Last night one of my sorority sisters called me at 3am to ask me a question. Now there are rules with calling me and waking me up; DON’T DO IT. I take my sleep time very seriously. I don’t sleep that often so when I do sleep it is important to me. Although I would have to answer this phone call because the sister that called me is in an abusive relationship. I learned that her boyfriend beats her and have kept my phone on for this reason. I knew that I was going to get a phone call from someone telling me that she was in the hospital, beaten half to death. Instead, she called me because her boyfriend was in jail and she wanted me to give her bail money. I don’t know why she called me but I couldn’t believe she wanted money out of me. This is not the first time that she has asked me for money. When she moved in with she boyfriend she wanted me to co-sign for the apartment. I love how she thinks that I make so much money and that I would co-sign for her jack-ass of a boyfriend that beats her. HELL NO!

On Monday, April 16, 2007, marked a horrifying day when 33 people died and many more injured all because of one man. One man, with two guns, is personally responsible for their deaths. So many innocent people had to die for no reason. They’re deaths were not in the name of religion, love, or revenge but in anger. It is a shame that so many people had to die, but there are still the people that lived and they’re problems are just beginning. I feel the pain of the students that will be scared to death to attend class. Worried whether or not they will ever see their friends again. Even thinking that the student sitting next to them will be the next shooter. We can never know. We can never undo the past but we can always fix the future. My heart goes out to all the students, family, and friends that lost a love one. I have lost family do to illness but they were never murdered.

I recently submitted a petition to Cleveland State University to change a Pass / Fail Grade to a letter grade and they denied it. I had a letter of recommendation from my professor, that wanted to give me an “A” for the course and the university said no. While working with the professor, some other students and I were also going to be published in a journal for the work that we did, and yet the university said no. CSU sent a letter to my house that stated that, “there was not enough evidence to back up the petition for a grade change”. How much more evidence did they want?

I’ve been apart of NAMI, The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, for going on 10 years. My brother was diagnosed with a mental illness when he was eleven, I was nine, and my mom got involved with this organization. NAMI helps individuals and families understand, cope, and live with their disorders. They provides information about all types of mental illnesses including depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety, OCD, ADD, and ADHD. Being apart of this organization helped me understand the disorder that I had to live with everyday. I don’t know where me and my family would be if we didn’t have this organization.