Ditch Day

So once in a while, we all need a ditch day right? Just to have a little fun? I think so. Something just comes up unexpected and you get this overwhelming feeling to cancel everything else you had planned and just go for it. Well that feeling doesn't happen to me to often, I am usually very committed to my commitments. However one thing I am truly a sucker for is animals. So when a friend brought up she needed to go to the zoo to observe for a school project, and we both work weekends (and every other day for that matter and have super crazy schedules). She got the assignment on Friday and we realized that the only day she could even go (esp since the zoo is only "open" until 430pm) was on a Monday. So after her 9am we took a ditch day. We meetings, work and I skipped my classes (since they are in the afternoons on Mondays) and we hopped on a Train to the Lincoln Park Zoo. This was two Mondays ago just for reference, It was cold snowy, icy and cloudy. All in all not great weather And neither of us had good shoes or were dressed right. By the time we got back to Lake forest are feet were soaking wet ice-pops and we still had to walk back to campus. BUT IT WAS ALL TOTALLY WORTH IT! And here is a video showing why you too should take a Ditch Day the next time the opportunity arises (BABY GORILLA! Let's just say we had loads of fun at the zoo):

Monday Funday

It's Monday. I have a test at 1 that I have not finished studying for. My car is still broken down. And I have to find an entire sound plot of sound cues for a show by Friday so it can be programmed. It's looking like a fun week. See you all on Saturday.

2013

OMG IT 2013!!! AND THE WORLD DIDN"T END!!!

Okay, okay, now that I got that out of my system I'll be serious now. It's a new year, and unfortunately a scary one for me. I found out that I passed my Senior Seminar last semester for Psychology, and if any of you saw me in the library at any point last semester, you knew that I was freaking out that I wouldn't pass no matter how hard I worked at it. For the record, passing means a C- or better so that it would count for my major. Well I got a C and as so happy. Who new you could be so happy about a C? It was a really hard class, but I learned a ton, and the Prof is still one of my favorites. So what does this mean for this new scary year? It means I'm going to fucking graduate college of course! omg scary face, imagine me freaking out as we speak.

So yeah, every time I think about it, I just got to take a deep breath and remember that I can do it, and that I have a plan. Well I sort of have a plan, lets just say it has some unknowns in it. I plan to graduate, hopefully get a job that I will enjoy, and eventually get an apartment. The main unknown that freaks me out is where I am going to live. The job is less scary only because I have experience for a lot of different types of regular jobs, so I can probably get A Job, but it might not be something I like. Living is the big Q. Since my ever so necessary college education wiped out all of my savings (I do work a lot, but whatever came from working went to bills or the next semesters tuition), I am left with almost no start up money. So the job might, no will, have to come first, and the apartment after. I can't just get an apartment after graduation like some of my fellow classmates and have my parents to pay for it the first 6 months while I get a real job, my parents don't have the money for that. But where would I go in the meantime? I am left with about 2 options, first I could move to the papa's (Grandpa's), of which I haven't even discussed with him and probably should do that. He lives semi close to public transit but still not my greatest option, however I could probably live there rent free.

Option numero 2, moving back to my moms. First off depending on where said job is, very inconvenient most likely hour and a half commute to city on metra and paying metra train prices! ha! would suck up a ton of money. Also the main reason this option is not so viable is due to the fact that it's not good for mine or my moms sanity. We both know this. We get along fine when we live apart, but living together is almost a nightmare. However if this is my option then we would both suck it up and make it work.

There is also option 2.5, which is unlikely but maybe. my brother is transferring to a four year school in the fall from community college. 2 of his 3 option are in the city U of I Chicago, and University of Chicago (His third is Lake Forest, where I go now). If he gets in to and decides to go to one of the colleges in Chicago, but they only give him enough financial aid to cover his tuition but not all of his room and board (which is what I expect the to give) I'm going to present him with an alternative. Don't waste your money (as I did) paying the high cost of campus living and food costs, and why not split an apartment with your dear older sister? (If you think this has any chance of working, or tips on persuasion let me know). Since I'd be the one with the real job and he'd be in school probs with a part time job, I would probs split rent with him like 75/25. I actually like this option the best, However I just don't think its going to happen.

