Slut. Whore. Man stealer. Scumbag. No-Self-Esteem-Having-Bitch (I made that one up myself because it seemed like something she would say.) These are just a few of the lovely names I’ve been stoned with because for once I did something that made me happy. Do I regret it? Never, and it’s not because I’m naïve enough to think that I’m going to live happily ever after; Nothing is guaranteed in life besides death. It’s because there is nothing worse than living in fear of the future based on the decisions you make in the present. Sure, there are those cynics who claim “There’s no such thing as love.” But there’s no point in discussing how hypocritical and jaded society has become, this story isn’t about that. It’s about what happens when two people fall in love. This could also be the story of how a so called “best friend” became an opportunist and leached off of me and my family for months. I’d rather not, there’s no point of verbally ripping her a new one, she does a good enough job at making a fool out of herself all her own.

“How could you do this to me Gaby? You know everything he’s done to me, how he’s treated me, what a piece of shit he is. You were supposed to be my friend.”

She took a trip to Colombia with her son and asked me to keep an “eye” on him, her boyfriend/baby daddy, or more so keep him company for she believed he would be miserable without her considering he had no friends. Ironically, he had friends, more than she did actually and would have been just fine without my supervision, but we enjoyed each other’s company and I didn’t mind taking on the task of babysitter. Besides, it didn’t hurt that we got along great and he was actually much more fun to hang out with than she had been at the time. Who is she you’re probably asking yourself? Melanie, my “best friend” at the time, now just a figment of my imagination.
We were inseparable; literally we lived together. As far as she was concerned things were just fine. We were still the same “una y mugre” (Translation: White on rice. Well, not the exact translation but it’s the same expression.) friends we had been for almost four years. We knew everything about each other; the good bad and the ugly as the cliché goes and our friendship was in fact at one point genuine. Unfortunately things were taking a turn for the worse towards the end. We were growing apart, not only as friends but as individuals in general. The saddest part was, I think I was the only one who knew. She was too self-obsessed to realize that things weren’t like before anymore. The same person who I’d do anything for was now becoming someone I had grown to detest. I was annoyed at the person she had become, a superficial hypocrite that turned into the very same thing she once swore she would never become.

(Oh god look at me, I’m bashing her after promising you this was exactly what I was NOT going to do. Forgive me, my subconscious takes over me and my fingers uncontrollably start typing all of my repressed feelings. I promise to keep myself in
check so as to not steer my story in the wrong direction.)

So here we were, my friend Franco that I had known since Junior High School, under the watchful eye of yours truly while his girlfriend/baby mama/ my “best friend” was off in Colombia getting lipo–Literally this was the purpose of the trip I’m not even trying to be funny. Add in the fact that we had great chemistry, plus it was the beginning of summer; It was a recipe for disaster. But the good kind of disaster. The kind that makes you feel alive because it just feels so right. The type that gives you butterflies in your stomach whenever you see each other. The type that causes you to feel like nothing else matters besides that present moment in time when you’re together. The kind where you find the most minimal excuse to see each other. The type that leads you to do crazy things. Maybe too crazy. But then again, is it crazy to fall in love with your best friend’s boyfriend? I wouldn’t call it crazy. Perhaps inconsiderate, selfish, fucked up, or just plain wrong. But not crazy. What would’ve been crazy was if we had done nothing about how we were feeling towards each other. And that’s exactly what we did. We did something crazy, kept quiet about the obvious attraction we had for each other.

“I can’t believe I trusted you. You stabbed me in the back after everything we’ve been through. How could you be so stupid? Did you forget everything he’s done to me and now you’re fucking him?

Their relationship was stale, for a long time. The amount of disrespect between the two of them stretched far beyond mending the relationship. Then again they had a child, and who wouldn’t do their very best to at least give it a try? “For the baby”, sad but it’s the only thing that gave him any incentive to stay together. That and memories. Memories of what once was, which was in fact beautiful but at the same time unobtainable anymore. She hated him. Made it clear every single time the topic came up which was ALL the time. It was a “Let’s roast Franco” conversation anytime he’s name would be brought up. Her motives for being with him were disingenuous but at the same time smart I guess; money, security, comfort, revenge. She was with him for every other reason besides love. There was no love between them, on the contrary there was disdain and it was something quite uncomfortable to be around. You know that tension in the room when two people can’t stand each other and you just so happen to awkwardly find yourself trapped in the middle? Yeah, that was my position in the whole mess. Both of them would tell me how much they hated each other, and every time I thought to myself, “Why are they still together?” They were already cheating on each other, why not just end it and move on with life. Then again making a decision as such take a certain level of maturity which at the time neither of them were up for.

