rock bottom comes with a ladder

as told by my recent blogs, these past few months have been a blur. obviously i’ve tried to focus on the positive, but by no means does that entail the evaporation of my ever-present Depression Demon. yes, he sneaks up on me at very inconvenient times: most recently, wednesday night. it was 10:28pm when mrs. holmes told me this was the last time i would ever get a cleaning night extension.

up until tonight, i had not washed my bed sheets or pillowcases for… an uncomfortable and undisclosed amount of time, mostly because you (yes, you reading this) would probably be disgusted and disappointed by the duration in which i slept on crumby sheets.

tonight, however, as my boyfriend snored (loudly) in the background of a facetime call, i washed and dried my sheets and pillowcases, put them on my bed, put up my clean laundry, gathered my dirty laundry into the hamper, organized my bookbag, cleaned my roommate’s desk, wrote two letters, washed all of my dishes, cleared off my own desk, digitally designed my planner spreads for the next three weeks, and set out an outfit for tomorrow morning. all of that, in addition to beginning this blog post.

as anyone knows, i could ramble on for days and days without a point, but today i will not. i will simply be informing the general population about what productivity feels like after being mentally and physically unable to do so for far too long. spoiler alert: the most overwhelming feeling is not relief, it’s disappointment.

because how could i have spent all this time, living in clutter, when it was just so easy for me to do it tonight? how is it that two days ago, i was turning my pillow over to the side that wasn’t drenched in tears, but tonight, i haven’t shed even one? how could i not have the energy to leave my (gross) dorm room for weeks in a row, except to go to required classes, but so easily do a month’s worth of work in less than 5 hours? it feels like an injustice and an inadequacy as a student, daughter, friend, and girlfriend.

of course, there’s the good feeling – that all of this is done, and it will feel great to wake up in a clean bed tomorrow morning, but eventually, the good will dwindle back down into another spiral. and so, the cycle repeats. barely getting by, then thriving. then back to barely getting by.

no checkered flags

for a girl who grew up watching nascar with her older brother, it really shouldn’t have been a surprise when my 2nd grade teacher told us the story of “the tortoise and the hare.” it outlined what seemed to be a fair race, not favoring one contestant over the other, but later proved to be a story about individuality and motivation. at least, that’s as deep as a 7 year old’s philosophy could pull. 

we read the book, and we split our notebook paper in half to take notes on the elements of the story we read. i raced through the assignment, then went on about my day as usual. my friends studied for their friday test, while i sat back doodling on notebook cover. i had already done well on every other test in her class, so why should the next one be any different?

i breezed through the test, and in true ironic fashion, aced it like i’d aced every test before it.

this cycle continued on through the entirety of middle school and freshman year, the pattern of not studying because i didn’t need to, then passing the test anyways. i never developed a clear study routine, or even study schedule. for the better half of elementary school, i skipped regular classes to attend the gifted kid class, where we played chess and solved real-world problems.

i had been told my entire life that i was a “gifted kid,” that i had a knack for test-taking and work completion, that my parents read books with me as a child, that my brain naturally retained information easier, that my adaptability skills were impeccable. 

education was a race, and my fellow gifted kids and i were well aware of our natural speed compared to our peers. we were running this race like it was nothing.

in 10th grade, my depression struck. my motivation to wake up in the morning began to dwindle, and everything felt like a chore. i had no friends, i had no one to turn to in my family, and i had no sense of security. i started to feel like the hare when he took his break toward the middle of the race – except i wasn’t resting, i was just working on autopilot.

so as we were ahead, the other hares and i were slowly being caught up to by the tortoises. of course, once they surpassed us, we had no one to blame but ourselves; we knew we had an advantage, we used it, and it came crashing down. that’s our fault.

what wasn’t our fault, however, was that we were plucked from god’s green earth, dropped into a track, and said, “you have an advantage, you do not; race against each other.”

