The Jasad Heir

Genre:  Fantasy, Romantasy, Enemies To Lovers

Author: Sara Hashem

Rating: 5/5⭐️

I'm not usually cautious of spoilers in my book reviews but this book was so good that I refuse to spoil anything so this will be shorter. I encourage you guys to read it for yourselves. That should tell you how good this book was. 

Did the book live up to the anticipation you had after waiting months for it?

Yes 100%. The book absolutely met my expectations. I enjoyed so many aspects of the story. I loved the writing style and how Sylvia articulated her words when describing her feelings and  the things that she went through. Everyone said that this book was so good and I waited quite a minute to get it and so when it was available I quickly snatched it up and I knew I had to read it. The first four chapters are kind of hard to get through at least for me because they're just setting up the plot but by chapter 5 I was completely intrigued and the story had me in its wraps. I can see why people rave about this book the way that they do. It isn't that it's just good, it makes you feel connected to the characters and there are so many things that happen within the story that kind of pull you in. 

I was absolutely freaking out at the way the story sped up at chapter 9. Literally screaming. I was not prepared for the way that the plot thickened so quickly and it got so good. The build up from chapter 1 to chapter 9 made me realize for one: how worth it this book was going to be but also it reminded me why I love reading. That moment reminded me of the feeling that books give you, that high that you get when a book is really good. That is not always easy to come by when you are an avid reader because you get used to it after a while but this book reminded me exactly why this is the hobby I choose. This is one of the books  that makes you remember why they turn books into movies because there is no way a movie could ever come up with something like this. 

I do have to applaud the author because this book is magnificent in a lot of ways. The setting is great, the characters are great, the plot is great and as a person who loves to analyze every aspect of the story ESPECIALLY the characters I genuinely I give it tens across the board. 

Some  of the chapters in this book were quite long and as a slow reader I try to stay away from books with really long chapters but this book was so good that I literally couldn't help myself and I had no trouble getting through the longer chapters. I sat for hours reading because I could not wait to see what happened next. I was literally dreaming about this book. That's how much it was on my mind and when I woke up the first thing I wanted to do is get back to it and that's after having to force myself to go to sleep in the first place. 

What part of Sylvia's character development affected you the most?

The part of Sylvia's character development that affected me the most was her realizing that the people around her weren't who she thought they were and she also was wrong about herself.  Sylvia was a girl who got her world turned upside down at such a young age and she missed out on a lot of the typical developmental years that people go through and it caused her to not know herself and she didn't realize it until it was thrown into her face. It was sad to see that she basically distorted her own memory without knowing but that's what trauma can do to a person and I think the book did a really good job of displaying that part of trauma. 

Another thing I loved about Sylvia's character development is how she was beginning to accept herself. She was no longer restraining herself from the things that she was afraid of. She was taught that she couldn't have a permanent life anywhere and she had it instilled in her that she couldn't be loved and she couldn't love others. I think what Sylvia went through in this book really taught her that she is 100% capable of love and not only she capable of loving but she is capable of being loved and it was very sweet to see that as much as she tried so hard not to care about the people around her she loved them very much and was willing to sacrifice for them. 

Sylvia is a very strong woman and she reminds me a lot of Katniss in certain ways. I also really liked her humor and her personality. She was very fun to read about and her character overall was very beautiful. 

What did you think about the way their feelings were communicated through actions rather than constant declarations?

I absolutely love this love story in this book. One of my favorite things is when the Romance of the book is a side plot rather than the main plot and that's partly why books like The Hunger Games are so great to me because I love reading details and having to put things together to make the Love Story rather than it just being handed to me and that's exactly what this book did. 

I loved watching them become comfortable with one another. This book was probably one of the first true animated lovers books that I've ever read when I think about it. they truly did hate each other and had a certain disdain for each other that I've never read in a book before and it genuinely had me wondering how in the world were they possibly going to get past that and fall in love and somehow they did. 

 I loved reading about their actions and I have so many quotes that I highlighted not only in the way that Sylvia was thinking but in the way that they interacted with each other with glances and touches and the way that they spoke to one another even when they were bickering you felt the love between them before they did. 

