#then that teacher threw a fit when i wanted to switch to honors biology because 'ohh thats gonna be too hard for you'

[pups-2-dust]

I was really discouraged from taking science classes in high-school because all the science teachers were super clique-y and I had beef with one of them freshman year and then after that all but one of them would target me :/

[michellemcnamara262003]

Your time lapse life

Lately, I have been looking at my life through a time lapse lens. Instagram shots of happy memories, pasted together to resemble a series of happy memories and perfectly photographed food strung together seemlessly like an endless impression of a moody yet flawless john Mayer music video. The time lapse is deceptive, and the magic lenses of a filtered camera has failed to capture the endless endless endless disappointment. When I was an undergraduate, I had a vision for myself. Like all 18 year olds, it was a magical vision. I would be a 4.0 student, a star athlete, the object of every boys desire. Success would fall into my hands, I would be surrounded by praise and affection and I would basically, in its essence, encounter a life where my every desire is met. As most adults know in hindsight, we almost always fall short of the ambitions we set for ourselves. And reflecting back, I believe my first encounters with failure were in sports. I was a scrappy soccer player. Quick, tenacious Nita little too small and a little too undisciplined. I loved the game. I detested most of my team mates. In high school I was put on the junior varsity two years in a row. In biology class, I sat next to a girl who was a soccer legend. She played for the best club team, was on the varsity team and had somehow managed to find herself on the junior national team. I sat behind her and watched her struggle in biology. That didn't seem to matter. She had everything I ever wanted, and I would have gladly changed places with her in a heartbeat- her soccer success for my A in biology. Her athleticism for my 3.56 average grades. But the world doesn't work like that, and the harder I worked, the further I found myself behind, falling short of my ambitions and goals. I switched schools my junior year. I was never going to make the varsity team. My short comings hurt to the point that I was failing at school. My adventures in public school were lonely. I never made friends. I ate lunch alone everyday. The glimmer of popularity I wanted was squished by my soft spoken way of existing, blending in so that no one would see me. I barely spoke my senior year. In English class, I downright refused to speak. It became more of a challenge then a solution. The teacher hardly noticed and again, I blended into the background of the public school system. In December of my senior year I suffered a tremendous loss. While running during a soccer match, I twisted the wrong way. My legs spun in one direction, while my torso moved in the other. I fell, and when I got up, I felt strange. I kept running, no thinking much of it until the game was over. Then, like a bolt of electricity a skreeching, blinding pain took over my entire body. For the next six months I struggled with a hernia. Two epideral injections and an extensive back surgery and I was not in pain. However, my psyche, my sense of invincibility was crushed. I was no longer the kid who wanted to be the best, I was the young adult with a lack of belonging. This was the beginning of the end of my soccer career. I had a bit of interest from colleges, but after this, I was limited. I was bitter. I chose Texas Christian. My dad was proud. I was going to college and playing division 1 sports. However, I just wasn't that athlete anymore. The coaches threatened to cut me multiple times. At the end of the season, they held true on those threats. I was cut. I was gone. I transferred. Centenary was a new start for me. At least it was suppose to be. I was the player from the big d-1 school, come to play at the little d-1 school. But I found myself in a similar place. Too small, not fast enough and just not fitting in. The coach threatened to cut me, but decided to keep me on for a little while longer to see if I improved. I improved, and stayed on for the spring season as a last resort sub. Now if you're hearing this story, you are expecting a Rudy moment. Too bad. There isn't one. I broke my tibia that next summer, red shirted the following season and quit that spring. I was done with soccer. I was tired of the rejection. I was tired of that feeling of not being good enough, because the fact was: I was not good enough. I remember the night I told my dad I didn't want to play anymore. He was supportive, but could t understand. He couldn't get it. Even the coach, chase couldn't understand why. He even made an off handed promise that I would play in some of the games the next season. I quit. I sometimes regret quitting. But I knew it's for the best. I threw myself into school, my friendships. I did well in school. My motivation was medical school. I wanted to be a physician more than anything. I packed my schedule with honors courses and science courses. I made As. Teachers praised me. But in the end, I realize I was a mediocre student with mediocre credentials. I applied to multiple medical schools. I did not even receive a single interview. I was defeated. After college, I moved home to