Little Red Fish

This blog is more to vent in response the yesterday's election and the general state of our country. I realize I haven't written anything in a really long time but today I feel the urge to just get all my feelings out and move on... so here we go. I will begin by addressing my personal beliefs. I identify more often than not with the Republican party beliefs. Just as any voter registered to a specific party, this does not mean I agree with or support every single thing that the candidate representing my party has to say. Every Republican is not the same: we do not hold identical views, we are individual people who have our own set of values and, contrary to my Dr. Feldman (my public policy professor at UCI), we do not lack moral responsibility... we simply have different morals than many liberal/Democrats may hold. I am so, so done with being told that I am a terrible person because of the mere fact that I identify as a Republican. The craziest thing is that the worst people with tolerance for the other party are often part of the LGBT community. They, of all people, should know what it is like to be attacked for what the believe in. I realize that I live in California and that, especially in a public university, I am the large minority in terms of my political views, but that does not mean that I should be disrespected for them. Tolerance people... practice it. So why did I vote for Romney? Let's clear that up so I can stop being told by other people why I did what I did. I voted for Romney because he had what I believed to be the best economic plan for this country, and because I oppose Obama care. Those are the 2 main reasons. Do I support gay marriage? No, I'm religious. But religion has no place in policy so would I vote for marriage equality? Maybe, though I did not support it in 2008, recent events in my family have made me consider this issue much further. Unfortunately the bible is not the constitution of this country and I agree with the argument it is unconstitutional to deny this right to the gay community. However, this did not factor into my vote for Romney. Do I support abortion? No, again, I am religious. But do I support a woman's right to choose? I am iffy on this one as well so another thing that did not factor. Do I think that everyone should be responsible for finding their own healthcare? No, but I do not like the way Obamacare addresses this issue. Do I think those in poverty are to blame for their own circumstances? Absolutely not. The job market is tough out there, and the set up of our society makes social mobility near impossible, so I very much understand that sometimes people need help. What I am very much opposed to are the people who do have the ability to work, but simply choose not to and sit and collect welfare checks for as long as they can. I am very adamant about welfare reform because it is very much abused, but this is often a state issue, so this did not factor into my vote for Romney. So there you have it. I voted Republican because I believe in the Republican economic system and am opposed to Obamacare. Plain and simple. If that makes me an awful person, so be it. I keep being told that although I disagree with the President Obama's views, I need to support him as my president. I disagree. I feel that I need to respect him as my president, which is possible without supporting him. Do I just want him to fail at everything he does? Of course not. I pray that he will deliver on his promise to make this country a better place. Am I slightly pessimistic? Of course I am. I have almost completely opposite views of what he believes and even if he "betters" this country according to his standards, we disagree on the role of the government. That, my friends, is what separates this country. In his speech, Obama said "We are not as divided as our politics suggest". Sadly, this is not true. Look at the reactions to the results of this election; read your facebook and see how divided people that would otherwise be friends are over these issues. Our country is quite frankly split in half. If politics do not really divide us, why is similarity in political views one of the number one predictors of a successful relationship? Why do the majority of people make friends with people who are like them? This country is divided almost entirely by politics, and being divided in this way will help no one accomplish anything; the next person will always be working on undoing what was accomplished by the last person. What does it all come down to? Differing opinions on the role of the government. I will stop there because I feel a lot better. I realize nothing will change, but I do wish tolerance would be practiced more in this country, in every regard, and that we could find a way to come together. Until then, I will continue to be a little red fish in the big, blue, California sea... until I have the means to move to a red state of course!

Beginning of the End

Sounds brutal, I know. That's because the end of the semester always is. I am currently at home, relaxing and detoxing before diving back into the last three weeks of my semester. I have one more week of classes, then two weeks of finals, that's it. Then one more semester and hello winter break and family! I seriously cannot wait. This semester has been particularly rough, which is why I haven't written in forever; plus I feel like no one reads, so updating isn't on the top of my to do list haha. So for a quick recap of how my semester has gone so far, he's a little chronological breakdown: Began the semester excited to do well and enjoy senior years. Stats became much harder than anticipated. Dislocated 3 ribs from stress and sleeping on a bad mattress. Before figuring out what was causing it, I dislocated them twice more causing a severe lack of sleep and discomfort. Caught up on everything I miss after being so messed up. Got a 100% on 2 finals; started to understand stats better, clearly. Got a kidney infection and UTI. Antibiotics failed and infection spread to both kidneys. Was on intense drugs for 2 weeks and couldn't eat much of anything=lost weight in an unhealthy way. Finally got healthy and had to play catch up, again. Serious church drama; I stepped down from my post as peer and prayer minister in order to focus on my relationship with God. Now this brings us back to present time, Thanksgiving break and getting final papers written and preparing for finals; you know the drill. Aside from all the bad stuff throughout the semester, there has also been a lot of good times! Here is a small picture blog.

