Fragments.

News From Mexico. Not meant to scare, but to inform. Something should be done.

The last time someone told me or my friends to "Grow Up!", it was my former roommate. She followed it up by stomping off and muttering "Fuck you." I don't think you want me to put you on that list of people I consider immature because you pass judgement on people before you bother trying to understand them.

The weather here was 30* last night and over 65* this afternoon. I believe this is absurd.

The PRIDE chalking for Day of Silence won the IUP Chalk-on-the-Walk contest in the Oak Grove yesterday. Last night I walked for 20 minutes to see all the chalkings before shuffling inconsiderate feet destroyed them. They were, for the most part, beautiful. I wanted to take pictures but my camera isn't working and it was too dark to use the cell phone.

I took part in Day of Silence yesterday. The guys at work tried to "crack" me and get me to talk, and failed.

I leave the country on the 14th. In some ways, I wish I was never coming back, although I'm sure I'll be glad to be home after six weeks.

There once was a frog...

in the middle of a bog. A small, green frog, on a half-sunk log, in the middle of the bog.

This morning I got up bright and early to do a story reading assignment for my Children's Literature class. The mission: to find a group of children, read one or more stories to them, and record our reading. The problem: I ended up with a temperamental tape recorder. I read two stories, did very well with both of them, and ended up with one recording: the test recording I'd made last night, plus a "testing, testing" just before it, which I recorded this morning to ensure that I didn't end up with a blank tape. And I ended up with what might as well be a blank tape, despite the fact that there is a full recording of me reading a story to myself. I hate technology. Now I have to explain that I did the reading, read a story about paper cranes, passed out paper cranes to the small children, gave some to the librarian and left the tape player "recording" the whole time, and ended up with NADA. I'm sure she'll understand, but it still sucks. I wanted to be successful for once. Next time, I'm just inviting her along so she can grade me in person. Screw technology. Gah.

Television

I did a very silly thing and turned on the television this afternoon, and it has sucked away my time. The original intent was to see if Chronicles of Narnia really was going to be playing tonight on one of the college broadcasts, but I ended up watching SciFi instead. There is a new movie/miniseries/something by Stephen King, called Kingdom Hospital. It's scary (of course). And I kinda like it.

I should be doing homework, but I am a television addict. Curses to the inventors of television. Curses, I say!

At least there are commercial breaks...

Honors Core and all things Dreadful

The weather sucks, my homework sucks, and life in general sucks. My job, on the other hand, was made more exiting by a fight upstairs between a patron and a staff member (I missed seeing it but heard the whole story from the guys who went running up there). And for once, my Honors Core readings haven't been so dry you could dehydrate by reading them. Journals and discussion remain tedious, however.

I was invited to dress up and beat people with padded weaponry this summer; it looks like loads of fun but I'm not sure I'll have the time, nor will the boy, who would not want me to go without him. I understand that, 'cause he's geekier than I am by far :p Still, the summer looks promising. I can get out of finals on the 10th of May, I leave for Mexico on the 13th, get back on the 24th of June, and hopefully can find a job in Pittsburgh and live with the boy till we move in to our new apartment at the beginning of August. Joy! Even if we're both working full-time this summer it'll be better than school AND work, and we'll be together. And it will be warm - oh, I miss being warm.

I am a failure at being organized but I have hope that one of these days I'll actually manage it. So far all I've done is declare Spring Cleaning officially started and sort out some crap from the top of my dresser/desk. Textbooks are next; I need to find a way to put them up so they're not in stacks on the floor and I can get to them easily. Bookshelf? But then I'd have to move some of my beloved fantasy novels... hm. Well, I'll figure it out. Back to the homework.

And so, dear reader(s), I leave you with this:
Excerpt from Gary Marcus, The birth of the mind. (2004) NY: Basic Books.

