Thesis Proposal

On Thursday, I presented my senior thesis proposal to my mentors. Let's just say there were lots of unpleasant words running around and slamming into the walls of my head.

It started off well enough, I woke up, run through my presentation one more time, and then headed over early to set up my presentation. Once I got there, I discovered that the room I reserved didn't have a computer. It only had a TV. No one had warned me about the lack of equipment. My mentor had said that the room would work and that was it. Well, luckily for me, the Psychology Department had a laptop that I could hook up to the TV. Crisis averted!

I turned on the clanky Dell laptop that was so old it didn't have an HDMI cable slot. In fact, it was so ancient that it ran on Windows XP and refused to connect to the Internet. It always said, "Validating Identify" but never actually validated anything. So much for being prepared. My mentors and I spent at least 10 minutes trying to get the Internet to work until I ran upstairs to borrow a thumb drive from someone. With that, I was able to download my presentation from the Internet and bring it up on the clanker.

Alright, so I was ready to give my presentation. Oh, right, that's not what happened because then that would've been too easy. I'm pretty sure there was a ghost of technology in that room mocking me. Once we finally connected the computer and managed to get it working, the top and bottom of my slides were cut off, and so that meant I couldn't read the axes of my graphs. I messed up the explanation of one graph, and my main mentor frequently corrected the answers I gave to my second mentor's questions. The next thing I knew I was fidgeting with my hands and stuttering over the word of my main task: grammaticality. Grammaticality shouldn't be too hard to say for me, but it was the most difficult thing in the world.

I felt like I was failing. I told my mentors they could stop and ask me questions but then that threw off my rhythm and I forgot what I was going to say. It also helped because then I explained the information more in depth than I originally planned. Still, the experience felt more bitter than anything else. Stumbling over words, fumbling through explanations of graphs and correlations. Mommy, hold me!

After I presented my presentations, my mentors told me to leave so that they could talk about me. That was another stab to the heart of my nerves. My main mentor was blunt about it, too. "Step outside so we can talk about you." Not, "talk about your project," but "talk about you." Shot to the nerves and I'm to blame. She's gonna give me a bad grade.

I leaned against the wall, read the bulletin boards, trying to distract myself. I thought I did so horribly. I didn't know the studies as well as I though I did, and then my second mentor found the hole in my project. Both my main mentor and I knew it existed. We didn't have time to do more research to explain the hole. By the end of the presentation experience, my teacher had a long list of things that I had to improve on. Surely, I had failed to do my best. I couldn't confirm that for sure though. No matter how close I stood to the door, those thick walls stopped me from hearing the gossip between my mentors.

My main mentor told me I passed, and then my second mentor continued talking, telling me that I could possibly get this study published. I had done a great job on it, he said, and it would definitely help me get into any grad school that I wanted. He spoke like he had a lot of faith in me. It should've been consoling, but all I could think was Oh, God, they talked badly behind my back, and now they're being nice to me. I wondered if they would have told me if I did a bad job...

Thankfully that it was over, I packed up the clanker and took it upstairs. Walking away from the building, I knew I needed a thousand strawberry frappuccinos, a new warm cup of tea, and some sleep to get rid of this icky, sick, failing feeling. If that's what a doctorate thesis is like, but worse, then I definitely don't want to earn a Ph.D. I think I'd go insane from all the pressure and stress of getting everything right or else. As I thought of everything I still had to do for my thesis, I seriously doubted whether I could finish this intricate mess of variables or not...Good grief. I'll need lots of help.

In the end, I guess the moral of the story is to always be prepared with extra laptops and thumb drives because you never know when the ghost of technology will strike! I always suggest preparing your presentation multiple times instead of just once. But I guess the biggest lesson is that things aren't always as they seem. I don't know what my teachers talked about, but I hope it was good things. And like the shallow student that I am, I hope I did well enough to get an A so my GPA doesn't drop.

Obtener

Obtener el amor

Abre la puerta

Me deja entrar en te corazón

Sus pensamientos solo enfocan en el dolor

Enfocan en la soledad

No puedo robar el dolor de tú.

Mis palabras no pueden te ofrecen una solución

Abre la puerta y yo abriré la vida

Te ofrezco el tiempo, la luz mía y la corázon

Viene a mí con el dolor

Viene a mi con la alma

No los puedo llevarme. 

Pero ofrezco los míos. 

To Obtain Your Love

Open the door

Let me enter your heart

Your heart only focuses on the pain

Only on your loneliness

I can't steal the pain from you

My words can't offer you a solution

Open the door, and I'll open my life

I offer you time, my light, and my heart

Come to me with your pain

Come to me with your soul

I can't take them away

But I can offer you mine

None of Your Business

Sometimes I feel the need to become passive aggressive after spending time on Facebook.

