Jess's Journal: Life Unscripted

Never thought I would use vision for my first post of 2020, but I feel that it is a great topic for the start of the year. For all my glasses and contacts folks, this one is for all of us. Every year, I would have a routine eye exam to monitor changes in my vision. Once changes were documented in my prescription, I would then see the optometrist for a change in lenses. The eye checkup was as usual. But today's was a little different. On the prescription for my left eye, I discovered that I have astigmatism. Shocker, right? Except not really when you get headaches, constantly squint, and other things. Astigmatism is actually very common and it gradually develops from a combination of heredity and environmental factors. Luckily, it was caught on time and can be easily fixed.  But life is not exactly 20-20. Life does not have simple solutions to correct errors. It's not exactly a one size fits all type deal, even in LSAT/MCAT/DAT/GRE prep (plus other standardized test prep...

This blog post is an important one for me to write. It has gotten apparent that my twenty-fourth birthday is coming up in a few weeks and I, yet again, have put myself in the crossroads of life. My devotional readings as well as my prayer time revealed revival as a #OneWord for 2020. But wait, there's more. One of the other words I've considered is grit. Grit definitely ties into responsibility. And one of the many gripping things I've wrestled with in the past few years is that while the Lord closes doors in order to protect us, we have to sacrifice our own comfort and safety to follow the path that the Lord has for us. I think now is the most important time to recognize that God  usually does not put you in the most comfortable or closest school or path. We're not meant to be comfortable. We're not meant to be secure. We're meant to get out of our comfort zone. I think that's the most important value of all. At the end of the day, our own closed doors se...

Ten days until the end of the decade, and I am getting ready to reveal my #OneWord for 2020. Although this time, I will also talk about how the past decade has shaped me all the way to now. At the start of the decade, I lived through the heydays of Facebook and Twitter. I was in middle school trying to get my start in music through covers of popular songs. But then I realized a key part of copyright. Then I tried to get my comedic chops going and it did not work out either. As of today, my YouTube channel sits empty. Then, Vine came along my high school days. Humor dominated my junior and senior years of high school. If you haven't heard of Vine, it was basically a six second version of TikTok minus the lip-syncing.  In music, I gradually went from listening to pop, hip hop, and country to rock, punk, and metal with some hip hop sprinkled in. Contemporary Christian music also was a part of my playlist in some moments. That was a snapshot of my life over the past ten years...

Today as I am sitting at the table, with coffee in hand, preparing for a December TV update for Pop Culture Cosmos, I thought about a lot of things. Jessica's Show is coming out of hiatus. I have been radio-silent on the podcast front since November 17. There are a lot of things to address. It is December 12, and a lot has happened since the last post. I'm going to clarify the paragraph, " When I was in college, I surrounded myself with like-minded people, same views and interests. But nowadays, I want to surround myself with people with different backgrounds, cultures, views, hobbies, etc. I have since limited contact with the people I associated with in college, with the exception of a few people. I'm probably not going to get into the details of what led to that, because I have no business putting all that stuff out there on social media. But one thing is for sure, I don't have the same group of friends I did back then. That's life. There's no drama, n...

How do I word this blog post? It's December 2, and the year has gone by super fast. I've learned quite a few lessons on forgiveness and relationships in the past few years, but more so in the past year. I have a hard time putting this into words. Two posts were in my drafts folder on this blog and this year is not even done yet. There are so many open possibilities that I have at this point so I can go anywhere if I set my mind to it. Back in high school, I was trying different things. I was on the journalism staff briefly, I was in choir for two non-consecutive years, and I tried my hand in academic team. I was also secretary of my high school's Book Club and the Future Business Leaders of America, and interestingly enough, books were an integral part of my undergraduate career. Even now, I am still trying out new things. I learned that for every plan that does not work, there are always backups. I will be sharing one of my backup plans. For a backup plan, I thought ...

Since we are in the middle of the semester, I decided to share a couple of poems I've written at the moment. Since poetry has been a recurring thing on my blog, I wanted to share more of my work for my own personal enjoyment. I have more coming soon, so watch out for more. Dancing When clouds float across mountain tops, Impressions and misty waters stop leaving footprints as they glide upon hearts taking part – dancing set apart on color charted fashionable runways Our eyes gaze Sun sets ablaze enough for one last song crafted by human errors. Screenwriting Like an archer  She shoots and misses She aims --her intended target the screenplay buzzing  through miles  without reaching its  bullseye Like changing gears  on a rough drive through the mountains,  a clear fog reaching the surface.  Like a capstone paper assignment  receiving feedback in red font -- like the my...

Over the past few months, I thought I would write this long-awaited post. Part 1 and Part 2 are hyperlinked within this post, so jump in and read them to see the journey. Two years after I wrote these two posts, I went on a huge journey to discover things about myself I never thought about. I learned about health and love. I learned about vulnerability. I learned about trust. I learned about the importance of keeping touch with people in a healthier way. I also realized that people have multifaceted personalities. The other day, it really hit me. There really is no such thing as old Jess. Nor is there any such thing as new Jess. I'm just me, Jess. And I'm evolving as a person. While I believe that God can change a person, the biggest strides in life are that the person takes steps to change. Maturation did not really happen overnight. Some of the biggest lessons I've learned in the past two years are some of the most challenging things I had to learn. As I've gott...