It was late Saturday night, a night that will forever be engrained in my memory, for it was a turning point in my life. Fast forward Melanie’s arrival from Colombia, us having a falling out and ending our friendship(I’ll spare you the details because it’s irrelevant to my story and I know you’re smart enough to conclude that it was her fault), her moving out of my apartment, her breaking up with her baby’s daddy, and finally her moving in with her co-worker. All this in the course of just a couple of weeks, and the whole while me and Franco were still hanging out, even after her arrival and hence the end of my babysitting duties. He was no longer with Melanie and I was no longer her friend; it’s as if the stars were aligned in our favor.

Cheesy I know but believe me if you’re ever lucky enough to fall in love, you know what I’m talking about. We mustered up the courage to finally admit to each other why these butterflies were in our stomachs when we saw each other, not because we had bad sushi for dinner, but because we were falling in love with each other and we knew that this was a terrible thing. Terrible because of what people would say, what our parents would think, our friends, our neighbors, society in general. But then again, why was that important. If you live your life worried about what others are going to say about you, well then you might as well be their servants.

We decide to follow our hearts and be together, fully conscience that it was not going to be easy. She did the whole nine; verbally slaughtered me through the phone, threated to inflict physical pain towards me, harassed me through email and text. You name anything malicious you could think of to hurt a person, she’s done it. Because that’s the type of person she is. The type that feels satisfaction out of making everyone else miserable all while claiming to be the victim. But like I said, this isn’t about her and how terrible of a person she is, it’s about a love story that to many may seem fucked up, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I don’t like to be absent from school or from work. I become paranoid of missing something important in class. Even though I am sick I still go to school or to work. I have been battling a cold for the passed three weeks. I have finished a bottle of Dayquil, Nightquil, and Tylenol for severe cold. But guess what I am still sick. Coughing a lot in class is disturbing for me and I bet for my classmates. On Monday was the worst attack of this cold. Having a cold and asthma is not a good combo. Having trouble to breathe is difficult to deal with. I wanted to come to class on Monday, but my fiancé convince me to stay in bed. He said, “how would you go to school after vomiting, fever, and coughing all night.” I told him I was still going to school, but he insisted me to stay because I will be disturbing all my classmates. I remember that three years ago I went through the same thing the worst cold of the winter.  I tried getting ready for school, but I was too weak to get up. I gave in and decided to stay home in bed. I was covered with my comforter sleeping the entire day. I just hope I get better.

Bank has many definitions, but the one that applies to all is: a supply of something held in reserve. I’ve got bank. I have money in my account but more importantly I have absences to use. Not waste, use. Wasting absences is not showing up to class because you want to go out instead of attending to your responsibilities. Wasting absences is missing the first week of school because your not mentally prepared to go back to school. Wasting absences is not showing up for school for any reason that doesn’t leads to productivity. Wasting absences is like wasting money, spending all of your money on a weekend binge of fun. Fun is fun, until your fun gets in the way of your funds. You have funds to have fun but the purpose of funds isn’t fun. Money is meant to take care of responsibilities. When the debt of responsibility is fulfilled doesn’t mean that the rest of the funds are for fun. One has to consider the unexpected; when something unforeseen arises and demands your funds, but you don’t have the funds because you spent all your money on fun. That’s what the bank is for, to store your funds away from fun so that when the unexpected arises you have the funds.

I have absences in the bank so that when something unforeseen happens I have enough absences in storage that my grade isn’t effected by my absence. I have been given four absences in a four month period which is more than enough funds in the bank that I can take one or two for fun. The class is at 8am, so how much funs can one have at 8am.  However, the night before is the night before. The time to have fun is at night and that is usually when people need funds because fun at night demands funds. But like most people that use their bank funds for fun there comes a time when something unexpected arises and they have to tap into their bank funds for something not fun. If these unforeseen circumstances arise, often people will curse themselves for using their bank funds for fun instead of using their fun-funds for fun.