Arin is such an incredibly charismatic character. He is the exact type of man that I love reading about. I love when a man meets a strong woman and instead of wanting to Humble her he meets her where she's at and challenges her. I loved watching them learn that they had things in common despite their differences and the small moments that they had with one another. The small moments were so intimate it was insane.

Let me give a quote really quick:

“Arin looked at me until it started to hurt. A covered thumb slid across my cheekbone. ‘What appeal can reason have in the face of your tears?’” THIS ISN’T EVEN THE BEST ONE!!

Watching those two fall in love was so great and the best part about it is it was literally a side plot and yet I felt fit so fed. 

How did the revelations about Jasad's history change your understanding of the conflict?

The revelations about Jasad's history was so interesting and it was a really good plot twist. I did not expect for Sylvia to end up a type of unreliable character especially because she was also very sure of herself. She was lied to. She learned that there were so many details that she didn't know even about herself and I felt so bad for her. I couldn't imagine being in that kind of situation. It was really heartbreaking to see Sylvia be betrayed like that and it made me wonder when that girl's suffering was finally going to stop. 

I do appreciate it though when things like that happen in these books because it makes the character more real and more human for me and it makes trauma something that isn't just for the plot but something that really happens to people. I also really enjoyed this shift that happened in Sylvia when she did recognize the things going on around her weren't what she thought they were and to learn the truth alongside her was even better. 

Did you enjoy the way she described Sylvia's emotions and attraction, especially her more poetic descriptions of Arin?

I love the way Sylvia articulated her words when she was describing her emotions and attraction because they were so real written and so poetic. It was great reading words like that across a page and I have never heard someone describe their feelings for someone in such an intimate yet simple way. The context around her words makes what she is saying even better.

The way she talked about his smile and his features and the way he made her feel was so beautiful and vice versa. You don't get into Arin's head the way you do with Sylvia in this book but you do get the words that he said to her and about her and they were beautiful as well. 

An example: “Birds had practiced their sweet songs for generations, but even their music did not compare to the sound of Arin’s laugh. We stared at each other until the shadows in the room lengthened.” Ugh once again not even the best one. 

Please if this sounds like something you would enjoy I encourage you to go read it. It was so good and it completely exceeded my expectations. I'm not even doing it justice in this review. It is definitely one of my favorite reads of the year and I will probably recommend it until the end of time. I cannot wait to read the second book.

Next read will be: Sunrise of the Reaping by Suzanne Collins!!

I also recently got a fable account!: https://fable.co/fabler/maddy-355573411599?tab=stats&period_type=year

Thanks for reading! 🌸

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An Ode to Myself

So for this week's topic I wanted to talk about something that I am currently learning about myself. It takes a little bit of a back story to understand WHY I’m in this place but the point is I believe it's important for anyone who may be trying to get to know themselves better to not only see themselves in a different light but try to accept the things that they notice. It took me a long time and I’m still working on it. 

I have been a pretty awkward person my entire life and it's not something that's really acceptable for me because I'm a black woman and that's not the stereotype that fits us. I've always been kind of shut out and made fun of because I wasn't the typical archetype of what they think a black woman should be like. On top of that I’m the person who will stumble over my words for no reason, or snot will come out of my nose when I laugh. I don’t like eye contact and if you go in for a handshake I’m going to freak out about which hand to give you. Sadly there are people who will see that and immediately right me off because to them I’m supposed to be strong, and confident not stumbling over my words and keeping my head down.  

Something as simple as reading books was deemed as odd for me because of who I am on the outside and that's something that I noticed a long time ago but it isn't until the age of 20 where I'm really trying to learn to accept that I'm not going to be accepted in everyone's arms because there are people who will not like me for who I am. This isn’t about the color of my skin. I from the south I had no choice but to recognize that I’m black because people were determined to let me know by the time I was 5. No this is about loving the personality that others may hate. 

