First Story .. Kind of heavy ..

This is a short story I wrote a few years back now.  It's one of the only finished ones, but its not that good.  My writing has definitely gotten better but I wanted to add this one to the few I was going to post.  I went back and changed some things but I didn't want to change too much and ruin what I had.  Plus it was the only one I could actually find on the internet, the other ones aren't done yet & I have to get my boyfriend to retrieve them off my computer tomorrow!  But yea, so it's the only one I could get easily to post quickly and I wanted to show I was actually going to.  There will be a few more.  It's kind of heavy but I hope you enjoy. =)

There was a lit cigarette in the blue ashtray and the smoke went up in swirls, next to it lay a bottle of Jack Daniels. There was a dim light and a letter crumpled in his hand and a pink envelope on the desk. He hadn't left his room in two day's, and he was re-reading the letter she sent him over and over again. She had written the lyrics to the song he had always sang to her, and written to her in letter's when they'd been apart. He sang it to her at her wedding and at a show he preformed. She hadn't know it was for her until the day of her wedding. His green eyes watered and a tear slid down his unshaven cheek. He took a swig from the bottle and followed it with a pull of his cigarette.
He reread the part of the Dashboard song to himself out loud.
"I'm living in your letters
Breathe deeply from this envelope
It smells like you
And I cant be without that scent
It's filling me with all you mean to me".
He loved her and he knew it. He remembered her wedding day. He had been sitting there, watching, uncomfortable from the heat. He was regretting every word he'd never said to her, everything he'd always meant to whisper when she was near him, the things he meant to write to her. She looked at him nervously and smiled while she was up there having her wedding ceremony given by Elvis. This was a mistake and he knew it. He knew she didn't mean to marry him. Suddenly his mind wandered, and he stood up and walked over to her. He leaned near her face and sang into her ear, "There is no need to fill my heart with useless space. These road's go on forever. There will always be a place for you in my heart." She had turned to him.
"Sean... what are you doing?" she had asked him, eyes pleading.
"I'm sorry Maria. But I have to. I cant let you continue on with this. I know I've fucked thing's up between us so many times. I repeatedly because I knew I loved you, because falling in love was childish, you said it so many times yourself. You know what, then I guess I'm childish, because Maria I love you. I don't know if I could promise you the same life Mr. Wonderful over here could, but I could try. Please... just let me try?"
Turn's out she had let him try. He began to cry hysterically. His cigarette was now only a cylinder of ash to the filter, and the bottle was half empty. He read the opening part of the letter again.
"Dean Sean,
I need some time to think. But I should warn you, I may never return."
She wouldn't come back. He knew it. She had what she wanted and he had sent her out. She was pregnant, and he remembered how she looked when she told him too. Her face was full of happiness and he had never seen her smile like that. He couldn't do it though, it was too surreal for him. He started acting weird, not showing up to doctor appointments, staying out late getting wasted, picking childish fights with her. He was pushing her away the way he had done when they were younger. She only tried to love him and he had managed to destroy it all over again. He got up and staggered over to his bed, and laid down on her side by the wall. She had always slept by the wall because she liked walking over him in the morning and kissing his forehead letting him know she was still there. She never tried to rush him into marriage or get him to support her, and she could have had all that, and he had fucked it up for her. He made her go with him, and then what did he do? He had pushed her out like she hadn't meant a thing to him, or at least that's how he had obviously made her feel. He buried his face, wet from tears, into her pillow. His eyelashes fluttered trying to fight back the urge to cry, trying to "take it like a man".
He got up and walked over to the closet, kneeling on the floor he opened a shoe box, and took out a photograph of her that was in it, and a .22 caliber gun. He sat on the bed looked at her photo, and brought the gun to his head.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

View on Positive Thoughts

The idea of positive thinking has increased over the past decade. More and more you'll hear about the idea of metaphysics & positive thinking. The idea, that what ever thoughts you put out in the world is what come back to you. So, if you believe that you will get a new job you'll get it, but if you believe you'll fail that math test, you also will. Also, its based on the idea that whatever energy you send out is what you'll get back, kind of like karma. So that means if you think happy thoughts you'll have a happy life, & vice versa. Its hard to determine really, if this is a valid point.