I’ve choose to sleep in twice for this class because sometimes I just need a break from getting 5 hours of sleep. One of the two times I was pressured to go out after work and the other time I was exhausted. Half of my funds are gone but I was at the halfway point in the semester so I still had funds in the bank. Until an unforeseen circumstance arose, my alarm didn’t go off. Well it went off but I turned the sound off the night before at work and forgot to turn it back on when I got home. I woke up at 9 and realized that I missed class. That’s why I have absences in the bank, but now I’m low on funds and have no room to use them for fun; which is ok because the purpose of funds isn’t fun.

How long can someone go without the proper amount of sleep? Sleep is essential to quality time. One can always be awake, but being alert and productive is more important. Woody Allen once said that 90 percent of success is just showing up. That’s not true. One can always be on time and never miss a day, but eventually people will demand contribution, useful contribution. Otherwise you might as well not be there because even though you are physically there you are not there.
I work at least 40 hours a week on a good week. Well a bad week. As an hourly employee the more I work the more I get. If I work over 40 hours a week I get overtime; time and a half pay for each hour of work. That’s where I want to be because I work off tips so my weekly check usually isn’t worth a trip on my off-day to pick it up. When I do 50-65 hours a week, I’ll make the trip, but that usually isn’t necessary because if I am working 50-65 hours a week I’m at my job every day.
Between school and work I don’t have much time to do anything else, even when I want to. I usually don’t want to do anything because I’m tired. That last time I didn’t have any responsibilities for the day, no school or work, I sleep and laid in the bed all day, all day. I wanted to go out and run errands, but I couldn’t my body needed a day off. Caffeine and nicotine is a short-term cure for tiredness, but the long-term cure is rest.
But when do I rest? When I have responsibilities to fulfill, when do I take time to have 8 hours of sleep? The answer is when I cannot go any longer, when my tiredness turns into exhaustion. I’m young so I have the belief that I don’t need 8 hours of sleep, and I don’t. I can do a double shift at work, get home at 1am, toss around in the bed until 2 am, and then wake up at 6am-7am and make my way to school for my 8am class. I knew that I would tired for class and subsequently at work because of my limited amount of sleep, but I never considered when I would reach exhaustion. The point when the body aches and the mind can’t focus on anything but day dreams because ultimately the mind wants to dream; being unconscious while conscious.
We all have are limits and usually we don’t know them until we reach them. I’ve awoken to my limits. The point where your health is at risk because your not taking care of yourself; drinking coffee and Redbull chain smoking cigarettes to complete a task while taking your body to task. Sometimes you need to shut down. Instead of constantly being on the go, slow down and rest. That may mean that you show up less than 90 percent of the time, but when you are there you are there: alert and productive.

(WARNING) This is a very inflammatory piece. It will offend some.

Too fucking bad, because you have to read it. Enjoy bitches.

People are a product of their environment. That has been the truth from my experience working in the restaurant business. I’ve waited tables for a long time but just recently I have realized that I have become more judgmental than ever before. I use stereotypes and racial remarks as if they were acceptable adjectives in life. I am not a racist. I am a waiter.
If you have ever waited tables there has been a time when you prejudged the people sitting in your section. It doesn’t affect your service to them until they give you a cue that they won’t tip.
“Is there free refills”? Sour cream is an extra fifty cents? Does it cost me to have water? Do you take EBT? All cues that your guest is a bad tipper and a broke/cheap son of a bitch. I’m not being judgmental. If you want sour cream, but you are unwilling to pay an additional fifty cents then you are a broke/cheap son of a bitch. That’s a fact.
I’m not racist but colored people don’t tip. You don’t. You may tip, but your people don’t. Talk to your people. Asians may be the exception. The better your English the better the tip. Americanized second generation Asians typically know how to tip. Broken English Asians are like foreigners of all races, bad tippers. I don’t know if they are bad tippers because they want to be or because they don’t understand, but either way they need to get it together.
Arab people have a decent tipping average. Good job. You should tip well considering how much your charging us for gas. And 9-11.
Women typically tip more than men. Maybe it’s a domestic thing. They can relate to my job and the lack appreciation I receive for doing it. Taking food to a table with a smile is one of the hardest jobs in the world. First I have to pick up the food, walk about 5 yards and drop it off. Tough work. Getting napkins and refills don’t get me started. I don’t know how housewives can do it. To me it’s impossible. They don’t even have busboys, or a kitchen staff or a slave, excuse me I mean a dishwasher. Most dishwashers are ex-convicts or illegals so screw them. Let them clean the vomit from the floor and the diarrhea on the walls.
Let’s go back to more racism. Black people don’t tip. They call each other nigga’s for a reason, because they don’t know better. They especially don’t know how to tip. When I get a good tip from a black person I surmise to what they do for a living. They must have a good job, degree or work in the restaurant business. That’s it. At the very bottom of the tipping hierarchy, no surprise, Hasidic Jews. They don’t tip. If I see a Yamaka and curls I’m giving you bad service. They say Jesus was a Jew. If I ever find out he didn’t tip I swear to God I will worship another religion. Maybe Buddhism because I know that bill will be high. Or maybe the Greek gods because that automatic gratuity.
White people congratulations once again you are at the top of the totem pole. You are the best tippers. Not all of you tip, but as a people you are represented well. When I see white people in my section I become the perfect house Negro; dedicated to serving every request hoping that they’ll get comfortable enough to hand me there credit card.
(Side note; if you have an American Express card and you don’t tip then you are cheap; because only people with their shit together have American Express cards.)
I’m not racist. I’m a waiter. Judge me if you want, because I am certainly going to judge you and your people. At my job they call me the Mexican, and I feel proud every time I hear it. It means I’m hard working and willing to work when ever and where ever. I’ve got a deep respect for Mexicans now because that’s my nickname; until they sit in my section.

