Thanks anita;) The short post above is an angel daily inspiration reading I got from askangels.com. that site has many meditations on how to be more spiritually connected to the divine and be happier and healthier in life. also i find the card readings quite insightful and accurate. the website above is the image of the card i got yesterday and i think how cool it is that it actually applies to my life. the card said to the right of me is archangel michael who is the protector of people. my dominant hand is my right hand and i love community service, nature and helping people. Based on the card, to my left is archangel gabriel who is the divine messenger, sending positive messages and communication with the divine. my left hand is recessive, sensitive and often detects energy and is often used in my wiccan rituals to draw energy from and communicate with the divine. the card also says that archangel uriel is in front, uriel is the angel whose name means “light of god”, so i am being guided toward my spiritual purpose and the way for me is clear and i know my direction. and the last thing the card said was that archangel raphael is behind me, raphael is the angel of healing and these days i have been meditating with raphael to assist me in healing. archangel raphael in the back also represents me healing parts of my past, letting go and accepting the divine purpose set forth on my path by angel uriel. angel raphael also represents the healing that i’m leaving behind on the world as i ravel toward a more spiritually fulfilled life. the meditations i’ve been doing with angel raphael also coincide with the fact that he is behind me to encourage me to go forward, in the meditation angel raphael has his hands on my back supporting me and giving me the belief on my own inner healing. it goes to show that i am surrounded by angels now and they are helping me find my spiritual path. i have also built more confidence and have become more outspoken.

In my ap history textbook, i read about Etty Hillesum who witnessed the Holocaust. She was able to hold on to hope and keep enjoying life even though she was in such a terrible place. At first Ettt was filled with despair and anger at Germany’s Anti-Semitism, but she realized it wouldn’t help her to be bitter at the world and at something she couldn’t control, so she decided to turn inward for self-reflection and change herself for the better. She said “I really see no other solution than to turn inward and to root out the rottenness there” (Strayer 1010). Etty became more reflective while listening to Bach music during a German day of fire, shooting and bombs. She wrote “I know and share the many sorrows a human being can experience, but I do not cling to them, they pass through me like, life itself, as a broad eternal stream and life continues… If you have given sorrow the space that its gentle origins demand, then you may say that life is beautiful and so rich… that it makes you want to believe in God” (Strayer 1010). She seems to be saying to accept the sorrows of life, that life goes on and that you shouldn’t hold on to sorrow but let it go expecting that life is meant to be a balance of happiness and sorrow, that is what makes life beautiful. It is not the things that happen, it’s the experience and perception, the lessons you take with you in life that matter, what matters is that you enjoy the journey of life and not be bagged down by where you are going and the sorrows. Etty fell deeply in love with a 55 year old German Jew therapist, Julius Spier. She worried that she had become overly dependent on a man since he was her mentor, lover and companion as well. When Spier passed away in September 1942, Etty was devastated, yet determined to go on. She wrote of Spier “You were the mediator between God and me.., and now you have gone and my path leads straight to God” (Strayer 1011). I feel like the friends I have in life are there for a reason and they have helped me grow spiritually and I realize after reading Etty’s biography that if I have to let them go; I will let them go and take the lessons they taught me to continue on my spiritual path as she did. Etty was deployed to Westorbork and then Auschwitz, yet she still kept being positive even singing with her family when they got off the train. She passed away November 30 at Auschwitz, but her work is preserved giving insihgt that she still had hopes and dreams for the future. While she was in the concentration camps, she wrote “Late at night… I often walk with a spring in my step along the barbed wire. And then time and again, it soars straight from my heart… the feeling that life is glorious and magnificent and that one day we should be building a whole new world. Against every new outrage and every fresh horror, we shall put up one more piece of love and goodness, drawing strength from within ourselves. We may suffer, but we must not succumb” (Strayer 1011). Etty provides so much insight on how we should live life, to continue to hope even when we have lost everything and not to give up. She seems to say that there is always something better out there if you believe and hope and she never lost her vision that the world could be better and that she could be more spiritual even when she saw all the horrors in the concentration camp. I really admire Etty’s ability to hold on to hope when everything was falling apart, to change herself for the better when the outside world was not and also her ability to choose to appreciate life no matter how bad things got. Even though, she had her freedom and pride stripped away, had lost all the things she had had, she continued to be perseverant. She didn’t allow fear and sadness to affect her, she didn’t allow the troubles in the outside world and bad people to influence who she was, but she accepted it and let it go filtering it one event at a time and held on to the one choice she still had left, the choice of attitude, the choice to hope. Do you think Etty’s response to the Nazis was a ‘triumph of the human spirit’ or an evasion of the responsibility to resit evil? I believe the former.

