Earth Hour

Last post of the week. What to write about? I've had a really hard week so I'm not in the mood to think of some phylosophical thought or talk about anything creative. But I found this article on Yahoo news and it was really interesting.

http://green.yahoo.com/news/afp/20080328/wl_asia_afp/climatewarmingaustraliaearthhour.html

The article talks about an "earth hour" set for tomorrow. Founded by Andy Ridley, the earth hour is a time tomorrow where cities across the world have agreed to turn off the lights for one hour in awareness of global warming. It seems like they are shutting down the lights of major attractions and landmarks and encouraging businesses and homeowners to do the same. It's a really great effort in trying to raise awarenss. This one hour will not help out that much in lowering energy use, but it will hopefully make people realize how important it is to conserve energy. I think most people, myself included, just don't think about how bad global warming really is and it's more of a hassle to do eco-friendly things. I don't think turning out the lights for an hour is so bad. They say it will occur at 0900 GMT...but I'm not sure exactly what time that would be here. Only 3 U.S. cities have signed up to participate in the earth hour. Chicago, San Fransisco, and Atlanta. So maybe sometime tomorrow, turn out your lights for an hour. It might be at the same time as everyone else, but just think about how much energy you waste. Global Warming may not seem like such a problem to us now, but it will be.

Last RCWS event

Last night was the final River City Writers Series event for the semester and school year. This was the first one I went to that had more than one author. I liked it though because it broke it up. Sometimes the readings can drag and get a little boring when it's just one person talking the whole time, but this was a good mix-up.

The first author was Christine Kenneally. She read from her book about the evolution of language. All the previous works I had read of hers were all somewhat scientific. This book was no different. I'm not really in to the whole science thing but it was interesting to hear her work. She was Australian too so she had a cool accent. I found it very interesting that all three writers wrote about subjects that were true and had to be researched in depth to write about them. I know how much research sucks and I hate doing it so I gave them all props for that.

The second reader was Josh Prager. I really liked his presence. His book was also a factual report of the most famour baseball game in the 1950's. He talked about interviewing the players and the scandal behind the game. It was really interesting to hear about his meeting with the players.

Third was Stacey Sullivan. She wrote a book war and how one man in New York single handedly set up his own militia and sent the supplies and weapons. You never think that one person can make a difference but in this case he did. Because of his help, $30 million was raised and he helped his army kill many of the enemy. They are heroes now.

The three people were just very interesting to listen to. It's hard to sit that long and be attentive when you're so ADD like me, but it was really good.

A History of the Hangover

http://www.slate.com/id/2187387/

I found this article on Slate magazine online entitled "A History of the Hangover." I thought that sounded interesting so I figured I would look into it. It wasn't very long and I would exatcly call it a history of the hangover. It said that the hangover was once viewed as being caused by the stock market crash. I don't think I would consider that a reason for a hangover, unless it was because of the stock market crash that people went out and got really drunk which gave them a hangover.

The article mentioned that a well-known "cure" for a hangover is roast beef. I can honestly say I have never heard that. But surely the next time I have a hangover I'm gonna roll down to Arby's and see if that helps. There really isn't a cure for a hangover, but they do have a drug called Chaser Plus that is supposed to relieve hangovers. I've never tried it, but I alsways see it at the counter when I'm checking out at Walgreen's.

Thinking about hangovers makes me think of a friend of mine who always wakes up after a night of drinking and thinks she's still drunk. In reality, she just doesn't know that that's what a hangover is. She thinks she's still drunk, but no. It reminds me of that movie School of Rock where Jack Black announces to the class and says he has a hangover and asks if anyone knows what that means. One kid asks if that means he's drunk and he says "no, that means I was drunk yesterday." Well enough about the hangover. There's not much to say about it.

