And Now Part 2 of the Dramatic Life of Megan...

And I really thought things couldn't get any worse.

I was wrong. Today got worse, much worse. So much that I am now a broken being and still in shock from the day's events. When I say broken, I mean that my entire ego, my confidence in editing, my excitement to be in this major was absolutely shattered. In about... 10 minutes.

It all started when I finally got a hold of the department chair. I had spent all day long trying to catch him between meetings and finally, around 1:30, I was able to catch his attention for. Earlier today, I was shaking up a storm when I was supposed to go and see him (but he was in a meeting), so by the time that I did speak with him, I was more determined to just get the whole thing over with.

The conversation started out well enough. I told him about myself, that I had my AA in English and that I was a transfer student. He even joked with me about having started out as an English major himself. Then it began. I explained why I was there and my purpose for speaking with him, even though my adviser and the professor had already spoken with him. He told me that since the copy editing class did have a prerequisite, I would have to wait to take it. I would have easily agreed with him and left at that point, but he felt that he had to continue. He felt compelled to inform me that, just because I had my AA in English, it might mean that I was a good proofer but it definitely didn't mean that I was a good copy editor. He said that if he had the option, he would not have hired me at the newspaper last semester and insinuated that he probably wouldn't have hired me this semester either. He also told me that he was giving his copy editing students a quiz the next day and he was positive that I would fail it.

I left his office, devistated.

The current chief copy did her best to cheer me up, but I still don't really feel better. I feel broken. She assured me that there was a reason why she has me as the lead section copy editor. But I still feel broken.

So, about an hour later, I finally got a hold of my adviser. The adviser who had told me that he would take care of it. The adviser that never contacted me. As soon as I saw him, I told him what the department chair had said. I expected him, like always, to be sympathetic and on my side. However, instead, he pulled me aside and began to speak to me very quietly. He told me that the entire thing wouldn't have blown out of hand if I hadn't been late to the copy editing class in the first place. He BLAMED me for the whole thing. He told me that once I had let the instructor know, that once the instructor emailed the department head, everything had blown up. He basically blamed me.

After discussing it with many friends, I've come to the conclusion that I have landed in the middle of a tiff between two full grown men. I realize that this argument cannot be about me. I haven't done anything wrong. All that I did was tell the truth. I told the truth that I was in a class that I technically wasn't supposed to be in. It may have blown up on me, but I fought and lost. I had a man break me into a million pieces simply because he was frustrated that my adviser had told me to sign up for the class. Taking it out on me was wrong and I'm still broken and frustrated by it. However, I know that he probably didn't mean it.

Still... it'll take me a while to pick up the pieces.

And Now Part 1 of the Dramatic Life of Megan...

I am convinced this day could not get any worse. And yes, right now, I look very much like this:

It started at 9:15 this morning. That's right. 9:15. When I woke up and realized that I was late for my first day of my 9am copy editing class. I don't think I've ever dressed so quickly. I realize that being a little late for a class isn't that big of a deal but I had heard stories of the professor that I was about to meet, so I thought that I was going to get grief about being late for sure. However, when I entered the class, breathless from running, the professor let me sit down without much of a problem. Sure, she teased me a little bit about being late but it wasn't bad. After doing a brief assignment of copy editing a story so that she could see where we were in our copy editing ability, I went up to apologize for being late. I did not want to start off on the wrong foot with this professor, especially because I wasn't supposed to take this class until after I took news-writing.

However, after she found out that I hadn't taken news-writing yet and that I was actually taking it this semester, she told me that I needed to talk to the department chair about being in the class. The same department chair, she also informed me, who forced her to drop 3 of her other students for taking news-writing at the same time as well.

JOLLY DAY.

I was devastated, of course. My adviser had promised me that taking this class would not be that big of a problem and I would be able to push through it fairly easily. So, I went to speak to him and he seemed surprised that he needed to speak to the department chair as well. What??? I thought to myself. Haven't you done this before?

