No one is home to listen to me vent my thoughts, so you all (or those who choose to read it) get the brunt of it. Sometimes I like to think with an audience.

Do you ever really sit and think of who you are? What are the core qualities and traits that combine to make the person that you are and the person others perceive you to be? I had a rough day today, and class tonight…well I’ll get into that later, but it all leads up to the fact that tonight I tried to answer this question about myself but I could not do so as easily as i had hoped. Sure there are a few qualities that are definitely recognizable as my own, but they are not necessarily those which are most important to me.

I look back at my life, and many of the qualities I thought I had/have can be traced back to a reason or a point in time that swayed me into embodying that specific trait. As I have aged I have recognized and debunked a few of these traits, but sometimes I cannot even recognize them to deal with them. I will not list all the traits, but to give an example….I have always thought of myself as religious, specifically Baptist, but I realized that is because I grew up going to a baptist christian school and surrounded by teachers and preachers telling me this is the only way or I will surely go to hell and be consumed in fire for all eternity. I look back and am amazed at how willingly I fell in line and did all that they asked of me (I have since dealt with this and come to my own terms with god and religion).

Another issue I was thinking about was that I believe I am a good student in school. I do not think of myself as inherently smart, but I do well enough. My means of learning are deeply rooted in memorization and self-motivation. When faced with a practical academic dilemma I freak because quoting a definition will not solve the problem. These are the moments that make me feel like an ass (tonight’s research methods class). But whether I understand the information or not is not the point, the point is to ace the test, to get the GPA, to get the 1400, to get into Harvard… I realize that I memorize these things and jump through these hoops because I am told to, because I have the urge to impress my teachers, my parents, my peers (semi-consciously/semi-unconsciously). I strive to be (seem) smart because that is what the honors program and Dr. Whatshisface asks of me.

Just call me pyrite, beautiful on the outside with the promise of good things, but not all it is cracked up to be on the inside. Sometimes I feel as though I am a collection of everything my world wants me to be. I fall in line like a good private school girl. Yet I feel like I lose myself in the things I wish myself to be perceived as by the world around me and it’s expectations. But this begs the question; did I ever have myself to lose? Did I ever really know what I was to begin with? I’ve realized that I strive so hard to become what I think it is that I should be, that I have started to believe the façade myself. Sometimes it takes a slap in the face and a big cereal bowl full of humility to remind me that I’m not always what I strive to be….and I’m learning that there is nothing wrong with that.

I digress; i have so much school work I could/should be doing right now, but at the moment, I'm just not motivated.