Conflict Assessment

So when I took a conflict assessment test I found out that I am very adept to handling conflict and do well with meditation, negotiation, and anger management. I am very approachable; people turn to me for advice about conflicts and their resolution... Now I never used to be like that at all, really I was the one who would be very confrontational towards everyone and was not very approachable at all. I remember someone telling me one time that when they first met me they were a little scared to talk to me only because my body language and the way I came off was a little too strong for them, but in the end when they got to know me a little better and they found out that I am a very sweet person and only look tough. Now the only reason why now I think that my attitude on life has changed and did a whole 180 degree turn for the better is because I look at life through a whole other set of eyes due to my sobriety. I am not that angry tough little girl who really was just scared of what you thought of her, and if you didn't like me than you were my enemy. I love my life now and only try to help people get that happiness that I wanted so badly when I first started to get sober and the happiness that I have today. I am so glad that I found it and I am hanging on for dear life to it. The funny thing is that it says I do well with meditation, well that is so true because I do this every morning when I wake up because I feel that when I do this my day goes better, and when I don't meditate before my day begins I tend to be in a very bad mood and I don't have a good day at all. I like to get up a little bit earlier in the morning so that I have time to do my meditation and if I don't get my meditation in before my day begins, I take the time to sit down and do it when I have free time during the day so that I have a better day after that. I love the way my life is now and I really would have never had got this inner peace that I have today if I was not sober and did not have the support that I have today, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Without a Trace...

I recently had the opportunity to read an article in Time magazine called Without a Trace. Now when I first read the title of this article I thought it was going to be about disappearance, or being gone without a trace never to be found. I was shocked to find out that the article was about an application for you cell phone called Tiger Text. Its basically an application for your phone that allows you to text someone a message than after a certain amount of time set by the person with the app automatically erases that message not only from your phone but also the other persons phone as well as any and all computers. The other person can not forward the message nor store it in their phone, the message never existed. Now the only reason why I think that this app would be use full to anyone would be for keeping secrets from someone or committing adultery, cheating in other words. "Our real concern was privacy," says Tiger Text founder Jeffrey Evans my opinion their real concern was teaching people how to keep secrets. Now lets say one of your kids has this app on their phone and they decided that they wanted to experiment with drugs or alcohol, the only way the parents are going to find out what kind of crowd their children are really hanging out with is if they are honest and that no secrets are kept between the parents and the child. With this app the children can talk to whoever they want about whatever they want without their parents finding out about it cause the message would be erased after a certain amount of time and then their is no stopping what kids will do. My parents used to look through my written letters to my friends to find out what was going on with me cause lets face it no teenager ever wants to talk to their parents about anything at that age, and you can't erase written letters. They other dis advantage to this app is lets say someone is being threatened by another person and the only proof they have is through the text messages. If the person has the tiger text app there is no way that they can prove that their life in in danger and, they could wind up dead or seriously injured. This app is nothing but bad in my eyes especially for those in relationships, think about it if your husband or boyfriend has this app on their phone you may want to think twice about why exactly they have this app. I encourage everyone to take warning to this app called Tiger Text it is for people who are trying to keep secrets and that can't and wont be honest with not only themselves, but with others around them.

Tweak: Growing up on Methamphetamine

The next book that I would like to read is called Tweak: Growing up on Methamphetamine. The reason why I would like to read this book is because I have had the great pleasure of reading his fathers book called Beautiful Boy and I absolutely loved it. The book Tweak is about a boy that grew up with an addiction to not only methamphetamine but also marijuana,alcohol,and other drugs as well. This book is about his journey through life suffering with all these addictions and how he overcame them through finding himself, now Tweak is his story and the book his father wrote Beautiful Boy was his fathers story about how he was living with a son who was a drug addict. It is two different perspectives from the opposite ends. What other have to say about this book is positive and negative as well, you get those who absolutely love what he wrote due to his honesty and bravery in talking to the younger generation about drug addiction and how it effects not only his life, but the lives of those around him as well. Then you have the other reviews of those who say that they thought that it was terrible due to the fact of him being so young and in experienced in writing a book. My opinion on the reviews of those who did not like the book is that they had read the fathers book Beautiful Boy and had the expectation of the son being a great writer as well and compared them which no reader should ever do, cause your just setting yourself up for disappointment. I can't wait to dive into this book cause if you have followed any of my other blogs that I have written then you know, that I have suffered and gone through the same addiction as well as the author has and would love to hear how he overcame this huge obstacle called addiction.