"...saying that a trait can be "attributed" to genes is not the same thing as saying it is caused by genes; heritabilities are just measures of correlation, and correlation never guarantees causation. Almost all Jedi Knights are male and hence bear Y chromosomes, so statistically speaking, the chance of being a Jedi Knight is tied to the presence or absence of a Y chromosome. But Princess Leia may have the Force, too; perhaps the real problem is not a lack of talent, but a lack of opportunity - maybe the Jedi powers-that-be in her era tended not to give females equal consideration for Yoda's Jedi boot camp (though I hear that equal opportunity could reach the Force in Episode VII). Y chromosomes would then be correlated with who gets to be a Jedi, but they would not be a cause of being one."
p. 10
/random geekitude, from an Associate Prof. of Psych. at NYU. He cites a source, too - a personal communication from a friend.

Bye, Bye, Sunshine...

I hate you, Winter, Oh yes I do,
I hate you, Winter, please just be through.
When it starts snowing, I'm blue,
Oh Winter, I hate you!

Gah. Half a week in New York and it's back to the usual damp, icy-cold March weather complete with IUP-worthy windstorms. The house is chilly, my computer's in the shop waiting hopefully for a faster processor, and I'm feeling ugly (in the attitude sort of way) due to lack of adequate food/sleep/warm bodies to cuddle with.

Today I got up at 6 so I could go down to the computer shop with mom and sit around while she worked and then sit around some more while the guys came in and worked and finally get my computer into a spot on the long bench full of test monitors and such, and work on it. I tore out the two tiny hard drives (10 and 12GB) and they gave me a 120GB drive to replace them. Oh, ecstasy. So with that and a faster processor I'll be purring for a while, methinks. I also put two new office chairs together for them - go me. I am teh mechanicz0r. And yes, I read the instructions. I am not dumb but I do like to get things right the first time.

Spring Break is turning out to be Spring Cleaning/Working/Fighting with Sisters, but that was to be expected. I still have homework to do, too.

Oh, I forgot to mention...

My roommate, who was causing me all sorts of stress because we never talked, finally got fed up, "gave" me the room, and took an empty single down the hall just before Valentine's Day. I have reason to believe that our lack of communication was the main reason she left, although I also suspect that her upbringing in an upper-middle-class family with three brothers (and therefore no one to share with) made her especially unable to share a room with someone who was so radically different. I'm not sure she could have shared a room with her twin without getting bitchy.

I walked into the room one afternoon and she was packing. She said we needed to talk, I sat down, she gave me one short rant about feeling disrespected and my boyfriend having driven her out of the room (he was here once every two weeks, on average, while hers was around once a week at least) and went back to packing furiously. I didn't even bother arguing, because she had the same look on her face that my little sister gets sometimes - the "I dare you to tell me I'm wrong so I can bite your head off" look. It wasn't worth bitching her out if she was leaving and so I just fed her some BS line about wishing we could have worked out our differences and went mildly back to my corner.

Since then we've exchanged two greetings and one half-argument. The time before last time I saw her, we were in line together at the food court and she purposely ignored everything in my general direction. I was almost amused by it. This weekend, she came to the door and pounded on it, and before I had the sense to pretend I was away, I opened it and came face to face with a Puffed Up Angry Bitch. The conversation went something like this: (translations for those who weren't there to see facial expressions, although mine was mostly deadpan/surprise)
"I want my marker back." (NOW. OR I WILL WHINE AT YOU.) *glareglareglare*
*wtf?* "I don't have it. And he (indicating my boyfriend, who she was glaring at around the half-open door) has been here with me all day. (BACK OFF AND GO WHINE TO SOMEONE ELSE.)
"O RLY? Blahblahblah I GAVE you this room (really? You didn't even ask if I wanted it...), you fuck with my whiteboard (um... right. 'Cause I care that much.) and you need to grow up!" (I WILL CRY. I AM NOT ABLE TO DEAL WITH THIS.)
"Well, look. We don't know where your marker is. I haven't done anything to you and I'm not going to." (I DON'T CARE, GO AWAY.)
*stomps off* "Fuck you. Fuck you both." (ANGST! BITTER ANGST!)
"Thank you." (BEEN THERE, HEARD THAT, DON'T THINK IT'S MATURE OR NECESSARY.)

