My Grandma

So it's almost the 2nd anniversary of my grandmother's death. I can't believe it's almost 2 years! In some ways it felt so long ago and in some ways it felt like yesterday.

It felt so long ago because I felt like a kid and I had never experienced death before. I've never been to a funeral or knew anyone close who died, but I came to terms of what happened. I accepted death and I am not mad or upset by it anymore.

It felt like yesterday because I still remember the feeling of confusion, that first week of the semester where I had to tough it out while in the back of my mind I knew that my grandmother just died. How could I get through the semester? I cried so hard that week. I just got back from China in December and it was my first semester back to school in the US. And she just had to die my first week back at school. I just felt so lost. I had so many emotions going on. There was the confusion of being back in the US, going back to American classes (what they call re-entry shock), and most of my close friends chose to study abroad the semester I came back so most of them were not there, then my grandmother passed away the first week of school, and then I missed one week of class because I didn't know what to do with myself. I originally planned on taking 4 classes and one PE class (squash), but after missing one week of school and knowing that the semester was going to be a crappy semester, I ended up only taking 3 classes and I dropped 1 class and the PE class.

That semester was probably the hardest semester ever. The pain, the grief, the suffering. 2 of the 3 classes were super difficult and I cried while doing homework for syntax because it was just so hard. Maybe it was a combination of many things, but I felt useless and dumb. I spent 10 hours on one homework and I got a C and I felt like that Linkin Park song, "In the End" because I tried so hard, but in the end, it doesn't even matter. I pulled through though and on the next homework I ended up getting an A+ (she gave me extra credit for being so thorough). I learned that maybe I suck at certain parts of syntax and other parts are just easier for me. I learned that it's ok to be bad at something and it's ok to hate syntax. My other difficult class was with my anthropology advisor and he's just brutal when it comes to learning, reading, and grading. The only thing I looked forward to were the fresh baked cookie's we'd eat during class. We had class at this small coffee house on campus... and there were just 4 of us in the class so the pressure of speaking up and knowing your shit was very high. Just thinking about that class makes me shake with fear.