Here to Represent......

I mentioned before in a past blog post about my psychology instructor being an anti-Catholic who really strongly dislikes Catholic priests. In my first class he went on a ten minute rant about how all Catholic priests were sexual predators and we should all be wary of every priest we meet... yadda yadda yadda.... I was caught totally by surprise with this attack on my faith that I did not know exactly how to re-act to my instructor, and without any concrete evidence and verifiable facts to back me up I did not respond to his attack. I was really frustrated with myself for this. Tonight was my psychology class, and even though I have a feeling if I did present verifiable facts to him about what he said last week, I do not think I would have gotten too far.

Instead of doing that, I kind of subtly showed him that I happened to be a Catholic in his class. I decided to wear one of my very Catholic retreat t-shirts to class. I own quite a few of them, so it was inevitable I would have worn one of them to his class whether I knew his position about my faith or not... So I wore it to class, and ended up finding out that about one third of my class is Catholic, which is kind of nice. Us Catholics started talking about how the last class went while waiting for class to begin. Our instructor was not in the room at that time, but many of the other students were and were listening to our discussion about how we thought he kind of overstepped his boundaries in trying to make Catholic priests look bad.

I think if I did not have my t-shirt on I would not have realized how many other Catholics were in the room, and we would not have started on that discussion. I think it was also good that the non-Catholics in the room heard our views on the topic of what our instructor said. I hope that they had a better out-look on the Church after hearing us. The best thing was, without the instructor in the room there was way more freedom to talk about our frustrations without feeling like we could end up getting a bad grade in his class. I still fully intend to write down an anonymous comment to him when they have us fill out the suggestion surveys towards the end of the semester. I think that if he wanted to put one religious group down for sexual abuse, he needed to make known the other religious groups that have had that happen too. It's only fair.....

Needless to say, I was sitting towards the front of the room, and he did see my t-shirt, and thankfully there was no more Catholic bashing from him tonight.

"Ride"

I was watching the C.M.A. music festival tonight when Martina McBride came on and sang her song "Ride." (For those of you who have never heard this song before, I put the lyrics below.) This happens to be a favorite song of mine at the moment. It is all about how you should carry yourself and try to hold onto a positive out-look on your life no matter how hard you think life may be at the moment. Life may seem hard at the moment, but it won't last long. You never know what is gonna come at you, so enjoy every great moment you have and hold on as tight as you can to that feeling, because even at your worst moments there is always going to be something little that will bring a smile to your face. I wanted to put it on my play list for my blog for awhile now, but for some reason the place I use does not have that particular song available at the moment....

Ride lyrics
Martina McBride

You wake up from your dreamin' and you don't want to face the day
You can't find a reason to think your world will ever change
You can hide beneath the covers
Or you can run outside, head up high and carry on

Life is a roller coaster ride
Time turns the wheel and love collides
Faith is believing you can close your eyes and touch the sky
To shine while you have the chance to shine
Laugh even when you want to cry
Hold on tight to what you feel inside and ride

It brings you up slowly then shoots you like a rocket towards the ground
It twists you and it shakes you before it turns you upside down
You can't see what's around the corner
And you can't look back, so just live it up and feel the rush

Life is a roller coaster ride
Time turns the wheel and love collides
Faith is believing you can close your eyes and touch the sky
So shine while you have the chance to shine
Laugh even when you want to cry
Hold on tight to what you feel inside and ride

Ride, ride, yeah

Oh yeah, shine while you have the chance to shine
Laugh even when you want to cry
Hold on tight to what you feel inside and ride

Ride, ride, yeah, yeah

Reminiscing in the Rain

I love it when there is a rainy day every now and then. I am not talking about stormy tornado rainy weather, I mean the gentle kind of drizzling. The kind where there is no danger from lightning, and the rain taps on your window as you are laying in your bed with no where to go. It is peaceful and relaxing to be in my bedroom in my bed with the pillows propped up and the blanket around me while reading a good book and the only sound in the back round is the splatter of those raindrops on the rooftop, and the window is open so I can smell the scent of the rain. I feel like I am in another place sometimes during the mornings I can get away with not having to be somewhere when it rains like that.
Yesterday it rained with an almost endless drizzle here, and even though I did not get to lay in bed and listen to the rain like I so wanted to do, I did get to do another favorite rain activity of mine. After work, my sister and her boyfriend and I enjoyed running around and playing in the rain. We got drenched, but there is something revitalizing and rejuvenating about playing in the rain. When I play in the rain I forget about worrying how I will look afterwords. I don't care how messy my hair gets or if mascara happens to be running down my face, or the fact that I am soaked from head to foot, or how long it will take before I will be able to wear my sneakers again because of how incredibly wet they end up being.
I get to let the five year old in me go out and let loose during that time. I remember how much fun it is to splash around in puddles and get a little muddy from tripping in the wet grass. I remember how it was like when I did not care how other people thought about me and what I looked like. I remember how easy it really was to be just me, and not try to be what everyone thought I should be. I remember how making friends and bonding with them was through simple acts as sharing coloring crayons or playing games of "pretend" where I could imagine anything I wanted too. A time where everything I ever wanted to do could and would happen. Life was still full of endless possibilities and I believed it was possible to be a mother, a doctor, teacher, a famous singer and actress all at the same time. Failure did not really cross my mind. It brings me back to a time when life was much simpler and the world was a safe place where bad things only happened in the movies.... There is a quote I recently read, "I wish I were five again. Broken crayons were easier to mend then broken hearts."
Sometimes I do wish I were five, but since I can't go back to that age, I will still always try to hold on to that five year old girl and always keep a part of her with me as I get older.

