Group Projects=Death

Hi everyone! I've had a substantial increase in readers in the last couple weeks. I have my wonderful parents to thank for that. Also, thanks to everyone who read my story about my drug journey through epilepsy. It means a lot.
To the matter at hand, sorry for not keeping y'all up to date these past couple weeks. It's the end of the semester, so I'm very busy! While I have a free moment, I will share with you what I've been up to. For my class finals I have to:

• Expand on one of my nonfiction essays
• Collaborate with a team for a "client editing project" 
• Do a secondary research report
• Take another test (that's the easy one)

The client editing project is the most stressful. I was elected team leader, and I hate it (: 

Let me tell you why: my group has next to zero communication. As much as I try texting in our group chat, I don't get many responses, and when I do, it's hours later, which is very stressful. Two of my subordinates never complete their assigned work until a couple hours before class, which is also stressful, because I have to look over their work before I submit it. AND.... none of our schedules line up, so in the two weeks we've been working on this, we've had two group meetings, and neither of them included the entire group. 

Now, let me explain to you what the goal for this project is: my group has to edit, format, and put together a Wikipedia booklet on the RMS Lusitania. For those of you who don't know, the Lusitania was a British ocean-liner during WWI that was sunk by Germany. Since this ship was transporting over 100 American citizens, it was one of the deciding factors of United States' declaration of war on Germany. Interesting stuff. 

This Wikipedia page has a little of 10,000 words in it. That's 10,000 words that we have to copy/developmental edit, format, and throw into a booklet. We also have to write up a client letter to a fake client explaining to them why their Wikipedia page is garbage and why our booklet is better. This wouldn't be so bad if my team was capable of communicating with each other. But alas, it's up to me. Takeaway: I despise group projects.  

Read More

Feels Like Home...

Happy Thursday
I wrote an essay yesterday that's a "research/personal hybrid" essay. It basically means I do some research on something that I relate to myself, and then I mix that research with my personal thoughts and/or memories. Hope y'all like it.

Feels Like Home…

Canyon, Texas is a small city just outside Amarillo. In the 2010 census, the population was 13,303. In 2010, my grandparents were a part of that population.

I lived in Canyon most summers of my childhood. For three months, I would be able to eat pancakes at any time of the day—always paired with a Snapple bottle, washed out and refilled with milk.

My cousin lived in Canyon with our grandparents. Our summers were filled with silly adventures acted out on a trampoline—jumping around and pretending we were different people. After an hour we’d get tired enough to go inside and play Mario, Sonic, or Zelda. The fun never ended as long we were together.

Canyon lies in a valley that eventually becomes the Palo Duro Canyon. Palo Duro is home to the world-famous outdoor musical Texas, which plays every summer. I’ve seen that play at least five times.

The first time I saw Texas, I was with my entire family: my grandparents, cousins, sister, aunts, my uncle, and my dad. It was magical. Before every performance, right at sunset, a man on a horse will ride across the top of the canyon holding the Texas flag. The whole crowd, including me, goes insane with Texan pride.

The last time I saw the play, it was just me, my sister and my cousin. But it was still just as magical as the first time I saw it.

Canyon is home to West Texas A&M University. Some of my dad’s side of the family went there. They have a waterpark inside the school. Looking back, it wasn’t anything fancy. One slide, a lazy river, whirlpool, and a kiddie section, but when I was 10, it might as well have been Hurricane Harbor. I spent hours there with my family.

The average low temperature during Christmas time is around 25 degrees Fahrenheit. I have never seen more snow than when I spent the holidays in Canyon. I never packed properly. My dad would always make runs to Walmart to buy warm socks and boots to keep my feet dry, but he never complained, at least I don’t think he did.

The city motto is Feels Like Home… and it always did. I hated leaving my grandparents house every summer. The 6-hour drive home often felt like a drive away from home. If I could relive one moment of my life, I would choose any day out of any one of those summers—a day where I would wake up at 9:00 a.m., and have my granny waiting for me at the dining table, my pawpaw making breakfast in the kitchen, and a Snapple bottle full of milk.

In 2010 my granny was a part of the Canyon population. In 2011 she wasn’t. That was my last summer spent there.

Read More

Happy Epilepsy Awareness Month

About a week ago I wrote a nonfiction essay about the different medications I've had to take to control my seizures.
Here's a little background:
I was diagnosed with epilepsy November of 2013. My first seizure happened while I was working; I was a server at a pizza cafe. I was diagnosed a couple weeks later. I didn't want to take medication at first, because I knew that my body would end up relying on it, but I didn't have a choice, and now I do rely on it. I've gone through three different medications, the first one was the worst one I was on. I'm still taking the second two together every single night.
Here's the essay. Hope y'all like it.

Drug Facts

KEPPRA

Symptoms may include but are not limited to: sleepiness, weakness, dizziness, and irritability. You will experience all of these symptoms. You will not speak to anyone, and when you do it will be curt and annoyed. Your mom will cry because she doesn’t know why you’re so rude, but she does know why, and that makes her cry more.

You will have to quit the dance team because practicing two hours a day at 6:00 a.m. five days a week will take too much of a toll on your mind and body, and you’ll bawl your eyes out when you see the Spring Showcase at the end of the year, because you had to give up something you truly adored.

Your grades will fall because you do nothing but sleep. You won’t be able to help it. Exhaustion will overcome you. You won’t remember you had homework until it’s too late—you’ll get rejected to the first college you apply to.

LAMICTAL

Symptoms may include but are not limited to: tremors, drowsiness, back pain, and sleep problems. You won’t notice these side effects until much later, but they come, and you won’t be surprised. You’ll be happy though, because, unlike the last medication, you won’t feel moody all the time. It will be like stepping out of a bubble. The bubble that you’ve been in for over a year. The one that made your friends go away.

Eventually, you’ll have to increase the dosage, because the twitches won’t go away. They won’t ever go away, but you don’t know that yet.

You’ll probably be on this medication for the rest of your life.

ZONEGRAN

Symptoms may include but are not limited to: loss of appetite, loss of coordination, drowsiness, and headaches. The headaches won’t be much of an issue, but you’ll start to notice other things. You won’t know whether it’s from the medication itself or from the epilepsy. You won’t care. You’ll just hope the combination of this drug with the one you’re on now will actually work. It will.

You’ll go over three years without a seizure. Technically, your doctor can try to take you off the medicine if you go over three years seizure free, but you’ll be too scared to stop taking it. You know it’s a crutch, one you might not be able to live without. You’ll purposefully miss a dose every now and then to see what would happen. The next day the twitches get worse, and you’ll be embarrassed when someone notices it, and you will pretend like you can’t see their face change when they do notice it.

And you’re back popping pills that same night.

The day of my first seizure ☮

Read More