I was myself entirely my whole life and I didn’t care that some people thought it was weird for a black girl. Middle school unfortunately did a number and that's where I realized that as much as I may have suspected people saw me as weird I never thought too much about whether or not It was true but it was and it hurt to have it confirmed. By the time I got to high school I was determined to change myself and fit into the mold that was made for me. I got sick of being the odd one out and I just wanted to know what it was like to fit in for once. Crazy enough I succeeded. In high school I was no longer weird, I was pretty and everyone liked me. People who made fun of me all the sudden wanted to be my friend. I was invited into conversations. Some even admitted that they knew me from middle school and were surprised to see how I turned out. They liked the new me better. I wasn't bullied anymore and I wasn't someone they could outcast. 

Anyway, this persona I put blood, sweat, and tears into making carried on into college and it was even better because I was in a new space where no one knew me and I got to start off as pretty and normal. By sophomore year things took a turn. I had to go to therapy, I was in and out of the hospital, and my grades were slipping. My world that I made for myself fell apart because after that I completely changed as a person. I was exhausted with everything. I tried to ignore it because I wasn’t ready to lose myself and I knew that if I accepted that what happened to me changed me forever there was no returning. I had no choice though because I wasn’t going to make it much longer in the environment I was in.

I wasn't able to continue being the girl I made because of everything else I had going on. I was in a lot of pain and I was going through a lot mentally. It put a strain on my relationships and people couldn’t understand the sudden switch. I no longer wanted to drink or party or talk about boys. They were wondering where the old me went and I was so sick of having to pretend like I cared about any of that stuff. I just let the mask drop and shatter. Not only did I have to cope with losing my boyfriend, I lost my friends too. I was alone for the first time in a long time. 

It’s been a year since then. I’m right back where I started. I am that same 12 year old girl that I worked so hard to bury. I’m going to be completely honest, it's like little biotch is back to haunt me for killing her. I am so uncomfortable with myself. As an adult I can 100% see why people thought she was off. Correction: I see why people thought I was off. 

So as of recently I'm just now learning to accept that there are going to be people who do not like me and they are going to think I'm weird. People observe and they judge and I'm no exception to that and it’s not something for me to fear. The way people perceive me is up to them and they're going to be people on this earth that are absolutely hellbent on misunderstanding me simply because they want to and there is nothing I can do. Yes it bothers me a little that people think I’m weird and I will never know me beyond that but why should I be focused on changing their minds? 

At 20 years old that can be hard to come to terms with because this is something that I thought I grew out of but I never did. I just pretended it was never there. I am quite embarrassed of myself honestly. I was beginning to hate myself all over again lately because I’ve always wanted to be nothing more than to be accepted and I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t have that while also being me. So naturally the problem is me right? No, it's everybody else. I learned my lesson. All those years of being someone I wasn't so that people like me won't do any good in the long run. It broke me is what it did. I’m just going to have to find people who like me for me. I started getting back into the parts of me that I left behind like my love for reading.

I'm still learning to like myself and honestly some days are harder than others especially after having to be in group settings and things like that but I can't hide myself from the world no more than I can try to change myself for it. I can't really tell you what my whole point of this was. I think I just wanted to share that I am someone who understands what it's like to want to fit into certain spaces. I guess the big lesson is that if you do not like yourself there is nothing, no amount of change and no amount of people that’s going to do it for you. You have to learn to accept yourself for who you are plain and simple. Do it before it's too late because I wish I could apologize to the little girl inside me. I should have never been ashamed of her.

I hope that this helped whoever may have needed it. 

Thank you for reading! 🌸

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The Hunger Games: MockingJay

Genre: Dystopian 

Author: Suzanne Collins 

Rating: 100/5⭐️

What did you think about Katniss's character arc across the entire trilogy?:

    By the middle of Catching Fire I felt so incredibly maternal towards Katniss. She was a young girl who wanted nothing more than to survive despite the capital's efforts to make sure that it's hard. She cared about her family and it drove her to grow up quite fast. Another thing about Katniss is that because she grew up so fast and she was stuck in survival mode for so long she hadn't figured herself out emotionally especially. She didn't know how to recognize her emotions and how she felt nor did she know how to understand things going on around her because she was in a survival mode state for so long. She thought that people around her were trying to hurt her and she couldn't see that that wasn't the case until she was blatantly told. She can never figure it out on her own. 

