what a thanksgiving?!! :)

thanksgiving at my parent's was wonderful. I was nervous about Michael meeting my family, but it ended up being a great time. I had fun, he had fun, and my family really liked him. They all had great things to say about him. Good times. My mom's food, as usual, was delicious. It just melts in your mouth. so good. mmmmmm. :)

i have been doing some shopping for my trip to lebanon. i am really excited about this trip for so many reasons. I havent seen my family there in three years. I miss them so much. Also, i think i am much more mature and i feel like i will really be able to enjoy this trip with an open mind. i think i have taken a lot for granted in my life. I feel very fortunate to be where i am in this life. I am surrounded by wonderful and amazing people that love me and that i love. I have never given my parents that much credit, but they really are good people who try hard to show their love. I feel very fortunate.

well, this coming week is the last week of classes. I am basically finished with most of my classes. I just have one final left on tuesday night. I dont think it will be that hard. I am looking forward to spending some time with michael. our schedules are so crazy. We arent going to see each other for a week and then we will spend one evening together before he leaves for amarillo to see his fam and i leave for lebanon. How crazy? no matter what, i am really looking forward to the time we do have to spend together before we take off for the holidays. i am so excited about my trip, but i really am going to miss everyone here over the holidays. anyhoo, i hope everyone had a super thanksgiving. :)

let the thanksgiving fun begin :)

thanksgiving with friends was so much fun. It was so great to see everyone. all the food was excellent. The company was even better. and as usual, mark and nat were the best hosts around. :) denise is off to continue her education in houston. good luck to you, denise. we are going to miss you around here. i see a roadtrip in our future. :)

saturday was wonderful. I had to watch a video for one of my finals, so the afternoon invovled several of my classmates coming over and watching the video. it was a tough movie to watch. it is called "Life with Billy" and it is about domestic violence. Anyway, the rest of my saturday consisted of some much needed Nada time. I spend some time pampering and relaxing with myself. Good times.

I am looking forward to the coming week. Thanksgiving with more friends on wednesday, thanksgiving with Michael and the fam on Thursday. may-ling is in town this weekend, so i foresee many fun times with her. All good times ahead. :)

What a day?

It was such a nice day. the day began at my internship. saw a couple of clients, i was done by noon. it was a short day. :) (yesterday at the internship consisted of a young girl who was suicidal and two other girls that were so angry that they fought each other...tough day) then i headed off to hang out with Jenn. We had a great time. We went to urban outfitters, which is such a great store. We also hit the virgin megastore and i bought the best of will ferrell. I just couldnt resist. :) then, we saw "elephant" at the Angelika Film Center. The movie was fantastic. Gus Van Sant directed it. He did good will hunting and finding forrester. It was so well done. It left me with this feeling of "how do we help these kids". I just think kids today have so much to deal with, i wish i knew how to help. It left me with many questions about today's youth. The thing that struck me the most was how detached all of the kids seemed. even the ones who were not invovled in the shootings, they were so detached and empty of feeling. anyway, it made for some great conversation with jenn. Jenn and I spent a lot of the evening just talking. We talked about life, love, faith, religion, work, more about life. It was so great to talk to her. her mom made us a delicious dinner. It was a wonderful evening. on that note and with that good feeling, i am off to bed. :)

sometimes feelings overwhelm a person

bear with me on this entry, everyone. i think it might be more stream of conciousness. there is a lot going on in my head right now.

sometime, i wonder how we make it through our lives, day by day, hour by hour, class by class, session by session, with all these thougths and feelings running through our heads. there are so many things to feel about so many different people and things in this world. sometimes, i wonder who can i talk to about certain things? i think maybe i should just write it down and then i will not think about it anymore. sometimes, i wish things that have happened in this world could be redone, even changed. when do i take the leap and say i am done feeling this way? i want to sleep like others sleep. i dont want to be afraid to tell those that i love that i do love them. i dont want to worry about what i say and do and how that would affect others. i want to be able to express and share things that are deep within me, but the words are so hard to find. I can think the words in my head and want to say them out loud so much, but i just cant seem to let myself. I worry that views of me will change. i feel so happy most of the time, which is not how my life used to be. but, there are sometimes when feelings just fill my head and i dont know where to go with them. It seems that they are too much to handle at the time.

