New Realizations! Like... I Shouldn't Go to Medical School!

I've started writing on my closet, which is eight feet wide and as tall as the ceiling, with marker. It is a mirror, so I will wipe it off later. I write my to-do list, which is also on my phone, but it's easier to add it to the door first, and alter it, before I stick in my phone, which is more permanent and might last more than a day. A mirror is great for scratch paper, because it doesn't take up space, and it looks kind of weird and pretty-- poetry on top of the real world. The real world, with its implications that pass through normally in your mind, are there, visibly written. Words MEAN things--THROUGH them you can see reality!


So when I was writing, I was thinking about you! I wrote at the top, "Blog" and arrow pointed down at the information. (Which later ballooned all over the door and onto the other panel as well.) The information goes like this: I've realized some important things! They're not all. I'm sure I'm missing things, because every time I re-read what I wrote, I'd think of something equally as useful. So I also added later, and less relevantly, (8) I have a lot to say, so much that I worry I'll forget it. I hate it that I can't figure it all out at once. --> I'm impatient. Solution: Be patient. \: (:



I added later, last night to be exact, something like this: Beat yourself up. Discourage, demoralize, push, exhaust, lose all pride.



I say that 'cause I have too much pride. It inhibits me in so many ways. Here is the list I came up with that are things I've realized recently. I will likely add some more, this minute now, too.

_________________________

1. People do not understand each other. You can't expect them to. It's rare that you find people who come close to perfect communication through harmony of paradigms-- those people are your intimate friends, your spouse, your confidants. Those relationships are treasures--many people don't have any. In expecting people understand how you feel, you are prematurely judging their personality and effectively confusing them (to no end) with your words that reach them only after being distorted by their own paradigm. You DO, in fact, have to take any relationship slowly in order to allow time for each person in that relationship to adjust to comprehending the communication habits and actions of the other person. This means that when I talk to my mother, sometimes I don't have to explain everything I'm feeling if she isn't bound to understand. Expecting her to understand is the same as asking her to change herself to see it from my point of view. Some people can't do that regarding certain subjects or at all. That's not something I can change, so complicating a situation by bringing up a stagnant argument is just foolish.



Many disgreements I have with my mommy are aggravated by my trying to explain something, and if I stop this action, I will effectively stop a fight. When I look at it that way, it's like there was never a fight in the first place... I was just talking on and on, and my mother was trying to understand.



I have the power to change, sooo...



2. My end of the conversation with my mother needs to change. Her response will always be altered by what I say. I can steer our talks away from a have-done been-there tear-war for control. I don't need to fight for control. I need to accept her love, manifested through her spoken direction, and go along with flows of others, instead of predominantly my own.



3. I have a temper. Yah. So... I need to make sure to control it, instead of letting myself get angry.



A person can be passionate--which I am--without lashing out. Anger, in raw form, is strong. I can't use that to lash out! Instead, I've got to use that anger for momentum for a cause, or communicating the importance of a cause, if there actually is one. If there isn't, I should go do something constructive instead, using the anger for a motivation to get something done.

_______________________



Here's where the points get connected and veer away from arguments with my mother, or other people in general. 4, 5, and 6 all go together and the later points are effects of the previous point.



4. I am not flexible; I don't adapt.--> I CAN learn new information habits... but I ultimately want control of things, instead of being instructed. (At least, in situations where I'm comfortable enough to take control, like at home.)



5. I have disabling pride--it keeps me from changing. I pretend during real life so I don't have to see my failures--so I can maintain pride-- even if it is based on lies. I CAN'T CHANGE-- I CAN'T ADAPT--because I don't truly look at my failures.



6. I worry about the wrong people's opinions. Everybody needs somebody to look up to. That's how humans were made, I think. God wants us to just look up to him. In other words, I can't make any idols other than him. God's gonna be my idol. Except he's God, so he can't be an idol. Ummm. Eh. Anyway, so, if I keep God's opinion in my mind over other's, it would casually swipe away quite a few of my problems.



OKAY THEN! That's it. Except for one more thing, that I didn't write on my board, and a little unrelated. I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, getting ready for bed... (last night) and I remembered what I'd told my dad--that since I loved languages, I was going to have to consider making that my career instead of medicine. I meant it, but I hadn't actually done any of the considering part yet. And then I did. I haven't made any decisions, but I do know that I don't want to go to medical school anymore. It's a bit of a letdown, but I have some solid reasons.




