My life thus far

So my sister is yelling at me to update my blog so here I am, updating my blog. There's really not much to say other than life has been utter hell! I'm so busy with school. i'm so busy that my grades are starting to slack. I really need to pick it up because I'm graduating in the spring. Hopefully, fingers crossed! I really need to find an internship and I need to find one soon. Sadly, not finding one is partly my fault as I haven't done much searching for one. There aren't many around here either. I guess I just really need to get my butt in gear and start looking. If you see any in the history field open up, let me know. I'll gladly take it.

I've made a new friend. Her name is Jeannie and she is awesome! She has given me so much motivation for exercising. I'll detail more of that in my other blog. We've done a lot together and have had so much fun. Because of the exercising we are together pretty much every night. I'm not at her house tonight and it's weird. Anyway, she's become a great friend and we have so much in common. It's great.

I'm so looking forward to Thanksgiving. My little sister and her daughter are flying in on the 21st and I can't wait to see them. We'll be leaving the next day to go to Albuquerque, NM to go see our family. Sadly, our sister Lisa and her family won't be able to join us. (stupid jobs) However, it'll be great to see everyone. This year is an important year as my dad will be turning the big 50! We'll be having a party while we're all there together. It's going to be an epic Thanksgiving and I can't wait! Kendra will be here until the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. It'll be interesting as I'll be in school those days, but we'll have fun together when I'm not in school :)

I have decided that I can't wait until I graduate. I'm gonna move out of Utah and be done with this place. I'll definitely miss the people that I've met here, but it's time to get my life started. I'll be 30 in a few years. I need to start living for myself rather than for others. I need less stress in my life and more freedom to make my own decisions about things. It's going to be refreshing and I can't wait.

I think that's about it for now. I'll try to be more regular with my blog, but I can't promise much, because as the title of this blog says, my life is insane. So for now, good night and until next time :)

This one is bound to raise a few eyebrows!

I have seen a lot of intolerance lately on Facebook and it's starting to get to me. Why can't we except each other for who we are? And why must everyone post such mean things? So what if a kid doesn't want to stand up for the flag? It's his choice! So what if a Muslim girl wants to wear her headscarf with her JROTC uniform? Is it really that big of a deal that we have to start picking on a 14 year kid for standing up for her rights and religion? What have we become? We are a great nation who can't get along. We are heading down a path that is down right scary. We have become more and more judgemental and intolerant towards those who think differently from us. We fight about every little thing. Why can't we just listen to the other side and say while I don't agree with you, I understand your point, or will you help me understand your point?

I hate to say this, but Christians are pushing me further and further away from Christianity. They are the least tolerant, most bigoted people. We pray to a god for help for finding our cell phones, but we don't pray to him for help with finding peace, bringing an end to world hunger, or any other sort of atrocities that are out there. I'm slowly losing hope in humanity. I see bits of good in the world, but most everything I see on here is hate disguised in patriotism and Christianity. I know that most of you won't understand what I'm saying and will disagree with me. If you want to call me names so be it. Know that I love my country. We are a great and wonderful nation, however, we are heading down a path that is both terrifying and humilating. We need to step back and realize how incredibly ignorant we look to the rest of the world. We are mocked at and thought of as bullies. I have a deep appreciation of our military and it's troops. My brother is in the Air Force, my father served in both the Army and the Air Guard, my grandfather was in the Navy, my mother was in the Air Force, my uncle was in the Navy. I come from a very proud military history. We are proud to be Americans. Let's show the world who we really are and who we can be. Let's become a people who can be looked up to rather than looked down on!

Life and Decisions

I figured I'd write something since my sister bugged me and my other blog writing sister to write one. Kendra did so I guess I need to too.

I don't really have too much to write. School is going...great. I'm hating every minute of it. I think I'm starting to hit that point where I need a longer break in between semesters. A couple of days/weeks doesn't work out very well for me. I'm getting burned out and it's showing in my work and attendance. It's become very easy for me to justify skipping/not doing homework. I know that I shouldn't do these things, but at the moment, I just don't care.

Work is going great. I love my job and most of my coworkers. There are some that are PITAs but I just, for the most part, ignore them. Sometimes...you just can't and man oh man can that be hilarious. I won't go into any of the details on here, but trust me, I have some interesting stories to tell.

