Happiness

With this new year, I’m hoping that I’ll be happier; most people make new year resolutions of things they want to be. I’m usually not one to make new year resolutions but this year I just want to be happy, not stress constantly or depressed like I have been these past two years. Happiness is something that most deserve and I wish I’m one of those who do. I’m the happiest when I’m with the people that mean the world to me, the one that brings me the most happiness is my best friend Sarah but we now live 9 hours away from each other and have very different sleeping schedules. In May or June, I will be hopefully moving back down south and that will most likely bring me more happiness than living here. Happiness is something that just accrues randomly by the weirdest things, like some youtube video of senseless humor. 497A4C12-B804-489A-9171-14D349AACB84.jpeg

“happiness rock” by smariesmithblog is shared under CC by 2.0 license 

Anger Issues

There’s a stereotype of redhead/gingers having really bad tempers and as a ginger, I can confirm that, at least for me, the stereotype is true. I have anger issues and only recently I’ve been able to contain it. Growing up the parents of my neighborhood didn’t like me playing with their kids because their kids loved to harass me and I’d hurt them for annoying me. My parents have named my anger “shark” for how a shark attacks its prey is the same way I fight people but I’m not the only one with anger issues in my family; my mom has her “bees” that you can also hear and it’s terrifying. My Dad’s anger is “a berzerker”, he used to fight a lot when he was younger and he most likely will when due to his size and amount of experience. When I get mad I tend to get blinded by the anger and I attack people without realizing what I am doing. The adults in my neighborhood were afraid of my family due to our anger and no fear of fighting. Anger is something we can control though and I have; people tend to no long tiptoe around me which is great. It took me three years to get it under control and now I rarely experience anger.Screenshot 2018-12-04 at 11.11.59 AM.png

“Shark” by Teodum shared with attribution 2.0 generic (CC BY 2.0).

ADHD

I grow up in a place where every adult thought that a hyper kid had ADHD and so many of the kids around me were being misdiagnosed. I was one of the hyperactive kids that just couldn’t seem to focus on one thing and everyone felt the need to push their opinion onto me and my family. Ritalin became really popular when I was in 2nd and 3rd grade, parents were giving it to their kids like candy just because they couldn’t handle an active child. Luckily my parents didn’t jump onto that trend and although some of my teachers desperately wanted me to be medicated, they wouldn’t do that because I didn’t have ADHD it was just my personality. So many of my friends were “diagnosed” at that time but by the time they hit 7th grade, everyone was “magically” cured, as if they never had it.

Second and third grade was hard for me because all the teachers had become used to having zombie-like students and every time there was a parent-teacher conference the teacher would just talk about how bad I was and they’d beg my parents to put me on Ritalin, my parents refused every time. In second grade my teacher HATED me, she accused me of stealing, bullied me during class, ignored me, and wouldn’t help me at all. She had her son also in her class which shouldn’t have been allowed and she was so mean to him all the time and was screaming at him to be the “perfect” example of a student but that wasn’t what he was. Even though we were only second graders she expected us to act perfect and not like kids at all which caused a lot of conflicts with her and my parents. By the last two weeks of school, she decided that she’d do a complete 180 and tried to treat me better but it was a futile attempt because it was still very obvious she still hated me. During the third grade my teacher stopped just talking to my parents about her excessive dislike for me, she’d talk about how much she hated me to the teacher in training and also any adult that would come into the classroom. One parent-teacher conference with that teacher has left a permanent mark in my memory, it was only the first month of school and apparently I hadn’t met her standers, even though I wasn’t failing, she called my parents in for a meeting and told them that if I didn’t calm down or bring up my “bad” grade she was going to fail me or have me removed from her class. If she had gone through with her threat it wouldn’t look good for me when I’d try to go to college.

