Prompt 12/24/17

Prompt: Have you ever spoken up when you saw something going on that was wrong? Were you scared?  What ended up happening?

It’s Wednesday.  Wednesday means leaving school an hour early.  That’s enough time to take the bus to Pinole so that I can stay at the library for a few hours.  I exit the bus and start walking towards the library.  I cross the street I’ve crossed many times before.  It’s a small street, just barely wide enough for two cars to pass.  There’s the stop sign I’ve seen so many times before.  I make sure there are no cars as I step onto the road.  As I’m walking, a car shows up out of nowhere speeding down the narrow street.  I stop in my tracks and my mind goes completely blank as I stare at the car hoping for it to stop.  It screeches to a halt just a few feet away.  The driver is a young man in his early twenties red in the face with rage.  In the passenger seat is a young woman of similar age.  Her face is wet with tears and her body is visibly shaking from fear.  The windows are rolled up, muffling the sounds coming from inside the car, but the man is yelling loudly enough for me to hear.  Spit flies from his lips and the entire car shakes as he slams his fists onto the dashboard.  He blames her for not paying attention to the road and that it would be her fault if he had run me over.  She only cries louder and shakes harder.  She glances at me for only a moment but it feels like an eternity.  Her lonely, fearful eyes cry out to me.  ‘Help me.  Save me.’  But what can I do?  I’m only 16.  I continue walking, pretending I saw nothing.  Surely, an older me, maybe a high school graduate version of me, would be wise enough to rescue her.

I’m 19.  A college student.  Those eyes, those fear-shrouded eyes, still call to me at night.  ‘Help me.’  But what can I do?  I must be too young.  I have yet to learn anything about this dangerous world we live in.  Surely, an older, college graduate version of me would be wise enough to rescue her.

I’m 24.  I work at a full-time job.  I’m an adult now, isn’t this what adults do?  Still, those eyes continue to haunt me at night.  I’ve made a pledge to myself to help anyone that needed me.  I’ve saved a dog’s life.  I’ve helped a woman with a broken-down car.  I’ve comforted a woman whose car was just stolen.  I’ve bought food for a hungry, homeless family of five.  I’ve driven my neighbor to the emergency room.  I’ve helped so many people that I’ve lost count, and yet…  And yet, those eyes continue to haunt me.  What would I do?  In my dreams I’m crossing the street.  I see the stop sign.  I see the car speeding towards me only to screech to a halt.  I hear the man yell.  I see the woman’s eyes.  What do I do?  What can I do?  Maybe I’m still not old enough.  A real adult would know what to do.  Someone older, someone wiser, someone with more life experience.

I’m 29.  I’m married, financially stable, and planning to have children.  Isn’t this what adults do?  Surely I’m old enough now.  Surely I’m wise enough to rescue the woman with those eyes.  Those eyes that still haunt me in my sleep.  Those eyes still filled with fear.  Those eyes pleading to me, ‘Save me.  Help me.’  I know now that wisdom doesn’t come with age.  That courage doesn’t appear with more passings of the day.  I walk across the street.  I see the stop sign.  I see the car speeding and suddenly stopping.  The car is a few feet away but it feels like miles.  Those eyes look at me only for a moment, but that moment turns into a lifetime. What do I do?  Can I turn my feet towards the car?  Will my legs push me forwards?  Will my arms reach out to save her?  What will I do?  I want to believe that I can help her.  I want to believe that I will be brave enough to save her.

Her eyes have locked with mine a thousand times.  My arms have reached out to help her a thousand more.  Yet if I am walking across a street tomorrow and I see those eyes…  I am afraid.  Not afraid of the eyes.  Not afraid of the man.  I’m afraid of myself.  I can see my past-self turning my head and continue to walk forward as if nothing had happened.  That version of myself is what scares me the most.  It’s the person who ignores the eyes that brings fear into my heart.  I am reluctant to look into the mirror, afraid of the reflection I will see.  Who am I?  Am I the one that saves the woman?  Or am I the one that turns away?  Will I ever know?  I’m afraid to find out.