So I guess that's a plan, sort of? I am focusing solely on getting a job first. And then if by some miracle I land a job say by mid April that will start after graduation, then I will go apartment hunting, mainly by means of online roommate listings. This is the other alternative floating in my brain, since I don't have great credit, I do have some references, but I also don't have any cosigners (only 1 person would cosign something for me and he also has bad credit), I'll move into an apartment that's already established. Plenty of people are looking for roommates for their apartments and it's seems like a simple option since splitting rent is almost always cheaper than a single apartment.

This is just some of what on my brain, weighing me down with worry and anxiety in this new year. But I know that I will get through it. Life always find ways to surprise me and I just need to go with it. It will all work out. unlike for the past 3 and a half years, I'm not at all worried about my classes, as none of them are what I consider to be super difficult or anything, and I am also not worried about paying for school anymore (just everything else in life).

And as much as I am starting off this new year with all this worry and fear, I am also starting it with confidence, and loads of excitement. Excited for a fun last semester with plenty of new adventures with new friends and old. I have confidence (but not over confidence) in myself and my experiences (and that whole diploma thing) to push me through to a job after graduation. I'm really excited to start to start living a new chapter of my life, especially one where I don't have to think about school! Just writing about it here makes me all the more happy and excited for this new year and new part of my life.

But on a final note as I start this January first, it makes me a little sad to to think about all this, leaving expectation behind. School is routine, its a constant, you know what you are doing come every August. Now its all unknown. I am leaving so many things behind along with the things like knowledge that I am taking with me. One of the things about my school is that you have such a wide variety of people around you from all over the world, and you learn so much from them in four years, however they often end up all over the world. Friends that I've made that have graduated in past years have scattered everywhere from Colorado to the Peace Corps in South America. I hope that I stay friends with the people I've come to love at school, But I'll admit I am really bad at staying in touch with people. But I'll  try. I think that will be my new years resolution, not to promise, but simply to try and keep up contacts with my friends this year, and maybe even reconnect with an old one or two. :)

Peace

Sam

Active Minds!

www.VoteActiveMinds.com

Active Minds is an amazing organization that works to fight the stigma around mental health issues. I may have mentioned them before just because they truly are my savior sometimes. I am now the president of my college's chapter and this organization just means the world to me. It's helped me so much in exploring my passion to tell my story and fight for mental health awareness.

Now that the sappy parts done, here's the deal: Active Minds is up for 1,000,000 (yes 1 million) dollars from chase community giving. It only takes less than 10 seconds to vote for them online here: www.VoteActiveMinds.com

If it helps celebrities like Ahsley Benson (Pretty Little Liars) and Chicago Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall have recognized active minds amazing efforts and voted for them. It would mean a lot to me and them if you could give active minds some love and help them win the grant to expand the reach of their mission!

Thanks bloggers. Peace.

Sam

This semester

This semester I live the life of writing papers in 1 hour or less. super fun.

Peace.

for the next hour at least.

Sam

School. Blah.

Life. Officially. Sucks.

No. Correction. My school life officially sucks. 

But I can do this?

Please tell me I can do this?

I need someone to tell me I can do this!

Why Salad?

No seriously why? why does that word hold so much connotation? Why does salad just immediately turn us off. Even those who love vegetables sometimes look at that plate of mixed greens just staring back at you saying hey, you and me both know this isn't going to be pleasant. I don't know what it is but a salad, to me, never sounds all that appealing. Maybe because lately its the only vegetable i get everyday. Our cafeteria at school has progressively gotten worse and worse, after last years phase out of all the specialty things they used to be able to do for us, until Aramark started cracking down. They are a multi billion, that's right billion dollar company who is taking out there corporate greed on little old lake forest college. now  know food prices have gone up but the food we used to get freshmen and sophomore year (for less money too) was way better with much more variety than the stuff we get now. We live for the 2 days a month now that we get fresh red grapes, knowing that is the best fruit we are going to get, unlike before when we could expect fresh fruit like grapes and strawberries weekly. Sunday brunch used to be the best too, now we are lucky if we get frozen mango.