Infidelity in office

Today I went to lunch with two friends of mine. We were at a restaurant and there were tvs with the news on. One was talking about a Hillary Clinton rally where a woman asked her about Monica Lewinsky. Clinton refused to answer the question. I wouldn't have answered it either. My friend said that she thinks it's an important aspect when thinking about voting for someone. I disagree. She argued that someone who stays with their husband after knowing they had an affair is weak and shouldn't be considered President. I'm not particularly a Hillary supporter or anything but I disagree. I think it took a lot of courage for her to stay with her husband when the whole country knew he had an affair. I also don't think you can judge someone else's personal life. Did she only stay with her husband for political reasons? Possibly. But everyone isn't the same. Some people think there is absolutely no reason to stay with someone if they've cheated on you. I'm not an advocate for affairs, but I think sometimes the answer isn't always to break up or get a divorce. Most likely, she stayed with Clinton because of his political position. It would have hurt his position is she had left him. While many women wouldn't care (most would find pleasure in screwing them over as revenge), she stayed with him. Think about how hard that must have been for her. I'm not saying she was right or wrong, I'm just saying no one else should say if she was right or wrong. It was a personal matter that I'm sure was very hard for her to deal with. She tried to do it gracefully and without falling apart. I don't think it's anyone else's business but theirs.

Suicidal Tendencies

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/03/20/suicidal_tendencies?pg=full

I found this article written by Christine Kenneally about the relationship between IQ and suicide. Christine Kenneally is one of the authors who will be at tomorrows River City Writers Series event. So while I was looking at her blog I found this article.

The article talks about studies that have been done that link people's IQs to their suicidal tendencies. It talked mostly about men in their studies. (I find it interesting that they linked low IQs with men...ha). But the studies that were done we conducted in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries which have the highest suicide rates in the world. When I read that I thought of course they have the highest suicide rate! It's so fucking cold there people would rather kill themselves than be that cold. Ha, no. The study related IQ and education with suicide. It showed that men with low IQs but with lower level education were no more likely to kill themselves. But men with low IQs that had higher education were more likely to kill themselves. I can see how that would be true. If you have well-educated parents and you attend a higher level education such as college, you may feel inadequate if you have a low IQ. That puts pressure on someone to do well and if they fail it can push someone into depression which in turn can cause someone to kill themselves.

I don't know how anyone could ever kill themself. I think everyone gets depressed at some point in their life and may think there is nothing good going for them, I mean I've thought that before. But even if I ever thought things were so bad that I needed to kill myself, I don't think I would ever have the guts to do it. It just baffles me how people can do that to themselves.

double standard

My roommate and I just went to dinner with a male friend of ours. He was talking about his problems with a girl he's seeing and whatnot. Eventually we just started talking about relationships in general and how there is such a double standard between guys and girls. Is so much of a double standard that it's really sickening. If a girl has sex with 5 guys she's a whore; but if a guy has sex with 5 girls he's idolized. I'm not trying to say a girl that has sex with tons of guys should be seen as innocent or that it's ok. But certainly if a guy does the same thing it shouldn't be acceptable. Our friend was telling us like where he would draw the line with a girl and it kind of rubbed us the wrong way. Like a guy won't do certain things with a girl, but if se refused to do them, they would be furious. It really just kind of pisses me off. I don't know where guys thought it was ok to treat women like the only reason they are around is to please men. Women should be treated like princesses. I think guys feel that since girls are more sensitive and emotional that they can just walk all over us. Of course, I'm not speaking for all men, because there's a handful of good ones. And everyone slips up. But really, guys, girls don't need that much to be happy. Just be honest and faithful and pay attention to the little things. It's just really not that hard, and I don't understand why guys don't get it. I really just think they aren't that smart. No, I'm just kidding, but really. Treat women like they deserve to be treated and don't encourage that double standard. It only makes things worse.

Press Conference

So again, we had a less than normal class period. This time it was a press conference. With the coming of Easter and the fifth year anniversary of the war in Iraq, it was interesting to see the connections between the two and our country's values. Unfortunately, I wasn't really all "there" this morning. I wasn't up to my full debating potential. With that said, the topic on which we were debating was one that wasn't really easy. It was really hard to debate AGAINST the war when pretty much everyone is against the war.