I didn't hear from him the rest of the day (and still haven't heard from him... bad sign?) but I did run into my instructor. I got the guts up to ask her if she had spoken with the department head. She said that she had and he had said that, I quote, "under no circumstance is she allowed into your class this semester." No circumstance? What if I was dying and finishing my journalism major was my last dying wish? What if I was getting a job at a large magazine in the summer? No circumstance... I think wanting to be Chief Copy next semester is a freakin' decent circumstance. It means, "Hello. I'm willing to kick my butt taking a class that's going to be a little harder for me than other people because I'm taking the prereq at the same time instead of the semester before... see how dedicated I am???"

Anyway, I emailed the department chair (due to much persuading by the managing editor of the newspaper) and am going to go in and talk to him tomorrow, whether he emails me back or not. I will not take "no" for an answer until he tells it to my face. I'm not an ordinary student and I want him to know that, even if he tells me "no" again. I would be fighting for this a little bit harder if I didn't have 12 units (luckily the newspaper saves me with an extra 3 units because, technically, it's a "class"), but I do want this. And I'm not a fan of being told "no" when he doesn't even know me.

Apart from that, the day went fairly... I guess I could call it smoothly. (Since there were no tears. Weird things still happened.) My C.S. Lewis and Tolkien class took an interesting turn when 1) my professor decided to "make fun" of the story of Job in the Bible and 2) my professor decided to call this class useless and said that neither the works of Lewis or Tolkien were great works of literature. Luckily, with the first, I discovered that there is another fairly strong believer in Christ in my class, who I will probably be paired with for projects since we appear to be the only 2 Christians in a religious studies class. And with the second... I pretty much blew the professor away with why the works of Lewis and Tolkien not only matter, but are great works. (I'm going to give props to my background in Literature.) Then, in my other journalism class (it's a basic people & media class), my professor decided it would be funny if everyone told him what food we would be when he called our name for roll, and then made crude sexual jokes about whatever we picked. I don't give a darn if the man has tenure... he needs to learn some manners.

Right now, though, I need to begin to read 5 chapters of the Hobbit (due Thursday) and get some sleep so I don't wake up at 9:15 again. More to come with the events of tomorrow...

Goals

My dreams are vivid.

It is frightening to wake up from a dream where everything is exploding around you, where you feel like you're running in slow motion but you know that, in the reality of your dream, you are actually running quite quickly. It is frightening to see your "friends" die in the explosions, give up because they cant run anymore, even though you pull at them to hurry up, and someone ahead eventually pulls on your arm, telling you that there isn't any hope and to leave them be. It's frightening to leave them, as the explosions surround you and your ears are stunned by the sound as you run and run and run... knowing that somehow, someday, you will get to your destination, you will be safe with the few friends who didn't give up, the ones you have left.

It's frightening to wake up and think, "That's a great beginning to a story." And that's what I think whenever I wake up from dreams like that.

A friend of mine recently posted her New Years resolutions and I thought to myself "What are mine?" They certainly have to do with writing, since I feel like I always have a million ideas bouncing around in my head (like the dream, for example). So, I sat down and thought about it and here's what I came up with:

1. I will get straight A's this semester. I feel like I really let myself down this last semester. Even though I moved and was in a new location, a new home, a new situation, a new school, I feel like I should have gotten an A in classes that I got a B. So, I'm determined to bring my GPA back up.

2. I will go to therapy and tell the truth. This one is pretty self-explanatory. I want to get fixed.

3. I will finish the second draft of my novel and edit it, not rewrite it. I'm a freak. Re-writing is in my nature. I keep thinking "what if I did that to my novel?" I need to make a decision and stick with it. So, it needs to be edited, not necessarily re-written. The re-writing can come in bits of the editing.

4. I will not let holidays get me down. Part of the whole depression thing is fighting it. This will be a hard resolution because it starts with New Years Eve, which has a whole lot of a expectation attached to it. Then we move into Valentines Day and so on and so forth. All the expectation makes me want to have the best holiday ever, better than my friends. But even if it's good, I'm still depressed about it. So I'm going to try and not be.

