I Am Thankful For Missy And My Butt

I am thankful for my Missy! She makes me soooo happy! I'm thankful for all the nights that she has cuddled with me. I am thankful for all the times that she has curled up in my lap when I'm sitting in the chair. I'm thankful for all of the kisses that she has given me. I am thankful for the loyalty that she has shown me for so many years. I am thankful that she puts up with my shenanigans and that she lets me put hats on her. I'm thankful that she loves me with all of her doggie heart.

I am thankful for my Butt. I am thankful for all of her cuteness. I am thankful for all of the times she has made me giggle. I am thankful for all of the times she has done cute tricks for me. I am thankful that she gets so excited to see me every time that I walk in the room. I am thankful that she loves me so much that she wants to rub her dog stink on me because it's so adorable. I am thankful for her playfulness. I'm thankful that she responds to me calling her butt. I'm thankful that she loves me with all of her doggie heart as well.

The Soul and the Goal

Fighting conflicts in my despairing heart

Memory ripping into different thoughts

Generous jabs conquer the work of art

Stabbing visits shortly amongst the shots

The window glares at me, bearing its teeth

Bowing slowly as not to upset it

Throwing aside bloody freezing sword sheath

Cower I must avoid until I hit

Falling into the jail of killer dirt
Digging quickly with cupped bleeding fingers
Snoozing above as it slumbers unhurt
The fight rising within that which lingers

The thoughts sometimes consume the soul
Alas I must begin running the goal

I Am Antigone! Hear My Dead Voice!

Dear Haemon,

I, Antigone, do believe that I have done right by burying my beloved brother, Polynices, properly. It is the law of the gods! They may strike us down in a moment! We must remember that "We have only a little time to please the living, But eternity to love the dead" (129). What is a simple transgression against the soil if it means being paid in full for it after death? And please do recall, living without burying Polynices would be to "defy the holiest laws of heaven" (129). Why must we fear a simple man of soil when the gods are what rule us? We must fight for the will of the gods. It is only what can be done if you want to live a happy eternity. I will stand at no man's feet and plead for my life over my actions. In the end, he will have no say in my eternity. 

Furthermore, Polynices may have betrayed Thebes, but he will always be my blood. Look deep at the past of the story of my blood. “How we who are left must suffer for our father, Oedipus” (126). How much suffering do you wish Ismene and I to bare? Even though Ismene is as simple as every woman in Thebes, I know it caused her great sorrow to know Polynices would be denied a proper burial. I do not agree with her obeying the law of the land over the law of the gods, and I will not be swayed from my decisions. Polynices was my brother! My last brother! With "father and mother lost, where would I get Another brother?" (150). You must understand my issue! I could get another husband, or another son, but to receive another brother at this point is impossible. 

But alas, do not pity me! It was my own decision. I will receive my consequences with honor. Honor from the gods. Let it be known, that I would never have changed anything. By the time you read this, dear Haemon, I will be dead. But you must remember, it is what I needed to do. "If this [ban on my brother's burial] is God's will, I shall learn my lesson In death" (150).I do not possess a care in the world that would change my mind as of this moment. All I care to know, is that dear Polynices is buried properly and will receive his proper standing in heaven. You will find other fields to plow, so you mustn't be sad. 

With much love,

Antigone

She's Smart and Stupid. She's Put Together and a Mess.

She is so scared and confused as we ride the light rail. She keeps talking about the irrational idea that the light rail will fall of the tracks and kill us all. She’s always been extremely irrational with her fears. I watch her attempt to understand the map, trying to navigate it on her own, but she gives up and gives the map to me. I don’t understand. She always seems to understand anything that anyone gives her. Why can she not follow simple directions to get to her destination? It’s easier than anything we are learning in school. The directions aren’t even confusing and yet they confuse her to no end. I mean she passed with an A in Physics.

                

I navigate us through the roads and we reach our destination. There are three doors that lead into the same building, but only one of the doors lead into the correct area of the building. We end up trying all three because she can’t remember which door leads to the correct area. She can pass all of her classes, yet she can’t remember a simple path through a building. Oddly enough, she remembers the number of the floor she is supposed to go to as if it was imbedded in her mind. We travel up to the seventeenth floor of the building.

                

I still don’t know what her appointment is for. Her mother is a nurse and usually tends to all of her illnesses that she gets so frequently. Why are we in the middle of Downtown Seattle for an hour long appointment?

               

  I wait for her as her appointment goes on.  She comes out seeming slightly exhausted from the appointment. She is hurried to talk about any other subject that she can. She can’t be that sick, or else all of our family would know. 

