New Website

Hey Everybody!

I've been spending the last few weeks working on my new blog, The Common Sense Review. It's not very developed, because I'm spending more time writing thorough posts and I'm still playing with theme ideas and figuring out how I want it to look and function. I'm also building up the post number, so there will be an ample amount of reading material available.

You are, of course, welcome to come visit me here. Also, if you want to add the URL, it's http://commonsensereview.wordpress.com.

Hope to see you there!

Is This It?

2010 is looking like the year of new beginnings for me.

I am now once again a full-time student. Classes start March 8. And unlike the last time I thought I was going to be back in school, I have the financial aid award letter and my classes are scheduled. Anything that I thought would keep me from going to school has either been handled, or is in the process of being handled.

Now, I'm faced with the thought that I'll need to start back helping with the bills. And I don't want to just be in school for the next two years without generating any income.

I'm considering the thought of completely monetizing my blog and taking it to an even better place than it used to be.

Scratch the "considering" part. I am going to do it.

Initially, my idea was to give this blog credit where credit was due and allow it to die peacefully and quietly like so many other blogs do. I was going to move to Wordpress and start fresh with a new layout, tweaked writing style, and new content.

Further thought, however, has enlightened me to the fact that I shouldn't reinvent the wheel if at all possible. This blog, if nothing else, has age. I've been doing this for almost 3 years. Not only do I have some experience writing for an audience, but the age makes it a very dependable site when I'm trying to add some affiliate links or other revenue outlets.

It's easy for me to talk myself out of doing this...it's taking a risk, and a gamble at that. I'm not exactly sheltered from life anymore. My essentials are being taken care of, but now I'm significantly more responsible for them than I was when I was living with my grandmother. On the other hand, though, finding a job now, with the prospect of me starting school so soon, is seeming like less and less of a good idea. The whole reason I've gone back to school is because I wanted to be able to get a better job than what I'm currently qualified for. I don't want to spend all my time working terrible jobs that I hate just for a little pocket change. I'd rather spend my time doing something I love to do and allow the money to follow.

At least now, I have about a month and a half to start revamping this blog, finding and adding revenue, and creating valuable content that will actually attract and keep readers (shouts out to my loyal fellow bloggers who have stuck with me this far...I promise you'll see rewards for it in the near future!).

I don't expect to come out the box making thousands or even hundreds of dollars a month. That's unrealistic. But I do believe that if I keep at it, keep my eyes open for new opportunities, and remain true to the new purpose of this blog (and to myself), then maybe within a year I'll be generating enough income to not feel so bad about pursuing my dreams right now when things aren't quite settled at home yet.

I'd like to again thank everybody who has traveled this far with me, and I hope to see you all again on the other side of the blog!

Finally Being Honest

Earlier this morning, I attempted to sit in front of my computer screen and blog about what truly made me happy.

That turned out to be a much bigger and more difficult task than I thought. The very first thought I put down in my process was a negative one.

So I decided to approach this differently. I turned off the computer and grabbed a good old pen and two pieces of paper, and just started to write.

Sometimes, I just don't think I'm enough. Enough of a person, enough of a woman. Not pretty enough. Not funny enough. Not friendly. Unsuccessful.

That was the very first paragraph I wrote. Yeah, I know...ouch. It takes a real lack of self-esteem to be able to write those things without flinching. It actually slightly hurts to know that when I challenged myself to write about being happy, the very first thing I did was put myself down.

I continued on for the next few pages, trying to pinpoint things that make me happy. Dressing up. Getting my nails done. These weren't it. I started writing about school, and wrote this:

I don't miss school as it was 2 years ago. I don't miss the life I had (entirely). What I do miss was the ability to learn new things. I miss being myself.

Lights and sirens started to blare. I hesitated slightly before writing the statement I miss being myself. I wanted to catch it, to stop myself before writing it. I felt ashamed.

I hesitated to write that last statement. And I immediately wanted to try to justify my statement. I wanted to explain myself away, maybe to soften the blow. I cared enough about what people think and the thought of who might read this that I didn't want to be honest with myself. Is that what I've come to? Have I devoted so much of my time to pleasing everyone else that I've forgotten how to be honest with myself?

I had to touch a soft spot within myself in order to admit that for a long time, I haven't been honest with myself. I'm not only referring to the big decisions in my life, such as what career I want to pursue or what I want to do with my credit. I'm referring to smaller everyday decisions. My blogger queue is chock full of half-written posts, abandoned because I felt the topic would be too sensitive to post or because I feared hurting somebody's feelings. I don't do what I want to my hair because I fear what someone might say, even though I know it would look 50 times better if I cut it shorter.