Personally, I can't figure out how I feel about positive thinking. Its a nice idea that if you think happy thoughts good things will happen to you but I don't think this is always true. Things like The Secret have become more & more popular over the last decade, & people like my mother have run to buy it & force fed it down the "less happy" peoples throats. All based on the idea, that her boss has a big house because he sends out positive thoughts about it, not because he's a dentist or has had a sucessful practice for 20years, because he thinks he deserves it. Right... To me that sounds like a lot of nothing to spend your money on to learn.

More and more life coaches & motivational speakers are trying to harvest the idea of positive thinking. A lot of these motivational speakers not only try to push positive thinking on to you, but also the idea that all sadness you feel is unnatural. Or that your sadness is just your ego talking & you should relinquish all wants you have to find happiness, or so says speakers like Depak Chopra. How could sadness, a natural emotion we should feel if not a serial killer, suddenly just as unnatural as being desensitized? This is just another belief being pushed due to the positive thinking movement. A movement that though it is finally getting some much needed attention & reserach isn't as founded as it would like to make you believe.

So over the past decade there has been a crazy increase in the number of people talking about the ideas of positive thinking. More and more research is popping up all over the place & people are running to it open arms. While I think there might be some substantial evidence for it, I don't think its properly researched & proven. Also if I think positively that maybe all the people who have been shoving it down my throat will just leave me alone, why can I not escape it everywhere I go?? The idea of positive thinking is to me just that, an idea & not a very good one either.

Thesis & Outside Sources --> Criticisms on Happiness

Thesis: With the number of people in the happiness movement rising, it only makes sense that the number of criticisms would rise also.

Or

With the numbers rising in the happiness movement, people are pushing others to be happy, causing many criticisms to the movement.

Works Cited

Heathcote¸ Elizabeth. “Does the Happiness Formula really add up?” The Independent. 20 June 2010. Web. 20 November 2010

Bloom, Amy. “The Rap on Happiness.” The New York Times. 29 January 2010.Web. 20 November 2010

Mackie, Greg. “Is the Pursuit of Happiness Misguided?” Circle of Atonement. Web. 20 November 2010

Begley, Sharon. “Happiness: Enough Already” Newsweek. 02 February 2008. Web. 20 November 2010

Gratitude Blog

This year hasn't been the best of years for me. A lot of things out of my control happened, but I'm sure there's a few things I can be grateful for. I'm sure also, once I start writing things down, I'll remember a lot more then a few. This year I've fixed my relationship and started school, so those are at least two things I can be grateful for.

The thing I'm honestly most grateful for this past year, despite our rocky relationship, has been my boyfriend Phil. We've had a lot of up's and down's (mostly down's!) the past two years, but we've grown a lot. In the past seven months though we grew for each other. We realized that we really do love one another and began to accept each other more freely. Though we are both struggling with things individually, we learned to be there for each other rather then blame one another. He's also, to put it simply, really stepped his game up. He's been more attentive, honest, open, and has almost completely gained my trust back (almost!). Were also now pooling our resources together and looking for a place to live, which is frightening but also exciting. I also may have found a place close to school and he wouldn't mind moving wherever I need to be.

Another thing I'm grateful for this year is that it's my first year of college, even though I finished high school in 2006. For the past about four years, I just floated around not sure what I wanted to do. Sure, during the time, I've had many jobs and tried many new things, but none of it was what I wanted to do. I was caught in a rut basically working dead end jobs, just trying to figure out a way to make ends meat. Now I'm back in school and finally perusing what I love. Even though adjusting back into school is difficult, its extremely rewarding.

