The worst is over.

The Lord Almighty grant us a quiet night and peace at the last. It is good to give thanks to the Lord. To sing Praise to Your name oh most high.To herald your love in the morning, your truth at the close of the day.
--Compline


I think that we too often forget the other person when we make posts online. Most of the time, we don't take things to heart. I've learned in the past few hours that some people really take things to heart, straight into the depths of their soul.

Jaleel John-Baptiste passed away around 3 pm today according to my family, all of whom were present. I had my phone off because I was taking a chemistry lecture final. Earlier in the day, around noon, my sister called me and said that he would probably pass in the next few hours and that I could say goodbye if I wanted. So, she took the phone into the room and sat it next to his ear. I really didn't know what to say except that I loved him and missed him, and I told him I was glad that he wasn't suffering or in any pain.


After I was done with that first final, I saw a call from my mom. My sister answered and told me that he passed at 3pm. It was hard for me to keep it together, but I knew I had one final left and that I had to pull through. This was until I received a very nasty message on Facebook from one of Jaleel's friends. It was incredibly hateful, and it sent me into a fit of crying. I didn't know whether to answer him and defend myself or to just cry and forget about it. I copied and sent it to my sister, who read it to my mother. (Note: Do not upset my Korean mother. She will most likely kill you.) It has all be taken care of, and the kid apologized. My sister called and got it all straightened out (after telling everyone that didn't necessarily need to know).


To be honest, I didn't want an apology. I knew he was just upset. He needed someone to lash out on, and I can accept that. I can be the person they want to blame for whatever reason even though I had nothing to do with any of it aside from praying for my friend.


The other hateful words said about me were also taken down, and I unfriended the kid (he had friended me just to send the hate message).


As I called my parents to let them know I did well on my finals, the phone was passed to every person at the house in the room, comforting me and giving ME condolences like Jaleel was my blood, like I needed it more than they did. His grandparents said that they were making sure I wasn't getting hurt or battered for anything I said and that the kid understood that it wasn't right to lash out and say the things he said to me when I had just found out that my friend has passed.


These kids posting and saying that I'm a bitch or mentally retarded, that I don't have the right, that I should take my photos of him down... They don't see it the way I do. They don't understand how I feel or my relationship with him. They don't know and they don't care. It doesn't even matter. 


If i have to be a martyr for those kids, fine. I will be. They can send me all the hate and anger they feel. They can send me nasty glares at the funeral. I don't really care. 


We all deal with things differently, and if they need someone to hate for a while, it may as well be me.


It isn't right, but there isn't much I can do to make it stop or change their minds. They have to do it for themselves on their own time.


After a while when the dust settles, I think that they'll all learn a lesson from Jaleel. I bet that they will each think twice about speeding, about not wearing a seat belt. They'll think twice about a lot of decisions they will have to make, and they'll be all the better for it.


This has been a huge affirmation to me that I should never think twice about wearing that seat belt, even if I'm only driving down the block or just moving my car into another spot. It has even made me think twice about getting angry at slow drivers and those cars that think the whole road is theirs and that everyone has to yield to them.


My hope and wish is that everyone wears a seat belt every time they get into a car.


RIP Jaleel John-Baptiste

Deceiving Professors

Having spent four years earning a BA and this year working on prerequisites for an accelerated nursing program, I have had my fair share of all kinds of professors. I have had professors that spoon feed information like we're too dumb to learn any part of the course on our own. I had professors that barely taught and forced students to teach themselves everything, reducing the professor to a test proctor and assignment grader (if there were even assignments). I've also had a fair share of professors that made us read the book for tests but lectured on NOTHING IN THE BOOK. It's frustrating to be a student, especially in a country where education is moving farther and farther away from uniformity. What you learn in one school may be completely different from another! This varies from state to state, county to county and school to school (sometimes even in the same district).

I have gotten halfway through this semester and done pretty well. However, I have noticed that despite the stellar grades and the confidence in learning the material, I find that the stress I feel comes during homework assignments and, especially, during/after test. You may say that this is a normal feel, warranted because there is something on the line for me. I disagree, though. The reason I feel so uneasy at those specific times is because I have a very deceiving professor.

Deceiving professors are the ones that give you homework assignments with incredibly difficult problems to work through (even if they turn out to be easy once you understand how to solve it), tell you some of those problems will show up on the test, and then omit any questions like them on the test.

Walking out of my Chemistry test today, I found myself worrying that I had skipped a page or that I set up the problems that I found easy incorrectly. A friend in the class had the same thoughts during the test (a girl next to her also spilled coffee on her test). I don't have a lot of test anxiety most of the time. Today was no exception. My friend, however, told me that she almost didn't even feel like working on the last three problems of the test because she was so confused and overwhelmed. Why did she feel this way?

She felt that way because our professor led us to believe that the problems that caused us so much stress to solve on the homework, that she told us would show up on the test, never appeared. Instead, there was a slew of problems on the test that made only ONE appearance on the previous assignments and group problems.

While this particular professor does a great job of teaching the material and helping us understand it, I don't think she understands that her tests don't follow what she's telling us we're supposed to be prepared for on the test. On one hand, if we can solve the hardest problems before the test, we should be able to handle anything she serves us on the exam. On the other hand, we prepare and stress out about seeing the hard problems on the test and become paranoid that we aren't doing certain simpler problems correctly when the hard problems make no appearance on the test at all.

This is what I like to call a gift and a curse.