they aren't always proud of the decisions I've made.

    But what if  I started appreciating what I do have instead of reminiscing about what I could have had? What if I learned to love myself? What if I learned to love this body that has only ever done its best to keep me moving forward, even in the darkest times of my life? What if I stopped worrying about what other people think of me? What if I stopped carrying the weight of the goals I never reached and instead praised myself for reaching the goals I didn't even know I had? What if we as a collective society stopped worrying so much about our what-ifs and made a promise to start living in the moment and enjoying our own little infinities for what they are: simply beautiful and irrevocably our own. 

  

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On Growing as a Person

One of my favorite things about human beings is that we continually change. Not just as a species, but as individuals. I like seeing the people I know change and grow (sometimes) and I love watching it happen to myself.

I think one of the greatest things we have to offer ourselves is our adaptability. If there's something we don't like about ourselves, we can work on it and change it or eradicate it. If we see something we like in someone else, we can adopt it and make it our own.

I, myself, am notorious for taking other people's characteristics and making them my own. I got my blog name because I liked the way one of my high school classmates always said "oh my gracious." I started caring more about people because the two people I love and respect the most (my boyfriend and an adviser) are two of the most caring and kind- hearted people I know. I started dressing the way I do because I saw it on some of my favorite shows and I do my hair based off of people who did their hair the same way, and I liked it. I started blogging in the first place because Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City had a column in a newspaper and wrote all the time, and that's what I wanted to do. I mean, I didn't necessarily want to write a sex column for a New York City newspaper, but I wanted to write.

It's interesting, though. People seem to think that if you model yourself after what you see elsewhere, you're "fake". However, I don't think that's the case. I think that, sociologically, we all do it, but some people are more willing to admit it than others. There's actually this idea in sociology called "group mentality" or "herd mentality" that describes exactly what I'm talking about. It's the tendency we as human beings have to be influenced by our peers in the way we speak, act, and even how we decorate our homes!

But anyway. I think it's important that, as we grow and develop who we are going to be for the rest of our lives, we are open and receptive to new ideas, new styles, and new ways of living. There's no way to know what you're going to like or what you won't like until you've tried it.

Keep growing, kids. <3

Seth David Lord!

Hello readers! Sorry it's been so long, but I've been very busy with my first year of college and having a real job and what have you. But more about that later!

I have some very exciting news to share with all of you! My friend, Seth David Lord, has been working very hard on some FANTASTIC music. And now he's about to reach one of the most critical moments in any artist's career: his first music video!!

This is a very exciting step for him to be taking, and I couldn't be more proud. If there's one thing I can promise you about him, it's that he has worked EXTREMELY hard to get to where he is, and I know he hasn't taken anything for granted. And I mean, if we are being honest, the world needs more grateful artists.

The music video he's wanting to make is for his single "HoldOn". I had the honor of hearing this song and I was blown away. It has everything a great song should: meaningful lyrics, an awesome beat and it gets stuck in your head. (Seriously, I was singing it for a week after I heard it!)

We come to my point for this post, now. "Seth David Lord" isn't a household name. Yet. He doesn't have millions coming out the wazoo like Kanye and T- Swift. He's a guy you can relate to: a guy with a dream that he will do anything to see come to fruition. So, he's created a gofundme page, which I will leave a link for below. I'm not asking anyone to donate a lump sum of cash or to break the bank, but if you CAN donate, every little bit helps.

I can go on and on about how kick- ass his music is. (Because it is.) But the truth is, it's about SO MUCH more than that. Every song that that man has worked on, I've found some part of it I could relate to. He's relatable and so is his music, and I think that's really important. All I can do is promise you that if you help him make his dream come true, you won't regret it. His music is honestly a gift in the sense that it makes people happy. Help spread that happiness out into the world!

#MusicCentered #PeopleDriven

https://www.gofundme.com/sethdavidlord

Here's a short biography:  http://www.originalglbtexpo.com/a/article_106.php

Some photos!

