about me – Page 4 – Living off Leesh

Oops

Published on February 13, 2016May 27, 2018 by AliciaLeave a comment

Hi everyone. Long time, no blog. I think it’s been 18… 19 days? Anyway, it’s a Friday night, I’m snuggled up in bed, listening to/watching “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” post gym trip and acai bowl devouring. It’s been a long few weeks here at school. It seems as if I’ve been here for at least 2 months.

I can’t pinpoint exactly why this semester has dragged so much. It might be because I have classes 4 days a week and Thursday is my day off, maybe because I know I am transferring to ASU in the fall (obviously only if I get in) and am just trying to get out of San Diego (not that I hate it here, but this semester is almost insignificant pertaining to whether or not I make anymore friends, join any clubs, apply for any scholarships etc, or maybe just the fact that I have started noticing things in people whom I call my friends that are just god-awful. They probably aren’t that bad I’m just trying to make the move from school to school as minimally painful as possible and by finding things I hate completely, it will do just that (at least I hope it will)

In order to make this post not 100% negative, there have been many things that have happened since coming back to San Diego that I can’t neglect. I have rekindled my love for chemistry. Which is good, considering I want to be a chemical engineer (Chemistry is a little important). I loved Chemistry in high school but I seemed to have removed that class from my memory considering I received a B+ in that class and not an A. Oh sophomore year Alicia, just get ready for history classes. I am already 2 weeks ahead in that class and I actually doing the homework which is strange. It is only Chem 100 and will continue to get exponentially more difficult, but at the moment I am content will Chemistry.

My online class, American Indian Studies, has to be one of the easiest things I have done in my life (the quizzes while slightly more difficult as also online and not that I would work with a friend, 😉 it is possible and very beneficial for the both of us. The class is very chill and requires minimal work and is actually very interesting because we always learn history of American Indians from the white man’s perspective and this class allows us to get a different perspective.

My Spanish class, Spanish 302 has been decent. I love having it 3 times a week for 50 minutes rather than twice a week for an hour and 15 minutes. The last 20-25 minutes of class always dragged on and on and on but the less time a day we have, I don’t keep looking at the clock. ALSO, there many beautiful men in my class who are also sweet and good at Spanish. I have been doing rather decent in the class as well. Our first test is Monday and we were doing a review sheet in class. My profesora was picking kids by last name in the order of question answering. We were at the section of the review sheet where we have to switch sentences in the direct form to the indirect form. My profesora said “Esta pregunta, el fin, es más dificil que los otros… Alicia” which mean that the question I had to answer was the hardest. And guess who got it perfect?! This girl did. Let me give myself a pat on the back. Also, everyone thinks I’m 20 and I’m only 18. So either I look 20, or I seem smart, or both. I’ll take it.

While I did say that joining clubs this semester don’t really matter, I did go to the first SDSU Democrats meeting of the semester with some friends of mine. It was very insightful and nice to know that there are people who are just as (or more if that’s possible) liberal as I am and that they care about the future of not only San Diego, but our Nation as a whole. One of the vice presidents of Planned Parenthood came to speak to us about Planned Parenthood is being affected and how it is under attack due to the conservative criticism and pro-life supporters. She also discussed how we can become active and volunteer to help Planned Parenthood. Honestly, it was so amazing to hear this woman speak and it rally showed me how important this election is for everyone in the country.

There probably have been other aspects of coming back to State that have been great, that I just can’t remember.
Also, sorry I’m so flaky with my posts, I have decided that posting 3-4 times a week is just not really plausible for me. So, since Thursday is my offset, you can expect posts every Sunday and Thursday. This post doesn’t count because I’m implementing it now.

Anyway, Talk to you all soon (tomorrow)
Alicia

Guess who’s back, back again

Published on December 22, 2015May 27, 2018 by AliciaLeave a comment

Hi all, I’m back. I knew that I wouldn’t be posting often in the last month due to finals, but I wasn’t aware it would be almost a month of no posts. I figure I’ll give an update on my life and what has happened in the past month.

For starters I spent the majority of December, after returning from Arizona from Thanksgiving at my aunt’s house, I spent studying, crying because of studying and taking finals.

Now that I’m done with finals, I am back home in Chicago and already longing to go back to San Diego. I am happy to see old friends and family, my dog and my bed are the best however I miss the warm weather and being on my own. I’ll blog when I can over break and may queue up a few posts now and then.

Until next time, I’ll be refreshing my grades to see if my finals and final grades have been posted.

