catch up

So its been since January, I have been working my  butt off so that I keep up in classes and such and try to avoid as much drama as I can. Life is hard as per usual and I am finding more and more often that I am way different from people my own age, my mom might be right about me being 21 turning forty, its how I view the world.

Doing all my work hurts my social life, it is pretty much non-existent. I am getting more and more stressed as I try to get everything finished but I have been able to get six papers written, all of my citations are now done for my big 25 page paper on the Salem Witch Trials, and I only have one last test in my online cyberpolitics class. It was a pretty cool class but def. ready for this summer.

I am going to be doing an internship at one of the local museums, and I am nervous about doing it, mainly because we are moving everything from one of the maintenance buildings to the new site which is bigger than the old building. The museum is about twenty minutes to thirty from my house, and since I dont have a car yet and my brother in law has to have knee surgery I may get to use his until I can afford my own.

I called and asked for my old job back at McDonalds and am waiting one them to call me back. Hopefully I get that one back and I plan to get a few more applications to work as hard and as much as I can this summer. More money means a better car, and I need one that can get me to and from school which is about two and a half hours away from home.

I still find myself thinking about Ella, and as much as I try its still hard to not feel guilty about still being here when she isn't. I try to not let it bug me, and remember that there is a reason I am still here, and right now I am trying to figure out what that is, for the last about seven eight years i have wanted to be a Professor of History, but I find myself thinking I want to see the world more and more. Got to write some more on my other papers and get them all finished with citations and all.

life sucks

Many people do not really know my whole story and recently a little girl named Ella McNellie, a family friend, passed away from cancer, she was seven years old and was an angel on earth, there was not one person she met that wouldn't smile or have their day brightened by this little girl. When I found out that she had passed away i couldn't stop crying, it wasn't fair that she passed so young and her family will now miss her. 

<3 Ella Kathryn McNellie 10/21/2004-12/21/2011 <3

Ella passing opened up a very deep wound in me, I don't talk about what I went through very often, and it is both easy and hard at times. My mother suggested that I start writing about things, that it might make it easier for me to get over feeling guilt over still being alive. Survivors guilt is a strong and powerful thing to have to deal with and it is not easy. The best thing to do for those that have died is to live your life to the fullest and to live your life in memory for them. 

In another saddening turn, there have been a lot of deaths in my area, over the summer three boys, still in high school, crashed and died. Two of the boys were brothers and I am friends with their sister Isis. It hit the family really hard because the third boy was their cousin. A lot of the deaths have been senseless and meaningless, the teenagers here still do the same stupid stuff and think that they are invincible. 

I am tired of seeing the obits that are in my towns paper, its too saddening and I wish that it would stop happening, but again life sucks.

The hardest thing to see is a child dying, its even harder when you see them in a coffin. I broke down and could not stop crying. Her father Chad told me to think about that she wasn't in pain anymore. Ella looked like a doll. I went to her funeral mass as well as her wake, but there was no way that I could see her put in the ground. Just thinking about her makes me ball like a baby because it hurts so much. In March, on the 16th, I will be cancer free and considered cured. Its been a long road and one that will continue for the rest of my life, with doctors appointments and check ups, and i would do anything to have traded places with Ella, so that she could live the life that got cut so short. I have gotten to live part of my life, and it was more then she was allowed. I do not have the strongest faith, but I have to believe that Ella is looking down on us today.

I stayed at my boyfriends for new years, and on new years eve I remembered Ella and balled again. I had fun over the holiday but am glad to be home, my sister is due to have her baby any day now and its my first niece. I have three nephews from my oldest sister and this is my middle sisters first child.

This weekend

So this weekend I went to Agincourt, its a fencing event based off of the battle at Agincourt between the French and the English. I am not a giant fan of France, more to do with one of my teachers pushing me to take Bourban France class, and my mom wanting me to take it in High School. I am however, petitioning to join a household that is primarily French personas (met a french one though which was cool), and mine is a Roman/Italian persona. The reason that I am petitioning this household is that they are like family, they accepted me as one of them and I was asked to process with them in during court and to carry the Joan of Arc banner because I am a female fighter. 

One of the members of the household, Marcus, is helping my college group to get heavy rattan fighting armor that is both cheap and made for the individual. And although it requires that I sew a lot, this doesnt bother me at all. Over all it was a good day, although after the event I ate way too much pizza, but it was worth it, was good pizza. 

Yesterday was nice, I hid in my room the entire day and didn't come out till night time (might be part of why my friends joke I am a vampire lol), and watched the Vampire Diaries. I am finally all caught up, but since it is aired on Thursday nights I have to wait for it to go online which kinda sucks. When I came out of my room I hung out with my roommate, our friend duo, and the viking. This is the normal group minus one because he had to write a lab report. We decided to watch Stay Alive because my roommate had it and I kinda jumped at the chance to see it again because we had been talking about it the week before and I was (yes overly so) devastated that Netflix did not have it online :(

Well gtg because of class, this dreaded thing that I have to be in lol. I like most of my classes but tests seem to be getting harder and harder for me to take and idk why. Also got a new computer which is amazing and really nice to type on. Its and Acer Aspire, and I love it. 

Ok, so I am officially 21, and no matter how many times this is said I will continue to disbelieve this. I never thought I would actually make it this far in life and be in the places I have made it to. I still feel like I am 14, and it seems odd that I am no longer a kid. My life has taken so many turns, but I guess to end up where you need to be bumps and broken things happen so that the good things and good people can get through. Especially since I have someone that no matter how bad we fight still makes me smile and miss him and can't wait to see him since he is here for my bday starting wednesday which will be awesome.

