Empathy

My neighbor passed away this past Monday. He was inching towards 50 years old and he had a wife and a son and daughter. I was one of the few standing outside listening to the news from my other neighbor that the friendliest guy on the block had hung himself in his basement while his family was at work and school.

I used to ride the bus with his son who is 2 years younger than me. We were friendly, but not too close because we were both very shy. I just got home from his father's wake and I was amazed by how many teachers, neighbors, school administrators, friends, and family that showed up. It was so overwhelming to walk into the funeral home and see so many people there paying their respects to this one man and his family. It's hard to say why my neighbor died because no one knows what happens behind closed doors. To take your own life you would have to feel completely hopeless, but this man had a son that just got into Harvard on a football scholarship and a daughter who is only 8 years old. Some say he was on the verge of getting a divorce. His wife seemed more angry than upset as she greeted people.

When I arrived to the wake I had a lump in my throat. I was still so close to the entrance that I didn't get a glimpse of anyone crying yet, but as I walked further into the funeral home and closer to the casket my emotions were bubbling. Phil, the son was one of the first people I saw and immediately I hugged him. I was so overwhelmed and choked up that when I went to say "I'm sorry for your loss" nothing seemed to come out of my mouth. It had been a long time since I last talked to him, but he still knew me. He said "hey steph" and I saw how blood shot his eyes were from crying that I started to tear up. Then as I walked further into the room and over to greet Phil's grandparents I burst into tears. I shook the grandparents hands and said I was sorry for their loss. The grandmother sat mostly in silence at the wake, but did occasionally mutter to herself in grief and despair "my son....my son...my son."

After I made my way around the room I sat down facing the exit. The eight year old daughter came up to me and my parents and said "I guess I'm the bravest one in the family" and the only thought that ran in my head was, her father's death must have not hit her yet. The funeral home became so packed that we were all pushed into two rooms standing shoulder to shoulder. At that time my parents and I decided to leave. We started to head out and we said our goodbyes to the son. We all hugged him and when it was my turn I finally said I was sorry for the loss of his father and then he thanked us for coming.

My Dad decided to stay a little longer with our family friend, Dominic and his daughter, Sam. My Mom and I headed out with Dominic's wife, Melissa to go pick up their other daughter, Lauren. While we were driving to pick up Lauren I kept thinking how I should have stayed at the wake longer with my Dad. When Melissa got out of the car to get Lauren, I burst into tears just thinking about Lindsay, this sweet little girl. How is she going to feel all dressed up on her wedding day without her father there for give her away at the alter. It was heartbreaking seeing them at that wake and it still hurts to think about Phil and how he'll feel at his first football game at Harvard without his father there to cheer him on after all the games he attended at High School.

People who commit suicide do not realize that their death has a domino effect. When someone dies, their death affects so many people and it's sad that Phil's father was so unhappy that felt the need to take his own life and leave like this. His death shook a lot of people, especially his kids. Their lives will be completely different now with him gone. It is the children I feel the most empathy for, to be without a father or mother is a terrible loss.

King Tut's Exhibit!

Tonight, my parents were invited to a VIP showing of the King Tut exhibit in the city. It's in a more private gallery I believe in time square. I am going tonight with my friend Kim, but we are just going to the exhibit. This is the last time King Tut will be in North America. He is usually shown in the U.K. and the last time he was here was in the 1970's. I have been obsessed with Egyptology since I was probably seven or eight years old. I have dozens of books on different Kings of Ancient Egypt and other books specifically on the study of Ancient Egypt. I also have videos that my Aunt gave me about Egypt. I don't know what it is, but it's such a fascinating civilization. They were so advanced and complex, much like Ancient China and the Mayans. I have this huge book all about King Tut and I have always wanted to see him in an exhibit and I hear that the exhibit I'm seeing tonight has a lot on display. King Tut had several different wooden shrines and a quartzite sarcophagus when he was buried and he was buried with all of his valuables and necessities that he used while he was alive to bring into the after life. King Tutankhamun's tomb was found by Howard Carter in November 1922. King Tut's death was said to be unexpected and when he died the tomb he was buried in was not specifically cut for him. He was supposedly buried in his regent's tomb, Ay. Anyways, I don't want to bore anyone with King Tut's history so I'll leave it to that. =)