The boy found her whiteboard marker under the water fountain a few feet down the hall from her door - it had fallen off and probably been kicked there accidentally. Shit happens, hon. He put it back sans comment. I would have gladly handed her all four of my extra markers if it would have made her stop hating us and disappear, but she has her mind set and arguing with a pissed-off teenager is like arguing with some Christians: They never really listen to your side as long as they can hear theirs.

The erasing of her whiteboard was not my fault any of the three or four times it happened. The boy did it once or twice and I don't really care, if she has problems with him she can approach him. I'm not his keeper nor his mother, and he can take care of himself. Oddly enough, since one of those erasings was mid-week when the boy wasn't here, I suspect she has problems with more people than just us.

And in other news, I'm halfway to 40 today (March 6). (Thank you, classmate, for pointing this out) It's time for my quarter-life crisis now... :P

Burning the candle at both ends

My Pedagogy teacher (who speaks with a delightful southern accent, it makes me giggle to think about) told me I need to do something about being so tired. "Can you cut down yoah houas at work?" she asked me. And of course I can't... the money's more important than sleep is at this point. But she says if I sleep through another exam I won't get a make-up, points off or no. I'll just fail.

So yes, I am too busy for my own good. By tuesday night I usually feel like it's Friday. But here it is Friday and I'm supposed to be working on a 10-15 page paper, and I'm messing around online instead. My schedule looks kinda like this:
Monday: Chicken-with-its-head-cut-off day. Running around almost constantly from 8am to 2am.
Tuesday: Pretty much the same thing but I have to dress up and catch a bus at 7:30. Pre-Student Teaching is fun!
Wednesday: 8am-11, and 12:30-2, then a break till work at 6.
Thursday: Blessed sleep! No class till 1:15, although sometimes I get up early to work on the piles of things that need doing. Work 11pm-2am.
Friday: One class at 8am, the other at 2:15. Loads of time in between to go back to bed, except I usually don't. No work, thank god.
There are also the non-class things like laundry, grocery shopping and scholarship essays. But those are easy to set aside and deal with Later (read: when I get around to it; see also: never).

I got to see the hawk today. I had been told by several people that there's a hawk living on campus, supposedly nesting in the Oak grove. Today he(she?) was in a tree near Whitmyre, with five or six raucous crows perched in the higher branches. It watched me come up the path and stare at it, and then the crows took off and so did the hawk. I don't know if it was me staring that riled them up, or if they just decided it was too cold to be sitting around. That hawk is impressive, though. I think it's a red-tail, but it was tough to see markings against the awful dull grey clouds. Maybe I'll get a better view next time, and remember to get pictures. My camera needs new batteries.

And it's off to work again, because I need to make the rest of this paper sound as incoherent as the first half, so that everyone is so confused by the meaning they forget to tell me how badly organized and written it is. ^_^ I strongly dislike bu__sh__, but at least it's useful in research papers.

Home...

The library will close in twenty-five minutes. Here I sit with a borrowed library laptop; orange spray-painted letters declare it property of IUP LIBRARIES. It's warm in my lap, but not quite warm enough - these ones never overheat the way the boy's does. They're all Dells, half of them older models and half newer Inspiron 1150s, grey and sleek next to their boxy black ancestors. They all sit in the back tech office, charging when they're not in circulation, so it's easy for the tech workers to take them.

The library at 1:30am is ghostly silent, the coffee place closed since 9 and most stragglers already gone. The third floor, cold and empty, smells of mildew and worn pages, and the shelves form comforting nooks and crannies, dividing the silence into patches of quiet air. It's never the same temperature on every floor and in every corner. The second floor is warmer, and busier, sometimes three or four students will linger after the announcement is played: "The library will close in ten minutes. The circulation desk is now closed." They drag themselves away from late-night studying and hurried paper-printing, shuffling toward the doors like they've been pulled away too soon. The first floor is a hive of activity in comparison; it's where all the student workers gather as they shut down the desks and head for the exits. There are smiles and jokes about turning the lights off on the last patrons. Sometimes they do it, just for kicks. Nobody really complains, after the last warning. It's time to go home.

