The Five Love Languages

I recently read a book by Gary Chapman called, The Five Love Languages.

Here's the synopsis: Every person has a "love tank", like the gas tank of any vehicle, can be empty, somewhere in between, or full. How your personal tank gets fuel or filled is when your partner responds best in his or her own language of love. 

When your love tank is full. you are...  HAPPY. :)
The tank is empty when we don't feel loved, because either A) Our partner is being a lame duck and not showing any love whatsoever, or B) Our partner is not communicating in a way that we can hear/feel. That person is not speaking our "love language".

When your love tank is empty, you are...SAD :(

According to Dr. Chapman, there are 5 lanuages of love:

1) Words of affirmation
2) Acts of service
3) Gifts
4) Physical contact
5) Quality time

And is there a 6) All the above? Well, Dr. Chapman explained while we enjoy all of these languages of love, there is usually one way that stands out or is more or less preferred by that person. Furthermore, it's usually the way we show our love towards others. But, if your partner feels loved when you run errands for him or her, but you're trying to show it sexually (with your partner of course!!), then that love tank is bound to spring a leak or two.

Jack Falt couldn't have explained the book any better than how he did below. Mr. Fault writes:

Life’s deepest meaning is not found in accomplishments but in relationships. Relationships enrich our lives. We can feel proud of our accomplishments but we want to share our accomplishments with others, particularly those who are important to us, our significant other, our children, our family members and our friends. 

We all want to know that we are loved. We want to be able to express our feelings of love to others so that they know of our love for them. We would feel hurt if the ones we loved told us that they didn’t feel loved by us. So often key relationships fail because one or the other just did not feel loved or cared for. A wife may complain that her husband does not love her. When questioned he is dumbfounded. Of course he loved her. Didn’t he spend all those long hours working so that she could have whatever she desired. Her reply is that all she ever desired was some of his undivided attention. Each loved the other but didn’t express it in a way that was meaningful. 

We feel we try so hard to show our love, but if we don’t feel loved in return, we feel empty or disappointed. It may be that we are not expressing our love or caring in a way that is meaningful to the other person. Similarly, we may have a sense that the other person loves or cares for us, but we just feel empty. Their love and caring has not been expressed in a way that is satisfying to us. 

When we first are in a relationship, there is an initial attraction that draws us together. We fall madly in love with someone, we see our new born child, we have a special bond with a family member, or we meet someone and develop a special friendship. All goes well for a while and the experience is wonderful. Our lover can do no wrong. Our new born is perfect and will grow up to conquer the world. Grandma always has a cookie for us. Our new friends are fascinating. 

There is actually a hormone  called oxytocin that mother releases in her body at the time of the birth of her child that helps her bond with the child. Maybe this hormone is released in all of us at key times to give us a sense of well-being that helps us bond with one another. Unfortunately, after a period of time reality sets in. For lovers this can last up to two years. Then we notice that our lovers have several very annoying and obnoxious habits, and we are no longer the center of their world. Our children have become little brats. Grandma is always scolding us for not wiping our feet when we come in from outside. Our friends seems to take us for granted and don’t seem quite as interesting as they once were. 

It is as if we have a love tank for each of our relationships. When we feel loved and cared for, the gauge on the tank registers full. When we feel unappreciated, the gauge can register dangerously low or empty. 

Gary Chapman, author of The Five Love Languages, through his counseling has found that there are five main love languages: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. The other important insight of his work is that while we need all of these forms of love to a certain extent, there is probably one, or perhaps a couple, that are crucial to our feeling loved and cared for. If they are missing, then we feel empty. The other person may have tremendous love for us, but we don’t experience it as being loved. We need to feel love from others in the way that is meaningful to us. So it is important to learn what our primary love language is. 

The same is true for other people. We can show tremendous love for them but if we are not expressing it in the form that is meaningful to them, then they feel empty and abandoned. That is not what we wanted at all, but that is how it is experienced by them. Since we love and care for many people in our lives, we need to learn to develop all five love languages and express them appropriately. 

We also need to discover the specific love language that is most important to the people we love so that we can use it with them. We can observe what other people respond to. What is it that seems to give them joy? We can tell them how we read this book on The Five Love Languages and wondered what they thought their main love language was. Tell them that they are important to us and we would like to make sure they felt loved or their friendship was important to us. 