Finally, fourth grade came around and it was like a breath of fresh air, at the open house my parents explained their problems with my previous teachers and wanted to make sure that if I was mistreated by another teacher again they would be pulling me out of school. My teacher that year was the sweetest and most understanding teacher they had. It was quite nice because for the first time since starting school there I had more than one friends. For the next two years I was there, I didn’t have any mean teachers but I did have the lazy ones that just didn’t care. When my friends and I finally left that school they were no longer on Ritalin and they were just fine without it; sadly a few of them later was put on anti-depressants. ADHD was something that people in my town thought the symptoms were just being hyper and easily distracted but it much more than that so please do not self-diagnosed people just from what you can see.

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“30_adhd” by I Barely Knowr shared with attribution 2.0 generic (CC BY 2.0).

My Stress

I’m very prone to getting stressed easily, especially over the little things and the way I handle it is not in the slightest bit healthy. Ever since I was young I would over think things and instead of trying to deal with it properly I would jump to drastic solutions. I’ve always dealt with having poor memory and growing up I was a very hyper child so it was hard for me to study. I still get distracted easily and am not good at sitting down and doing homework but I now focus in class more. Staying focused is still very hard for me but I’ve learned to semi maintain it.

Stress is something that I haven’t learned how to handle yet. Currently, the Stress has been getting worse due to more and more responsibilities that are placed on me. The stress has caused me to form anxiety and it takes a strong hold on me when I’m trying to work. The prim thing that gives me anxiety is when I’m think about my future because all my life I’ve known what I wanted to do but recently I’ve realized that was all just childish dreaming and that there is no way I could something like being a vet and I’ve lost interest in doing so but now with that dream dead I don’t know what to do because I’m not good at anything enough to pursue a career and now I’m just left idly standing and waiting for a calling. Being at the age I am now I should be thinking about the present more than just standing back and watching it all flash before me but since I don’t have hardly any control over my life I tend to miss huge opportunities for my future that could make it better.

My family is unaware of just how stressed I am and I don’t want them to know because I feel like I’d just be making a full circle back to the beginning and I know that they will say that shouldn’t be stressed over such things. From their view, I’m very relaxed and calm person that doesn’t seem to have a care in the world. My main source of stress is myself and my social life, I can’t get anything done and it shows with my grades and my health. Stress has caused resulted in me not sleep nor eating properly and those things just place even more stress on me. I’m very open about my stress with my close friends and they have begun to understand why I choose to be stressed rather than tell people who can help; its because I’m quite prideful and don’t like to ask for help and once I do start to ask for help I am then bombarded with questions and people feeling like they deserve answers that I don’t have. This time of the year is really hard for me because of exams, swim practice, home responsibilities, social needs, and things tend to build up till they all crash down on top of me and then everything is ruined. Like I stated at the beginning I don’t handle stress very well and will mentally start to melt but with Christmas break coming I’ll finally be able to get my head back on right.

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“Stress” by The Uncommon Place share with attribution 2.0 generic (CC BY 2.0).

The Long Trip

I travel a lot but this was particular trip was the longest by far. The drive to the first destination took 32 hours and it didn’t help that there was my baby sister who was almost one year old and my grandmother who has never been on a trip that lasted more than 9 hours. The trip had 4 main stops: The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Tijuana Mexico. We stayed in The Grand Canyon for three days camping and it was the first time I’ve ever been truly camping. We stayed in Las Vegas for three days and spent most of our time in casinos playing the games. We spent one and a half days in Los Angeles sightseeing. When we went to Mexico we only stayed that afternoon because we didn’t want to risk anything. The drive back had its own stories such as driving through the desert with the heat of 130 F and it started to rain midday, it started to rain which caused the temperate to drop to 60 F.

The Grand Canyon is full of beautiful nature such as the animals like the deer elk that freely walk around. The first night that we camped our inflatable mattress popped so we had to sleep on the hard floor. I shared a tent with my nana and brother and all they wanted to do is argue with each other. When we woke up there were deer and elks walking around our tents and it’s amazing how big the elks are. Since we didn’t have a kitchen most of our food was either sandwiches, burgers, or McDonald’s. On our last full day there me, my dad, and my brothers hiked almost all the way to the bottom of the canyon but when we were about 3 miles away from it I started to get really bad heat exhaustion and almost fell off a cliff twice. The fact that we started the descend on the hottest day of the year during the hottest part of the day wasn’t helping us. It was so much hard to go up the canyon than going down and there wasn’t much shade.