the system that standardizes our goals are truly at fault, because it provides a false accountability model for educators and learners alike. students with learning disorders or disabilities (diagnosed or not) and students who excel far past the average are held to the same standard. the result? hares who burn themselves out halfway through the race, and tortoises who barely pass the finish line. 

when the optimist hits rock bottom

my alarm clock goes off at 7:58am, marking the beginning of my first block class. i roll over in bed, doubling my comforter to combat the cold air that the ceiling fan circulates directly onto my body. half-empty water bottles, journals, pens, and dirty laundry litter the bottom half of my bed; i have to sleep horizontally. i have one pillow and two blankets left on my bed, and i would be lying if i said i remembered when they were last washed.

i mark attendance for first block, then roll back to the comfortable side of my body. i fall asleep to the sound of group message notifications and the soft whirring of my air conditioning.

my next alarm goes off at 9:53, telling me to join the zoom meeting for my poetry class. i open my near-dead laptop, reach my hand over to find the charger, and join the call. my camera stays off, out of fear that my peers will see the bedroom i stay in with subpar cleanliness and my unwashed hair. the call lasts about an hour and a half, about an hour and ten minutes longer than my brain allows me to concentrate.

i close my laptop for lunch, refusing to check my dwindling grades for fear of failure on my end and anger on my parents’. my boyfriend texts to ask how i slept, and about a quarter of my energy is consumed by just texting him back. my feet are cold. but i can’t get up to move my blanket again.

i stay i bed for a while longer, until the pit of my stomach is empty enough to force me to eat half of a brown sugar cinnamon pop tart. the sound of my shoes grinding sand into the tile floor is enough to make my ears rumble in discomfort, a strong accompaniment to the agonizing stomach ache i’ve had for a week now. 

my clock app reminds me to take attendance for writing lab, so i log back into the zoom meeting from the same email i’ve had pinned in my inbox since the beginning of september. students arrive one by one, most with their cameras turned on, so i feel rather alone. my teacher probably thinks i’m distracted. i am, but not by anything avoidable. i’m just trapped within the ever-tightening spiral of my own thoughts and worries.

the class ends before i can even begin to process what was just expected of me, and i roll back over in bed. i take attendance for fourth block, but i can’t even bring myself to open the class page in moodle. i fall back asleep, with an empty stomach and an overflowing headspace.

my mom comes home, settling two or three grocery bags on the counter, raising her voice for me to hear her all the way in the back of the house. she groans loudly at the sight of pop tart crumbs on the granite tile, and i thank god she hasn’t seen the 6 cups and 3 half-eaten snack bags of popcorn on my bedside table. 

i sweep away the crumbs, then return to the two blankets that swallow me whole yet again. i fall asleep, but for some reason, never get enough rest. i wake up at 8pm, go get a sip of water, then remember i haven’t had any all day. i drink the rest of the shallow cup. it’s 11pm. my boyfriend’s face is dimly lit in the corner of my facetime screen, and i go back to bed.

my alarm clock goes off at 7:58am.

crash course: msa junior year advice

Study Spots

  1. The steps of any of the buildings (Cooper and Elizabeth are my favorites)
  2. The benches if you have a flat surface to work on
  3. 2nd-floor common area
  4. The patio during 5th block
  5. Library (obviously)

Dorm/Res

  1. Clean your room on Tuesdays. You’re not gonna want to do it on Wednesdays. Trust me.
  2. Two trash cans: one by your desk and one by your bed.
  3. Also: keep tissues by your bed, you’ll cry a lot.
  4. Command hook by your bed to hold your badge.
  5. Don’t stack your mattresses; they slide around and you’ll hit your head
  6. Set up a laundry schedule and stick to it, otherwise you won’t do it.
  7. Don’t bring that much stationery. You will use one black pen and one bright colored pen on the Dollar General receipt in your bookbag. Promise.
  8. You won’t use the 19 coloring books you’re stacking into those sterilite containers. Put them back.
  9. You need more towels than you think.
  10. Also more socks.
  11. Don’t pack that many shoes.
  12. I’m serious, you need like three pairs if that.

