Be warned: I have a lot to say.
First off let me say that so much has been going on.
I'm gonna start with some stuff that is really stressing me out, considering those are currently taking up the most space in my mind:
1. I am so worried about my family. I'm proud of how strong we are, yet everything is seeming to just go crazy lately and my mom is at the receiving end of most of this. Starting with Joce moving, I think that she is making a good choice to move down to dad's for educational and stability reasons, but then again I feel awful of the way she left things with Mom. Mom deserves way more than a "you're not good enough for me bye" and although that's not exactly what happened, I find myself giving my mom 110% of me, and it disappoints me when people show less. It continued with my great grandma thissell passing away. That was so sad and just another example of something that seemed so stable and so enduring, leaving and in the void is confusion and grief. As if this weren't enough after I came up and then left to go back to San Francisco from the funeral Aiden and Chey both got sick and were in the ER. If you're reading this, please put the two in your prayers, thanks. I feel awful that I couldn't come up to support my mom and louis, but I had to work down here, and ya I was going out of town with the group and everything so it just didn't work out. But I am so so worried and I just want everything to get better. I would do anything to make things easier for my mom. I just don't know what to do? Suggestions?
2. MY JOB: Wow so being down here in San Francisco isn't all it's cracked up to be, considering I am working working working 9-5 every day and then I still have hall stuff to do to prepare after that. This retreat I went on turned out to be a really negative and sad experience for me. It's hard to even explain, but lots of the discussions we had were about poor underprivileged people and in one of the activities we took steps forward and back to basically show where our families were on the class system (take one step forward if you have a stock/bond in your name, take one step back if your parents are divorced etc.) Although I didn't feel like I was being judged by everyone in the room, I hated ending up in the back and I was just full out crying by the time the exercise was done which wasn't the point of it at all. I think it was mostly the symbolism of being in the back of the room (not all by myself, but still) having everyone look back or down at me. And then feeling like I should feel bad about my beginnings. Which I don't at all. In the next activity where everyone discussed "Why poor people are poor" I was shocked and offended, especially since I was just displayed as one of the people in the room who grew up poor. So when people said things like "uneducated, can't manage money, immigration, language barriers, disability, laziness etc." I got really upset again. Some people no matter how smart and driven and focused they are can't rise out of the lower class. Plus I just felt like everyone figured that if they are there they 1) don't like it there and 2) need lots of help. I don't know, but anyways this just struck a chord with me because I grew up so so so happy and knew to look past the fact that there wasn't much money. I still do! And as long as we were all happy and fed and comfortable, life was good and God was there blessing us. So I guess because of the way I was raised, with money being far from the most important thing and definitely not a definition of my identity I just really disagreed with the retreats focus on it and all. I am not at USF for the "American Dream" to break out of my poverty and raise my 'status'. I am here because I'm doing what God wants me to do, and He blessed me with amazing gifts of intelligence and He found out a way to get me here. So maybe I view money as a blessing not a goal and definitely not my 'dream'. Today was the last session where the discussion was how we judge poor people. Yeah again it didn't exactly ride well with me. All these adjectives such as "crazy, out of control, needs help, etc." just kept coming up and I stood up and told all (about 100) the people that maybe some people are poor because they are using all of their money to provide basic needs for the maximum amount of people (referring to my mom and foster care) and maybe they aren't out of control and this could all be out of their hands......... anyways everything I wanted to say that had just been rising up for the past 24 hours just all came out at once, everyone was a little shocked and so therefore didn't even respond. The subject was subtlety changed and I was just angry and sat down and at the next break I ditched to go pray and calm down. People kept coming to try and make me feel better, and they actually helped, but I'm still kind of hurt and down know why this is such a big deal anyways.
3. It's really hard being away from Seth. He's my main man and my best friend and after our amazing summer together, now we're relearning how to talk on the phone, and I'm especially learning how to go to sleep with out him tucking me in and praying with me and letting me drift off... I do find that one of the hardest things is saying goodbye, goodnight, or any version of that phrase. It's hard for me. But we're dealing and we're happy still, being apart just puts this big strain on our conversations and the way we express ourselves so that's been tough lately but it's getting better.
Umm okay so those are the main things. (can you imaging there being more) and soon school is going to be added to this list because I am taking a ton of hard courses this year and i'm pretty much screwed.
oh well...
But to not be such a downer there are some really good things happening:
1. New friends. I'm making tons of friends and I get along with basically all the RA's. They are all really funny and I'm actually kind of popular, I'm in with the in if you know what I mean. Free time at the retreat was actually really amazing in comparison to the discussion. I was the queen of volleyball and was happy to find out I did lose my edge and was smacking down balls and blocking the tallest boys :)
2. Seth is my HERO. He saves me when all of this shizz just gets too heavy for me. And he is the most caring, forgiving, patient, understanding person I know. He really has made the difference in this really hard time. Plus we are reading together (The Shack) which really calms me down. I love reading out loud.
3. GOD of course. We are so close right now, and I was basically praying that entire retreat and if the discussions did anything at all for me it gave me great reasons to talk to God. I'm so in love with him right now, he is my saving grace and my only hope.
4. err... I got a library card? yeah I'm actually really stoked about getting some free book/cd/dvd's etc. Did you know that there are 13 public libraries in the city?!! And there's one right next to me, and it's free to transfer books from other branches to your branch to pick them up! I'm basically super stoked!
