Known

I don't know why I hold myself back.  In my case studies group, I am still pretty quiet and stuff even though I know the people in my group are pretty nice.  Is it that I feel like I'm being judged?  Is it that I feel like Tom (the guy Helena constantly texts) is going to relay the story to Helena?  Is it because I think I'm boring?  Is it because I feel like I'm not witty or funny enough?  Is it because people don't pay attention to me?  It's probably a combination of all of that.  Also, lately every time I get into my case studies group I feel sad.  I see how close two of the girls in the group are, and it just makes me feel sad.  I wish I had what they had.  They're roommates, and it seems like they're very close.  They make each other laugh all the time.  We have fun in the group, but it's just ironic that I would feel so sad in my soul amongst all the laughter.  Or, maybe it's expected because it's me.  I'm full of irony.

As a woman, I want to be known.  All women want to be known and loved and accepted.  I want the opportunity to know and love someone else back.  I'm not sure that I need lots of friends.  I think I would be happy with just a handful.  I get unhappy in class because many people don't seem to like me.  It could be just the personality thing- I can be real quiet and shy.  It could be Helena running off her mouth, telling people how she was just the victim and how I was cruel.  I was never cruel to her.  She was always cruel to me and my friends.  And by cruel, I mean that she was so amazingly fake to all of us, feeding us lies, making us believe she was a friend (or wanted to be a good friend).  Turns out if you get close to her, you get burned.  She will denounce your friendship.  It could be the Jeremy thing.  I have not mentioned Jeremy yet, but he was also a fake friend who really hurt me.  I bet he goes around telling people that he was just trying to be nice to me because I liked him, and he felt sorry for me.  News flash: I never liked him romantically.  Not sure that I even liked him as a friend.

I don't know why I'm in the situation I'm in.  My whole life I always found my best friend because she ended up being the girl that sat next to me in class.  9th grade: we had every single class together, including band.  10th grade: we were in band and student council.  12th grade: my boyfriend was my best friend, and we had band and couple of classes together.  College: I don't remember how I met my best friend.  My other friend I met because she sat next to me in organic chemistry.  It turned out that we had all the same classes that year.  In pharmacy school though, nothing turned out the way that I wanted.  I always ask God why.  Can't He see my heart and how it aches?  What was I supposed to learn from this?  And why are people so cruel?

The deal with Helena

At first, the stories came out innocently enough.  In class she always sat next to these two guys, Nick and Kevin.  I just realized these names are the same names as the Jonas Brothers.  Awkward.  Or, as I'd like to think of it, the same names as two members of the Backstreet Boys.  Okay, that's not much better.  I used to love the Backstreet Boys until Nsync came out, and then I totally loved Nsync.  I chose sides.  Nsync won.  Anyway, I thought she was good friends with Nick and Kevin, just like how everyone else in class thought.  They were always together at school functions and always sat together in class.

But, I soon learned that she was indeed not so close with them.  She would always say, "They're my brothers.  They're my brothers."  It made me think they were close, but that wasn't reality.  I was the one who always hung out with her and studied with her.  She hung out with them maybe on weekends and that was if she tried to get something together, almost forcing them to spend time with her.  She began to tell me how she actually wasn't close with them, especially with Nick.  Nick and her started to get close at the very beginning of pharmacy school, and then Nick started to pull away from her after he started dating Katie.  Helena said that Katie wanted to get into pharmacy school and needed some help with the PCAT or something so Helena told her to email Nick.  Helena also said that she thought Nick and Katie would be a good match so that's why she introduced them.

However, Nick started pulling away and talking to her less.  Helena even told stories about how Nick would ignore her because Katie told him to.  Since I was her friend, I thought Nick was just being controlled by his girlfriend, and I didn't really know what was going on.  I thought Nick was a bad friend because she made it seem like he just wasn't a good friend.  I even told her that maybe Nick and Kevin don't know how to be a friend.  Oddly enough, she always prefaced and ended these stories with, "Oh, but he's my friend.  I just get upset.  I don't mean anything by it.  I don't want you to think badly about him."  Really?  If you tell enough of these stories, it makes other people think badly about that person, but at the time, I was just trying to be understanding.  I do understand that sometimes people need to vent and that they don't really mean what they say.  It just took me a while to realize that she wasn't a good person who just needed to vent; she complained about everyone she knew.

