time to relax and reflect

In the past week, I have completed my critical essay for graduate school and sent them into Colorado State and Kansas State. Having already been accepted to UTA I have begun thinking about the tuition for each school and other expenses. The weight and pressure to attend UTA is weighing heavily on my shoulders, I know it's going to be the cheapest, its close to Denton and I have friends around the area. in Colorado or Kansas, I have no one. It would be just me. Which I could use, a total do over. No one knows me, no one knows my family, or where I come from. I wont get judged because I'm from Rockwall, I wont get judged because my parents gave me an exceptionally blessed childhood, no one will know my sisters and say "oh you're Courtney/Allie Self's sister." I will be able to become anyone I want to be, no one will know I used to be gothic in high school, no one will know that I fell in love with my best friend and broke his heart. And all of that sounds pretty damn good to me, it almost weighs on my as must as the cost of school.

Thanksgiving is two days away, which as everyone knows is the day you are supposed to give thanks to everything you've been blessed with in your life. Every year at my aunts house we pass around the "Give Thanks Book", where everyone write a blurb about what they are thankful for in their life. It's pretty funny to go back and read what I wrote when I was younger, some of the weird things I was thankful for... But this year, I though I would make it a bit more public, so i want take the time to give thanks to the most important things and people in my life- first i'd like to give thanks for my amazing family. They have always been there for me through thick and thin and I know they always will be there for me no matter what, no matter what dumb choices I make in life. No matter how many times I may trip and fall on my face, they will always be there to pick me right up again.
I am also thankful for the gift of life, love and knowledge. There aren't many things in life that are true these days but love and knowledge are two of the most power gifts that the poor economy or crappy life situations can not break.

I have been blessed with the ability to learn and to love, and for that, I am forever grateful and thankful to God.

Take a minute and think about what you are truly thankful for.

It might be something superficial such as your job, your house, clothes, cars, money, music, your talent to sing beautifully, or maybe its your family, your children, your spouse, your pets... anything. Whatever it is that you are thankful for this thanksgiving be sure to let others know.

But you know, I sit here and think about Thanksgiving, it seems that it's only once a year that people really take time to reflect on what they are thankful for in their lives. Why? We should wake up everything and be thankful, in fact we should be thankful for even waking up in the morning because as you know, some folks don't even get that.

Welcome to Our Program!

Paranoid, I frantically began sending out emails to each of the schools I have applied to for their English graduate program. I received word that my 4 letters of recommendation had not reached their destinations nor had my official transcripts from the two community colleges I attended while in high school. In response to one email I sent to the University of Texas at Arlington, the graduate advisor informed me that he had just submitted my name for the English Graduate Studies Program for Fall 2010, of course it was under probationary admissions. For those of you who do not know about probationary admissions, all it means is my GPA wasn't very good, and my GRE score (which the man told me in the email) was way below standard (ha! Duh! I could have told you that) but because of the two letters of recommendation he received he believed I would still be a good graduate candidate. Though under probation I must maintain a B average my first semester. I plan to have A's in all 36 hours of my Masters program... no no correction ... I WILL HAVE ALL A'S IN MY 36 HOUR MASTERS PROGRAM.

Though I am thoroughly excited about the acceptance email, I am still holding my breath for Colorado State University, or even Kansas State University. Many people whom I've spoken with about those two schools always say the same thing, "but you don't know anyone in Colorado or Kansas, and you're so far from home." Well boys and girls... thats pretty much the point.

Now don't get me wrong, God knows I LOVE this great state of Texas, especially the little North Texas town called Denton, but I think it's time to escape these Texas roots of mine for 2 years. I've never lived anywhere else besides Texas, I've never lived anywhere outside the DFW metroplex for cryin' out loud! I want to experience life outside of DFW. I know that DFW is one of the greatest economically sound metroplexes in America, but the way I see it, I can always come back. I have family here, my roots are here, I know Dallas like I know the pattern of the cowlick in my hair and I think it's time to extend my branches and find something else.

I feel like a heavy weight has been lifted off my shoulders because now it's not a question of IF i'll get into Grad school, but WHERE I will go. I now have reassurance that I am in fact GOING to graduate school. YAY!!

Now, I need to push to the finish of this race.

My father keeps pushing me to apply to the University of Texas in Austin, I thought that was where I wanted to go before, just because I like Austin a lot, but what he doesn't realize and what I keep trying to tell him is that I DO NOT WANT TO GO TO UT AT ALL!!! I'm sure it's a great school, I'm sure I could get a wonderful education there, but I know it's not where I need to get my Master's degree. My parents don't believe so much in "feelings". They don't understand that I have to have that "feeling" before I make a life changing decision. For example, for my undergraduate I applied to Texas State in San Marcos and UNT. My mom and I visited Texas State first, I loved it, I loved the campus, the town, the weather, the dorms, the hills, everything it was a great school and I seriously thought that was where I wanted to go until we drove into Denton, Texas and I got this feeling. This feeling of belonging, of security, safety, and happiness. At that moment the campus didn't matter, money didn't matter, the education didn't matter, I knew Denton,Texas is where I belonged. I'm not sure if you can testify for any of those feelings before, but I certainly can. You get this overwhelming sense of serenity and peace. It feels like that 1000 piece puzzle box you've been working on your whole life is now complete. When I drove into Denton, I picked up that final shape to the puzzle and fit it snug in its perfect place.

