The Chippewa In Me :)

About three years ago, my Native American grandma invited my sister and I to stay with her for two weeks. We decided that it was a good idea, seeing as she spoils the crap out of us :). After a few days up there, she informed us that there was a tribal council meeting up on her old reservation. She asked if we wanted to go and we both agreed saying that it would be interesting. My sister and I are both about 1/8th Chippewa and we both have the brown hair, brown eyes, and high cheek bones. We thought that for sure we would fit in at this meeting. When we arrived at Minnihaha Falls, Minnesota, we got out of the car and saw a bunch of crazy legit indians running around. Since it was a traditional event, they were dressed in all of their indian apparell and celebrating the council meeting. There were old indians and young. The old tribal council leader was there to introduce the new, and much younger looking one. There were drums and music.. dancing. Basically all the things you think about with indians, minus the fighting was there. My sister and I felt completely out of place. We were the whitest people there, dressed in our street clothing.

When we walked into the main banquet hall, my grandma sat down to talk to an ancient looking woman who had to be in her 80s. After my sister and I got our food and sat down, our grandma introduced us to this old lady. My grandmother had been speaking to her in the Ojibwean language, and my sister and I couldnt understand completely what she was saying. My grandma turned to us and said, "She refuses to talk to you girls because you dont know the language.." We felt very unwanted at that point. My grandma's sister was there and she got a kick out of this old lady. She kept making jokes to us to make us feel better. After the ceremony went on we started to feel a little more comfortable and started enjoying our time there and learing about our heritage. I like that I am Native American and also all of the benefits that come along with it :).

So This is Why They Think People in the South are Weird.. :)

When I was younger, I lived in Memphis, Tennesee in a neighborhood full of kids my age. We lived in a culdusac and we were very sheltered. It happened to be that the neighborhood next to us was full of gangs and our parents made sure we stayed in our sheltered culdusac. Behind my house, there was a huge open field that belonged to the church and a creek in a small stretch of woods that separated our houses and the church. My friends an I would always find games to play back there, mostly in by the creek. We played these survivor games and would pack lunches to go out there. We climbed trees and just spend the whole day in this small little "secluded" area. But by the time it started to get dark, and the street lights would turn on, that meant time to go in. One night all of our families were sitting in their lawn chairs having a few drinks with each other in my driveway. This was always good because that meant the kids could stay out and play longer. We wanted to go play tag in the field. About 6 of us went to this dark field and played.

After about five minutes into the game, I noticed something running in the woods.

It initially freaked me out. I asked my best friend if she saw it and she said yes. Still wondering what it was we told our other friends and they started to get suspicious. As we kept looking, we didnt see it anymore, so we continued our game. But as we did, we saw this figure running through the woods. As it came closer we realized it was a naked man! We all got freaked out and ran to our parents and told them. They didnt believe us at first, but by the looks on our face, they started to believe our story. They all ran back to see where this man went, and he was laying on the bridge that laid over the creek. Our parents called the police and we later found out that the man was drunk and had some how taken all of his clothes off and passed out.

He lived about five minutes away from where we did, so it was a wonder to us how he got that far, that naked with out getting busted.

It was probably one of the weirdest things I have ever seen in my life.
But thats the south for ya :)

My metamorphosis

Although this has been an ongoing experience, I oldest sister Katy has been a major of my life and my metamorphosis.

My sister has never really been a huge part of my life. She had been a trouble maker in high school and been forced to move awaly to live in a small town outside of Duluth, Minnesota to live with my sick grandma, as sort of a punishment.
Now, I guess you could say my metamorphosis has two phases.
The first phase of my metamorphosis was taking on the role of being a big sister. I have another sister who is 16 months younger than me. We have always been very close and she has always looked up to me. Because Katy, my older sister, was never really around, or the type of role model my parents wanted my sister and I to have, I felt the pressure to be better than her.
Growing up was hard, because I was constantly compared to Katy. You could kind of say that my sister ruined my mothers trust towards my younger sister and I. My mom was always on edge about what I would be doing. I'd ahve early curfew's and would constantly have to check in with her. After Katy got in so much trouble, my mom made it so she wouldn't make the same mistake with her other children. As the years went on, my sister decided to move back in with us. Things were going well, until she met Sean. Sean was a horrible person with very bad habbits and started pulling my sister down with him. He turned my sister into his slave and would make her do everything for him. He was lazy and got into a lot of trouble. My family absolutely hated him. He was so rude to us and my parents, and respect is a huge thing for any family. Sean lacked that the most. Katy ended up moving out of the house and got an apartment with Sean. A few months went on and we found out some news that shocked some of us, but angered most.