I get to walk back with a co-worker who lives one street away, trading small talk. Up three flights of stairs, to the warm sanctuary of 3rd North, and quietly into the dark room. My roommate is asleep, or pretending, and I am grateful. No more lights or noise tonight. Just the dark and the soft pillow, and the blanket the boy accidentally left this weekend, which I can wrap myself in if I am not asleep the moment I take off my shoes.

Morbid?

You scored as Disappear. Your death will be by disappearing, probably a camping trip gone wrong or an evening hike you never returned from. Always remember that one guy who was hiking alone and got in a rock slide. He could have died, but he cut his own hand off to save himself. Don't end up like him (or worse, dead). Disappear 87% Suicide 67% Drowning 60% Natural Causes 53% Bomb 53% Gunshot 47% Suffocated 47% Stabbed 47% Accident 47% Eaten 40% Posion 40% Disease 33% Cut Throat 20% How Will You Die?? created with QuizFarm.com

Spring 2006

I guess this semester won't be as hard as I expected. Or maybe it will. Here's how things finally lined up:

17 credits. The extra Spanish class (3 more) wouldn't fit in the schedule.

20 hrs/wk work at the library. I was hoping for twice that, but it's not fair to the other student workers... and I suppose this way I'll actually get some sleep.

$362.65 worth of textbooks. Ouch?

Now all I need to do is pay off my credit card, find, finance and buy a car, find an apartment for next year, and remember to practice my Irish Dance once in a while. Eh, this should be an easy semester.

In other news, the weather here is disconcerting. Last year it was warm until November, but at least January looked... like January. Snow and blowing winds and ice and the works. This year I haven't seen more than a foot of snow yet, and most of the time it's just overcast and windy, in the kind of way that suggests very early spring. Right now it's an icy downpour outside, and even though the forecast calls for snow tomorrow, I'm betting it won't happen. It really makes Global Warming seem up-close and personal - January in Western Pennsylvania and not a flake of snow to be seen.

Oh, and I bought a helmet. So now the boy can take me out on the bike, once the weather gets a little warmer ^_^. I've only been out with him once but it was fun.

Friendship

"Less than one percent of friends stay close after graduation... Challenge the statistic."
That's what the mural in our high school hallway said. We had lots of murals, they were done by the students and brightened up the drab institutional halls a lot. That one sticks in my mind though, because after two years I'm beginning to see the truth of it.

Allison, Madison, Laura, Casey, Nicole, Roxie, Devin, Kymrie, Rachel, Eric, Steve, Josh, and JP were the classmates I spent the most time with two years ago. Now I hang out with Al, and talk to Nicole, Steve and Josh online, and rarely. The others have seemingly disappeared - no phone calls, letters, emails, or greetings passed on by other friends. I'm not blaming them, though. I haven't exactly been showering my former friends with news and information. Most of them don't know my address at school or home (in today's world, who needs a mailing address to talk to a friend?), and I'm sure they're as busy as I am, which means nobody has (or makes) time to sit down and send off a quick email. I haven't even gotten a Christmas card from any of them. Oh well, eh? Times change, people change, life goes on. But I still miss them occasionally, and I still feel like I'm being left out of important happenings - like when I check Nicole's mySpace blog and it says "my bf". ...she has a boyfriend? It'd be nice if I knew who, and when, and what brought that on - she's heavily Christian and I seriously expected her to be single into her twenties when she decided to find the Perfect Man to marry. Not that I had anything against that decision but suddenly her having a boyfriend is... well, like Al having one. Coincidentally, she does too, now. But at least I got to hear about it when it happened.