April

Summer is so close, but it feels like the weeks are going by incredibly slow. I declared my major today and I am officially a Photography major. I SHOULD have been declared at the beginning, but my advisor has been a terrible advisor. He doesn't advise me or direct me in any way really. I told him I had problems with my Spanish teacher and he said not to say anything to him beside, "what am I doing wrong? How can I improve my grade?" Well, I'm sorry, but I didn't do anything wrong. Spanish was always my favorite class and this teacher made me want to punch his face in. I sat in the back and was the first one to show up to class and the first one to leave. Now that I am not in that class anymore an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I am no longer stressed out and I can actually think clearer. All my friends and family have noticed after I dropped the class that my attitude is completely different. I'm no longer annoyed all the time or stressed about my spanish grade. Now I feel more optimistic about how I will finish off this semester. Now all I need is to fully recover from my allergies and cold or whatever I have.

=)

I'm Just Being A Negative Nelly

My blog is literally the debbie downer of blogs. This semester has been the worst. I have been getting sick on and off and then with the accident I was without a car for a month and a half. Then this easter break none of my family came to my house like we usually do. My mom found out her first cousin died on Easter in his apartment. The police found him on the floor in his bedroom. She has been strong through the whole grieving process, but we will all be a mess this weekend at the wake and funeral. We're having a small get together in his honor as well similar to shiva. It's like the shiva for Italians.

On top of all of this my allergies are so bad that I feel like I am slowly dying. My throat closed up the other day and I went to the doctor because I could barely breathe or talk and the doctor said it was allergies. I have been set back in my work because of the oral surgery (wisdom teeth) and now that the pollen is so high I can't focus because I'm on all this allergy medicine and other medications like antibiotics for my mouth. I just went through a box of tissues because my nose won't stop running. I have to present tomorrow in this class and I don't even know if I will have a voice. It keeps coming and going and it's annoying because I'll think I'm fine and then I go to talk to someone and my voice cracks as if I were a thirteen year old boy. I just want this semester to end.

I got an email from my spanish teacher and as of right now I am failing my spanish class. It's funny to think I was just on the Dean's List last semester and now I'm failing a class. He says I don't do much in class or outside of class, which is entirely not true. Instead of putting the blame on himself he blames the students. I asked him repeatedly for help and I got no response until now.

I babysat today and got into little fights with a two year old. I think it's because she doesn't know what to say so she gets frustrated when I do something that she didn't ask for? I don't know, but it drives me crazy. Her Mom spoils her when she comes home from the gym not knowing her daughter threw several temper tantrums while I was there. I guess that's why they call it "Terrible Two's." Anyways I need to get my work done =(

Bye Bye Wisdom Teeth

So yesterday, I had my upper wisdom teeth removed and I am in so much pain. I had to wait in the waiting room for almost two hours, which drove me crazy because getting your teeth pulled is something you don't want to wait for. You just want to get it over with so you can deal with the pain and move on. I asked them to put me under anesthesia because when I had my bottom wisdom teeth taken out it literally scarred me. I had to hear everything and my teeth were fully grown in. In order to take out the teeth they had to crack the teeth before they took them out. Can you imagine being wide awake hearing the doctor practically chiseling away at your teeth. Not so pleasant. It took me four years to give in to get my top wisdom teeth taken out and I went to a different doctor. He reminds me of this bad guy from Lost, old looking, big nose, but he was very nice. I was asleep for most of the surgery, but woke up towards the end after the teeth were out, thank goodness.

Being home has been nice even though I'm a great deal of pain and my face is swollen. I had an ice pack wrapped around my face yesterday. Sure it was difficult to breathe, but the cold ice pack felt amazing on my swollen face. The medicine I'm taking makes me extremely loopy and the doctor said while I am on it I can't drive.

All next week I will be in training and I will be rowing twice a day. I am hoping that I will be fully healed and recovered by then. As of right now, don't know if that will happen.

