Life Status: Updated

Yes, I will always allude life to the way technology works. Since I last posted, a few updates have been downloaded. Some have been tried out, others uninstalled, and then reinstalled because of the urgent need of them.

Firstly, I said my first “no” to a shift offer. I had a lot of things to do that day and just couldn’t make it, and saying “no” is one of the hardest things to do because I hate making other people feel disappointed. But it had to be done. And I did it. Fantastic. Still feel like an asshole.

I was one point away from a B on my math test. Considering I didn’t get a chance to study at all with the crazy weekend I had last week, I’m impressed. The class average was 49 points out of 70. I’ll also throw this in for perspective: In the history of my math classes, my first test has always been an F. I’m talking 50% and below. That’s after I studied. So it’s obvious having my tests proctored in a separate room, where its quiet, has really made a huge difference. Why did I get points knocked off? I forgot a ()^2 in a formula, fucked up on the first problem because it was a problem review from a class I haven’t taken in a year and a half, and I forgot a 1/2. So note to self: proctoring in a different room doesn’t help the attention span.

I have to read a book that I hate. It’s collected short stories and fuck me, it makes no sense. None of the short stories make any fucking sense. I want to take this book and shove it up the publishers ass. And all the reviews that say this writer makes others gibber, or that she’s the quintessential fiction writer were obviously written by people bribed. Because fuck this book.

Some peers told me I pay way more attention to detail than other people and therefore think I should tone down some things in my writing. I respectfully agreed and disagreed. I believe there are times I take too long to describe something because in my eyes I see every little thing about it. Someone seeing five things happen in twenty seconds in my eyes is seeing fifty things happen in twenty seconds. I’ve always been that way. Catch me on a bad day and I’ll tell you it’s because I have the ability to manipulate and slow down time. Catch me on a day like today and I’ll tell you it’s just a product of how my brain perceives things.

At the same time: Criticism.

Need I say more?

Criticism can be hard to take, particularly on my writing because of how much of myself I put into it. I took an AP english course in high school. My attitude was this upon entering the classroom:

This was my attitude after two weeks:

Because my teacher was not like a high school teacher, she was like a private university professor. She pushed me harder than any teacher had ever pushed me. She picked on me in class, she embarrassed me in class, she laughed at how quiet I was and poked and prodded at me like I was the village idiot. She scribbled across the bottom of one of my papers that it was horrible and what the hell was I thinking? She didn’t say “hell”, but that was the emotion through her words.

I learned how to take criticism from her: No one tells me my writing is fucking horrible and gets away without me showing them otherwise.

At the end of the year she found me grading papers in the English office. I was a teachers aid. The papers I were reading were fucking horrible by the way.

Anyway, she comes in and leans by me and I stare up at her slowly because I’m already expecting a verbal beat down and whenever I see her I’m always ambiguous about how I should react. She asks me if I’ve decided to apply to the honor society at the college I was going to. I told her no. She said I needed to, that I had the grades for it. She told me I was really smart. She said a few others things too, but I can’t remember. I walked away that day very, very confused.

Another life update: I’m now apart of the honor society.

When I entered another English class at my college, the professor I took was an older woman who really liked to talk. I was always first in her class because I wanted to get the shit over with. The college made me take the class and all the books we were reading and the essays we were writing I’d already done in high school. Anyway, one day she came in and said the name of my old high school teacher. She told me she’d been told I was a great student and writer and that I would be a good addition to the class.

Once again, I left really fucking confused.

Until I realized what that high school teacher did for me.Until I realized she was pushing me my senior year of high school because she knew I wasn’t deaf or mute or stupid. She knew I was smarter than I thought I was. Sometimes you don’t know how much someone affects your life until you start living a little more.

The opportunities I’ve been given are astounding. Working at Second Story (which, by the way, was the first peer respite house in the state of California, seventh in the United States) is by far the crowing jewel. It opened when I was 16 years old. I’m only 21 for fucks sake. How many 21 year old’s have this kind of opportunity? How many 21 year old’s with mental health issues get a chance to be around their own people and learn and grow like I do? How many 21 year old’s get a chance to be in their field before they’d even got a piece of paper saying they’re allowed to? Sometimes I feel like I’ve learned more from guests and coworkers in the short time I’ve been here than I’ve learned from my own parents over 21 years. I don’t know how to feel about that.