WHY I SHOULDN'T GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL: (ha ha ha. After all that... It's funny, right? Kind of.)

1. It will take a long time.


2. I haven't done well so far. That's partly not an issue--I believe in change--but I think I haven't done well because I DON'T LIKE IT. I simply don't have enough motivation for this, not when I am not fascinated with every detail. Especially since part of what I'll be learning is something I don't believe in-- drugs in excess. Half of what you learn is drugs. Yes, drugs are good, and necessary. But I don't want to learn about drugs, I want to learn about prevention. If I went to medical school, learning about drugs (secondary prevention--after you've already gotten sick) is likely to be more a topic of study than is primary prevention (preventing disease by living healthily and getting care before you actually get sick). I'd have a lot of material to wade through before I actually got to the part I want to.


3. Children are out of the question for a while. When they are actually back in the question, I'll need to quit my job in order to give them proper care. If I was going to never actually HAVE any children, I'd be sad. My children will be the future of me. They'll keep bits of my character and influence and story and take it into the future, after I'm dead. That's what I'm going to do for my mother, and my father, and if I don't have children, they can't take MY mother's and father's memories into the future, either. (Even if they never meet their grandparents, my kids will still be able to carry their morals and ideas.) So... I think it might be tragic not to have kids. Plus, I love to hug and kiss things that are alive--that breathe! I mean, I love to love cute animals and babies and people.


4. Just because I "want to help people" doesn't mean I have to go to medical school. Anything where you get money is usually where you help people with at least SOMETHING. As a linguist or interpreter, I'll be helping people all the time anyway.


5. I want to understand everything? Medical school doesn't get you that, it's only about the human body. Dur. (Teddy says dur. :) )




WHY I SHOULD HAVE A CAREER RELATING TO LINGUISTICS OR INTERPRETATION:

1. Not so hard, especially since the work I'm doing wouldn't take so much motivation, because I already want to do it. I was even going to learn Japanese, Spanish, and German, alongside medical school, simply because I wanted to communicate with people, and I thought it would help my career. (That, by the way, was retarded to think I could do!!! :/ ) Because it's not so hard, I can enjoy myself! Have fun! Take time go shopping! Go on vacation! Explore random hobbies! Go camping! Listen to music even if its distracting because I have time to be distracted!

2. I love words! I learn best with the written word. I like to write, and read, and interpret stuff. When people speak and I'm trying to regain focus, or even if they're just talking normally, I see words go through my head-- the actual words. I'm good at spelling because I visually memorize the shape of a word. I also feel like words invoke feelings, like the word "ANGER" actually looks very angry to me, and is definitely the color red.

3. I've loved languages since I was a little kid--I would try really hard to fake my accent to be British all the time. It was really fun, and I still do it all the time, except it annoys my dad. :)

4. I like to solve people's arguments, solve problems, and negotiate--I'm very motivated to find solutions for peace.

5. This ensures that my career won't be intimidating to a man I'm going to marry! I mean, seriously. Medicine AND piano performance? That's so insanely cool, no one would want to marry me for fear of feeling bad about himself constantly. Okay just kidding. No... I really was worried about it....

6. I actually WANT to do it. I don't shy away from the task of learning a language.

7. I say I want to understand everything-- now language--THAT is comprehension. I love listening to people speak in other languages. I could learn how to do that, and if I made it my career, I could learn SO MUCH!


8. I would likely be traveling, if I got the job that fit my preferences, which I suspect will include getting to travel. I find I'm fascinated with knowing weird things like geography and what time it is in other countries according to their different time-zones. I desperately wish I could teleport to get to places I've never seen, like Paris and Uruguay and in the middle of an Arabian desert. I love architecture, new food, fashion, and I wish I could read foreign literature. Even more, I'm interested in people's history, politics, culture, and sociology.


9. I could have kids. Having kids with a career like this isn't quite the show-stopper that it would be if I was a doctor.


10. I wouldn't HAVE to have job as a leader. If I become good at that sort of thing, fine. But I really do have more fun behind the scenes, at least, a lot of the time. I'd like the option of not having to be so terribly responsible all the time, but more a person who can help out a great deal without getting so much recognition. Being a doctor is a very stereotyped job, and rightly so. You have to be a certain person, totally defined and in control. That's not cool if it's not right for the individual. I'm not that way, I don't think.