I lie down.  I turn off the lights.  I see those eyes.  I see the stop sign, the road, the car, the man, and then I see those eyes.  My arms reach out to save her once more.  What can I do?  What will I do?  Who am I?

2016 General Election

1.  President and Vice President
Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka
They're the closest parties on the issues that I care about.  I know that voting for them is more or less like a throw-away vote, but there are three main reasons:  a) I can't in good conscience vote for anyone else, b) I live in California and our electoral votes are 99% likely to go to Clinton no matter who I vote for, and c) If the Green Party gets up to 5% in votes, they qualify for federal funding and I can help with that.

2.  Senator
Kamala Harris
Of the two, I don't agree perfectly with either, but overall, I think Loretta Sanchez is more of a corporatist than Kamala Harris.

3.  Representative
Ro Khanna
Doesn't take big donor money, supports a lot of socialist agenda, etc whereas Mike Honda seems like a long time politician with large ties to the current establishment.

4.  State Assembly
Kansen Chu
Not even a question.  The other option is a Republican.

5.  Board of Education and Onwards
Not voting
I am not involved enough or have enough information to form any sort of opinion

State Measures
51.  Yes - I'm actually right in the middle.  This could have been written a lot better.  There's no guarantee that the schools that really need it will get it.  And only about half of the dollar spent on this will actually do anything....  But it's something.  Better than nothing I guess.
52.  Yes - Medicare is good.
53.  Yes - the arguments for them are great, the arguments against are crap.  We're just putting large bonds to a vote, why would putting things up to a public vote ever be bad in a true democracy?
54.  Yes - The transparency would be great.  Last minute changes to bills can't happen before a vote.  Not sure why having a recording of legislative proceedings would hinder anything if there is nothing to be ashamed of.
55.  Yes - Not enough, but still yes.
56.  No - Not on e-cigs.  Not enough research done to equivocate e-cigs with regular cigs.
57.  Yes - Nonviolent crimes in general shouldn't have long prison sentences.  It's the first step.
58.  Yes - like why not?!
59.  Yes - one step in the right direction
60.  No - they're already super safe.  adding condoms actually deteriorates actress's health.
61.  Yes - here's to hoping things will work out.  Also Bernie is for it.
62 and 66.  Yes then no.  Repeal death penalty, not make it quicker.
63.  Yes - duh
64.  Yes - long overdue
65 and 67.  Yes on both.  Let's see who wins out.  Although I'm for the plastic bag ban, I'm also against the stores promoting sale of one-time use bags for profit.  I'm for reusable items in general.

Local Measures
A - Yes - affordable housing is necessary to help the underprivileged
B - Yes - BART finally, half percent tax is really not much, and better transportation overall both private through cars and highways and public through BART and caltrain.
O - Yes - More money for the mayor and council members will mean more attention to the ongoings of the district.
P - Yes - Term limits for those in power is good for democracy.
Q - No - 4/5 is really much.  3/5 would make more sense but this really sounds like a power play.  Like someone was really butthurt about a vote that didn't go their way.
R - Yes - More transparency and more democracy.  Public voting is better than city council voting on what to do with public land.

Updates about life

Oh yeah..  new job..  since May.

Working on writing lesson plans for writing classes.  (Funny since I think I completely suck at writing, but here I am learning as I go.)  I really have learned a lot.  I'm currently editing first and second grade lesson plans, but I'm learning about narrative, persuasive, and informative writing.  I'm even learning how to structure paragraphs.  It's really amazing how all of this is new to me, and yet elementary schoolers are learning it.  I've consistently failed at nearly all of my English classes since I entered high school.  I realized that it's because I've never really learned how to write.  I remember my 8th grade English class.  I don't think I wrote a single essay in that class.  I'm pretty sure I started writing essays in 9th grade.  All of my knowledge on how to write was just from context, and now I'm actually learning the foundations of writing.  It's pretty neat.  All my years as a teacher has given me the skill to verbalize my thought process, and now I'm learning the correct structure of how to put that down on a page.  Yay.