So despite this year being a hard one I can still find some things to be grateful for. Even though it may seem like I'm just happy for my boyfriend, its not just him, its the way he takes care of me and also helps me be grateful for the other things going on in my life. Between school and Phil, maybe this year hasn't been such a bad one!

happiness & relationships paper

When it comes to happiness and your love life, you'll find that the beliefs you had about it as a child will drastically change as an adult. As a child you are conditioned to view love a certain way. Through media and our parents, love and happiness are viewed more like a fairytale then a way to live. Having spent years expecting love to be one way causes people to mishandle it and ruin perfectly functional relationships. If people allowed room for error, then perhaps they could be happier in their relationships.

As a child you are raised to believe there's a perfect person for everyone. You believe this because of what you have learned through the years. As a young child you hear fairytales and watch disney movies. How do the movies usually go, an evil with puts a princess under a spell that can only be broke by true loves kiss? (Snow white, sleeping beauty). Or even in some, the young girl gets captured and is forced to deal with a somewhat abusive male figure, because in the end she'll love him regardless (Beauty & the Beast) (Ben-Shahar p 116). This is how were conditioned to view love, either that one day some perfect fictional person is going to come along and make everything right or that to find true love, you have to suffer.

Due to being raised with these beliefs effects a persons current day relationships. Since you're raised to believe that your prince charming or that one special person is coming along forces one to expect people to live up to unrealistic standards. Also, something psychologist Dan Gilbert describes as the "impact bias", the error we make in determining how long something will affect us, plays a big part in relationships (qtd. in Gertner 8). Due to this we might leave someone who is perfect for us for someone who we just think will make us happier because of lust. A lot of the time too people will go to another person because that person makes them feel "validated", praised. (Ben-Shahar p 119). Despite this, it is more often shown that the biggest key to having a flourishing happy relationship is truely knowing someone and loving them regardless, its even more likely to keep the relationships interesting (Ben-Shahar p 120).

Other then the few people those childhood beliefs may work for, most people find their healthy happiest relationships because they learn to view love differently. When people are more releastic about how a relationship should work its easier to function in one. Also, when many people stop doing what Dan Gilbert describes as "miswanting", the act of mistaking what will give us pleasure (qtd. in Gertner 8). If you can stop pushing someone away because of some unreachable standard, you could actually get to know someone for who they are. People in the most functioning relationships have let go of the standard and jus been honest about love. Once you drop the old fashioned ideas and get to really know someone, you can fully appreciate someone for who they are and find happiness with them.

If you look at love the way you did as a child, most of the time you're only setting yourself up for dissapointment. Despite what the media leads you to believe love isn't all about unreleastic expectations and happy fairytale ending. Its about love, compromise, and accepting someone for what they really are. If people can let go of their predetermined beliefs on love, then it will be easier for people to find happiness in their relationships.

Happiness & Romantic Relationships - > Blog 5

Maintaining happiness in a romantic relationship is difficult. When you start a relationship, everything is perfect (at least it should be!). As things continue though, you'll find that it's harder to keep the initial love alive. Between all the hardships you'll face together and having to accept someone else for everything they are, sometimes its hard to remember that you love the person at all. When faced with this point of your relationship you can either complain about it, fix it, or simply accept it.

Through my own long-term relationship, I find it true that its hard to maintain happiness in romantic relationships. Of course when my relationship first started, things couldn't have been better but soon enough things changed. Together we had been through so much, we just were exhausted. We had also done so much to hurt each other, it was hard to remember how things were in the beginning. It was also difficult to accept someone for all their faults, and enjoy the parts of them that weren't necessarily faults, but merely didn't compliment me. Instead of going one way with how to handle it, I went though all three like stages.

At first I just complained, about everything! Complaining though never fixed anything, it only ever caused way more of a strain on our relationship. Then once the complaining had officially made things worse, I tried fixing whatever was causing all our problems. Trying to fix everything just proved to be harder. I wasn't sure what I was trying to fix, I just knew I wasn't happy. As I was working tirelessly to fix things though, I realized there really wasn't anything that needed fixing. Me trying to fix him all the time, made me realize what I was doing, and actually love him more. Due to that, I began to enjoy my relationship again and finally decided that I would just accept my relationship for what it was. As soon as I did that, and let go of whatever I had thought a relationship should be, I became happier.