Of course, we also want to receive the love from others in the language that is most important to us. Perhaps others are willing to discuss the love languages and we can share what really matters to us. Sometimes, we have to be direct and tell others how they can best show us that they love us. “Mary, you often are very blunt about telling me how I might improve. Sometimes you are right and I appreciate your trying to help me. I would feel so much closer to you if you told me what I do that you like. It would give me the energy to make the changes I need to make to improve my life. And our relationship”.

Words of Affirmation: Words can have a tremendous impact on our feelings. We may have grown up in a positive or negative emotional environment. If it was a positive atmosphere, usually giving words of affirmation come easily to us. If it was negative, we will have to make a conscious effort to come up with the right words at the right moment. 

Sometimes we can be very critical. While criticism may at times be justified, it rarely is affirming. We may have to search for the nugget of gold that is hidden within the other person. The interesting thing is that as we emphasize the positive, it encourages the other person to be more positive in return. Of course,  there is a fine line between being sincere and manipulation. We have to be able to make a positive comment with integrity. For instance a wife may nag her husband to clean out the garage. She always is on his case for one thing or another. He is feeling his love tank is very empty. He never hears affirming words from his wife. Now suppose she tells him how much she appreciates how hard he works to provide for the family, and she makes it a point to comment frequently on all his positive qualities. Lo and behold, the next thing she knows, he has cleaned up the garage. 

Of course he knew the garage needed cleaning. He wasn’t putting off the job to be spiteful. Now his wife’s positive comments were what he needed to give him the energy and desire to go and complete the job. If the wife is wise, she will heap praise on him for his diligence in getting the job done. 

There are few different of ways of giving words of affirmation: encouragement, praise, and kind words, We can never go wrong with giving words of affirmation. If this is not the dominant love language of the other person, it just has less impact, but it is still appreciated. 

There is an old joke about a man saying, “Of course I love you. If it ever changes, then I’ll let you know. Why do I have to keep saying it all the time.” The point is that the other person needs to have it repeated often. If the man loves the other person, he needs to make the effort to say it as frequently as it is needed. 

Quality Time: Spending time with others enriches both of us. However, the phrase “quality time”sometimes gets overworked. Busy parents are told that as long as children have quality time with them, it will be all right. Little children need as much time as possible with caring adults. That is where they learn to bond with others and that the world is a safe and loving place. In reality, quality time is more than just being around someone to make it. Quality time means giving others your undivided attention. 

Quality time means being available. This means stopping our busy schedules and devoting time to the relationship. It means connecting with the other person so that they know we are there for them. It is a time when we talk about things that are important to us. It can be a conversation that is interesting to both of us. It can be a time to share our problems without the other person trying to solve them but just listening. It can be doing something that we both enjoy. 

Sometimes we put ourselves out for the other person. We make the effort to appreciate their world. We go to the symphony concert because we know that person enjoys going, and we try to understand why it is important to the other person, even when that kind of music is not to our taste at all.
Giving someone quality time is done without expectation of something in return. The beauty of it is that so often we are blessed by others willing to share quality time with us. 

Receiving Gifts: A gift says that we care enough to make the effort to bring pleasure to the other person. To be effective the gift must be something that will please the other person. Just any old thing handed to the other person doesn’t count, and in fact can even be considered an insult. 

What does the other person like? Have they a collection that you can add to? Have they mentioned something that you can get for them? Is it a special occasion which needs to be commemorated with a gift: birthday, anniversaries, special holiday or event?  Does the person like to have surprise gifts that are totally unexpected? 

Even courting birds sometimes bring a gift of a special pebble or a twig for a nest. Cultures all over the world give gifts as a sign of friendship and love. As children we loved to receive presents. When relatives came, we may have been so bold as to ask what they brought us. We may have been scolded for being so rude. But we still may be excited when we are brought a gift for no particular reason. It really hits home when the gift is something we have wanted or it is so unique that it delights us. Be sure to give gifts with some ceremony so that others know they were meant as tokens of love. 

If we feel others are felt loved by receiving gifts, now we have to take into consideration their needs and tastes. Spontaneous gifts have a great impact. We see something in a store that we know a friend would like. We buy it and give it to them. However, we do want to make sure that the gift is appropriate. We don’t want the other person to feel a sense of obligation through our gift. 

Acts of Service: When we do something for another person because we love and care for them, this is an act of service. It may be something that we do for others on a regular basis, such as a mother who cooks meals for her family. It may be taking a friend to a doctor’s appointment. It may be offering to pick up something from the store on our way to work. 