There are times when I am worried about my weight, health, education or just trying to live life. Meditation and working out always helps, it also helps to promote psychic awareness and increase brain speed and thinking because these days i think it takes less time for me to remember a concept and i can think quicker. i have realized that even though i’m not the best at math, i have an innate ability that helps me improve at it and also to help me get at least a 90 in math. also meditation has made me realize that i don’t like english and history as much as i used to and i like math and science more. he’s a great guy and there are some things i regret saying or doing to him because i was afraid of what others would think of me with him and iw was also afraid of who i would be when i was with him, i didn’t trust as easily in seventh grade after being betrayed so many times. yet he opened a new door in my life, there were times when he pretended he was a bully and he used that act to help me build my confidence to stand up for myself. he told me ‘i know that you think you are broken down and there’s nothing left of your self-esteem, but i have faith in you. i believe in you and i always will believe in you and be here for you. all you have to do is try and get out there instead of living in a hole secluded.it’s okay to not be perfect, but you can’t let fear and other people define who you are, you have to get out there and start living life.” he would sometimes sit with some people i didn’t know because he was really sociable and he would invite me to come over and sit with them. after doing a formal introduction, he would leave for a few minutes to talk with other friends and leave me there and tell me that i should make friends. at first this really annoyed me when he did this because i was really shy, but i at least said hi to the people, yet he would always come back and tell me to say more about myself, i think by the fifth time this happened, he pretended he was bullying me and a girl told him to stop it because she thought it was real and she came over to talk to me. i was really shy at first, but it was okay because she told me about herself and i made the decision to trust her, while i was talking to her, i could see him smiling at me from another table. i discovered that me and the other girl enjoyed camping and writing poetry and i had made a friend. one time when i was afraid that i wasn’t able to take the responsibility of the world and also afraid about my grades, he held me while i cried and told him that i was afraid that i would never be good enough in school, it was comforting to just have someone listen and support me. anyway, i don’t think i would have ever taken the risk to elevate my math grades if it weren’t for him. in ninth grade i took regular algebra 1A (half year) and got 97 in it, he and the teacher encouraged me to take geometry honors in 10th grade. I was afraid of taking that class because i didn’t think math was my strongest subject, but he told me to take the risk. geometry honors turned out to be hard while i was learning it, but i understand the concepts now. there were times when i wanted to switch out, when i got a 68 test i was worried that i should switch out, but he told me to keep trying. anyway, i ended with a 82 in that class and now i am taking steps to boost my math grade and actually enjoy math more. i don’t think i would have been that person if it weren’t for him. as for my friends right now, i am learning lots about finance, survival, first aid, electronics and i feel on more solid ground in life from them. it can still be draining to have parents who think i’m just book smart, but i think i’m learning some life skills this year in 11th grade. it’s good to have friends who accept who i am as a person and don’t think i have my head in the clouds when i talk about nature and meditation. i am still working on letting go of negative thoughts and the past, but my self-esteem is higher because i know there are people who accept and care about me as i care for them.

