who needs homework, when you can blog?

This summer, I made a life goal of sticking up for myself.  My whole life, I have tried to be the people pleaser and usually it gets to the point where I'm so focused on others' happiness, I forget my own.  I have also encountered people who interpret my niceness as weakness and take advantage of me.  Sheesh, this sounds so cynical so far, but I promise I haven't been tainted and that I don't like to be nice to people anymore.  That's not it.  It's just about time that I take care of my own needs so that I can better help others.  Happiness starts with yourself.
The reason I bring this up is because I had cleared a milestone with this goal this last week.  About a month ago, I left my iPod in one of the machines at my gym.  I panicked when I got home and called right away.  they found it (thank goodness!) and put it in lost and found for me to pick up.  When I went to go pick it up on Monday, it wasn't in the locked lost and found drawer and no one had signed for it in the log.  I still don't know what that means, but I was a bit upset.
Since I hate confrontation, I let it slide for about a week...or two...just asking at the front desk if they had it, but not doing anything about it when they said "no."  Hilary (my roommate) finally made me get the guts to talk to the manager of the gym.  The manager said that she will take care of it.  Another week goes by and I still haven't heard from them, so I call the Utah Valley corporate office.  They say that this is the company's fault since it wasn't signed out and it went missing while it was in their possession.  They were going to look into it and then call me back.  A couple of days later, they called me back saying that there is a new iPod waiting for me at their office.
A new iPod!
Moral of the story:  I was afraid to stick up for myself just because I didn't want to make anyone else upset over my iPod.  But because I was brave (but still polite about it! I didn't once holler at anyone), I got a brand new iPod that was better than the one that was taken.  You get rewarded for sticking up for yourself!