What can you do for other people? What can they do for you? Often, people are only too happy to lend a hand. They just need to be told what it is that they can do. We also need to be observant to see what we can do without being asked. 

Contracts such as “if you do this for me then I’ll do this for you” are not acts of love. They may be quite valid in their own right but don’t count as far as filling up love tanks. Also, statements such as “look at all I have done for you” are attempts at manipulation. To show love through acts of service they must be done unconditionally. We must give them without expecting anything in return. Then we may be delighted and surprised that others will do things for us without any expectations as well. 

Physical Touch: We all need physical touch. As we came into the world it was touch that was the first message of love. Touch is an absolute essential. After World War II there were a number of babies in orphanages in Europe that were well cared for but they were not thriving. It was discovered when staff or volunteers took the time to just hold the babies, they began to thrive again. For some of us this is our primary language of expressing and experiencing love. In a romantic relationship physical love is most important, but we also need the touches and caresses during our daily lives that let us know we are cherished. 

Physical touch is regulated by cultural custom but even here there is a wide range of expression. When talking with you some people seen to involuntarily reach over and touch. How and when we touch must be guided by understanding what and when it is appropriate. When a person seems to flinch and draw back at our touch, this is a clear signal that now is not the time. The touch that at one time our children craved now in adolescence can send a signal that we still are treating them like children. The manner of our touches needs to change. The teenager whose primary language of love is physical touch still wants to be touched. It is now our job to find how to we can touch and still respect their integrity. 

The world we live in can often seem impersonal. We need to reach out and touch one another. Our homes, meeting our friends, greeting others in gatherings all provide opportunities for touch. 

In Summary: Each of knows the importance of love in our lives. We want to show our love to those we care about, yet sometimes that message doesn’t seem to get across to them. The Five Love Languages shows us that not everyone feels loved in the same way. It makes us aware that there are these differences. Now our task is to learn to express our love in these five different ways so that we are fluent in all five languages. Our other task is to discern which language each of our loved ones responds to and use our new found skills in expressing that love in the way that is most meaningful to the other person. If our motives are sincere, it is always a true expression of our innermost feelings for those we love. We too respond to all of the five love languages. However, some just give us a slight warm fuzzy feeling, but we all have one that gives us that inner glow that tells us that we are truly loved. We all want to have our loved ones know that same feeling. That is why it is worth all the effort. 

Falt, J. (2011, November 13). The Five Love Languages. Appreciating The Differences Retrieved 11/13/2011, from http://users.trytel.com/~jfalt/Oth-art/five-love-languages.html

 

An Italian, A Scotchsman and a Chinese man.

An Italian, a Scotsman and a Chinese man, are hired at a
Construction site.

The foreman points out a huge pile of sand. He says to the
Italian guy, "You're in charge of sweeping."

To the Scotsman he says, "You're in charge of shovelling."

And to the Chinese guy, "You're in charge of supplies."

He then says, "Now, I have to leave for a little while. I
expect you men to make a dent in that pile of sand."

So when the foreman returns after being away for a couple of
hours, the pile of sand is untouched.

He asks the Italian, "Why didn't you sweep any of it?"

The Italian replies, "I no hava no broom. You saida to the
Chinesea fella that he a wasa ina charge of supplies, but he hasa
disappeared and I no coulda finda him nowhere."

Then the foreman turns to the Scotsman and says "And you, I
thought I told you to shovel this pile."

The Scotsman replies, "Aye, that ye did laddie, boot ah could
nae get meself a shoovel. Ye left th' Chinese gadgie in  chairge of
supplies, boot ah couldna fin' him neither."

The foreman is really angry now. He storms off toward the pile
of sand to look for the Chinese gent.

Just then, the Chinese man leaps out from behind the pile of
sand  and yells, "SUPPLIES!!!!

The Donkey In The Well

When I was a kid I looked forward to checking my email every morning... Why? Well, my grandma Nelle was an incredibly funny woman who forwarded the best jokes via email. Yes, my grandma had a computer. Haha. Anyway, I hope you laugh as hard as I did reading this.

THE DONKEY IN THE WELL


One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried pitifully for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be
covered up anyway, it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They each grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer looked down the well, and was astonished at what he saw. As every shovel of dirt hit his back, the donkey did something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer's neighbor continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed, as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off.