And to think a month ago I was ready to quit everything: school, working, life in general.

I have to remember whatever stress I feel has the potential to make me stronger.

Surviving Anxiety And College

Anxiety and depression go hand in hand with college.

Hatred of all mankind, your life, and everything that exists in the known universe goes hand in hand with school in general, am I right, am I right?

But seriously, whether you have an anxiety “disorder” or not, college somehow manages to evoke the worst out of you. Smart kids, dumb kids, average kids: we all experience it. You could do like the guy passed out in the public library in front of me who obviously shot heroin and decided to come sleep in the library because fuck it, no one cares in this town, or you can find some strategies to remedy the situation. Here are some things, as an avid anxiety sufferer for the entirety of my short life, I think can be helpful.

1. For the love of whatever God you do (or don’t) believe in, DO NOT overwhelm yourself.What I mean by that is don’t take 18 units because you want to get your degree and get the hell out if you can’t handle it. If all you can handle is two classes per semester, take two classes per semester. It’s not a race. Even when it feels people are flying past you at lightening speed and getting perfect grades and starting their life as a theoretical physicist with a Ph.D at the age of twenty two, resist the urge to trip balls. Resist it. After all, you’re in college. You’re there to do things at your pace, how you want; how you perform relative to your neighbor has absolutely no reflection on your intelligence (Newtons 632nd law). The more you focus on others the worse your anxiety will get. 
2. Go easy on yourself. If your anxiety keeps you from a lecture one day, do all you can to remind yourself you’re taking this brief hiatus for yourself, so you can come back to the next class stronger and a little more mentally aware. That does not mean do what my (not) smart ass does, and take an anxiety day every other day. It means your health is important. It means keep in communication with your professors. If your anxiety isn’t entirely “social anxiety”, keep in communication with people you’ve befriended in class. You don’t need to tell them about your struggles, but they can be good resources if you need notes or homework for a day you’ve missed. I personally have no friends to depend on, so consider yourself at an advantage if you do.

   

   The Thought Makes Me Gag

3. Get your fucking ass to the student health/accommodations/”disability” center. Now. If you haven’t done that and instead you’re reading this post, I give you permission to mentally mark this number, save it for later, and run to your campus. The only thing about this is you will need some form of “proof” from a doctor, a psychologist, whoever, who has known you for a while. Most people provide documentation from a physician or psychiatrist. I convinced the one at my school to just go off a brief letter from my psychologist. They give you a separate study area, they give you a silent place where your tests are proctored, they give you longer times on your tests, and it literally forces you to communicate with your professors. If that idea makes you nervous, I know how you feel. I couldn’t even go into the financial aid office this week because they fucking moved the building and I’ve been going to same place for the past three years; I can’t just suddenly change my fucking routine damnit! So if new things like that scare you, don’t worry. The deadline, the thought of failure that may make you even more anxious, will eventually force you to do it. 
4. Make yourself comfortable. If you don’t like small classrooms or crowded classrooms, sit at the end of the aisle near the door. I should learn to take my own advice. For example, yesterday at an Alpha Gamma Sigma meeting (oh yeah, join your honor society, looks good if you’re applying to other universities or grad school) my boyfriend and I had to sit in the middle of a row because there weren’t many seats left that fit us next to each other, and I’m anal like that; I need my support force with me at all times. My heart thumped like I was running a marathon. The tingling in my fingers came and my brain was screaming “get out, get out, get out.” I couldn’t leave though, not at the first meeting of the semester. So I sat there in pain shaking my leg and trying to keep from crying in front of fifty or so people. I took deep breaths silently and made myself focus on tiny details of each speaker: lines under their eyes, strands of hair sticking up, belly button rings, jean colors, ethnicity, names, and repeated each word they said over again in my head. It took my focus off my body and into the present. So, don’t do what I did. Do the opposite of what I did. Do the opposite of everything I do. 
5. They woke up the heroin addict. I’m waiting for him to pass out again. His eye lids are fluttering. . . . . now they shut. Waiting for his body to topple over again. There’s a difference between being really tired and being on a downer, trust. Try not to do heroin, if you fall asleep during your math test you will definitely not pass. No students, the integral of e^-4x times sin(2x) is NOT your face print.