Despicable Me (haha like the movie)

February and March haven't been going too well. I feel like I am the biggest scatterbrain lately. I don't know what is wrong with me. As stupid as this sounds I was so on top of my game when the semester hit off, but constantly being put down by that one annoying teacher, being called clueless and an airhead makes me want to give up on everything I work for. Crew started and I have never been this tired in my life. You would think after four years of rowing I would get used to this, but I'm physically and now mentally drained. I want spring break to come already so I can regain all my strength. I would take a mental health day, but the past days I've missed of classes are either because of the freaky weather or not having a car from the accident. It has been over a month and I still am using my Mom's minivan to drive to school. I'm hoping that this week flies by because my brain is slowly shutting down. I just want to sleep, row, eat and do nothing for a week so that I can be put together for when school starts in April. At least the semester is well over halfway done. I honestly think that senioritis came a year late because my brain is mush right now. I have so much work to do and midterms to study for that are coming up. I keep forgetting about this blog because I always post on Saturday or Sunday when I am at my computer. Fridays are busy because I coach a high school rowing team alongside my coach for Hofstra and Sagamore, the team I was on in high school. I'm hoping I can get all my work done today so I can worry less about how my grades will turn out this semester.

Finally....

I am on time for this blog for once! I am watching Scrubs right now before I go to my old high school's play. One of my friend's who is a year younger than me has the lead role. The play or musical they are showing is "The King and I." I used to be on the stage crew when I was in high school, but I left in perfect timing because the people who are on stage crew now are all freshmen everyone else quit (go figure).

Today wasn't that bad. My spanish teacher didn't yell at the class, which was amazing because he is a nasty teacher. In all my years at school have never come CLOSE to failing in a class and I am getting D's in this class. I have no idea what I am doing wrong and I'm too afraid to approach him because he just yells at you and makes you look like everything is your fault and he is just the most amazing teacher in the world, which is completely wrong. I just want this semester to end and I want to finish this class with a passing grade. I want summer. I want the beach. I want to stop looking so pale and people asking me if I'm sick. No, I'm not sick I just haven't seen sunlight in months, not a big deal. I'm so desperate to be sun-kissed I have even considered the tanning salon. It's the closest I can get to the sun without paying a fortune to go on vacation.

I have, however, been saving up for a trip to Florida because my best friend from middle school moved there right before we went to high school. We're still really close and she usually visits every winter, but because her and I have low paying jobs and both our families aren't doing as well financially we haven't seen each other in a little over a year.

I'm so thankful it's the weekend. This week was probably one of the longest weeks this semester. I have so much work to do, but right now all I want to do is sleep. =)

Well Overdue

I can't stop thinking about Food. Inc. I'm really upset. I haven't been eating much. The only protein I ate was sushi. To be honest I hate that I watched that movie. I was blind and naive about how the meat industries are treating animals, but as selfish as this sounds I was happy living that way. I was talking to one of my friends who has been Vegan for a good portion of her life and she is a strong activist and has been showing me videos of poorly treated animals. There is a documentary called Earthlings and the video is on Earthlings.com. I couldn't finish watching it. I saw a man stand on a dogs head to kill the dog and he bled through his nose and his skull was crushed. Is this really the world we live in? It's disgusting and unforgivable. Animals were put on this world to live as we do and yes I believe in the circle of life, but we don't need eggs, milk, and meat to survive. I barely got through the preview of Earthlings before I closed my laptop and burst into tears. I'm a big animal lover. I've rescued baby bunnies in the woods behind my house and set them free without imprinting and I have two dogs I play with every day when I come home from school. I grew up being allergic to chicken, pork, beef, milk and eggs and it's probably because of all the drugs and hormones that they inject the animals with. I outgrew most of my allergies except milk, but even if I was allowed to eat things with dairy I wouldn't. All day I just thought about how those chickens have never seen daylight and can't run around like a normal chicken would. I'm so shook up by all of this. I don't know what else to think...

Movie Marathon!

I think I watched five movies today and now I'm watching The Perfect Man, don't judge me. I watched Coraline twice this weekend and I watched A Knight's Tale twice, Legally Blonde and Nancy Drew. I love the Nancy Drew movie, it was pretty good. It reminded me of these books I used to read when I was younger about a girl with a photographic memory and she solved mysteries. I forgot the name, but I'm sure I still have the stack of books upstairs.

