Pep Talk

I'm getting used to my true self. Well, what I'm trying to say is I feel more comfortable being who I am and loving what I love. I mean I love my body and as far as self esteem when it comes to physical looks and things like that I'm good. I mean I'm a full fledged nerd and I've never really embraced it much. I don't think I was trying to be like anyone else, though. Maybe I was just suppressing it. I enjoy playing video games, listening to jazz, hip hop, and instrumentals. I enjoy running, biking, and swimming. I love yoga (Lord please heal these wrists so I can get back into it!). I absolutely love anime. I'd rather Netflix anime from 10 years ago than watch Love and Hip Hop. WWE Raw and Smackdown are my "Scandal". I absolutely hate going to clubs, but I love bars. I love good food and cooking it. I love learning about nutrition and science. I'm not a "Tomboy" or a "Prissy Girl". I'm just Ashley. I'm proud of who I am. Maybe I just needed to tell myself that. Maybe I just needed to read this for myself. I like what I read. I'm proud of myself. I'm pretty awesome. Yay me! Go me!

                        

                 Did I mention that I love black cats???

I would give him all of the food!

Black girls can swim, too

....if we can win the gold in gymnastics, why can't we swim? I'm so sick of all these jokes about black women and our hair when it comes to working out and sweating. I'm all for people expressing how they feel, but for some reason this guy really worked my nerves with his comment he made:

This is the status my friend posted on facebook about swimming:
North Carolina Central University swimming pool, one of the facility that is barely used by students.. Why.. SMH most students do not know how to swim, second short hours for swimming, 3 no activity to promote swimming, Is there a Central Swimming team on this CaMPus, it is all about basket-ball, football, volleyball, tennis, baseball or softball, WHAT ABOUT THE Other SPORTS!!!!! We really have a long way to go....SMH

This was the guy's response:

Murason Barthelemy negga u kno neggas dont like the water do u know how much these black women hair cost lol

12 minutes ago · Like

I don't know what it was about that that made me want to go off today, but it's ignorance like that and the women who make it slightly true that work my nerves. Whether you have a perm or natural hair learn how to take care of your hair on your own! Do the research! For years I didn't know how to do anything to my hair and I relied only on my hair salon for everything for many many years, but I've started doing the research. I've started looking up YouTube videos. You can learn ANYTHING on YouTube  Oh yeah, and "neggas" (he can't even spell) aren't afraid of water, sadly we (as a whole) don't know how to swim. Many of us didn't grow up with a pool or the resources to learn, but times have changed and pools are everywhere. Not only is swimming actually fun and a great workout, knowing how may save your life one day. And stop it with the damn stereotypes! We'll never get anywhere if we keep bringing each other down and talking about each other. 

So, to whoever that guy is, learn how to spell, learn how to make grammatically correct sentences, and stop bashing black women.

Maybe I took this a little too personal, I don't know. We just need to bring each other up not break us down.

***Sorry if none of this makes sense. I needed to vent a little.***

Senses...

Apparently I'm not smoking enough weed in my life because I still have a butt load of pressure in my eyes, which is making me a great candidate for glaucoma.

Stay away from hash brownies. I repeat STAY AWAY!!!

Seriously though, I have no idea how to correct it. I just know how to stay black and die, man. But anyways. I was at Duke Eye Center today for some more testing and pictures of ONLY my left eye. I felt like a freaking science project. They poked and pulled on my eye lids to get any and every angle of my eye they could get in a picture.

This won't hurt a bit. You won't feel a thing.....Ok, maybe a little.....Actually, a lot, it'll hurt a lot.

                                           

Well, let me rewind a little bit and go back to when I was sitting in the waiting area to get my eye mug shots. All of seats closest to me were taken so I had to look around for a free seat. I just wanted to sit down! I finally found one beside this old guy who was there with his "friend". I say "friend" because he didn't call her his wife or girlfriend. Maybe it was just his boo thang, who knows? She excused herself to the ladies' room, which left me and old guy there sitting together. I guess the silence was bothering him because he decided to turn to me and complain about a horrible laser job that a doctor had done on his eye that left one eye just about blind. Apparently the doctor had incorrectly burned off some of his blood vessels, it sounded weird and like something I never wanted to go through. He told me how he lived in Burlington and that it took him forever to get here earl in the  morning. He complained about the drive back and how it would be impossible for him to drive back home with the sun beaming in his eyes. He bought along his boo thang as his designated driver. We talked about being thankful for having people there for us to help us when we're in need.  He agreed but still went on the complain about how these are supposed to be his retired years, he's supposed to spend them being happy and he wasn't happy. I tried my best to be optimistic for the both of us and I think I helped a little. It wasn't until he said this one statement that I kind of clammed up a bit. He told me that he'd rather be deaf then be blind any day of the week. That got me wondering, which would I choose (if I had to)? With out much thinking, I immediately chose being blind. I thought about all the beautiful music I love listening to. All of the music that got me to where I am now. All of the music that got me through those tough situations. All of those study sessions where I didn't actually study. All of the music I downloaded legally......and illegally. Could I give all of that up? Could I handle not having that in my life anymore? More importantly, could I handle not being able to hear my loved ones tell me they love me? That's tough. I guess it's different for me though. I live away from pretty much everyone I love and talk to on a daily basis. I mostly talk to all of them by phone anyway; either that or text (which deals with vision unless you have one that talks to you, which would be flippin awesome!). But seriously, I think about all of the wonderful sounds that are around us. Besides, think about it, anyone could sit beside you and fart and you'd never know it. Do you really want that in your life??? Didn't think so.

