this is my blog

i get so frustrated with all of the attention that is given to honor students. the fuss over honor students has gone since at least middle school and i am fucking sick of it.

you may think this an odd statement for a 33 year old female to make. in my entire academic career i was considered an honor students for one six weeks my senior year in high school. i will not degrade myself by informing you of the ridiculously easy courses i was in to earn this prestigious status.

at my job i am responsible for providing a pool of freelancers that work with the school’s media team. consequently, i attend the media team meetings and during said meetings i have absorbed quite a bit about what makes a story newsworthy. i have also absorbed a great deal while being at the journalism school about the role of public relations in the newsroom. during the media team meetings i hear quite a few things that make me squirm and typically i just keep my mouth shut because a) i do not have a journalism or pr degree and b) the j-school doesn’t pay me to know about these issues and therefore i should not speak about them.

at a recent meeting we were discussing our impending website redesign. the group was brainstorming groups of people that should provide feedback on the initial design other than faculty. a few staff members and graduate students were named. this makes sense to me because these group utilize the site in different ways. then someone suggested getting some honor students to provide feedback…this was the point of the meeting i could no longer hold my tongue. i had suppressed my comments one too many times and couldn’t hold any longer. i said something along the lines of: why not let some of the c students give some feedback.

let’s be serious. how the hell does an honor student know how to surf the web better than a c student? is it just that the honor student will be more eloquent with their feedback? it is so enraging that just because someone can make good grades they are put on a pedestal and suddenly we are asking their advice for anything and everything…it is unbalanced and completely ridiculous.

to sum up my thoughts…”My kid can beat up your honor student”

i had amazing plans to be productive this weekend. i was going to write a paper for sociology, do all kinds of reading, clean house…blah blah blah. i usually head to bike and bean on saturday morning, after i clean house, and get my study on. i’ve pretty much done nothing be have really productive procrastination this weekend.

a big contributor of this lack of production has been the weather. we’ve finally gotten some snow but that is not what’s keeping me indoors…it’s the freaking cold weather. you may be thinking that because i’m texan i have a low tolerance for the cold. i can only say that i handle the cold way better than folks around here handle the heat. i have been needing to hit the grocery store lately and this morning i could not do anything else until i prepared myself a proper breakfast. to do so i needed to go to the store. i check the good ol’ weather page and i was informed it was 1 degree outside…this was at 9:30 am. yikes!

between my desire for a proper breakfast and to eat more than crackers and ketchup during the week…i began to bundle up for my bike ride to the grocery. this was the first time i had been out of the house since friday night…literally.

tonight i find myself cuddled up with my doggies in front of my fireplace. i’ve got a beer in one hand, and laptop in the other and some great tunes playing. it’s the first time i have not felt cold all day.

tomorrow’s temperature will peak at 8 degrees. i’m contemplating sleeping at work so i do not have travel home in subzero temperatures. or maybe i’ll just stay under the covers tomorrow morning…

while i have certainly been enjoying life lately, this past week i have also been treading a forceful undercurrent.

february 1st was my mom’s birthday. she would have turned 60 this year. over the last two years her birth/death day tend to sneak up and freak me out. it used to be more of an impending doom i would be obsessively depressed about for weeks on end. i was reminded of her birthday this year when i was filling out my passport application. on the application, you have to put your parents birth dates. i do not know my their birth dates and had to track them down.

one of my hot buttons about being not legally adopted is that there is no formal legacy of martha being my mother. as crazy as she was she deserves some credit for taking me (though for all of the wrong reasons) in and attempting to raise me. the only legacy that will exist of our relationship is on her tombstone it reads: “Mother to Tyra.” while i am so glad that will be etched in stone for a long time, i just feel like there is that should be done. i do not know what that would be though.

it is typical for me to think about my “family” on the anniversaries. she is the last person i called family. i have had some impulses to call my brother lately but haven’t followed through. i have an increasing sense that i need to contact my immediate family members and have it out with them. i think my past still has a bit of a grip on me that i need to shake loose. all of the half memories i have haunt me. i am curious if i finally have a sit down with these people if will aid the healing process or make it worse.

so all of this stuff has been brewing in me over the last couple of weeks. it’s been one of those things that you know something is bothering you but you can’t put your finger on it…so you put you finger on something else.

my sobering moment (literally) was after drinking with friends last night. we went to the local greasy spoon for some hearty food. i was having fun the whole evening/night but was feeling very anxious…it was like i needed to be somewhere else but couldn’t figure out where. so i left rather abruptly to go home because thoughts of my mom (which equals a spiral down of the above mentioned) were creeping back into my head.

well, self/world, this has been a good session. i am glad things have finally come to a point so i have the clarity to write about it. i enjoy being able to emote on this blog.

i am at work right now but have an overwhelming desire to sit and make note of how much i am enjoying life right now. i am normally very superstitious about acknowledging the good things in life. i feel that some how acknowledging the goodness will be stripped away once acknowledged. it’s the conservative christian upbringing in me i think.

i am enjoying life right now. i like my job. i like my coworkers. i am meeting some new people. i am enjoying school and being able to see the light at the end of the academic tunnel. i have a license to dive and am considering giving up my license to drive. i just received my passport (a first for me) in the mail yesterday. i am reaping the mental and physical benefits of exercise and an active lifestyle.

god…if you are reading this i am not bragging but just acknowledging the good point of my life…please don’t take them away!