We went to the Totally 80s concert to see Berlin, The Fixx, The Human League, and B52s. Pure Magic.

Baking party!

Football!

Pumpkin Carving.

Parents Weekend.

Michael's Birthday.

Cinnamon Rolls.

Fake Thanksgiving with my roommates. So it's been pretty good! I am all set for my last semester with Data Analysis 2, Stats for Econ, Women in Society, and Nonprofit Management. Pretty dull, but it gets me done. I am currently applying to grad school at UCI and Berkeley (gross) but hopefully one of those works out so I know what comes next. Well, until I have any more news, so long and farewell.

Fall 2011

Well, it's official. The fall 2011 semester at USC is well underway, which means the start of my senior year! On May 11, 2012, I will be a graduate of the University of Southern California; now that's a weird thought. I've been working my ass off for the past 3 years here, and the previous 4 in high school to get in here, and now it is all coming to an end! It's a bitter sweet thing, really. I absolutely LOVE it here and am not ready to leave, so I am trying to make the most of my time left, but that being said, this is the most stressful semester of my college career because of one thing... grad school applications. They came out today, so of course I've started working on them. As of now, I feel nothing but discouraged on how little I have to offer on paper. Thankfully I have a strong support system here; Michael and Pastor Dan have been here while I'm crying that I won't get in anywhere and that I have no plan for my life... hey, it's a stressful time! But overall I am trying to remain positive. Happy thoughts! And one day at a time. Well aside from that, classes are going pretty well this semester. My stats professor is wonderful, and super funny so class is never boring. My nonprofits professor is retired, but is so passionate about this class that he is still teaching it, so needless to say it's a good time because he loves what he does. For that class we have to pick a nonprofit organization and research it all semester and at the end, we present the organization to the class and vote on which one gets to receive that $10,000 grant that the class got. It's called "Learning by Giving," and is meant to teach us how to determine which nonprofits are efficient, and do what they say they do, and decide which are worthy of donating to. I obviously chose Lutheran Campus Ministry as we are having severe money problems and figured it was worth a shot. My other stats class is excruciatingly boring, but I'm getting through it and I already know all the material so it is definitely easy. Lastly, there is social inequality which is proving to be a very, very interesting class. I knew going in that I liked the professor, but the subject matter and the group we have is pretty great, so I like it a lot. I am definitely keeping busy this semester. Between class, work and LCM I have 42 hours per week, without counting studying and homework time. So you can imagine where that puts me. I'm exhausted and trying to get into a routine. I am never home because I am always at work, in class or doing LCM stuff... or studying. But that's what college is all about. I'm managing, and definitely still finding time for fun; mainly USC football is my life outside of school, as it always is during the fall semester. Well, I have to get to work. Just wanted to send a quick update. Hope all is well in the outside world. Will try to write again soon and get some more pictures of the beginning of the semester up, including my 21st birthday! They are all one facebook, so check them out there.

Summer Pictures

As promised quite some time ago, here are a few pictures that summarize my summer thus far. They include some beach trips with my boyfriend, Michael, our road trip to Oregon to visit our friend, Payton, and pictures of the epic 4th of July Slip n Slide Extravaganza. Needless to say it has been an amazing summer. Just a quick glimpse of what has just passed/what is in the near future before getting to the pictures: this week Michael is in Ohio visiting family and I had the pleasure of taking him and his mom to the airport at 4 AM Tuesday morning. After leaving, while driving his mom's car, I had the pleasure of getting in my first car accident while driving. Party. Good news is I am completely fine and the car made it out with a few dents and his mom couldn't care less. This coming weekend I will be in San Diego with the Faz family for our annual summer "camping" trip, or as I like to call it, "The Weekend of Dreams." I am looking forward to that. Then I have no big plans aside from studying for the GRE which I take on the 18th and then starting school on the 22nd, the day before my 21st birthday! And if you want to know what I want for my birthday, I don't want alcohol because I don't drink, but I'll gladly take money for groceries/my car payment/my car insurance/books for school! It'll be put to good use I promise :) Now here are the pictures. Enjoy.

Mid-Summer Update

Hello again, it has been quite a while! I've been in summer mode and therefore quite far from my computer and wanting to write anything. Freedom is quite nice. Plus my computer kind of died on me so I was computerless for about a week or so. But I am up and running again! Got my new Dell Inspiron which so far I love, but I've only had for three days so I am still feeling it out.

