Dear Anita

Thank you so much for spreading your positivity into my life. You make a difference in the world just by being the special person you are and helping me shine brighter. May you be blessed with health, positivity and happiness in all aspects of life. My Art History professor is very organized and caring. I admire her compassion for her students as she helps them understand the nature behind why certain types of art are important and what stories they can tell people about myself society that they live in. Ancient Egyptian art is beautiful but I am thinking of writing my one page essay to compare a piece of Egyptian art with an art of the Mayan civilization or the Middle East. The essay is not due until April 25th, but I like to plan ahead so I have time to think about topics to write about and what two pieces of art I want to compare. My Art History professor explains things quite clearly and shows interesting videos that help students better understand the material. She also draws diagrams on the board classifying different aspects of art from different periods of time and it helps the students understand how each piece works art shares similarities and differences. She lists many resources to help her students in organized modules where a student can go from one to the next and know what topic is being covered in class. I admire her knowledge and explanations as well as her attention to detail to make sure the students understand the material and presenting it to them in different ways to help them better analyze things. My gender dysphoria is still there, it won’t go away until I transition but there are days when I feel okay and it’s not overwhelming. My physics class triggers my anxiety the most because the professor doesn’t spend much time explaining how to solve the problems, but more on how to manipulate the equations and the general concepts of physics so the assignments can be difficult to understand since most of the lecture is spent working on equations rather than helping students understand how to work through the problems. Knowing how to manipulate the equations is helpful at times when you have a problem that requires you to work with an equation, but sometimes students need a know how to approach a problem so they know how to start it. My physics professor doesn’t go over many practice problems in class, he covers the concepts and helps you understand the equations but the students have to figure out which thing they learned applies to the problem they are trying to solve. I think the physics professor wants students to develop critical thinking skills by having them figure out what method to use for the problems, but it can be difficult for students who are taking the physics course for the first time and don’t have a basis on how to work through physics problems. By just giving the concepts and the equations and not explaining much about how to apply it to a problem leaves students confused on which concept they should apply to which problem. I wish the physics professor would take time to explain how the equations fit into the problems and help students learn how to make connections to the concepts to the problems rather than just teaching the equations and concepts with very few practice problems and leaving the students to try to grasp how to approach a problem. The physics professor will spend class time going over some basic concepts and equations of a chapter and how they came about and this takes up most of the class period and then he assigns practice problems that he expects the students to understand even though very few practice problems are discussed in class and students have to figure out how to solve them themselves and try to grasp at which equation may fit into a problem and it takes many hours to do the homework. And when the homework problems are handed in, the physics professor puts the homework problems in a random number generator and the computer picks two problem numbers for him to grade which makes it difficult for students to get full Marks on their assignments because if they did badly on the two problems randomly picked, they don’t receive credit assignment the assignment. Also my physics professor doesn’t vary his explanations, but uses brief explanations and similar techniques to explain concepts to students so if you don’t understand the way he explains something, it can be difficult to understand the material because he doesn’t really explain it in much detail to students or in different approaches, but expects students to mostly teach themselves. This is why I like my Art History professor better because she uses different from to help students learn the material and provides various resources to help them. She also goes over topics that students struggled with in their homework essays and helps students better understand things. I am working on taking time for myself and shutting off the notifications on my phone so I can focus on school work. I try to help my friends as best I can by encouraging them and providing them with resources, but I tell them that some times I can’t help them. I would like to help them and I care for them and will encourage them, but I can’t be with them every step of the way because I have things in my life that need to get done. By asserting myself this way with my friends, I have felt less stressed and feel like I have more time to dedicate to things and I am working on catching up with some of my school work. I have a Chemistry II exam Monday February 25th and an Anatomy/Physiology II exam February 21st. I am currently working on the assignments and studying for these two classes. My Chemistry II lab professor explains things very well and is very helpful, but she’s a tough grader. If you miss one word that is part of the definition of a Chemistry term or if your measurements are off by 0.5 mm, she takes points off. I like her as a professor because she explains things clearly and students learn a lot, but she pays attention to every small detail of your experiment analysis and will take points off for small errors but I think she wants students to do well and truly apply themselves to what they are learning about. My Chemistry II lab classmates are very helpful with helping me understand the experiments. I hope to do better in Chemistry II this semester than I did last semester and my lab professor is tough so I will have to work with my classmates to do well since the lab class is 25% of the grade while Chemistry II lecture is 75%. I am grateful that there is no school Monday February 18th for President’s Day so I can catch up on some things this week. I am working on my gender dysphoria which is still quite prevalent and sometimes makes it difficult to focus or makes it anxious in classes. I find that meditation helps and I want to plan a schedule so I can organize myself through the days for assignments, time with friends and meditation. I am no longer trying to hide my gender dysphoria, but talking with members of my college’s Ocean Pride LGBTQ club and they are very helpful. They always manage to make Me laugh and uplift me when I’m feeling stressed. There will be days when my heart is pounding and I feel like glass walls are encasing me in and when they break the glass shards pierce my heart and makes it difficult to breathe and my mind feels like it’s under water looking at myself from beneath surface as I try to save myself from drowning in my thoughts. Gender dysphoria at its worst leaves a person feeling shaken, irritated, not knowing how to focus and just feeling like someone smashed the glass jar you are and you are trying to hold the pieces together, trying to  be strong but the tears flow through the cracks and you fall apart. But people are buildings, when life’s sstorms cause them  to collapse, they can take the rubble and build a stronger foundation, creating a new better person than they used to be. It may be difficult, but no one is like  you and that makes you special. You have the tools to build your structures and create the maps of your life in the direction you want go. No one carries the  tools that you have, people can try to write a version of you based on what chapter they walked in on, but you hold the pen in your hand and the story you create is your own. You can add many pages of inspiration by spreading your struggles on the pages to help them heal by bringing them to the light and releasing them where they can inspire others. The book of life is yours to write because you are the one living your life. Others may try to write some of the pages, but the pen’s in your hands and you decide where you go in your life. Don’t let the pages of the critics and doubts deter you from filling the pages of your life with the dreams of your heart. Go for your dreams and create them in book of life, so when it comes time to close the book of life, you have chapters of stories to inspire others and memories to enjoy. Live each  moment, appreciate the little things such as the sunrise and sunset because each day is a gift to explore yourself and the universe. You are not the pages of your past or the doubts and criticisms, your life’s story contains many chapters and it’s important to each moment and not waste time in stress because each day that passes is a day gone. So keep striving for your dreams, don’t wait for an opportunity, create the opportunity and write the stories of inspiration to uplift the world. Do what makes your heart beat faster and your soul shine brighter. Look at yourself today and see yourself clearly because each moment in life is treasure and the hands of time are short so do whatever it takes to create the best version of yourself because there are no second chances and you can’t rewind a moment in this life. So do whatever it takes to improve your life and spread positivity in this world because today could be your last day and tomorrow may be too late. Take care of the special person you are and don’t let anything stand in your way of building your foundation and going for your dreams. Look at yourself today and see what matters and appreciate the things that you have because they may fade away, look at yourself and work on building up from the rubble of your broken pieces and flaws and create your life story. It’s never too late to improve yourself, so keep learning and striving for  new horizons that make your soul shine. And when the book of your life closes, remember that you truly lived.