Anyway, it always amazes me how quickly the class always goes by! We’re working on Stress and Time Management, which is probably my favorite subject. I soak up stress like a sponge. I get all the nifty physical sicknesses and pains. We did this “stress test” and I scored a 175 which is in the middle, but I mean… a lot of things (like for example; debt) wasn’t on the list. Martin scored 67 LOL! And the highest score was Calvin at 670.

We also did two presentations! Yes, not one but two. The first one was on 10 things you do to relieve stress and we were broken up into groups of 3 and one group of 2. The married couples had to break up. But I kinda liked working with the people I worked with, it was a nice change. The second presentation was on creating a healthy meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The first presentation I was nervous but not that nervous. I’m trying to talk more in class just to get use to it, cause I know I have to learn how. The second presentation, I wasn’t as nervous as I was with the first one. As soon as I got up there the nervousness stopped. Which was pretty cool. And of course when I got back to my seat, I got a big hug from Martin .

We went to get dinner at the cafe and I swear. They take forever to get you a cup of soup and a freakin bagel! I mean, come on. How do you make an entire sandwich before getting a cup of soup? It’s so freakin irritating. We were waiting for about 20 minutes and we were late for class by 10 minutes. For a bagel and soup. I mean, seriously? I’ll go get a freakin bagel and soup to go at Panera Bread if that’s the case! Geez.

So we’re down to two weeks left… I’m a bit sad. I like our class and I like our teacher. Overall, I’m really enjoying UoP .

Husband and I decided to do the lottery since we’ve never done it before and $25/ticket for front row? Hell yeah! So we got there early and placed our names in the lottery and went across the street to get some Burger King before we both got hunger headaches. We then waited for them to draw the names.

Our names didn’t get drawn. In fact, the majority of the names that did get drawn were papers that were crumpled up and the people who won were the group of girls there for Teal Wicks last performance. So husband and I ended up buying tickets. Which sucked, but I had my heart set on seeing Wicked either way.

We had a two hour wait before the show so we went to the car, finished eating, talked, napped, woke up (we have a thing for sleeping in the car, you get use to it when you’re constantly pressed for time) and headed to the show. We got “limited” seats but uh, we were in the 3rd row! Didn’t seem very limited to me! In fact, we were so close up and you could see the facial expressions and the detail on the costumes! It was amazing. Wicked was a whole different show from where we were sitting! I spotted Nicolas Dromard in “No One Mourns The Wicked” and I also spotted DeeDee Hall! Husband played the “where’s Neka Zang” game every scene. I was bad a spotting her, those costumes are tricky! Haha.

So yes, like I said, it was Teal Wicks (SF productions main Elphaba)’s last day and she went through all of Act 1 just fine until… she hit the last note in “Defying Gravity” and stopped mid-note. In Act 2, Vicki Noon (the standby for Elphaba) took over. Vicki Noon is my favorite Elphaba! She did an amazing job for someone who had to jump in last minute. And of course, they had curtain call where Etai managed to make DeeDee slip and fall while they were running up (eep!) and where Kendra gave Teal her curtain call speech. It was the first “last” performance I’ve been to and the first show were there were no subs (besides in Act 2), yay!

Headed to Stage Door after debating if I should or not (a lot of people were there to see Teal Wicks). Chatted with Neka about Lush and beauty products lol. Nicolas looked confused when he got to us haha. Finally got to take a picture with both of them! They were talkin about something and husband was like “go take a picture with them” so I jumped in the middle during them talking and Nicolas was like “oh! picture? okay!” haha! Met Teal for the first time ever and missed taking a picture with Vicki, darn! Said bye to Neka and Nicolas on the way out and passed by them again on the way back to the BART station lol!

Went and had lunch/dinner and this amazing Thai place we discovered. Their brown fried rice is a m a z i n g. Seriously, its heavenly! Walked around the mall a bit and then went home!