Poor guy didn't stand a chance, smh.

There's just way too many wonderful artists and musicians out there. I would hate to miss out on their awesome creativity. But I will admit, giving up sight means that I would have to give up driving. That may be the deal breaker, but I love music WAAAYY too much. How about this, I choose to be healthy and happy with all of my senses. You feel me?

Hey! Did you see what I did there? I used all 5 senses in here. Look at me being all clever and ish. I'm patting myself on the back right now, you just can't see it. *BOW!*

See? What if this guy lost his hearing? He couldn't moonwalk to phat beats. Just sayin'.

Hey. I think I'm doing the moonwalk in class tomorrow. I've just been inspired to do something epic. I love life :-)

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT ACTUALLY SMOKE WEED!!!

                                   

                                                     
                                                       

Days 1 & 2...A new mindset

I'm not doing this as a New Year's resolution. I'm not doing this for any temporary quick fixes. I'm doing this as a lifestyle change. I've always been an athlete and I've pretty much been in shape for almost all of my life. My eating has never been horrible, but it could be better. I occasionally drink here and there, but nothing too bad. I've started working towards my personal trainer certification. This is something I've wanted to do for years and just never had enough balls to do it. No more running and no more excuses. I'm going for it. I almost thought I was crazy to do this, work, and go to school, but then I thought about it. I am crazy. I have the opportunity to make all of my dreams realities. Why not take advantage of this young age and do it? While I get the certification I will be putting my body through a transformation as well. Who wants an out of shape trainer? I wouldn't. This will NOT be easy. There will be days where I won't want to do anything (like tonight) but I'm going to push through and get it done. I'm setting examples for many people and I will not let them down. I will not let myself down. This is my second day on my journey and the 4th day of the new year. No more excuses. No more whining. No more complaining. Now is the time. I may mess up, but I will pick myself up and keep it moving. I can do this.

My Inspiration/Girl Crush. I don't want her. Just her body. Give me until the end of the year and I'll post the same pic of me doing this ; )

A little confused

Words can't even describe how I feel right now. I'm not sad and I'm def not happy. I just am. I'm not afraid but I'm not "ok". I don't know how to feel. It's the end of the year and Christmas is coming up and I have to get my emotions under control. It's not fair. My friend just got engaged, my brother got an awesome job, my other friends got awesome grades this semester (mine were good too, just not as good as theirs), my dad had an awesome weight loss transformation. And what do I have to show for the end of the year? Not much. I have "good" things, but nothing "great". Other than the fact that I started school. I just want to be happy with my boyfriend. I want to be able to talk to him and laugh and joke. Tell him that I miss him and hear him tell me he misses me, too. I want to be held by him and hear him tell me he loves me. I want to play video games with him. I don't have to get engaged, I just want to be with my boyfriend and I feel like I can't even do that now and it's about to get worse. Why can't I just wake up and all this be a dream?

Annoyed

So I'm pretty disappointed in the people down here. I can't seem to find a great bunch of reliable people to hang out with. One week we'll be on it and have a lot of fun and then the next week they won't be anywhere to be found for a couple of weeks. I'm a student, intern, and an employee and I still make time to call or try and hang out with people. There are times when I just want to call people and just talk but no one picks up their phone. Sometimes, like tonight, I want to go to the movies but there's no one to go with so I'll more than likely go by myself. I'm glad I'm able to at least do that on my own now. I remember when I wasn't comfortable enough to go out on my own. No girl or guy friend is no where to be found. Now I will admit that I have classmates are available but they want to go out and drink and go to a club. I just really don't want to be around that type of environment right now. I'm not in the mood. I even invited people to come over and play video games with me on my Kinect. Maybe that'll happen later? I just hate that when I do have people I can hang out with they're doing things I definitely don't want to do. I don't want to go out to a club. Especially with my half marathon 2 days away. I already don't feel prepared due to sucky weather. I've been afraid to do any training because I didn't want to be sore on Sunday, smh. I'm disappointed is all. Am I being too picky with friends and who I hang out with? I don't know.

Some compliments wouldn't hurt every once in a while