Thanks for enduring this. Your support prayer and suggestions are greatly appreciated. Sorry this was so damn long! :)
<3
I'm gonna start with some stuff that is really stressing me out, considering those are currently taking up the most space in my mind:
1. I am so worried about my family. I'm proud of how strong we are, yet everything is seeming to just go crazy lately and my mom is at the receiving end of most of this. Starting with Joce moving, I think that she is making a good choice to move down to dad's for educational and stability reasons, but then again I feel awful of the way she left things with Mom. Mom deserves way more than a "you're not good enough for me bye" and although that's not exactly what happened, I find myself giving my mom 110% of me, and it disappoints me when people show less. It continued with my great grandma thissell passing away. That was so sad and just another example of something that seemed so stable and so enduring, leaving and in the void is confusion and grief. As if this weren't enough after I came up and then left to go back to San Francisco from the funeral Aiden and Chey both got sick and were in the ER. If you're reading this, please put the two in your prayers, thanks. I feel awful that I couldn't come up to support my mom and louis, but I had to work down here, and ya I was going out of town with the group and everything so it just didn't work out. But I am so so worried and I just want everything to get better. I would do anything to make things easier for my mom. I just don't know what to do? Suggestions?
2. MY JOB: Wow so being down here in San Francisco isn't all it's cracked up to be, considering I am working working working 9-5 every day and then I still have hall stuff to do to prepare after that. This retreat I went on turned out to be a really negative and sad experience for me. It's hard to even explain, but lots of the discussions we had were about poor underprivileged people and in one of the activities we took steps forward and back to basically show where our families were on the class system (take one step forward if you have a stock/bond in your name, take one step back if your parents are divorced etc.) Although I didn't feel like I was being judged by everyone in the room, I hated ending up in the back and I was just full out crying by the time the exercise was done which wasn't the point of it at all. I think it was mostly the symbolism of being in the back of the room (not all by myself, but still) having everyone look back or down at me. And then feeling like I should feel bad about my beginnings. Which I don't at all. In the next activity where everyone discussed "Why poor people are poor" I was shocked and offended, especially since I was just displayed as one of the people in the room who grew up poor. So when people said things like "uneducated, can't manage money, immigration, language barriers, disability, laziness etc." I got really upset again. Some people no matter how smart and driven and focused they are can't rise out of the lower class. Plus I just felt like everyone figured that if they are there they 1) don't like it there and 2) need lots of help. I don't know, but anyways this just struck a chord with me because I grew up so so so happy and knew to look past the fact that there wasn't much money. I still do! And as long as we were all happy and fed and comfortable, life was good and God was there blessing us. So I guess because of the way I was raised, with money being far from the most important thing and definitely not a definition of my identity I just really disagreed with the retreats focus on it and all. I am not at USF for the "American Dream" to break out of my poverty and raise my 'status'. I am here because I'm doing what God wants me to do, and He blessed me with amazing gifts of intelligence and He found out a way to get me here. So maybe I view money as a blessing not a goal and definitely not my 'dream'. Today was the last session where the discussion was how we judge poor people. Yeah again it didn't exactly ride well with me. All these adjectives such as "crazy, out of control, needs help, etc." just kept coming up and I stood up and told all (about 100) the people that maybe some people are poor because they are using all of their money to provide basic needs for the maximum amount of people (referring to my mom and foster care) and maybe they aren't out of control and this could all be out of their hands......... anyways everything I wanted to say that had just been rising up for the past 24 hours just all came out at once, everyone was a little shocked and so therefore didn't even respond. The subject was subtlety changed and I was just angry and sat down and at the next break I ditched to go pray and calm down. People kept coming to try and make me feel better, and they actually helped, but I'm still kind of hurt and down know why this is such a big deal anyways.
3. It's really hard being away from Seth. He's my main man and my best friend and after our amazing summer together, now we're relearning how to talk on the phone, and I'm especially learning how to go to sleep with out him tucking me in and praying with me and letting me drift off... I do find that one of the hardest things is saying goodbye, goodnight, or any version of that phrase. It's hard for me. But we're dealing and we're happy still, being apart just puts this big strain on our conversations and the way we express ourselves so that's been tough lately but it's getting better.
Umm okay so those are the main things. (can you imaging there being more) and soon school is going to be added to this list because I am taking a ton of hard courses this year and i'm pretty much screwed.
oh well...
But to not be such a downer there are some really good things happening:
1. New friends. I'm making tons of friends and I get along with basically all the RA's. They are all really funny and I'm actually kind of popular, I'm in with the in if you know what I mean. Free time at the retreat was actually really amazing in comparison to the discussion. I was the queen of volleyball and was happy to find out I did lose my edge and was smacking down balls and blocking the tallest boys :)
2. Seth is my HERO. He saves me when all of this shizz just gets too heavy for me. And he is the most caring, forgiving, patient, understanding person I know. He really has made the difference in this really hard time. Plus we are reading together (The Shack) which really calms me down. I love reading out loud.
3. GOD of course. We are so close right now, and I was basically praying that entire retreat and if the discussions did anything at all for me it gave me great reasons to talk to God. I'm so in love with him right now, he is my saving grace and my only hope.
4. err... I got a library card? yeah I'm actually really stoked about getting some free book/cd/dvd's etc. Did you know that there are 13 public libraries in the city?!! And there's one right next to me, and it's free to transfer books from other branches to your branch to pick them up! I'm basically super stoked!
Thanks for enduring this. Your support prayer and suggestions are greatly appreciated. Sorry this was so damn long! :)
<3