Neka (ensemble/witch’s mother), me, Nicolas (Fiyero)

Me, Teal (Elphaba) and Vicki (in the background. Elphaba standby)

DELiCiOUS Pad Thai and Fried Rice!

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Fast forward about 4 years. We still take it and now I love it. I’m not very physically active on my own, I have to have someone there to push me for me to actually exercise. And I still hate running. I think I’ll always hate running!

Well we had class yesterday and we got to work with targets (my favorite)! We take turns, one person hits the target and the other person holds the target. But when you’re the one holding it, you have to resist back. So if they’re throwing a jab, you meet their jab with the target. If they hook, you meet their hook. Does that make sense? I personally like to be the one who’s holding the target more than the one who’s hitting because I think I get the most out of it that way. My husband hits hard (and he doesn’t hit me as hard as he can, most times, when he does, I have to take a 2 minute break lol) so if we’re throwing punches at each other, I get a pretty good work out! I usually try to get him though. I’ll go on to the next move too fast when he’s not expecting it and I always aim for his face lol! I can’t wait til we do slips, that’s my uber favorite!

When it was my turn to hit, he actually let me throw hooks and uppercuts at his chest. Which was weird because I’m not use to throwing them seriously at a person but at the same time it was easier than hitting a solid square target. I think it made for a good workout for both of us.

The only thing I hate about kickboxing is that when we have targets day, I get really really really sleepy after class! I knocked out at around 2AM this morning (which is early for me) and I woke up SORE! My shoulders and my arms and my thighs huuuurt! I love it! I miss this feeling!

And I’m so ready to do kicks tomorrow !

A day that changed my life, forever.

Today marks two years since we lost Flixie. And even though it’s been two years, I still can’t watch his videos. I still can’t look at his pictures. Without tearing or crying. It still hurts that he’s gone.

And it’s still insane to think about, because he was a hamster. A small animal that lived way over his expected life span. And a grown adult, should not be crying over a hamster.

But he wasn’t just a hamster. He was my best friend. He was my baby boy and I cared about him so so much. He kept me going on days I just wanted to lay in bed all day and just cry. He was smart for his kind. And I think he cared about me just as much as I cared about him!

I miss his long fur and his scent. I miss giving him kisses in the morning before going to work and school. I miss sharing my tortilla and rice with him. I miss his pretty face and his pretty eyes. I miss knowing he was never lost because as soon as I started shaking his food bag he’d coming running straight to me. I miss how he listened. I miss him running up to his cage bars at the fights sound of me crying. Even if he was asleep. I miss him purring in his sleep. I miss a million things about him that I’m slowly losing memory of and I wish I wasn’t.

I miss you Flixie buns. I hope you’re doing good, wherever you are. And you’re having sweet dreams. I love you. Rest In Paradise baby boy…

But no, I’m surfing Good Reads. And happily ! I don’t get many days to do nothing. And when I do, I kick myself for doing nothing because my mind is always in a million different places at the same time. Like a few hours ago, I just compiled a list of “things to do before I turn 30″ and publishing a book is on that list. I think I’m insane! My husband replied with “why can’t you just enjoy life and record the good times in a journal?” that’s a good question, why can’t I? I can think of a few reasons why I’m like this and it all leads back to my mother. Of course right? When you have some crazy unexplainable obsession, it always leads back to your mother. Which makes me afraid to be a mother!

Anyway…

I was reading about Nicolas Sparks. He’s been my favorite author for years. Most people don’t like his style of writing because it’s always intensely passionate, but also extremely heartbreaking. To the point where if you pick up one his books you, you can just assume that it’s going to end in tragedy. And I love that! I love tragic love stories. Okay, maybe not. Of all his books I’ve read (and I’ve read almost all of them) there are about two that that don’t end in tragedy.