Maintaining happiness in romantic relationships is a hard endeavor. Its hard to find someone who you get along with and who accepts you. Singer Sara Bareilles says, "When you start to make room for the parts that aren't you it gets harder to bloom in a garden of love." This is true about relationships, which are hard on their own without adding deep meaning to them. When you find its hard you can either complain, try to fix it, or accept it. I'm almost positive though, that depending on the circumstance, if you try to just accept that which you cannot change, you can find plenty happiness in your relationships.

Human Metrics

I didn't really learn anything about myself. I might take the test over again to see if I get a different result. Yea, I didn't learn anything about myself. I already knew I was good with animals and reading, and which i derive more enjoyment from.
I would also make a terrible counselor.

Blog HW 4 --> Happiness at Work

Why is it that people cant find happiness at work? Some people pursue their career for the money, hoping to have a better life, or one for their kids. Others do it because of what society tells them and their fear of judgment and poverty. Or because of what Stephanie Rosenbloom mentions in the reading, "hedonic adaption" (the phenomenon in which people become used to good or bad changes to maintain their level of happiness). If people could pursue what they love, maybe they could be happier at work.

If entertainment teaches us anything it's that money rules the world. Like Wu-Tang says, "cash rules everything around me", which is true. People are conditioned to think that happiness can only be achieved through material items and financial gain. So, people pursue a job as a lawyer, hating majoring in law, because in the end they'll be able to afford that big house in the hills. Not saying there's anything wrong with that, but will that big house really make them happy when they have to grudgingly go to a job they hate everyday to maintain that house?

Some people choose a profession they don't enjoy because of fear and what society (friends, teachers, family) tell them. So many times you hear about a kid who wants to be an artist or a musician being told by someone "oh, don't do that, you wont make any money! It's to competitive!". J.K. Rowling like many other kids was told the same thing. In her Harvard speech she mentions that her parents viewed her "over active imagination as an amusing personal quirk that will never pay the mortgage". Rowling though, took a chance other people are too scared to, she pursued what she thought she'd love. While at first she failed, in the end she became a wildly author.

People have trouble finding happiness at work because of their fear to do what they love. A fear of poverty and judgment from the people in their life causes them to go for what will make others happy or bring in the biggest buck. I was told so many times not to go for a career throughout the years. The classic, "oh, there's no jobs" or "there's too much math in that! Don't do that!". Recently I've decided to ignore peoples negative inputs and do what I think I'll enjoy the most, despite the amount of science in my major. Hopefully, I'll be like J.K. Rowling of veterinarian and becomes wildly successful. If people try to do what they love, they can be happy at work.

Written Assignment #1 -> Becoming a Happier Student

If I change my schedule I could be a happier student. I struggle with time management to an extreme. Being so sloppy with my time causes me anxiety and negativity in my personal life. If I can perhaps change my life and improve my scheduling skills then I can become a happier student and all around happier person. Putting my priorities in order and managing my time can improve my life.

My time management skills have always caused me extreme anxiety. Being a huge procrastinator I put everything for school to the last minute. I started working pretty young and I think that’s when my priorities started to skew. I had to juggle school, work, and friends, and it became obvious to me which was the most important. So I concentrated on work and friends because of the immediate gratification that came with these things. Sometime, I just didn’t do my school work at all because I felt I had no time. This of course peaked my anxiety, but I always found other things to blame then my lack of schedule.