In other news, at the beginning of summer I bought my first car, so that is pretty exciting. I've always had to borrow mom's or grandpa's (thank you both for always letting me!) but now I have my own. His name is Charles and he's magnificent; the car payment and insurance, not so much.

I am taking the GRE on August 18 so I have to start preparing for that. It's supposed to test your "general" knowledge somewhat like the SAT in high school, and is 4.5 hours long so basically sounds like torture. But hey, gotta take it to get into grad school!

Anyways this summer has been pretty fun so far. Spent a lot of time with family, but nieces and nephew are currently down from Texas so I am spending a lot of time at my dad's while they are here. Other than that I am working in LA 3 days a week on campus and spending the rest of my time either with Michael or at home... or with Michael at home. He's quite fantastic, definitely a keeper if you ask me :) . No crazy summer adventures have yet occurred, but this weekend is when they will begin! Fourth of July weekend (be safe everyone!) is always fun. I will be in Tehachapi with Michael and we plan on building a slip n' slide/ramp to slide down and land into a little pool. We might die, but we will have fun doing it. A couple friends and possibly my mom and brother will be there for it so it should be great. Then for the rest of summer I have a camping in a hotel weekend trip planned with grandpa and that side of the family, and a road trip to Oregon to visit Payton from LCM with Michael and whichever other LCMers are available.

Well this is where I leave you. Time to go babysit the kiddos. I will post again with summer pictures, hopefully soon.

Summer.

It's here, it's here! Today I moved back home to Lancaster and will be here at least until August 1st, minus the two days a week I will be escaping to work in LA. Moving was pretty painless thanks mostly to my awesome boyfriend, Michael, who loaded and handled all the heavy boxes on the dolly and onto the truck. He even helped me pack. What a great guy. Anyways, packing wasn't bad and after we loaded everything up I took my mom to El Cholo for lunch for Mother's Day since I didn't make it home for the actually day due to crazy paper writing. The paper I stayed at school to work on turned out to be 22 pages long, so I had a good reason to stay- I clearly had a lot of work to do. Then we drove back home and I unpacked and did lots of laundry, enjoyed dinner that I didn't have to cook for myself, went on run which really disturbed my brother- he didn't understand the concept- and am now finally laying down to relax and officially begin my summer at 11:52 PM. Yay!

Buying Time.

Yes, I am literally buying time. I decided, with many factors contributing, not to graduate this December and to push my graduation date back to May 2012, which it should have been originally. My Nonprofit advisor ended up being TERRIBLE and completely ruined my plans to have the minor completed in time for my plan to graduate in December. Apparently one of the classes I need is a spring only class so I would not be able to finish it as I only have, well would have had, one fall semester to go. She never should have accepted me into the minor! Dumb. Anyways, then I was completely stressed out about what to do with my time between December and September when whichever grad school program I decide on would begin. Also, without the minor, my transcripts just look awful. There were a lot of problems. I was super stressed but then, after a great conversation with my wonderful daddy, I decided that the best option for me would be to add another minor, which I will get to in a second, and add that last semester on since it wouldn't be costing me that much more in student loans. So now in May I will be graduating with (drum-roll please) a Bachelor's of Arts in Sociology with minors in Nonprofits and... Statistics! Shocking, right? Well the professor I'm doing research with this semester, Professor Emeka, is a stats professor, and he is pretty much the greatest ever. He has been suggesting the minor to me for a while and explained all the practical applications it would have. I was always interested, but didn't have the room for it. Now that I do, I figured why not! People in Social Science tend to fear math, but stats is a huge part of it as that is how we prove anything in our research. It's a really good thing to have with my degree. Now I don't have to worry about my transcript because they will look awesome, and all I have to do is decide what I want to do after I graduate. Hooray! God really answered a lot of prayers with that one.

In other news, and this is the news you will really want to hear, there is a new man in the life of

Ciarra! His name is Michael and we met at LCM. He's kind of fantastic. He met the parents and passed with flying colors, now Saturday he is meeting the Faz family... we'll see how that goes! I'm very excited to bring him to the family, he's quite a special one. He took me to the beach Friday and Saturday of last weekend, Saturday he attempted to teach me how to surf which may or may not have been successful, I did my best and need to go again for sure to practice.

Now what else? Easter! Technically it is Easter right now (12:07 AM), so Happy Easter! He is risen, indeed. Plans for today are Sonrise service with LCM on the beach at 6:30 (which means I should get to bed soon!) then my mom and Bradley are coming down to decorate eggs and have lunch and whatnot. Should be a good one, hope the same is true for you :)