I think this exercise taught us a few things about the writing process of our papers. Since these papers are about factual topics, it is important to know the facts. With the debates today, we could sort of bullshit it to a point, but we had to know the basis of what we were arguing and the facts about the topic unless we wanted to sound like an idiot babbling things out of the bible that aren't really true. I think writing our papers are the same way. We can try to bullshit them to a certain point, but when it comes down to it, we have to know the general facts about our subject or else the paper won't make sense.

It is good to see both sides of the story. I think that's another thing we saw in the debates today. Since these papers are supposed to be about a problem with our city, there are going to be different opinions about it. I think it's important to show both sides of an issue so that you can fully support your own opinion. If you only know one side, you can't accurately agree or disagree.

uggh...

So I finally just finished writing this stupid paper for my stupid UNHP class. Keyword STUPID! I can not stress how completely worthless this class is. We have this project due tomorrow. Our assignment was to research different ways news is reported around the world and write a 5-6 page paper about it. That's it. There were no guidelines, nothing. So I had to find websites of foreign newspapers and find some article that they all had in common. Fortunately I actually found an article on each website that each had to do with the war in Iraq. So then I had to write about how they related to each other and whatnot. Seriously....I hate that class. Unfortunately we're required to take two semesters of it if we want to graduate with honors. Which means I still have one semester left. Uggggh.

Not only do I have that class tomorrow, but I have accounting. I pretty much failed my test in accounting yesterday. I just have no idea what the teacher is ever talking about. I would have dropped it if it wouldn't have made me drop below 12 hours, which I have to have for the Hope scholarship. This semester is just full of classes I hate. I can not wait for the next 28 school days to be over. Because that's all I have left.

The moral of this blog is that school SUCKS!

Debate!

This mornings debate was a refreshing change to the regular pace of class. It was fun, I thought, to interact with everyone for a change. I feel like last semester we all interacted a lot more and so it made the class more meaningful. It was also nice to talk about last night's event since mroe people had gone. It's great when more people get to go to the events because it gives us something to talk about the next day that we all have in common. But back to the debate. The topics that we chose were a bit difficult to argue. It's hard to disagree with the statement that schools are failing our students. But I thought the debate was good.

On the first topic, we tried to push the view that many schools do not prepare students for college. I feel that is very true. Many schools' curriculums and lesson plans are very strict and rarely do teachers ever stray from them. Because of this, I feel like students don't get the chance to learn things on their own. They are babied through courses and because of it become dependant on someone else to always be there to help them. Once they get to college though, there is no more hand-holding. The professors just give you an assignment and you have to figure out how to accomplish it on your own. I do not think this is a "personal problem" on behalf of the students. I think schools need to work out a better system to prepare students for college.

The other group related their school topic to overcrowding in high schools and how that affects discipline and the learning environment. I've personally seen the problems of overcrowding. I went to a very overcrowded high school and it does cause many problems when trying to learn. When you have 35 students in a classroom, it is harder to discipline them when they act up. It's almost as if the students gang up against the teacher because they outnumber them. I've seen that happen many a time. Eventually the teacher gives up and no one learns anything. Unless I was in an honors class, I felt like I was wasting my time. There are so many students who think school is a joke, that they hinder the education of those students that care about learning. Of course the best solution to overcrowding is to build new schools. Unfortunately the money is not always available for this. It's hard to figure out a solution to overcrowding but something needs to be done. It just isn't practical.

I enjoyed the debates and the class overall this morning. It actually kind of woke me up, being 8 o'clock and all. We should do it mroe often.

Floyd Skloot

Tonight I trekked downtown with Courtney, Christa, and Jenn to hear Floyd Skloot at another River City Writer's Series event. I liked the atmosphere of the art gallery as the setting for the reading, except it was really cold and Wendy wouldn't serve me wine. But after hearing Floyd's work, I was really intrigued by some of his pieces. I normally don't like poetry very much so when he started out by reading some of his poems, I wasn't really that interested. I just find myself not being able to connect with poems because once you get into them, they're over. I did like his last poem though. It was a love poem for his wife which I thought was really kool. I love seeing older people that still are completely in love with their spouse. The poem talked about how the cells in your body are always changing, so his skin is not the same as the first time they touched, but he still remembered how that felt. And so on...I though it was really cute.

