2015-2016 taught me a lot about who I am. Who I am is all that I created myself to be: independent, positive, strong headed, voiced, activist, humanitarian, intuitive, and dedicated. I liked to be hard on myself... pressured myself to the max. I started to not only put myself first, but my education, my loved ones, my job especially, morals, all at the same time. It's kind of hard to put more than one thing under the category of 'first'.

However, it was nerve wrecking to take on, remember so much, do so much. I would start to crash as weeks of each semester went by back at home. I decided to take a leave, try something new that's away from all the stress. I never planned to go to a dorm away college but along the midst of the noisy and packed trains, cars, buses, that passed by me every day walking in the city. I thought to go away to be alone from all responsibilities I created for myself to just do the one thing I always wished I had more time for. That was time for myself, to do things I wanted to do.

Since this is my first semester at Stony Brook as a transfer Junior. The first two weeks I enjoyed, it was during the week before classes started and the week after the semester started. I felt relaxed, It was the first time I was away from home, work, everything that was comfortable to me. It felt nice to finally take a break, hear some silence. After the first week of classes, I felt the motivation kick in...but distractions I allowed happened as well. Like I said, I don't just put myself first, but my character as well. My character got a little distraught and taken advantage of. I learned that quick enough to make a change and put my education first again...That is what I came here for, isn't it? I then started to lose myself in the process of being distraught, not sleeping enough because I would just stay up and read my textbooks. What good studying if you don't sleep, let alone eat? I started to forget to eat at regular times. The one thing that I think was the deal breaker was not going to the gym every day like I use to because I thought the time spent would be better going over notes. I started to notice in the midst of trying to put so much energy into one thing to make up for lost time. I ended up losing more time and wasting my energy.

Not to mention how lonely it got being here. I was good in a triple being with two people who I thought were the best roommates anyone could ever ask for: Natasha and Syntyche. Although due to financial situations I moved out of my triple to a cooking building (surprisingly I got the de-triple offer in the exact building I thought would take a year to move into), so that I didn't have to get a meal plan the following semester because I have to pay my tuition loans and meal plan on my own. (Campus Starbucks doesn't cost the same as a corporate Starbucks so that was a bust of my plans).

My current roommates are pretty chill too, we give each other food and chat at times but do our own things. To be honest, I have continued to count things I am grateful for. Although there was this feeling inside me I couldn't figure out or shake off. I started to realize that I didn't feel like myself.

Why would I not feel like myself?

1. I am away from my family and the comforts of my home.

2. I don't have my close bonded friendships I had with everyone I knew.

3. I was going through a break up.

4. I wasn't sleeping.

5. I wasn't eating well or regularly

6. I had a hazy fog in my thoughts.

The one thing that made me got better were my visits home.

Coming home feels amazing, I can speak again, I can love again, I can laugh again, I can eat what I want again, I can dance in my underwear in my room again. I walk carefree, with a smile on my face everywhere I go. Talk and interact with strangers who are just as passionate about communicating and sharing their knowledge with me as I enjoy sharing mine.

Coming home helps me process what I couldn't process over on Campus. It also started to make me feel more connected to myself and family back at home. I realized how much I am like my mom, how much I am like my dad. I realized how much I missed my sister and how much she misses me. I realized how much my sister is like me (she will deny it but I see the influence I have had on her and she's only taken on the good I taught her). I was always aware of this all but it would pass right by me because after a long day of going back and forth from class to work, to back to class, to the gym, to just taking 1-2 hours to be with friends, then rush home to a family that's waiting to see me. I took the people who loved me for granted because I couldn't take coming home to seeing the people I loved so much in so much pain but they never wanted to admit it, but I felt it. They started to make me their therapist but they still never took my advice, I started to feel like it didn't matter what I said or did if they wanted to continue thinking in their own way. I just took it as annoying background noise that my parents wanted to tell me what to do, how to do it, or just get into arguments over the most 'redonkulous' things because no one wanted to listen to the other, let alone listen long enough to correct the other, (as if anyone wanted to be corrected anyway). I felt like the parent at home, always trying to keep the peace. Trying to help them think out of their old ways into a way that will benefit them in the long run, and have them understand they need to stop whining. They depended too much on me and at the same time, I also took too much personal responsibility in the underlying fact they were dependent on me. However, it was hard to be the provider and adult when I have only lived up to 19, and trust me. I want to fast forward to being 26 as much they do...I knew regardless of how 'mature' I thought I was, I still have a long way to go from this point on.