What is behaviorism and why do we study it? Behaviorism is the belief that humans learn through observing and experimentation. It is the idea that all human events and reaction are described by circumstances and controlled by discipline or a prize without free will. There are two ways in which behaviorism can unfold: Classical Conditioning and Operant Conditioning.

Classical Conditioning is when the conditioned stimulus makes a second stimulus respond towards a specific behavior. For example, John Watson and Rayner conducted an experiment with a boy named Albert. In his experiment he paired a white rat with a loud noise that was made with a hammer. Watson conditioned Albert to fear the rat, so every time he hears the noise now he becomes frightened. Operant conditioning is the understanding of the procedure where the effect of the outcomes comes after a response and it decides if the behavior will be repeated or not. For example, if a child gets good grades and his mom/dad buys them a pair of shoes, the child will keep on getting good grades in order to get more shoes. This example can also be known as positive reinforcement. One of the differences between classical and operant conditioning is that it focuses on the behavior. Whether is involuntary or voluntary. Classical conditioning requires making an alliance between an involuntary response and a stimulus, while operant conditioning is about making an alliance between a voluntary behavior and its effect. In operant conditioning, the learner is rewarded with incentives, while classical conditioning involves no such enticements. In addition, classical conditioning focuses on the involuntary part of the learner and gets automatic behaviors, while operant conditioning requires the learner to contribute and conduct some type of action in order to be rewarded or punished.

Working at a daycare most children enrolled tend to behave based on rewards and punishments rather than trying to avoid fear. In other words, the children don’t behave based on classical conditioning; children behave based on operant conditioning. For example, if it is cold outside and the children choose not to wear their coat the parents simply punish them. Parents take away their favorite toy in exchange for cooperation to the orders from the parent. If the child listens to the parent’s orders, the parent usually would give their child a candy or satisfying comments that make the child feel happy. Next time when the children cooperate, they expect the toy or the good comments from the parent, which then eliminates the bad behavior for a long period of time. On the other hand, classical conditioning does not allow the same behavior to work as operant does. With classical conditioning, kids change their behaviors because they’re trying to avoid a fear. To me that is not a good way to teach children how to behave because their fear sensitivity decreases as they get older.  Another disadvantage that classical conditioning has is that it doesn’t focus on learning. Classical conditioning makes an effort on instilling a temporary learning process. As for operant conditioning, the focus is toward long-term learning.

A child’s personality and trait depends on how their parents react to their behavior. Parents should take varying measures in different situations. Every so often, it is necessary to reward children and encourage them, and in other situations, parents should choose to be strict and punish them as well. Classical conditioning does not do this and even adults like to be rewarded and compensated for our actions. To motivate children to behave well, it is crucial to praise and inspire them to do this kind of activity more often. Therefore I believe that although both classical conditioning and operant conditioning are good when correlated with child behavior, operant works better.

