Shoes.
Shoes.
Shoes.
Oh my God.
Shoes.
Let's get some shoes.
Let's get some shoes.
Let's get some shoes.
Let's get some shoes.
Shoes.
Shoes.
Shoes.
40, 41, 42... Do I keep going or do I stop counting? I have so many shoes. So many more shoes than most people. But I need some nude pumps, some black flats, some cuter flip flops for summer...I need, I need, I need. But do I really need? No. I want of course. There is something in my brain that flips a switch when I see some desirable shoes. Shoes are my vice. If I am feeling down or in just a weird mood and I buy a new pair of shoes I immediately feel better. It's that release of knowing I am going to have something new to wear on my feet and someone is going to tell me they are cute. Ever girls dream is to have that pair of shoes with the red bottoms. The more expensive the shoes the longer they last. It is true, I am not just saying that. The soles need to be sewn to the shoe not just glued on. This is what separates the wheat from the chaff. It is funny that something we wear that constantly gets dirty can cost so much money and be in such high demand. I can't imagine living in times where they didn't wear shoes. There is only one place I will willingly  not wear shoes, at my home. My favorite though is not wearing shoes in grass as long as there are no stickers. From living out in the country I can walk on gravel and hot surfaces and be fine. I have grown accustomed to my feet being beat up. But I would much rather look at a cute pair of shoes on my feet than just at my feet. 

Stop. What do you believe? Why do you believe it? Do you know the answers to these questions?

            I grew up knowing that God was real. My parents told me that so it must be true, right? Wrong. My parents could tell me anything they wanted to. Everyone around me was telling me what to believe. I never once asked myself why I believed these things other than I was told to. Going to a Christian school for nine years and earning my diploma from there, I was constantly being told that “Jesus was the answer”. It was not until my sophomore year that someone actually saw that we were a generation growing up believing something without knowing why we believe it.

            My teacher, Mr. VanDyke, instead of telling us what we should believe, asked us why we believe what we believed. This question shattered my world. I gave the normal, “church” answer, because Jesus is the only way to heaven and he died for our sins. He then challenged us to prove that the God we believed in truly existed. We had the faith without the proof. Once again instead of pouring his beliefs into our head; he asked us thought provoking questions that challenged our beliefs. Mr. VanDyke took the fundamentals of philosophy and equipped us with how to defend our faith. He truly wanted us to know why we believed in a God that everyone else had only given us a faith answer for.

            His influence on my Christian faith did not stop there. Senior year he dissected all the major religions in the world. He taught us that people from other religions literally view the world differently than us. He took this perfect little world I was learning a protected faith in and blew it up. I had no idea that people did not see the world as I did. This was one of the most beneficial things for me going into college. No matter what anyone told me I knew the proof of my beliefs. I also was aware of how people viewed the world and how they might try to challenge my beliefs.

            I have had many conversations with people in college and asked them those two simple questions. What do you believe? And why do you believe it? They usually give me the same answer that I gave before someone took the time to equip me with knowledge on the subject. This saddens my heart and makes me so much more thankful for the education I received. This is why I believe in knowing what you believe and why you believe it. 

8 Pages Deep...

First semester as an English major. Holy Moly! It has been a semester. I love it and hate it all at the same time. I took a full load of English classes. All of them having some sort of writing. First week of class and I felt like I was already drowning. I learned that I would be writing TWO 8 page papers this semester.  The longest paper I had ever written was seven pages and that was over something I genuinely enjoyed. First paper up was my film critical analysis. How I got 8 pages? No one will ever know. I had to write it in one night. That one flew by, the next was not as nice to me. I started on my Brit Lit paper two weeks before it was due. I got the heading done and then onto the intro. I stared at the blank computer screen forever! The intro was rough and I couldn't start it. So, the paper didn't get started until the day before it was due. Once I got started, the ideas and argument started to flow throughout the paper. I then fell asleep around 3 am..woke up around 7 to finish it in one and half pages. I was finally done and set free from those 8 pages. I could now conquer the world! I could truly take on whatever the world had to throw at me. Even though I got 4 hours of sleep, I felt like I had completed something that was genuinely worth my time. The semester is winding down and I don't want to do anything else. I feel as if my TWO 8 page papers have been the highlight of my semester and that is how it should end. Those 8 pages were my Bang! and they say, "you should go out with a Bang!"

Confessions of an ADHD, Dyslexic girl with Acid Reflux...

Now one might be confused as to why I tie all these things together. I will definitely get to that. 

ADHD is an epidemic in today's America. Everyone has it or thinks they do and everyone has medicine for it even if they don't have it. I on the other hand actually do have it and it is a genetic thing that I struggle with and so do others in my family.  If you know me at all you know I can't sit still for longer than about 10 minutes maximum. Some days it's better than others depending on what I have eaten or how much sleep I have gotten. On the bad days or average days the world can be a cruel place for a girl like me. In high school I discovered that energy drinks actually helped calm me down instead of hype me up. The amount of caffeine in them actually does the opposite to my brain and helps me focus. I drank one every morning in high school so that I could pay attention everyday. I loved them and still do to this day. So I fixed one problem, but I was still left with my dyslexia. Now I do not have it as bad as some people, but everyday things like reading a clock or giving directions is rather hard for me. My brain LOVES to play tricks on me and try to get me to mess up. Then as I entered college I realized these things were easier to mask. I only had to sit in class for 50 minutes at a time. I usually could have my phone out and conversations were a big part of learning. All these elements helped me immensely. Tuesday/Thursday classes on the other hand I realized were pure torture. You want me to sit there and listen for an hour and fifteen minutes?! I would rather give you an organ! I started to get better at them, but still depending on the subject matter sometimes it is just not a successful class period. 

After a 5 week illness the doctor discovered I had severe acid reflux. She gave me some medicine and I thought I was fine. That was not the case though. I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling like I was going to have a heart attack. I then discovered that I could no longer drink anything carbonated. Remember how caffeine mellowed me out? Yeah I am no longer able to drink that. I would have up to 3 Diet Dr. Peppers a day! So I then had a choice to make do I feel nauseous, like I am having a heart attack, or just in pain all the time or do I stop drinking pop and battle ADHD on my own? The choice was clear I was going to take on ADHD! I thought I was indestructible. I so had this under control. 

One night I did not get as much sleep as I should have. I woke up and was grumpy and just wanted to sleep! I went to class and survived the first one rather impressively. My next class was in the same building just one floor up. I went to the third floor and had to wait for the professor to unlock the door. I sat down on a couch in the building, next to the room. A girl in my class walks up and is standing against the wall. You could hear the music coming out of her earphones. My brain automatically zeroes in on this. Then of course you have the people walking through the hall way while the music is blasting. Then I realize another girl's headphones are also fairly loud. So I have two different musics,people passing, my phone buzzing, and then a girl starts to play with her jacket zipper. My brain is then trying to focus on all of these things at once. Then all of a sudden kind of like an explosion my brain just wants to make everyone stop doing all these things. I just want to grab each person and shake them until they too can see what is going on in my brain. These actions are not socially acceptable. Instead I have to sit there and try to not yell at someone just because I can hear their music or they keep playing with their zipper. 

People throw around the "I have ADHD" excuse for pretty much everything today. I am not saying I have never been guilty of this, but next time maybe take into consideration the fact it is a real struggle for some people daily.