Thank God it is Friday!!! :)

Why is it that a person can feel so tired and exhausted through the work week, and then wake up on Friday morning and feel like you can take on the world? Last night I felt as though I were going to go mentally insane from all the work I will be doing, but I woke up this morning and felt very refreshed and much calmer about how my life will be for the next fifteen weeks of my life. I think it has a lot to do with all the prayers I said to God last night about how worried I was.
I also think that it is a mental thing and something triggers in a person's mind when Friday comes around. I think that something kicks in to gear and gives me the energy to get through Friday because I know that the end of the work week is closer with every second that goes by and I am closer to the freedom of a week-end.
It's like running a marathon. You are finally getting to the point where you do not think you can take another step. You are physically and mentally exhausted from pushing yourself for so long. You just want to drop and stay where you are without caring how long you lay there..... and finally the moment you want to quit, you finally see the first sign of the end getting nearer and the finish line getting closer and closer every time you touch your feet to the ground. All of a sudden somewhere inside of you, you gain the energy needed to push yourself with every step you take because you know that if you quit now you would surely be upset for selling yourself short so close to the ending.
That's how I feel a Friday is for me.

"Serenity Prayer"

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

"I think I can! I think I can. I....Think......I.......Can....?"

I am feeling overwhelmed. Now having been through the first week of classes, I now know just what kind of torture I will be putting myself through. Working forty hours a week at the daycare, which is an intense job that uses up a lot of energy, and then going to class for 12 hours a week is a huge chunk of time that has been taken from me.
I have now seen all the different assignments I will be having to do and how all the quizzes and tests are all lined up. Basically pretty much all the free time I will have will be going to be spent on homework and studying for tests. Sitting here while looking over all the syllabuses with all the dates assignments are due is making my brain hurt. It never ceases to surprise me how in all my classes the quizzes and tests usually end up being assigned all in the same week. To me, that does not make much sense. I know that the majority of the things I memorize for one test only get stored in my memory until that test is through. After a test is taken that information tends to get deleted from my memory, like when I delete something off of my computer. I push those facts out of my mind so I can free up space for the next set of facts. I feel like my brain is just recycling the same space for just the memorization needed to take the tests. I do not understand how people think this is the best way students will remember things from tests when students have to study for lots of different tests in one week. It just does not work very well for me. I learn nothing that way and end up walking around in a complete daze and feeling as though I just woke up with a huge hang over and a pounding head ache, and I just want to relax while wondering why in the world I put myself through that never ending cycle. What good does it do for me?
As I sat here looking through the assignments, it hit me. I was thinking about these classes in the wrong way. I realized that if I am going to make it to the end of this semester I cannot look at all the papers and projects and tests because I am only setting myself up for failure. Instead I am only going to think about one week at a time. Getting myself through one week and then worry about the next. So, I have put the syllabuses away for the time being, and refuse to look at them again until Monday, and then I will only focus on week two, and not worry about the rest. Doing this I hope will help me attain some part of my sanity and will save me from a complete melt down. That and I will be praying way way more for the energy to get through it all.

More Random Facts About Myself...

Tonight was my first night for my Creative Writing English class. I have always enjoyed English. I love to read, and write, so I thought this would be the class I would have as my "fun" class for the semester. I think it will be fun, but there is going to be a lot more work involved than I anticipated. Tonight for our ice breaker, our instructor had us write our own poems using our names.... I had fun with that, so I thought I would put my silly poem on here.... Pretty much everything I put in it were the first things that came to my mind. I did not have as much time to really think about each letter as some of my other classmates did because my name is so long... Enjoy!


T - eaching is one of the most rewarding jobs I've ever had. I love to teach, especially young children, and that is why I am majoring in Early Childhood Education. I

E - enjoy making new friends. I am an outgoing person, and I hate seeing people who are left out. It makes me sad.

R- eading happens to be a favorite way to pass my time. My favorite book at the moment is, "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austin.

E - veryone I am friends with tend to tease me about my height; more accurately, my lack of it.

S - miling is my favorite thing. I

A- lways enjoy listening to music. I enjoy pretty much any genre, but my very favorite is country. I am

M - issing all of my friends who have left for college for the year. I

C - an't resist cowboys.

C - hocolate is a weakness of mine.

O - range happens to be one of my least favorite colors. I

N - ever like to sing in public. I am

N - ot a morning person. I

E - njoy playing in the rain.

L - oyalty is something I find very important in all relationships. I am

L - ost when it comes to cars. They are a complete mystery to me.