List to check for leaving house, BeReals including Atala and clase de español 4

November 13, 2023:

Ok, today wasn’t quite as good as yesterday, but it was still good. And it felt more normal too, which kind of suggests that more of my regular life could be good, and not have decent days be an exception to the rule, which they definitely were. It’s ~10pm now because I forgot that I’d left my computer in the car after I got back from Spanish tonight. Lemme just try to write my day kinda generally. Had my meds at 8am with part of a biscuit thing and a handful of almonds. Before therapy, I also messaged both Sidney and Zach, who lived above me when I was with Nicole, and their friend Vinay too. It turns out that Sidney and Zach are getting married, and Vinay’s in the wedding. I was also able to message some new people and explain my story a bit to them in Spanish. I definitely talked to one guy who went to the same university (ITESM) that I would have gone to if I’d studied abroad in Mexico, but I wasn’t able to because I got cancer that semester. I also set up a meeting with Sarah, my case worker, about getting a some pre-job coaching meeting set up soon.

This morning, I had a therapy appointment with Jessica, and it was really wonderful. Unlike usual, I didn’t make a Google doc and take computer notes. I just used my new lavender “therapy notebook.” We decided my goal doesn’t have to be: “find a job as a translator.” The goal could be to just get good enough at Spanish that I would have the theoretical ability to work as a translator. So yeah, my “bigger goal” definitely has to do with Spanish now. I also just learned something about Spanish just while writing this. I was gonna add “for sure” in Spanish, and for a long time I thought the correct way to say “for sure” was “por cierto.” I just googled it and learned that “for sure” might actually be said “seguro,” and “por cierto” means “by the way.” That is NOT the rest of what I talked about with Jessica this morning. We also talked about finding ways to define myself now, and realizing that I used to be so obsessed with work literally because I was coming outta the cancer. We said that it was funny how the cancer and overworking myself literally continued right up until my TBI. And now, for the first time in many years, I can actually kinda decide who I wanna be. We also said that Fogo wasn’t all bad, mainly because I made a few actual good friends there, like Mattheas and Suheily. I also talked to a girl named Brandy today, whose house I definitely went to at a pre-crash party.

After Jessica, Papa brought over some Poké. I also wrote down notes on things I might want from his house, like AA batteries and a travel pack of kleenex. We also talked about his current working situation, with him subbing at Nova a lot. I definitely said that it was funny how a few months ago my thought was: “I’m not gonna be happy til he’s working again.” And now it’s happened, but the most important factor was actually getting a lot more content with my own life first. We also commented that while I used to want to be very normal, the kind of person who is truly normal would be very boring. Ah well, we also decided that he might get me a soda stream for Christmas, since I was curious about how it worked and I might like to have one someday.

After that, I hung around for a few hours, and then it was time for Spanish class at ~6pm. In Spanish 4, I was able to ask a majority of the questions I’d written down to ask her, and it was a nice class. One other girl said she’s also probably gonna do the Spanish 5 class that Atala is gonna teach, though I learned that it might be on a Tuesday night, unfortunately. She said that I could consider missing a night at my food shelf, or possibly looking to see if anyone else is gonna be teaching Spanish 5. I’ll try to learn what’s up with that soon. Well, I’ve got pictures of a list of things to check whether I need before I leave my house, and some BeReals, including two at my Spanish class, one with Atala in the picture and the other one with some students in my class who I worked with a bit.

Oh, and I also had my nights meds at ~8:09pm with some mandarin orange chicken. I was aiming for 8, but got home at 8:01 from Spanish, and waited for the chicken to cook a bit first.