College vs. High School (Gangnam Style)

     I never expected college to be so different from highschool.  Especially when I'm only attending a community college.  There's no drama and no cliques and no judgement!  It's amazing.  You can talk to anyone and easily make new friends.  Even though suprisingly most people are quiet and shy at first.
     I've now made friends from Ghana and Yemen.  I talk to someone new every day.  Everything feels so comfortable here.
     One of the things that has gotten me right now is that no one has judged me on my interest of South Korea.  Yes I know... South Korea of all things but I just stumbled upon it and became intrigued several years back.  I can't help myself.


My highschool buddies and
 I celebrating some Asian
 culture by cooking up some homemade
 Korean cuisine.  So yummy! 

     In my english class we are supposed to write about a relationship we have in our livves and so I chose South Korea and how it is involved everyday in my life and how over all it has changed my life as well.  Well, I didn't realize we would be sharing our topics with the entire class.  So one day we went around the room and told everyone what we were writing about.  At first I cringed when the words first slipped out of my mouth.  Then the teacher stopped and became interested.  Not many people choose a country or even a culture to write about.  She aske dme more questions and every day since then she asks me more and more.  At this point I was happy thtat she was interested in my choice of topic but I was stilll wary of what my fellow classmates thought of me.... Until today.
     today we passed around a paper with our topic at the top.  Everyone had to write something about it that could help the person with their thesis.  I was worried about what I would get back but then I saw the first several comments.  Others thought my relationship was so cool and some have even made friends with South Koreans as well as finding the art and music fascinating.  It made me so estatic.  When people first find out about my passion they skip right to judgement.  Even my own "friends" would tease me about it and think I was weird.  It hurts when the people you thought cared about you....look down on you and make fun of you.
    Now I feel great about myself and I feel pushed even more from my teacher and classmates to study abroad and travel over seas. 
    What are you guys judge for?  Open up and comment below. :)  I'd like to hear.

The Great Break Up

     Everybody has been a part of a social network at some point.  Whether is was Myspace, Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook.  The facebook that has become so popular that they make halloween costumes out of it now.  Well I have joined several of those sites but never became attached as much as I had with facebook.  It started off with some photos, couple status updates every so often and that was that.
     Then my junior and senior years rolled around and I had become a part of multiple clubs and other activities and I was constantly on facebook.  I had good reason.  So I thought.  I needed to update others and gather information and create events so my friends knew what was up next weekend.  It started to become my excuse. "I need facebook to keep in touch with people".  With this excuse I was always on facebook... every night.  If I was doing my homework I would leave it up so I could let people know I was online and looking for a conversation.  I became a little obssesed with the social network, but it didn't pull me away from my education too much.  I still graduated, earned an honors cord and received a fairly nice scholarship from my 80 hours of community service that year.  I was proud of myself. 
     Now I'm a quarter of the way through my freshman year in college and the relationship I had with facebook became even worse.  I had no more reasons to be on facebook everyday.  I was no longer a part of clubs and groups.  I did however end up deleting about 200 people who were my "friends" when in reality I've never spoken a word to them.  Yet, I always was worried about my profile picture and my cover photo had to match.  I needed to find something everyday to update my status.  I still left the page open while I did homework in hopes that someone would start chatting with me.  When I did my homework, which was always online, I would frequently get stuck and imediately I would switch to my facebook tab to "give myself a break".  I thought I would "clear my mind" by reading some statuses and chatting with a friend.  I found out the hard way that none of that helped me what so ever. 
     Last night I got home from an evening of hanging out with my best friend.  We decided to wait on our homework which is usually due at midnight.  So we got on skype afterwards and started working on the assignments when I realized the one and only assignment for the semester was due two hours ago... I was late and could no longer turn it in for credit.  I felt like I screwed everything up.  I mean, I'm still easily going to pass my classes this semester but I needed something even higher to hold onto my grant money this year.  It hit me then that I spend to much with my social life and worrying about what's up with everyone else that I haven't been focusing on myself.  I worked on some other homework and couldn't get the thought that I screwed up by making a very silly mistake.  I know I'm smart.  It's somewhere in there.  I used to be a straight A student and now I average between C's and B's.  I felt so much stress collect on me in those several hours that it drove me to change.  So I took my first step last night.... I ended my relationship with Facebook.  I went through my settings, found the deactivate button and ended it.  Now I may have put that I will be back so at any point I can set it back up and get all my pictures and what not back, but I knowing that it's a whole process to get it back up I just don't even want to bother with it.  Plus I feel so free to do what I want now.  I feel like I have all this time in my day just sitting here.  It's what I've always wanted!  Time!  I sat in my bed last night really thinking and I thought I can finally start reading books again, and blogging, and making youtube videos and finish writing my story!  I was so estatic that this morning I finished some more homework and immediately started some outdoor chores without hesitation and now I still have all this time so it feels.  It honestly feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.  I now just have my phone, skype and letters in the mail box to stay in touch with friends.  Which I am honestly fine with.  Everybody who was truly that important to me are already added on my skype and most of them are away at college right now so I get letters from them in the mail. 

      Take my story and think about how you're life has been.  Do you wish you had more time for other things in life?  Try avoiding social networking sites for a day or two and you will begin to realize how much of your life has involved these things.  You will feel like you have accomplished so much more in that one day than you have done so in a week.  Comment below with your thoughts and let me know if you have tried this and if it worked for you.

Scholarships and contests

Hey everybody!  This is short, sweet and simple.  Please help me get to college by voting for my picture.  I really could use the money. :)  Join too, and comment you link below and I will vote for you as well!  Thanks so much!

http://on.ae.com/n7zJSw