Happy Holigays Pt I

Happy what-day-is-it-and-what-do-I-do-until-New-Years Interwebers!

So the last post was full of angst. Sorry for that. Being home for the holigays has been stressful on my psyche. I love my family, and I love being home, but sometimes they are overbearing and it sucks. Plus, I can't really vent to them because they immediately want to know how I plan on fixing the problem. Sometimes, I just want to complain. Which is why I turn to this.

Anywho, Christmas was great, which kinda surprised me. I had a good Thanksgiving and Christmas, which hasn't happened in a few years. Last year, Thanksgiving sucked because my grandpa was in the hospital. The Christmas the year before sucked because my mom's cousin was starting to give up and stopped eating, which meant he couldn't continue chemo. So the fact that both holidays were great this year kinda shocked me. I got what I wanted, and everyone was satisfied with their gifts. My mom wasn't upset, and we all had a good time.

I guess the reason for my sour mood is the fact that I'm sick. It's not even being sick that's the problem, it's the way my family is reacting that's bothering me. My mom keeps nagging me to go to the doctor, and they won't leave me alone about what I wear. My brother keeps telling me I should just listen so that I can get better. I want to get better, but their constant disapproval of what I'm doing is just making me upset. I hate being monitored around the clock. I know I should go to the doctor's, but I hate going. I never really liked the doctor before, but now it just fills me with anxiety and I'm not entirely sure why. Part of me feels guilty for not going, especially because I have friends who are worried that I've been sick for a while. I even have a friend on tumblr who yelled at me for not going to the doctor's. That was a trip, let me tell you.

Another reason I'm not of the best mindset is because my food intake is being monitored by my brother. He wants me to eat healthy foods, but his main thing is that I have to eat protein every time I eat something. I can't go to the kitchen without him asking me where my protein is. It's so aggravating that I've just stopped eating unless he's in his room. I'm not starving myself, but I feel like I'm doing something wrong, even though I'm not. It's aggravating.

Whelp. This was also kinda angsty, but at least it wasn't as bad as last time. My brother is coming home today, so I guess that's a plus. I just finished cleaning my gun in case he decides to take us shooting. Which brings up another story!

So I made a friend on tumblr who lives in England, where guns are illegal. I wasn't sure about this fact, and I was also distracted when I told her that I had to clean my gun. Let me tell you, that was not a fun conversation to have. It freaked her out that I own a gun, especially because I'm younger than she is. I didn't realize how socialized I was to think owning a gun is normal. Hell, most of my friends have shot a gun before. A few even own guns! So I didn't think it was that big of a thing. But she went off on me, telling me that she can count the number of guns she has seen on one hand, and that she can't understand US gun laws, and that the one of the major factors keeping her from moving to the US for her dance career is the fact that pretty much anyone can own a gun. I made the mistake of telling her that there are four guns in my house alone, and that's just the one I know of. So yeah. She's more confused and freaked out than mad at me, which is good. I'm just not going to mention guns ever to her.

I guess that's it for today. So long for now!

Catching Up

Hey there, Interwebers!

So it's been a while, huh? At the request of my friend, I'm going to start blogging again.

Let's see how this goes.

Where to begin? I guess I can pick up where I left off, which was my feelings of isolation. Well, they haven't really gone away. Sometimes, it feels like I'm not part of YWiC at all. When Daniella assigned our rolls at the beginning of the semester (before she left), she put me on all the workshops and after school groups that weren't directly YWiC-related. So I was working the Teen Tech workshops at the downtown mall, mentoring for Supercomputing, and working the CS4HS workshops. I worked one of the middle school workshops when Elena and Angela had to leave for a conference, but I still didn't feel connected. It didn't help that I didn't spend much time in the office. I was in there maybe two hours a week because I only had one class in Science Hall, didn't feel comfortable being in an enclosed space with at least three other YWiC members at a time, and I liked working in my dorm as opposed to the office. At least there I had a desk.

So yeah. I didn't mesh with the other girls. I didn't feel like a part of YWiC. It was even worse when I was left alone with a group of students. With Teen Tech, so few showed up that it was usually just Becca, me, and one other person. Marissa was also a mentor for a Supercomputing team but she didn't show up for meetings and she had no idea what her team was doing. Meanwhile, I have three teams I've managed, four if you count one group who only shows up for the important meetings, and all of them submitted their Interim Reports. Three teams! And she wanted to ask Becca if she could stop being a mentor because it was "too much!"

I guess she has valid points. She is a senior and she's working on her senior project. But she didn't even try to monitor her team. She just expected me to handle them. At least Sasha started helping me run the meetings. I don't like being all by myself because I'm terrified that I'm going to fuck something up. Sasha helped me just by being there.

What else has happened? Well, I met a queer girl in my English class, she added me on Facebook, and we talked for a little bit before I made things awkward. I tried to join clubs but I had little motivation to do things besides homework and reading. I went through a spell of depression that hasn't fully gone away, but I'm working on it. I'm trying to keep myself from falling into a rut, but it's hard when I'm questioning my entire life.

What exactly am I questioning? A lot of stuff. Namely, what I'm doing with my life. This semester, the class I enjoyed the most was my English class. I loved the writing assignments, and I had one of the highest grades. After that was sociology. Intro to Data Structures was probably my least favorite class. I didn't hate it, but nothing seemed to click. I struggled so much in that class. Java has never been my strong suit, but because I was surrounded by people who seemed to get it, I felt like a failure. Especially because Ari understood it so easily. (I would like to point out, though, that I scored only four points less than them on the final exam and I was loopy on antibiotics and cold medicine at the time.) I had a bad case of Imposter Syndrome, and it hasn't left me. I keep questioning what I really want to do with my life. I love programming and doing cool stuff with technology, but writing has always been a passion of mine. And then there's sociology! I just don't know what to do. Everyone in my life has expectations of me that I'm not sure I'll ever meet. My mom was talking to Ari about computer science, and she was worried about how I would do in the field. I don't think she thinks I can do it. She's not worried about Ari, apparently. She even told Ari that to their face. But whatever.

I guess I'm just going through what a lot of college students do; I'm figuring out who I am and what I want to dedicate my life to. It's hard. Sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in expectations and most days I can't break the surface to breathe. I'm pulled under a wave of anxiety, the feeling filling my chest and clutching at my lungs. Nothing has ever been so terrifying to me. This is the first time in my life that I can captain my own ship, and I can't help but worry that I'm going to end up shipwrecked somewhere.

I want to make people proud, but I don't know how to do that. Ari is soaring and I barely feel like I can fly. I'm just worried that I won't be able to succeed at life. People tell me not to worry about it, and that I'll find out what I want to do later, but I don't do well without a plan.

God, I feel like I did when I first realized I like girls. I've spent years telling myself one thing only to find myself questioning it. I convinced myself that I would become a computer scientist, but suddenly I'm not so sure. And this can either turn out like my coming out, where I decide that I don't want to do anything in computer science, or I could decide that I just want to minor in computer science. I know that I'll always have something attached to computer science, because my interests include more than just coding.

Well that was a lot of angst. I guess that's it for now. I'll post soon about how my holigays went!
(No, that wasn't a typo)

So long for now!