Food

  1. Make a Domino’s account.
  2. Don’t buy bottled water more than once every two months. Grab it from the cafeteria in the morning.
  3. Don’t bring breakfast foods that need to be microwaved. You’re not gonna want to walk all the way to the lounge.
  4. Bring more than one set of silverware.
  5. I don’t care how much you like strawberries, you’re not gonna eat them.
  6. They don’t care how tall your fridge is. 
  7. It’s easier if you and your roommate have separate refrigerators.

Social

  1. Make friends with your seniors – they’re your best bet at survival.
  2. Don’t spend all your time in your room, if you want to be alone all the time, go outside.
  3. Check out at least once every two weeks with friends (or someone new); it’s good for your mental health.
  4. If you’re gonna get into a relationship, do so carefully – if it goes wrong, people pick sides and it’s not healthy.
  5. Don’t trust anyone with vulnerable information early on. You have to build trust like crazy.
  6. Medias are some of the best people on campus to talk to.
  7. You can trust Mrs. Sudie with your LIFE.
  8. Keep a journal to write in at least once a week, hopefully, more. Also, take lots of pictures. These are years you won’t want to forget. 
  9. BRING CARD GAMES. Dutch Blitz, Cards Against Humanity, and Uno have been my saving grace. 

literary cynicism: daniel handler

If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.

this is the first paragraph of the book “the bad beginning” by daniel handler, otherwise known as lemony snicket – but we’ll save that for the next article topic. this book is the first in a 14-book children’s series known as “a series of unfortunate events,” which outlines the lives of the three baudelaire orphans and an unruly man’s chase after their parents’ life savings. 

readers have a tendency to hold out hope for their characters, clinging to any little bit of redemption they can claw out of the pages. i’m guilty of it, and you probably are too. we scratch and scrape at every detail, looking for something or someone or some way to help, and when we can’t, we give up. we wish our characters the best of luck, and stand in the sidelines from then on, watching them make bad decisions over and over again, with no investment to the characters’ well-being. daniel handler does not give us this option, and it’s one of my favorite literary tactics i’ve ever seen.

in other books and series, there’s a dwindling hope from the beginning – the expectation that something will work out until it doesn’t. once that trust is broken, it’s never rebuilt. 

I am sorry to tell you that this story begins with the Baudelaire orphans traveling along this most displeasing road, and that from this moment on, the story only gets worse. Of all the people in the world who have miserable lives – and, as I’m sure you know, there are quite a few – the Baudelaire youngsters take the cake, a phrase which here means that more horrible things have happened to them than just about anybody. 

this is the first paragraph of “the reptile room,” the second book in the series. similar in tone to the first paragraph of “the bad beginning,” handler uses the constant push and pull of luring the reader into holding out hope, then crushing their spirits yet again.

this consistency holds out through the entirety of the series, and i definitely think this is the best literary device i’ve seen used to keep readers hooked.

you only live twice

in 6th grade, or maybe it was 7th – i can’t really remember, my mom took my sister and i to a nearby town where they had a ton of christmas lights displayed all over the shopping center. canton lights are a big deal for central mississippi, oftentimes becoming an integral part of the holiday experience for most. i’ve only been once, but i have friends that go annually, which goes to show just how seriously some people take it.

every christmas eve, my mom’s side of the family has a huge gathering somewhere in pearl. we have a long-standing tradition of having dinner, then celebrating the holiday in a somewhat consistent routine. this has always been something my family looks forward to, and i don’t think it shows any signs of obsoletion.

aside from everything christmas, the same side of the family also has a large gathering for thanksgiving every year. we won’t be taking part this year due to COVID, but hopefully our plans pick back up as soon as the virus goes away.