   

   You Do This.

6. Take classes you enjoy or always, always save time for something you enjoy. Music, art, creative writing, whatever. It will allow you an outlet during the day. 
7. Don’t keep it a secret. If your anxiety gets so out of control that it’s affecting your school work and your daily life, tell someone. Get a free counselor on campus. Find a good friend. Join an “anxiety” club. Tell someone online. Just get it out of you before it cracks you in half. Because it has no reservations in making you miserable, it feeds off the fact that it knows you won’t do shit.
8. Sleep! If you’re like me and you can’t sleep . . . well . . . try! Try sleepy-time tea. Try exercising or moving around a lot during the day, even if it’s just doing things around your house or dorm or room or whatever.
9. He toppled over again.
10. Last but not least. . . if you feel like you’re shutting down, don’t panic. You’ve been here before and you’ve made it out alive. You’re not alone in this struggle. It’s something I often fail to convince myself. So I end up listening to songs like this:

. . . and end up convincing myself I’m the demon spawn destined to murder everyone and bleed their bodies in a field.

Don’t be like me, remember?

How Intelligent Are You?

I need to speak about this.

This may not be as whimsical or joking as my other posts, because I’m disturbed. I’m deeply disturbed and actually a little hurt. Not for myself, but for the people who have been reaching out to me specifically and confiding in me. I see a disturbing trend in a subject that’s only ever touched on briefly in the media.

I’m on a website to help people dealing with depression or crisis or other mental health issues. (Yes, they train you, but what better training is there than having been in such situations yourself?) I spent a few hours today talking with a deeply saddened individual who was cutting themselves as we spoke and I stayed on the inter-web line with them until I could confirm they were safe to the best of my abilities. I also gave them resources links. I’m used to speaking with the deeply depressed and hopeless.

What I was not prepared for today was the influx of high school students applying to college, and undergraduates.

Obviously that’s a stressful time in many people’s lives: it was stressful in mine because I realized spending the last two years of my high school career smoking weed in the back of the school wouldn’t help me get into Stanford and that I was stuck in my home down for another three years. Who would have known? Life is a mystery.

I’m sure you’ve all heard recently that this generation of college applicants and high schoolers are under the most amount of stress yet. I’m sure you’ve all heard that because that’s all you hear–that one line. Maybe they mention the price of tuition (which, by the way, I was seriously considering sawing off my left leg and sending it in with one of my applications just to see if they’d willingly accept the payment) or the average required G.P.A (U.S.A standards here).

We don’t talk much anymore about how we force kids to intertwine their identity with their grades or about how we constantly compare their grades to their level of intelligence and therefore knowingly pressure them into perfection? Something we tell them from birth doesn’t exist? 

I went through college prep; the class was small and I felt generally comfortable around them. We knew each other all four years. They stressed a 3.5 G.P.A and above, labeling 3.5 as the absolutely worst you could do.

Because I had nothing else, and because it was the only thing the school and I felt I could excel at, I turned to academia as my savior. So when I went to college and pushed a 3.9 G.P.A, I had self confidence. I could do something right, and people respected me for it, particularly for my writing. Each essay I wrote had to be better than the last. Each paragraph I wrote needed to be ingenious, particularly since I wasn’t so great of a talker.

Part of my drive to become an M.D came from the fact that people expect me to do something they consider great.

I’ve since found my own reasons to strive for it.

The Stamp On My Forehead I Wore Not So Proudly

It all fueled my self-esteem and I wrapped my identity around it all. So when my mental health decided to tear me down and my G.P.A fell from 3.9 to 3.5 I almost killed myself. I was self-harming like crazy, sitting in my room, the stress and depression getting worse the more I focused on it, figuring out ways to kill myself with style.

I wished I could have a gun, that would have been the ultimate way to go out, like the man who took his life right down the street from my house in his car. Quick and painless if you do it right. They say those who use violent weapons are generally self-loathing and I certainly loathed myself at that point in my life.

Slitting the wrists vertical was an option, but I couldn’t leave the mess. I considered jumping off that one cliff again but could never find the energy to drive out there. Perhaps I didn’t want it enough.