To try to balance it out, she would talk about things she said that weren't good and how she knew they weren't good and maybe even how she felt badly or sorry that she said those mean things.  One time she told Nick to never ever talk to her about Katie again because she so sick and tired of listening to it.  Yes, she was always the victim.  Everything was being done to her.  It was everyone else's fault that things weren't going her way.  When I started becoming friends with Nick, it started strangely enough.  I noticed that Nick would make complaints about her.  I think at first I almost blew them off because I knew he was sort of a blunt person.  Then it dawned on me that I could talk to Nick about the complaints I had about her.  Guess what?  We had exactly the same issues with her.  When I started becoming friends with him I was already feeling down, wondering why this friendship I had with Helena was so darn difficult.  Was I doing something wrong?

I really tried being her friend because she told of how her friends always left her.  She would introduce two people that were friends with her, and they would both click with each other better and leave her out.  Her friends always left her.  That right there should have been the big warning sign.  LOOK OUT!  DANGER UP AHEAD!  STOP!!  RING THE ALARM!  But no.  What do I think?  Oh, poor Helena.  All her friends leave her.  She has no close friends.  Awwwwwww.  Well, boo freakin' hoo.  All those people stopped being friends with her because it was too damn difficult trying to be friends with her.  When Nick and I started comparing notes, we realized that she was a bad friend to both of us.  His reason for not being close with her anymore was because she got insanely jealous of his relationship with Katie and did some awful things.  To this day we don't know if Helena had some kind of crush on Nick or not because she still can't seem to let him go.

She was always gossiping about people in class, complaining about her "friends", was supernaturally loquacious to the point we couldn't study together anymore, discussed major family issues, had no problem preaching about her religion but huge problems living her religion out, and this was all just the icing on the cake.  I haven't even gotten to the cake part yet.  Sometimes when I talk about her out loud, I feel like it's just word diarrhea.  It just comes out running all at once.  It's dirty and messy.  It smells bad.  I've been conscious not to do it, but it slips out once in a while.  Next time I'll get to the cake part.

One more week until spring break!

Last week my sister came up to visit me and stayed with me the whole week since it was her spring break.  Suffice it to say that I didn't get much studying done, but I did have a lot of fun having her here.  I also got to spend some time with my awesome friend who's in dental school.  Yes, I'm using the word "awesome" now.  I think it's because my sister brought seasons 1 and 2 of How I Met Your Mother, and we watched it all week.  They say "awesome" a lot.  So I will too from here on out.

So, right now I'm supposed to be paying attention in class, but the professor is boring, and I've been ruminating on so many things I want to write about.  However, at the moment, I can't come up with...okay, I'll start with my friend Robert.  I recently saw the episode of FRIENDS when Mike finds out Phoebe has a rodent friend named Bob, and she yells, "Robert!" to get her rodent friend to come out.

Robert is pretty good friends with Helena, and since Helena predictably told Robert about what happened between us and why (according to her) we're not friends anymore, Robert and I discussed the situation.  What I like about him is that he doesn't judge; he wants to know both sides of the story and be friends with everyone.  On the other hand, he did do a lot of defending on Helena's behalf.  I think I need to lay down the basic story for now before I get into the discussion I had with Robert.

In the first semester of our P1 year, I had talked to Helena a couple of times, and I thought she was a nice girl.  One time on our way to anatomy lab, I sat next to her on the bus.  I saw her, and I was so glad  because she was nice, I wanted to get to know her better, and I didn't have anyone else to sit with.  We had a good conversation.  I found out she liked some of the same music I did, and she said nice things like how glad she was that I was there.  I thought that was cool, but she never asked to hang out or anything, which was weird. I really could've used a friend during that first semester of school.  Fast forward to January and pretty much out of the blue she called me to hang out.

We never hung out because a friend of hers was coming to pick up keys or something.  It wasn't a big deal.  Then later on that month, I went on this sort of pharmacy mission trip to this small town, and basically, the same thing happened again.  During lunch or some meal I ended up sitting down at the same table with her.  She wasn't particularly talkative, which was unusual since she tends to talk a lot, but she could've been tired.  I just remember during this trip she basically tells me that she was glad that I came, and we were sitting on a bus like before when she said that.  After that, we actually did end up meeting at Starbucks to go study together, but the chatterbox that she is, we didn't do any studying at all.  I didn't care because it was fun, and I felt like I had met a new friend.

We hung out and "studied" together a lot.  We were spending lots of time together and getting closer.  That's when the stories came...

Spilled spaghetti and other signs I'm losing it

Did I mention that for the past oh, maybe 4 weeks, I haven't been sleeping well?  I'm so tired that right now I don't know if those commas in the first sentence are in the right place, and it's not bothering me enough to look it up.  Maybe tomorrow.  I tried cooking spaghetti today, and it all wound up on the carpet.  Well, half the sauce wound up on my pale gray carpet and feet; the other half I managed not to spill, but it didn't taste great anyway.  So, I tried to eat the leftover Turkey Bistro from La Madeleine, but that didn't taste good either.  Pourquoi moi??

Today started out okay.  I was almost late in meeting my friend at 11am.  Early, I know.  I was meeting her because her seminary school was holding this missions conference all week, and she invited me to see this guy Afshin Ziafat.  He's the main speaker for the conference, and he spoke very well.  He spoke from the book of Jonah and told the story about when God first told him that he was to be an evangelical.  Ah, that word "evangelical".  It used to scare me.  I thought that to be an evangelical, I'd have to be some kind of missionary out in the field or someone who is just aggressive with the gospel.  Through time and understanding, I've realized that we're all called to talk about our faith and share the gospel with people who would otherwise never hear it.  Today I was so inspired just by hearing Afshin talk.  He grew up in an Iranian, muslim family who expected him to become a doctor when the Lord revealed to him that he was to go another way.

Lately, I've been feeling this strange desire to speak out and reach people.  The thought occurred to me, "What if I was on fire for God?  What if I was that person speaking Truth into the lives of my classmates?"  I would probably look like the woman I was meant to be, the woman God had wanted me to be all this time.  Come to think of it, what do I have to lose?  My reputation?  That's lost already.  Friends?  Well then they weren't my friends to begin with.  A huge part of me doesn't want to damage God's reputation.  I worry about what others will think because I know I've made many mistakes during the last couple of years.  I don't want God to look bad because of me.  But how crazy is that?  Is God, the creator of the universe, really going to look bad just because of little ol' me?  Isn't He way more powerful than me?  Doesn't He sit on the heavenly throne?  What part of that reasoning makes sense?  I'm just starting to realize that it doesn't make sense and that I'm missing the point about how God is SO much bigger than me.  God can take my mistakes and turn it all around.  He is in control.

Arg, there is so much I want to say, and this has started to become more like a diary.  I intended this to be my microphone, the platform where I could tell my side of the story for the past couple of years, and I wanted to start from the beginning, but maybe I will just let it be.  Let it be, let it be, let it be...not a Beatles fan?  Let it flow.  I think I'll just go with the flow of this blog.

Loyalty

So last night (I wrote this on Saturday) my friends and I were supposed to go to this Vietnamese restaurant to eat some pho.  This place has a buy 2, get 1 free deal for pho, which is good since there are three of us.  I was excited because I'm always up for eating pho; it's one of my favorite dishes.  So it was about 7:45 pm, and we were about to leave when Nick calls to tell me that Kevin sort of invited Frank, Tiffany, and Carmen.  Now, you're asking, "So what's the big deal?  Just more people, right?"  Uhhh...except for the fact that Tiffany and Carmen treat me terribly.

Tiffany usually just straight up ignores me.  No eye contact, no smile, no nothing.  Zip.  Nada.  Nil.  And I have no reason why.  One day she just stopped talking to me.  I never did anything to her or said anything about her.  Now Carmen, on the other hand, will talk to me occasionally.  However, she will never invite me to go anywhere.  Whenever she invites Nick and Kevin, she does it in front of my face.  She doesn't acknowledge my existence.  It's almost as if she thinks that Nick and Kevin are her friends and not mine.  She keeps trying to exclude me from my own friends.  Oh, and to top it off, she's in her late twenties yet she chooses to act like a child.  I just want to yell, "BE POLITE!  INVITE THEM WHEN I'M NOT THERE!"  Or accept that I'm friends with them and invite me too.

For some reason, my class is incredibly bent on excluding people, gossiping, and generally making others feel like crap.  There's no cooperative, inviting, warm environment.  It would be difficult to create one, but I think if it did come to realization, people would follow.  Maybe.

Lately, I've been really upset with my friend situation.  I've been crying and praying to God about my lack of friends.  I really wish that I had some girlfriends who genuinely follow God and will support and encourage me.  I want to be around some godly women that are kind, caring, considerate, and loyal.  Loyalty is so hugely important to me, if you can't tell by the title of this entry.  Loyalty implies trust.  Loyalty implies honesty.  Loyalty implies belief in the other person.  I miss having a group of girlfriends around me.  No, my experiences in the past have not always been good, but that doesn't stop me from desiring and hoping.  I try to think of all the reasons why God hasn't brought me these girls.  Maybe this desire is an alabaster box that I haven't broken at His feet.  Maybe God is trying to pull me closer to Him.  Maybe God is trying to teach me something.  I wish He would tell me what I need to do in order to get them.