more often than not, my grandfather keeps my siblings and i at his house for the night of new years eve, going all the way back to 2009, i remember. we shoot fireworks, play with sparklers, throw firecrackers at each other, and sometimes wake up early the next morning to get breakfast together.

sometimes during the summer, my family takes a trip to highlands, north carolina, where we spend the week listening to the creek beside the house – or traveling gorges state park, playing in the waterfalls and exploring. it’s quite the hike, but well worth the experience. i remember going with my mom and sister one year – i think it was the summer between 7th and 8th grade – and we went to turtleback falls. turtleback falls is a natural watercliff, just past rainbow falls (which is gorgeous, by the way), that features a 20ft drop from the edge of the cliff to the surface of the cold water collecting at the bottom. my sister and i both slid off of it, which, for the record, is the only reason i know just how cold it is.

i say all that to circle back to my original point: you only live twice. i’d forgotten about a few of these memories, even though some of them are recurring, it’s like they’re tucked away in some part of my mind that only allows me to remember them when called upon. but as i started thinking the other day, about some of my fondest childhood memories and what i want to do with my life beyond them. some part of me, though, felt like these memories were incomplete – there was something else i had to do, and i think i’ve discovered it.

there are memories that you make with your family, and that’s fine – but if there’s some that you feel emotionally attached to, you have to go back.

we are not meant to live our lives alone, but to an extent, i think we have to. we have to experience things either on our own or with our families, but i think it’s important to experience them again – live twice: it starts when you find the people you want to take on the world with.

the role of education and indoctrination within a capitalistic society

capitalism breeds innovation. capitalism supports small businesses. capitalism works for the people. capitalism will never benefit large companies. capitalism will never put the needs of a corporation over the needs of its consumers.

and other lies we’ve been told.

as kids, we grow up with a HUGE imagination, especially kids who grow up to be artists. we think about road trips with friends, sitting on the dock at the reservoir, painting the warm horizon in front of us, or other ways to fulfill our lives. why, then, does this hope for the future quickly dissolve as soon as our little brains start developing more and more. is it a sense of maturity and staying realistic? or is it the fault of something larger, more powerful?

consider: the role of education. from the ripe old age of 5, we are placed in the care of authority that monitors our every move and thought. we have a meticulous schedule from 8:00 to 3:30 that tells us what to do, when to do it, and who to do it with. class, break, class, class, lunch, class, bell. it’s the same routine every single day, draining 7 and a half hours from our poor, underdeveloped brains and bodies. we still think it’s normal, but why?

why do we go from elementary schedules to middle schools, with the same boring and monotonous routine. then to high school, where the athletic kids can choose to do what they like in a fraction of their free time, but that’s about it. then, onto college, where if we’re not in classes, we’re working or studying. again, the same plot, just a different setting. we finally graduate college and get a job. where we sit at a desk. for 8 hours. doing the same thing we’ve been doing since we were 5 years old. 

nevermind the fact that public schools LEAP at the opportunity to train our impressionable populations to concede to capitalism, their efforts are worsened by the content of the indoctrination.

history classes teach sugarcoated versions of the past, straying farther and farther from the truth, the closer we get to the present. color photos are desaturated in order to make it seem like so much longer ago than it really was; we aren’t taught that the civil rights movement ended 23 years after the holocaust. will smith was born at the conclusion of the civil rights movement. celine dion. guy fieri. owen wilson. molly ringwald. shaggy. kenny chesney. all born in 1968.

capitalism thrives on misinformation and routine, which is what american children are being fed. this leads to dark roads of poverty, unfulfilling lives, and the spinning of wheels until one day, it all comes crumbling down.

rationality, and why you should never clown your literate friends

preface: if my friend finds this, i will simply ✨pass away✨, because i have spent the last 6 months clowning him for being so passionate about this book. and i refuse to admit that i’m in love with it (the book, not the friend).