               

  My Aunt says before she takes me home, we have to put in some prescriptions. That’s when it dawns on me. She was at the Psychiatrist. But, why? She never seems to show any sign of having a psychological illness. She is responsible and she gets good grades. What could possibly be wrong with her? I try to get her to talk about what her appointment was for just to hear explain what it is, but she keeps avoiding my question, making jokes and changing the subject.

              

I may never know what is exactly wrong with her, but I do know that I can see her fear of everything outside of academics. She is kind to the point that she would bring me a warm drink on a cold day, but she can’t do anything besides school on her own. Her life is absorbed by something. Something that she isn’t quite ready to talk about with the world.

Personal Statement Rough Draft

              

               There were electrons, neutrons, and protons building fortresses and warring around me. I was weeping because of the pain I felt from watching them hurt each other. I was hallucinating due to a hundred and four point one fever, but at the time, it seemed entirely real to me. My mother decided it was time to take me to the Emergency Room, and for my sake, it was the right decision. The war continued to pop in and out of my reality as I rode to the Emergency Room just down the street from my home. It seemed to take an eerily long time to drive there, but when I arrived they rushed me to a private room where the doctors began testing me for various illnesses. The results came back and the doctor said I was dying from dehydration due to vomiting from an allergic reaction to antibiotics that were wrongfully prescribed to me and a high fever from mononucleosis. He told my mother that if she would have let me sleep through the night, I would have more than likely passed away in my sleep. The doctor gave me fluids and I was on my way home, but my troubles were not over yet.

                I stayed home from school for almost two and a half weeks and even after I started back to school, I had to come home early because I was morbidly weak. For the next year and a half, I was ill at least once a month, so I could hardly participate in anything outside of school. I was extremely disheartened because the thing I loved most about doing things outside of school was making people feel loved and I was tired of not being able to communicate because of illness, and I was running out of homework to do for my classes and wasting away watching television.

 I began searching for something that would fulfill my need to interact with people and that is when I found video games. I had always had a love for video games, but I decided to take my love to a new level and venture into the world of online gaming. I ended up finding the video game League of Legends. Within the first week, I had used my education of the Spanish language to communicate with other players, I had made new friends across the globe, and learned about various mentalities of people. I had always been interested in the different ways people act and why and this game helped me understand a lot of this and helped me become more empathetic to people of all backgrounds. Every day that I was unable to go out of my home, I would get online and talk with the people I had made friends with over Skype as we played. At that point, I played the game to get to know others.

I made one particular friend that I met and played the game with for hours at a time changed my life. This boy I met had had a very difficult life. He explained every difficult detail to me in confidence and I would listen to him for as long as he needed to talk. I always tried my best to make him feel loved and to know that I would never judge him for his past. He ventured on to join the military and we talk every chance we can. He is what made me realize the importance of empathy and the importance of giving people of all backgrounds a chance at friendship. Without him, I think I would still be living a disheartened life.

Altogether, I cannot believe the journey I went through. I never would have thought that I would be at this point in my life today. It all started out with me being deathly ill and progressing to a life with purpose. It all made me realize that I want to get a college education to make a difference in society in any way I possibly can. If I can make one person’s life better with everything I do for the rest of my life, that would be worth everything to me.  

ISFJ and Affirmation

I am 56% Introvert, 1% Sensing, 25% Feeling and 33% Judging.

ISFJs are characterized above all by their desire to serve others, their "need to be needed." In extreme cases, this need is so strong that standard give-and-take relationships are deeply unsatisfying to them; however, most ISFJs find more than enough with which to occupy themselves within the framework of a normal life.
Commentary: I have such a need to be needed, and I also thrive in relationships where I am needed because I absolutely hate give-and-take type relationships. I also really do find things to occupy myself because I am so amused by a lot of things 

ISFJs are often unappreciated, at work, home, and play. Ironically, because they prove over and over that they can be relied on for their loyalty and unstinting, high-quality work, those around them often take them for granted--even take advantage of them.
Commentary: The funny thing is that I have had people tell me this before.

And although they're hurt by being treated like doormats, they are often unwilling to toot their own horns about their accomplishments because they feel that although they deserve more credit than they're getting, it's somehow wrong to want any sort of reward for doing work. Because of all of this, ISFJs are often overworked, and as a result may suffer from psychosomatic illnesses.
Commentary: I for sure have these feelings and I also struggle with psychosomatic illnesses.

ISFJs are also good with people in small-group or one-on-one situations because of their patient and genuinely sympathetic approach to dealing with others. 
Commentary: I am a lot better with small-group situations and I feel so sympathetic towards others.

