Final

Mari Nakamitsu

7 April 2011

J. Shimabukuro

Creative Non-Fiction

I enter the room and become lost in time.  Everything is motionless as small specks of dust, indiscriminant, float and glide while bathed in light.  There are birds calling for one another outside the window and everything is shrouded in warm air.  From the moment I met her I knew what part of my life would be.  (THESIS) It is because of her that I knew I would work with therapy dogs in my work (THESIS).  She was something special and someone I knew I could count on.  When everything seemed unstable, she was a rock, ever quiet, ever listening and always there.  She would never get tired of me, complain or judge and sometimes that’s what people need.  Even when I knew I was wrong, I just needed someone to talk to. 

Ever since I can remember, I have always wanted a dog, something that most kids want.  I watch/ed a lot of documentaries on animals and especially liked the ones about dogs.  I knew everything about them and to this day am still expanding my reservoirs of knowledge on this subject.  I did not really care what kind of dog, as long as it was a dog.  I was six years old when my mom finally conceded and decided that perhaps I was ready for a dog.  My mom was tireless in her research for the perfect breed.  We went to the Humane Society countless numbers of times but never found the perfect dog for us.  We searched through breeders of all kinds of dogs and still never found the one for us.  Until one day we looked at some Yorkshire Terrier puppies, (or Yorkies) and we found her.  Since then, Yorkies have gained incredible popularity among celebrities and women as small dogs that just look cute.  But trust me, though they are small and cute, they are still terriers at heart.  Terriers derived from the latin word “terra” or earth, bred for hunting small vermin, and known for their intelligence and tenacity.  She was a terrier in every sense of the word.  As soon as she saw us, she perked up and got excited, walking upon her brothers and sisters in the process.  Others might think that she is just a hyper dog, but in life she was not at all very excitable or hyper.  My mom knew this was the dog for us.  She was interested in us, not dominant, overly hyper or aggressive.  We took her home with us. 

I spent 14 years with her and grew very attached to the dog that was always at my side whether I was watching tv, reading, or walking around the house.  I always felt more secure with her around me.  Whenever I felt afraid she would always check it out first and I would then follow confidently, knowing if she is not afraid then there is no reason for me to be either.  She would only bark if there was someone she did not recognize in our driveway, or if she needed her water or food bowl filled.  Being an only child, she was like the sibling I never had.  I liked having her presence around me.  She was the catalyst to me wanting to incorporate dog therapy in my work whatever it may be.  I researched animal therapy and just by walking on the street with her, if was apparent, dogs make people feel better.  Petting a dog and releasing your emotions onto it makes people less stressed and more at ease.  It was just relaxing to me to watch her sunbathe in the back room, sprawled out on her side in the golden sun, at ease.  She made me understand life better and feel more relaxed.  Dogs will not tell people your secrets, your hopes and dreams and they are loyal to the end.  I knew that people used dogs for therapy, but I thought to myself, “not enough”.

I want to become a geriatric social worker, somewhere I can help the elderly live a more peaceful life, the best that they can until the inevitable.  Having a dog with bring unity and peace, encouraging them to talk and interact with someone.  Besides that they will be getting some physical therapy as well that will not seem so mechanical and harsh.  By simply taking a walk or throwing a ball with a dog will help them and not make it feel like such a chore.  A lot of people in nursing homes do not get visitors or regular visitors, having a dog there all the time will make things less lonely and will allow the people to interact with someone all the time  and make them feel more secure. 

It is my first dog, Brownie that made me know that this is what I want to do in life.  I want to help people and dogs because I understand the powerful connection between them and realize that I want to incorporate strongly, therapy dogs in my life’s work.      

Undecided FD4

Mari Nakamitsu

5 April 2011

Creative Non-Fiction                       

J. Shimabukuro

Undecided

It’s something that has been bothering me for a while, more than just the daily struggles of being irritated that I experience most of the time.  I hear her voice, echoed through the glass of my drink.  When I think of her, which has become increasingly often lately, silence falls enough for the clink of the ice melting to indicate the passage of time.  We have known each other for eight years and been through a lot.  Surely most of our time spent together was seemingly the most difficult portion of our lives, learning to deal with ourselves and discovering who we are, though never finding it until afterward.  I have discovered this now.  I wish I could share it with her, I wish she could understand.  (THESIS) Those who seek a difficult path, elect their lives to remain difficult (THESIS).  I saw her a week after my birthday, she came to drop off my present.

During those early years, when we first met, I thought she was kind of strange to be honest.  Not necessarily in a bad way, I just thought that she was a little immature and excitable.  Like it or not, we somehow ended up together in a lot of our classes.  She was never in my homeroom, our last names were too far apart.  My other best friend at the time was chipping away at me because of her mental illness.  Although I knew she could not help but lie all the time, I was wearing thin of being lied to my face about everything, no matter how little.  Eventually our relationship became neglected and we both left it unattended.  It was ok with me though, because I had already found this new friend.  Over the years we bonded and she always seemed to have some kind of problem.  I always stuck it out with her and I always made sure to be there for her no matter what.  During this time and to this day, for the most part, my problems stay my own and I am very much fine with that.  She was there for my minor difficulties that I experienced and I was there for all of her difficulties.  Whenever she had a problem, I always knew the right things to say to make her feel better or to help her solve her problems.  I chose to figure out my problems for myself for the most part and I do not regret anything.  Perhaps it was good for me to have figured out things for myself. 