    I cared a lot about Katniss as a character because of her mistreatment from the people around her. My biggest one will always be her relationship with Gale. That was so painful to see and read about because it was someone who she learned to open up to in her way and someone she was genuinely close with but he expected something out of her that she wasn't able to give him and not because she didn't want to but because she had so much being demanded from her and it just hurt me to see that happening to her because Gale of all people should be able to see that now is not the time to be demanding her of understanding those kind of emotions when she is just a young girl who's being ripped into a Hunger Games and a revolution. I think it was just very sad to see how one of her closest friendships became a sort of resentment and betrayal.  Katniss didn't deserve that especially not from Gale and it was so painful to read about. Gale is insufferable but I love the shot she threw at him in the last chapter. 

    As far as everyone else I just didn't like the way that everyone used her for this revolution and I understood that it was for the greater good of the world but she was just a teenage girl who was pressured to do something she never wanted to do in the first place. Haymitch made decisions for her life and I know that that hurt because Haymitch was no longer just a mentor he became sort of a father figure and someone a part of her family especially towards the end of the series and that hurt even me because for someone to blatantly lie to your face like that and make decisions for your life that you have no knowledge of is so disrespectful and I can completely understand why she smacked the living crap out of Haymitch because I would have done the same. And then there was just everyone else like Coin and Plutarch and even Cinna. We all know how Coin and Plutarch used Katniss for the revolution but what's not talked about is how Cinna made Katniss the face of the revolution from the very beginning without the girl's knowledge and as much as their relationship is so deep and meaningful he still used her without her knowledge by making her a political symbol from the very beginning and she had not a clue and everyone just decided that that year of Hunger Games was going to be the start of a revolution. Katniss never got to say and it was her life.

    I think with all that being said, Katniss’ character development was something incredibly beautiful because she is someone who fought from the very beginning and as much as she wanted to run away she didn't allow the people around her to scare her from gaining her freedom and she did what she had to do. She accepted her trauma in the end and she learned that it was a part of her. She learned her emotions and that she doesn't have to answer to someone like Gale or anyone for that matter. She had every right to feel what she felt and she now knew that as much as she was being used for revolution she also wanted to be free so she did what she did and she became the Mockingjay not for everyone else but her freedom and because she was sick of seeing people die. That is an incredibly powerful and brave thing to do. In the end she didn't get a complete happy ending because her happy ending would have been a world where Prim is alive but what she got was an ending where she was free to be a girl who is traumatized and she was free to be a girl who could finally experience a love without it needing to require so much of her. I love that Katniss found herself and she finally got the room to heal from what she went through and I honestly felt very proud of her. 

The series constantly asks whether people can use violence for a “good” cause without becoming like the people they're fighting. How did you feel about that conflict, especially with characters like Gale, Coin, Snow, and Katniss?

    I think that violence for a “good” cause is only acceptable when you are doing it with the intention of stopping something worse from going on but when it's characters like Coin and Gale and Snow they are fighting with violence because they want to win and because they want revenge.  Katniss wanted for their mistreatment to end just as much as anyone else if not more than but she never ever saw hurting and killing innocent people as a way to get there especially if there was another way.

    Characters like Gale and Coin wanted to believe that sacrifice of innocent people was necessary for the revolution which I personally just don't believe is true because that makes you just as bad as the Capital and the whole point is to be better but that wasn't their point their point was revenge and to hurt the Capital just as much as they were hurt or at least that was Gale’s point. Coin wanted power, she wanted to be the new ruler of Panem and she was willing to do whatever it took to get there which is what made her character so brilliant because from the very beginning that was her goal and she persevered time and time again but she wasted innocent lives for her own gain and that made her just as bad if not worse than Snow because she is also an incredibly calculated person. Katniss had no clue that Coin started the first revolution then left the rest of the districts to suffer for their actions. When Snow revealed that Coin always intended on taking his position that showed us exactly who Coin really was, especially with her plot to get rid of Katniss. You have characters like Katniss and Peeta who would never do that to people and those are two people who were in The Hunger Games and who have been pawns of the Capital before and they have been directly in their hands especially Peeta but that never took away their humanity and if anything it made them see why what Gale and Coin were doing was wrong.