I'm getting really close to graduating. I only have a few more semesters to go. Then it's on to grad school. I'm trying to decide if I want to do it immediately or wait a while. Get a job, make/save some money, then go onto graduate school. It'll most likely be immediately because if I don't go immediately the chances of me going lessen. I checked out a school in Texas, but I'm not sure if I want to go there. It's a great school with an awesome campus, but they don't offer what I really want. I want to do Public History, which is working with/in museums or with archives. I would love to work in a museum. The school in Texas only offers History or teaching degrees. I have no desire to be an historian, and a teacher, while a wonderful position, isn't what I really want. I'm going to look at a school in Portland. They offer the degree that I want and it's Portland. I've got family there and my best friend is only a few hours away and my other sister and grandparents are only a few hours after that. Texas has it's points. My sisters are there and my nephew and my parents. But, I have to weigh in what I really want and what is best for me, rather than what others want. Or even what is easier for me. I could easily move to Texas, move back in with my parents, live there for free, eat for free, get a free ride to school, but that would be settling. I don't know what I want to do right now, but luckily I have a few more months to figure it out.

German Movies

I don't really have much to say today. I saw a German movie called "Schultze Gets the Blues." It was a very long, very slow movie. It was absolutely hilarious. I highly recommend this movie. However, it is mostly in German and it's incredibly slow and there isn't a whole lot of talking. But if you just sit back and enjoy it, you will have a great experience.

This is going to be a pretty short blog tonight. Not much happened today so I'm just going to finish proofreading my history paper and maybe attempt writing my German paper.

Weighty issues

Today my co-worker, who I'm starting to consider a friend, were having a nice long discussion at school. We were talking about men and how sometimes, they just don't make sense. A couple of weeks ago she had mentioned something about hooking me up with her brother. I laughed about it, thinking that would never happen, and promptly forgot about it. Well, I guess she did mention it to him. However, being a man, he wouldn't go on a date with me because I'm not under 150 pounds. Apparently, he's a rather large man himself. I don't get why men are like that. I understand if you have a healthy body you'd want someone similar. Even if it's purely a physical thing I understand that. However, when a large man won't even think about dating someone like him, it kind of boggles me. Believe me I understand about attraction, but sometimes it's incredibly shallow and it drives me bonkers...and it hurts a bit.

Which leads me to turning this into a good situation. I kept thinking about it and it was hurting me a bit. I was wishing that she hadn't told me what her brother had said, but in the long run, I'm glad she did. It gave me something to think about. I'm not happy with my body or my weight. I signed up for a Powertone class next semester and at first I wasn't looking forward to it, but now I am. It's time for me to change and get healthier. It's going to be extremely difficult. Part of the reason that I'm overweight is because 1) I'm completely addicted to food and 2) I'm an emotional eater. I also don't work through my cravings. If I have one, I satisfy it with the unhealthy food. I need to satisfy it with a healthier option. I'm also very lazy. I want to get out and go for a walk, but that would require me getting off of my butt and going outside. I need to push myself until the urge to be lazy goes away. It's going to be a long and difficult journey, but I can do it! I know I can! I just may need some help and encouragement along the way. I have a goal of loosing 100 pounds. I would rather loose inches than pounds, but I don't know my inches size, so for right now, it's pounds. It seems like a lot, but I know that I can loose that. I don't want to set a specific date or time like 100 pounds by the end of next year. I will set myself up for failure that way. I'm ready to start, but I'm going to wait a bit to actually begin. With this being the holiday season, it seems a bit ridiculous to begin right now. I'll be smarter about what I eat and maybe add a little more exercise into my life, but I'm not going to go on a full diet yet. I'll keep you guys updated!!

Traveling Memories

Today has been an unusually good day. Nothing great or life changing has happened, but I haven't felt that overwhelming sense of loneliness that I have been feeling for the last couple of days. I'm very tired today. Having this long vacation has completely messed with my sleep schedule. When I had to go to sleep early so that I could wake up early for work, I couldn't fall asleep. I just wasn't tired enough and my brain was still going a mile a minute. I ended up staying up until nearly 1:30 in the morning. Not fun when you have to get up at 6:45!

While at work a girl came up to talk to me. Her name is Brittany and this is her very first semester in college. She's 18, taking German 1010, and planning on going on the study abroad trip to Germany this summer. She was asking me tons of questions about the trip. What was it like? How much money will she need? They ranged from the basic to the I wish I had thought of that question before! It was amazing to talk to her about all that we were able to do last year. I am so thankful that I was able to go to Germany this last summer. It was an experience that changed me. I was able to do so much and see tons! Of course there were many things that I didn't get to see or do, and that makes me sad, but what I did get to see and do was awesome! I got to live right down the street from the Templehof Airport.