Schroedinger's Cat: A Poem

Schroedinger, Erwin! Professor of physics!
Wrote daring equations! Confounded his critics!
(Not bad, eh? Don't worry. This part of the verse
Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.)
Win saw that the theory that Newton'd invented
By Einstein's discov'ries had been badly dented.
What now? wailed his colleagues. Said Erwin, "Don't panic,
No grease monkey I, but a quantum mechanic.
Consider electrons. Now, these teeny articles
Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles.
If that's not confusing, the nuclear dance
Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance!
No sweat, though — my theory permits us to judge
Where some of 'em is and the rest of 'em was."
Not everyone bought this. It threatened to wreck
The comforting linkage of cause and effect.
E'en Einstein had doubts, and so Schroedinger tried
To tell him what quantum mechanics implied.
Said Win to Al, "Brother, suppose we've a cat,
And inside a tube we have put that cat at —
Along with a solitaire deck and some Fritos,
A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes
(Or something else rhyming) and, oh, if you got 'em,
One vial prussic acid, one decaying ottom
Or atom — whatever — but when it emits,
A trigger device blasts the vial into bits
Which snuffs our poor kitty. The odds of this crime
Are 50 to 50 per hour each time.
The cylinder's sealed. The hour's passed away. Is
Our pussy still purring — or pushing up daisies?
Now, you'd say the cat either lives or it don't
But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won't.
Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
But quantum mechanics must answer, "Tough shit.
We may not know much, but one thing's fo' sho':
There's things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons — you'll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed —
Which ruins your test. But then if there's no testing
To see if a particle's moving or resting
Why try to conjecture? Pure useless endeavor!
We know probability — certainty, never.'
The effect of this notion? I very much fear
'Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.
Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,
"We've just flipped a coin and we've learned he's a corpse."'
So saith Herr Erwin. Quoth Albert, "You're nuts.
God doesn't play dice with the universe, putz.
I'll prove it!" he said, and the Lord knows he tried —
In vain — until fin'ly he more or less died.
Win spoke at the funeral: "Listen, dear friends,
Sweet Al was my buddy. I must make amends.
Though he doubted my theory, I'll say of this saint:
Ten-to-one he's in heaven — but five bucks says he ain't."

Why I Want to Teach

I find that when I tell people I want to teach, I usually get weird stares or people ask me, "why?" They look at me kind of the way I look at math problems and ranch dressing. My usual response is, "Well, when you still count on your fingers, you don't have a lot of options." That's a pretty lame reason, right? Yeah, I think so, too.

So why do I want to teach? Well, it's kind of a long story.

I grew up in foster homes, and if you know anything about foster children, then you know that there is a stigma that surrounds them. And trust me, it's not a good one. You see, people believe that being in the foster care system means that you're a "bad kid" or that, because you "obviously had bad parents" that you'll grow up to do absolutely nothing with your life. Well, yeah, there are bad seeds in the foster care system, but that's true of every demographic. But it IS true that most foster children grew up with rough home lives. So they probably already feel pretty crappy about themselves. I know I did. So when you tell them they can't do it, they believe you. I went through elementary and middle school with a 4.0 GPA and still felt like crap. A retired English teacher told me I should go into the profession, but I ignored her. I knew that I was smart, but who cared? As a foster kid, my life didn't mean anything, so why bother. I got adopted while I was in middle school, but my new parents also believed that foster kids were bad seeds. When I got to high school, my GPA began to drop and I stopped caring. Now, mind you, it didn't drop a lot (it went to about a 3.5) but it was significant enough that people started noticing. Nobody wanted to be in my group because I wasn't the "smart girl" anymore. And then my sophomore year of high school came and I got a new English teacher. Man, that woman was something else! She wore sparkly shoes and clothes and she was WAYYYY too upbeat for a teacher. I mean, I thought most teachers were dead souls who hated their jobs. But she was AWESOME. She took a liking to me (God knows why) and took me under her wing. She praised my work when I wrote papers and even had me proofread my peers'. And then she told me I could do anything I wanted. Now, I know that that's what most people hear as little kids. They can be the president or an astronaut or a doctor. But that was the first time anyone had ever said that to me. And it hit me hard. I could be anything I wanted. I was skilled at writing papers and correcting grammar. Maybe I couldn't do math, but I wasn't stupid. She kept telling me, over and over, that I could do anything that I wanted to. And slowly, I began to believe it. But what was I going to do? Believing you can do anything and actually doing it are very different. I knew I couldn't do anything math related, even though the pay would be higher, because I'd be fired the minute they saw me count on my fingers. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought about my teacher. She had changed my life. And then I thought about all of the kids, like myself, who didn't have anyone cheering them on. I thought about the kids who sat in a classroom every day, and the only reason they were failing was because someone told them that, no matter how hard they tried, they wouldn't amount to anything. I thought about that and I made the decision, at the end of my sophomore year, to become an educator. Because I realized that it's so much more than standardized tests and benchmarks. It's more than droning on and on about something that students only listen to because it's the law. Educators are more than teachers. Educators are cheerleaders. They're voices for the kids who feel like they don't get a voice.They're an ear to lend when a student thinks nobody else is listening. Educators are the people who spend countless hours planning classes that are going to improve someone else's future. They're the ones trying not to take home with them the stories of their students' home lives that reduce them to tears. Educators are unsung heroes. They do what they do and they don't demand thanks or recognition. They take what they're good at and use it to improve someone else's life. They spend their days trying to brighten someone else's. They are life changers.