    So personally no, I don't think violence for a “good” cause is a good enough reason to hurt innocent people because it does make you just like the people you're fighting and it's not a solution. I think people get clouded by the feeling of hatred and revenge and they forget that lives are special. Even Snow himself said that he would never waste a life. Blowing up the Capitals children would have been no benefit to him so that wasn't something he would have done but Coin and Gale did what they did for similar reasons. Coin wanted to hurt Katniss, she wanted to break her because she saw Katniss as a threat rightfully so and Gale was so bloodthirsty and hell bent on revenge on the Capital that he would have done anything to win the Revolution and he didn't see the Capitals people as people. He thought if you're from the capital then you are not innocent whatsoever. It doesn't matter who they were, child or adult, they were deserving of death. That is not okay and that makes them just as bad as the capital. I stand on that. 

What made Peeta and Katniss's relationship so meaningful to you, and what do you think Peeta represented for Katniss by the end of the series?

    Katniss and Peeta's relationship was meaningful to me because it represented two people who came together in unlikely situations and who persevered through incredible challenges and still found their way back to each other not because of fate but because of a true relationship.  Katniss had a hard time understanding herself and her emotions and it took her a while to see that she didn't just care about Peter because she wanted him to survive she cared about him because she loved him and even if she wasn't in love with him from the beginning she cared about him extremely deeply and I don't think she truly recognized that until Finnick gave her the room to finally be honest with yourself and say yes I'm in love with Peeta. 

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    I think she had a hard time accepting that because of everything that she had going on around her and because she had Gale as a guilty conscience. Even then Katniss had to push her personal life to the side and fight for a revolution which of course doesn’t give you much time to think about a boy or any motions at all but what I will always appreciate about Katniss' and Peeta's relationship is that they were there for each other in ways that no one else was there for them and they had one another to lean on. 

What Peter went through was very sad and I think it made him his own character because for a long time Peter was a part of Katniss's character. I think him being in the Capital's hands in that way made him more human to everyone around him because Peeta was seen as a sweet, caring boy but what happened to him in the Capital made him scary and it made the people who underestimated him and take advantage of him realize that he is human and he is more than just this boy who is in love with Katniss. He also has trauma and family he cared about and things that he lost and people seemed to forget that Katniss wasn’t his whole world.

    One of my favorite things about Mockingjay is that it drove people to stop treating Peeta as this weak link and I love that he was so honest and brutal out of his mouth and it made him say what was really on his mind especially to Katniss because she also took advantage of him. When Peeta was finally in District 13 she thought everything was going to be okay and that he was going to grab her and kiss her and it was all going to be good and that he was probably still so in love with her but she got humbled because he quite literally snatched her by the throat and I did laugh out loud when I read that because I was like girl this man has just been tortured by the Capital and you're thinking he's about to what come up to you and kiss you so passionately? No that's not all that Peter is, he's a human being and he has a life and emotions outside of you. Even if Peeta wasn’t hijacked it wasn’t fair for her to expect that sort of reunion out of him after what he’d been through. That was her using him to feel something. 

    I really appreciated it when Haymitch made her see that the way she was taking out Peeta’s trauma on him wasn't fair to him because Peeta would have never treated her like that if she was in his position and Katniss had no right to take out how she was feeling on Peeta which she has done time and time again. Yes Peeta said hateful things but she needed to hear it because she was using him and Gale to distract from what was happening around her and Peeta was the least deserving of that. She had to recognize that Peter was not someone that she could keep using to feel something and that just because he was no longer the innocent boy that needed her protection and would swoon over her wasn't his fault and it wasn't fair of her to make him the villain just because he no longer pushed his feeling to the side to protect her. She was wrong for how she was using him and she needed to see it. It forced Katniss to recognize Peter as more than just someone who was in love with her and someone that she had to protect. He was a person who was just as damaged as she was and he deserved grace. 