It was a very important airport for the Germans after WWII. One U-Bahn stop away from mine was Platz der Luftbrücke, another important event happened there-the Berlin Air Bridge, when America flew in food and supplies when Berlin was closed off to everything after WWII.

I was able to visit tons of museum and see things that I never would have been able to otherwise. We visited Dresden. It was such a beautiful city. It made me sad to see all of the gorgeous buildings covered in soot from when America senselessly firebombed Dresden. However, the Frauenkirche rose like a phoenix from the flames and was rebuilt and is one of the most beautiful churches ever built.

We went to Weimar-home of Goethe, Schiller, and many more important German thinkers, authors, and composers.

However, it had a dark side. In the woods outside of Weimar, lies a camp that many of the residents of Weimar chose not to know about-Buchenwald Concentration Camp. This wasn't a concentration camp like Auschwitz, meaning it wasn't built as a death camp, though thousands did die there and death wasn't prevented, and many deaths were hastened along. On the front gates is the slogan "Jedem das Seine" which literally means to each his own, but really meant that the people going through the gates were getting what they deserved.

This place is nestled inside one of the most beautiful and peaceful places you could ever imagine. The sun was shining and the birds were singing and oddly enough I felt incredibly at peace, in a place that had no peace for a number of years. This camp was a political prisoner camp. Not just Jews were interred here, but POWs, Gypsies, political prisoners, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and criminals. They were worked hard, they were experimented on, and they were murdered. It's hard to imagine that any sort of feelings other than sadness, hatred, or despair could be felt there. But like I said it was one of the best days we had had. I didn't feel any of those feelings, other than my own sympathy and sadness for what happened there. Most of the buildings were torn down, either because of intense rage from the prisoners or because of age and decay. I'm not happy that such horrible things happened there, but I'm happy that we are able to learn from this. I'm glad that nature is starting to take over what was taken from it. I'm glad that peace was felt once more where war should never have touched.

Let's move on from such sad talk. We also visited Potsdam. It's a city on the outskirts of Berlin. It's a beautiful old city surrounded by tree covered hills (the Germans call them mountains, but really they're only hills).

Sadly the day was gray, rainy, and cold. We walked around the town and saw some amazing buildings. We walked through the grounds of Sansouci, a palace built by Friedrich II, King in Prussia during the late 18th century.

It's gorgeous and full of gold covered rococo designs. I could have easily spent days there, but unfortunately we only got about an hour. I think everybody in my study abroad group (at least the girls anyway) fell a little in love with Friedrich. We came home with some great memories and jokes that still make Dr. Packer cringe and try to defend Friedrich.

I'm so incredibly grateful that I was able to do this and visit such an amazing, diverse, and beautiful country. I wish that I had had more time, but I'm thankful for what time I did have. I wish that others could do that same some day.

Now it's time for me to get cracking on a history paper!

From Loneliness to Happiness-Choices

The last couple of days have been kind of rough for me. I've been feeling alone and left out of things. I want to cry about it, but I don't think that there would be anyone who would hear me. My phone isn't working, so I can't call my mom or my sisters. I hate feeling this way, so every time I feel like complaining on here I'm going to write something that's good in my life. Hopefully that will help. It'll be hard, because sometimes it doesn't feel as if there is anything good in my life, but even if it is something small and insignificant, but makes my life just a tad bit better, it'll be good to write about.

It's freezing cold outside and there is about 6 inches of snow on the ground. My room is cold, mainly because I haven't opened my vent in to let the warmth in. That's OK, I like it that way. I read a newspaper article today about a family who was homeless for a while and just recently got an apartment of their own. They were able to make breakfast together as a family for the first time in months and they got a dog. While my living situation isn't ideal, and most every day I wish that I had the means to change it, I'm thankful to know that I'll never have to be homeless. That I have family somewhere that would open their arms and doors to let me live with them until I could get myself situated. I'm grateful that I have the option of open a vent or not. I can't imagine sleeping in weather like this. I have a choice to be warm or not, while there are some out there who don't have that choice. We are lucky that we get to make our choices.

I'm still sad that I'm feeling lonely and left out, but I'll be OK. It's not a quick fix to write these things down, but it does help to lift some of the weight off of my chest. It helps to not think of just myself, especially at this time of year. So, now that I'm done feeling so incredibly sad, I'm going to do something for me-clean my room and then read some Kafka :)

Happy Sunday everyone! I love you all!