I still don't understand what caused me to start such a self-defeating cycle of doing everything for the acceptance of other people, completely ignoring everything that makes me happy.

Everything, that is, except coffee.

Coffee is the one of the few things I can think of that I've never compromised for anyone. It's the first thing I ever really rebelled with, at the age of 15. My mother forbade me to drink coffee...I drank it anyway. I wish I could say that I did it just because she told me not to...it would make me sound like I had some balls. But I drank it because it tastes delicious to me, and because I didn't understand why it's so bad. Still don't. As a matter of fact, I've told men I dated in the past that if they couldn't deal with me liking coffee, then maybe they needed to look somewhere else.

The reason I thought about coffee, and devoted a page and a half to writing about it, was that I found it interesting how I can quickly assert my beliefs regarding that but I seem to become a sissy about everything else.

But more than that, it was a lifeline of hope, a sliver of understanding in what were once murky waters. I'd asked myself what made me happy. After 3 1/2 hours of searching, I found one thing that purely makes me, and no one else, happy. It's certainly not the only thing, but it was refreshing to have at least one answer to my question. Demiera 1, Hard Life Questions 0.

People are interested in me...nay, I am interesting as a person, when I just do me. When I start doing things that I think other people want, not only am I usually very wrong, but I also stop being happy. I don't know what anybody else wants in their life. Why would I spend my life working on shaping myself to someone else's standards when I don't even know what their standards are, and honestly don't care?

How intriguing...in reading the passages excerpted from my long letter to myself, I feel like I've been more honest as a writer and a person than I have been in a long, long time. I finally see some of my personality coming out, some of my true beliefs, showing their face after so much time of being held back.

I wish I had some catchy conclusion to this post, to wrap it up. I wish I could say that I vow to always follow my own mind, to always do things the way I want them done. Let's be real. Change doesn't occur overnight, and you don't reverse 20 years of dependent thinking in a morning.

I can, however, admit that now that I've tapped a part of my soul and being that had been hidden for so long, I can finally work toward consciously changing my thought processes. I worried that nobody took me seriously...sure they didn't, because I didn't take myself seriously. Now it's time for me to start doing just that. Bit by bit, decision by decision, I'm sure I'll recover confidence that I lost, and finally start on that road to being truly happy again.

------

On a completely unrelated note, I want to stress the importance of family. I kind of strayed away from mine, even though they've always supported me, because I always thought that I needed to constantly impress them and once things didn't start working the way I thought they would, I felt like I was a failure and that I had let them down.

I realize now (and did for a little while, but it's really all making sense now) that everything I had projected that they were thinking was untrue, and largely a product of my own imagination. In fact, any time I think I can guess what's on someone's mind, it's normally just a product of my imagination and I almost always find later on that I was terribly wrong.

In any event, I've reached out, and they've accepted me back (as loving family does) and I'm ready to admit that I definitely was wrong in assuming that they wouldn't love or accept me just because I wasn't living life the way I thought they wanted me to live. I'm wrong in thinking anyone in my life worth having around won't love or accept me just because I don't make the decisions they want me to. Anybody who so conditionally cares for me doesn't deserve to be around me.

My uncle Calvin wrote this on my Facebook page, and as his messages always do, it really touched me and almost brought me to tears, and I wanted to share it here:


You're back in the nest so stay true to the fam and the fam will always stay true to you. Fear not the people you know, but those who are unseen and have not revealed themselves to you. Work on your instincts and learn to walk in the night fearless with your eyes closed. When you are related to something greater than you, shed your fears and pursue your dreams with all the zest and vigor your heart can produce. Don't look back just stay focused on your goals and future.....I'm always watching your back so you don't have too!

Pretty Mixed Babies

There's a new epidemic sweeping the nation, a trend that has silently yet powerfully taken our culture by storm. You might see them walking down the street, milling through stores, traveling in packs...

I'm referring to interracial couples.

An episode of The Golden Girls brought this topic to mind (yes, I do watch the Golden Girls faithfully). The show features a young white man and an older black woman getting married and shows the parents' difficulties dealing with that fact.

It got my mind gears cranking.

I am half of an interracial couple myself. I'm Black and Indian, and Jay is Mexican and Puerto Rican. Other than the occassional racial teasing, when he accuses me of being in love with fried chicken and I protest his insistance of eating everything on tortillas, we get along very well despite any differences in our skin tone. As a matter of fact, our relationship is very culture rich because we have the opportunity to show each other what makes each of us unique.