I need to visit Colorado state and Kansas state before I commit to attending either school, if I do get accepted, to see if I get that feeling. If I don't i certainly wont go there and that's that.

Call me crazy for basing my future on a feeling but it worked once, who's to say it won't work again?

Final Rewrite?!

It's 11:34 pm, still Wednesday, the same Wednesday I wrote about in my earlier blog post while I was at work. For those of you who have already read my earlier post, I apologize but I am currently all out of unanswerable questions for the moment, in fact, my brain is pretty much mush right now.

I take that back, I think it might be 1/4 mush, 1/4 kickin' in ADHD style, and 2/4 or would I say 1/2...receiving signals from my stomach saying feed me!!! (yeah, I could totally go for that PB/J/C sandwich right about now) There's an example of my AWESOME mathematical skills for the great wide world to laugh at me for, yes, indeed I am a college graduate who does not know when to use 2/4's or 1/2. But at least I can tell you what the definition of magnanimity is without having to look it up and use it correctly in a sentence- suck on that accounting majors!

Well the whole point of writing a second blog post today is... are you ready... can you hear the drum roll?? I SAID CAN YOU HEAR THE DRUM ROLL?!?! good,

I finished my rewrite of my critical essay for graduate school admissions!!!

woooo!!!

Right after I tripled clicked the save button, I say back and thought to myself, Am I crazy? This essay is for ADMISSIONS!!!! WHAT IN THE HELL WILL ACTUAL GRADUATE SCHOOL BE LIKE?!... then yes, I concluded that in fact, I am a little bit crazy and I believe I am okay with that.

I need some reediting done on this rewritten essay of mine, I have sent it to my first editor, and I will send it to my grandfather. I am following in the footsteps of my grandfather with my passion for school and wanting a higher education and degree. My grandfather has a PhD in Economics. The coolest part of all of it is, He taught economics at UNT. If you read my blog post about how much I love UNT Library, you'll also remember that I mentioned The Auditorium building as my favorite building on campus as well, mostly because that is where 90% of my classes were held, but recently it has become my favorite for another reason, a more personal reason, okay okay no it's not just because Dr. Heard's office is in that building.. whoops! I probably shouldn't talk about my secret crush on Dr. Heard in my blog... but it's because the Auditorium building is where my grandfather's office used to be, before the Auditorium become the english building it was a several subject building, along with as I mentioned before, Curry Hall. There weren't many buildings on the UNT campus at the time. Anyways, I am going to send my essay to my grandfather to read and edit for me, because like most people, I am going to trust someone with a PhD over someone who only has their BA.

Right? Would you rather go to a Doctor or just see a nurse practitioner? That's what I thought.

where is this world going?

It's wednesday afternoon, I'm sitting in my naked cubical and it smells like peanut butter toast. My mouth is watering. I doubt anyone actually made peanut butter toast, but my nose tends to smell things differently than your nose. Today feels like a thinking day, a day to sit back and ask the unanswerable questions to anyone willing to ponder over these questions as well. I also like to make up my own theories and answers to these questions, some questions though, just are forever unanswerable.

My first question, Who was the first person to put peanut butter on a toasted piece of bread? and Why? What made this person, who ever it was, wake up one day and say "hey, i got this jar of peanut butter, and some bread, I bet if I made this bread warm and crunchy, (probably over an open fire, i wouldnt imagine peanut butter toast is as recent as the toaster) and smothered it with this here peanut butter, it'd be pretty dang good."

But for all those who know me, know that I love to put puffy cheetos inside my peanut butter and jelly sandwich... why do i do this? it tastes good, its sooo good, theres not many things in this world that taste this good, and if you haven't tried it yet, and think it's actually quite gross and you think "ew! no way, that can't possibly taste good!" Try it! I promise it's the greatest thing you'll ever eat. but the question remains, why did i think to put cheetos on my peanut butter and jelly sandwhich? Honestly I cant really remember, but I can give you a good bullshit answer that might be correct, or it might not be... i like crunchy peanut butter better than creamy, and those peanuts in that crunchy peanut butter just wasn't doing it for me, I imagine that i probably had a bag of puffy cheetos i was munching on with my sandwich, and decided that since the peanuts weren't giving my sandwich that umph, the cheetos would give it that extra pizzazz I needed. it worked like a freakin champ!! try it. i promise youll never go back to a plain old peanut butter and jelly and sandwich again.