My dramatic decrease in GPA and being so anxious all the time and stressed caused problems in my personal life. I was more on edge and angry all the time, I felt like everything was working against me, even though most of it was my own fault. I was getting into more fights and sleeping more too. All of these different problems caused me to feel like I was drowning. I was living my life the way most students were described too in “the drowning model” described in our reading. I was pushing everything to the last minute and it was causing other negative things to happen around me. This was all happening because of my lack of time management skills. A problem that seemed so insignificant had branched into a bunch of other problems. It went on like this until I was at my breaking point and had to basically scratch my way out, for a brief sense of relief, to merely start the cycle all over again.

Since high school I find myself falling into the same habits though. I constantly feel overwhelmed and like there’s never enough time. I feel burdened with responsibility, and I notice I still don’t know how to properly manage everything I have going on. While I have been trying to use my anxiety as a drive to get things done, I need to simply change my style. I need to sit down and try to set time aside and plan out my day. This way, instead of trying to find ways to use my anxiety to my advantage, I could perhaps be free of it.

Recently I had a job interview coming up and I had every intention of taking the job despite how much stress I already find myself under. I was doing what Dan Gilbert refers to as “miswanting”, I thought that if I got a second job I’d feel less pressure and be able to relax more. So I sat down and decided to weigh out the pros and cons of the job and try to put my priorities (school, my first job, sleep!), in order. Turns out taking the other job would not only severely cut my time for school work, but it would in the long run, cost me more to work there! I do everything at the last minute now, constantly freaking out, and that’s with one job. So in the long run, with my priorities in a better order, the job would not benefit in making me happier.

So if I could only work on my time management and priority issues, I can become a happier student and all around individual. I’ll have way less anxiety and less negativity in my personal life. Maybe I won’t yell at my boyfriend so much for things he has absolutely no control over if I’m not so stressed! I think not going for that job was a step in the right direction for my time management and priority skills. Now, I need to try to set a better schedule and follow it.

blog three homework two..

Weekly Theme:  Happiness in education

Mark Van Dorsen said, "our best chance for happiness is education."  In the article "Happiness in education" by Mark Van Dorsen and the video "Do Schools kill creativity" by Ken Robinson, this and how educators can stifle happiness is discussed in detail.  They discuss the drowning model and love-making model, and flow.  Also, the different ways for teachers to make learning better and more enjoyable for students.  They speak about "rat racing" and how hardships bring happiness, and how schools kill creativity.  All of these different opinions I think are true.  Through what is described in the video and article, and what I've experienced myself, I believe its true.

The drowning model and the love-making model are models for how we go about achieving things, made real by Mark Van Dorsen.  The drowning model says the desire to free ourselves of pain can be a strong motivator and that, once freed, we can easily mistake our relief for happiness.  I believe that this ties in to the whole "rat race" state of mine, and that through our childhood educations we are made to believe this is the only way to do things.  I, like many other students were conditioned to do things this way.  I forced my way drudgingly through my school work in hopes that once it was done, I'd be free.  When I finally graduated I threw myself into working full time in the city.  I was one of those people who 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, was squeezing myself into the four train like a sardine.  Miserably I worked my hardest to be done with it well so I'd be noticed and so that I could go home and enjoy my leisure time.  Despite doing my work well, I still was never able to enjoy myself out of work.  The thing was though, that I hadn't hated school, I had hated the way the work was being presented to me.  So, I assumed going straight to work was the most logical option.

Through the love-making model, Van Dorsen suggests we look at all the hours we spend working for our goal as wonderful, or even "foreplay".  Rather then for us to hate what were doing and just work for that end goal, to enjoy everything were doing along the way.  Of course if we view things this way we'd all be happier, but I think its all very true.  When I enjoy a class, or doing work for it, or working, I actually enjoy my leisure time more too.  Also doing things through the love-making method its easier to fall into what Mihaly Csikszentmihaly calls "flow".  Csikszentmihaly says flow is a state in which we feel we are one with the experience.  She also says that having a clear sense of purpose is necessary in order to achieve flow.  So through flow the love-making method becomes more substantial.  Through achieving flow we can enjoy the things we have to do to get us to our goal.  Thus making us happier all around, and making our time spent not working more enjoyable.