I guess what I'm saying is that even though I'm not the best at staying in touch and letting people know what's going on in my life, I'd still like a chance to discuss these kinds of changes every once in a while - before too much happens and we just have to stand there grinning awkwardly next time we meet, because we don't know each other any more. All it takes is one email, or letter, or (even though I hate the phone) a call, because I want to talk and will find the time, but not if you don't want to; and the less I hear from you the less it seems you want to hear from me.
"Make new friends, but keep the old; One is silver and the other, gold." (Girl Scout Friendship Song)

Babble

I feel like I should update this even though I don't have any idea what to say right now. Windows Media Player, despite being a Microsoft product (and therefore Bad), has some fun visualizations. I love the "strawberryaid" one. I may be easily amused, but you have to admit that watching color combinations like chartreuse and fuschia swirl and spike on the screen is pretty fun. Three cheers for another waste of time!

Speaking of wastes of time... this is a fun one. There's also this geeky article about Google possibly expanding into hardware; interesting but just speculation at the moment.

Mm, tea.

Getting up early is almost nice. Almost. I've been waking up with the boy at 5 (who could sleep through his alarm anyway?) and taking a nap around mid-morning to catch up on those last two or three hours of sleep. Don't know how he stays awake all day. I guess I'm just not used to it. I should get used to it, though. I'm going to be working a lot next semester and probably not getting as much sleep.

I'm trying not to worry about him taking his brand-new bike to work. I know it's not freezing and icy but it is winter and it's not like he has a lot of experience. Eh, I'd worry even if he did. As I tell him, I'm a girl, and it's my job to worry. ^^' Someone has to.

The parental units have kindly offered to come pick me up if I want to come home for Lil'un's birthday. It would be good to be there. She grows up so fast when I'm not around. Both of them do. Sister 1 is applying to colleges. I know she'll get into all of them, she's a smart girl. Too smart, sometimes :P

The fun thing about being home alone all day is that you get a lot of those little side-things done. You know; the ones that tend to be shoved to the bottom of the list time after time, because you're busy. I've started sewing that dress that I began in July, and am working on a crocheted shawl that I might just finish before the end of break. Need a little more yarn, though. Meh to patterns that can't be made with one skein/ball. And I'm playing housewife and keeping things relatively tidy around here, or at least in a constant state of disorganization. Dishes have been washed, laundry put away, and one of these days I'll actually make dinner. We have tons of xmas leftovers, though. And yes, I AM eating. For some reason I have lost weight (a few pounds - am I really that thin that a few pounds would show?) and although I insist that it's muscle weight because I didn't have fat to lose in the first place and haven't done a good workout in months, my mother told the boy to make sure I eat. Ah well. No complaints here. Though if the apartment complex's fitness center is open (I think they have one, anyway) I might stroll over some day.

Found something that wasn't mentioned on CNN (at least as far as I know). You'd think the Christian community would be more... disrupted.... by this. I think it's funny. No offense to the religious or opinionated, but you have to admit that there is amusement value. And how ironic that it's in Rome. Oh, the Catholic Church must love that.

Pittsburgh

There's a lot to say but no one to say it to, so this may be short.

Christmas was good, in comparison to other years. I went with the boy on Christmas Eve and enjoyed the family get-together at his aunt's house. There was some drama, but for the most part it was just me and him comfortable on the couch downstairs, watching TV and avoiding the noisy adults. I don't really feel like I am one yet but playing with the kids is out of the question - I'm definitely not 12 any more. So it was nice just repeating last year and sitting out of the way, warm and full of good food.

If I could change any one thing about myself, it would be my dedication to making everyone happy. I have tried so hard to please everyone else and myself all at once that I'm about to fall apart at the seams. Advice to those who want to make people happy: don't. I'm not saying being selfish works either, because it tends to get me into more problematic situations than making people happy... well, nevermind. They both suck. I'm screaming at myself, Just find a balance already.

Notes
Friends and Family: If I had a way to get there I'd drive up on Friday, because missing my sister's 14th birthday and my friends' New Years' party isn't something I really want to do. But between three weeks of boredom punctuated by visits and parties I'll probably feel slightly uncomfortable at, or three weeks of the boy every day, with shopping and games and cuddling, I'll take the boy.
Boy: You've heard just about everything I have to say. I love you very much.
Blog Readers: Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. Enjoy what you've got and tell someone you love them every day. Give people hugs... they make everyone's day a little better.

I wish winter would end. I miss basking in sunshine.