Question 2, just how far does the sky actually go? when does the sky end and space begin?

Question 3, do animals in captivity know they're in captivity?

Ahh!! All of a sudden I actually have to do things at work other than tweet.

more questions are to come.

seriously, try the peanut butter and jelly and cheeto sandwich.

Technical Writing knowledge where did you go?

I finished my 11 page critical essay for graduate school of eighteenth century women and marriages. I edited it myself, with my vast knowledge of technical editing skills, or so those that I thought I had... I wanted a second opinion since I it wasn't just for a class that I could take a few tests and raise my over grade, it was my only shot. Because my GRE scores aren't high enough, each school I applied for told me that if my critical essay was strong enough my GRE scores wouldn't necessarily matter. I sent my essay to a fellow technical writer who edited my paper.

She tore it up, it was horrible. But I was happy because I knew all her mark ups were in good faith and honest to help me write the best paper I possibly can.

Once again, the good ol' UNT library that I never used while enrolled came in handy. I deeply regret not spending more time in that building. I always thought that of all the buildings on the UNT campus the Auditorium building and Curry Hall were my favorite, but I've decided it is Willis Library. Sure the architecture isn't as fancy and as antique as The Auditorium or Curry Hall, but the knowledge, power, beauty, hopes, dreams, and every emotion known to man, and those that some are not even aware of are hidden deep within the rows and row of old musty books that are still marked NTSU. North Texas State University, thats what UNT used to be called, when? I do not know, but it had to have been more than 40 years because when my grandfather taught economics at the school it was already The University of North Texas.

That would be a good google search, maybe when I am at work on wednesday and all out of Facebook quizzes to take.

I have 3 paragraphs complete on my redo paper, I know it will not end up at 10 pages but a teacher of mine once told me, its better to have 5 pages that are strong, thick, and never distracted than 10 pages that leap around, scratch the surface of several topics, and scatter brain itself. So if UNT wants to require me to have 10- 15 pages, suck it. you'll see that its not the amount of pages that matter, its what's on the pages.

"Down here we don't see color"

Well it's official, there are only two Self girls left. Two defiant, indecisive Self girls. The question is, which one of us will get married next, shoot, which one of us will have a boyfriend next! (thats more like it).

I met a local Bahamian who said the greatest thing I could ever hear, "down here, we don't see color."

I thought to myself as I glanced around the room at all the people, there were only 4 caucasian people in the entire bar, I was one of them. Not once did I feel uncomfortable, unsafe, or discriminated against. You know that feeling you get when you walk in to a room where you don't belong and you can feel the eyes staring at you from every crack and corner of the room, you feel you just don't belong- I didn't feel that when I walked into "Da Balcony" club/bar in downtown Nassau, Bahama. Growing up in a Dallas suburb, I know what the "ghetto" is, I know where not to go in Dallas as a young, white female, I know the gut feeling of danger in a bad part of town late at night. This didn't happen, and to be honest I was completely taken aback by it at first.

Every time a Bahamian treated me as a true person, not a tourist or a white girl, I knew Bob Marley would be proud, it was like an instant replay of One Love in the background.

Now about the actual trip, I wont go through day to day, but i'll give you a good run down.

Saturday: arrival, dinner at a 50's diner with the most amazing hot wings sauce and horrible service (or so i thought). Atlantis Casino, put in $40, came home with $80.

$22 Patron shots at the Casino, No Thank you!

Sunday: grocery shopping in downtown Nassau- a pack of 8 small chicken breasts - $32. A 1.5 pound package of ground beef $16. A pack of 30 bottled water- $22. Prices were steep.

Ahh, shuttle over to the Atlantis hotel, prepare for total domination. If you've ever seen the commercials for the Atlantis Hotel, you know it's famous for the big slide that goes through the shark tank... yeah, not so much. It's called Leap of Faith in the Mayan Temple.

I know truly believe everything looks bigger on TV.

Though the slide was still amazing and scary I expected a bit more, it being so idolized and all.

"The Rapids" aka the lazy river, not your typical Hurricane Harbor/Wet n' Wild lazy river, it's more hold on to your tube, holy shit! come out with bumps, bruises and bad wedgies kind of river. Rode that about 5 times before I started to get sick. There were rapids, twists and turns, huge waves, tube slides, caves, and more rapids.

Monday: Met Dr. Feel Good.

Courtney (my sister) and David (my brother in law) went downtown with the parents to get their marriage license. Cody, Jessica and I adventured to the beach.

Packed a cooler of Kalik Light beer, its the local beer tastes like Dos Equis without the lime. Pretty good, pretty expensive (4 24pack cases $156, and thats the cheap stuff, any imported American beer at least 2 times as expensive).