Unfortunately, skin color is enough of an issue to still create some discomfort at certain occasions. Meeting the parents was a scary experience for both of us because neither knew how we would be received into our respective families.

That, of course, says nothing about the looks we get from people when we walk down the street holding hands, or the comments we hear in passing that we know are directed our way.

We aren't looking for acceptance from the world. We accept each other, and that's enough for us.

But it wouldn't hurt if people weren't so damn unaccepting of the idea that a black woman and a hispanic man can love each other and be compatible enough to come together in a relationship.

What are your thoughts on interracial relationships, good or bad?

We were at Lollapalooza. We were hot, the "liquid courage" was flowing, the air was thick with Mary Jane's perfume...but we were together and we were (and still are!) HAPPY!!

Designing a Home Office (Part 1)

I'm supposed to be cleaning the house.

Instead, I'm online shopping for furniture to create a home office we don't have the space for.

Let me back up. We have the space for an office. It's just not one of the more important things we need to be purchasing right now.

But, in light of the Christmas spirit, I can dream about it anyway.

I found an awesome desk at walmart.com that I've absolutely fallen in love with.

It's the Orion L-Shaped desk, running for $89.00.




How do you beat a price like that??

In addition, the desk is so cute, and looks like it would fit perfectly in the free space we have in the living room. It would be a nice place to store our documents. I think the CD tower is a little unnecessary since we don't stockpile many CDs, but I can definitely find an alternate use for it (outgoing mail, maybe? Bills to be paid?)

Regardless, it's cute. And affordable. And I want it.

Of course, you can't get a desk without a chair. And I found a cute chair too, leather no less, for $49.00.

I'm in office shopping heaven right now.

We need the desk space. Plus, the black/woodgrain will look reeeeaaaaallllllllyyyy nice with our black entertainment center and wooden cocktail table. It will do a lot to bring together the living room, while establishing that little corner as the "office corner".

We can put the laptop over there, and our books, and...

I'm probably getting a little ahead of myself. I haven't formally measured the space I have to work with, so that desk may not work as well as I'd like it to.

I'm also not considering the fact that our refrigerator is smack dab in the middle of the living room, making the task of cutting the office from the kitchen even harder.

I suppose my biggest concern is having way too much going on in the living room. But, if we've got the space, and we can make it work, why not go for it?

I'll plead my case tonight, and we'll see what happens... :)

Organizing From The Inside Out

Yesterday, a trip to the bookstore yielded my second copy of Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern.

I previously owned the similar book geared toward teens, written by Morgenstern's daughter Jessi. Ironically, I somehow misplaced that book. I attribute that to my own disregard of the general rules in the book and not to a lack of good advice. The book was awesome.

I am now prepared to launch an all-out organizing assault on our small, one bedroom apartment.

The good thing is that since we moved in only a few months ago, we haven't accumulated a huge amount of unnecessary items. But because the place is so small with so few storage items, it has become very difficult to control the clutter in the house while keeping it as aesthetic as possible.

The main reason not much has been done to decorate is the fact that we don't intend on staying in this apartment beyond the lease, which is up in August. We didn't want to spend a lot of time and money making this place habitable when we knew we wanted to find a new place as soon as possible.

What I'm discovering, though, is our lack of organization here is affecting much more than just the items in our house. Bills we thought were paid are turning up forgotten, important dates come and go without regard, and our important documents end up in a huge pile under the cocktail table and thrown anywhere they will fit.

We don't have much up in the form of decoration, making the apartment look boring and simply as a place to sleep, eat (though not all of the time) and bathe, versus looking like a home.

Since this is the first piece of paper Jay and I have signed our names to jointly, it holds a very sentimental aspect. But the decor doesn't reflect that.

Our bathroom is tiny and I'm an impulsive beauty product buyer, which means I have toiletries on the rims of the bathtub, the sink shelf, in containers under the sink, spread through the medicine cabinet, in the closet, and in a hamper in the living room (which I would like to relocate or even get rid of, since it's simply a shit collector).

Don't get me wrong, the place isn't a mess. And clean up usually isn't terribly painful. But the fact remains that it is aesthetically unbecoming and the important things (mainly our finances) are being left in the wind.

I haven't actually started mapping out a plan for the apartment yet. I chose to review the book first, get a general idea of what I'd be getting into, then will reread the important parts to follow the steps necessary to get organized.

I do, however, have a general idea of how I would like for this place to look.

Most importantly, though, after realizing my own goals and plans for reorganizing and decorating this space, I need to talk to Jay about his own expectations of space, living conditions, and budget agreements. After all, he lives here too (and now pays the bills) so I need to make sure whatever I do will benefit both of us, not cause more stress and problems.

