#but then ill go 3 months unable to read more than 100 words every 20 minutes. ;-;

[mejomonster]

I really do read like a horrific amount like u can't comprehend the amount of books on my phone alone I hope theoretically if I date anyone they like that and either enjoy partaking in a good novel or else do not mind gratuitous discussion on em

[nooneheardmyscreams]

About the contributor: Hunter Renee

Hey guys, it’s really nice to meet you. I’m Hunter.

I grew up a little different than most kids. I grew up without a dad in my life and I had a really sick mom. So from the start, I had to learn how to be responsible and take care of other people. It just wasn’t an option for me to ever be emotionally unstable or have the typical “teenager” issues. My mom was unable to work due to her chronic illness (asthma/COPD) and we lived with my grandparents, who were kind enough to help my mom out when she discovered she was pregnant with me. My parents were never married and my dad, who I now classify as probably a sociopath, really couldn’t have cared less about what was happening.

Mental illness runs prominently in my family, which is party why I grew up with what I’d now consider to be trauma. I watched my mom almost die several times due to her breathing issues, and all the stress of taking care of her finally came down on my grandma. When I was in the third grade, my grandma suffered a mental breakdown and had severe depression/schizophrenia/anxiety. She was in the mental ward three times. In my psychology class this year, my teacher talked about how most people just can’t comprehend schizophrenia until they see it in person. I fully agree with him. It’s unlike anything else I’ve yet to witness.

So because of her fragile mental state, we had a lot of drama practically every day. I’d suffered some physical abuse from her, but I don’t hold that against her nor do I think it affected me, because I was mature enough to understand it only happened because she was unwell. But she’d do things like lock my mom out of the house (when she didn’t have her inhaler with her) and then would hold me back from opening the door. All kinds of crazy stuff went on. She got more violent and one day we came home to find out she’d shot herself in the chest. Miraculously, she lived.

If you’ve got mentally ill family members and you’re scared to even invite people over, I get what that feels like.

This isn’t put in to sound whiny but I literally had no friends up until I was, I wanna say 12? I hardly got any social interaction with kids my age because of everything going on at home. My family thought it was best to homeschool me and you might think that’s ridiculous given the situation. But the curriculum consisted of me watching videos of a teacher talking so I basically could do it all on my own. Anyhow, the point of this thrown in was for me to say I’ve been there, when you feel like you have no one to talk to. I went a long time without any friends I could open up to. I kept a lot inside, which I now know is an incredibly unhealthy way of coping, but I naturally took care of everyone else instead of myself. No one ever told me anything different.

Fast forward some, my mom and grandma both got better. Never to 100% but y’know, better. Most of the heavy stuff happened when I was a kid, and my high school days kind of passed by in a blur. Those were some great times honestly. I did meet my dad for the first time when I was 18. I don’t regret doing that, but as he is clearly a narcissistic liar, I made the decision to keep him out of my life. We haven’t spoken in two years.

Now when I was 19 (last year actually) out of the blue, my liver tried to kill me. It was completely out of nowhere; I’d never experienced any medical problems before. In fact, the worst thing I’ve ever had was the flu. I make it a point to eat a semi-healthy diet. We get organic groceries, I don’t drink soda, and I’ve never had more than a couple sips of alcohol. So why, you ask, did my organ decide it was a good idea to stop functioning? I sure would like to know that as well.

I was really, really sick for about 5 months. The official diagnosis was acute hepatitis but nobody in the hospital (I’d gone to 3 different medical facilities for opinions) could tell me why I had it or what had caused it. If I explained all of it in great detail this would be 10 pages long, but to give you a glimpse of how bad it was, normal liver enzymes are like 20-40. Mine were over 2,000. That’s how much inflammation there was. Those months were terrible, I don’t even have words to accurately describe the sheer loss and confusion I felt. I was close to having to get a transplant. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me, but I pushed through it and I got better.

And honestly, I’m almost sort of glad it did. Because now I love myself even more. I take care of myself and every single day I’m so grateful to be alive. I’m proud of myself; I have a purpose and confidence that wasn’t as strong before that happened.

Currently, I’m planning on going to school for art/animation in the fall. This wasn’t an easy decision for me, as I know the job market is extremely competitive and I’ll have to work harder than I ever have. but I know it’s what I’m supposed to do, because this—creating, helping, inspiring, making people happy—these are the things I strive to achieve, and I hope to do that through the films I create.

I’m choosing to pursue my passions. And I’d really like to encourage everyone else to do the same. Go for what you want instead of settling. Your dreams were given to you for a reason.

Don’t just climb mountains, move them too.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. 💜

Hunter

[findingyourrealityblog-blog]

...And I’m back!

This month felt like one of the most prolonged courses I've ever taken. Not because it was hard, but because I wasn't able to manage my time as well as I usually am. That may be in part due to falling ill a few more than five times in the last three months, but I'm happy to say that the month has finally come to an end.

I've learned quite a few things over these four weeks—one being that I'm not as well versed in English as I thought. Although I didn't get to go into depth and fix all of my grammatical errors, I was happy and well pleased that my instructor read my assignments and informed me that I had a lot of grammatical errors. This was a pleasant surprise. I do understand that professors are very busy, but I noticed over the years that a lot of my professors check for a few specific things in my papers, and as long as they see them, they give me a 95 or 100. They don't take the time you read what you write. So, to my professor, I say thank you.

My original three goals for this course was to turn my homework in on time, learn at least four new things, and the last was to better my understanding of what it is to be a public relations specialist.

My first goal, I'm sad to say I was not able to accomplish it. I the first week I had to turn in an assignment late due to a sinus infection but thankfully I had one free pass for the month. In week three, I also had to turn in some tasks late, although I had a doctor's note stating that I was ill it didn't sit well with me being unable to turn in my assignments on time. The second goal I was able to meet, I learned four new things throughout this course, and I'll be going over three of them later on. My last goal was to get a better understanding of what it is to be a public relations specialist. I learned that being a public relations specialist isn't just about keeping up the image of the company you work for; it's deeper than that. It's a love for almost every possible career out there. You can't just like numbers, but not art or vis versa. You have to love them both because it's your job to combine both of them into something the public wants to see something your company/client will like.

The first interest thing I learned this month was that it is essential to manage a company's reputation. Reputations are fragile. Any little thing can change it for the better or, the worse.

The second thing I learned was SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and ORM (Online Reputation Management) go hand in hand. You can't have the best ORM with ought to use SEO. The last point I'm going to touch on is being able to learn about creating dark web pages. Whenever I heard the terminology "the dark web," I thought it was something terrible. Something hackers used to do something illegal. But I learned that the dark web is a section of the internet that can only be accessed with specific browser software like Tor or I2p.

I'm happy to say that I learned a lot in this course.

References:

Cehrs, A. (2015) Chapter 20: Dark websites see the light of day, in Spike Your Brand ROI” How to Maximize Reputation and Results. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.

David, M. (2011). “Understanding relevance and the effect of short-tail and long-tail keywords,” in Chapter 3 of Word Press 3: Search Engine Optimization. Packt Publishing.

Doorley, J. & Garcia, H.F. (2011). Reputation Management. In Reputation Management: The Key to Successful Public Relations and Corporate Communication (pp. 2-35). New York: Routledge. Retrieved from: http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/doorley/data/Chapter_1_Reputation_Management_2nd_Edition.pdf