Moving Right Along

This will be my last post on this blog. I haven't been blogging nearly as much as I would like to be, and I really feel as though I've outgrown this particular chunk of internet musings. New content will be posted on The Geeky Cupcake, which I hope will be a lot less mopey and more useful.

With that being said, I have not updated many people on the events of my life. 2016 has been a very busy year, and I want to use this final post to talk about where things are going.

I ended my relationship with Will over a month ago. This was not an easy decision, but I feel it was for the best. We need to be on different paths right now, and that's okay. We're on good terms, and our cat Isis has moved in with him. She's happy, and he's taking good care of her.

I'm almost finished with my first year at Lackawanna College. I do not plan on attending for a second year. In fact, I'm vehemently against it. This college has been a stepping stone for my college career, and while I'm very glad to have met the people here and been involved, I'm ready for my actual degree program.

I am trying to get into Temple University in Philadelphia. If all goes well, I will be moving with one of my friends to an apartment outside of the city sometime this summer. I will be majoring in secondary education with a focus in classical languages (Latin and Greek). I'm very excited about this, and I hope we hit as few roadbumps as possible along the way!

Keep an eye on my new blog for new content. It's still a little bare, but it will get there. Thank you to everyone who has always supported my blogging, writing, art, and other stuff!

Appreciation

We all have the desire to be appreciated. We want our efforts recognized and our accomplishments known. We want to feel like we've made a difference to someone or something we've worked on.

I've drawn all my life. I was always better than average, but never super great. My art was appreciated among family, but really paled next to classmates work. I guess it just wasn't my strongest point. Writing was. 

I started writing in sixth grade. It was for a school project where we would write a story and put it in a nicely bound book. I remember being in the spotlight through that class, between the books I wrote (smaller than a chapter of my published novel, but at the time, very lengthy), the six foot long scroll I made on a history of dragons, and my published poetry. I can't even begin to imagine how often my friends told me I should be a writer.

By the time I was writing Among the People Lost, friends were in college. To a lot of them, it probably seems like a really stupid thing to do. Why spend a couple hundred hours writing a book when I could be learning how to make thousands as a doctor? It was just generally ignored, for the most part.

The people who really appreciated it and kept me writing it were people on the internet and Tim. Tim read over every chapter as I wrote it and helped make sure everything was clear, well-written, and not stupid as hell. Halfway through the book, I started posting it to DeviantART, since by then, I knew how the rest was going to go and I was confident that I wouldn't have to backtrack and change the beginning.

I had several people tell me they were really enjoying reading it, and that meant a lot. It helped dull the fact that at least 98% of my friends didn't even care enough to read a chapter. When I learned how easy it was to self publish on Kindle, I decided that if the people reading it enjoyed it, it was good enough to be my first published novel.

Even after I put the book on Kindle, most of my friends didn't seem to be too impressed. I must have at least eight people that said they'd pick it up and never have. It's disappointing to think that very few people are actually willing to put in a few minutes to read a bit and support your work.

When I applied at Target in November, the interview was a series of questions on accomplishments and team work and all sorts of things that really don't indicate how well you work a cash register. I used my book publication to answer a question about a big project, and the guys interviewing me seemed really impressed. I've mentioned it to a couple coworkers at Walmart, and they seem really damn impressed, too.

The people I'm getting the most appreciation out of are the people who wish they could have done the same thing rather than going into a job unloading trucks or asking nervous people tons of questions. I imagine that once all my friends are done with school and hating their careers, they'll look at me continuing to do my art and my writing, and some of them will wish they hadn't given up on their own personal goals.

A little appreciation really goes a long way. I've barely gotten any, and it's still been enough to keep me going on this path lined with words and painted trees.

Among the People Lost on Kindle

My recent digital paintings:

 

On Discouragement

I have had one hell of a time starting college. When I was in 8th grade, I wanted to be a writer. Somewhere along the line while doing a career research project, I realized how tough of a career that really was. I definitely don't want to spend years searching for a publisher only to have them demand books in a very short period and for not all that much pay. Being a writer is something I want to do on my own.

My views shifted to psychology. I love learning about the human mind. It also would help with important character development in that writing thing. I dropped that idea because there was just too much medical school involved.

I'm pretty sure Latin teaching was my next goal. It lasted for a long time, though it suffered fatal blows when my high school dropped me out and it came to my attention that I would have a monstrous amount of work to do in order to catch up. That wasn't the real killing strike, though. That came when I learned that my high school had cancelled their Latin program. I have no interest in teaching in a private school.

Now, I have my sights set on a Visual Arts program. I thought I would start in the fall. I didn't. I expected to wait another year, and suddenly, just a few days ago, I realized I could get in and start in January. I called the college a few days later to schedule an appointment.