But back to salads. So I try to eat vegetables at least once in day, but the hot vegetables they serve in our cafeteria are most often peas, corn, or mixed veggies that are soggy and that I wont eat even when they are fresh. There green beans don't really taste right but I will eat them on rare occasion. If they have broccoli (about once a week?) I will eat that. but 95% of the time I am stuck with a small salad. And I am a little picky about my salads, so when I am eating the same thing every day it kind of sucks. Lettuce, Tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots, occasionally 1 additional ingredient to try and make it better. Then its time to douse it in ranch or Thousand, because heaven forbid I have the will power to add "just a touch of vinaigrette" as people do. It also doesn't help that the vegetables from our salad bar taste terrible, they are covered with chemicals. I never thought I'd meet a tomato that I didn't like until now. I mean really why do you have to ruin the only fresh option we have, the salad bar?

Don't get me wrong, I know that many colleges are a lot worse, I mean by a lot, and we still have it pretty good. And I know there are starving children and hungry people all over the world who wouldn't complain. We could feed an army with the amount of food waste are school produces, so I try to waste as little as possible, and when say I realize I'm only going to eat half of something I will always try and find someone who wants the other half. I do try and do my part. Also see "PS at the end of this post.

But seriously food is such a "thing" in our lives. its crazy. and it just makes me want to talk about it even if it is to complain. But maybe we need different names for things. As i said before why salad? Maybe next time I should tell myself that I'm just gong to go eat a bowl of vegetables? But the word vegetables doesn't rank that well in my head either. But maybe it would make my daily lunch and dinner diet more appealing if I got more creative. Seriously I end up eating the same thing basically everyday in our cafeteria for both lunch and dinner.

Protein: Some form of chicken (usually fried), a hot dog, or on RARE occasion when they have it, beef/roast.
Veggie: Fucking Salad.
Carb: French fry/Potato or sometimes rice.

And that's about it. The alternative is to get a sandwich which then just combines all three food groups into one thing. It's so boring and I am so sick of eating the same things. Whats even worse is that I feel bad for my vegetarian and vegan friends who have almost no options except chemical salad or french fries/Potatoes. I mean they are required to serve at least one hot vegetarian dish but its not always vegan and its not usually very good.

I long for the day next may when I no longer live in a college dorm. I pay for a meal plan and its easy and convenient. Its also required unless you petition a serious dietary restriction. I had the experience of living and buying all my own groceries last semester and it really was so much better. I spent way less money than I pay for a meal plan, and the food was hell of a lot better.

Oh food. I wish I didn't have to deal with you sometimes.

PS: My disclaimer of sorts: I am a big supporter of the Benkadi project, which works to help the people of Guinea West Africa in multiple ways, including supporting initiatives that improve access to food and have clean drinking water. It main initiative is education. find out more here: http://medusadrums.com/benkadi.htm

I do my part to help, so I feel I am allowed to complain once and a while. hmph.

Peace
Sam

Sunday=Blog Day? How did this happen?

So I realized I've become boring, or at least the way I do my blog posts have. I gues I've been so busy this city keeps your mind going going going and then all the sudden bam! It's Sunday, and all of the things I didn't think about or do during the past week creep up on you, and so hence, this is usually the first second I get time to remember I even have a blog.

I blog whens its needed for me, and sometimes it's not as needed. I could still be going through a lot of stuff, especially emotional stuff, but I just didn't use blogging as an outlet.