The Moral:
Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles a stepping stone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up!

Remember the five simple rules to be happy:
1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.

O.K., that's enough of that B.S. The donkey later came back, caught the farmer out in the field and kicked the shit out of him. Then he went over to each of his neighbors farms and kicked the shit out of them too for helping.

The REAL Moral: When you try to cover your ass, it always comes back to get you

"A" Way to Marketing

My best friend and I decided to pair up to produce an item that we could sell to our English class. We decided to sell a weight loss beverage that not only helped with weight loss, but also prevented acne. 

I thought this was well written considering I was fifteen and she was sixteen years old. We received an "A" for our final grade regardless of how many people in the classroom raised their hand that were willing to buy our product. Yeah, four people out of a class of thirty wasn't all that bad...heh.

78643 Lumber Jack Lane

Buffalo , NY 30061

January 12, 2004

Archina Sanchez

Wal-Mart Service

7000 Marina Blvd.
Buffalo , NY 30073

Dear Product Manager:
I have developed an invention that can quickly gain your company meaningful market shares in Weight Loss Beverages. 12 of the 16 end users surveyed with a sample said that they strongly preferred my invention over Slim Fast and Atkins Advantage. My invention incorporates patentable features that will give you a long term competitive advantage and enable your company to make an excellent return on investment. This beverage is a weight loss drink and it also fights and prevents acne. I am seeking to license my invention exclusively. A trial product is available for review. Please contact me to discuss putting a non-disclosure agreement in place so I can share more detailed information.
Thank you for this opportunity.
Sincerely,

Chelsea Wells and Jessica Cook

(808)643-2367- Daytime

(808) 245-8472- Evening

Email: Mooshouchicken@yahoo.com  

Blast From The Past

I decided to go through my old email account that I had created in the 6th grade to find some interesting survey's that my friends and I would post on Myspace or forward through email. We would fill out these surveys when we had nothing better to do or when we would avoid slaving away on our biblical studies during independent study. Lets see how much I've changed, shall we?

Survey:

I have long brown hair, blue eyes (I know it's a weird mix), and I am 5'7".  I am 1/2 Danish,  German, Dutch, English, Scottish, Black Scotch, French and Irish!! What a mix, aye?          

I like to hang-out with friends, talk on the phone, rollerblade, play volley-ball, sing, dance, act, make people laugh,and be a total psycho with my friends. 

My B-day- Nov.27th                                                                                                                                                                         

Favorite color- Pink and purple

Favorite drink- Shirley Temple, Sprite, and Gatorade (blue or watermelon)

Favorite type of food- Italian and Mexican

Favorite food(s)- Spaghetti, raw noodles, shrimp, tacos, burritos, mac-n-cheese, taquitos, and mashed potatoes.

Favorite Restaurant(s) - Pasta Pronto, Logan's Road house, La Palomar, and SENOR ROSAS!!

Got to have my burritos!

Favorite candy- Watermelon Jolly Ranchers and pink Starbursts.

Favorite car- 1989, Porsche red Corvette with black interior.

Favorite movie(s)- Body Guard, Preachers Wife, 10 Thing I hate about you, and Sister act 1&2, and Pretty Woman.

Favorite Actor(s) - Jim Carrey, Pierce Brosnan, Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise and Victor Borge.

Favorite Actress(es)- Julia Roberts, Julie Andrews, Sandra Bullock, and Goldie Hahn.

Favorite Singer(s) - Whitney Houston, Christina Aguilera, Celine Dion, and Mariah Carey.                                                                                   

Favorite ice cream- Chocolate Chip                                                                                                                                                                               

Favorite coffee drink(s) - Double shot espresso (nothing added), Starbucks caramel frappichino.                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Favorite cookie- Tom Thumb bars (My mom's recipe) only made around Christmas.                                                                                               

Things I look forward to: Working for money and spending all of it for gifts for Christmas.                                                                                  

Favorite cartoon(s) - Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, Daffy Duck, Homer Simpson, and many more.                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Bestest Friends ever- Allison, Ginny, and Chenyu.                                          

Favorite animal- Llama

Who I like- Hmm..Let's see..ROFL..I'm not saying!

Albert Brook- Comedian

Victor Borge- Danish Humorist & Musician

My grandparents told me about Victor Borge when I was just a kid and I've loved him ever since. Here he is with Dean Martin doing his most infamous skit, "Musical Phonetic Punctuation."