5. I will get published. Technically, with the boyfriend's book out, I am published. However, I want something, on my own, to be published. So I can lift my head up and smile.

Wanting More

Have you ever felt when you walk into a room full of peers that you know that everyone likes you there but you simply don't feel like you belong?

That's how I have felt the past couple of weeks regarding my major. I love the people involved in it but I just don't feel as if I should really be there. When people come up to me and ask what I want to do with my major, if I don't automatically say, "nursing," (normally it's along the lines of running a woman's clinic), people give me funny looks or kind of a shun attitude. No offense to the people going into nursing; they are doing something that I completely respect but just don't feel like I want to be involved in. I've been keeping these feelings inside the past couple of weeks, only mentioning to the boyfriend sometime last week that I wondered what it would be like to be a religious studies major.

Wednesday, I decided that I was done with Health. I was bored and, when my Computer Applications teacher told us that we had to pick a motivational statement of our goals in Health Education, I couldn't think of anything to write. "What it is that you want to do with your life?" one of my friends asked me and my only response to that was, "write." It's true. All I want to do is write. But the realization that I didn't know what to do with my life (apart from write) hit me like a ton of bricks. I have already changed my major once. I didn't want to do it again. I had thought to use Health as a back-up plan in case my novel didn't take off (which there's no guarantee that it ever will) but I knew Health was the wrong back up plan. Even when a very close friend of mine told me, "It doesn't matter what you're major is; you could even take time off school if you want to work on your writing so badly," I couldn't agree. I needed a back up plan.

So, as you might have guessed, after much deliberation, I changed my major to journalism. Since it requires a minor, I am minoring in the Literary Editing and Publishing certificate (which, for some odd reason, journalism still considers a minor even though it is really a certificate). My Health friends are disappointed in me, my journalism friends (and the staff of the newspaper) are thrilled, and my new adviser did this funny little dance when I told him I wanted to change to journalism. I still haven't let my Health adviser know... I figured that would be the upsetting conquest of next week. People who were disappointed that I changed my major from English Lit are satisfied that I am do some sort of writing (as am I) and I really don't regret this change at all. Especially because if the minor falls through due to budget cuts, I'll be a creative writing minor. I've signed up for the classes that are still open and I'm really excited/intimidated by my Creative Nonfiction class next semester.

It was a necessary change and a good one. I don't regret it, even though journalism is a lot more work (unit-wise) than health education.

At least I wont be taking physiology next semester.



Excerpt from chapter 5:
To be posted later today.

Not an English Major: You Do the Math

I must be writing a lot about writing my novel on my Facebook, lately, because a very dear friend of mine asked an interesting question today. I’m not sure if I have ever completely covered this subject on this blog but I suppose I’ll cover it now. The question my friend asked was, “If you like writing so much, why aren’t you still an English major?”

I could give a very simple response to this and, then, I could give a very long-winded one. I think I’ll do both. We’ll start with the simple one. I’m not an English major the same way Michael Crichton was not an English major (RIP to an amazing writer). I realize that Stephen King taught English for a while (and one of the women in my NaNoWriMo group teaches an English language class) but it is not a necessity.

Now for the long one: I used to be an English major. All through high school, English was my favorite class. I did better than many of my peers, baffled many of my friends, and it was the one subject that I could proudly beat my ex-boyfriend at without trying (he was better than I at basically everything else). I’ve been writing since the 3rd grade so, naturally, English was what I thought I was going to get into as a major. I actually tried all the different areas of English in my senior year high school: I was a copy editor for the school newspaper, I was taking an AP English Literature class, I took a creative writing class from the local junior college during the fall, and I followed a professor at the junior college for my senior project (of what job we would like to get into). I decided early on that I didn’t want to teach, not because I couldn’t but because I would get bored with the repetition. When I started applying for 4-year universities, I applied as a creative writing major but, thankfully, due to circumstances, I didn’t go to any of those universities and attended the junior college instead. I ended up graduating with my AA in English Literature and actually applied for my current university in the Editing Literature major.