Talk to you all soon

Alicia

My workspace… Not really

Published on November 11, 2015June 25, 2016 by AliciaLeave a comment

When you walk into college on the first day, you are presented with a desk, closet, micro-fridge,and a bed. I purposely bought a chair cushion to use for it because I knew the chair wouldn’t be comfortable. How many times have I used that cushion? I Think four times but never have they been for school work. I spend most of time in the dorm under the warm comforter I bought because out thermostat likes to tell us it is 65 degrees in the dorm even when we have it set for 90.

Nevertheless, I still use most of the objects on the desk and will give you guys the lowdown on everything on and around my desk.

Let’s start on the top and work my way down. P.S. my desk is typically this clean when I don’t have class. If I do have class it also contains my key, papers, folders, notebooks, more water bottles, and the occasional shoe.

Paintings– My sister made them. I didn’t. I have nary an artistic bone in my body. I forced her to paint me the cat one and she painted me the Tangles one for my birthday. She’s chill.

Calender- This was probably the best investment for school. I think I bought it at Bed Bath and Beyond and it’s a 3 piece sticky calendar set. One is a month calendar, one is a week calendar, and the 3rd is a notes board. I use this thing religiously and it’s always so much better than getting my planner out. @everyone going to college next year or who’s in college now. get one. Now

Top Shelf– Contains large pack of paper my roommate and I may never fully use, a few stuffed animals from home, my Buddha, cards and letters from home, my pencil holder which I definitely need to position closer to my bed because getting up every time I lose my pen in bed is a hassle, my alarm clock (still haven’t used it. My phone definitely works just as well), deck of cards for when I’m bored, room freshener (it’s a cute one with the beads and highly necessary. We both smell and this keeps us from smelling less), my mouth guard (I grind my teeth when I sleep).

Middle shelf Assortment of notebooks, notepads, random journals I told myself I would use and never did. dictionaries (English and Spanish yay Spanish), paper clips, stapler, hole punch, tape, highlighters, sticky notes. You know the random desk necessities which you don’t need until you don’t have. Minus the hole punch and stapler. I have surprisingly uses them a substantial amount this year.

Bottom shelf– large pile of crap I got from school which I will need at some point, just not today. Also my toms bag which has stickers and things I want to put on my laptop once I get a hard case for it. More notepads and sticky notes. I also have a large roll of tape for when I have to send my textbooks back at the end of the semester and my old phone. lol my old phone

Right of my desk– an empty water bottle which shouldn’t be empty. The cup that we all got on the first day of school. I haven’t drank from it but it did hold my earrings when I cleaned them. An electric pencil sharpener is also hiding behind my water bottle. A lamp that I have only used to charge my phone when I couldn’t find the wall plug and a picture of my grandma.

Left of my desk: Well my laptop cover which has nothing in it because I’m using my laptop. I have my sunglasses, headphones, vitamins, lint roller (COMES IN SO HANDY WOW), a large thing of hand sanitizer (ALSO COMES IN SO HANDY WOW), and of course mt textbooks, a few notebooks, and folders.

That’s my desk. I also have more crap on my floor and stuff. I may make an entire room tour video thing if this posts gets a comment or a few likes that say they want me to do it.

Until next time.

Alicia

Life Away from Home

Published on November 7, 2015June 25, 2016 by AliciaLeave a comment

Hey everyone.

So, a big question that I’m asked often if how do I do it? How do I spend months away from home. So far away from home my parents have to take a plane to get to me if they want to get to me that day or week. Do I get home sick often and how do I cope with being completely on my own? How do I miss my sister’s basketball game and dances, etc.?

To be honest, I don’t know. I ask myself how I don’t miss anyone or anything on the daily. I think it’s because I still keep contact with all my friends and family. And also because I wasn’t like inseparable with anyone in high school. My dad and I are pretty close and so are my sister and I but when I said goodbye to my sister I was half asleep and didn’t really realize I was saying goodbye for 4 months and my dad cried when I said goodbye so I cried then too. My mom and I really aren’t close and rarely talk and when we do, we yell. So, us being separated I feel has actually benefited us for the most part.

I have seen my family. My parents, sister, and grandma came to San Diego for parents weekend and then I’ll see them again at Christmas. I feel like since I know that I’ll see them I don’t have to dwell on the past of missing them when I can look forward to the next time I get to see them all.

Do any of you college peeps miss your families? Or are you cold and heartless like I am?

Talk to you all soon

Alicia

Lung Cancer Awareness Month

Published on November 4, 2015May 27, 2018 by AliciaLeave a comment

Hi everyone,

November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month, so I decided to talk about Lung Cancer and how it has affected my life.

For starters, almost everyone in my family (not really but kind of) smokes or has smoked at some point in their life, and i was exposed to a lot of smoking as a child because my dad raced horses and everyone smokes there. My mom has been smoking since high school, my dad’s mom smoked for a long time, my dad’s dad has smoked for at least 40 years, a lot of people who live on my block who I spent every summer night as a child smoked too. Needless to say, a lot of 2nd hand smoke has come my way.

