You Wanna Know More, More, More about Me

There are a lot of things I want to talk about on this blog.  I expected to have a harder time coming up with topics, but as I'm sitting in the RA office a half-hour early for duty, I'm finding I have a lot more to say than I originally thought.  At this point, I don't think it's necessarily the best idea to talk about broad and philosophical concepts.  At least, I probably shouldn't before any readers I might have have a better understanding of who I am and where I'm coming from.  Those things aren't that interesting, to be honest, but they're important.

This is me.

I grew up in a medium-sized town in New England in the Nineties and Double-Zeros.  My younger brother was a constant companion until he got friends of his own.  I had friends off and on growing up, but was never really able to hold onto any.  Friends tended to dump me rather frequently and for frivolous reasons.  Because of this, I spent a lot of my time reading.  Mom and I went to the library whenever we had the urge.  I remember going more often in the summertime, and remember standing over the air conditioning grate in "The Little Library" (which wasn't its real name, just something we called it because it was small and the other library was substantially larger).  So I read a lot of books growing up -- nothing specific, although I tended to avoid biographies.

In addition to reading on my own, I enjoyed going to school.  My favorite teachers include my second grade teacher, my sixth grade English teacher (or, "Language Arts," as they call it in middle school), my seventh and eighth grade English teacher, my middle school German teacher, and my high school German teacher.  School came easily to me and I was placed in a number of programs and testing opportunities to determine just how smart I was.  I'm not sure how much good it did -- I do well in college, but I still pay to be here.

I'm not sure exactly when it was that I discovered writing.  It's possible it was in first or second grade when the class did a series of Eric Carle-inspired paintings, found shapes in them to facilitate a story, and wrote the story to go along with it.  My story involved a time traveling dog and some dinosaurs.  This amuses me now -- I don't really like dogs.  I don't dislike them, but I prefer to be in dog-free environments.  They're so suffocating and overwhelming.

Which brings me to my pets.  Before I was born, my parents adopted two cats: Winston (named after Dr. Winston O'Boogie and Winston Churchill) and Vincent (named after the beast character in the Beauty and the Beast television serial).  When I was six and my brother four, my aunt got my brother a gerbil for his birthday.  Well, I wanted a pet too.  I wanted a cat.  At this point, Winston had passed away.  I do not know what from, but I do remember Mom and Dad injecting him with medication for a period before he died.  Winston hissed on the cold floor of the kitchen, inching away from the syringe filled with a milky liquid.  I felt bad for the cat but couldn't help him.

To an extent, however, I consider myself the cause of Vincent's death.  Shortly after we adopted the cat I had begged for (along with a second because of some misunderstandings between my parents), Vincent began looking rather sick and droopy.  He lied in his cat food and water bowl and was sluggish.  Mom took him to get put to sleep while I was at school and when I realized what she had done, I was angry that she did not let me say goodbye.  We've talked about this since and I understand why she did it, but now she wishes she had let my brother and I say goodbye to Vincent.

Tigger and Sergeant Pepper (or just Pepper; the two cats we adopted) were trouble makers.  We're fairly certain it's their presence that killed Vincent.  They later let the gerbil out (Smokey the Speedrunner) which in turn ruined the refrigerator by chewing through the wires, chewed a hole in the wall, and let mice in, which let fleas in.  Tigger and Pepper also took turns marking their territory on one of the bottom stairs, making it nearly impossible to sell the house when I was fourteen.

Fourteen was around the time I started experiencing anxiety and depression.  Prior to this, when I was twelve, doctors diagnosed me with polycystic ovarian syndrome (or PCOS).  It's a complicated and misunderstood diagnosis, but I recommend looking into it, especially if you're female -- it's more common than you think.  The symptoms are  not easily treated, except for a few, and it has lead to bullying issues because of the physical appearance I, and many girls like me, inherit due to the PCOS.

Anyway, when I was fourteen, I was kicked out of another group of friends and we moved to the other side of town (for unrelated reasons) and I was beginning high school.  Panic attacks began to plague me more frequently than I could handle.  We went to the doctor who suggested I see a therapist.  So I did.  And I hated every minute of it.  This is not to say that someone should not try therapy -- quite the opposite.  Do try therapy, but be aware that not every therapist is right for every patient.  This was not something I was aware of at the time and I quickly became frustrated that a) I was being blamed for everything in my life, b) I couldn't talk about what I wanted to talk about during sessions, and c) my condition wasn't improving.  We went back to the doctor as I was still experiencing panic attacks and I was prescribed Lexapro.  For a while, I did both the therapy and the pills, but eventually decided to drop the therapy.  I've been on the Lexapro ever since.

I graduated high school in 2010 with few real friends to speak of, so felt little loss when deciding to go to college over seven hundred miles away.  I missed my family most of the time, but have grown so much in the last two and a half years that I wouldn't exchange it for anything.

For now, I'm pursuing an English degree with a concentration in creative writing and a minor in psychology at a small women's college in Virginia.  After my undergraduate degree, I plan to go to graduate school to obtain my Master's in Library/Information Science.  My current goal is to acquire the Library of Congress Junior Fellows 2013 Summer Internship which is highly competitive but something I am confident I would do well in such a position.  For now, I can only hope and wait.

Now that you've read a brief life history of me, I can get onto more important topics, like the biography of Marie Antoinette I just read and the title of this blog -- until next time.