And that's why I want to teach.

On Going to College and Being Employed

     In just a few short days, I'm going to be moving into my dorm room and beginning my college classes. Yesterday, I started my first day of job training. I will be working in the newspaper office for my respective university. At first, I was really kind of nervous. However, yesterday went really well and I woke up in a very good mood this morning. I was excited to come back, and not just because of the money. I like my coworkers in the front office and the two, I suppose they are supervisors (I'm not sure what their titles are...), are incredibly nice and easy to get along with.
     What is really weird is that I never imagined myself as the kind of person that could happily sit at a desk and wait for the phone to ring so I can make a classified ad (even though M answers the phone first!) but it turns out that I am. I am perfectly content at my little desk space.

     I'd be lying if I said that I am not even the least bit nervous about actual college, though. I know that my job can't be my biggest focus- my grades have to come first if I want to keep my scholarships. I can only hope that my classes aren't too hard and that I can wake up with the same enthusiasm for class that I have for job training. And I know that I need to find a balance with working and class and studying. Fortunately, my class and work schedules work nicely together. Wednesdays I don't work at all, Tuesday and Thursday I only work mornings and I'm done relatively early on Monday and Friday. That leaves a good bit of time ever evening for studying as well as weekends.
     I also understand the importance of having an active social life so I am not entirely stressed out over class and work. I've joined two clubs (sorta) that I might have to take seriously if I start getting too stressed out. But I also need a study plan. I definitely need to make sure that I am reading my class syllabus and keeping up with what is going on. Also, if I have time, I would like to try to stay a little ahead of the game so that I'm not cramming for finals in December.

     The more I think about it, the less worried I am. I wasn't the best at studying or focusing or balancing my time in high school. In fact, I was just plain awful at all of the aforementioned things, as well as organizing and keeping my priorities straight. However, I firmly believe that if I set my mind to something, I can do it and nothing can stop me. So that's what I am banking on this semester.

     I also have a few other goals that I want to keep in mind and work on this fall. I want to start living healthier- I want to cut out sodas and eat less desserts. I'd also like to spend some time working out or swimming, at least, on days when my classes are fewer and further apart.

     Anyway, back to work!

Love,
Amber ♥

Late Night Blog Post

To be honest, I don't have anything important to say. I'm sitting here waiting for my boyfriend to get here and it's getting pretty late and I'm exhausted and probably should have napped earlier today. But such is life, right? I hoped he would get here at about.... 9ish, but he didn't even leave until almost 7, so that wasn't feasible.

I really need a nap, man. My head feels wonky. And South Park is on the telly and I don't even like that show, but I am too tired to change the channel so I'm just letting it play as white noise. Ya know what I mean?

But the real question with evolution is why do men have nipples? I mean, it's not like they NEED them. Why do we still have tail bones? They're absolutely useless. And yeah, I mean, I get that they aren't hindering our ability to reproduce or anything, but if you hurt your tail bone, it really stinkin' hurts!

They say that the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42, but if we're being completely honest, that doesn't answer the basic fundamental question at the root of all human angst: do pigeons have feelings?

Welp, just found out that he won't be here until after midnight, so I might just go ahead and cry a bit and get some sleep and do whatever it is sad girls do.

Laters, baby.