Pickles

I have already said first and foremost in class that I was not revealing my project until class. If I did it would ruin everything I had worked on and the finale of my project so I will not say anymore. I will update this blog afterwards to show pictures and such and explain more in detail why I did what I did.

Hidden

It was a difficult class for me. For the e been past year I feel like I have been hiding in an invisible shell. A nonexistant shell. It's not easy for me to explain or show my weight loss. I am embarrassed when I look at those pictures. While I was larger I never saw my self as big, but now that I see the difference...it really bothers me. So much so that I have grown paranoid over the slightest fluctuation in my weight. True, it takes time psychologically to recover from the trauma of weight loss, and for those who don't understand, yes it is a trauma. My best friend Scott is a psychologist and even he says that he wishes he could really help me move past this, but because he has never been there, he is afraid to enter that world. He is right, all it would cause is chaos. People who have not been overweight, trying to lose weight, or the like, would not understand, and no amount of comparisons will suffice. It really hurt my feelings when the question, and it was innocent by all means, "why cant you just get over it". If I knew the answer to that, don't you think I would? I would love nothing more than to just 'get over it', but it does not work like that unfortunatley.

Understanding is key. I was never asked out in highschool. Friends were not really friends. I was only cool when they needed something. I was not athletic. I had a doctor's note for why I could not run the track. I overate strictly for the sake of eating. I had no real friends to get me out of the house so I sat on my computer all day or watched tv.

I chose to lose the weight because I wanted a life change. I wanted to have a relationship with someone. I wanted to be liked and asked to hang out. I wanted to me stared at not because I was overweight and made fun of, but because I was attractive and people wanted me. Whether that is for the wrong reason, who can say, but I wanted to experience something I never had before. Everyone wants to feel wanted.

When I wrote the blog for the last assignment I ended up getting slightly upset. I drove to school that morning and happened to hear the GOO GOO dolls playing on the radio and it emotionally overtook me. It spoke of exactly how I felt before I lost the weight. I called my boyfriend and told him I missed him. Even though we were not together until after the weight loss, he is my biggest supporter. I think it helps that he used to be a little piggy too and lost a lot of weight. The week before all this I had been depressed because I was fixing to start my cycle and was on it at some point and I gained 7 pounds. It happens every month, but it still effects me greatly. I have to have support, and I can say now that I do.

I hope I one day get over it and don't feel like the real me is still hidden. I hope one day I can stop stressing over the possibilities of gaining the weight back. I wanted to have a family and I dont want to be emotionally depressed because of pregnancy weight. Oh god the drama that will ensue. I am happy, really, I just have my moments.

Inspiration Round Robin

The person I was tagged with for this excerise was Kyle Steppe who found an inspirational banner type thing on the web which had to do with a penny. Yes, a penny. It spoke of the reasons why we flip a penny to get a heads or tails. Perhaps it might be easier if you see the banner yourself:

I really could not come up with any reasons why this would be inspiration to me at first. Mainly because I do not flip pennies. However, I began to contemplate the reasons why I would be hopeful, what gives me hope, what do I hope for. There are many things I hope for: graduating college, getting a great job, getting married to the love of my life, being the best I can be.

I mean Hope is what got me to lose 65 pounds. Looking at me now, no one ever believed I weighed over 200 pounds. Guess what people, I did. Beth should be able to attest to my weight loss considering how long she has known me. Hope is what pushed me to follow through after many failed attempts. I dropped the weight. That's right, I lost 65 pounds. Still cannot believe it? Well how much would you guess I weigh now?

Does this help you believe?

When a person decides to lose weight they HOPE that they will lose wieght right? Whether or not they actually do is a totally different subject. The point I am making is that there are a lot of things we make up our mind to hope for. When you decide on something you are usually expecting or hoping for a certain outcome. In my case I hoped on losing weight. I succeeded. Some don't. Againt that is a different subject.

Me Before:

Me Today:

Identity Recovery

Class was basically a recap of what we did for our last assignment, no real bells or whistles. Some of the projects were lame or missed the point such as the one of keanu reeves, or the chili. All I heard the entire time was people say what Identity was, not what was their identity. There is a distinct different I think a lot of people missed. Perhaps they just did not know what Identity was. They all assumed they only had one identity that encompassed everything about them, but that is far from the case. I think a lot of these students need to take an anthropology class and really understand what identity is and then go back and redo their projects.