I finally was able to get on the Language Lab Center Website. I have been trying to download the recording for my Spanish 3 class for two weeks now and a small miracle happened today, kidding.

I wish the miracle was carried over to actually finishing listening and writing the recordings for the lab, but that didn't happen. Half-way through the lab I got frustrated and walked away. I replayed one part about 50 times and still had no idea what the lady was saying. Of course in the examples the speakers speak so slow an idiot with only one semester of spanish on their belt could understand it, but then it went on to the questions and the woman spoke so fast my head was about to implode. I used to love spanish class in high school. I had one of the highest grades in the class and now I feel like I'm taking 10 steps backwards. I'm doing terribly and that's not like me. It's so frustrating because every time I try to talk to my teacher he cuts me off in class and embarrasses me. I've been debating whether or not to talk to the dean or someone who could talk to this guy. I have never done this bad in a class. Well I'm going to get back to my movie.

Never Punctual With This Thing

I'm always late with this blog. I'm not used to describing every detail of my life on the internet. I would write something opinionated, but to be honest I don't want to because everything I write in college is usually a blend between facts and opinions. When it comes to this blog I just like to sit down and take in my day and think about everything I did during the week. This week was terrible. I had to wake up 4 hours earlier to be driven by my friend because I have no car for another two weeks. All my friend's classes are early in the morning and all of mine start after 10. I usually go to the library and catch up on my reading for classes because I can't read when I'm home because my dogs always bark and my Dad watched UFC and my Mom constantly nags me about my day. I also can't read at work because I babysit a two year old 3-4 days out of the week for a couple of hours and she needs my attention while I am there.

This weekend both my sisters came home. Jackie came from Philadelphia and Jessica came from New Hampshire. Jessica, who is 3 months pregnant wanted to go to BuyBuy Baby to register for her baby shower. There are two things I hate to shop for, which are baby stores and dish and silverware shopping. People often tell me, well that's just because you don't care much about this stuff at the age you are at now, but truthfully I don't think I will ever like to do THAT kind of shopping. It's boring and uninteresting. I am, however, excited about my sister's baby. I've been wanting to be an aunt since I was 14, a year into Jess and Tony's marriage.

Anyways, the baby shopping was worse than I expecting with the constant, oooo's and aaahh's from my Mom all that was on my mind was how my feet hurt from standing and how hungry I was. Luckily we were only in there for an hour because any longer and I might have run out of the store screaming as if my hair were on fire. We went to Panera Bread after and we sat and ate a late lunch and then I came home to finish shooting my roll of pictures for my photography class.

I still have some homework to do for tomorrow's classes. I should probably get started on that before I fall asleep. I'm sitting near my bed and I am so tempted to bury myself in my sheets and not wake up until next friday.

It Can Only Get Better

Busy, would not even begin to describe these past four days. I had to coach a High School Rowing team this weekend on top of my other job and school work. I did have some time for myself though, which was nice. Saturday, Sunday and Monday I coached. Saturday night I went to the movies with one of my good friends from my old rowing team. We saw Dear John. I didn't cry, which was surprising because I'm a sap and I cry about everything. It wasn't sad to me because the man playing the father in it was from Step Brothers and every time I saw him on screen quotes from Step Brothers flowed through my head and I would start to smile or laugh. Channing Tatum was good in the movie, but didn't strike any emotion from me. Everyone around me was hysterically crying. Sunday was valentine's day and I worked and coached and then later that night I went laser tagging with the Rowing Team I coached. It was a lot of fun actually and we weren't the oldest people there. Yesterday, however was an extremely bad night. I didn't want to make this public, but I got into a car accident on my way to syosset with one of my friends, gabe and I was making a left on to 25A and a black cadillac going around 70 or 80 mph in a 40 mph zone sped up the hill on 25A and side swiped the front of my car. The other man's cadillac was completely totaled because after he hit me he lost control of his car and hit into a tree. My car was pushed in a bit in the front and had a minor leak from the radiator. Luckily no one was hurt and the other driver isn't coming after me money-wise or blaming me for the accident, but now I am without a car and my parents have to deal with all the financial issues with the insurance. Before my parents and I had two cars to share and now we have three drivers and one car, but we are getting a rental car that the insurance is paying for. It was a terrible night last night, but I am very blessed to still be standing and walking because if the other driver had hit my door there's a good chance I wouldn't be sitting in my room writing this right now. There are so many What If's that I am trying not to think of and this being my first accident will hopefully be my last accident.