<<¿De dónde eres?>> me pidó. "Where are you from?" It asked.

<<¡Qué te importa!>> contesté. "None of your business!" I answered.

<<¿Cuál ciudad estás viviendo?>> "Which city are you living in?"

<<¡Qué te importa!>> "None of your business!"

<<¿Tienes un noivio?>> Do you have a boyfriend?

<<Una vez. !Qué te importa!>> Once again, it's none of your business!

Cuando era niña, mi hermana y yo creamos frases differentes para "qué te importa". Por ejemplo, después de mirar Smart House en Disney Channel, yo usaba la frase "¡Nunya"! Nuestra nos madre preguntó "Qué estáis haciendo"? y contestamos, "¡Nunya"! Nunya era mi frase favorita. No recuerdo las otras pero recuerdo que usamos palabras al azar. "¿Qué estaís haciendo?" "¡Bumblebee!"

Mi madre era buena perdedora. Sola sonreía y negaba con la cabeza. Sé que ella tenía mucha pacienca.

Hoy en día en el mundo de technología, muchas veces yo quiero decir "¡Nunya!" o "¿Por qué me pides?" En serio, no creo que nadie quiera saber de dónde soy. Si lo que sepa, entonces pueda preguntarme en la vida realidad, por chat o por correo electronico. Todo del mundo no necesecita saber soy de dónde. Quiero de verdad Facebook tener un elección que dice "¡Qué te importa"!

Translation:
When I was little, my sistser and I created different phrases for "None of your business!" For example, after watching Smart House on Disney Channel, I used the phrase, "Nunya!" Our mom asked us, "What are you doing?" and we answered, "Nunya!" Nunya was my favorite phrase. I don't remember the others but I remember that we used random randomes. "What are you doing?" "Bumblebee!"

My mom was a good sport. She only smiled and shook her head. I know that she had a lot of patience.

Nowadays in the technological world, a lot of the time, I want to say, "Nunya!" or "Why are you asking?" Honestly, I don't think anyone wants to know where I'm from. If he or she wants to know, then he or she can ask me in real life, through chat, or by e-mail. The whole world doesn't need to where I'm from. I really want Facebook to have an option that says, "None of your business!"

Megaphone Poem

Atop the raised platform I stand.
As I raise the bulky loudspeaker to my mouth,
Listen.
Hear my tale.

I have hated today.
You have hated today.
We all have hated today.

From society's expectations
To its stereotypes and lies.
To its broken promises and misleading dreams,
We hate what we haven't gotten
We hate what we thought we deserved
Taken away
We never saw any of it.
The love
The joy
The comfort
The fun.

Two people were killed today
No--
Ten, twelve, fifty, one hundred!
Millions of people died on the inside
All because we hated!

Do not deceive yourself.
We are capable of rational thought,
but we are not rational beings.
We hate.
We love.
We HATE.

Can't get what you want?
Then hate.
Can't see a way out?
Then hate.
Society claims you're worth something
But then leaves you with sand slithering through your closed fingers.
So hate!

How easy it is to give into the dark of pain...
To fall into the sin of HATRED

It's can't be a sin.
You deserved it
And it wasn't delivered.
They wronged you.

They wronged you.

And it's hard not to hate.

You gotta dig deep into that heart
That heart you thought was shredded into pieces
The one you "left behind" so you couldn't hurt again.

Look inside you
It's beating
Fighting for eternity
Bleeding past the last drop
Hoping that you--
You look at it
And accept it.

Hate...
Is in your vocabulary
Its strength
Can crush someone else with its sharp daggers
Infiltrating the world
Filling it with glares and locked cages

But don't...
You must fight against that way!
Hate slips in slow at first
But when it comes
It roars past the gates
Love gets dwarfed by raging pain
It can't follow in its dingy excuse of a boat
Only one bucket to fling away the blood of hate

So don't just stand there.
Help it!
Pick up your pail
And cast aside the tainted water
Brace yourself against its waves
It's coming.
You know it is!
It's easy to get swept o' board
And lose the only life line you have ever known.

All is lost once you're out there
Tossed from crest to trough
Hate doesn't care as it manifests--

What are you doing?!
Don't give up!

Beat on your chest.
Open that cavity up!
There.
Inside you.
Is that pounding heart of love.
It never left you
Jumping in to save you
Is love.
It abandoned ship
Sinking down with you
Only to raise you up.