When I started reading The Notebook in 2004, I was sucked in. I was sucked in like I’ve never been sucked in by a book before. But it was weird. I was caught up in this epic love story between Ally and Noah. Wondering where they would end up, what would happen, would they find each other again? But I also remember stopping every few chapters. Because I just had to write. I had to write something. And I did. I ended up writing probably the longest blog entry I’ve ever written in my entire life. Not only was it written over a few days (which is hard for me to believe because my attention span doesn’t want to be my friend) but it was pieced together beautifully and it didn’t go off track at all and I had a good solid conclusion to it. I printed it out and gave it to my husband (who was my boyfriend at the time) for his birthday.

Because it was about him.

Over the time I read The Notebook, I wrote several entries about him. I’ve written entries about him after watching the movie and even now, years later. I still write entries about him after reading the book or reading a quote from the book or seeing the movie.

And it just amazes me. I was never able to write about anything happy prior to Martin. And shifting from writing about the sadness of life to completely happiness I couldn’t explain was new and it flowed so easily. Where the hell am I going with this lol!

I always seem to relate us to Noah and Ally. Because of our similarities, because of the financial status that set us apart. And because of a parents opinion on that financial status. I was Ally, the rich girl who got everything she wanted and had a promising future ahead of her if she wanted it. And he was Noah, who wasn’t so fortunate but enjoyed all the small and silly things life had to offer. How I felt free when I was with him, I could be as silly or as childish or as serious as I wanted to be. How we constantly joked around and made faces at each other (and we still do). How I’m impossible and picky and I have a rebound rate of 3 seconds before I’m doing the next pain in the ass thing. And how he doesn’t care, he just wants me, all of me, forever.

And how thankful I am. For him. Everyday. For loving all of me, even the parts of me I hate. For his never ending support in all that I do. For always willing to push me and encourage me in the things I don’t know about or the things that I fear. And for caring about me as much as he does.

And for always putting on the Notebook or handing me the book when it’s been too long since the last time I’ve visited the story .

Martin needed a notebook and I needed a bottle of water since I was still coughing like crazy and I didn’t want to deal with uncontrollable coughs in class. So we went to get him a notebook and I grabbed a bottle of Fiji water, cough drops and Red Vines then headed to class. We weren’t late at all (thank goodness). The class was small, we had a total of 9 people in our class.

Our instructor seems really nice. She’s not very serious so it made the class enjoyable. We got a lot of handouts, a lot of activities to start us talking, a few discussions, and we made our “working teams”. Thankfully, Martin and I weren’t the only married couple in the class, so that was nice to know! I felt a little left out from the people who had laptops and were able to turn in that day’s assignment before even leaving the room. My laptop unfortunately has to be plugged in cause the battery is faulty.

We had a 20-25 minute “dinner” break. And they have this cute little cafe downstairs. The food took forever to get ready and all we ordered was a cup of soup and a bagel! So we were a bit late coming back but we were able to finish our dinner in class, so that was nice! Since our class was so small, we were broken up to 3 to a group. The married couples obviously had to stay together.

So far, I really enjoyed the first day of class, the four hours flew right by! I had so much fun that it didn’t really feel like we were in class. But we did cover a lot. The first day left me excited for the next class and excited to start at this new school. It’s nice feeling like you made the right choice in choosing a school that you’re new to.

So, yeah, here’s to our new journey through a new college together! I’m excited .

I use to be one of those people who’d constantly be angry and sad or irritated at something, anything and I just don’t want to be that person anymore. I don’t want to seem anything like that person anymore because I don’t believe I am that person.

I’ve let go of a lot of things in my past that has kept me down. I’ve forced myself to forget a lot of things that make me angry or sad. I’ve stopped wondering why that happened to me because sitting here being upset or sad over something that’s already happened is pointless. Something that I know the people who have done to me won’t give me an answer to because they’ve forgotten that they’ve hurt me. So why should I spend all my time worried about it? There are some things in life that just happen. The most you can do about it is take what has happened to you and turn it into an experience. Learn something from it. Grow stronger from it.