CONCLUSION: I might be a good doctor, because I love people and I want to help them, but I think that I have other loves in life that have a stronger pull to me-- communicating with people, and experiencing the world-- that includes travel, people, and music. I can't experience the world if I am inside all day, studying, then become a slave to my job. If I liked my job, that would be one thing, but I love color, and wild abandon, and craziness. I wouldn't be crazy as a doctor, I'd be, to put it simply, REALLY, REALLY BUSY.

Ahhhhh. I really should go to bed! It's now 2:37am. Good night! Oh. ha. Good morning! Very funny okay then. Sigh. Good night. Really!

Learning Languages!

I think... everything might be a language-- any type of information, I mean. Like rock climbing, for instance. There are certain things you have to learn to understand it, and to be able to do it. Just like a person learns a language, a person will need to learn all the aspects and methods of rock climbing, like they'd do with a language. Then, they can use this information to rock climb safely-- to participate in the activity-- to work with it, like you would with a language you'd learn in order to understand or live in its culture. Every type of culture, communication, knowledge, or gathered amount of information is a language, of sorts. Even more, these languages I'm speaking of are pieces of art, too. They are "art" because they have their own style-- they are unique.

The Bible displays a culture-language. Japanese is a language, but you can include its culture as well. Getting along with people, like the people in my family :) , is a language I need to learn. The list could keep going on. I like to describe information or skills-to-learn as a language because it simplifies the task. When you think of information that encompasses a skill or a culture as a language, you think of that skill or culture differently. It helps you realize that the "language":

1. needs to be learned in order to truly communicate with the natives (people in culture or who have mastered or understand or live with that skill)
2. is valuable to these native's lives, and this will become apparent when you delve into its details
3. is a powerful tool for expanding your understanding of the world

To learn a language, as one of these things I've described, you first start with the basics--the beginner's lessons. That means you can learn the general stuff first so you understand the point of what you're doing. Dabble in generalizations and broad areas to have more fun and to spark a fire. Also, learn the meanings of symbols, images, icons, or whatever basic "alphabet" makes it possible to communicate within the culture or terms of that skill. Learn about the surrounding culture, if you want, but you may not need to do that first, if you're interested enough in the icons.

Don't shy away from "taking it slow" with the information. Delve into details when you come to them. These, like in the creation and strengthening or building of a relationship, "taking it slow" is yet more stabilizing, giving you a base of history or experience. But you aren't really taking it slow, anyway-- your actions are building up for a climactic explosion in decision, action, and skill. In other words, it's highly worth it.

Random Post I Seem to Have Forgotten to Finish!

Hiragana is fun! More tomorrow or later, I'm still working on the ones I posted yesterday. あ い う え お ! :) ...

Two summers before this one, I worked at Cutco as a sales representative.

Refreshed: time to make $$ + learn!

Ahhhh. Well, I just returned (Monday) from a vacation with my family in Yosemite, California. The whole time, I didn't really feel like we were in California! Partly because California isn't one of the places I know very well. I mean, I don't even see it on TV and places. I don't really know much about it....

Anyway, it was BEAUTIFUL! I have never been to a place like Yosemite before. I was stunned with the surreal-ness and the weirdness. Every day, we would travel around Yosemite Valley in tour buses or shuttles to get to the store (I bought ear-plugs, because my family sleeps loudly and we had only ONE ROOM (: ) Anyway, the cliffs walls around the valleys are HUGE! 3,000 feet up, actually. Unless it was 300. Which would be ridiculous. Heh heh. It must be the former.... There was El Capitan (El cap-i-TAN, a Spanish word,) and Bridalveil Falls, and Half Dome... well, those are places I still need to visit.... But each day, we (finally) prepared ourselves for a trip outside, and then we took a hike in some direction or other! It was glorious, and tortuously, tiring-ly painful. (I would have lost weight, but I mostly did the opposite of undereating.) I got a LOT of pictures.