After leaving the Grand Canyon we drove to Las Vegas which was beautiful. We stayed in a condo that belonged to a woman that my father worked with and since we were guest we got special treat meant such as a larger condo because the owners were hoping that it would result in my family being interested in buying a membership. While there we many were walking to all the casinos and sightseeing. All the casinos we went to had sections dedicated to arcade games which were fun and Dillan (my brother) and I wasted a lot of money on the games. It was the 4th of July while we were there but the night we were hoping to see the fireworks they got canceled due to the planes in the area. Surprisingly there weren’t any Elvis impersonators the entire time we were there which was a huge disappointment for my nana who loves Elvis.

The last place we stayed at overnight was Los Angeles and the traffic to get anywhere was so terrible. We went to was Santa Monica and the Santa Monica pier; even though it was mid-July the beach ocean and the area surrounding it was really cold due to the Pacific winds. We had also driven past Beverly Hills which took us almost an hour due to the amount of traffic that collected around the area. The main place we wanted to go look at was The Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Hollywood sign but we ended up spending the majority of our day on the Walk of Fame which was fun and I got several pictures.

Our last stop was Tijuana Mexico but we only stayed there during the daytime. While going through boarded control there were several things that had concerned me like the fact that my brother’s passport had the wrong gender on it, they only checked our bags on the way out of America and not back in, and how invested the lady at the desk on my way back into America was in my childhood. On the other side of the border, there was so much poverty and filth, people just running around not caring if they ran into taxi traffic, and people constantly yelling at us to buy something. When we had finally gotten to downtown Tijuana things did not improve, people wanted to sell us all kinds of things, alcohol was cheap, and you could buy drugs that in America you would have to have a prescription to get. We had eaten at an amazing restaurant that was western themed, I don’t remember what I ordered. Tijuana was an interesting place to be and my family has no intentions of heading back to Mexico but it was quite the experience.

It took us two days to get back and we only stopped at a hotel for 3 hours. People like my nana who think vacations are for relaxing shouldn’t go now trips with my family because we go big or either don’t go at all. My parents believe that vacations are meant to go and experience things not lay down and relax because if you want to go do that you could stay at home and not waste your money. We go on several vacations a year and this year we have gone on 7 trips and still have more to go. I recommend doing something similar.

My True Home

It has been a little over a year since I moved from my small hometown in north Alabama and every few months I head back. I had lived in that small town for 11 years, I am now 16 years old, and it was the only thing that I knew as a home; it was also where my parents bought their first house. It’s quite hard to move from the place you grew up at especially when you’re in high school had just figured out how you want things in your life to be. I’m not close to my actual extended family, in fact, I hadn’t seen nor interacted with my dad’s sisters and their kids in 4 years.

The people I classified as my family was my household family (mother, father, brother, and sister) and my 4 friends and some of their family. My best friend’s name is Sarah and she is someone I trust with almost everything, such as secrets that I’m not comfortable with telling others (I would trust her with more but she’s a bit of a scatter-brain and has a problem following instructions). Then there’s Alyssa, she is a really good friend and since meeting me she has grown so much more confident in herself. Jessie is also someone I can trust with doing things but she is very judgemental but if need anything done or need help with studying she is the one I turn to. Lastly, there’s Brinley who I don’t know if she really is even my friend anymore due to her getting mad at me recently and dropping me from contact; we have a complicated history because we had dated and her family hates me so she isn’t allowed to hang out when I visit.

When I visit them I get to stay at Sarah’s house and her mom classifieds me as more of a daughter than her actual daughters. It’s nice to have someone in my life that will allow me to stay if I ever needed a place. Tammy, Sarah’s mom, will go out and buy us more than enough food, let us use her car, and let us do just about anything as long as it is legal. Usually, we stay at the house sitting around and just enjoy each other’s company since we all aren’t outgoing enough to go to a party and stuff but this time we had gone out to my old high school’s football game (which they lost) and also went to the fair with Sarah’s secret boyfriend. Sadly I only saw Jessie one day of my three-day visit but I hadn’t seen Brinley in person since the week before the end of my freshman year.