I just got a update from google chrome on my computer saying that it wouldn’t protect and secure Windows XP and Vista unless you upgrade your computer to MAC OS or something new, or you can download a new version of chrome, but that might cost money which is why lots of desktop computer user are really annoyed. Although, when I went to click on the update to learn more, it disappeared so I looked it up online and found that it had been in effect since april 2015 which why I think something is up with my computer status. So I think I will be taking the ASVAB earlier possibly this Thursday instead. I wanted to talk to him on Friday about it, but I had to comfort him instead because some people were bullying him in school. People can be so criticizing of people who are different especially him. he likes to act in plays and is always trying to make people laugh, but some people think he’s too childish because he is always loud and confident, yet i find him entertaining. i always feel bad when people don’t accept his character, he can be quite adventurous and rambunctious at times and start a couple of fights but he can be the most respectful person to people he cares about. i try don’t judge people by what they do or how they act when i first see them, i judge them by the way they make me feel and the sides that they show me. i’ve always found him to be an entertaining, athletic and caring person. i’ve looked past the surface of how he is loud and tries to seek attention and acknowledge that he has another side to him that others haven’t seen because they don’t know him well enough. my parents are always overly critical and they think that i am too working out and community service oriented. i enjoy meditation, yoga and helping people, but i always make sure i have a good high gpa first. having a 97.5 gpa right now, which may go up or down based on this years classes is great and taking a and honors classes are fun. i enjoy education and love learning new things. whenever i’m with friends,we talk about our lives, adventures and often the friends i choose are mostly the ones who are community service and working out oriented and also intelligent study buddies. they encourage me and even when we hang out, we mostly play sports, help the community in some way or talk about education. it’s great having the support of friends who have faith in your abilities and see your talents and it’s an even greater feeling knowing that you can learn from them and become a better person. i feel like my parents focus on my inadequacies more while my friends boost my confidence. about the guy i was talking about, he was the first best friend i had in seventh grade when i was bullied and isolated. he helped me feel better about myself and it is like he saved my life by bringing in the light and comfort when i was in the dark. he would always be there to comfort me, some of my friends think he may be my soul mate because we’ve known each other for 5 years. there are times when we can just look at each other and know what the other is feeling and thinking and we can feel when one of us is around the other like we have a spiritual connection.

thanks, anita;) my parents continue to be criticizing and thinking i can’t function out on my own, but my three best friends, all guys, have taught me so much such as how to be confident and trust, first aid, computers, electricity, literature and vocabulary and they are helping me learn lots and i think my grades are improving. i’m currently debating with myself whether to switch pre-calc class to pre-calc honors. i think it would be good because in pre-calc now i’m learning about basic algebra and in pre-calc honors they start with pre-calc stuff like logarithms. i’m also thinking it would be good to do pre-calc honors because i took algebra 2 honors as a prerequisite and really enjoyed that class and the pre-calc honor class will boost my gpa. although, i missed 3 days of work, i’m sure i can catch up b/c i have a friend in lunch that is taking pre-calc honors and he is encouraging me to take it. he’s telling me to strive academically and improve my skills in math which i think is a good idea. i’ve been doing reiki and meditation and my subconscious mind has become quicker at processing things and calculating things and i have more psychic awareness. i can often sense or feel things before they come. such as i had a vision that i would see my pre-calc teacher in the morning right after i got of the bus playing aerosmith music and she was. the night before, i was talking to my day about cars and thinking about a lab in physics honors on acceleration, it turns out that happened today. i also can sense people’s emotions and intents and project positive thoughts out to help stressed people. it’s a great feeling to have people smile at me knowing that i helped them. also it is great to have such supportive friends who encourage me to step out of my boundaries a little and make me surprise myself with talents that i didn’t know i had. the negative side of switching pre-calc to pre-calc honors is that i will miss the teacher, i really like the teacher, she is humorous and comes up with great mnemonics for things so i will miss her. so i am debating to switch and boost my gpa, compete with my friends and also enhance my math skills or to stay with pre-calc and the people i’m starting to get to know and my teacher who i like, it seems like an emotional vs. educational challenge. if i don’t switch to a higher level, i will feel guilty for having a friend in pre-calc honors and won’t boost my gpa and will feel bad also because i know my friend knows i am doing well in math this year, so i can take the challenge. if i do switch, i will miss my teacher and possibly the two other friends i have who share classes nearby my pre-calc room. i feel like i’m being forced to make a decision between one friend vs. two and emotion vs. education and i am two-sided on this.

Thanks anita, I realize I am not good at word problems especially ones about distance and setting up an equation or proportion based on the word problem so I’m currently working harder to understand physics honors. There are still some distance and velocity problems I’m not sure how to do, but I understand the basic ones since they are like basic algebra. The physics honors teacher explains things quite fast and not much in detail and it can be hard to figure out how two equations connect to each other, how to set up an equation according to the problem and what equation to use. Pre-calc is fun because i am good at algebra. i am still trying to pull my grades up in ap english and ap world history, so far I think have an 86 in history and 80 in english. It’s been only two days of the semester, but I can already feel some strain because there is competition between the other students who are also taking high level classes to get into a good college. I just hope I don’t get an 80 or less for my overall grade in any subject this semester. Most of the students in my physics honors class keep to themselves and everyone works by themselves and they all seem to have an understanding of how to approach most problems, sometimes I feel like it’s just me that needs some help, yet at other times I also see the other students asking the teacher also. I think the reason is that I still need time to get used to the teacher’s teaching style and also I am somewhat under pressure with the competition of other students. Also i have two really smart friends who are in my classes and we often talk about our classes and sometimes we compete with each other on our grades. The two friends are entertaining and supportive, yet we often tend to look up to whoever is currently doing the best in school. I am doing well in pre-calc and I have done well in chemistry honors, so in those fields I’m okay, yet right now I feel like like I also have to do well in physics honors, so I can feel like I’m in league with them. i am working on pulling my two ap classes grades up and keeping a good grade in physics honors.

