when i read at the local town paper last week, i noticed a familiar face smiling on the picture. could it be mariela i thought....
i started to read the article, making sure that the face connected to the name and by the time they mentioned the schools i used to go to, the year we graduated, and our upcoming 10 yr school reunion, i realized it was my good friend mariela.
in the article, it states that she was one of the only female iraq vet (from this town anyway) to go to the local VA hospital (in the same town). she has been been there since 2005 (for 7 mos, she was in a coma) and currently is undergoing physical therapy.
WTF...2005?? where the hell have i been? and the past two years i have been thinking about her, wondering where she was b/c before all of us parted and walked into our adulthood, i heard that she was going to live in switzerland. and apparently she did and came back to the states and although she is currently not a US citizen, she served the country she called home.
while i couldn't visit her after reading the article that week, i went today...and it totally woke me up.
in middle school, she was one of my basketball girl partners-in crime. i think she was one of the best players i know back then. and boy did we have fun.
in high school, street ball became obsolete considering they never took care of their courts. she still shined when playing sports and was a hilarious classmate during our debate sessions in civics class.
today, i saw her in her room, sitting up watching tv on the hospital bed and me trying to see if she can recognize me. she said, "i know your face, but i don't remember your name..." (yeah i do have that kind of a face that people can remember :p) i told her and she smiled and i ended up introducing her to my daughter. she was taken aback because her daughter's name is jayla (not sure if it's spelled that way, but i'll do the best i can) and i had to repeat several times so that she can remember her name. to refresh her memory, i named most of the classmates i thought she can easily remember; most of which were familiar to her, but most of the times she can visualize the person's face from before. i wasn't trying to expect her to be the same mariela from high school, i wanted to see how much she changed because of what happened.
the change was a lot, her speech is much slower, and probably due to the incident that left her in a coma at some point, her thoughts are really jumbled and would require help to remember things. she has a wheelchair next to her bed, and requires help to shower and go to the bathroom. i hope she can walk again...but she needs her inner strength to pull her thru, at the moment, it doesn't seem like she's ready yet.
i feel sad about her story, but i'm glad she's alive. she's alive to see her 3-year old daughter and she's alive to see us once again @ the class reunion. i will see her again next week and bring the yearbook to stimulate her mind to remember things from the past- she really loved talking about it. i'll even bring my laptop and show pics of some of the people we went to school with now and update her w/anything about our old friends.
it sure is good to see her again....
Monday, October 1, 2007
august 28, 2007 - visiting an old friend
august 18, 2007 - look @ your credit report!
ok so the recap of this whole week was getting an apartment. we found a place we liked and well, the process of it was a bitch. it all came to a halt when my credit report was pulled, saying i have an account in collections....WHAT? since when? seriously, i acknowledge that IN THE PAST i was a f*ckin' idiotic naive kid (18 yrs - 22), believing that ah money is not an issue...and that trusting everyone is ok. so at the present moment, we are DENIED of the apartment till it's fixed. (i was notified thru the phone about the credit report problem...while assisting a massage class...so much for relaxing)...*rolls eyes*
but what did i do? i stopped paying and ignored the fuck out all of the debt. most of them became charge offs, including the one from sears. there's a significance to this account, mind you, and i am still currently researching on charge offs and the like. sigh...
so i'm telling this to all of you guys, my friends. even if you had a good balance and you closed your credit cards in good standing (old loans count too), these people WILL try to extort money from you. ALWAYS check your credit once a year...don't do it at the last minute, which i feel i was doing. look the company up thru BBB.org (better business bureau) and see if they have problems. read up on the fair credit act to know your rights; search the web for the company too, you'll be surprised to see the results. also check out forums (search for the collecting agency, and you'll find these forums...if not ask me i'll help you with that) pertaining to credit. you're not the only ones out there with this problem and the people in those forums are more than willing to help you out.
this will be resolved in two weeks...or there will be problems arising (i will probably sue if it comes down to it)...
i gotta clear my mind of this junk for the time being and have some fun....
anyways, you all have a good weekend...
august 9, 2007 - have i mentioned i was busy?
so i'm busy, if you can't already tell. lol i want to slow down in everything i do, it just seems everything's going by me in blinding speed.