please dont take the above for more than it is worth. I am very happy with my life right now. i just wonder how i take these risks and fear that i will get hurt. everytime i let someone into my life, it seems to end with me getting hurt. I am not sure if that is because of me or them, but it is all i have experienced. I wonder if there is ever a point in a relationship where you just know that this is it. you dont have to fear anymore that you will give that person all that is deep within your soul and they will take it and run. does that feeling come when you decide to live with that person or does it just come with marriage or is there always the fear that you could be left in a heartbeat. I have seen relationships that i thought were it (5, 6 years long) just end. One person just says they cant do it anymore, they are not in love anymore. whatever it is. I guess i wish there was some kind of guarantee. I am so tired of getting hurt. i know that i can handle the heartache, but i just really dont want to anymore. i feel that i have lived my life in a good way and i feel that i deserve some security and goodness in my life. I dont want to always wonder how the other person feels, i want to know in my heart.

i think that all the above is probably how i feel, but i am also running on very little sleep and there are many thoughts cluttering my head. please take it all with a grain of salt, more just letting go by writing it down. i cant wait for thanksgiving. get to see so many people that i care about. peace out.

so begins another week

well, i am feeling a bit better. Friday and saturday were horrible. I had a fever and i was throwing up throughout both days. I went in and out of sleep and watched a million movies. I was going stir crazy, i am not used to sitting in the house for two days straight. Anyway, i do feel better now. I think it must have been some sort of quick stomach virus or something. who knows? Well, sunday was quite a day. Michael and i had a group project to work on for one of our classes, so that took up some time on sunday. Also, i was still feeling sick and michael was running on no sleep, so the day was really laid back and full of little naps. I still felt pretty bad, but it was so nice to have michael there with me. today, i am working on a few papers for my classes, then heading down to arlington to finish up this group project and hang with michael. i cant wait till thanksgiving week. I get to see mayling, scott and denise, and some of my high school buds who i havent hung out with in a while. I feel like i really miss all of you. I cant wait. Well, have a great week, everyone.

This sucks :)

So much for that blissful four day weekend i had planned. It seems that i am sick. I hate being sick. this is a shitty sick, too. I have a headache and a fever and i feel very weak. this sucks. I have been told that i am supposed to drink lots of water, rest and sleep. out of those 3 things, the only one i am good at is drinking lots of water. I am not so good at resting and sleep doesnt come quite as easy as i would like. anyway, i am just hoping that if i rest and sleep and drink much water today and tommorrow, i will be feeling better on sunday. I dont want to be sick on Michael and I's day to hang out. sunday also marks 2 months together for Michael and i. Anyway, wish me luck.

What a week?

Before Tuesday, I was still a bit unsure about my decision to leave my job, but as tuesday morning at work unfolded, i became very sure of my decision. The parents of the kids that i transport on tuesday mornings went to court last week and so they were very angry during their visit. they were yelling and cursing in front of their children and they were being very hostile. so, i had to confront them several times and threaten to end their visit if they did not calm down. Well after all that, they followed me to my car as i was preparing to leave. They said they just wanted to say goodbye to their kids one more time, but they continued yelling and being hostile. At one point, the dad looked at me and said "fuck you and your rules". at this point, i was beginning to feel a bit unsafe. Anyway, we were finally able to leave and no one got hurt. But, as i sat in my car with the doors locked and my hands a bit shaky, i realized that this is not the job for me at this point in time. Anyway, all is better now. today is my first real day off. it is kind of nice. I didnt wake up till about 10:30. it feels pretty good.

well, the rest of the week has consisted of writing papers and my internship. The papers went well, i think. my internship is also going well. I am really enjoying the two groups that i am facilitating right now. my supervisor was out sick last week, so i ran the anger management group myself. It was great. I think it was very productive and much fun. i really feel like i have learned a lot during this semester at this internship. :)

I also spent some nice quality time with Michael this week. Things are going so well with him. Most of you wont believe this, but he is coming over to spend thanksgiving with my family. His family lives out of town and i am firm bliever that no one should spend the holidays alone. :) anyway, i am really excited and suprisingly so is my family. Life is so crazy. it just amazes me how people can change. My parents seem to really have changed their views of me and my life and the way they react to all that. It is a change for the better for sure. It is nice to really be able to talk to them and lean on them.

Well, today is my first day off in a four day weekend. isnt that wonderful? i dont have any obligations except papers till my tuesday class at 2. how crazy is that? :) The plan for the day includes hanging with my dad a bit, working out, writing another paper for school and then lounging a bit. i feel like i might be getting a cold, so i am going to take it easy so i can fight it before it happens. :) have a great weekend, everyone.

