i can honestly say that i wouldn’t be in the situation i am in now without my family. coming to college i never realized how important my family was in my upbringing as well as how lucky i was to have them as a support system. they definitely dont agree with all the things that i am doing in life and dont like the decisions, but they still support me the whole way through. im blessed to have family live so close to myself and have cousins that are no more than twenty minutes away from my house. in the end, i realize that my family structure is not something that everyone has and that i was lucky. so now, i want to show thanks to my family who helped me throughout the way.

1:33 pm  •  29 February 2012  •  1 note

this is can be more-so seen as the access to food when needed. as college students, or at least within me personally i choose not to eat because i’m ‘broke’ or ‘i have to save money,’ but in the end i can ultimately eat anytime i want if i am really that hungry. which goes on to question this idea of hunger within the greater context of the world, my ‘hunger’ is a choice rather than an actual burden upon me. for some individuals the feeling of ‘hunger’ is unavoidable, being ‘hungry’ is a characteristic of life. its crazy to imagine that individuals within the world don’t know the next time they are going to eat; no such thing as breakfast, lunch or dinner because there is this constant worry about where and when their next meal may come from. for tomorrow, i plan on giving up food for an entire day to understand the situations that they are in. 

6:35 pm  •  28 February 2012

even though its not a career, im blessed to have a job. something that pays for my rent and my living costs through this academic year. i have been lucky enough to work/have a job every year of college. its tough times, and its growing harder to find a job, and its not necessarily anyone’s fault, so for now i’m blessed and privileged enough to be currently ‘employed.’

6:35 pm  •  28 February 2012

i feel that this a tougher one to really realize due to the institutional problems of education, but rather in the larger scope, i have noticed that all of us who have the opportunity to go through higher education are privileged in some way. dating back to even the early days of kindergarten and elementary school, i now notice how lucky i was to be able to attend a school that would cultivate me to go to college. In looking at the context of my life and the movements of some of my friends, even attending a UC is a privilege within itself. disregarding any academic ‘achievement,’ i have been lucky enough to have some sort of income to push my way through college and though i will be in tens of thousands of dollars in debt, i was granted this opportunity. a good amount of individuals who do have the educational prowess can not attend simply due to finances, and these problems perpetuate (with the importance of an BA being standard within the workforce).

And with this post i hope to really appreciate the opportunity that i am given by going to college because its interesting to note that in life there are things that are just out of our hands that we can’t control so with the privilege that we do have we must cherish it. with the mass amounts of midterms and papers, it sounds dumb to say but i’m really thankful for it.

5:56 pm  •  25 February 2012  •  2 notes

I think one thing we for sure take for granted is our access to clean, drinkable water. When i come to think about the situations in my life, if i am truly thirsty, i can find drinkable water within at least half a mile (if not less). when it comes within the context of the world some individuals don’t have that same opportunity for another four of five miles (including walks back and forth under certain weather conditions), and within that ‘drinkable’ water is dirt, bacteria and other harmful things that can damper your health. i find it so amusing that even within myself i am so reluctant to even thinking about drinking tap water, when in fact i should be glad that i have water running from the taps of my house. i am not calling individuals out, who purely drink specific types of water from bottles, but more-so bringing and calling to attention that our access to water let alone clean water is a privilege and blessing so with every sip you take realize that other individuals may have it harder.

P.S. I am challenging myself within these next couple weeks to not necessarily give up what one thing (in the duration of lent) that may not be pertinent to my well-being, but more-so choosing multiple (realistic) things, paired with my daily blog posts, that are significant to my well-being that other individuals do not have the ability to receive, and take a day within their perspective to truly realize my blessings.

5:48 pm  •  25 February 2012