I think I am also overly concerned about my blog, and I realize I have way to many posts (including this one) about posting on my blog, not posting, apologizing dfor ebing 3 weeks absent, ect. so here is my oath: I Sam, will no longer blog for more than one sentence ever again about how often or when I blog.

Okay, now on to the good stuff:

So this past week I have felt like a whirlwind in the ocean, constantly drowning but never getting anywhere, always staying in that middle zone. So much work was collapsed on top of me, that I kept getting behind or at least feeling like I was getting behind. I even just skipped a paper assignment because I was just so exhausted and didn't have the time.

But somehow that usual anxiety I get has not set in to much. usually I get such horrible feelings about large amount of work that I have to get done that I just avoid doing them. Maybe its because I've been taking my meds better, or idk even know, but seeing as I spent 7 hours yesterday taking photographs all over Chicago and didn't even get halfway done (I was expecting to get most of it done), I was expecting to feel different this morning. I am going to go with the good feelings, but whenever somethings different I have to question it.

I know I will get caught up at some point, so I'll just keep trudging along until then. For those who might read this and be future Chicago Program Students, don't let the beginning of the semester fool you! Much of the work on this program is non traditional, and it's a pretty slow start in the beginning, but honestly in the middle and end of the semesters you are doing more work than you could ever imagine. On the other hand it's completely worth it because you are doing work that you love. When I go to bed exhausted ever night, I never think "thank god that's over" like I might at school, I think instead, I can't wait for tomorrow! Peace.

You need to show your work. Those are the words that I dreaded when I was a kid. Please write down all the steps. I need to see that you know the process. I hated writing down the steps and I hated explaining my process. Why? because I couldn't.

I can't explain what's in my head or how my head works. When I see a math problem I can solve it entirely in my head in a series of steps that make no logical sense to anyone but me and others who think like I do. Seriously, read some research, a lot of bipolar kids think this way. And no offense, I solved it faster than the teacher every time. The "right" or "correct" or in their eyes "only" way they would teach us to do math in school seemed so inefficient and after learning the basic steps in the first 10 minutes I would automatically start connecting the shortcuts to solving the problem. Doing all the steps and showing how you got to each number was so frustrating to me and it takes me ten times longer to process the steps than it does to actually solve the problem. And yes I would get the same right answer as everyone else, I just solved it differently.

Now since giving up math at the physics level in High School, I haven't had to deal with this much except for a short semester stint in a college math class, not really by choice. And I probably would not have stuck it out in High School as long as I did if it weren't for an awesome math teacher who let my brain do as it pleased. Plus I had gotten a lot better at dealing with this as a teenager than I did when I was younger. I could explain parts of things, just enough to keep the teachers satisfied.

So I'm not going to say that's exactly what I had to deal with today, but I think its a good metaphor. For some reason my emotions got a little out of wack and my frustration level became a little to high for my liking before I had the chance to stop it from rearing its ugly head. My argument was dead from the get go, mainly because I was trying to defend a process in which I can't verbally explain. This lead to an awkward situation that I am not happy about.

That's all I really have to say at this point since my brain is still processing it. Advice always welcome. Peace.

Oh look what time it is?

Yes, its 1am yet again. but heck isn't this always when I write my best work? I think I need to stop denying the fact that my relationship with sleep is one of love and hate.

Anyways today was the last day of classes and I literally was so excited at being one step closer to being done with this semester that it took till now for it hit me: This is my last class here until next school year! 9 months away! crazy. Now I just need to get through 3 final exams and then I'm done.

Its going to be quite odd not being here at LFC. Since I did research last summer I've technically been here for 16 months! I think I might miss my residence hall Cleveland Young, the most. Its my home figuratively and literally since it almost looks like an actual house.

Its somehow slightly more comforting knowing that a lot of my friends are going places for the spring semester as well. I feel like we will want to talk to each other about our experiences.

I guess I don't have that much to say tonight I just felt like blogging something.

Someone motivate me to study! Please?

Peace.