    That's one of my favorite things about the relationship and I also love Peter as a love interest because he was so understanding of who Katniss was and her importance outside of him which a lot of people in the book did not see. Despite how he felt about her and how much he loved her he understood that she's an important person to so many people in the Revolution and that his feelings towards her isn't something that she should have to stop and recognize like Gale wanted her to. One distinction between Gale and Peeta is that Peeta in the Quarter Quell Arena let Katniss know that it's okay for you to love Gale and that she had people who loved her and needed her back home and that's why he needed her to survive. He wanted her to survive even if that meant not loving him the way he loved her and that is a clear difference between the way Gale loved Katniss and the way Peeta loved Katniss because Gale would have never told Katniss that it was okay to be in love with Peeta he wanted her to choose him no matter what and that is why I will always appreciate the way that Peter loved Katniss because he loved her the way she was deserving of. 

    I think in the end Peter represented healing and acceptance of what they've gone through.  When she had said that she didn't need Gale's hatred and fire because she had enough of her own, what she wanted was the sunshine and the dandelion because that's what Peter represented for him. He represented a life that was separate from being full of hate because she was by the end so sick of hating everything around her and she just wanted to be free of that emotion because it can take over someone and it's draining to constantly be in this mode of survival and revenge. That can literally drive someone crazy. 

    So I do love that the relationship between Katniss and Peter wasn't just simply her choosing Peeta over Gale it was her choosing a life of healing from what she's gone through and Peter was someone who was going to allow her to do that where as Gale was most likely was never going to be able to let go of that fire. 

How did you feel about the ending—not just Katniss and Peeta's future, but the way Collins portrayed grief and trauma after the war?

    The ending was extremely realistic and precious to me. I really appreciate it that Collins did not give us a fairy tale ending and she gave us an ending that was absolutely realistic. It was so sad to see Haymitch go back to alcohol but it was realistic for his character and what he'd been through. Just because the war was over does not mean that the nightmares stop and that everything that they'd gone through would be completely erased from their minds. They were still these incredibly traumatized and hurt people and that isn't something that disappears because the world is no longer a place where they have to survive. 

Haymitch going back to alcohol was used as a symbol of trauma is not something that disappears because you get what you wanted. Just because Haymitch got sober doesn’t mean he did not have every intention of numbing himself when it was all over. He drank because of what he’d been through and I guarantee that that time of being sober was probably so hard for him because he could no longer run from the memories so of course he went back to alcohol. 

    I feel the same thing about Katniss and Peeta. When it is said that Peeta still has his times of grabbing on to something and clenching and having these flashbacks despite all the time that's passed it still continues to put him in this place of being someone that is human and it is a reminder to the readers that once again Peeta is not just this love interest for Katniss but he is a human being who also went through The Hunger Games, who also went through something so hurtful and traumatizing, and just because they were free doesn't mean that he was going to return back to the same boy he was in the first book and that he was still entitled to his trauma and there was nothing that was going to erase it. 

With Katniss where she still has the nightmares and she still gets reminded of what they've gone through and she's sitting there thinking about one day I'm going to have to explain to my kids why me and their dad have these moments where we can't get out of bed and she accepts that that's the case because she recognizes that healing is not something that just happens to people and you can be a healed person while also still having moments of remembering what you've gone through but what's important is that they do not allow it to consume them. 

    The ending to me is not perfect and that's what makes it so beautiful. Human beings aren't perfect and neither is life and I really appreciate that from Collins and it made the characters so meaningful.  

Looking at the entire trilogy, what do you think Suzanne Collins was ultimately trying to say about war, power, propaganda, and the people caught in the middle?

    

I think that Collins was trying to say that power is something that is addicting and dangerous no matter who it is. Human beings are always going to be people who want control and there's always going to be people who are never satisfied with the way the world is. 

When Plutarch says to Katniss that right now everything's okay because people are sick of fighting but eventually there's probably going to be a change and we might need you again and that says a lot about human nature and how the world works. 

    I think Collins really does a great job at showcasing how war and power is something that is so calculated and probably something that we're always going to go through. I also really appreciate that Collins doesn't shy away from the fact that there are always going to be people caught in between the hatred of both sides and there's always going to be a place of deciding whether or not those innocent lives are worth losing and there's going to be people in those world who believe that they genuinely are. 