He then went on to read a non-fiction piece of work and also a fiction piece. I usually find myself enjoying non-fiction as opposed to fiction, but tonight was different. I didn't find his non-fiction piece all that relatable or really interesting to me. However I felt really connected to his fiction piece once he introduced it. He told us the background of the piece was what started out as a memoir of his parents and how they met, why they married, and why they stayed together when it was obvious they despised each other. I always think the same thing about my parents. All they do is fight. Every sentence out of one of their mouths is a sarcastic comment or arguement towards the other. He told us though that he didn't know much about his parents' history, with his father having died when he was 14 and his mother with Altzheimer's, so he made it a fiction piece where he could make up a logical past that might have been similar to theirs. I really found it interesting and enjoyed the images that his work portrayed. He talked about them going rowing out on a lake and I could picture the boat and the oars.

I really enjoyed listening to Mr.Skloot's readings. He seems to be a man that has overcome a lot in his life. He told us of how he contracted a viral disease 20 years ago that affected his brain and his ability to perform tasks that are a part of everyday life. He had to re-learn how to read and because of the illness he had to learn a new technique for his writing. Because of this, he said he became a better writer. I liked it when he said that because it backs up my thought that everything happens for a reason. It might have seemed at the time that this disease would have been life-shattering, but he turned it in to something amazing. His story was very inspiring to me. I'm really glad I could go and hear him read. I'm looking forward to the next reading.

meaningless

I hate feeling like I'm writing about something meaningless that no one cares about. But It's become harder and harder for me to write these blogs. I feel like they're getting shorter and I'm skipping days. I jut don't feel motivated to do anything. So on that note, I'm going to write about something completely meaningless but it's all I'm thinking about: America's Next Top Model. Me and Daniel talk about this all the time and I think we've both written blogs about it. Well the new season started up and I think it's going to be a good one. Last season I watched every episode but I wasn't really feeling any of the girls. This season, I think there are some good ones. And I was glad last week when the cocky bitch got kicked off. Normally the cocky girl who thinks she's better than everyone else stays on pretty long which makes for interesting episodes because she always pisses everyone off and causes drama. Well I'm glad she got kicked off early this time because I hate people with that kind of attitude that think they are amazing and no one can tell them anything because they're already perfect and no one can beat them because they're the best. Well not one of those girls has ever won; not Lisa, not Jade, not Melrose, not Bianca, and this season not Allison. I missed this Wednesday's episode because I went to see that movie The Other Boleyn Girl. So I'm about to watch it online and I hope it's good. At least it will keep me occupied until my roommate gets off work!

Disappointed

Today has been thoroughly disappointing so far. My boyfriend was supposed to come home from spring break today before he goes back to school on sunday. Instead, he decided just to ride back with his friends so he wouldn't have to make two trips. It really sucks though. I was looking forward to spending once last weekend with him before he went back to school because the next time I'll be able to see him is in the summer. It really sucks having a long distance relationship. You know, when you go from seeing someone almost everyday for a year, it's really hard not to. It's hard but we do it. It makes every time we see each other that much more special. And I know he loves his school and he hates being here, so I'm glad that he's happy. I just wish he could've come home this weekend. Now I'm sad and I have nothing to do until my roommate gets off work. We've decided to have a pity party this weekend. She's recently had some boy trouble too and now I'm sad because of this, so we're just gonna drink and be sad all weekend. Sometimes it just feels good to feel sorry for yourself every now and then. Not all the time of course, but just for a little while. It's refreshing to cry a little...or a lot in my case once I've had a few drinks....and just get everything out of your system. So that's what we're doing. As soon as she gets off work we're eating dinner at El Porton as we do every Friday and then going to a friends house. Then tomorrow my parents will be going out of town so I'm spending then night and taking care of our pets so I think I'll have a few friends over to entertain me. Then I'm looking forward to not having to go to work on Sunday...instead I have Opera practice. So while it's not the weekend I was expecting of hanging out with my wonderful boyfriend, I guess I'll get through it and count down the days until summer when he's finally back home!