Vocab.

Tangible: (Adj)

Definition: Capable of being touched

Source Sentence- At one point he had enrolled in the junior college in his hometown, but the course work he said seemed too abstract, too distant, with nothing real or tangible at stake, certainly not the stakes of a war.

The Context Clue Synonym tells me that with nothing real or tangible at stake, is the opposite of the definition Capable of being touched, or real.


Original Sentence: I know that becoming a probation officer is very tangible in my future.



Feigned: (Adj)


Definition: Pretended; sham; counterfeit, assumed fictitious, disguised


Source Sentence: The letter covered seventeen handwritten pages, its tone jumping from self-pity to anger to irony to guilt to a kind of feigned indifference.


Context Clue: The context clue example shows me that through jumping from self pity to anger to irony to guilt that he is trying to disguise the indifferance emotions he is going through.


Original Sentence: I used to use feigned money back in the day to buy all my drugs when I was in my addiction.


Catharsis: (Noun)


Definition: Purging of the emotions or relieving of emotions, teensions, through certain kinds of art.


Sourse Sentence: Partly catharsis, partly communication, it was a way of grabbing people by the shirt and explaining exactly what happened to me, how I'd allowed myself to get dragged into a wrong war, all the mistakes i'd made, all the eriible things I had seen done.


Contect Clue: Through the context clue example tells me that grabbing people by the shirt and explaing exactly what happened to him was through his writting the book was a way for him to relase his emotions about the war he had been involved in.

To an Old Friend

Long-Term Goal: Stay Sober
Mid-Term Goal: Education-AA
Short-Term Goal: Graduate from Drug Court

March 10, 2011

Dear Angela, well it certainly has been awhile since we have last spoken with each other, I hope you and your daughter's are doing well. As for me I could never be better I have two years and nine months sober today and loving life. I never thought in a million years that I would make it this far but I am doing so much better than I was doing awhile ago when I was in my addiction. I graduated from drug court back in June of 2010 and thought that since I was done being watched 24/7 by my probation officer and walking on egg up until I graduated that I just might slip back into my old habits once again. Then I began to think about how far I have come in my life being sober and how easy it is lose everything that I have built up so far in a blink of an eye, and there is no way I am giving any of this up not for all the money in the world. I also still have been working towards my dream of becoming a probation officer and have been taking more classes so that I can transfer to a four year college as soon as possible, I have yet decided on where I will be going due to the fact of taking your advice and exploring all of my options. I just might be going to an out of state university but we will cross that road when it comes up. I try to keep myself busy everyday because I truly believe that idle hands are the devils playground, but I still take it one day at a time.... Well I hope to hear from you soon and thank you so much for all the advice you gave me when I was one of your students.


P.S. How is the chocolate addiction going??

~Starr~

Refelction 2

What is going well for me this semester is that I am finding out that I can actually do the "going back to school" thing sticking through it and not giving up like I used to do with everything in my past. I have learned that no matter what my past was like or where I was, I can bounce back and actually do the things that I thought I couldn't do because my brain was too fried from all the drug abuse over the years. I know now that I still have a chance of living a good life that I want to live if I just buckle down and the right thing one day at a time. Or in the words of my mother "just do it already". If it wasn't for my mom I don't think that I would be in school at all, she has been my number one supporter in anything that I have tried to do ever since I started to get sober. The one thing I would like to improve on is my relationship with my father. We didn't get along too well when I was younger and I was not the best child I could have been due to the poor choices on my behalf at such a young age, but I know that he loves me no matter what I do or how many times I may mess up in life and he is proud of me and how far I have come in a little over eighteen months. He is also a big supporter for me now and I would like to work on making up for all the pain and hurtful things I did to him when I was in my addiction. What I have learned about myself mostly is that if I can come from living on the streets like a gypsy just trying to survive each and every day, to a working, sober, happy, college student in such a short time than I can do anything I set my mind to...... Including learning about schema from my reading class and getting a perfect score on my vocabulary test, cause without that and the study group we had that very few of us went to, I would have never have gotten that perfect score...