Children are molded to believe one way of doing things.  In school we are taught to just work hard to do better wether we like it or not.  Schools do brian wash you with the "rat race" mentality (the thought that emotions get in the way of success and should be second to your achievements).  Therefor I agree with both Mark Van Dorsen and Kevin Robinson.  Education is our best chance for happiness and through the love-making method, I believe we can achieve it.  But because of the way we are conditioned as children to perceive learning and our creativity is decreased, we are stopped from allowing ourselves happiness.  So yes, I agree with all the above stated and if education was taught differently, and more looked into the psychologist of happiness, everyone can one day be happy.

blog two one.. =]

Dan Gilbert is a psychologist who specifically studies happiness.  He's come up with the impact bias (the gap between what we predict and what we ultimately experience) and the difference between synthetic happiness and natural happiness.  I agree with both of his views because of my own personal experiences.
Like almost any girl, or anybody, I can relate the impact bias to my own relationships.  I can honestly say that I have made many bad decisions based on what I thought I felt.  Thinking, "Oh, I'll be better with this boy because he can make me laugh more.", or something along those lines.  All to find out in the end that the one who made me laugh more only did because of his immaturity and I'd had the boy who would really get me.  The thing that I had really been looking for.  In my simulation of how future events would play out I miscalculated, something Dan Gilbert calls, miswanting.
In my current relationship I also doubted myself about my standings.  Everything hadn't played out the way I had planned or expected.  Even when I was happy, I didn't think it was right because it wasn't what I'd expected.  I had thought that with my decision I was going to be naturally happy and since it was a different kind of happiness, I thought it wasn't as valuable or significant.  But the happiness that grew on me, that I did feel (synthetic happiness) was just as good, just as important.  I was happier then I could have been if it had worked out the way I planned.  It just took me sometime to realize that synthetic happiness, the happiness I felt, was just as awesome as if it had been natural.
Dan Gilbert was right in his views in my opinion.  Due to the impact bias I think people make a lot of wrong choices without even realizing.  They think their future is going to have so much more of an impact on them then it will, because we all adapt.  Also, a lot of people don't realize synthetic happiness is just as real and meaningful.  They think if things don't work out the way they want they wont be able to find happiness.  Hopefully in the future more people will know Dan Gilberts' teachings.  Then the impact bias might not happen as often and people can be happy with what they have.

blog one . =]

So this is my first blog for ENG 101.  My names Gabi, I'm 21, & I live in the Bronx.  I’m currently enrolled in LaGuardia to pursue veterinary technology.  Once I'm done with the program though I plan on continuing school so I can get my PhD.  I plan on going into either veterinary sciences or zoology.  I've been leaning more toward zoology lately only because it seems way more interesting, & like it could involve a fair amount of travel.  I've loved pets my whole life & I actually have 2 ferrets & a cat.  My ferrets are names Twiggy & Lorraine, & my cats name is Merlin, because I am a nerd.  I'm also really into music, reading, & movies.  I have a very eclectic taste in movies & music.  Some of its a little weird & my friends know that whenever there’s a random movie they need to know the name of they call me.  I'm a big fan of cult classics, & I will quote movies at the most awkward times.  I listen to anything that has a beat & my music library can go anywhere from Masta Ace to Mates of State & then to Slayer.  I also love books, for my sixteenth birthday I actually got 16 books!  I prefer historical fiction like Forever by Cormack McCarthy, but I've also read my fair share of classics.  I read Madame Bovary last year just for fun, & wasn’t really happy, but I felt really accomplished when I was done.  Another interest of mine is astrology.  I'm a Scorpio & I'll be 22 on October 26th.  I can also do birth charts & I used to do tarot cards but I've recently tried to pull myself away from most of that.  I also do all of the cooking in my house because I love trying new recipes.  But I also just prefer my cooking.  So that's just a little bit about me & I'm happiest when I'm cuddled in my bed with a cup of tea, my fuzzy socks, & a good movie.