In Girl interrupted, Susanna talks about being diagnosed with Borderline personality disorder which includes “experiencing instability of self-image as feelings of emptiness and boredom” (Kaysen 154). Susanna often tried to explain her condition to herself because she didn’t understand it; she states “I was in pain and nobody knew it, even I didn’t know it” (Kaysen 153). Susanna often felt she was numb and would be bored, not sure if she was real in this society and she would feel alone and not sure if she could feel anything or not, so she would remind herself that she was in pain and also do wrist-banging to feel something instead of numbness and give her sense of reality that she is here on this earth and not just drifting through life numb. Susanna also mentions “My chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom came from the fact that I was living a life based on my incapacities, which were numerous. I could not and did not want to … attend to any other subject in school other than english and biology. I saw myself as unfit for educational and social systems” (kaysen 154-155). I feel like Susanna didn’t think she had a future and was just living on less than mediocre base by her faults and this made her feel sad and empty, but she didn’t really have a high self-esteem to live by either because she didn’t know how. Susanna was a pariah in the 1960s when she didn’t go to college and was different from everyone else. She would write poems instead of essays which is why I think the chapters in this book are seemingly short since she liked to keep things simplistic. Susanna didn’t think she had skills necessary for life, so she had a pessimistic outlook; she often wondered if she could make a life out of boyfriends and literature. Susanna also had periods of self-loathing because she saw others going toward their future and she would criticize herself for her lack of interest and detachment from wanting to go anywhere in life, yet I feel as if Susanna truly didn’t know where to go in life and was confused. in one scene in the book, when Susanna visits the dentist, she is so worried about losing time; i feel as if there may possibly be the idea that Susanna feels like she is going out into the real world and that her childhood is slipping away and she is not quite ready to accept the world’s responsibilities because she doesn’t feel as if she has the skills in life. It’s as if to keep things simplistic and also find some meaning in this world since she feels time is slipping away from her. Yet, Susanna realizes she doesn’t want to ever cross the line again where she feels numb and she is in a mental hospital; she wants at least some control over her thoughts. Susanna mentions “The idea of suicide worked on me like a purgative or cathartic” (Kaysen 158). She would think of suicide and feel sad over her premature death, then she would feel better. Even though she seems afraid of facing the reality of the world, Susanna seems to think that suicide is like a giving up and she needs to at least try to understand the world and her thoughts and suicide wouldn’t help her because she would just be ending her life and not giving herself any time to think about herself and possibly understand her life. Susanna meets Lisa at the end of the story and Lisa says “I want us to be a real family, with furniture and all that. I want him (Lisa’s kid, Aaron who Lisa broke up with her significant other) to have a real life. And temple helps” (Kaysen 163). Lisa wants to have a future and create for her kid a life for him and for herself to make up for the time she lost in the mental hospital; she wants to be happy and live her life. She goes to temple for a place of comfort and worship to keep herself in hopes of her future. She even has a life as suburban matron in Brookline. Susanna goes to the Vermeer in the Frick (NY) with her boyfriend and she notices a photo titled “Girl Interrupted at her Music” from which she got the inspiration for the title of the book. Susanna says ” She had changed a lot in sixteen years. She was no longer urgent. In fact, she was sad. She was young and distracted, and her teacher was bearing down on her, trying to get her to pay attention. But she was looking out, looking for someone who would see her” (Kaysen 167).
Susanna had looked at the painting before and had been disconcerted by the girl which she thought was warning her to not do something and telling her not to go, her interpretation has changed. She now sees the girl almost like herself when she was seventeen and she wasn’t really applying herself in school and the teachers were yelling at her and she was sad because she wasn’t sure where to go in life.
It also states “Interrupted at her music: as my life had been, interrupted in the music of being seventeen,as her life had been, snatched and fixed on canvas: one moment made to stand still and to stand for all the other moments, whatever they would be or might have been. What life can recover from that?” (Kaysen 167).
Susanna feels her life at seventeen when she was young and just trying to enjoy life, not wanting to face the world’s responsibilities was snatched away from her when she was sent to a mental hospital at eighteen. She realizes that all the moments she could have had, that one with the mental hospital and the teachers yelling at her while she was in school was most prominent and how it’s not fair that that one moment could take up so much time and significance in her life and waste all the other moments.
Susanna starts crying when viewing the picture and says to her boyfriend “Don’t you see, she’s trying to get out” (Kaysen 167).
She seems to be thinking that the girl is trapped forever in the canvas and that memory in her life and she can’t get get to enjoy life fully almost like Susanna, herself who is still trapped in her own thoughts of sadness and negative outlook on life since she doesn’t know where to go.

