It’s so hard for me July 4, 2008

He dumped me few months ago. We were together for almost four years. It has been incredibly hard for me. I basically worshiped him, I sacrificed a lot for him. I gave my heart to him. I loved him with all my heart. For the last year, it was long distance because he graduated and moved to a new city. He struggled on the long distance part. I guess the saying, “absence makes heart fonder” wasn’t true for him, but it was for me. I loved him more and more everyday.

It has been so painful for me. I’m slowly recovering from this rough break up. I did nothing wrong, he did nothing wrong. He just felt that he needed to move on, explore the new city, meet new women. That smacked me in my face like I wasn’t good enough for him. He also said that he can’t be in a relationship anymore. Guess what? He’s getting himself back into a new relationship already. He started dating few weeks after he dumped me. There are times when I feel like he never even loved me. I know he did and I feel that he still does.

I’m still having a roller coaster of emotions towards him, but I’ve lost my respect for him. He twisted my words around, became into the world’s biggest jerk. I don’t “love” him anymore, but I will always love him. I wanted us to at least stay good friends, but he lied, manipulated, hurt me anyways even when I asked him how he’s doing. I don’t care if he’s seeing other women. I’m rooting him on because I know I deserve better than him. He needs a different woman than me. At the same time, I’m mad at him because he told me that he just wanted to be single for a while, he’s being a hypocrite. He can’t be happy on his own, he relies on others to give him happiness. I’ve told him that, but instead he just gets all accusative at me. I care deeply for him, but it just seems that he doesn’t do the same for me anymore. He doesn’t even seem to give a shit if something happens to me. He cares more about younger, prettier women who came into his life just recently. I understand that those women are good people, I have nothing against them, but he’s not thinking of his older friends anymore.

I stood with him through his depression, hardships, everything. I held him when he cried. I nursed him back to health when he was sick. I did his laundry and cleaned his apartment. I cleaned out his cat’s litter box. I gave him back rubs when his shoulder was hurting. And he doesn’t seem to appreciate what I did for him. Instead, he just turns out to be a jerk to me now. He accuses me of being “overly obsessive and annoying.”

I KNOW that it is over. All I ever wanted was to maintain a good friendship because he was the only one who truly understood me. I didn’t want to lose him, but he’s making it really hard on me now. He won’t talk to me anymore, gives me a silent treatment, accuses me of invading his new “personal life” when I simply asked him how he was doing. I want him to man up and realize that he’s being a jerk to me. If he continues on being a jerk, I will permanently sever things with him because even friends shouldn’t treat each other like that.

I guess, he’s a new person now. I don’t know who he is anymore. He only cares about himself, his self image, and his “new” social life. So beware, long term relationships don’t always work out. Men will run away from the commitment eventually, think with their dick or ass, make up bullshit excuses, and be a bunch of wussies who won’t face us, women.

He owes me $900 and needs to give all my shit back already so that I can move on and forget him and the pain he put me through. He put me through hell.

Advice to men: Don’t ever dump your girlfriend through phone, email, or IM especially if you’ve been with her for more than a year. That’s what my ex did to me and it hurt me even more. It was so impersonal and inconsiderate. I was furious at him for a while just for that reason.

Senior year in high school July 4, 2008

My senior year in high school was probably the best year of my life. I accomplished so many things and traveled across the country and even to Mexico. It was the year of my newfound independence, and discovering my true passion.

Photography.

In the beginning of my senior year, I was in my advanced photography class. I did not take that class seriously at first because it was just a hobby of mine. Little did I know that it would become my future. My teacher walked over to me and asked if I wanted to participate in a teenage photographer competition. I shrugged and did not give it a second thought. I just couldn’t afford the trip to Chicago and plus my parents weren’t interested either. They said, “We don’t have the money and plus why would you want to participate? It’s just photography.” My teacher became very insistent that I participate and he actually got me some money to help be able to pay for the trip. I don’t know how, but I’m grateful for him.

I ended up going to Chicago and drove to Cincinnati where the competition was being hosted. There was a good group of photographers participating. They were all very talented, I liked a lot of their work. I got positive critiques on my work so it boosted my self ego. I did not think that I even had any talent even though photography is in my family’s genes. Grandma and mom were photographers and now I am one too. By the end of the show, they announced the winners. I ended up grabbing first place and a scholarship to Santa Fe Workshops. It was a good experience for me and definitely opened my eyes to what I could do.

I became even more motivated to improve my photography skills and figure out what I wanted to do with my talent. It became my passion.

I stupidly went to college to major in Biotechnology, but I changed it to Photojournalism after only 2 quarters. Now I only have 3 required courses left before I graduate with Bachelors degree in Photojournalism.

Mexico.

My bestfriend wanted to take me to Mexico with her on a cruise ship. I was thrilled and wanted it to be the trip of my lifetime. We went to Florida over the Christmas break and boarded a lovely cruise ship. The ship was absolutely gorgeous. I fell in love with it. We toured Caribbean, Grand Cayman Islands, and a bunch of small islands. We also went to Cozumel and that place was absolutely gorgeous. The water was so warm too! I got a chance to swim with dolphins there. It was an amazing experience.

Oh, I just remembered this one funny thing that happened to us on the ship. I had a little crush on a cute boy from Romania. He was working the ice cream bar and I would see him randomly. I am sure he knew because I would giggle with my friend every time we saw him. Hey, we were barely even 18.

One night, the ship was having some kind of a festival out on the deck. I went out there with my bestfriend and saw the guy again… But! But he was wearing a skirt and tights?!? Wait a second! It took us aback. We thought he was a boy all along. He looked very youthful, even had a boyish haircut and everything. Let’s call him/her it… It approached us when we saw it. We literally ran away and I felt so bad about it. I was just shocked! I wasn’t expecting it to be a girl. Oops! I didn’t mean to come off as a lesbian. Even now, my bestfriend and I still have a good laugh about it. I am definitely checking the name tag next time I see a “cute boy.”