With that said, I do try to be bubbly and happy and positive. But sometimes, stress just gets to me. It creeps up and bites me when I least expect it and I take it out on the people around me. And in the last few months, I haven’t been as positive or as happy as I could be. I know I’ve been snapping at my husband a lot more, I’ve been throwing tantrums and I’ve been grumpy. And I hate that I have been. I hate being stressed out. I hate the headaches and migraines. I hate the anxiety and I hate getting sick from how stressed out I’ve been.

I feel like all the weight is on me. And maybe because it is. I’m the one who has to figure out a way out of this situation. I’ve given in to the thought of Debt Consolidation because I can not go on with this struggle on my own. When your minimum payments hit well over $300 for just one credit card, that’s when you realize you’re swimming a pool of doom. My mom wasn’t too happy about this idea, I suppose and having to deal with her about it was not helping my stress. I am not in favor of the idea of bankruptcy.

My brother always hated that I never looked at the bigger picture when I was younger. I always focused on right now. What would be a great solution for right now. And it would always bite me in the ass later. I feel like my husband and my mother aren’t looking at the bigger picture. I think bankruptcy would have the ability to screw us over in the long run. Not to mention that filing for bankruptcy means giving up the chance to join the military and that is not what I intend to do.

I’m the type of person who’s always looking for new experiences. For new hobbies. New interests. New things. I like flipping my life upside down, inside out and spinning it around. I get bored of things too quickly and I always want something new. Maybe that’s why I stick to paid blogging even though it’s not going where I want it to go or as quick as I want it to because finding these new blogs, communities and companies is new. It’s new without being brand new but its enough to curb my urge for something new. Does that make sense?

Okay I got totally side tracked, Nicolas finally added a fan photo page and 3 of my pictures are up there, yay! See here. Which reminds me to get his fan page up that I’ve been on and off working on since…. November lol.

There was a song that a friend of mine suggested when I was down one day… I can’t remember the name, lets hope its on my itunes… its this song Hope – Rain Don’t Last. And this song always makes me feel better when I’m having a hard time trying to figure out why things are the way they are. Even though I think I have a pretty good hold on being positive, some days are just harder than others. Just like with OCD, some days are better and easier than others… but life isn’t perfect and there’s no way that in this life or in the previous or in the next that we’ll have all perfect days.

I know things right now are hard, things will always be hard. That’s the beauty of life, it’s hard. It’s challenging. It pushes you. It’s up to you to push back. And even though right now I can’t see a light at the end of this very long and dark tunnel, I know there is one. It’s just up to me to find it. And I know I will, with time.

When you think about giving up, think of why you’ve held on for so long.

Where I’m suppose to be, where I want to be, who I want to be, who I’m suppose to be…. I look back on everything and everything behind me is either blank or a mess. I never pictured my life to turn out this way. I never pictured to be 24, still living at home with no job, no career, no degree and a crazy amount of debt. Oh and married. Never pictured I’d be married.

Then again, at 16 all I could imagine was how wonderful it would be to just end it all. How free I’d feel to finally leave this toxic world behind.

So I guess, I really had no plan. Unless to not live anymore is considered a plan.

When I was graduating high school, I knew what I wanted to be. Plain and simple. A pastry chef. My whole life I was always amazed by food, by cute pastries and pretty designs on cakes. I’ve been collecting cook books since I was a child and I’d flip through the pages and pretend I made what was on those pages. And when I graduated high school and enrolled myself into culinary school with no second thought about it… I thought my dreams were finally going to come true.

But they didn’t. And this, my friends, is life.

I did well while in culinary school. I had never baked anything that wasn’t instant in my life prior. I would actually wake up at 4AM, grab a Cafe Mocha with 3 shots of caramel and a doughnut ball pyramid drizzled in chocolate sauce from Starbucks every morning (thank the God’s there was a Starbucks downstairs), get to class chanting what the fuck am I doing here, I can’t do this, I can’t do this the rest of the day. And at the end of the day, I would get an A on every single cake I made. And there was my loving boyfriend, who didn’t really get why I was there but he would wake up some days at 4AM with me, fall asleep at Starbucks and make sure to wake up during my lunch then back to Starbucks when I was back in class. And though he didn’t get it, he supported me through it. He tried all of my cakes and he encouraged me to keep going. And without that, I don’t think I would had made it as far as I did.