If I wasn’t perfect, I didn’t want to be alive. I hadn’t even turned 19 yet.

These are values instilled in some of us in this education system. If you don’t live up to these expectations, if you don’t become this, if you don’t get into this school than what’s the point of your life? You can’t get a job without college, you can’t be happy without college, you’re NOTHING without college.

I beg to differ. Greatly.

I spoke to so many students today who scored spectacularly on the SAT (perfect score I believe), maintained amazing G.p.A’s and did everything right. Most of them got rejected from the schools they wanted.

Now let’s think about that for a moment. What does it take to get into an Ivy League school? Often money or Fame or family history or ethnic background help tremendously because let’s not forget that all too important quota to fill.

So the system they make us strive for perfection in, the system they say will guarantee us a good reputation (as if that defines our character), is one of the most imperfect piece of shit machines man has corrupted in the last few hundred years.

That’s how desperate we are as a society for perfection. It’s not what you do with yourself, it’s not how you handle or acquire the knowledge you do, it’s all about how it looks on paper. 

This is why I loathe the reality of resumes and professional interviews; it’s all just a way to make yourself sound like some perfect, well oiled machine when you’re really just a ratty old human.

We’re obsessed with the idea and theory of intelligence, not so much the actuality of it. Everyone wants to be “smart”, but most people are conflicted on what that means. And for good reason.

I talked down another medical student ready to give up on life because he felt like his fellow students were more successful and perfect than him.

I saw an influx of people my age who could think about nothing more than their reputation, than who will be proud of them when they get finished slaving over a pot of grades on the stove of college, as if any of that determines a happy life. I took the time (a couple hours each person) to pull them from that warped mind set and got them into the present, talking about the good things about themselves, their personality, the other things in their life besides the pressures placed on them. I helped them see, for a brief moment, perfection doesn’t exist and I’m living proof.

I don’t see this as much in people who were not pushed as children to be better than everyone, in people who were exposed to other things besides academic education, in people who were allowed to develop their own interests instead of their worthiness as humans being placed upon their unusual level of intelligence.

So, more than anything, this is a message to the future college students and current college students who feel that stress of living up to a certain reputation that has somehow been placed upon you. A G.P.A is about as relevant to your life as your I.Q. Your I.Q is about as indicative of your intelligence as the bottom of my shoe, the one that stepped in the dog shit.

I mean, think about it. IQ tests mainly measure processing speed and vague understanding, (as well as learned knowledge they don’t tell you about). But who said that was the definition of intelligence? If the validity of science is determined by what it can measure and what it can detect, and the measurement is horribly inaccurate because of that fact that what you’re measuring can’t actually be measured unless you yourself create the parameters and definition of said thing being measured (and therefore end up with a biased definition), than how in the world can you logically conclude you can pinpoint the level of someone’s intelligence?

My point? Live by your own terms. It saves a lot of heartache on your part.

Your IQ and The MePhone

Am I the only one whose humor pitches a major tent while listening to black metal? I don’t know man, it must be something about their non-satanic, faux satanic hellish screams, clown make-up and fabricated foam horns they got from the runner up from last Season’s “Face Off” sticking out of their shoulder pads that get my funny bone throbbing.

I’m probably the only one.

After watching far too much Pyrocynical , I’m in the mood for some rich stupidity. Let’s get started, shall we?

*Just a note to all 2.5 of you Black Metal fans out there, at the moment I’m throbbing to “Hell Is For Children” by Vesania. Don’t know that song? Neither do I; it burst its way onto my iHeart Station.*

In fact, we’ll start this post with one of my pet peeves. Products related to and unrelated to Apple Inc. who put “i” in front of everything.

Like iHeart. What the fuck does that even mean? Let’s really think about it from the perspective of the English language I’m sure we’re all masters of. Iheart is not a complete sentence. It’s not even a phrase or a fragment. It’s grammatical suicide and we all know how I feel about the nine year olds commenting on YouTube videos with “lyke if u cri evry tim”. I feel that’s where the inspiration for products labeled with “I” come from.

Yes, smart ass, I understand IHeart is a literal language translation of “I <3”. I also understand the point is to individualize the product, hence “IPhone”, or “IPad”. Yes, it’s your phone. I gathered that from the fact that you paid for it and you’re the one using it all the time. Does the name of the phone really need to tell me it’s yours? 