The moment I died, was the moment I began to live. A reincarnation or maybe perhaps a metamorphosis of some kind. I still wonder how this rebirth came about, yet I have come to realize that it was a destined manifestation. My reincarnation occurred in February of 2012. There was no funeral although there were many tears shed and feelings of sudden sorrow and hurt. There was no celebration of life anew either unfortunately, but I already figured that there wouldn’t have been one. That day, for the first time ever, my spirit had joined in holy matrimony with my evolving physicality. It was similar to the emergence of a butterfly from a cocoon. I was now completely one; mind, body, and soul. I became a special girl, much different from other girls.

Living day to day in a world, a place, a society became uneasy for me being that I belonged to a certain species of women, transgender women. Although self-content, I felt like an alien in the world around me. Like a mutant from the X-men series, I was special, but I was ashamed of myself. Even though I felt complete, I had trouble accepting myself as a special girl. I was living with fear in a close-minded world. I was a witch during the Salem Witch Trials; a Jew during the Holocaust. I was a strange yet special girl; strange in the sense that I was not the same as most girls, and special because I had a special physicality which was slowly evolving. I belonged to a class of special women, yet the world saw us in a different light. Most people don’t understand my kind due to the prejudices media and society have forced upon them. Among those people were my parents. My mom distanced herself from me for three months; my father, well, he was in Trinidad at the time, and he didn’t care to acknowledge me at all. Who am I? What am I? Why am I? I often feel that I’ve been banished to a cold and lonely world where I am all by myself. In the real world I am a penny on the ground, someone who has little to no worth. In the streets, I am spit at like a peasant or like the ground itself. I am publicly degraded like a worthless inhuman object. People call me “a man,” “a nigga,” “a tranny,” “a transvestite,” etc. Most of the time people can’t tell that I am a woman of transgender experience, unless they find me attractive and try to see through to my soul.

I have come to learn my place in society as an individual belonging to a species of cursed women. Women who desire to belong and matter and live normal lives. Women who wish to blend into humankind. To pass. Although many of us do indeed pass, myself included (for the most part), passing has its own complications. Passing is like being in the closet. I often find myself trying to hide my trans identity in order to eliminate being the center of negative attention and to protect myself physically and emotionally. I am afraid to leave home if my hair or makeup isn’t up to par or if I am wearing clothes that accentuate the wrong parts of my body.

I have often felt cursed; never to find true love, or have a family like my sisters. Never able to find stable employment or fit comfortably into society. Passing may defer these things for some time, but the problems never seem to go away. And because of this I am forever internally oppressed. Love and family does exist for some, however, it is rare indeed unless these things are established pre-transition. Although my species of women include straight, bisexual, and lesbian women, I feel attraction towards men only. They are my weakness. I have a misconception of love. I fall in love very quickly because I never had unconditional love. Men charm me with their words easily and steal my heart under false pretenses. They use me physically and abuse me emotionally. In the daytime they ridicule me, and by nightfall they hypnotize me like an incubus and inhabit my flesh. We are often over sexualized and thought to trick men into sleeping with us, but the truth is we search for unconditional love in private and in public alike. We share our secrets with them before laying with them, or else it would be like committing suicide. They pretend to be disgusted with us in public, but in private we become their mistresses, sort of like an inter-racial relationship in the Jim Crow south. I often fall prey to their incubus-like nature. They are demons in disguise with a purpose to annihilate  women by preying on their emotionality, something I would never want to be. Internally, I’m just like any other girl. Our spirits unite into a sisterly bond. Yet, my existence is dual by nature, but seen as unnatural in the eyes of the ignorant.

I learned that no one understands me as much as I understand myself, and therefore I choose to walk alone. Apart from family, apart from friends, apart from the world. I live with my spirit now, and I’ve come to accept the lack of love and consideration I receive from mankind. I am learning to control my emotions and to shield myself from emotional harm. I’ve learned that even though I am different, I am me. Every individual has their differences, a certain uniqueness that complements who they are as people. Some are forced to hide and feel shame of their differences; others embrace their differences gladly. Ultimately society dictates one’s place in the world. Or does it? Either way, I am beginning to feel that I am not cursed after all. I am, rather, divine; godlike to possess a dual nature. Living as a boy for 21 years with the mind of a girl for 23 years has given me the complete power of yin and yang. Although I am a different, yet special girl, I can proudly say that I have had both worlds in the palm of my hands.