While their work ethic is high on the ISFJ priority list, their families are the centers of their lives. ISFJs are extremely warm and demonstrative within the family circle--and often possessive of their loved ones, as well.
Commentary: Family is so so important to me and I am very possessive of my loved ones.

When these include Es who want to socialize with the rest of the world, or self-contained ITs, the ISFJ must learn to adjust to these behaviors and not interpret them as rejection.
Commentary: Oh my goodness, I struggle with this so much!

Being SJs, they place a strong emphasis on conventional behavior (although, unlike STJs, they are usually as concerned with being "nice" as with strict propriety); if any of their nearest and dearest depart from the straight-and-narrow, it causes the ISFJ major embarrassment: the closer the relationship and the more public the act, the more intense the embarrassment (a fact which many of their teenage children take gleeful advantage of).
Commentary: Spot on...

An adult ISFJ may drive a (later ashamed) friend or SO into a fit of temper over the ISFJ's unexplained moodiness, only afterwards to explain about a death in the family they "didn't want to burden anyone with." 
Commentary: I for sure do this, and I get rather annoyed by it.

I suppose it's the auxiliary nature of this Feeling, coupled with the balancing effect of {detachment from the internal idiosyncratic view of free-floating data perceptions} that makes ISFJs tentative, conservative, and reticent to boldly state the rights and wrongs in the relational world.
Commentary: This actually is a great description of how I have been feeling a lot lately and I hate expressing my opinions of the rights an wrongs in the relational world.

Perhaps this explains why ISFJs are loyal to the end; there is no sense of purely objective (i.e., impersonal) judgement of anyone but themselves (and that only by their own standards). Here is this type's achilles heel that makes many of them so vulnerable to the scoundrels and ne’er-do-wells who often use and abuse them.
Commentary: I am loyal until the end and I usually always blame myself for the losing of a relationship. I am so vulnerable and often abused because of this.

My Favorite Affirmation:

This person said I was Empathetic, Compassionate, Trustworthy and Intelligent.

This person wrote, "Bryce has a gift of putting others at ease by letting them know they are safe with her. Disarmingly real, Bryce shows people that there is no danger of recieving judgement from her because she has been through plenty of her own challenges. She is an excellent listener, and anyone who opens up to her will leave, feeling enriched by her abundant compassion. Bryce is also a fantastic worker: she is responsible, hard-working, reliable and trustworthy. If there is a job to be done, she is sure to get it done promptly and do it well. I learned this through the wonderful experience of having her as a T. A. Bryce is passionate as well. She cares so deeply for people and for helping others find a 'good way'. Through her own experiences, her faith has been tried and proven true. This enables her to listen to others and give them very real hope, devoid of trite phrases. She has been THROUGH  it, and she lets you know you'll get through it too. I could see her as an awesome social worker or counselor. I love her! :)" 

Becoming a Palace (Personal Reflection)

This passage comes from the chapter “Counting the Cost”:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of- throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself” (205).

                I feel like this analogy goes a long with something that C. S. Lewis talked about in another part of Mere Christianity. In a paraphrase, Lewis made a point that when you ask God to help you change one little part of your life, He begins doing things that you do not want Him doing. This analogy really brings that statement to a whole new meaning. You ask God for help and He starts to rip your life a part and it is scary and it also really hurts during the process because you were not ready for Him to “start knocking [your] house” down.

                I really do feel as if this really applies to my life, and it makes so much sense to me. At one point in my life, I felt as though I was completely broken and I had no idea what to do to get out of my situation. I was at the point where I was too helpless to get out of the situation myself. All of a sudden, God put me in a situation that threw a car through my house. I was in so much trouble and it hurt me deeply, and I don’t think many people realized how deeply it cut me. It didn’t hurt because I got caught, it hurt because I had done something so wrong and I knew it and now I had to live with the disappointment that I had caused. To be honest, I am thankful that I was caught because it was something that needed to happen, but at the time, my house was completely destroyed and I was just thinking “What the heck am I going to do?” I wanted God to help me get out of my situation, but not do things that He was doing.

                As the weeks and months went on, little things kept happening and changing and my house was getting demolished into tinier and tinier pieces and it kept hurting. Then after a few months, things started getting built in a way that was better and healthier for me. I started to realize that what had happened, had happened for a reason and amazing things were starting to come into my life. I cannot be more thankful for what God did.

                Although I am trying to let God work, it is difficult to let Him do it and I am still an extremely broken house.  Things are still happening and they still suck, but this analogy helps remind me of the good things that have happened from letting God knock down parts of my house. It just reminds me that I am a crappy carpenter and that God knows what He is doing. I just have to remind myself to fight the part that is fighting back against the things He wants.