Dear Anita

I find that I really enjoy learning about genetics at Stockton and the professor that I have explains things well and has a good sense of humor. I think that I will do well in that class. I am doing better in Organic Chemistry because there are some Classmate who I work with in class to help me understand concepts and the professor explains things quite well and if students have questions they answer them quite thoroughly. The Organic Chemistry lab still makes me nervous but I have a good lab notebook outline using the guidelines from the Stockton Chemistry lab blog and the Chemistry lab book. I will be talking with the Organic Chemistry professor tomorrow about questions that I have about the lab experiment and will have them provide advice on how to improve my Prelab so that I will be more ready to perform the lab experiment on Tuesday. I am a bit nervous about talking with the professor about my lab notebook, but I think that it will go okay and it will be helpful. The inner critic of my gender dysphoria does make me doubt myself and I often see more flaws in my work than there really are. I often check my work multiple times and am very critical of the notes I write because I want them to sound good, but I find this straining sometimes so I am working on trying my best and checking the work 3-4 times and telling myself it’s okay rather than trying to stress and check it 10 times and revise it consistently. The meditation class is helping me increase my focus on my studies and develop a shield to ground me so the dysphoria isn’t too overwhelming, but I still need practice with that. I am grateful for the meditation class because my professor has students write journals about their meditation practice and writing notes helps me keep a steady meditation practice and put my feelings onto paper. The counselors at Stockton are providing me advice on ways to express my gender identity without trying so hard duch as providing me advice about gender neutral colors that I can wear which is helpful. In addition, the Transcendence group at Stockton is the transgender people group and they help uplift each other up and provide support. The nutritionist at Stockton which I want to start setting up appointments with again since I talked with them during the fall semester and they were helpful I want to talk with them the Spring semester as well. The nutritionist can help me work on building healthy meals to keep my energy levels stable and also eat balanced meals so that I don’t feel like I’m too full and then have dysphoria because I can work on planning smaller light meals that provide energy throughout the day and nourish me but don’t cause the heavy feeling of eating full meals. The meditation class is also teaching yoga and I want to learn more about it. Stockton has a yoga club that I think I will join if it fits into my schedule because it would help me have a healthy workout routine that is not too straining. I have been doing less weightlifting workouts as to not strain my muscles and I find myself feeling less sore. I don’t think I will be able to change my parents but I will work on building myself up in my knowledge. There is a quote that I  wrote “There is not one path up the mountain, but many paths. The person should listen to their heart and build their inner self and use that strength to climb up the mountain and they should have an open mind to look at the other paths and use them to guide them along the way for that is wisdom. The person who just takes the paths others give them will start to lose their sense of self and be stuck following others ideas and not be happy because they aren’t working on discovering who they are on the inside and while they may climb the mountain a ways they will fall and may remain lost at the bottom of the mountain until they realize that they need to journey inward to discover their inner self and climb the mountain and only use others as steps to make the climb easier. If the person only follows their own advice while trying to climb the mountain then they will not gain knowledge that may help them if they reach rocky slopes on the mountain and blinded by the lack of knowledge they may fall down the mountain. It is important to look inward and build the inner self to climb the mountain and use others knowledge to help guide you to climbing the mountain. Life is a mountain that people climb, some people refuse to climb the mountain because they are afraid to fall and they stay safe never seeing the opportunities if they only took a risk. While others try to find a way around the mountain not realizing that they have to get through the obstacles by climbing but trying to circle around trying to avoid climbing or pretending the mountain isn’t there and these people end up spending their lives away living in an illusion not wanting to embrace the flaws or obstacles ahead of them so they don’t grow. It is important to embrace the flaws and obstacles and use them to grow because no matter how hard you try to find other routes around the mountain or pretend that it’s not there, the more likely it will become more immense until you have to face it so face the flaws and obstacles shine light on them and climb the mountain. People who spend time arguing with others could be spending their time building themselves up because arguing with people doesn’t change who they are much like if you try to move a mountain by pushing it, it won’t budge so you should just end the argument and walk away and build yourself up to climb the mountain to your goals. Life is a mountain, on the way to the top you may fall and that’s okay. Keep believing in yourself and climbing and you’ll get where you need to be.”

Wishing you well in the week ahead.