They haven't called back yet. See, the program requires some stuff I'm not sure I can get, and with the enrollment deadline only 4 days away, I need to talk to someone who can answer my questions.

The program I'm interested in requires a recommendation from an art teacher and a portfolio. I can get a portfolio together, depending on what I need for it, but I had just one art teacher in high school. I didn't finish her class because I got dropped out. I don't even remember her name.

They seem to need a recommendation in general, now, which wasn't needed last I knew. With my favorite teacher retired and unreachable, I may have to ask a teacher who doesn't really know how good I've gotten at stuff in the past few years.

It's all been really discouraging. I'm sort of facing this possibility now that after everything I've done to get here, I might have to wait until the fall just because I can't get things done in time.

On the other hand, this stuff is wonderfully exciting.

I'm already a writer. I blog, I have a book published, and I have a webzine. It's not what I was going for originally, but it's an enjoyable, rewarding experience. I didn't need college to get me here.

I still plan on studying psychology, and I've learned a lot through independent research as my writing requires.

Part of the reason I decided against a teaching career was the limitations it would place on my art. No one wants their kids around a teacher who draws naked elves in her spare time. Not that I do, but you never know, you know? 

Art is what I like doing. In its many forms, it's always what I come back to, and even if a Visual Arts degree doesn't get me a career, it will certainly help me get the skills I need to make more money doing freelance work.

Really, what I expect from college is not to gain a career so much as to gain the knowledge and experience to make a living doing whatever I want to do. That's all anyone can hope to achieve, I think. 

20 Things I've Learned

I've had a lot of life experiences in the past 20 years. Those experiences have made me who I am now, and I don't really regret any of them. There's something to learn from every failure and some worth in every hard time.

1. School is worthless after you know the basics.

I knew everything I needed to know for how to stay alive by, like, 7th grade. I've always believed that the biggest issue with school is how much they force on you. I wouldn't have minded 7 classes a day if 6 of them hadn't been things I didn't need. By high school, most of us have a good idea of our strengths and weaknesses. I didn't necessarily know what I'd be doing for life, but I knew it wouldn't involve math and science, so why take those when I could be in art courses? Anyone can get through school and have all that knowledge, but it's a big waste of time in my opinion. While all my friends were falling asleep in calculus, I wrote a novel and advanced my business.

2. Wisdom comes with experience, not age.

Old people tend to have accumulated more life experiences, but that doesn't mean anyone should discredit the experience of someone else just because they're young. I've been through things 90-year-olds know nothing about, despite how much time they've been out there living. Everyone's situation is unique.

3. Having intelligence is different than being smart.

Having good grades, completing college, and getting a good job means you have intelligence. That takes a lot of memorizing and understanding. That doesn't mean you catch on to things, are a quick thinker, or are innovative and clever when you need to be, or that you can figure things out for yourself, for that matter.

4. People change.

If the people around you change for the worse, it's time to be around new people. If they grow, you likely will, too. Sometimes people grow in different directions. It's an inevitable part of life.

5. Your beliefs and ideals will be challenged. 

Don't believe in premarital sex? Guess what - you're going to meet someone you like who doesn't think like that. Don't drink? Some day, someone will put a drink in your hand and you will be very confused and very conflicted. Point is, you are your own person, and as you grow in life, you're eventually going to grow close to people who think like you. If you give up your ideals and put off the growth, then you'll just end up surrounded by people you don't really like or agree with on anything.

6. Sometimes it's no one's fault.

It's easy to place blame on other people, and really hard to place it on ourselves. Sometimes, though, things just happen.

7. There are things in life that you cannot get away with.

Sometimes, you get caught doing things you shouldn't be doing. Learn and move on. If you're doing things you shouldn't be doing and you haven't been caught yet, quit while you're ahead.

8. Love is a very unexpected thing.

Relationships can kind of sneak up on you sometimes, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

9. Your accomplishments will sometimes go unnoticed.

What's important to you is sometimes really silly to someone else, and they might not care a whole lot that you did it, but that doesn't make it less important. Always remember there are other people out there who care. 

10. You need to know how to stay alive.

You won't get anywhere in life (because you'll die) if you don't know how to cook, clean, and function in society.

11. People will complain about things they can easily fix.

Life is full of options. If you can't stand paying for checking, switch banks. If you hate your phone service, get a new one. It's not worth it to be miserable forever and make everyone else miserable when you haven't made an effort to fix things.