Hit the Atlantis Beach we laid out in the sun, played in the ocean, watched a man feed some crazy lookin fish. I was lackadaisically bathing in the warmth of the sun rays when the sun disappeared behind a man with a box on his head. "ey' mon 'ow bout some coconut drinks for da' ladies, I Dr. Feel Good, I make you feels alright!" This was m first encounter with Dr. Feel Good, and I can imagine that this man is pretty damn famous, maybe not with the locals but certainly with ay tourist that's knocked out or maybe I should say been knocked out by his coconut drinks. In his box atop his head he carried several small whole coconuts, a 12oz Gatorade bottle of rum, Hawaiian Fruit Punch, and Lemon Lime Gatorade. "De Incredible Hulk for yous ma'am," he says handing me a hairy coconut with a straw. One sip of that coconut drink, chills and goose bumps covered every inch of my body. DAMN! that drink was no joke. After about 10 minutes or so the drink was gone, and having had only 2 beer prior I was giggling, barely opening my eyes and asking weird questions about how high the sky goes until it turns black..

Dr. Feel Good made me feel just right.

Tuesday: more water park slides, lazy river and tube slides. This is where I came face to face with a pitch black tunnel an 80 ft drop, then another 50ft drop all in less than 10 seconds. It's name "The Abyss". It's almost too hard to explain the feeling you get when you see the green light and let go of the handle bars down into the unknown. a complete closed dark tunnel that leads somewhere you're not sure. I originally was going to go down the tube slide with my mom when my sister asked me to join her on this slide instead. I wasn't mentally prepared for this slide which made it even better. I am the type of person that likes to logically think out the mathematics of the slides before I proceed onto them, I like to know what I am getting into before I go, I am a planner. This- wasn't planned. This- was the most terrifying exhilarating thing I could have ever done. It proved to me that I can let go of my OCD ways and just live life. I know I know you're thinking, "Meghan, it was just a slide. There is no great big metaphorical analogy to it, just a slide, that's all." But to me, it's more than just a slide. I know it's called The Abyss, but maybe Atlantis should consider changing it's name to Leap of Faith instead- because that's what it really was, a leap of faith. The actual Leap of Faith slide, you can see the entire slide, and you can see where you end up waaay before you even approach the steps leading to the top of the Mayan Temple. The Abyss, I didn't even know it existed until the 3 time I hiked the stairs to ride the tube slide again. I will never forget that feeling I had the first second after letting go of the handle bar. Your mind goes completely blank, your adrenaline rushing from your toes to your nose, heart pumping at a rate I probably should be having a heart attack. I saw the green light, grabbed the handle bar and jumped in. I didn't know where I was going, I didn't know where I was going to end up, I didn't even know if I was going to make it out alive. I took a leap of faith on that slide and for a moment I was truly free. I wasn't thinking about work, or grad school, or my sisters wedding, I wasn't going over GRE vocabulary words in my head, I wasn't worrying about how much money I was going to lose in the Casino, or my friends I left back home. For those 7 seconds I was completely-- Me.

Wednesday- Friday: Rehearsal dinner where I told David how I really felt about him and made myself and the rest of the room cry. Took Drew out for his first night, had the most amazing barbeque ever!! Wedding day-Thursday: hit the pool for an hour or so to get those last bit of rays to tan my skin, and then the craze began. My frenetic sister was all over the place trying to make sure everyone and everything was perfect and ready to go. We didn't have any major disasters like I presumed which is always good. The wedding ceremony was beautiful, on the beach, sun was setting, perfect orange clouds in the background, two homeless doggies running around the beach, waves crashing in the photos, it was serene. lost $180 at the casino friday night at Let it Ride and Roulette. I suck a gambling. I'm thankful I don't have a gambling problem.

Every where we went, especially when we went out to dinner, the service.... AWFUL! Americans are always in a rush, the Bahamians- are not. they do not care, they do not rush, they do not bother with refilling drinks, everything is done on their own time. it's rather frustrating when you sit there for an hour waiting for a refill on water and im not exaggerating, I have 27 other people to back me up on this claim. We spent a total of 2.45 hours in this restaurant to accommodate all 28 of us, sure we knew it was a large party and would obviously take a bit longer than had it been 4 of us, but this was a bit ridiculous.

Getting off the airplane last night, talk about a major culture shock. I came back to fast paced, cold weather, technologically advanced and motivated place I didn't think was as bad 9 days ago as I do now. In the Bahamas I had a chance to take a deep breath and look around at what life could be like if people in America joined forces instead of arguing over which political party stands on which side of an issue. We all want a better world, so work together, not against each other.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip and experience I will never forget.

Now it's time to get back to real life, graduate school applications, essays of woman's rights, social media, and kissing ass as I run frantically back and forth to the kitchen serving tex-mex food to hungry over weight Americans.