I'm also working on a middle school math curriculum.  Yay!!  It's not official but I'm more or less in charge of it.  Pretty much everyone in the office has accepted it.  In fact in the first two weeks of launching the project we made so much progress on it that they had to pause it.  Mostly because there's a bigger priority (writing lessons).  But once all of the edits for the writing lessons are in, the math curriculum project is back on.

New motivational tool!!  It's called Habitica.  It's pretty much a to-do list, but slightly different.  You have an avatar you control (with pets!) and every time you complete something you gain experience and coins.  You can level up, join a party, go on quests, defeat monsters, etc.  It's a real-life rpg.  So awesome.  There's even a daily section, where you put things you want to finish daily.  Some of the things I include are flossing, praying, reading the Bible, exercising.  You can even change the difficulties so that some give you more experience and others give you less.  If you miss the daily for the day you take damage, and if you die...  well your character dies.  It's really motivating for me personally because I've always been into rpg's and now I'm an rpg character myself.  I'm on level 4.  Yay~

Dear Sister

Dear youngest sister,

It's been nearly a week since I talked to you last.  You're off on a mission trip, and I'm hoping you're having a really great time.  I've been super proud of everything you're doing and where your heart is right now.  You've grown so much in just a year, and I'm amazed every time I see you.  Last we talked, we talked about how to love people.  I admitted to you that I'm scared of what responsibilities loving people accompanies.  You said that you prayed for the heart to pray for loving people at first.  I couldn't even muster up that courage.  But I'm not sure if it's because you prayed for me, but I've been able to pray for the courage and energy that it takes to love people.  I've realized that I've been lacking the courage and the energy it requires to love people.  The courage to face complete rejection and isolation from those people I love, and the energy and perseverance it takes to continue loving them and giving my all.  So pray for me for this.  Maybe I can grow as much as you have in the next year.

Love,

Jeen

It Comes and Goes

How can I explain depression?  I feel like no one really understands unless they've had depression themselves.

Let me try:

There's a sad, depressed Jeen, and then there's me.  Normal, usually happy Jeen.  Sad Jeen is always lonely.  She needs company, and because happy Jeen is right there, she takes up happy Jeen's attention, so that happy Jeen doesn't have time to be happy.  Happy Jeen watches a lot of shows and stuff when I'm alone because it keeps sad Jeen distracted making me overall less sad.  But when the show ends, sad Jeen is back in full swing.  When I'm about to sleep, sad Jeen is urging me go to the kitchen and take a knife and stab myself.  If happy Jeen were completely unconscious, I might have done just that.  But happy Jeen is aware of what is going on, and uses up all her energy fighting sad Jeen just to keep me in bed and not bleeding all over the floor.  This is a constant daily struggle for me.  So much so that I don't have enough energy to do anything else.  I'm spending all my energy keeping sad Jeen still, spending all my attention entertaining sad Jeen.  So much energy and attention that I don't have time to eat, time to exercise, time to work on any of my hobbies.

Exercising helps release dopamine into your system so that you feel better.  But have you every tried exercising when you just want to pass out because of how tired you are?  It's impossible.  Parents with newborns or young toddlers may understand.  You're spending all of your free time and energy focused on your kids you forget about proper diets and exercise.  Keeping a blog or any other thing to keep you happy?  Forget all of that.  It's not that I don't want to.  I just don't have the resources to do so.

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This was written around two months ago.

It's been about two weeks since sad Jeen went on a vacation.  She'll be back someday, probably, since she always comes back.  But in the meantime I'm exercising, enjoying myself, staying relaxed and happy.  I've been able to read the Bible more, pray more, actually cook, etc.  Yay...  Not really looking forward to sad Jeen coming back, but it's not like I can do anything about it.  I've actually been considering antidepressants for when she does come back.  I'm worried though that I'll get hooked on it or that it will change me in a way I don't like.  Hmmm...  thoughts to think about.