Her boyfriend’s reply seems harsh because he doesn’t understand her interpretation of the art and doesn’t seem to even consider it as he just says “All you ever think about is yourself. You don’t understand anything about art” (Kaysen 167) and he just walks away. I almost think this is even more self-deprecating on Susanna because now someone is telling her that she is a shallow person and doesn’t really understand art which goes back to add on to the thoughts that Susanna has of herself that she feels like she doesn’t have a future in life and doesn’t really understand the world. The boyfriend’s comment makes me feel sad for Susanna because it just adds to her thoughts of inadequacy and the thought she can’t do anything right.

Upon viewing the two pictures of happiness (lady and her maid; soldier and his sweetheart) Susanna also says “Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful, we wish our clothes could glisten and ripple against our skins, most of all we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened by simply looking at them” (Kaysen 168).

She mentions that in the two paintings it almost feels like the lady and the soldier are in their own world of happiness, they have everything the want and the rest of the world is looking at them through a hole wishing they could be like them.

Susanna says “The girl at her music sits in another sort of light, the fitful overcast light of life, by which we see ourselves and others only imperfectly, and seldom” (Kaysen 168).

She seems to be saying that the girl at her music is like all the others in life who haven’t found their purpose, who judge themselves and others and also pay attention to themselves more than others. Susanna seems to wish for a world where people don’t struggle in life, know their purpose and care for each other and themselves, yet she doesn’t seem to believe such a world exists.

Girl interrupted seems like a metaphor for our world today and how everyone longs to find their purpose, how teenagers still hold on to their childhood dreams and still are finding out how to live in this world, struggles of life facing obstacles from people judging you and being overly criticizing of yourself and just trying to keep on to the hopes and dreams while braving the world and finding a place in it. And also the concept of how time seems to be slipping away and how some people try to deny reality or hold on to their memories to have something to hang on to. I feel like everyone has questioned the meaning of life and felt overwhelmed at times and wished that they could have something to keep their hopes and know that they have a future, that their life isn;t just slipping away.

I think Lisa tries to live her life and start again and make up for the time lost and I admire her. She doesn’t let what happened to her in the past affect her and is willing to try to make a place in this world. I feel that it takes courage, perseverance, hope, belief, gratitude and acceptance and taking life one step at a time and building from there to create the life one wishes to live.

Also, it can be hard for kids to learn to grow up and accept responsibility because they realize they have to care for themselves out in the world and sometimes it feels like time is slipping by fast and the childhood dreams of being protected are slipping away and you see the reality of trying to make a path on your own. In this way, Mclean Hospital could also represent a barrier between the real world’s responsibilities that the patients aren’t yet ready to face. There was no school today or tuesday due to 3ft of snow which will give me time to finish Girl, Interrupted and analyze it fully for my ap world history teacher which I will also have for psychology next year. I think I’m going to love psychology next year because one of the books that is read is Girl Interrupted and i already have a head start, also I love learning about the mind and how people think. I feel sad for the characters in this book and I almost feel like this book sheds light on lots of issues of adolescence into adulthood and the meaning of life. In the book, Susanna also is curious about Jim Watson because she feels like he has discovered the secret of life and she wants to know what it is, she wants something to let her know that life isn’t just passing her by and that there is a place and meaning for her in this world. In the book, Susanna talks about how she sometimes envies those people who are self-assured and have a future because she is uncertain where her future is. This book has given me insight on how sometimes I feel in life, drifting wondering if I can achieve the goals I want to in life.