Collins is a very brilliant author and officially one of my favorites. I love The Hunger Games and the message of this trilogy is so powerful and I hope it is always appreciated. 

Thank you guys so much for tuning in to my journey of The Hunger Games. It is such a beautiful trilogy but we're not done yet because we have two more books in the series to read and I’m very excited. 

Until then our next read will be: The Jasad Heir!!! Yayyyyy. 

Thank for reading!🌸

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Still learning

I am a 20 year old girl in college who is trying my best to become a woman. I'm not sure everyone can relate to that but surely anyone can understand that it can be hard at times. This week hasn't really been the best for me because it just seems as if my days are so long. I have been in my head so much and it’s draining me. As soon as I wake up I’m thinking about something I don’t want to think about. I also have organizations that I'm a part of along with assignments and exams and that's any college student but it’s so hard to find the energy to interact with people when I feel so low. 

Lately I've just been feeling embarrassed about every little thing that I do even things in the past and I overthink so much. I overthink about what I'm going to wear, I overthink about what I look like, I overthink about who may see me and after a long day of being in my head I have to come home and I have to take care of myself. I have to shower and eat and study when all I really want to do is crawl in the bed and pretend like I don’t exist but if I allow myself to do that I’ll be digging a hole that is not easy to get out of. So I have to put extra energy into not allowing myself to feel what I feel or else I’m jeopardizing everything else. I’m sure you can imagine that feels pretty heavy throughout the week.

All of this makes me begin to dislike myself because I don't understand why I can't just be normal. I am so sick of being me sometimes. 

On top of that, this week I didn't do so well on an exam that I had. I didn't do bad but I didn't do as well as I expected to and it just felt like all the effort I put towards studying was all for nothing and it just sucked because I am so sick of feeling like a failure. It’s as if no matter how hard I try I'm not a good student only a decent one and it sucks because I have so many things I want to do in my career and I’m trying so hard but I feel like I'm never going to get there because undergrad has been so hard for me. Not to mention we live in a world where the color of my skin and being a woman sets me back ten places behind everyone else.

I know that I'm only 20 years old and my life has barely started but sometimes I just feel as if I'm ready for it to be over because I’m already so tired. I am so sick of being in college and I know that I should appreciate these times because right now I'm young and I have so many things I don't have to worry about. I just feel as if I'm ready for it to be over because I'm ready to stop worrying about stuff like exams and grades. 

Another reason my week was so bad is because I just feel as if I come off as this person that I don't necessarily like and it just sucks because I am a nice person but I know for a fact that I intimidate people and I come off kind of mean and it’s not because I mean to but because I for one am an awkward person but also I just want to be left alone but I think that gives a message that I am not welcoming all together. On top of that I have not been in a good mood because this luteal phase got me feel so ugly. Like I don’t want anyone looking at me. I feel like the Hunchback of Notre Dame right now. 

Needless to say all this stuff has just gotten me to a point where I don't necessarily like certain things about myself and that's my awkwardness and my tendency to overthink everything. I'm sick of feeling embarrassed and bad about stuff but I'm also doing it to myself and that's part of the reason why my relationship with myself isn't the best right now. 

I'm not sure I have some great inspirational message this week but I can say that it's okay to not always feel the best. I'm still learning about how to be kind and patient with myself and this particular week I haven’t been doing a great job because I’ve been tired and my confidence isn’t the best lately. I learned from past experience that when I feel like this I neglect myself and that always leads to disaster. Learning from this has been a process but I want to be able to have a bad week without making myself the villain. 

As tired as I am, I don't want to give up on my life and I still have so many things I want to do.  I'm really sad right now but everything is temporary and it's not always going to be like this. So I'm going to get up and wash all my sadness off and then study because I still have responsibilities. I'm going to make myself something to eat and give myself the rest of my night to just feel my emotions because that's my way of being a little kinder to myself today. 

I hope all of you had great weeks and if you didn't I hope that you continue to not give up. There's nothing wrong with being a little down. It’s only wrong when you decide not to get back up. 

Thank you for reading!🌸

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