my childhood home. My younger brother was still at home. My childhood wasn't great,and I often get suffocated by the hovering of my dad and grandma, the lack of friends and a lack of purpose in my life. I worked a few jobs: I was a barista at Starbucks, a tutor for an independent education company and a teachers aide at my dads school. It was a lonely year, and I had no friends. I often found myself broken down in tears,wondering if I would ever find my place in things. I had to get out of my parents house. I applied to graduate school with the sole purpose of getting far away. I chose Vermont. I started a phd program having very little sense of what I was doing. I was very close to flunking out of my first year. My grades were shotty. My apartment was a rickety moldy graduate apartment I shared with a medical student who would fill the bath tub up with water and leave it there. She never once took out the trash and did not own a single piece of furniture. To top it all off, she hated me. Not just a passive hate, but a literal, palpable sense of hate. My first lab rotation was a disaster. My first mentor told me on a daily basis that I shouldn't be in graduate school, I had no friends, no social skills and was not smart enough to be in graduate school. She even talked to the director of the program in an effort to get me kicked out. This was after two weeks of being in her lab. Luckily, the director stood up for me. She told me I belonged, that I could change rotations if I wanted, and even offered a rotation I her own lab. I decided to stay, even after she berated me everyday. Every single day. It was like being in an abusive relationship. At the end of my rotation I happily moved on. I joined the next lab I rotated in, for no specific reason other than I had no where else to go. I was there for four years. In those years I was unsuccessful. I didn't publish I didn't find anything new. I barely existed. When it was time to defend, I found myself at odds with a mountain of regret. What am I doing here? What am I doing with my life? During graduate school I made friends. For the first time in my life, I felt connections with people. My first friend in graduate school was a girl named Liana. She was in my graduate school cohort. We were both athletes, and we found a friendship between us. When she decided she no longer wanted to speak to me,I felt that overwhelming sense of depression that I experienced in high school. That feeling that I am weird I. An unironic way and that no one will ever love me. Why she stopped talking to me has a lot to Do with some of things I say being awkward and uncomfortable. I made other friends. I met a guy named Ben who fell in love with my weirdness, I met a girl named sherry who cheated on me, forever changing my faith in people's fidelity and a girl named Maria who truly broke my heart. I also met a drug addict who was semi obsessed with anal sex, a few alcoholic friends and an emotionally disturbed Asian girl who's bipolar impression of me leaves people on their toes when I am in the same room. I also met my wife, mae. I adopted a dog and a cat. I bought and sold a condo. So life hasn't always been bad. It's been good too. After graduate school I moved to Oregon. I gotta job in an inpatient treatment center for kids. I was physically and emotionally abused ten to twenty times a day. Children bit me, threw objects at me, punched, kicked, spit and down right attacked me. I was physically injured multiple times, and even was taken by ambulance to the emergency department. My employment ended shortly after that. I have never recovered emotionally, and I still feel anxious from time to time when I hear children scream. After that incident I found myself finding work difficult. I was j employed for over a month. I took the first job that came my way: an adjunct professorships at university of Portland. At first, I was surprised that such fortune came my way. When I got down to doing the job, I realized how undesirable this position was. One class over 4months ways $3000. After taxes I was taking home $700 a month. Hardly enough to survive. And I couldn't find other employment as this course was taught 3x a week from 12-1pm. One of the professors kindly told me that I would never advance at this institution. I still to this day do not know if she was being brutally kind or brutally aggressive. I left after 1 semester. I didn't fit within the confines of academia. I didn't belong there. I moved to Miami. I wanted a fresh start. I decided nursing would be a good fit. I was somewhat successful at school. I did well in course work, in clinic and in other areas demanded of me. However, I never really fit into the mold they were trying to squeeze me into. I was weird and quiet and uncomfortable. One of my clinical instructors asked me why nursing. I could t give her a valid reason. I couldn't figure it out. I am back in Vermont, still trying to find myself. Still trying to pick up the pieces of my life and put them together into a coherent story. I'm looking for a job, a solid landing pad. I want to join the military. I want them to take my hands and show me that I can be what I want and need. I've babbled for over an hour now. It's time for me to go. I have never believed in god. That has been my choice. But I dwell on things, so I must assume that is a form of prayer.