Around January of my 7th grade year, my grandma (dad’s mom) was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. As a 7th grader I always associated cancer with dying, many people do. That night my dad told me was the first of four times I had ever seen my dad cry. After that day, we went every Sunday to visit her and spent the whole day down there. This continued for the rest of the school year and all of summer. Every weekend we could see her getting worse but I couldn’t bring myself to admit that she was dying. Around May she could no longer walk. My family went down to my grandma’s house for my 2 cousin’s graduation (one high school and one middle school). She couldn’t make it to the stands and refused to let people see her in the state she was in, so my grandpa, grandma, sister, and I watched my cousin graduate high school from the backseat of my grandpa’s car. When it came to my cousin’s middle school graduation, she couldn’t even make it out of the house so she and my grandpa stayed home and told her all about it when we got back to the house for cake and presents.

A few weekends later we were back at their house celebrating birthdays. My two cousins have birthdays on May 31st, June 2nd, and my birthday is June 12th. She couldn’t remember that I had hugged her and said goodbye. Being the brat of a 13-year-old I was basically refused to go back and hug her goodbye until I was forced into a hasty and unwanted hug on my half. I always wonder if she remembers this, because I do. And if I could take back one thing in my life it would be throwing a fit because I had to get out of the car and hug my soon to be deceased grandma. As the months passed on she got worse and worse. It was hard watching her have to be changed by my grandpa and seeing her lose hair and barely eat, but we always went. We always sat with her and watched her favorite western movies that we probably could recite to you. We watched them and we told her about our days hundreds of times, because we knew in a few short months or weeks she wouldn’t be there to ask us about our days.

In Mid-October, me and about 30 other 8th graders from my middle school went on a trip to Washington D.C. for the weekend. It was a really great experience and I enjoyed almost every second of it. Upon arriving home, my mom told me that my grandma was doing really bad and would die soon and that we would be traveling down to my grandpa’s the next morning when my dad got back. Well, we didn’t go that morning. Because on October 19th, 2010 at 6:54am my grandma died. She was surrounded by my dad and aunt and grandpa. My dad got home from my grandpa’s house that morning and told me the news and I then saw him cry for the 2nd time ever.

That day, my mom and I went shopping for what I would wear to the funeral just to get my mind off of what had happened. The next day I went to school to get my work for the rest of the week and everyone (kids not teachers) were yelling at me about how I had missed the day before (If more than 3 people missed the day after we got back from DC they claimed they would cancel the trip) and I Had to calmly explain that my grandma died and to shut the hell up but being polite about it.

The next morning, we drove down to my grandpa’s house where the hospice bed my grandma had been in was removed and replaced with her rocking chair she always loved.

The wake was among one of the longest days of my life. I refused to go and look at her because I knew I would break down if I saw her laying there, so peacefully and pain-free. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. i sat in the other room with my mom, sister and cousin and watched as people I had never met came and said how sorry they were for me, and even being surprised by some friends and neighbors who had come to pay their respects. it was so sweet knowing people cared enough to drive an hour and a half just to say they were sorry.

After many long and agonizing hours of waiting for the ceremony to begin, it finally did. I sat there next to my cousins and behind my dad and aunt and listened to the coroner talk about her. I don’t remember a word he said. All i Remember is that my cousin handed me a box of tissues because I was basically wailing in my chair. After the ceremony as I continued to weep, a person to whom I still am unaware of told me “you grandma was a great woman” which I then continued to cry even harder. My eldest cousin and I were definitely the closest to my grandma and were crying the hardest. My dad took us both up to see her one last time. She looked so beautiful and happy. There was no pain, no suffering, and no sadness on her face, Just peace It was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.

The woman who had taught me how to make pot holders and other fun crafts, who had made the best chocolate milk in the coolest cups, who had let me eat chocolate frosting, who has let me stay at her house for 2 weeks where all we did was play with her dogs, watch TV, and garden, the woman who knitted beautiful sweaters, who introduced me to my favorite movie, and who loved me unconditionally was gone. My best friend was gone. She never got to see me grow up. I was still in my awkward stage and had yet to blossom into the woman I am today. She never got to see that and that still makes me sad to this day. But I know she’s here. I don’t believe in God, and I know she didn’t towards the end of her life, and I don’t believe in ghosts, but I know she is always with me.

To this day, not a day goes by that I don’t think about my grandma and miss her dearly. This past summer I got a tattoo in memory of her. She loved butterflies so much. She had butterfly puzzles and butterfly trinkets sprawled around her house. I got a tattoo for my best friend and it was the best decision of my life.