Identity of Whom

To first be able to explain what my identity is, we first have to understand what identity is in general. Identity is the state or fact of remaining the same one or ones, as under varying aspects or conditions. Identity is a series of instances or behaviors that shape us, define us. They are traits that distinguish us from the other. It is not something we can physically control for it is a subconcious state.

For this assignment we were asked to create something that shows our identity. Part of my identity, because I believe there are numerous things that make a person who they are, is creativity. I love making things, designing, looking at something and figuring out how it can look better or different. That is the point of this class right, to learn to look at something in a way you might not have? To inspire us to choose the normal, predictable route, or to find our own path.

For this assignment I made a short video of me drawing, coloring, being creative. This is what I do; this is who I am; this is WHAT I am. I am proud of it and while this is a 20 minute coloring job it shows how I work and my obvious enthusiasm for it. I knew exactly what I wanted. I am detirmined, perceviering, responsible as my boyfriend puts it. I have passion and I hope it comes through.


                                           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94CHBrgquVQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94CHBrgquVQ

Class of Identities

I always think honesty is the best policy, hence why Brendon (my boyfriend) and I have always chosen to tell eachother everything no matter what it is or whether the person should or wants to hear it or not. So, following this route, let me begin this blog by saying that when we were initially told we would be going to Heron, I was not looking forward to it. I spent a semester there and most everyone knows my opinion on the school and the cirriculum.
I am not a fan.

However, after we entered the exibit and really got into a valuable discussion I began to enlighten myself on the topic and experience as a whole. Identity is something that was heavily discussed in my anthropology class and also something that I researched thoroughly for my Game Addiction paper.

It was also something I planned on incorporating into my final project. It was not much of agroup discussion as half the group was in  the tree house though.

Assigned Skip Day

Wow, we had an "assigned" skip day. I bet you never saw that coming. Of course, for someone who has been in three or four of Beth's classes and will be in another next semester, this really is not all that suprising. My boyfriend however thought it was bullshit because I had an assigned skip day and I refuse to let him skip a class unless he is ill or a family emergency. In my defence, he has slacked his last two years and insisted I push him. So I am.

Anyway, back on topic, if you call this a topic. I really do understand the purpose of this assignment and this weeks class. Beth knows me very well in the point that I take very little time to do something for myself. I rarely get the chance and for those of you who are only in your first or second years, just wait. I gaurantee if you are still running around having fun, it will slowly deminish. I did not actually start having a social life until last January and even then it consisted of sitting at my best friend Scott's house playing Ultimate Alliance for three hours and then going home and doing homework. Once I met my boyfriend and we started dating it was a constant struggle between us for me to find time to hang out with him and his friends. It was actually one of the subjects that he mentioned in our huge fight in July that almost caused us to break up (don't worry we are 100% fine. I have a promise necklace hanging around my throat now). He was concerned I never had time for myself, to go out and enjoy myself. I was always working (specifically on my capstone). I do manage to squeeze that time in now but it is still a push and pull. I had to quit my job because it was interfering with school. I'd be scheduled on call and for me to actually start homework while be on call was a bad idea. I get intranced in my work and lose track of time so I could never start on homework when on call. Or I would actually be schedule 8 hour shifts by myself all day and I couldn't do homework at work because it consists of drawing and my tablet is at home and I'd have no internet access.

It was a struggle to actually decide what to do for my three hours of class. I was very tempted to work on my A455 work. However when I read back through the assignment something stood out to me. "What makes you happiest?" My boyfriend, Brendon S.M. Steele. That is what and who makes me happiest. He is what I spent my time on. All my worries just go away and I can just be me and be happy and not worry about what I need to do. So for my three hours I went to lunch with my amazingly awesome boyfriend. Okay, so it isn't some amazing website design like last week or some grand adventure to a reknowned discover, but it is what makes me happiest and it is time for myself doing what I want.

I think when you love something or in this case someone so much that it is the only thing you think about, what you breath for and live for, you cannot ignore it. It was the best three hours and in my opinion very well spent.

My Life: