it's funny how dependent i am on social media. i made a vow to myself to refrain from FB and Twitter until Boards are done at the end of Feb... yet I find my Blogger account! Tricky-Tray...

Lady Gaga

Let me declare right now I love Lady Gaga. Honestly, I think its because I can't figure her out, which is probably her goal, to keep people guessing. Every performance, appearance she does she makes it a memorable one nonetheless.

If you look through every generation of music, there is at least one or maybe even more than one artist that dared to cross the line to express themselves, in recent times just in my short lifetime and just in my culture alone, there's been Madonna, Elton John, David Bowie, and duh, even the late Michael Jackson himself.

Note: I'm one of those pessimistic individuals who believe that as human beings, there is little to no creativity left in the world. Basically I feel that every theme that one can come up with, has been examined. (That's why I think I stick to the Classics, for some reason, to me they still remain their uniqueness). For example, look at all of the movies Hollywood puts out. I'm to the point where I can guess just by looking at the trailer, what the movie is about and almost exactly what's going to happen. Especially in romantic comedies.

Back to Lady Gaga...I consider myself to be a pretty open minded person. I'm also pretty individual and have the guts to stand myself and declare I want to do or that I like something that most people would not admit to. I think its cool how Gaga, does whatever she wants! For some artitsts you can definitly see how the people behind them kind of shaped them up to who they are and how they are perceived. A really good example of this is Britney Spears. You can clearly tell she followed obediently what she was told to do by her creative directors from a very young age-- probabaly not allowed to be herself, and well, as everybody can witness, she kind of got crazy, and lost herself. Lady G, clearly does what she wants, no (excuse my language), no fucking bullshit. She's herself, her own creative director, and even though there are plently of people that don't like it. She keeps on reinventing herself and lives up to her own standards.

As a woman of the 21st century...hmm, let me rephrase, as a Black woman of the 21st century, I think this concept is pretty cool. Breaking away from what everybody expects to express and be yourself to fulfill YOUR OWN LIFE and make YOUR OWN happiness. Because at the end of the day, it's about you (you know what I mean).

Funny thought -- of course you know there's all kind of rumors: that she's a man, a "hermaphrodite", gay, blah blah.. I recently saw her on the Jay Leno Show, and he asked her what was the most offensive rumor that's out about her. She said, it was the rumor that she's from Yonkers (a city in New York). I admire how some people can break out from others to create their own happiness and find humor and glamor in the ridiculousness of peoples ignorance.

*Haters Gonna Hate*

that's the truthdotcom

Screw Him

*sigh* men are men..some are sweet some are poison

I'm done torturing myself.

Love Affair

I love to read. Pretty much anything with words I'll read.

I think I remember how it started. I was really really young, I forget the age, but definitely before Kindergarten. Anyways, my dad always listened to talk radio. And one of the ads was a program to learn a foreign language. I forget the language that I desperately wanted learn, but my dad was like, "well you can't really learn a foreign language that way until you can read." I remember replying, "Daddy I want to learn how to read! Now!" Soon after, my dad had purchased all of these really simple books, and before you know it, I was in class, my teachers at my daycare teachers staring at me in disbelief as I read books like "The Cat and the Hat", and "Green Eggs & Ham", with little or even no help at all. I think that's when my love affair of the written word began.

My parents raised me very strict (thank god!), or at least at the time I though so. I wasn't really allowed to watch TV (which at the time I absolutely hated). I couldn't watch TV on school nights, on Fridays & Saturdays, I could watch two hours, but not past 10pm. Sundays I could watch an hour and a half. In addition to all that. On Fridays after school, I had to turn in a TV schedule for the weekend (which detailed which shows I was watching, the time and what channel it was on). This went on until high school, 9th grade I could watch TV on the weekends, and eventually I used good grades to allow me to watch TV anytime I wanted.

As you can tell, this left me with plenty of free time. Free time to read! I would read anything. I used to have this plastic bookshelf stuffed with all types of books, from the Babysitters's Club, Sweet Valley Twins, Kiddy Novels, Goosebumps, and tons of Magazines (not like Teen Bop with pictures of Usher and Hanson either, like substantial Mags ). I was a really fast reader, so fast my mom actually declared to stop buying books and made me get a library card. Which is another story of its own, because, ESPECIALLY in the summer, for the summer reading club, I would reach the end and get all of the prizes so early on, I would go up to the library, "okay what's next?!"

Needless to say I had an addiction. I snuck books into class and read under my desk when the teacher wasn't looking, a bedtime I read by nightlight, I read in the tub, on the toilet. In high school I was pretty much obsessed with every book that was assigned to us (well, except for the Scarlet Letter, and Beowulf....*barf*)

Then college. I took two African-American Lit classes. And my reading assignments pretty much trumped everything again. As I my life experiences changes, my preferences in reading changed to, I started liking, biographies (Miep Gies is my favorite), mysteries (Mary Higgins Clark), and of course THE CLASSICS (The Brontë Sisters, Austen, Dumas, Dostoevsky, Huxley, etc, everything get the picture?

In short, I've really become appreciative for my ability to read. If it wasn't for the things I learn from them, the places that they take me, or experiences that I get to experience, I don't know where would I be and who would I be now. Books and my love of literature in some ways have gotten me though some pretty tough stuff, those ugly teenage girl years every girl tries to suppress, boredom, madness, sadness, insanity, foolishness, and currently helping me get through what I think is my first broken heart.

Don't take the simple things for granted. I volunteer at a homeless shelter and witness firsthand that even though the literacy rate in the USA, is 99% (CIA World Factbook) there are plenty of adults who cannot read or write.

Take Pride and Be thankful for the smallest things <3

Major in College

Looking Back, I picked the wrong major in college. Don't get me wrong, I love the health sciences and chemistry. But i'll be working with that the rest of my life. It would have been nice to step out of my comfort zone a bit.

Yeah I picked something that would conveniently work along with being a pre-dental student, so what? Okay let's brainstorm, what would have also been nice?

A Theater Major:

I was going to be in the Vagina Monologues. And, personally, I LOVE it!! I am relatively a shy person. It takes me a good minute to get used to new people. And it is oh so difficult to talk in front of a room full of my peers when giving a group speech about the Tricarboxylic Acid Cycle. But put me on a stage there's no pressure, put the spotlight on me, and let the acid trip begin. I'm the youngest in my family, and also the only girl, so of course attention was always on me. I'm not gonna lie, I still enjoy it (well, as long as it's Positive Attention)

Comparative Literature and/or English Major:

You've already seen my love letter to words and books. This would have been another perfect compliment to my personality. But would I have walked away feeling the same about what a read, would it have burnt me out. I think it might. At this point in my life. Reading is still a treat, not a chore, I might not liked being told that I HAVE to read this. (I'm not very good with following authority, and I don't do homework).

Sociology Major:

Everybody I know that's a sociology major gets to take these really crazy fun sounding classes.

I took Soc100, and LOVED it (it didn't hurt that my prof was a cutie either). Not too many classes I had assignments that I enjoyed doing like in this class, not just pushing electron around on a piece of paper or something. You get to learn about people and how they work. Experience and discuss topics you otherwise would have never even thought about.

hmmm?

23 Years OLD

Really Random and Quick Post. Only because I haven't posted in ages.

I am now 23! yay..

I really wanted to do like a list of 23 lessons I've learned in these years. But I've learned sooooo many things this year alone it would pretty darn difficult to pick out just a few. So I'm gonna post the lessons that have been difficult for me to learn, and still have to keep myself in check and work on. I have more than the two I'm gonna list today. But these are the ones at the top of my mind right now.

a.) Sometimes good shit happens (and, yes i might have gotten this concept from a TV show). You can take life two different ways. "Boo-Hoo bad stuff keeps happening poor me", Or "damn that sucks, but I'm going to move on". This is by far the hardest lesson. 2009 Was/err I guess still a rough year. Been in some tough situations, did things that I may or may not regret, might have even gotten my heart broken just a little bit. But sometimes I just have wince at all of the time I literally wasted feeling sorry for myself. SERIOUSLY?! seriously. So anytime I catch myself falling back into the pattern of doing it again, I have to remind myself that good shit happens too. And I'd better get my attitude straight so I can properly enjoy the good shit coming my way. (does that make since?)

b.) When it comes to men, always put yourself first. It's actually a really difficult thing to do, because as females I swear we have this nurturing gene in us, but it totally helps to fight it off. (Especially since men are simply AMAZING at putting themselves first) And believe me, even if its the guy you've been quite obsessed with for months calling you texting and wanting you to do something tonight -- right now!, it's always good to say NO sometimes, even if you don't want to, even if it kills you a little bit inside to do so. Because there's nothing like the feeling of control over yourself you get when you do so.

More to come at a later date..told you it was gonna be short.

15 Weeks...

In so many ways this has been one of the most emotionally draining summers I've ever had. And I'm not going to lie when I say I'm glad that its over. Granted, I am kind of shitty that I wasted a lot of my time pining over things that looking back seem totally stupid (well, most things)



At first I went through a 'pity party' because a great deal of my friends just graduated and I didn't not. I'm graduating a semester behind, now that i look at it..Big Deal. But I guess my reasoning was most of my friends are gone. I would say the greatest number of them graduated in '08.. so in '09 i felt like the rest of them are gone. I have sorority sisters left, which is GREAT :) , but guess I need to kinda sorta make new friends too. Some scary stuff cuz i'm not the most friendliest person to new people. Not on purpose, but I need to feel them out.



I'm actually kind of grateful for the about situation, because in some some ways it helped me work harder for my DAT. For some reason, I seem to work harder when I'm fustrated about something, so the graduation situation plus a few other personal things totally helped me out. Espcially that last week..wow..how did I survive? haha..



So applications are IN and the wait begins. I was really worried and stressed out about writing my personal statement, mainly because the reasons why I want to be a dentist are really personal and close to my heart. But I think It came out great, I don't know what my reccomendations say, we have the option to look, opted out. I can't imagine them being too terrible...right



Oh so here is where I applied. In no order:

1.) Indiana

2.) U. Michigan

3.) U Southern Cal

4.) Texas - San Antonio

5.) UMDNJ

6.) Colmubia (No way in hell id get, but I wanted an even number, lol)

I'm Back

Short Trip --but very fun!! Awesome to see people I only get to see a once or twice a year!!

I'll upload pics on a site that does not let strangers see ;)

Blogging at Airport -- Dental School

I'm opening up my blog. yep you probably didn't know I had one. Oh well.

I've been absent in updates. I have had DAT drama (which i did amazingly on) and other life drama :( going on.


I like blogging. When I get back from my trip I wanna blog about books, news and politics. I'm so excited. :)


Looking into Dental Schools, I can't stop thinking about prices. IU continues to look mighty good as far as cost goes, and I'm so afraid of loans, I don't want to live my adult life in debt, I would rather enjoy myself and travel. My only fear is that if I stay here for dental school, I might find a reason to stay in Indiana after I graduate.



Did you know USC is more expensive than Harvard? At least according to http://www.predents.com/. I would never go to Harvard, but that has me thinking even though i'm love with USC's program, maybe I should reconsider my options?? I want to eventually look into Columbia too..

Having a Baby

I'm sitting here watching "16 and Pregnant" sorry if the answer is apparent, then please forgive my ignorance: What's so freaking great about sex at 16, please man honestly? Sex at twenty-something has enough roller coaster emotions and screwy feelings connected to it already. What kind of masochistic teenage girl wants to go through that? Anyways I'm glad I knew I wasn't mature enough for sex in HS.. I don't know if I could’ve handled any consequences that would spur from it, I can’t today. My freshman year there was a girl who found out she was going to have a baby, and committed suicide. How horrible. Anyways, back to the show it’s so sad seeing how drastic these girls’ lives change. I really commend MTV on how they show some girls going though all this with the father in the picture, and some without, both of which I can’t imagine to be easy at all.

And what's up with the "Secret Life of the American Teenager" on ABC Family? Let me repeat ABCFAMILY. All this show talks about is sex!! On a family channel, what!? See, I blame the media for warping young girls minds. Warping them to think that as a 15 year old girl if you do get pregnant, it’s okay because you'll meet somebody who's not even the baby's father while you're carrying a baby and he’ll be so in love with you that he doesn’t care that the baby's not his and treat the baby like it’s his. Common, this rarely happens to adults, much less high school freshmen. Honestly I’m sure that most teenagers have enough since not to believe this, but there’s always that few…

britol palin..don't even get me started. I shall rant about the GOP later, lol

Again I continue to be impressed by somebody.

But like all things i'm walking on ice, there's always my luck or something that says. "Uh-oh, Traycee's about to be happy, let's stop this!"

I'm crossing my fingers though.

My 'Christmas' is in July

I don't like Christmas one bit, in fact that's the one day out of the year I allow myself to be a total Grinch. One day if/when I have a family, I hope there isn't a big emphasis on the holiday, I mean I don't see the harm in buying a few presents or whatever, and educating them why Christmas (along with other December holidays like Hanukkah and Kwanzaa) are celebrated. But if I have kids, in no way shape or form are they going to believe that stupid idiotic lie about the fat guy in the red. I came out fine..I mean sure some kids probably hated me in elementary school when I told them that Santa didn't exist. But I have a strong inkling that didn’t ruin their lives. If I did, then they have much bigger issues at hand.I'm not quite sure where my dislike for the Holiday lies, one think I can't stand about it is that its too commercial. And I really don't like Christmas muisc (except the sad ones "Little Christmas Tree"- Jackson 5, and "My Christmas Tree" - Diana Ross). I think the only good part about the day is seeing family members and eating good food. Um, I think that's why I think Thanksgiving rocks, all of the food, none that dreadful music.

My first and foremost favorite holiday shall be and always will be 4th of July. I LOVE fireworks. The sounds, colors, even the smell.. Even though its pretty equivalent to taking a dollar bill and lighting it on fire. Too bad this year I'll be in England. Maybe I'll stand outside of Buckingham Palace and scream the Start Spangled Banner, and yell at the guards (who really can't do anything) "HA HA PUNKS, 203 years of being free from you guys!!". The only problem I seen in that is that I'm not quite sure that being arrested internationally will look to good on my resume to dental schools. Definitely a total consideration though.

Brave New World

I’m writing this entry really really fast, so if I don’t make since.. deal with it. Lol. It’s for me anyways, not you. Haha.

I love reading! It's my passion next to playing the piano. I have an active imagination that seems to only be fed by fiction. My favorite book of all time since High School is Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. I was one of those nerds in high school who actually liked the assigned books, with the exception of some of that Brit Lit written in old English (Like La Morte D'Aurthur and Beowulf). I would however like to give the Canterbury Tales a second chance.

Anyways I've read Brave New World so many times and marked it up so that my original copy literally disintegrated a few months ago. I’m rather in love with the subject of genetic engineering, a big part of the book. And it’s also really cool to see how Huxley wrote this book in the early 1930s, yet some of this stuff is actually not only starting to happen, but actually starting to become socially acceptable. For example in the book, it is highly encouraged from a very young age to experiment sexually with peers, any emotional attachment, monogamy, relationship totally is unheard of. (Crazy, right). Not just sexual relationships either, in fact the idea of families, love, and passion for each other is simply unheard of as well. I can’t help but notice that slowly occurring in our currently everyday lives as families spend less and less time together, mom and dad split up, get remarried and you have all these new different tangles and knots in your family tree. Who belongs to whom, and to what extent? And people develop more of’ relationship’ if you would call it to their technology than with actual other physical human beings. What’s even cooler to see transcend from the book into today is growing populatirity of the ‘hook-up culture’ starting to make it permissible for umm, how do you say it ‘friends with benefits’ and one-night-stands. Interesting? To me, yes

The book also deals with totalitarianism, collectivism, and surprisingly the idea of happiness hmmm…

Anyways here’s my new favorite quote from the book. I’m not going give any contextual information, on purpose, think about what it means to you!

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesquesness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”

Teenage Girly Moment

I don't like people very easily off. At all, especially guys. But the more I talk to someone, the more heis kinda growin on me. He's a different kind of smart than I am (in a totally cool way), goal oriented, crazy nice.

Stuff like this doesn't happen to me, but I like it.

Assholes

You know it's kinda nice to talk to a guy that isn't an asshole.
But then again, I haven't known him for long.

Summer Means .. ew Weddings

Oh my gosh, enough of the weddings! One thing I hate about summer.Those who know me know I take great pride in trying to be 'untraditional'. Honestly up until this past Thanksgiving I'm pretty sure I did not wanna get married. I grew up in a household where my parents were together, just together. They didn't love each other and I'd known that for years. So I guess you can say other than in television, I've never seen parents like really in love. I've never been in love, but I'd like to think that if/when I do fall in said emotion that it's for real. I'm also very afraid of divorce. I know I'm sensitive, (even though I’m trying hard to toughen up my skin a bit) so I'm pretty sure a divorce would break me into pieces. I literally felt that way as my parents currently go through this, so how could I actually go though this myself?Anyways back to me being untraditional and following my life theme of "going against the grain". You know, a traditional wedding isn't necessary for me. I’m not materialistic all, and I'd much rather spend my life savings on my honeymoon rather that a dress I’ll only wear ONCE!

Heaven and Hell

Truthfully at this point, I know I don’t if I even believe in heaven and hell anymore, well at least in death. I’m starting to believe that in life on earth we are living our own personal heavens and hells. That day-to-day, each of us are living our worst fears/smallest pains and biggest dreams/tiniest desires simultaneously. We have a load on both sides of the scale, but the reality of it all..what we are actually feeling is based on whichever load at the time is the heaviest.

2 Major Weaknesses

I’m judgmental, and not very forgiving,

It’s funny how the most judgmental people are the ones who are most afraid of being judged. I’m definitely one of the most judgmental people I’ve met, not even gonna lie. When I say that i'm judgemental, let me clarify. I not saying a that i really judge people by thier physical appearance like what kind of clothes, jewelry, etc. I tend to pay special attention to what they say and how they act. I used to be really bad making it obvious that I’m trying to feel people out until somebody brought it to my attention. Now I’m super sneaky about it. ;)

I’m also working on being more of a forgiving person. I’m making improvements everyday. Even thought people seem to try and test me everyday. One lesson I’m slowly learning about forgiveness is that byholding a grudge, your not giving anybody a crutch except youself. You can walk around hating this person with all of your energy, but honestly that’s not making any difference in their life, they’re still living their life. So the best thing you can do for yourself is forgiving that person for your sanity’s not theirs.