A little weary

Man, I haven't been able to sleep lately.  I almost feel like a vampire.  I can't tell the difference between night and day anymore.  I think it's because I'm stressed about school.  I have two finals on Monday and Tuesday next week, and one of them is oncology.  So many cancers, so little time.  I wish I could learn faster.  Sometimes I google "how to study" in a vain attempt to discover something new and magical, some new learning technique I haven't tried yet.  To save you some time, many of the websites/blogs tell you the same things.  They're perfectly good skills, but nothing new.

I know that a part of me is just super tired from the not sleeping, but I do feel weak and weary.  I desperately wish that I had some Christian friends at school.  And I mean genuine Christians.  Most people believe that as long as you go to church, you're a Christian.  Wrong.  Others think that if you simply believe in God, you're a Christian.  Wrong again.  The devil believes in God, doesn't he?  In fact, he knows God exists.  He works against God and His people.  So does that make the devil a Christian?  Definitely not.  A true Christian (and it's sad that I have to add the word "true" in front of "Christian") is someone who believes with all their heart, mind, body, and soul that Christ died for them on the cross for all of their past, present, and future sins so that she could have a relationship with God and that Christ is God who came down to earth in our form.  Yes, the concept of the Holy Trinity is hard to grasp for me and for many people, but we're simply not able to comprehend it yet.  This is where faith comes in.  You have to believe and act on that belief, which is what faith is.

All that you have to do is pray to God that you believe in Him and Christ, and you become a new person.  You are no longer spiritually dead inside because the Holy Spirit (the third person in the trinity) comes to you and inhabits the place that goes deeper than your soul.  And according to scripture, God is peace.  He is the Prince of Peace.  And it's so true.  I feel God mostly through peace.  The way I can tell that someone else is a true believer is through sensing His peace all around them.  I think that's what I miss a lot in my school life.  I miss having people around me that I can just sit next to and feel peace.  People that are considerate, caring, respectful, and just plain loving because God's spirit lives within them not because they want people to like them or they want something from you.  People that won't be secretly thinking bad things about you while you're talking to them.  Before I was a Christ-follower, I always had negative thoughts in my head.  Always.  I thought, "He was ugly" or "She was stupid" or "This person's annoying".  All the time.

After I told God, "Hey, I believe in You.  I believe Your son died for me on the cross.  I want to have a relationship with You," I changed.  I became a new person with a new mind.  Those negative thoughts didn't plague my soul anymore.  I had no more thoughts like those.  Of course, I still notice things.  I still notice when a guy's cute and when he's not.  I still notice when people say dumb things.  I feel like I've fallen off the wagon a bit because I dwell a little more on the negative thoughts than I used to especially with Helena, the girl that used to be my "friend".  I should really cut her some slack because she has a lot of mental and emotional issues.  Lord, help me.

Letting things go...

So today I came to class early because I wanted to find a parking spot.  We have two campuses here, and because my case studies group meets at this one giant hospital where parking spots are tougher to find than a needle in a haystack, I got there early.  I sat in the lounge room, and things were okay.  The people who usually sit there are polite enough and will talk to me.  I'm kind of surprised by this one guy Caleb who I'm pretty sure hates (or hated) me because he's friends with certain people that I did not get along with, and I understand that he's going to take sides, but lately, he's been nice.  I'm sure he's always been a nice person, but until recently, he really didn't care for me probably due to lies he's been told by certain people.

After a while though, this girl Sherry and Joseph walk in.  I'm not even going to start on Joseph yet, but they were both in my case studies group last semester.  Sherry I pretty much met our first year, and I really liked her at first, and we seemed to get along when she started ignoring me for a while.  After that, I knew she wasn't just this nice little person everyone thought she was.  Even lately, she's been cursing up a storm on facebook, putting people down, and just being really negative.  Her pharmacy best friend the last two years of school was Sarah, and I had gotten somewhat close to Sarah.  Sarah basically told me that she helped Sherry out a whole lot when she was going through boyfriend/baby daddy issues and then was very selfish when Sarah needed a little help.  Of course, that didn't surprise me.

I waved hi to pretend-coy Sherry when she walked in, but she didn't seem very enthusiastic.  I tried to talk to her as well, but she wasn't very interested.  I'm pretty sure it's because of something Helena told her, and I'll get into the whole story with Helena later on.  I'm just a little hurt by people always believing in lies about me, and I have a hard time letting go.  Helena is this girl that I used to be friends with that is now not my friend because she did not know how to be a friend nor did she want to work things out.  Helena has been telling lies lately because she's so delusional- every time she hurts someone, it's nothing.  She might even say later that she was wrong and maybe even apologize because it was wrong and her god would not like it one bit.  She never apologized because she felt the need to, just that it was wrong according to her religion.  She's muslim.  Anyway, I feel like I just threw all these names out there.  I meant to continue my story, but I needed to release some of this.