Uh.....I Got Nothin'

Not really sure what to write. My life is pretty boring these days. I get my work done during the week, go to school, go to work, workout, then homework and then sleep. As of right now I am watching Wizards of Waverly Place, don't judge me, and I just finished writing an e-mail to my Dad. He is in Shanghai, China right now on a business trip. He works for a company called Exegy. I'm not really sure what the company does besides international business, so that's the end of that topic.

Last Semester I joined the Hofstra Rowing team, but ever since I joined they are very strict about attendance and I can understand why they would be because on the water if someone is missing from the boat you are in then the boat line ups are all messed up, but as of right now we aren't on the water. I haven't been going to practice because I am a busy person. I get up around 7:30/8 AM I work out for almost an hour, then I make myself breakfast, go to school where I have 3 classes back to back or 2 classes back to back, then straight after school I go to work for 3 hours and then I either have my second job, babysitting (weekly) or I run errands, get gas for the car and then I go home. I usually sit and relax for an hour and then start on my homework and then go to bed. Things come up all the time and it's frustrating that no one seems to see that I babysit for 3 different families during the week and I am a part-time Nanny (sounds weird, but I do that 3 times a week) for this one family. Once the weather gets warmer and Rowing season comes it is going to be even more exhausting because I will be getting up at 5:30 to be on the water at 6 AM rather than getting up at 7:30/8 AM. The team practices every morning at the Hofstra Pool at 7 AM and all my classes start after 10 AM. I come home every night at 7 or 8 PM. I would like to enjoy the beginning of my semester before kicking myself in the butt for rowing when I can workout on my own. I'm sorry I seem like a complainer, but I have nothing else to talk about. The point was that I feel like the one sport that I love is turning into an obligation and soon it won't seem like fun anymore. I would rather buy my own boat and enter into my own races rather than dealing with people who are making me regret joining this club. But then again, it has its ups and downs. I just hope it gets better because it can't get any worse!

I do have one thing to look forward to. I am going into the city Sunday with my Mom and we are going to my favorite restaurant and we are going to walk around the city together and go shopping. It should be fun, I just hope it doesn't snow too much so that it is still possible to go.

How funny is it that Wolfman is coming out Valentine's Day weekend.

Groggy Bloggy

I'm not really sure what I would want to talk about on here. I used to keep a diary when I was younger, but I only bought pretty books that I just liked to look at and I would write down what I did that day that I bought and maybe a few more days after that. Usually though I am terrible at updating things, especially now. I keep a facebook, but I think that is more of an obligation because there's nothing special about it and the idea of it is overrated. I didn't do much today. I woke up late, around noon. I was so tired and I couldn't sleep last night so I stayed up until 3 AM watching Shrek. I ran errands with my Mom today and we picked up my Basic Photography supplies and then we went around town. After that wasn't much. I had a family dinner at my Nana's house with my Mom's side of the family. It was a lot of fun. My Mom was trying to tell stories of when her and my Uncle Rob were kids and he used to go out on the balcony of my Nana's house and yell the George of the Jungle call and neighbors blocks away used to hear my Uncle screaming at the top of his lungs, that weird animal call. I'm not sure how old he was, but young enough for that to be funny and not weird. After dinner I came home and watched the Grammy's as I did my Spanish homework. I hate that I have to take spanish after taking it for six years. I think I have enough Spanish to practically live in Spain. I feel like almost all the classes I'm taking besides two are pointless because I am a photography major, when will I ever need to know about cultural anthropology or algebra a.k.a. writing in chinese numbers and hieroglyphics. Yeah, that would be a negative. Anyways, I am just hoping I do well in all my classes and I have a great semester. I'm so tired and I am going to go to bed. =]