Graduation.

It was memorable. Enough said.

Santa Fe Workshops.

I went to Santa Fe a month after I graduated. I got the experience of my lifetime. It taught me a lot about how to photograph people and some beautiful photographs came out of that experience. I still use the skills I learned in Santa Fe to this day. I’ll never forget the people I met. They were all incredible and very talented. I managed to network with some of the successful photographers there and hopefully that will help me succeed in my future career.

Strange sunburn July 4, 2008

I finally went swimming today with my sister. We played the shark game and freeze tag with my brother. I’m 23 and out of shape. It was a good exercise in the pool, trying to avoid whoever’s “it.” It was fun, but I got a strange sunburn. I was wearing a halter type of bathing suit so both of my shoulders were bare. Only one shoulder got burnt. Strange, isn’t it?

Memory loss July 4, 2008

I noticed that as I get older, I gradually lose memories. It’s depressing. I’m trying to preserve them as much as I can before I lose them all.

Hooray, my first post! July 4, 2008

I have other blogs, but this one will be my discreet journal to help me through my hardships, problems, and even a broken heart. I will begin my story now.

My earliest memory… You could say that my brain made it up,  but I don’t know for sure. I remember being born. Yes, I do remember being born. I recall coming out of a dark tunnel and then seeing a bright light. A woman smiled at me and held me into her arms. I still remember her face. Turned out that she was a good friend of my mom’s. Her name was Diane. She died when I was 12 due to cancer, my first experience of death.

My mom took care of me for a while. When I was about 18 months old, mom realized that I’m deaf. We were at a parade one day and I was sleeping in the stroller. A firetruck drove by blaring its siren at the highest volume. I didn’t even budge from my nap. That’s how my parents found out and they had to prepare themselves for the hardships they would experience in raising me. I was born stone deaf. I never had any bit of hearing at all. I don’t even know what sound sounds like at all even to this day.

After that, I don’t have any memories til I hit three year old. I had no idea that I am disabled. I always thought that I was normal. I watched my mom talk on the phone and I would do the same, but in childish gibberish. I was an innocent child. My mom put hearing aids on me, but they did not work at all. I couldn’t hear anything. My ears weren’t “working” at all. I always took them out because it was pointless.

One of my earliest memories… In preschool, a girl came up to me crying. I asked her what was wrong. She pointed at a boy who stole her tricycle. I didn’t like it one bit, boys being dicks even at such a young age. I stomped over to the boy and pointed at the tricycle and said “No, no!” I ended up dragging him off the tricycle and actually tried to spank him. I got in big trouble for that one and I find it funny now. After that, I was the “tough” girl who stood up for others. I stood up for myself as well. Adults didn’t seem to appreciate that.

I hit five year old. I was put in a lousy deaf program at a public elementary school. The education there was lower than the regular setting. It bothered me and I always seemed smarter than others. I rarely got in trouble. I was a good kid even though I was sneaky about it. My teacher used to do an audiology test with my class. She put a thick paper in front of her mouth and said a kid’s name. The kid had to raise her/his hand if recognized. I always sat right next to the teacher and I could slightly see her mouth behind the paper. I craned my neck few times to see what she’s saying. Remember, my hearing aids did nothing to help me, I had to rely on lipreading. I thought it was all a fun game. Thankfully, my name was really easy to lipread so I usually got my name right. I was a model student basically. I constantly went to speech therapy and audiology to improve my skills, even four times a week.

My class usually took weird field trips to fill our heads with rubbish. For example, they took us to a newspaper place. They took us to the very back where all the deaf people were working. They were working running the press and they all seemed happy about it. I wasn’t impressed, I had better dreams than to run a freaking printer. One day, a cop woman came to my class to talk about her job. I was so excited because I always wanted to be a cop. I asked her a lot of questions and she seemed pleased. When the end was nearing, I had one final question, “Can I be a cop?” Guess what she told me? “No because you’re deaf.” That absolutely broke my heart and dreams. I was only five at that time! I went home crying to my parents. They were absolutely furious. That did it for them and they started to push me to do better, to have better dreams.

My parents began to contemplate getting me a Cochlear Implant around that age. I had no idea what that was all about, but I knew that I was different from others at that age. I started noticing the facial expressions whenever I tried to speak to someone. It was all gibberish to them and they must have thought that I was retarded. I couldn’t hold a conversation with anyone who could speak. My speaking skills were crap. At least, I was insistent and tried. Maybe they thought I was a cute retarded little girl. I just wanted to hear like everyone else. I wanted to be like my parents who could talk on the phone. I was very willing to get a Cochlear Implant. I just wanted to fit in.

I got it. Intensive audiology/speech therapy for few years and then my parents decided to mainstream me in 3rd grade. I had to repeat 3rd grade because of the crappy education I received in deaf program. Eventually I moved to a new public school. I was the only deaf student there and none of the staff were experienced with someone like me. I seemed to do well though. I made plenty of friends. They were all curious about me, my implant, and my sign language. My speech improved significantly.  I was becoming somewhat understandable. I had an accent though and I still do to this day, but it’s a miracle that I can even speak. It takes just few weeks to get used to my accent. If someone asks about my accent, I just say “Oh, I’m from Sweden!” And they always fall for it.

I continued my life journey through elementary school, middle school, and high school being a typical teenager. I graduated from high school with a good GPA and got into a college. I have accomplished a lot of which I will list eventually.

Break time for me. I’ll explain more later about my life.