So, why then, you ask, did I suddenly switch my major? Why did I turn from something that I loved doing so very much?

The truth is this: I hated it. Sure, without my emotions involved, my resume is pretty clear: ENGLISH MAJOR. But, as soon as I got into college (and when I was taking those AP English exams), I despised every essay. It was really clear that I was done with the major when I was forced to read Crime and Punishment in Spring of 2009; forcing myself to sit down every day with the novel, a pen, and little pieces of paper to shove into the spine as I made notes about the plot, theme, ect; forcing myself to dissect every little paragraph, sentence, or word that I came across with; forcing myself to write about Dunya’s transformation as a result of Raskolnikov. For some, that might be heaven. For me, it was taking a wet towel and twisting it very slowly, until every last drop had disappeared. Those drops? The joy of writing. The joy of reading. I am not an English major because it took away the joy of sitting down and reading a good book.

I remember that professor telling my class at the end of the semester, “I bet none of you will never be able to sit down with a book ever again and read it without seeing the themes, noting the syntax, and finding chronotopes.” I didn’t reply to him but, by this time, I thought to myself, “Whatever happened to reading for fun? Just to get the joy out of the riveting experience of the plotline? Why should I have to dissect everything? Sure, it’s fascinating to learn the mother, Addie, only has one chapter (after her death) in As I Lay Dying, but why am I responsible for finding out why?”

And that’s why I’m not an English major.

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t still get the joy out of writing. I’m actually beginning to get the joy back after taking most of the summer off of writing. The negative effects of being a literature major are wearing away, which is awesome because I’m beginning to remember how much joy I took from writing in high school, before the whole English major thing started.

And, currently, I recommend On Writing by Stephen King. This book is freakin’ fantastic.

Career Crisis

The boyfriend noted something this morning that I thought was worth mentioning, "I've noticed that many people who go to college overshoot their ability levels and end up trying for a job that they'll never do."

I totally agreed with him, especially in the health field. Sure, it sucks to be disappointed when all you've ever wanted to do was be a nurse but if you need a GPA of 4.0 and you're only at 2.5, it's going to be a little difficult to get there. It's not bad to change your mind if you know that the goal that you're shooting for is a little bit too high. I'm living proof of this, since I changed my major from literature to health and everyone (even my ex boyfriend) was shocked and called me out on it. But I knew what I wanted and what I could handle and I wanted to write but I couldn't handle literature. I still feel that being a literature major takes a lot of the fun out of reading. Sure, you want to know things about the theme of the story and about the characters but analyzing every little bitty thing? Not for me.

If I could, I would write full time. If I knew that I couldn't fail. This reminds me of something Christian said at the conference, "Writing is a full time job. When you do it, you do it every day and you get paid for doing it. Hopefully, anyway." But you cant just write and expect to get somewhere. Many classic novelists had jobs while they were writing, such as being an editor or a scientist or some laborious day job where the only time they had to come home and write was at night. So, of course, I might end up like them. Working the day job until the night job takes off with something special.

As Christian said, there's no way of knowing whether you're going to get published. You just have to keep trying. "Someone will eventually like your work," he promised. "But you have to keep searching for that person." Then, when a girl said, "I'm 18. What are my chances of getting published?" he laughed and replied, "More likely than mine! Americans told me I was too European for them at first and had to publish outside of America, in Europe, before anyone took interest."

So, I know I might have the GPA for it but I'm not trying to be a doctor. I may have the smarts but I'm not shooting to be a physicist. Why? My hand is stretching in a different direction, one that is less likely to happen but one that I want so badly to take hold of. I'll keep with my day job and push at my night job. Because I know something that many my age don't: if you have a back up plan, no matter what, you are sure to succeed. You will always have something to fall back on. And, of course, that is where Health comes into the picture.

Valuable Lesson

Yesterday, my Drugs in Our Society teacher had a speaker come to our class.

The woman who came also brought her husband for support and, before the talk even began, I found out why. My class already knew that their daughter died from alcohol poisoning last December, so this was a very fresh topic. What we didn't know was how completely amazingly eye-opening the talk would be.