Saying goodbye is so hard :(

So, work today was so tough. We all know i am very, very bad at saying goodbye and it felt like that is all i did at work today. Tommorrow is my last day at work, but i have a transport in the morning, so i really wont see anyone, so all the goodbyes were said today. I have only worked there for about 3.5 months and yet i feel like i will really miss many parts of that job. It was hard to say goodbye to some of my coworkers, but it was super hard to say goodbye to those kids. i cried 5 times at work today, man, i am such a sap. one of the foster moms that i have worked pretty closely with gave me a cookie boquet and a very sweet card. Everyone was just so sweet and trying to explain to the kids why i was leaving was also very hard. They are just too young to understand. anyway, through all my doubts, i do think this is the best decision for me right now. it still feels very wierd to me not to be working, but i am sure i will get used to it. :)

well, this weekend was a nice mixture of productivity and fun. Friday, i spent most of my day writing my 20 page policy paper. the topic was the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. I thought i knew everything about it, but i actually learned a few things while writing the paper. That was really cool. it was a tough paper to write, the stats about violence against women in the US are astonishing. anyway, it is basically done, i want to proof it one more time tonight before i turn it in tommorrow. friday night, i hung out with will. We drank some wine, chatted it up and had a super fabulous trip to walmart. It was good times. He is actually at a conference in new orleans this week. lucky him. :)

saturday was quite a day. I think it only worked out so well due to my fabulous planning skills. :) well, i was at jenn's place at 11. we had some lunch at the macaroni grill (mmmmmm) and caught each other up on our lives. It seems that the Turning Point (the rape crisis center i used to work at) has moved locations. They are having some funding problems :(, so they had to move to a smaller office. so, if anyone out there has some disposable income they would like to donate, the Turning Point could definitley use some help. after lunch, miriam met us at the movies and jenn, miriam and i went to see Love Actually. It was such a great movie. It was not your typical romantic comedy. It followed several couples at the same time and not all the couples were romantic love. There were best friends, siblings, lovers, family. it was great. after that, i jetted over to a babysitting gig that i took over for leslie, so she could head to college station to hang with andy. the job was only from 4-6. it was super easy. then, i headed back home to continue working on my paper. Quite an eventful day. It was much fun.

sunday, i cleaned the apartment, worked on my paper a bit more and then had my regular sunday fun with michael. we did some shopping, ate some lover's egg roll (mmmmm), saw Elf, burned some CD's. It was a great day. Elf was pretty good. It was definitley a kid's movie, but there were several damn funny scenes. well, i am off to write another paper for my class on wednesday. Peace out.

it is official, i am a shitty blogger :)

sorry again for my inconsistent blogging. All i have to say is grad school is hard. :) there are only 4 weeks left of school for the semester and i have so much work that is due before that time. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, but i am sure it will all get done. So, quitting my job has been such a great decision. my last day is this coming tuesday. i am so excited to be able to have some time to really work on all these papers that are due in the next few weeks.

well, this week has been pretty great...busy, but great. my internship went well this week. Miriam and I started a study skills group, which is more like a classroom group than a processing group since there are 19 students. It was so much fun. it reminded me of my days at the rape crisis center. It helped me realize again how much i really love presenting and educating others. it was a great feeling.

i saw Matrix Revolutions on Wednesday with Michael and his cousin (Gabe) and Gabe's girlfriend (Becky). I dont care what anyone says, i loved it. I thought the end was awesome. I thought the way they resolved the whole thing was perfect. I liked that there was so much heroism (sp?). i like that Neo had a choice and he chose to sacrifice himself for the better good of others. I loved it.

I wasnt feeling very good last night, i think it is sleep deprivation. I need to work on getting to bed before 2, so that i can wake up at 6:30 in time to get to my internship and not feel so icky and sleepy. :) I will work on that for next week. :)

well, there was a slight dilemma yesterday when i tried to buy my sis and a few of her friends tickets to the Matrix because they are only 16. Plano has some crazy strict movie managers. basically, the manager told me that the only way they could watch the movie is if a parent watches the movie with them. not only does that parent have to buy the tickets, but they have to watch the movie also. Anyway, this made me very angry, since my parents said it was fine for my sis to watch the movie. Anyway, it all worked out in the end, i bought the tickets and they were able to get in just fine. I really did piss me off though, that the theatre felt they could override a parent's decision. Anwwho. :)

well, today i have a 20 page policy paper to write. I am writing it on the topic of the violence against women act. I have collected a lot of research that i have found very interesting. I dont think the paper will be that bad. My goal is to get it done today. :) it is worth 70% of my final grade in my policy class, so there is some pressure for me to do well on this paper, but i think it will work out fine.

as far as plans for the weekend go, i plan to see will tonight. i feel like i havent seen him in forever. i am looking forward to catching up with him. tommorrow, there will be more paper writing and then lunch and a movie with Jenn. then, possibly more paper writing in the evening. sunday, i hope to see Elf. I think that movie is going to be so funny. i also want to see Love Actually. You know me and romantic comedies. I told Miriam we could see that one together, so i am going to try and find some time this weekend to make that work.

well, i am off to start the paper writing. have a great friday everyone.