i happened to try out this hair coloring (just highlights) thing off the counter...i did color my hair like last week, but it still made my hair look dark in certain lighting. >.> that was totally not my intention anyway. but b/c i was in a rush and i had to get to school...i just tried to get some strands of hair on my head and let 'er go...it fuggin turned orange at the top back part of my head....oops...guess i got too happy there. but it did lighten up my hair color. well now i know it works...i just gotta work on holding the strand of hair properly >.>
i feel like i'm in a time crunch w/everything...i gotta find a place to live, i gotta do homework, and well i do need bodies to practice on before i get my massage therapy license next month. yeah when i looked at my calendar i realized something...my completion massages are in september. oops. i've been busy promoting myself off of my myspace, so far i only was able to get the interest of one friend...so i need to keep trying.
that's all for now....
july 30, 2007 - i <3 my daniel-san
danny's my childhood best friend. in previous posts, i believe i wrote down that i had dreams about him (but since i'm too lazy to even put cuts or links from the past...why not just repeat it one more time). prolly due to the fact i missed him so much. and it's funny i had a dream about him last week; the details were sketchy, but we were having a wonderful time hanging out together. xD (check out lefteyepni.livejournal.com or on my myspace blog)
anyhoo july 30th is his birthday and i never forget him (or at least i try not to). i still consider him as a best friend, regardless of how we don't communicate at all until today. why, well, in the past i grew up as an army brat, and you had no way of keeping friends. danny was one of 3 close friends i kept since middle school and its possibly why i liked school so much. not only that my crush towards him lasted from 6th - 9th grade, then flared back up in jr year....lol afterwards, i treated him like a brother, after we bickered w/each other a few times lol.
i haven't seen him since 2004 when his youngest brother graduated. i made sure i went to his little brother's graduation; not only will i be supporting this kid that used to be snotty to me, i get to see his older brother again. this october's our 10 yr reunion. can't wait....;) i'd love to see everyone again, and i want danny to be there so i can cry on him lol.
ah...the good memories are coming back...i hope and i want to see him soon...
july 25, 2007 - blah...
exhaustion at its finest. haven't experienced that in a very long time. over the weekend i had foot reflexology class (there is a hand reflexology but they don't teach that...as far as i know) and a party i had to go to on saturday. most of the pics i have for that party is on my myspace account (www.myspace.com/lefteyepni ; feel free to check it out, as long as you have an account and i added you, there's been a surge of weirdos asking me to add them as a friend and i don't know them!!). anyhoo, the reflexology class was da bomb...in fact it only took me 5 mins of massage to completely sleep although for some reason i was still wide awake and hearing myself snore. why do i say this...i felt more refreshed and relaxed like i did sleep for an extra 8 hours. lol.
my living situation w/my parents is still there, intense and is the majority part of my exhaustion. *breathes in deeply and out* mind chatters are all over the place but disappears when i go to work. also i learned in that foot reflexology class that we tend to store all or problems on our feet. at the present moment, my left foot is bothering, due to an outburst my mom had last night. i need to shake it off.
oh look at the time...jeet kune do awaits...i'll be back
july 4, 2007 - so i found a job
a proposition came up several weeks ago after volunteering (also part of my business practicum in the massage school in order to get my certificate) to help out with the graduation, where i should help out the owner of the school (since she also is currently battling colon cancer), drive to the other schools (san francisco & san rafael) and make sure everything's in check. i had a dream that i did it, and i ended up getting a call from it, so i thought hey, "follow your dreams" right....b4 i made my final decision, asked my hubby if it's ok with him. he said yes...so i called the owner....
had an interview 4pm last monday and b/c of her condition, she had to take a shower and was late for it (the interview was held at her house). if you know me, it's not a problem, things happen. so i told her that. she started crying and i felt hella bad so i just hugged her...so we talked, told her what i did in the past and she asked how much i was looking for. i told her that it's been 3 years since i last worked so i really don't know. so she started me low (this is good, considering that i need to pay off my bills ASAP before moving out of my parents') and will gradually increase w/in the following months. the job is also good b/c i can bring my daughter with me, everywhere, AND my hours are very FLEXIBLE. this is a good thing cuz i don't have to worry about child care (and spending money for it in that matter, cuz after all i live in the sf bay area) and my hubby can start saving up, AND once school starts i can work however long is needed (that's including my schooling and my daughter's).
so i don't think i'll be able to start up that b/w pic of chris evans. it's ok, i gotta start providing for the family sometime; better now than later i suppose. besides my hubby asked if i can find a job anyway, renting here is frickin' expensive; not to mention that one of the classes i needed to graduate for my business major is work experience...and I MUST BE WORKING. anyhoo, i'll find a way to be able to draw again, although it was very refreshing to draw recently.