That must have been inspired by toddlers who have yet to understand the wonders of proper language. When you try to take their lolly from them, they screech “I lolly!” until they learn they should say “my lolly”.

The IPhone 7: the MePhone. Genius.

Then there are the intellectual leeches. The Stephen Hawking’s on the Einstein’s shoulders, like Bluetooth who sell shit like this:

Properly entitled the “Ihere”.

It finds your keys.

Keys.

KEYS. That’s plural motherfucker, it should be the “We’re here”.

But maybe I’m just nitpicking. Let’s give all these companies the benefit of the doubt. They deserve it. Totally.

Speaking of intelligence, there’s nothing more stupid than people who waste their life trying to find cures for stupidity. Like those scientists who believe they’ve identified gene clusters in the brain connected to human intelligence.

By the way, they found it by examining brains of people who had neurosurgery for epilepsy. The article I read (which you can find here, but why would you want to without skimming my wonderful explanation of it?) did not express how they went about examining these brains, so I’d say it’s safe to assume during the surgeries they went prodding around with their scalpels until they found a soft spot or two.

The author jumps from talking about dissecting examining brains to the same mad scientists analyzing genes expressed in the brain and combining that data with genetic info from healthy people who were suckers enough to take an IQ test and from people with neurological disorders and intellectual disability. I’m assuming in that latter category some of these scientists were included.

The conclusion? Genes that influence intelligence in those so-called healthy people can cause significant problems neurologically if they mutate too much. Shocking.

I honestly thought that was already a well known fact.

“Like a football team made up of players in different positions”. That’s how the neurologist described how traits are governed by large groups of genes. So I’m going to take another wild guess and say the genes that govern intelligence in smart people crash head-first into each other less often than the genes that govern intelligence in not so smart people.

Although, these scientists are from Europe, maybe he was talking about non-american football and I just made myself sound like an idiot.

Whatever.

The point of all this are the implications of potential future findings. You know, let’s alter our brain power despite the fact that genes are incredibly complicated and turning on a part of one might make us grow antennas out of our asses. 

What would earth do with a bunch of smart people anyway?

Let’s think about what the people on this Earth with the highest IQ’s (we’re talking 190-300) are doing at this moment.

The guy with the estimated 250-300 IQ died in 1944 so I won’t defile his name. Very smug look in his photograph, though. He knows he’s smarter than the people who will look at his photograph in the future and call him smug.

Smug!!!!!

The apparent media sensation in America, Christopher Langan just chills at home on his farm coming up with the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe. I have read portions of it (not all) and I’m not entirely impressed, but then again my IQ isn’t 210 is it?

Maybe it is. I never fell for that IQ bullshit though.

I did partially agree with what he said in 2001: science doesn’t consider anything real that can’t be detected and then measured. But you can’t technically measure a mathematical principal or detect one and yet they must be used for scientists to conduct their work. Therefore, people are using numbers to try and come up with information about a universe (most of which we can’t detect anyway) when numbers haven’t really been proven “real”.

Disagree? I’m sure a lot of people do. It follows a pattern of logic though, so I’ll give him that much. It also requires you step outside of the realm of 2+2 and remember numbers are something man made up to help him make sense of the physical reality we experience.

And we only experience probably about 1 trillionth of what is out there. Perhaps more, but I can’t think of a number that I can spell larger than “trillion”.

The point, people, is that this guy sits around making up philosophical contradictions for math and publishing his thoughts on the influence of Consciousness in Quantum Mechanics and creating a foundation for gifted children.

Another guy retired at 30 and chills at his house doing smart people things.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not putting the world on these people’s shoulders, but you know, we could use some “gifted” people in office. Some smart people with a good ethical standing I should say. Help us integrate some logic back into society. I’m not quite sure what good the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe has really done anyone.

Regardless, there will always be someone smarter than someone else. Tampering with the genes that supposedly determine our level of intellect? I smell a government conspiracy coming on. 

As human beings who decided to establish laws to govern a society, we’re already racing for something. For reputation, for wealth, for the newest style, for the highest degree. Let’s not bring nature into this bullshit, please. Nature ain’t got time for that. It’s busy being useful.