rationality from ai to zombies is a series of books (each composed of articles) that outline what it means to think rationally, how to do it, and why it matters. 

the first book (and, admittedly, the only one i’ve read thus far) is called map and territory, and this blog post will be all about that metaphor.

from the moment we enter schooling age, we’re shown pictures of the world – galaxies, our solar system, planets, stars, moons, the earth, different continents and countries and other known territories that have been neatly mapped out for us on a 2-dimensional plane. we can see… everything. or can we?

that is a world map, right? great.

can you find iceland? or madagascar? or sri lanka, norway, mongolia?

you can’t. they’re simply not there, nowhere on the map to be found, so they must not exist. at least, that’s what most people have been conditioned to think.

map and territory combats this idea, pointing out that just because something isn’t perceived doesn’t mean it’s not there. we have a warped mental image of what we have been told, and through rational thinking and processes, we have to come to a conclusion that combines both what we know for a fact and what we have been told.

the idea of map-to-territory correspondence is quite important when applied to the real world – we have to match what we believe to what is true.

short blog, i know, but eleizer yudkowsky goes way more in depth to rationality in his book, that i think everyone should at least skim in their free minutes. worth the read 🙂 

Fragile Foundations

I was originally going to write this blog, with this title, about the foundations in which a friendship is built upon – about how you have to love and support one another, through the good times and bad. In since times, though, I’ve noticed another fragile foundation: America’s.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was by no means an angel: she voted against rights of prisoners, called Colin Kaepernick “really dumb” for peacefully protesting on the football field, and struck down judgements that swayed in favor of indigenous people in America. 

Despite her neoliberal ideology and… less than consistent viewpoints, she had one dying wish, and that was to not be replaced until a new presidential term. While that wish may sound a bit unconventional, it’s not a new concept.

In February 2016, republican justice Antonin Scalia died of natural causes. senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, took up authority, stating that any supreme court justice appointed (by democratic president Barack Obama) in Scalia’s place would have to wait until after the coming election. That seemed fair – it was the end of Obama’s 8-year term, and there seemingly wasn’t enough time to make a well thought out decision. 

However, when justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died just a month and a half before the coming election, Mitch McConnell was more than happy to impose a heinously hypocritical view: that it is absolutely okay for president Trump to appoint a new (presumably republican) justice. Again, just a month and a half before the president could very well be voted out.

Because supreme court justices do not have term limits, their placements could mean much more harm for the country than a presidential candidacy. and in this case, it does.

Amy Coney Barrett is a threat to Roe v Wade, LGBTQ+ rights, and civil liberties in the united states. Mitch McConnell’s blatant hypocrisy will move America backwards. There is no use having more women in power if those very same women will take away the rights of their own.

For more information on how these cases are connected and why all of it matters, click here

a tour of my spotify playlists

as every basic white girl stock character goes, my playlists are… mostly separated into seasons from fall of 2018 to fall of 2020, 2 years worth of seasonal playlists. the others, however, are oddly specific and poorly named

nyk: a playlist of songs i like that are in my best friend’s playlists – made for the sole purpose of playing when we hang out (so we both like the music). this playlist includes…

out of my league – fitz and the tantrums
needs – verzache
you’re somebody else – flora cash

truck: same idea as nyk, just with a different person.

slow dancing in the dark – joji
lalala – y2k
candy paint – post malone

adventure: hands down one of my favorite playlists, contains songs that make me want to travel the world and meet new people.

portland – bowling shoes
18 – anarbor
roman holiday – halsey

mellow vibes: sometimes a girly just needs to cry, and that’s okay

LA is lonely – ricky manning
back to december – taylor swift
would have loved her – chris bandi

hopeless romantic: what can i say? i’m a simp.

ophelia – the lumineers
coffee breath – sophia mills
wild love – james bay

hype: songs to just vibe to, super upbeat and chill.

tongue tied – grouplove
weather – freddie dredd
pretty girls – iann dior