12. Your family will not understand you at some point in your life.

Whether you're suddenly a pagan in a Christian family or you want to drop out of school to paint giant pink unicorns, there will be times when your family wants to sit you down and lecture you for a week. Or maybe they just want to send you to the local mental hospital. Either way, most will just nod and let you go ruin your life (in their minds, at least).

13. You will not understand your parents at some point in your life.

Maybe they make a decision that makes no sense or is clearly influenced by how much they like your sister more than you. Maybe they can't seem to remember that the computer monitor and the TV are two separate entities. Whatever they do, they will do old people stuff at some point, and you will want to cry.

14. Your appearance matters.

If you go out every day looking like you just got out of bed, good luck making friends with anyone who doesn't look like that. We all have our standards. We look for friends and partners that are similar to ourselves. You have no one to blame but yourself if you put zero effort into looking nice and attract the scum of the earth. 

15. Poor spelling and grammar make you look like a monkey.

I swear, when I see some of the status updates from friends on Facebook, I think they must be fighting to reach the keyboard from a foot away while thrashing, so much so that they must use only the shortest abbreviations and have tons of typos. We live in a world that is becoming increasingly dependent on our technology. How you type is essentially how others hear your voice. If you want people to think of you as more than a three year old, put some effort into sounding intelligent.

16. You will offend someone at some point in your life.

You might not even realize you're doing it, but you'll do it.

17. Life is all about balance and compromise.

You'll have to give up about 40 hours of your week at some point in exchange for staying alive. You'll have to make compromises in relationships because you care about the other person and that's what relationships are about. There are tons of unpleasant things we all have to do in life, but if you're good about it, you'll still have plenty of pleasant things, too.

18. Things always get better.

Unless you kill yourself. Then you're dead and nothing gets better.

19. You will have unexpected obstacles thrown at you out of nowhere.

Maybe you get pregnant despite tons of precautions. Maybe health problems sneak up on you out of nowhere and ruin your life. Maybe you suddenly lose a family member, a friend, or a limb. Humans are very adaptable; you can work through it.

20. Life is what you make it.

Don't feel like you have to go to college and suffer through 4 years of school just to have a job. It can make it easier, but if it's not worth it to you, find an option that is. I think a lot of us look for things we don't need to do but that society has ingrained in us we should do, and we complain that we don't want to but we have to, and we do them and make ourselves miserable. It doesn't have to be like that. Spend more time on what you want to be doing rather than conforming to a norm no one is making you follow.

December Is Too Early

I have a seriously huge amount of things going on in my life right now. Some people very close to me are going through some major life changes, and in at least one case, that life change is in a very different direction than I am willing to go.

I was all set to start college his past fall. I was totally ready to just go ahead and make some new friends and such. That didn't happen. Mostly, some things came up for Tim, and the plan was to go together, so I didn't apply. Well, he may not start this year, either. As soon as I realized that, the desire to just go ahead and continue on my way without him became really strong. I decided I'd start for the spring semester. Unfortunately, the spring semester starts in December. I was hoping for January. I know it's not that big of a difference, but there's a bunch of stuff I'd like to get done between now and school, and a lot of that stuff goes down in December. I'm going to have to wait until August now.

I really can't wait to go to college. I've been out of high school since 2009, and that wasn't even by choice. My senior year of high school (and part of my junior year) was taken away without any warning, and I lost a lot of friends because I was never there to talk to them. 

Even deeper than that, I really look forward to the fresh start that college will give me. I had some strange phases in my school life. I'm sure I put off a lot of potential friends. I think I've changed a lot since I dropped out. No one sees me as an artist and writer, though; they see me as the girl with tons of health problems who dropped out and lived with her boyfriend at 17. They also probably see me as the girl who's always angry at everything and has the most pessimistic views ever. In reality, I'm really optimistic, and not really all that angry. I know that's the image I sort of put out there for myself, and I know it's my fault lots of people didn't like me. Now I'm older and want to change that.

It feels like a lifetime ago that I was in school. In ways, it has been a lifetime. All of these health issues have really changed my perspective on life. They aren't going away, and I'm done with doctors doing inconclusive tests every few months. I'm stuck with this failing, fragile body, and I'm probably not going to live very long (in comparison to the average, at least), so I'd damn well better start making the best of it. I'll be the first to admit that there are days I'd rather curl up and die than get out of bed and deal with the pain, but I always do it. Other days, I remember that I have stuff to do, put on my serious face, and blatantly ignore the pain while I get that stuff done. The joys of being bipolar, right?

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I'm not the person that my schoolmates knew and disliked, and I'm ready and willing to go out there and meet some new people. You know, people I actually have things in common with and meet on my own, who know me the way I want to be known.

Related - I realized a few weeks ago that even though I have a full novel published, English teachers are going to hate me. English teachers always hate me.