Joy to the World

It's Christmas Eve, and the family's sitting in front of the TV. Gah. They're watching "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." I'm half-watching it. Not really worth the attention. Little Sis is upstairs reading for once - I applaud that. She has threatened to wake me up at 2am though, so I may barricade my door. Nobody's disturbing my sleep.

The lady at Wal-Mart the other night said "Merry Christmas." I wonder if the corporate policy shifted or if she was just sick of "Happy Holidays"... 'cause last I heard everyone was complaining about the political correctness of the holiday season. Ugh. People need to learn to deal.

I'm trying to make this meaningful but it's just ramble. I went to Rick's aunt's house tonight and had a pretty good time despite us being the only two people our age there. ^^ And by the way, it was nearly 50 today. Wow.

Merry... Happy... Have a Satisfactory, Non-denominational, Capitalist, Wintertime Gift-giving Season!

A note on Christmas. This woman is my heroine. I wish I had her inner strength.

A long, long time ago...

I just dug out a post that I started, thought about posting and decided to research more. Good thing I didn't, it would've become a book.

I had a thought this morning (June 25th) about The Church. I'm not talking specifically about the one down the street from me, or a certain religious sect, but about religious groups in general. A generalization obviously does not apply to all groups or in all situations but this is simply what I have observed concerning the larger and better-known religions, including most branches of Christianity.
Many of the great masters of religion spent their most spiritually fulfilling years in poverty.

We start with Abraham, the man from whom three major religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - are said to be descended. He was told to give up not his material possessions, but something more dear: his beloved son Isaac. This is obviously because material possesions aren't worth much to God.

Jesus was the son of a carpenter, which at that time was a middle-class job, but his mother obviously couldn't bribe the inn owner for a room. He grew up learning a trade and working for a living, not living off the wealth of donations from those who would have his blessing. So he didn't teach from a golden throne, he taught from a rocky hilltop, and it was what he said that mattered, not what he wore or how much money he made.

I know most people associate white robes with purity and holiness, but it's probably just as true to say that Jesus wore "white" (If I'm correct, it wasn't bleached white, but the typical creamy white of unbleached wool) because dyed material would have cost more and he didn't care about appearing royal.

Muhammad, prophet of Allah and founder of Islam, left his followers with the commandment to share with the poor and be humble.

Even the Buddha, who was born a prince, found enlightenment after he left the material world of the palace and lived as a beggar. He spent his days teaching under trees, not in the courtyards of palaces.

Confucius? Confucius say, he who fart in church sit in own pew. Okay, so Confucius didn't live a beggar's life but he was pretty damn smart.

It isn't only the Christian scripture that tells us how difficult it is for the wealthy to get into heaven or reach nirvana. There's a lot out there instructing us to get rid of our possessions and attachments before we can really get onto the path toward spiritual truth and awakening. However, I'm most familiar with the Christian type of hypocrisy. Matt 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25 - "It is easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Funny how that same line is repeated over and over through the retellings of Christ's teachings. And yet most of the self-labeled "Christians" I know have good jobs and expensive SUV's and HDTVs, and wouldn't easily let go of their comforts.

So why does the Church "need" (and have) so much money, land and material goods? They obviously don't need it to spread the Word, because their founders/masters/inspirational figures didn't need it and they managed to start large followings all the same. They shouldn't care about material goods as a base for having power, because the power of God should be the main force of the Church, not the power of a few thousand acres of land and two or three billion dollars. The Church essentially does not even need to own a meeting place, although it is more convenient for them to do so. The bible states that as far as worship goes, it can be done at home and without ceremony (Matthew 6), but many people find that finding the time and privacy to worship in their homes is inconvenient and sometimes just uncomfortable.

Wait. Convenience and comfort! It's a driving force behind almost everything we and the Church do today. Look at how most of us live. We shop at Wal-Mart or its equivalent, we take hot showers for granted and when we want food we don't even have to inconvenience ourselves enough to cook - toss a premade pizza in the oven and you're good to go. Instead of focusing on how we live and what we believe, we focus on fitting into the crowd - being another of the sheep. Following blindly is easy, it requires no thought and uses the time we would otherwise use to think for ourselves. And besides, if you look good to everyone else, where's the sense in actually working to be good? Nobody can tell the difference, right?