 After being sick so often because of everything thats gone on with my health, it still seems odd to have made it another year, which is odd for a 21 yr old to be saying. Brief synopsis: had cancer, cured this coming march :), because of it I have asthma which has decided that bronchitis is fun to have lol, and have always been anemic. But the sickness which hereafter is named Plague by me, that is the last two weeks that has made me fall behind in classes and start panicking and trying to get caught up as well as relook at what I want out of life. 

I am thinking that I will have another semester here at college since I am a double major, but am not sure that I want to stay a Computer Science major or get a Computer Information Systems degree instead. Perks of the first; I know the programming and can make my own, perks of the second is that I am more inclined to work with others. Anti-social or not, doesn't help that I have a tendency to one extreme over the other depending on the day.  

No matter what I decide about the computer degree I will always love History first, it is the one thing that has always been a fascination and at times an obsession to learn about. My current obsession is learning about the various schools of fencing in the middle ages, its fascinating. The various weaponry used and even how they recorded what they taught is interesting. Just need to decide where and for what I am going to grad school. Been looking at University of Pennsylvania in Philly, but I've visited Philly once, and wasn't a giant fan. They do have a professor there who I have used multiple times as a source for various papers and having him would be awesome, but at the same time I have also begun looking for schools that have Latin offered because it is something that I have never lost my passion for learning. Its a beautiful language and its being forgotten and killed by the inability of our education systems to do anything more then "basic" education anymore. 

But thats a rant for another blog, I should be getting some sleep, because this is night three that my sleep schedule is screwed up because of sleeping non-stop almost for two days from being sick. With this I bid ado and good night/morning, and remark: its my birthday its my birthday its my birthday

(I may be 21 but am still a kid at heart :) )

lalalala

So, my life has recently revolved around cleaning, or school work. this makes for a rather unhappy Sicilian. I'm tired of fighting, and def. tired of dealing with drama. Cleaning gives me an outlet to get all my anger and frustration out, and i know the boy is going to read this, not mad at him, not frustrated with him. the way that i deal with things that upset me is to internalize them, and for me its easier to keep it inside then to fight with people. 

A lot of the time this back fires on me, i get so frustrated that i blow up. in better news two of my friends are finally dating, i hope it works out for them both. 

My history paper topic for Early Middle Ages changed, couldn't find enough primary resources which was really annoying so now I am writing on the Christianization of Pagan festivals and practices which is a subject that has always kinda fascinated me. Being a History major has always been my dream, and recently I added another aspect of things to that, computers. But history has and always will be my passion, computers is something I am good at. I have a small collection of books in my room, and have about thirteen books out of the library right now which is a new personal best lol. Research is going well and all I need to do right now is type up a primary bibliography page to turn in on wednesday. 

Papers, Papers, Papers, and more Papers

Being a college student is not as easy as my parents like to make it out to be. They have been doing online schooling to get their bachelors degree, and make fun of the fact that I go to a real college and claim to have it hard. I understand that they are two separate things altogether because they are structured that way. They each have their own hardships but something my parents fail to see is that while they have assignments they do not have the course load that I do. I am taking eighteen credits (my own fault but need to to be able to graduate on time), and the classes I am taking are not the easiest things in the world. I have two fifteen page research papers I need to write, a bibliography essay because of another class, has to be research into my research, whether its good research or not. And then there are my "easy" classes. Art appreciation was supposed to be an easy credit class to fulfill a gen. ed. same with Contemporary issues in biology. Neither one is living up to this. I have article critiques and other assignments in bio which take forever, and I have a ton of "easy" assignments according to my teacher which require art skills I do not have. The art class makes me cringe because there is so much wrong information given about historical aspects of art. Its really hard for me to not cringe in that class. And so this ends my rant and i no longer feel the need to cry from frustration over papers :) in better mood I am getting my Pennsic presentation ready for the honors program which is going to be in October. Its almost done and all I have left is to add some informational slides. :)

blogging

So I don’t normally blog things, tried a tumbler account and failed at ever using it. Might be on this one more bc my roommate has one too and she might possibly bully me into ranting on here. the past two months have prob been some of the strangest but best for me of my life. I started dating a great guy who makes me happy and I don’t feel like he ignores me or keeps from letting me close. it’s a little weird bc for the past couple relationships I have been in I was the mature one and now he is. which is funny bc now I can act childish sometimes which is nice. well more than sometimes, pretty much most of the time. but it’s nice to not be worried that he isn't going to accept that side of me. so since its sept 11 I will add a section of my blog: 

Now I lay me down to sleep...one less terrorist this world does keep...with all my heart I give my thanks...to those in uniform regardless of ranks...you serve our country and serve it well...with humble hearts your stories tell...so as I rest my weary eyes...while freedom rings our flag still flies...you give your all, do what you must...with God we live and in God we trust.

I don’t think that I will ever forget that day for the rest of my life, it’s one of the few things that makes me cry just from the memory of how scared I was bc my uncle was in the process of moving into the trade towers. we didn’t know where he was or if he was alive for a couple of days. I remember my teacher being told to turn on the TV by one of the other teachers just long enough to tell us what had happened before the school shut off the TVs so that the students didn’t get terrified. I was worried all the way until I got home, and when I did its one of three times I have ever seen my father cry. one was at his mother’s death and one was at the hospital when he was told I had cancer. it was the hardest thing I have ever had to see, to see a man strong as steel break into tears bc his family couldn’t get in touch with him. not knowing if they were ok or not. 

Ok so enough blogging for tonight. should go do some readings for classes.... might do it during my free time tomorrow instead lol.