Value in Accomplishments

SELF ANALYSIS :

         I won 1st place, (FL) State Champion in Business Professionals of America Human Resource Management. I felt a little happiness,  but I didn't feel elated or excited. I almost felt disappointed. I entered 11 entries in the Literary Fair at my school. I placed. Not only did I place, but I placed in 7 different categories. I placed 1st , 2nd, and 3rd. The weird thing is even though I should have felt accomplished and happy, I really didn't change from my neutral emotional state. Everyone else were quite amazed and impressed, but no matter what compliment I received, I never really felt elated, proud, or excited. I didn't really feel anything. Ironically, when I realized my blog was increasing in the number of views and expanding globally regarding viewers, I felt so happy. Nothing could take my smile away. No one knew besides myself, but I didn't feel the need to hear others congratulation. I felt it from my viewers, especially when I realized my fan base extended out to Peru and Saudi Arabia. In my mind, 110 views in my 1st month of ever having a blog is more valuable than any titles I have accumulated in the last month.
          Through this moment of self analysis, I realize that the value of something is based on each person indiviually. It's all about perception. What (according to social norms) I should have found  more important caused me to feel nothing at all. I consider them to be neutral stimuli, for usually they stimulate different feelings, however I still felt nothing. I perceived these accomplishments to be obligatory, thus the rewards that stem from these accomplishments felt mildly ridiculous and embarrassing. It almost felt like my parents were giving me an award for breathing; silly and unnecessary to reward me for something I do naturally. I felt happy about the views on my blog because the blog is something I started and writing how I feel makes me happy. The fact that other people seem to also enjoy it just makes that much better. Thank You to All My Viewers!! :)

Harrassment at the Hospital

STORY TIME:

So I went to work at the hospital and I experienced another case of verbal harassment from a patient. The first case was my 2nd time working as a VOLUNTEER and a patient threatened to "piss" on me. Not that "lively" patients are unusual, but I had to write about this guy because he is on a definitely on a different level of what could be regarded as crazy. He uses the call button every five minutes to bombard the staff with a concoction of profanity and confusing instructions. When I went to answer his call, he demands "give me a f***ing pencil". I bring him a pencil. He responds with "paper mofo". As he's on the phone, he is referring to me as "all deez (insert N word)" as he says " I don't need all these  N words in my business". Then he demands me to "write down the damn number" in which he hasn't provided. So when I ask him what number to write down, he  responds with "I don't f***ing know!". Then I write down the 6 digit "phone number" that he recites and I leave him to his own personal crazy.

ANALYSIS:
This patient is in the hospital, yet he harasses the people who are supposed to help him. That's like biting the hand that feeds you. These people are nurses and doctors that are trying to nurture this patient and provide care for him, yet here he is verbally abusing everyone who walks in. People are hard enough to deal with when they're sick. So imagine one sick person times 48. We have to deal with 48 ill people and their families. There are people who are polite and who respect those who are helping them, to those people I am extremely grateful. Then, there are those people who think that the hospital staff are their personal servants.Then, there are special patients like the one featured in today's story time.  All in all, I'm not even angry at the patient, I feel more concern for him. He doesn't even realize his behavior is inappropriate. That just shows me that the environment he grew  up in was full of adults who used heavy profanity to solve their problems. Now that he is an adult he is using explicit language to intimidate people into doing what he wants them to do. I find that very sad :(

Trouble in Winning

This past weekend I got in big trouble due to a terrible case of normative conformity. Normative conformity is when a person conforms based off a fear of being rejected by the group. See, the entire weekend I felt as I had been left out and people thought I was acting indifferent. However, in this period of smoke and mirrors (aka high school) , teenagers especially, only see with their eyes. They tend to fail to analyze the entire situation and come with reasonable explanations for things they don't. understand.

STORY TIME:
So, this past weekend I was in Orlando, FL for the BPA State Conference. I had already done very well in my event and I was ready to have fun. So some acquaintances of mine and I went out and played around in downtown Disney. From there we all went back to the hotel. All of us go back to my room. The problem is some of the people who came back to the room where male when it was an all female room. There was a rule that stated males/females may not be in the room of the opposite sex unsupervised. Then, the guys stayed in our room past curfew. At about 1 a.m., there is a knock at the door and everyone freezes. Unfortunately, the person who was talking the most should have talked the least. For her natural reaction was to lie to the BPA administration. BAD IDEA! Then, to try to cover up those lies, she lied to our school chaperones. WORSE IDEA! Then, she tried to make everyone stick to the story. ABSOLUTE WORST IDEA. With seven people in trouble, there is always that one person that goes rogue. Unfortunately for her, there were three. And I was one of them. I insisted on telling the truth, which I would have to do until eight hours later before awards. I finally had my turn to explain what really happened. MORE IMPORTANLTY,  I did win 1st place, making me the BPA State Champion of Human Resource Management.

ANALYSIS:
Everyone was so fearful they would get in trouble or social expelled that they either lied, blamed other, or told the truth. Lying is a bad idea, but occasionally one can get away with it. Group lying (v. to lie with one or more people) is a terrible idea because there are too many variables and everybody's memory is not going to the same. Especially, if that "memory" never happened. Blaming others isn't that great of an idea either because it makes you look weak and deflecting fault upon others is a sign that you are guilty. Innocent people have no reason to deflect blame, for they are innocent. The best way to solve this problem is to tell the truth. Even though at first an authority figure may get mad, it's important to realize the anger is a temporary emotion and in the end they will most likely be more lenient with those who were honest that those who chose to be deceitful.

Unintentionally Low Key Racist

STORY TIME:

Today was very interesting. In my 7th period, an outspoken friend of mine was sitting by himself. Another student referred to him as red due to his consistent blushing. He counters her with whispering "well you are black, so you have no rights". Naturally I am immediately offended; I begin to verbally assault him with my words. It is in my nature to defend anything that connects with me.

However, after having my complaints drowned out by the  insults and scolding remarks of other students, I took a moment to observe everyone. No one would have noticed what he had said had the student he said that to not have involved the entire class. This entire screaming match would not be disturbing my thoughts had he had used what we [the class] assumed to be common sense.

Just when we thought everyone was tired of yelling, an outside student gets in his face. She starts slamming her palms on the desks to emphasize her points and I watch how he slowly recedes back into his chair, more red than ever. His explanation for his comment was that the class prefers him when he makes rude comments and he assumed we would know he was making a joke.

After everyone left, my teacher informed me that my friend had recently lost his mom. I instantly transformed from the being consumed by "nature" (the anger) to the being consumed with "nurturing". I instantly felt his hidden pains because the tough front he wears had been shattered like glass. That explained his seemingly obsession with making outrageous comments;he wanted the attention, the piece of him that was missing, from his classmates.