Jim Carrey- Impressions

The best impressionist alive.

Casio Audition Tape

I was 19 years old and this was my first big gig that I landed as a model. I jumped into ice cold water in mid November to get it. It was well worth it. :)

I was flown to Hawaii and ended up staying there for a week for the commercial. My first time traveling for modeling and I felt like I was on top of the world! :)

Here's the final cut:

Behind the scenes photos:



Behind The Scenes Photoshoot w/ Kesler Tran

Kesler Tran shoots Jessica Cook

Video was shot and produced by: Todd Taverner

Photographer: Kesler Tran
Model: Jessica Cook
Makeup Artist: Anthony H. Nguyen
Stylist: Anthony H. Nguyen
Hair Stylist: Tuyen Thanh Tran

 

The Self-Worth Project

It's my honor to introduce you to a project that not only changed my life, but the lives of people all over the world. I figured that I'd post the video from the founder (Tommy Corey), verses writing about it, so you can hear it from him personally of how he went about starting this wonderful and admirable project.

To learn more visit: http://www.selfworthproject.com/

Tommy asked if I would be interested in participating in the project and without hesitation, I told him I'd be honored. :) Here's my picture.

Imperfection: not perfect; defective or inadequate.

In short- I'm in the industry of modeling and in modeling, and I'm told on a daily basis that I'm never good enough. The comments rage from: you're too heavy, stop eating, smoke to curve your cravings, dress a certain way, your eye brows are too thin, you should consider breast implants, etc. I chose the word, "Imperfection" because of this and I used a cigarette as a prop to show why most models smoke; we all have to maintain a certain weight, size, and shape, because that is how the industry works--skinny always wins.

Throughout all of this pressure to be "perfect", I developed an unexplainable lack of confidence and constantly started doubting my self-worth. Anorexia became a mild temptation and I was entertaining the idea of getting my breasts augmented.

In closing, no matter what anyone tells you, you are all born with certain features for a reason. Be comfortable in your skin, embrace the beauty you have been given, and be proud that you have your own unique look. We are all created differently and that's a fact--- SO EMBRACE IT. :)

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to be apart of this project. I truly appreciate it and after doing this project, I can easily say, I'm proud to be perfectly imperfect.

My Junior Year

I was invited to speak at a Senior retreat as a camp counselor and I was asked to share a personal and yet, influential story of my life. My Junior year was the most challenging year for me and when I posted this last time, I had received over 40 emails from readers saying how reading this helped them through their own life crisis. The overwhelming responses touched my heart and therefore, I wanted to be bold and re-post this as my first entry.

My Junior Year

By: Jessica Cook

A women once said, “Change is inevitable, but yet we fight it, just the same. Change is essential to our evolution. Change is going to happen, in fact, it happens every day. Maybe it is too small to see, or perhaps we would rather not see it. We fight change, because we fight the unknown. We fight the unknown, because we are scared, scared of change, scared of the unknown. If we were to allow change to happen freely, we might find solutions to the problems that exist around us, but instead, we are hung - up on controlling everything around us. Maybe this is the problem with the world today. Everyone assumes control of everything and does not allow nature to run her course. Maybe this is why, we have devastating fall out from Nature, Natural catastrophic disasters, such as fire and flooding. We fight change, therefore we are fighting nature and her natural being and her existence in the world that she has created by God's hand and has graciously allowed us to be a part of. We should welcome change and allow nature to control our destiny. Change is uncontrollable, Change is inevitable, and Change is the unknown. Nature takes pride in being one of life's misleading wonders, the unknown.”

I had a big change my junior year. This was a year where my life did a one hundred and eighty degrees turn. On the first day of school, I felt unwelcome by my junior class. Over summer my family and I toured the United States on motorcycles and I hung out with some friends, with the only week left of summer. Cliques formed and I wasn’t included in any. At the time I had three best friends, Ginny, Chelsea , and my grandmother. Ginny went to Germany for the year to study abroad and Chelsea and I were pretty inseparable, which was great, because we had each other and weren’t labeled into a clique. Chelsea and I sat with the seniors, sophomores, or freshmen during lunch. We never sat with our class.