Sometimes I wonder what went wrong.  Although she did have some issues, I was always there for her even when her own family wasn’t.  Everything I thought she did would wear off with maturity, like most, but somehow it hasn’t.  Perhaps her psychological issues are more deeply rooted than I thought.  By now, I thought, all of this would fade away as she grew into herself.  But everything just kept getting worse.  She was always crazy for boys, she always had a crush on someone.  I could never talk to her about those kinds of things because I was never really interested in boys or love or dating or anything like that.  It may sound strange but until I met my boyfriend, I thought that I was asexual and had no interest in men or women or relationships at all.  Perhaps I thought this because no one ever liked me and I was sure that I was just really ugly, therefore I concluded that I should be asexual and that I was.  Mostly, she struggled with those feelings and that was the source of her problems, even today.  It was freshman year I think, the first guy she went out with.  He was a friend of our other friend.  I did not like him especially; he was kind of a jerk.  He turned out to be a jerk too.  They dated on and off for a few months, he was not very nice to her at all.  She just could not let him go so easily though, I never understood why, he had no redeeming qualities so I always thought she would dump him, but she never did.  Little did I know that this first boyfriend was going to be very mild from what was to come after we graduated.            

Over the years of high school the boys she dated became worse and worse.  She only dated one boy that was nice.  This guy broke up with her because she was cutting herself and he told her that he could not help her and be with her when she is like that, he told her he would always care for her and be her friend but could not date her right now.  By him doing that I knew that he was smart and kind and was the only person that was “good” for her.  After him she “dated” someone even worse than all the others.  It was senior year.  I put quotes around dated, because she was the “other woman”.  He had a girlfriend whom he had cheated on with other women besides my friend.  I don’t think that she ever admitted that she was the other woman, she always refers to him as her “ex” even though they never technically dated.  After she gathered the courage to not see him anymore (after his girlfriend found out about her) because of her guilt, she stated that she should be single for a while.  I agreed with her since she started dating she just went through one relationship after another. 

Next thing I knew, literally like the next week or so, she asked me if she should go out with this other guy that she met.  He sounded fishy, but I told her she should go on one date with him to see if he was nice and if she liked him.  I found out from her later that people who knew him and also knew her warned her about dating him because he was a mean, violent person.  She reveled in the fact that he was this kind of person who people warned her about.  I am not sure if she thought that he just had a “bad boy” reputation and was really the sensitive type like in stories or what she thought was great about this idea.  When I heard this I told her that I did not think dating him was a good idea, but like always she blew off my advice as well as the advice of the other friends she had around her.  I figured she would get over this relationship eventually like she had the last one and all the others, I thought it would just take a while like her other relationship ending had.  This relationship is still going on to this day. 

He began isolating her and telling her that everything in her life was stupid and insignificant.  He told her that her friends are stupid and the things she thought and liked were stupid.  Of course knowing this I became concerned and wondered why she could not see the things that I saw.  I devoted a lot of time to researching abusive relationships.  Everything that he did added up and coincided with abusive relationships including the high and low points in their relationship.  Now, I understand that in every relationship there are rough patches, there are higher and lower points.  However this was different, the high and low points were extreme and frequent, one could even calculate when the high and low points were going to be, like every few months or so.  I researched the cycle of abuse and what abusers say and do.  Everything that I learned about was true about their relationship.  He would manipulate her into blaming herself or to making excuses for the way he behaved.  He would hit her and then cry to her about how sorry he was.  This made me sick.  Especially when I knew it was her choice to keep taking him back.  Even now as I type, I get angry, my stomach twisting into knots.  She makes me upset for staying with him and not seeing what he’s doing and he makes me angry for hurting her.  I try not to think about it, but she is my best friend after all.  For the past year and a half I have tried talking to her about this as many different ways as I can, but to no avail. 

I never thought that I would witness abuse or in a way be a part of it.  It feels like being involved with a drug addict.  I know how that feels like and the feeling is similar.  He has stopped hitting her (as far as I know) but he is still controlling her and being psychologically abusive, but she thinks her relationship is getting “so much better”.  It hurts me, depresses me, and makes me feel helpless and confused.  What am I supposed to do?  Tell someone?  I have no answers.  I’ve talked about it with her other friends and everyone else feels the same.  No one knows what to do because it’s not that she wants to get out of the relationship and cannot, she chooses and wants to stay.  She doesn’t understand what he’s doing to her and why the rest of us feel the way we do.  I am undecided.      

Log of Completed Activities

_X_ Apr. 7- Intro to Paper #4: Read Guidelines for Paper #4: Literary Journalism

_X_ Apr. 11- Complete readings for paper #4: chap. 15

_  Apr. 15- Laulima Discussion #1.

_X_ Apr. 21- Laulima Discussion #2.

_X_ Apr. 29- RD4 due [50 pts] Review the guidelines.

_X_ May 2- Submit three RD4 evaluations. [50 pts] Review the guidelines.

_L_ May 4-9- FD4 due [150 pts] Review the guidelines.