I'll be documenting my progress as I go along, so you can follow along in the steps I do and maybe my journey will help you get organized, too.

Let the project begin...

Ahhh, Technology

I would like to take a moment to thank all of the computer/phone geeks in this world.

I don't mean geeks like me, either. I'm a bit of a geek, but the only reason I can do so much with a computer/phone is because I've learned the value of Google. And I use it quite often.

I mean the geeks who actually sit at home and work out the solutions to our everyday computer problems, then post their findings on the Web for all us lazy geeks to Google. You guys are awesome.

See, I was in a period of need. My laptop has probably breathed it's final breath (piece of shit HP...goddammit...way to put out an extended warranty and cover all laptops BUT mine...motherfuckers...mother board problems...you know how much mother boards cost???).

Unfortunately, my LIFE was on that computer. Meaning, of course, my music library and my iTunes. Now, my iPhone used to be synced to Jay's computer, which worked out just fine because his piece of shit computer at least will TURN ON. But I sacrificed over 1.000 songs from his computer so I could put my 1300 or so from my own computer onto my phone. Then I copied as many songs as I could from his library onto a flash drive and transferred them over.

Yeah, that was a lot of work.

Needless to say, that's all gone. And my iPhone is currently the only proof that I have a music library. It took me well over a year to rebuild my library after the LAST time my computer fucked up and I had to restore to factory settings.

I'm not wiping out my music again.

But I'll never use iTunes again. So what do I do? Google!!

How to put music on iPhone without using iTunes.

I found some interesting little tidbits, but I was directed to a program called CopyTrans Manager. So I downloaded it...and it's A.W.E.S.O.M.E.

Then I downloaded another nifty little program called iRinger. Now thanks to my CopyTrans Manager and iRinger, I not only have stolen all kinds of music from Jay's computer (muahahahaha) but I also have created custom ringtones for my iPhone. So whenever my phone rings you hear:

"Til we die, niggas just don't know...PAYBACK IS A MOTHERFUCKER WHEN YOU FUCKIN WITH THE PSSSYYYYYYCCCCHHHHOOOOO!!!"

(That would be from the song "Do Whatchu Wanna Do" by Psychodrama.)

I like to think about it this way. The price for an iPhone is highway robbery any way you look at it. You're paying an exorbitant amount for it, whether your money goes toward the purchase of the phone or towards the damn near $100/mo plan.

I'm sorry. I'm not gonna pay $250 for the phone, then $100/mo for the shitty plan AND some ringtones.

Honestly, people will do anything they can to make a dollar, even off something as stupid as having a special song when your phone rings.

And don't get me started on Callback tones or whatever THE fuck those things are called...you know when you call somebody and the ring is a song?

No offense to anyone who has that. But it doesn't make any sense.

Why would I spend money so OTHER PEOPLE can enjoy a song? If I'm gonna spend money on a song, I want that song to play whenever I call someone else.

I mean, are the people who call me gonna contribute to the cost of that particular call back tone?Probably not.

More than likely, they won't even mention it. I won't get a "Hey girl, your callback tone sure is neat!" or "Demiera, I want a callback tone just like yours, where'd you get it?"

But.

If I'm in the company of someone else with an iPhone who has not yet learned the (not-so-huge) secret of putting your own custom ringtones on your phone and my phone happens to ring, I will get a "Whoa, dude, you got ringtones on your phone? How'd you do that??"

Bingo...

Plazo Sesamo

So last night I came to a huge conclusion about why I can't speak Spanish fluently given my 11 years (okay, okay, you can pick your jaw up off the floor now) of Spanish class in school.

I mean, it's kind of embarrassing to have devoted that much time to learning a language you still aren't fluent in.

If you want to learn a language, any language, you need to make sure you're learning it by associating the foreign word with an object, not a word.

Let me say that again. Associate foreign words with objects, not words.

This is going to sound crazy, but Jay and I watched Sesame Street... en espanol... it was the best learning experience ever. It's a completely visual process, and I was intrigued by how well I felt I could grasp the show, even though it was entirely in Spanish.

Yes, I know. It's a kid's show. But I was learning, dammit.

I learned that a mariposa is a butterfly, how to say the letter "M", and that if you can't sleep, you say no puedo dormir.

The fundamental error in the way most advanced Spanish teachers teach Spanish is that they tend to associate words and phrases in Spanish with words we use in English. In other words, it's a huge conjugation exercise.

This method of teaching leads to failure, because a person cannot feasibly learn to speak a language when they force their brain to follow so many steps to communicate. You make yourself do extra steps.