------------------------------------------------------------
Even though I wrote it, I don't like this poem. Something just seems missing. I don't think I properly described the way to deal with hatred. What I wrote doesn't get to the depth of it all ~.~ Maybe I'll fix it later after I spend some time away and gain a new perspective.

Late! Late! Late!

I'm really good at being late. I'm also really good at getting behind in work...hmmm, kinda like...now. You'd think college would help me practice time management skills and help me to overcome these dastardly lateness. Wait, it's college. Pff. It only makes things worse.

I used to be very good at time management in high school. Although I had barely any free time, I managed to finish my homework at least. Where did I get off track?

Could it be the influence of my teachers? I used to visit my teachers maybe once a week or more in high school. In college, I'm lucky if I can catch those escape artists in their offices. "Come to my officer hours!" they said. "I'll be there," they said. *shakes head* Most of the time, they're not there. Maybe I've just missed them and shown up too late.
:
There's a running joke about people in Louisiana. They say that if you want to start a meeting at 8:00 A.M., you need to tell everyone to be there at 7:30 A.M. Yesterday at Relay for Life they did indeed start at 5:30 P.M. when they said they were going to start at 5:00 P.M. *Dun dun Tsk*

I find myself distracted or too exhausted to show up on time. I only had three hours of sleep Thursday night, so I decided to nap until 4:45 after class, which made me arrive later to Relay for Life than I originally planned, but that's okay because they didn't start at 5:00 P.M. anyway. I got lucky.

In the world outside of the college bubble, bosses expect you to arrive on time. In fact, they probably subscribe to the philosophy, "If you're on time, you're late. If you're five minutes early, you're on time." I know at my mom's work, late employees get a firm talking, and if they're late multiple times, they get fired (except the boss, but the boss can't exactly fire herself. Her supervisor has to do that).

Something as simple as being on time can affect how stressed your are, how much sleep you get, what others perceive of you, and a bunch of other things. When I talked to the career services advisor, she told me not to overlook simple details like dedication, responsibility, and being on time. Apparently, employers really like when you're there at the right moment to do your job.

Ignacio

En "No oyes ladrar los perros" por Juan Rulfo, está personaje se llama Ignacio. Ignacio está sobre los hombros del padre. Él tiene heridas y por eso, su padre lo trae al médico. Durante el viaje, el padre habla de los pecados de Ignacio. Al fin, Ignacio no oye los perros que signfica el padre llega a la ciudad del médico porque está muerto. Creo que Ignacio no pensa en las consecuencias de sus acciónes. Él mató al otras personas y también robó a personas. ¿Por qué es malo Ignacio? Yo no tengo por seguro.

A veces creo que todos están como Ignacio. No saben qué están haciendo en el momento. Es la verdad, espcialmente con los novios y los amigos. Hablamos cosas que no aprendremos completamente y los palabras golpean las corazónes de nuestros seres queridos. No queremos hacer daño pero lo que ocurre.

Es por esta razón que necesitamos tener cuidado de los sentimientos de otros. Pensamos en las palabras antes de hablar. Es una enseñanza que nosotros fuimos enseñado cuando éramos niños y es una enseñanza para recorder.

Translation:
In "No oyes ladrar los perrors" by Juan Rulfo ("You don't hear the dogs bark"), there is a character whose name is Ignacio. Ignacio is on top of his father's shoulders. He's hurt and because of this, his father brings him to a doctor. During the trip, his father talks about Ignacio's sins. At the end, Ignacio doesn't hear the dogs that signifies that his father has arrived at the city with the doctor because he's dead. I think that Ignacio didn't think of the consequences of his actions. He killed people and also robed others. Why is Ignactio bad? I'm not sure.

Sometimes I think we're all like Ignacio. We don't know what we're doing in the moment. It's especially true with significant others and friends. We say things that we don't fully understand (or mean) and those words hit our loved one's hearts. We don't mean to hurt others, but it happens.

It's for this reason that we need to be careful with other people's feelings. We need to think of our words before we speak. It's a lesson we learned when we were little and it's a lesson we need to remember.

Hermosa

Hermosa

El mundo

viento tenue

hojas aletedas

perro saltando

gato ronroneando

lista vacía

descansando al lado de árbol

¿La vida?

Es hermosa.

Beautiful

The world

A light breeze

Fluttering leaves

A bounding dog

A cat purring

An empty to-do list

Resting beside a tree

Life?

It's beautiful.

I know I'm behind on the letters, but I'll try to catch up soon. Over the weekend, I was at a family reunion  at a state park that had no Internet connection and no cell phone reception. Lots of work to do for me!