saw transformers on the 2nd, and saw ratatouille on the 1st. both were good movies, and yes i had to bring our daughter w/us to the transformers movie. she seemed disinterested in the whole movie, although there was one part where she laughed along ...then again we were watching the 10pm show and she was getting sleepy...you should see her drawing of optimus prime, i was quite pleased w/her artistic skills; it's been getting better and better.
well that's what i've been doing most of this week...happy 4th everyone....did i mention how friggin' hot this town is? >.> ridiculously hot that it nearly drained my soul....
June 13, 2007 - 10 years have gone by already
it's been a long time coming. i decided to wait for June 13th to come, considering it held a special meaning to me 10 years ago....
you know, to me, it's crazy thinking about it, but it's been exactly 10 years to the day since i graduated from high school. never had i imagined that within 10 years that i would be married nor have a child. 10 years ago i always thought to myself as being lonely, and possibly be lonely until i was 30. 10 years ago i turned 18. 10 years ago i was this naive person, although i might not seem like it, i pretty much was very naive. 10 years ago i just wanted to please my family, especially my parents. 10 years ago i wanted to be a fashion designer. 10 years ago i wanted to explore the world, but was limited to do such things, although finding freedom from my parents was my main goal. 10 years ago i wanted to learn anything and everything (only to burn out very quickly w/in a span of two months from graduating). 10 years ago i graduated on friday the 13th.
so here i am, 10 years later, married for 8 1/2 years to my sometimes kid-like of a husband, with a child who turned 5 this year. 10 years later, i start reminiscing about my fun-filled high school adventures with my friends and classmates. 10 years later how i wished i enjoyed my years in high school more, after realizing how hard life really is AFTER high school (however, i don't regret it). 10 years later i miss all my close friends back then, especially my best guy friend (i still keep in contact w/some of my close friends), considering i haven't seen him since his little brother's high school graduation in 2004. 10 years later, i saw how really stupid i was (or naive), gullible to the end, but am grateful that i didn't get hurt or messed up. 10 years later my freedom is somewhat limited, not because of my daughter, but because i moved back into my parents' house temporarily. 10 years later, i now want to be a massage therapist, and will be one by october (officially) with two degrees in my belt by the end of this year. i woulda graduated exactly 10 years later, but i kinda had too much fun with p.e. in college *hehe*. 10 years later, i'm still trying to please my parents, but now i have to add my in-laws to the mix. 10 years later, i'm no longer that naive kid, because with time and life experience, i learned more about myself than i did when i was a kid. 10 years later, i still want to learn new things and explore the world, only this time i want to share that experience with my child. 10 years later, i finally get to learn a martial art. 10 years later, i finally found myself.
i admit, though, without the struggles i faced in the 10 years that have passed, i'm 100% sure that i would still be that idiot i was back then. do i regret everything that happened to me? i probably regret certain decisions like trusting someone you met a week prior (causing me to have my identity stolen) or going to school right after i graduated from high school or even meeting that ex of mine, but without those incidents, i probably wouldn't be on this blog here today talking about how much i've changed over the years. i was mentally weak many years ago and now i can say that i've become strong inside and out. my insecurities got the best of me back then and now i learned not to even think of stupid things that could hold me back from showing my true potential. never in my wildest dreams that i can actually get a 4.0 grade point average (for people in different countries, this is straight As) while being in two schools and being a mother (hey a mother's work is 24/7) AND also learning martial arts. i can do more if i wanted to. i finally was able to figure out what i wanted to because in the past i actually could not pinpoint what i desired to do for a living, and that is all thanks to my daughter for motivating me.
by october of this year, my 10 year reunion will happen in town. i look forward in seeing how much everyone changed or how much some people would stay the same. i'm not a shy person anymore compared to how i was back then. so i have no problem chatting with anybody and everybody in the reunion. i've seen most of my old classmates on myspace and i already saw how much they changed. it's really amazing what 10 years will do to people. for those who just graduated (or going to graduate next year)...it's just 10 years, it comes and goes very quickly in a blink of an eye; you can always look back to your fondest memories, even the "yucky" ones, to see how much you grew as the person you are today. appreciate and cherish what you have at that moment because life will never be the same, ever again.