We also had a LOT of fights. Mom and me, Teddy, and me. Daddy and me had more constructive conversations than anything, though. (More later on that.) Our terrific height above the valley floor and the sharp rocks that detailed every possible descent, which was mostly vertical, made the normal tension produced in our arguing words feel like electricity buzzing in our veins. However, toward the end of the trip, we mellowed out. I don't think it was all me, since I wouldn't... want to take all the credit for our fights... hee hee... ehhh. But anyway, I decided I should be more like Angelique, with her mellow attitude towards others, and forgiveness, and acceptance, and camaraderie instead of my usual defensiveness and... I'm discovering slowly this week--pride? I need to learn how to accept other's help. It's like Orihime says, this doesn't have to do with how I feel--that they don't trust me--what it REALLY means is they love me stronger than they want to let me do everything myself. It's not an issue of distrust, but love. I need to give in to them a little more when they try to help me too much. I've been so afraid of my lack of self-control that I've tried to take too much.

I can't solve all the problems, but I can do my part.

We went to see the giant sequoia trees, and WOW, ARE THEY MASSIVE!! I'll remember that part of the trip more strongly than other parts, because it was so unique. Those trees... they define, mold--they are rocks. Rocks in time...? By living so ridiculously long, they have the ability to stand outside of time. (My belief is in Creationism, not evolutionism, so I see the world as 6000-ish years old, not millions. So, when I see a tree that began its life 2,000 years ago, I am stunned. That is a long time ago. Just imagine-- those centuries, 100, 200, 300 years passing by it, slowly, and fast, and rushing~! It made me feel like I was looking into the past, except everything remained in color, and it was weird. There was a lovely recording we listened to as we bumpled along in a semi-truck cab pulled us down the Mariposa grove sightseeing road, "us" comprising the tour, jiggling and jolting in a funny trailer contraption that reminded me strongly of a theme park roller coaster-- not on train tracks--but wheels. I listened to the Japanese language track for a while before I switched to English again. That was fun, too.

There was a lot of Asian-decent or Asian tourists there in Yosemite. I was fascinated and newly motivated to learn Japanese. I snatched a few It is quite a spot for visiting--there were so many people there of so many nationalities-- especially, I noticed people speaking French, something akin to German, British accents, something tinged with Irish or Scottish, Spain-style Spanish?, and Indian?, but especially Japanese. I was walking past some other-language speakers in the morning, and I heard a snatch of what might have been, "Oh-hio-gozi-mas" which is the incorrect English spelling but correct pronunciation for Japan's "Good Morning". I was so excited! Which is silly. :) But I was fascinated and... so... jealous?

Now I'm learning Hiragana. Well, slowly. I try to do too many things at once, I think. I'm trying not to do that, but I still don't have a handle on it. It's dumb, because when you try to do ten things instead of five, you don't get a thing done at all. Hiragana I'm learning today looks like this:

あ (a)
い (i)
う (u)
え (e)
お (o)

I wrote them out in a notebook. It matters which lines you draw first (strokes). The pronunciations are obviously important to get correctly, so I go to The Japanese Page to hear the audio. Wikipedia tells you how to correctly do the strokes, including the order and the direction.

Well, I have to go clean my room! Actually, the downstairs living-room, because I took all the boxes from my room to the living room in order to clean my room of dirt, and rearrange the furniture to make room for a couch my mom is replacing. I'm excited I get a couch, but it's slow going with the cleaning. It's a big mess, and I brought all my books, clothes, and miscellaneous junk home. There is a LOT of stuff, partly because I already had a lot of stuff in my room from my childhood years. Aaaargh.

Hopes raised: I am me and God has my purpose!

I'm home now! I'll have to change my location, I suppose, since I'm not at Atlantis State any longer... maybe to a tropical rainforest? I'll come back to that later. I have something to write about.

It's delightful to be here--HOME-- where I feel comfortable, and have people that I love, but it's strange, at the same time. I feel like I moved out already! As it turns out, it's good I'm here for a longer period of time. I now know... I had unfinished business in terms of "moving out".

I would say my life is totally messed up. I mean, it feels that way, at least. Everything is so... screwed. I'm just sad... about the state of communication and lack of harmony, mostly, in my family and with my mother. Here's the situation: I left home when I moved to college (Atlantis State) in my freshman year, I was still attached to my immaturity, my home, and my parents in a way that left me unable to make decisions for myself. I was too fearful to think for myself. I didn't realize how important it was that I be brave... and how much more of a determinated effort it would take to succeed in college. So, I didn't put forth that strength. As I began to fail, slowly, the results becoming worse and worse with each passing quarter, my confidence took blows I couldn't recover from. I had no base of strength for climbing out of such a well. College was different that high school-- I wondered if I was really capable of the task I saw myself to be placed in. Furthermore, my parents were not there to guide my actions. My decisions were up to me, but I didn't see that. Besides, how do you pull out of something dark when you don't know from which direction you came? Worse still, I didn't admit to myself that--logically-- these failings were doings of my own, and so could also only be remedied only by ME.

