Today, so far, has been uneventful, but I have been in a good mood.

For starters, I heard from a woman whose blog I've been following for two years. She's moved her blog to another location and I enjoyed getting caught up. Then, today in my Soc class, which is my most challenging of all, I found out that I got a 98% on my last test. Yippee! For a while there, I feared I would flunk the class, although the lowest grade I got on an assignment was a "C" and that wasn't even a test, and it was only one "C" at that. I still do not know what my grade is going to be, because we still have one more test and two assignments that need grading, but my test before this was an "A" also. I can't wait. One of my other classes is a definite "A", and my Psych class could go either way, "A" or "B", depending on how we are graded on our group project that we present tomorrow and the last test we take. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me make the President's list! I know I'll make the Dean's list but I SO BADLY want to make the President's list. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! LORD HEAR MY PRAYER!

I am so driven. I know that making either list will not really help me in the real world. I also know that making either list will help me win scholarships. (Which I need so bad!) But it's achievement motivation for me. For the kid who got kicked out of her 9th grade school and was also told not to return the following school year, making ANY list would be wonderful. It is such a great feeling to know that YOU CAN DO IT. I screwed off my high school and junior high years, doing everything but not learning. Now I have to work extra hard, harder than a lot of people in my classes, but I am smart enough and driven enough to succeed. Success is my drug. I can't get enough of it. It's funny how people in your life start to change when they realize that you are changing and you are no longer dependent on them. For instance, my sister Kathy. We've always been really close. She has 4 boys....31,22, 23, and 27. (I am 28). We are 23 years apart and have the same father but different mothers. She has always been like a mother figure to me, supportive and in my face when I needed it. As a result, I talked to her about everything that I couldn't talk about with my father and I never, ever disrespected her or swore at her or called her any names; we never really fought. Up until I moved to Florida in 2002, her and my nephews were really the only thing I had keeping me grounded. (We are all very close, like brothers and sister.)

When I started working for a national temporary medical staffing agency, she was my biggest fan, cheering me on about the money I made and constantly telling me how proud she was of me. I was making more money than she was, so I would constantly send money home to her....$20 here, $80-$100 there. Everything was fine and then suddenly she began calling me all hours of the night, drunk and saying the most awful things. (She is an alcoholic, I might as well just say it...as was my father and her mother.) I didn't get it. She was my champion, my role model. Why in the hell was she suddenly calling me up at 3:15 AM and leaving messages on my voice mail using sweet words such as, "You bitch...all my life all I ever wanted was a sister and you have done nothing but fuck up my life. I swear to God I hate you." And for the longest time, I ignored it and pretended it never happened. She would call me and act like she never said those things, so I went along with it. I was hurt, yes, but shocked, no. I grew up in an alcoholic household, so nothing that they do surprises me.

This went on for about a year and I came to realize some things. First of all, she wasn't paying her bills. Second of all, she was totally dependent on our father, who had given her a home to live in and a car to drive. Third of all, three of her four children avoid her like the plague and I began to understand why. My dad had major heart surgery in Los Angeles last year, and the plan was for me to go out there and be there when he had the surgery, and she was supposed to fly out and stay with him and help him recuperate. I did my part, staying in the hellhole they call Los Angeles for the entire ten day break between winter and spring semester, but she never went. Dad kept calling me and asking where she was and what her deal was, and finally she said to me, "I am afraid of flying and he knows that. I don't have enough money to take the train and the bus is out of the question. Maybe it would just be better if you went back instead." I was furious. I had just begun a new semester. I would have been happy to take one off if I had known she wasn't going to go. Instead, Dad had to recuperate from quadruple bypass surgery on his own. The final straw was when she began to bilk money out of her sons to "pay bills" that were never getting paid. The bills were all in Dad's name, as he was still keeping Michigan as his legal residence but was staying in California four months out of the year. The management ended up kicking her out, causing my father to come back from California. Now they do not speak to each other, which makes it even worse for me. Now, when the phone rings at 3:00 AM I hear, "Daddy's little girl," and "Little kiss ass bitch," more often than not. When she does feel like talking to me, it's always stuff like, "What did I ever to do Dad to make him treat me this way? I mean, I was a good kid. You did much more horrible things to him than I ever did. Don't you think?" as if I would agree. (The worst I ever did, and this is bad, was to steal a book of checks from him when I was 17 and forge $85 worth of them. And no, my father and I didn't start getting along til I was much, much older.)

Finally, I came to the realization that she must feel threatened by me for some reason. We have never verbally had it out, and I have yet to tell her off, but judging by the things she says to me ("I bet you feel pretty fucking smug, don't you?" and "Oh great, now Sondra can solve everyone's problems!") I conclude that she is really threatened by me. I don't know why. She acts like I'm uppity or something, but I'm not. When I bought a new car and drove it to Michigan for a visit, she scoffed. Gone were the "I'm so proud of you's". Instead, I feel that everything that I succeed in is a direct threat to her in some way. It's gotten to the point that when I do talk to her, which isn't very often, I don't say anything favorable about myself at all. I'm scared that she will go off on me. My sister is famous for "going off" and had her children and husband cowed by that for years. I certainly don't want her going off on me. For one thing, it would hurt my feelings because the shit she says now hurts my feelings. Second of all, I know that I have taken all I am going to take, and I fear that I may be the one to go off and say something I regret.

I despise her hypocrisy. She doesn't like it when her children ignore her, but she whines and cries that she doesn't understand why they do. She does too..she has to. She abandoned them when they were little and had a distant relationship with them throughout their teenage years. She is unstable because she drinks and she needs therapy, but instead she blames everything on my Dad, who was not the greatest father in the world but the past is the past. She hates my very existence for some reason that I have yet to completely figure out. But she's nice to me now when it serves a purpose for her. Me and my nephew Ricky are very close, and he is staying with her right now out of pity more than anything else (he is the only one who will) and even he is sick of her shit.

So I will not talk about making any list with her. She is not the only one who treats me this way. My friend Angie does, too, but not as bad. Angie is married with about a hundred kids, they live on welfare and depend on the kindness of others to scrape by. Now, this I can understand if you've fallen on hard times and need the help, but she and her husband have figured out a way to milk the system as long as they can without working. There is always an excuse and it's always someone else's fault. This shit drives me up a wall. I understand things are hard, but you have to swim upstream if you want to survive and that does not include laying on your back and popping out more kids, or blaming everyone else for your situation. Angie wasn't always like this. This is something that has just started happening in the last two years or so. And I like her husband very much, but he is sooooooooooooooo lazy. On the rare times I do visit, I feel like I'm being milked: "Can you run me up to.....can we borrow a couple of.....what are you doing on Thursday, so and so has an appointment....can I have a cigarette, or two, or three, or ten?" Being around them is so unpleasant now that I feel my stomach drop when I hear her voice on the other end of my line. It's always something. "They shut off our water." "Our power is about to get shut off." "The car won't start." These declarations of strife are always precipitated by a huge, deep sigh designed to get your sympathy. I decided it isn't going to work with me anymore. And Angie would be thrilled for me if I made the President's list....but when I told her I had an opportunity to sell my rental property on a cash deal, she harrumphed into the phone and then made the comment she always makes when something good happens to someone other than her: "Must be nice." Yeah. Said with dripping sarcasm. Bitter.

So, I shall share my successes with those who truly appreciate them...and me. After all, I'm going into what can be a very negative business so I should be prepared for it. But that doesn't mean it has to affect me. And dammit, I won't let it.