But that was five years ago. And I still can’t believe it’s been that long. And he still doesn’t think I was meant to be a chef in this life (in the nicest way possible of course) but he strongly believes I was meant to be a journalist. Every time I tell him I’m going to change my major (from Accounting, to Psychology, to Business, to Oceanology, to History to Web Design… I’ve changed my majors a lot) he gives me this look and he goes off talking about how wonderful my writing is and how I should write. I should quit wasting time with things that I know I won’t be good at (in the nicest way possible) and just go with what I obviously have talent in – writing.

And yes, I could do that and yes I do want to do that… but I feel like I’m being pulled in so many different directions. There’s so much I want to learn, to do. And I feel like I don’t have much time to do any of it. I want to own a cupcakery one day. I want to work with live theater (I want to be in live theater but let’s face it, there’s no way I can convince you that I’m made for it in this lifetime, sadly lol), I want to be a journalist. I want to be in business. I want to own my own business, wait I guess that goes under cupcakery doesn’t it… I want to be a photographer. I want to live in Nevada and Washington and Alaska and Italy and New York…! I want to write for a food magazine. I want to excel in something, anything and be known for it. I want to be a psychologist. I want to change peoples lives who suffer from OCD. I want to make a difference.

And I don’t know where I should go. Or what I should do. I’m hoping that the next two years I’m going to spend (finally) getting my GE done will give me time to think things through, to come up with a destination.

The only disappointment about this is that, I’m turning 25 this year and I told myself I’d get my degree by 25 and I did try, and it just didn’t work out the way I wanted it to. I shouldn’t be too upset right? Life doesn’t really start until you’re 30 anyway, I don’t see why I’m so hell bent on making a life for myself before 30.

But this is life. It’s not perfect. It’s not what you’ve always dreamed of. And it certainly does not go the way you’ve planned, most of the time. The most you can do, is make what you can with what you’re getting. Because everything that does happen in your life. Happens for a reason. You may not get what the reason is right now, but some day, it’ll all make sense.

So, what are you trying to say? That my brain is… chemically imbalanced?! How does a brain become chemically imbalanced when nothing gets into the brain? At least, not physically.

Most people who suffer from mental illnesses don’t just suffer from one. But a string of them. Prior to dealing with OCD, I was struggling with depression. I suppose, if you think about it… a brain can become chemically imbalanced within time. Sort of like how a persons personality can reflect the things they’ve experienced in life. Both things aren’t physical, right?

I’ve read a few books on OCD; Brain Lock (which wasn’t very helpful and didn’t make much sense) and I had an OCD workbook. Like this one. This was prior to giving in and seeing a therapist. My mother always told me scary stories when I was younger about how they throw you into mental homes (she works in a mental home, ironic, isn’t it?) so naturally, I was afraid that’s what would happen. Even though legally, they can’t do that… right? Just a word of advice… self help books don’t work. They’re good to read, but don’t expect them to replace proper treatment.

Now that you know I’ve been diagnosed (twice, by two different therapist I may add) and have seen a therapist (who is amazing and I miss dearly). I have refused medication. I knew a girl, when I was in high school that took anti depressants for her depression. Unfortunately there isn’t a special OCD medicine, they give you anti depressants because they also act as anti anxiety medication. Yeah, I didn’t know that either! But anti depressants are not your friend, definitely, not.

To be honest, I don’t know where this blog is going… I’m just rambling… but its my blog, I think I have every right to ramble, don’t you ?

OCD is a disease that’s commonly looked over. Or made fun of. But to the people who suffer from it every single day, it isn’t a joke. Or something to make fun of. It’s a serious issue that unless you’re dealing with it, you’ll never know it’s intensity or pain.