It was in this state that I bodily placed myself in front of a counselor, begging for answers. What was going on? What was wrong with me?

Well, as I've explained (to annoying length... :) in my other posts, I figured out that I was making an invisible excuse. A circular reason. I thought there was-- WANTED there to be-- something blocking me. But in fact, this block was only the idea that there might be a block at all. So-- there was never any block in the first place, but myself and the thoughts in my mind.

So here I am, at home again, trying to take control over my life. At the same time, I must prove to myself, and my untrusting parents, that I make decisions for myself now.

Oh, why am I home? I should explain. :) My parents are sick of me going to school without getting good grades. I've made a lot of progress-- I can tell with the different way I feel about life, now that I'm back home--my habits are better and I have ambitions... that is totally new in terms of how I spent my time in the past summers after I'd entered college three years ago-- but this progress is not yet evident in my grades, which were too daunting for me to pull together in time for the end of spring quarter. I've learned a lot, but it was simply too late. I know, now (with some repressed doubt), that I can get through school successfully with a happy-ifying career, bountiful knowledge, and enriching communicative skills. While it IS going to be difficult with my parent's doubt hanging over my shoulders, I plan to disregard it and move on.

Anyway, my parents want me to go to a university that costs less than Atlantis, so I am home for that. My father, rightly, doesn't have faith in my academic and study skills, but I can see in his eyes and I can hear in his words that if I were to prove myself, he would believe in me. My mother, on the other hand, who has an amazingly emotional, passionate, and beautifully artistic personality, isn't dealing with my independence in the way that would help me best. She tries to take action in the best way possible, and uses her motherly capabilities to command me in the direction she believes is most wise. Effectively, I feel as if she has completely lost faith in me-- or did she ever have it? I try to explain to her, but it is pointless and I always end up in trouble for causing argument and introducing dark, hostile feelings that swirl around for weeks afterward.

I am writing this post because I am upset with myself about our arguments. They are fruitless and a of COURSE, a TOTAL waste of ENERGY!!!

aaarrrggggrrrr.

These arguments start the same way and end the same way. They sometimes begin because my mother has brought up the topic, but I still have the power to completely stop hostility by

1) respecting my mother
2) listening to what she has to say
3) and ending the conversation if it intrudes too deeply on what I know is best for me.
--> this means I must consider my options VERY carefully and make sure that my
parents' suggestions are incorrect before I go against them. (Especially, I should pray about it.)

But regardless of my awareness of the importance of points 1, 2, and 3, I still get in these DUMB arguments with my mother! So, tonight while I was washing my face, I decided I must find the root of the problem here.

And the root is...... ...

... what was it? Oh.

In the moments when I am listening to my mother--the times that I consider excruciating in their power to draw me into an argument, the epitome of what I DON'T want to do-- I always lose control. But what, exactly, am I losing control over? And I know what it is: it's my confidence. That's it, simply put. I lose my belief in myself. I forget what I want, who I am, where I'm going-- and I burst out into some sort of statement that contradicts my mother's, as if I need to change her. But it's not about her. It's about who I'm becoming, and all of that is my choice anyway. I have to stay myself! I am safe, within my own mind, my center, my chest, my heart. I am me. No one can change me. God is there in that center of mine. He will be my guiding light when all other lights flicker and go black! I must stay me!

My solution, then, to keep from arguments (with my little brother, too) is-- at all moments-- to keep myself as ME, and remember that no one can change me, but myself. This seems quite obvious, but I have a habit of doing the opposite, and that's why I feel the need to defend myself so often.

If I work on this-- and I know I will fail again and have another disagreement with her-- but if I work on it, I can seriously grow some confidence-muscle so that I sometimes-- maybe never-- lose my confidence--my self and God's purpose for me-- like this again.

***I'm writing the title of this post... I was thinking, I should make each post title dramatic, like the title of a movie, or at least as if each post was drastically important! It will be fun to make creative titles. :)

Signing off! Good ni-- ah... morning! (It's 12:25 now. That was great! I made so much thought-progress and only in one hour! *pumps fist* YES! Efficiency improving. (: )