After a short slideshow of her daughter and her daughter's favorite songs (which definitely got me teary-eyed), the woman came back in and began to tell us about her daughter. She told us how her daughter was full of life, good at everything, and popular with everyone, but down to earth. She told us that, 5 days before Christmas, on the first day of spring break, her daughter had gone to a friend's house. They drank a lot and they drank it quick. After a short while, her daughter got sick and her friends left her next to the toilet in the bathroom, thinking that she would be fine. They found her at 9am the next morning, unconcious, and we unable to revive her. She died not long after.

The woman told my class that she had learned out of the whole ordeal that alcohol poisoning is something that most are not well informed of. Drinking and driving? Sure. Blackouts? Of course. But alcohol poisoning is just not as commonly talked about. She knows this because her daughter died of about 8 shots of 80 proof vodka.

She put it into perspective for us this way: "This is a drink," she said. "One class of beer is about 8 ounces."

"This is a wine glass," she said next. "A typical glass of wine is about 4-5 ounces."

Then she picked up the shot glass and stared at it. "This is also one drink," she told us. "One shot of hard liquor is about an ounce."

"The problem is getting people to understand that the one shot of liquor is exactly like the glass of beer. Each is one drink. However, it is much easier to do 8 shots of vodka than it is to drink 8 glasses of beer."

This really hit me hard. About two months ago, Jo and I were bored one night and decided to play a little drinking game while watching one of the Star Wars movies. The deal was that every time Anakin said "Jedi Knight," we would each take a shot of tequila. About 7 shots into the movie, we decided to end the game and I am ridiculously glad that we did, now. It scares me that a shot or two more could have put my life into a ridiculous amount of danger. I know that I'll probably never do anything like that ever again after knowing this. If a 5'6" girl weighing only 107 can die from 8 shots of vodka, I can die from the same amount, if not just a bit more.

The woman and her husband aren't trying to teach people to stop drinking, just to drinking responsibly. I know that I definitely will from now on. I hope you do too.

Human Sexuality

There are some very dumb people in this world.

I realize that my Human Sexuality class is a GE class and that most students taking it are freshman or sophomores. I'm not, though. I'm a junior. I'm taking this for my major. I am genuinely curious about the human body and how it works. I am excited to find out about what drugs do to your brain. I wish I wouldn't have to read a textbook to find out but it interests me. So, when people ask me truly dumb questions, all I want to do is ask them if they went to high school.

For example, before my first major Human Sexuality test today, a girl (not blond and I'm not stereotyping) was asking some of us to give her some of the answers on the study guide.

Girl: Do you know what andosperm is?
Blank stares all around me.
Me: It's male sperm.
Girl: And gynosperm...
Me: Female sperm.
She stares at me like I've just shocked the poo out of her, so I decide to explain.
Me: You know. 'Cause the guy produce both sexes, xx sperm or female sperm and xy sperm or male sperm. It's the guy's sperm that decide whether or not the baby is going to be male or female.
Girl: Wow... how do you know so much?
Me: *blink blink* Uh... well... I... uh... took a lot of science classes in high school.

And I really only took physical science, biology, and chemistry but SERIOUSLY, PEOPLE? Not knowing that the whole reason why women need men is because of their sperm to complete the whole baby-making and gene/chromosome deciding process? Seriously??

I am dumb-founded.

Caffeine Machine

Me and my Pepi... we go way, way back. I don't remember the days when I wasn't sipping that sweet, sugary goodness, hoping to stay awake for another class. So when I heard the words "the government might regulate caffeine" in my Drugs in Our Society class, I had to dig deeper. I needed to know: would I be regulated as to how much how soda I'm allowed to drink in a day before "intoxication"? Are they going to tax soda even higher then they already do? Since I'm not a coffee drinker and energy drinks mess my already excitable system up, I'm incredibly curious to know what they will do to soda.

According to an article by the Wall Street Journal (linked and posted here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203674704574328322293679870.html), the main regulation that people are encouraging for is the mixing of caffeine and alcohol.