Let's say the task at hand is for someone to say a phrase to me in Spanish, and I have to also respond in Spanish.

Sounds pretty simple and straightforward, right?

For me, it's not. Let's say the phrase is "Que quieres comer?"

Step one: I must translate this phrase into English. The phrase means "What do you want to eat?"

Step two: Now that I've translated the phrase into a language I speak fluently, I can finally think of how to answer the question. Suppose I want chicken (no black comments please...JAY :P). Now I formulate my response in English: "I want chicken."

But wait. The task is for me to answer the question in Spanish, not in English. So the third step is for me to translate my response into Spanish. My answer would be "Quiero pollo."

It may not sound like an unreasonable task, but imagine your brain having to follow this process every time you attempt to understand a sentence in Spanish. I spend so much energy and attention translating the phrase that I don't have a chance to understand what's going on.

Thus, the fundamental flaw in my learning: the association of Spanish to English words, not to the objects they represent.

I can look at an apple and tell you it's a manzana. I can look at the color green and tell you it's verde. I can look at the number 15 and tell you it's quince. Anything I was taught through simple repetition, however, is gone.

Likewise, I picked up a couple of words they don't teach you in class, like pendejo. What's funny is I don't even know the English translation for this word, but I can use it in everyday language. Like when I called the cat a pendejo for knocking everything off the table.

If you're trying to learn a different language, don't try to read a book about learning it or buy those stupid computer programs that make you repeat phrases from English translations, because at the end of the day you're only going to end up frustrated. I really believe if you do it right you can become fluent in a language for (almost) free.

Immerse yourself in the language. I live around a couple of Mexican restaurants and supermarkets, so whenever we go to the store I'm associating names with meats and fruits. I look at menus and try to learn there. It's a never-ending process, but I must learn Spanish before I have children... I want them to be bilingual but I have to be first, or else I'll never know what they're talking about...

Adios...!

Should Have Seen It Coming...

Dear Life,


Today, I got fired.


Never been fired before...but I suppose there's a first time for everything.


The general manager was nice about it...and he may have been lying, but it seemed like he really didn't want to fire me. I guess that's why I'm not mad. He said I'm a great employee but not for the job I was working.


Which I was expecting. I knew by the end of this month I probably wouldn't be there anymore.

Still.


Let the record show that I worked my ASS off at that job. I never gave up. I asked for help, I researched, I did everything I could. I trained another person so well they bumped her up TWO departments. So obviously I did know what I was doing. I had the mechanics of the job down, the steps to follow, the scripts to read.

At the end of the day, though, I'm just not a collector.

I had hoped that in this job, I would learn to be more aggressive. I had hoped I would learn to be less afraid of doing certain things. I had hoped that through this experience I would learn how to be more assertive, how to go after what I want. I learned a different lesson from this. I learned that sometimes, desire to do well isn't enough. I learned that others can help you only so far...the rest comes from within. Yes, I worked hard and that was obvious. Yes, I put forth my best effort. But I was really just running at top speed on a treadmill...wasting all my energy and not going anywhere. It was a waste of time for both me and the company.

Of course, I'm being completely logical minded on the outside. But I still have tears waiting to fall. I won't say I'm not accustomed to failing but I'm certainly not used to failing at things I put real effort into. But I will not allow myself to think this was all for nothing.

Time to dust myself off, listen to some feel-good music, clean up the house, eat some comfort food, and start the search for a new job. No time to sit and dwell on failures or setbacks...life moves way too fast for that...

Dreaming...

What do you want to be when you grow up?

The time I ever answered that question (that I can remember) was when I was around 3 or 4 years old. I wanted to be a firefighter, and I was convinced I'd grow up to be the best fire fighting machine around.

Ah, how times change.

Over the course of the years, my dreams evolved. I went from fire fighter to nurse to teacher to lawyer to forensic psychologist to lawyer again to high powered business woman.

Now that it's time for me to actually put my dreams in motion, I'm at a loss.

Somehow when you're younger it's much more fun to think about what you want to be when you get older. Maybe it's the fact that when you're young, your dreams remain largely that: dreams. You can't really do much for your dream of what you want to be when you grow up because you normally need to grow up first.

I'm being faced with this decision much earlier than I expected or wanted to be, but in a way it's my fault. I'd rather not be one of those people who spends 20-30 years at a job they hate because they were too afraid to confront their dreams and make them work.

The thing about a dream is there is a reason a dream remains a dream. There's always some obstacle between it and reality.

What do you do when the obstacle lies not in achieving the dream, but in determining the dream itself?