Ever since I was a little girl, I had this kind of idea of what family meant to me. The kind of family I always had in mind and expected. A family that ate at the same time together every night. Have family movie night or game night. Parents I could tell anything to. Sisters I could share secrets with and teach them things I wish I knew at their age and hope they mature faster than I did.

Nothing will ever be how you want it to be for as long as you have an expectation of it. Let alone anything we set an expectation for is never going to be good enough even when we do have it and it is right under our noses. Things started getting stressful and tough with financial matters and as someone who hates the concept of money, it was worse that our problems were rooted from it. I felt responsible for being the breadwinner of the household, but the risks came with putting myself and my education on hold. Learning from my parent's lives, remembering the one thing they always lectured me on...was to chase my education and not waste my golden years.

I had to gather up a lot of balls and courage to finally take a step leaving home and it was hard considering there was so much shackling me to stay. I needed to experience being fully on my own.

The one thing I can thank Stony Brook was leaving home to just end up learning who was there the whole time, who was there to see me grow, and who was there to just see me fail.

Wednesday, November 23, 2016 is the first night my family and I had a meal together after the longest. When I went into my room to change when I got home, I started to cry...happy tears were bursting out of my for the first time in a while. Earlier that day I saw some of my friends who I thought was losing connection and intimacy with more time I spent at Stony Brook.

Then it made me think...

This was the school I wanted right? The school I wrote a hardcore essay on about how I wanted to change the way we educate our children in this nation... This is what Diana thought was the best for Diana...I let the high regards of this school and societies importance of school ranking and numbers (which I think is bullshit due to the corruption but that is another article waiting to happen) and the stress of being tied down at home...I decided that maybe an adventure was needed.

Past me was right. I may have had my ups and downs (trust me they were pretty crazy ups and downs). I did need this experience, it just wasn't the experience I had in mind. I discovered myself re-establishing what I already knew. But knowing something and really experiencing it are two different feelings. Feeling everything that comes with the experience gives what you thought you knew, a whole different meaning.

It all also couldn't have played out and fit together better than on around Thanksgiving Holiday.

Im thankful for the opportunities I have had. I'm thankful for graduating Laguardia Community College and meeting the amazing professors, people, and friends I have come across. I'm thankful for my family and their care, love, and efforts. I'm thankful for my previous job working at public schools to see what the education system lacks not just in academics but in the sociological and psychological perspective.

I am thankful for the bad experiences, the painful ones, the depressing ones. They all taught me a lesson, and have made me who I am today. I am thankful for my friends and all the people I end up having conversations with, in Starbucks Main Street 38-05 Queens NY. I am thankful for the enlightening moments I have had in my life all up until now. I am thankful for all the blessings and little coincidences I have had come towards me.

I am thankful for the opportunities and experience I have had at Stony Brook. I am thankful for the people I have met while at Stony Brook and showing me that if I'm patient enough I can find people who admire and accept me as much I admire and accept others.

I am thankful for the experiences and memories that have yet to come. I am thankful for being reminded that I cannot have expectations. Faith and Patience are the two energies that have kept me going.

I pray that I can go back to Stony Brook with the strength I am regaining while at home and not let my head get hazed in missing home so much that I am not longer making the best of the present.

It's not going to get easier, but I have faith that I can make it through. If I have made it this far who says I can't go any further.

***Special Thank you to Christina Beutura and Augusto Celis, for knowing me at my best, my worst, knowing my flaws, my mistakes, and still choosing to stick by me since I met them both my first year of high school. They've seen me grow as I have seen them grow, to the people I consider family, I am thankful and appreciative of you both. You both have shown me and taught me things about myself that I probably would have never learned without your friendships. I wish you two all the happiness in the world.

Special thank you to my family for going through the same hazy fog without me being at home. I know you guys missed me, I know part of you was probably hurt and disappointed I had left. I left for the better of not just my own future, but for our future.

I hope that this Thanksgiving is a blessed, happy, thoughtful, and grateful time for everyone to really remember what's truly important. We can get lost in the numbers, words, textbooks, tests, and grades...but that is not what makes up life. Life is what you make of it. Life is whatever you want it to mean. It can mean the worst of times, or it can mean the best of times. I chose the best of times, making the best of every moment.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Namaste <3