There must be a way out

So I've talked a lot about my whole problem of not knowing what to major in and whatnot. It's just really hard for me to not know what to do and not have a plan. That's why school is so dreadful for me right now. It's not that I don't love college or anything, I just hate classes. And I know I'm not the only one, but I really hate it. I'm skipping one of my classes right now actually. I just feel like it's pointless for me to sit in these classes that have no purpose for me and I don't even know what classes I do want to be taking. My roommate has been feeling kind of the same way, so we've divised a plan to get out of here. I know it's really sad but I just don't feel determined to do anything. I want to sing, but I don't want to go to college for it. If I got a degree in singing, I wouldn't have a job that paid me enough money after college. So I've decided to go on American Idol. Everyone has always told me to do it before, but I never really took them seriously. My sister got mad at me when I didn't try out when they were in Memphis. I just never really thought about it because I didn't want to miss out on anything here. Well now I've realized I'm not missing out on anything and I really just want to get out of here. So I'm waiting until August and I think I'm gonna try out. My roommate wants to try out for The Real World. So our plan is to both go on our reality tv show of choice and then get famous and have our own show! That would be cool. We always joke about how we should have our own show because we are so much fun. Ha....well who knows. All I know is I have to figure out something because I really can't stand school anymore.

The Other Boleyn Girl

I went to the movies last night to see The Other Boleyn Girl. I didn't realize that the movie was based on the true story of King Henry VIII of England. Man I'm glad I didn't live back then. Thing were so fucked up. Everything was based on power and status. The story revolves around the Boleyn family who are seeking to move up in status and wealth. They have discovered that there is a way they can move in and get close with the king. His wife, the queen, has been unable to produce a male heir to the throne. Therefore the king is getting restless and is looking for a mistress. It is so astonishing to me how they delt with this issue. It's was like if you were going to cheat on your wife, it was an arranged thing. Like, no one said it out loud, but everyone knew what was going on. Even the queen knew and could do or say nothing about it. So The Boleyn family has two daughters and one son. The youngest daughter is married and the eldest daughter is set to be the king's mistress. However, when she "messes up", the family becomes scared of losing their place with the king and throw in the younger daughter to take her place. It makes no difference to them that she is happily married. They send the family to live with the king and place the girls in the queen's court as her helpers. I just couldn't believe that everyone did what their families told them to do. Even if it meant adultery and betrayal. I don't want to ruin the movie but I just couldn't get over how fucked up it was. That was a really corrupt time. I liked the dresses though. It'd be pretty cool to wear those.

Value of Marriage

I got carried away reading my Cosmo last night that I didn't post a blog. But I did come across an inspiration for a blog. There was an article discussing marriage especially in Hollywood. It talked about the phenomenon that seems to be going on now where many stars are having children and cohabitating without being married. They had quotes from stars saying that they didn't feel they needed a ring to be parents. I disagree. It's not that I think you can't have kids without being married, it happens. But I do value the importance of marriage and I think if you love someone enough to share your life with them and to give another life, you should be married. I'm not married, obviously, but I can imagine what it's like. When you're married, it's a binding thing. It's not something to be taken lightly. Once you're married, you can't just break up because of a little fight. You work things out when you're married. Not that you should cheat on someone when you aren't married, but when you are married it's like taboo. You don't cheat on your spouse. Of course there are always going to be people that cheat, and get divorced, but I'm speaking of what marriage SHOULD be. I think that's why there is such a high rate of divorce in this day and time. People don't value marriage. They rush into marriage without thinking things through. It's a shame that Hollywood seems to be the role-model of our society. Celebrities live in a fantasy world. It's pretty much like they live in one of their movies. They do things that you just don't do in real life. I just tink it's a shame that they are bringing these views of marriage out as a "new way of living."