Those four girls are so important to me that I intend to keep all of them in my life, hopefully. I am currently trying to convince them to apply to the same college as me since they don’t know where to go. It would be great to have your best friends right beside you all the way through your life now wouldn’t it.

New Orleans

The place of voodoo and partying; New Orleans is a place that everyone should visit at least once in their lives. New Orleans is a place of large history and several cultures, there is a lot to see there. New Orleans was founded in 1718 by a French company which inspires much of designs of the building and streets. Savary was very popular in the south and when the Africans brought their cultural they brought the voodoo beliefs with them and the belief is still strongly used and is one of the things that makes so New Orleans popular with tourism. New Orleans is host several parades and festivals throughout the year; my personal favorite being the Voodoo Fest, Krewe of Boo, and Mardi Gras.

Voodoo Fest is one giant concert with several bands playing on stages that match their genre of music throughout the designated location; I went when I was in 6th grade and I saw the Foo Fighters, The Dirty Bourbon River Show and AWOLNATION perform. Several people were drunk and high walking around just enjoying themselves and buying overpriced food and merchandise. Sadly I had been so tired that night me and my brother fell asleep on the ground during the Foo Fighter performance.

Krewe of Boo is an amazing parade to witness with everyone in costumes running enjoying themselves, the parade is full of lights and is quite similar to Mardi Gras. When I visited there my mom had made everyone themed costumes. My Dad had even been put on the front page of the newspaper due to his sugar skull costume but my favorite was when my dad and I were voodoo themed with my dad being the voodoo priest and myself being his voodoo doll.

Mardi Gras was quite the event when I went to witness it was 2017 and that was the year that a man ran over a crowd of people, I personally did not witness the act but was a block away and was unaware of what happened till four hours later. The Mardi Gras parade itself was very entertaining and very shocking due to the number of shirtless women freely (and very drunk) walking around and flashing the men on the floats to get the items they wanted.

New Orleans isn’t just parades and festivals but it is a very beautiful place to see if you know where you are going. The French Quarter is a very popular and beautiful place to go see along with the New Orleans city park. If you do enjoy partying and street performances then I recommend going Bourbon Street but if you are under the age 18 or can’t defend yourself well I don’t recommend that you stay on that street after 9:30pm because there are several bars on that street and the people can be dangerous when intoxicated, some don’t even have to be intoxicated.

Although New Orleans is a beautiful place and a good place to have a good time it can be very dangerous to do a large number of people that often flood the streets in the evening. it’s best to stay in a group and spend sightseeing times during the day. But do enjoy New Orleans and see the culture.

Key West

Key West is the Southernmost Point of the Continental US and just over the horizon is Cuda at 90 miles away. It’s a beautiful place to go any time of the year due to it being close to the equator with beautiful daytime weather and the island itself is made coral and it has no natural beaches with the sand being imported from the Bahamas. It’s a great place to go snorkeling and diving, fishing, sightseeing, or just party at. It is a very small island with an impressive history behind it; such as the number of hurricanes that have hit, the Ernest Hemingway house with its six-toed cats, the Bahia Honda Rail Bridge, the oldest house on Key West, the free-roaming chickens, key west cemetery, and the 7-mile bridge; you can learn about these things on one of the several history tour buses. Although the island is just barely over 7 miles in size it has a large population of 26,990 residents and there are several tourists that go down throughout the year. It is referred to as a gay paradise do its large acceptive community and there is a part of Duval street that is just dedicated to gay bars, clubs and stores. It’s a wonderful place to visit with friends and family and I’ve been going there for 7 years even 2-3 times a year due to its beautiful surrounding ocean and wonderful sightseeing. I recommend going at some point in your life to experience the beauty yourself.