As the year went on, I found myself in the hospital more than spending time in school. Everyday after school, I would spend a half an hour to sometimes two hours visiting my grandmother in ICU. My grandmother was in there for several reasons, but she was very sick, nonetheless. With a positive attitude, I would go home and pray the rosary and I wasn’t even Catholic, but I heard if you pray, it could lessen the damage. Every time I walked out of that door of the ICU, I always looked back and said, “I love you Grandma. I’ll be praying for you. Everything is going to be alright. I promise.” Two months went by and she was going downhill. By then she had IV’s all up and down her frail arms, and the nurses began to heavily sedate her, to numb her pain. I did my normal routine, even though she was sedated and I pulled up the green, leather chair from the corner and told her about my day and what has been going on in my life lately. The following day, I noticed a tube going down her throat and she was heavily sedated. For the next five days she was so knocked out that I thought it was ridiculous to even talk to her. “Why talk to a vegetable?” I thought. After school Monday, I went again to see her, this time for fifteen minutes. Still sedated with a tube down her throat, I’d asked her if she would go to my graduation. I was so fed up with the way she looked and how she didn’t respond or nod to anything I was saying, I told my dad I was ready to leave, and this time I didn’t turn back. That day, she passed away.

I didn’t go to school for the next two days. And after those two days, tears poured till the end of the week. I lost my best friend and it was the worst feeling in the world. The following month my grandfather broke his hip and stayed in the hospital for two months. Yet again, everyday I visited him after school. This agony, stress, and responsibility grew larger every day and when I thought all would come to an end, my brother Ken, attending Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo , was rushed to the hospital, because he bled internally. It was so dire that he received several blood transfusions. This worrying and depression took a toll on my grades. My GPA slipped to a 2.3.

Just think to yourself, think about not being able to have anyone in your class to vent to. I had NO friends in my class, besides Chelsea , basically. I was so depressed I’d go talk to my teachers during lunch time and just cry. I was so depressed that I isolated myself from the seniors, freshmen, and sophomores….and I would just have lunch with a teacher.

Two months later my grandpa broke his hip again, due to having too much to drink one night and falling. Furthermore, I spent everyday in the hospital again for another two months. I was so fed up with hospitals, that I didn’t think it would ever get better.

A couple weeks after my grandfather got out of the hospital, Chelsea and I got into a huge argument about politics and I lost my best friend. She transferred out of school 3 days later. Now I was solely by myself, with one friend to talk overseas to. I just wanted to die. I hated every second of life. I questioned God through prayer, “WHY ME? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?”

In May of 2006, I received a phone call from my brother Mike saying that we needed to go to Los Angeles and I asked, “Why?” He informed me that my mother overdosed on Norco (which is a pain killer), took fifty pills, and was rushed to ICU. If we didn’t get there by tomorrow, we were never going to see her again. My brother told me that he’d pick me up in 10 minutes, so be ready. My mother and my father divorced when I was in sixth grade, due my mother alcoholism and over dosage on prescription drugs and I never forgave how she treated me or my brothers. So every time I saw her, I would treat her with so much disrespect.

My brother picked me up and we drove nine straight hours. We rushed into the ward, meeting my other brother, and peered into the glass. She had a large tube down her throat and she was sedated. The nurse told us that we couldn’t wake her, because they just put her to sleep. So we sat there regretting how we treated her for the past years and never forgiving her. As we sobbed into each others arms, the nurse told us that we had to leave, because we weren’t allowed to stay there for over thirty minutes. We left and spent the night in L.A. The next morning we had to leave, so my brothers and I went to a local plant shop, bought her a card and a beautiful plant. We took it up to her, still heavily sedated. Yet again, the nurse said that we could only stay there for thirty minutes. It was Mother’s day that day.

We left L.A. and drove back home, with a horrible feeling in our stomachs. I arrived at home at 12 O’ clock at night. I didn’t eat and I laid on my bed, and cried myself to sleep. The following school day, was the beginning of finals. With lack of sleep, being on a emotional rollercoaster, and not being able to eat- I crammed for finals. I ended up failing most of my finals.

In the end, my mother survived. And I survived the hardest year of my life. I never came to school without a smile on my face, through all of that. It was insanely tough, believe me, which proves the saying, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.

It's 2011

Now that I'm not traveling as much, I have more down time to write in my blog.

I'm just letting you know that I'm back and ready to start this blog on an entirely different level. I'll be featuring new talent, bands I love, photographers who have the "IT" factor, and whatever else comes to mind.

So here we go-----!!

-J.Cook