This is where my second phase comes into play.

Katy came to our house and told us that she needed to talk to us. She informed us that she was 3 months pregnant, with Sean's baby. This made us very mad because we also found out that Sean was leaving her because she was pregnant. I felt like I was the only one who accepted Katy still. She would call me and just ask to talk because she felt that she couldnt talk to my parents because she felt ashamed. I now started to have to become best friends with my sister and try to understand what it was she was going through.

A month later, the baby was miscarried.

My sister was in a deep phase of depression and felt that the one thing that was going to love her the most was leaving her and she felt empty. After everyone was starting to get used to this pregnancy, it left her. It was the saddest time in her life. And Sean came back. Since my sister felt so alone, and vulnerable, she took him back. Things were falling back into what they used to be with her and she was "in love" with him.

About 5 months later, she was pregnant again.

Till this day, I still feel that she had this child because of the feeling she wanted back of being pregnant to make up the loss of her other child. I am now an aunt and it is a really good feeling. I have to take on the responsiblities of taking care of her and teaching her new things. My metamorphosis may not have been the happiest journey, but we have all learned from Katy's mistakes. Through life I have learned to take on responsibilies to make sure my younger sister, or myself make the same mistakes Katy did.

Coming to Wisconsin..

When I first moved here to Wisconsin, I was scared to death.

The one time where I felt that I didnt fit it was when I first moved up here from Memphis, Tennessee and I had no friends to talk to. I was a very shy person at first, so it was hard for me to branch out and try to gain new friends. It was by far the scariest time of my life. Now, I had moved around before prior to living in Memphis, but this time was different. I was at the age where kids were very mean and judgemental. I was so afraid that I wouldnt be accepted by any of these kids in my new school because I was different. The biggest thing was my accent. I talked with a hideous southern twang and kids at that age thought it was weird. I remember the first day at school one boy ran up to me and said I was weird because I talked funny. I remember going home that night and just crying to my mom, telling her that I never wanted to school again. I was so mad that we had to move away from all my other friends where I fit in. But the next day I came to school, many new people offered to be my friend. One girl even asked her friend to look out for me while she went on vacation! I thought that was very nice and I am still very very good friends with that girl today. I am very fortunate though, because I made a lot of friends.

So to say the least, Wisconsin really isn't that bad :)

This I believe

I believe in good karma. Most people see karma as something negative, but I believe that what comes around goes around has been very positive in my life. I believe that it is most rewarding when you do something for someone out of the kindness of your heart, not expecting something in return.

For example, one day I had just gotten home from school and noticed my elderly neighbor going down her driveway to get her mail. The night before we had had a huge snow storm that accumulated nearly a foot of snow. As I was walking inside my house I heard a scream and noticed my neighbor had fallen on an ice patch at the bottom of her driveway. With out any hesitation, I ran over to help her up. She kept complaining about the pain in her hip, and ordered me to call an ambulance. When they arrived I helped her grab her purse and call her son to tell him what happend. It turned out that she broke her hip from the fall. I felt bad, so I came over to help with anything she needed. When it snowed, I shoveled her driveway. I brought in her mail for her and did what ever she needed me to do. I felt good about myself because nobody was forcing me to do this for her. About a month after her accident, I recieved a letter in the mail from my neighbor, as I opened it, a check for $200 fell out onto the floor! I was so shocked, I felt like it was too much to give me, seeing as I never intended on being paid in the first place. I took the money to her house and asked her to take it back, but she would not.

I felt that doing good for someone was a great enough reward, but receiving something unexpected was a great surprise.

I believe in good karma :)