Apparently for a religious group to be successful, it doesn't have to tell the truth or explain the mysteries of the universe; it's the presentation that counts and not the backstage work. So Churches are large and beautifully decorated, most ask for donations or support from their members and all of them hold some kind of power that allows them to advertise the comfort and convenience people have come to expect from life. The Churches gain members not by seeking those who willingly come for the truth, but by seeking those who willingly give up the truth for a life of comfortable materialism. There's a lot going on behind the scenes, but it's hidden to those who aren't paying close attention and that means most of the congregation will look at the surface, see their reflection shining prettily back and never bother getting wet to check if the bottom of the spring is as clear as the top.

That's all for tonight, folks. Thanks for tuning in to another session of Thoughts by Fae.

*Scriptural quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) and BlueLetterBible*

"When Murder Hits the Blogosphere"

Murder by MySpace would have been a more apt title. I don't consider MySpace to be part of the 'blogosphere' at all, despite the fact that it offers web journals as part of profiles. It's full of people whose main intent is not to blog but to hang out online, and my idea of the blogosphere is somewhere the bigger kids go to share ideas, opinions and thoughts first, and hang out second if at all. Just a thought though.

The fact that the murder happened at all is frightening, and it brings us back to the same thing people have been saying for centuries (or at least every year I can remember): Parents ought to pay attention to their children! I believe that if for once they would sit down and listen, get involved, keep their girls away from guys four years older (especially in high school *shudder*), teach their boys how to respect women, etc, the world would be a much better place. Instead (prepare for Generalizations!) they use TV as the automatic babysitter and let the little anklebiters grow up as they will, with only occasional monetary support and halfhearted discipline. Or they beat their children into submission because they're afraid they'll run off and do something stupid.

There are days my faith in humanity is in the negative numbers. Sometimes it hits 0, and that's when you know I'm having a good day. And when it gets to 10, I'm obviously blissfully ignorant of anything around me. At the moment it's hovering somewhere near absolute zero.

DRAMA!

Speaking of Drama...
Last night at Chick-Fil-A a pair of girls walked up to the counter to order, and stood there talking for a minute. The first girl was on a rant about some other girl, who was a b**** and the ugliest girl she'd ever seen and had no manners, while the other girl was saying supportive things.
Girl 1: "I mean, who does she even think she is?!"
Girl 2: "It starts with 'T' and ends with 'R-A-S-H.'"
They ordered, I got their food and they kept talking about the wicked evil woman who was obviously catching the interest of someone important. As they took their tray, I addressed Girl 1: "Losing your boyfriend to another girl?"
Them (surprised): "How did you know? *giggle*" And they walked away still complaining.

I'm tired of drama, personally. I've created enough of my own that I don't want to think about anyone else's, let alone hear about it as they proclaim to the world that their boyfriends are lying cheating bastards. It's stupid, men are assholes, get over it. Obviously if he's leaving you you're not so great yourself, and in my experience the ones who take a breakup the hardest are the most insecure. *sigh*

I overslept this morning (I don't even remember setting my alarm now that I think about it) and woke up halfway through my first class. It's happened to me before, but I hate when it does - except this morning. This morning I was just glad to get the extra two hours of sleep, and a chance to study for my Geography test... which I haven't done, and class is in half an hour. Oh well. At least I'll be well-rested.

I want my paycheck. Apparently I need to stop buying Chai from the coffee places so often.

Smart Shopping.

There was a craft show at the student union building. I went over to shop, because I thought I might find something cute for a friend. Two hours and just over $100 later, I've nearly finished my Christmas shopping. I love handmade crafts, and I love local artisans, and Wal-Mart isn't getting any visits from me this year. :D I feel fantastic about it, too. The people I bought from were nice, and very talented, and there was just about everything under the sun to choose from. I even got myself something just because I could. This Christmas is going to rock.