"Proponents of tougher regulation are calling for everything from outright bans to warning labels stating that mixing caffeine and alcohol could carry health or safety risks. A primary concern of the groups is that caffeine and other stimulants may mask feelings of drunkenness, which could lead users to act recklessly, such as driving while intoxicated."

Of course, me being the brilliant person that I am, I had no idea what-so-ever that they put caffeine in alcoholic drinks and the other way around. It makes sense, though; people love to play with things they shouldn't play with. I totally agree with this regulation, especially because it is mentioned later on in the article that the risk of accidents people get into due to alcohol rises with the addiction of caffeine. It freaks me out how people take so many risks on alcohol. Did you know that the more you black out, the more often you can black out? It's a pretty scary fact.

However, alcohol aside, I'll turn to another article (http://www.cypnow.co.uk/inDepth/ByDiscipline/Education/936907/Health---dangers-caffeine/) by the NCB (National Child's Bureau) about just caffeine in specifics. It appears, from the looks of this article, that they are thinking of just putting regulations on energy drinks. (Whew!) This is because of all of the young people now (in high school, especially) who are consuming a ridiculous amount of energy drinks. I supposed I don't have to tell you this, though. You probably have either tried, currently use, or know someone who uses energy drinks for that extra kick or to "party like a rockstar."

"Phillips believes some young people are using the drinks as "a legal way to get high". He says some teenagers see the drinks as a cool status symbol, because their packaging resembles beer or cider cans."

Well... no. I went to a high school where energy drinks were cool but I think it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that they're like beer cans. Now, if the kids were "cool", they could convince one of their older friends to buy them one of the alcoholic caffeine drinks and really find a way to get high. These are drinks that keep you awake in class; why wouldn't high school-age kids drink these drinks? Many of them, such as Amp (in my opinion), taste like soda (Amp tastes like Mountain Dew), so that's a plus.

Although, some do taste really nasty, and I can't imagine how people can choke them down. Monster for example. I just shudder to think about it.

"He has witnessed young people suffer from twitching, paranoia and aggressiveness as a result of caffeine drink consumption.

"'They cannot stop their actions because they are suffering withdrawal symptoms when trying to limit their intake, so we have been treating it as an addiction,' he says."

Ok, this really made me think of a website (http://www.energyfiend.com/death-by-caffeine) that I stumbled across one day that I need to share with everyone. This will involve hours of fun. No joke. You write down your weight, "pick your poison", and find out how fast how many caffeine drinks of the brand could kill you. I'm a lightweight so, for example, after talking about Amp, it would take 104.65 cans of Amp to kill me. On the other hand, it would only take 47.57 Pitt Bull Caffeine bars to kill me. Scary, huh?

Seriously, though, I realize that this subject is actually quite a big deal. If you didn't know, caffeine is a legal drug and should be used with extreme caution. It is highly addicted and I know people who are strongly addicted to it. I've had teachers who come to a 9am class with a half-consumed can of Cola in their hands. I've even struggled with it, especially when I have to wake up after only 6 hours of restless sleep and attend an early class. It's very tempting to down just a can at 10am, then another around 3pm, and maybe finish off with one around 8pm to keep me awake to study. I don't do that (because I would go into water withdrawals if I drank 3 cans of soda a day) but I'm saying that it's the thought that's there.

If you've never heard of the story, there was an energy drink called Spike Shooter that came out a couple of years ago that had very scary amount of caffeine in it. On the can, if you even bothered to read it, it says that kids under 16 shouldn't drink it and, when consumed, the person should only drink half of the drink at one time. This drink ended up hospitalizing several teens because drinking an entire can gave them heart palpitations. I looked it up on the Death by Caffeine site and this one could kill me in 26.16 cans. That is VERY scary.

So, watch what you drink.

But, those of you who drink soda, you have no worries about being regulated. Or even dying. Because, if it really would take me 206.55 cans of Pepsi to kill me, I'm going to keep guzzling like nobody's business, baby.