Creative Title

The Sister has always been under the impression that everyone must do everything exactly the way she does. That, coupled with my meekness, status as the younger sibling, and the fact that my sanity has hinged for the past year on social interaction with her and the B.I.L.T.B., makes me a prime target for fulfillment of this belief. This includes forcing me to watch some real stupid shows from which she feels I’d somehow benefit. I’ll admit that the tactic worked with The Girls Next Door (believe it or not), but Sex and the City and What Not To Wear have absolutely no chance.

However, my sister has never been easily deterred, so I watched the Sex and the City movie last night (after having my “woman license” revoked for not having had the theme song stuck in my head when we were shopping for the bridesmaid shoes) and will now be writing a very quick review of it.

Overall impression: It’s a miracle from Lucifer that that show stayed on the air for ten years.

Now, I can accept it when there’s something good about things I don’t like, so I’ll just go ahead and admit that there were a few pretty funny moments. The plot of the movie also had some mildly unexpected twists, which is something I always like. That’s about the extent of any praise I have for it.

My biggest problem is the characters (so don’t say I’ll still like the show because “it’s different”). It’s four idiotic women going around New York being dumber than two of the three girls (that is, Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends) in The Girls Next Door. Seriously. Not to mention, they all were wearing the absolute most hideous outfits I have ever seen in my life. Throughout the entire movie.

All-in-all, that’s the sort of movie that’s best when you’ve drunk enough to forget it even came into existence. 2 1/2 hours (let me repeat that: two-and-a half! HOURS!) too long.

Greater Importance: I now have my computer at the dorm! Therefore, I will finally get back to playing WoW… tomorrow. Unfortunately, I have a quiz tomorrow of three Greek tragedies, only one of which I’ve ever read (and that was last year). Nevertheless, I missed my beautiful, larger-than-1G computer, and am glad to have it back:

The camera-phone never does justice to anything.

Blah blah… By Hazel… beware, all ye rationale-fearing people.

So it’s not a liveblog or anything fancy like that; just my various thoughts about it all… for some reason told in present-tense, despite the fact that this is being written after the debate ended (eh, I got tired and lazy and fully realize that I switched to past by the end of the post).

Winner: Hard to say, but I’m leaning towards McCain. Obama seemed sure of himself as always, but McCain was somewhat super-confident and far more prepared and informed. He just seemed to be slamming down actual facts wherever possible, and did so rather articulately.

The Beginning:

I’ve boiled a boil-able bag of frozen shrimp and corn chowder (some great things at Harris Teeter; I believe they’re found near the seafood), and am just serving it up to my mom and me. Ready… FIGHT!

They seem to just be agreeing on everything at first. Then, the subject turns to spending, and a few interesting things are said. McCain–surprisingly–said that we should put a “spending freeze” on just about everything except defense and caring for veterans. It’s surprising, because I actually agree with it, more or less. Obama, on the other hand, says something along the lines of the following: Of course we should reduce spending, but (also?) make sure that everyone gets medical care, and (my personal “favorite”) make sure everyone can go to college… among other social programs, naturally.

Obama started off real well here, despite the fact that I disagree with every word coming out of his mouth, but starts to decline near the end of the portion.

The Middle:

Truth be told, I, personally, have no clue as to whether or not we “should” have gone into Iraq–I just don’t know enough about it. However, I’m fairly sure it doesn’t matter at this point. If faithful readers may remember, I once locked myself out of the office that I clean. What was done was done; I couldn’t possibly change the fact that I was locked outside in 90+-degree, rainy weather, in an area somehow both in the middle of nowhere and kind of shady without a phone, keys (including those to my car), money, handy-dandy pepper spray, water, or really anything at all. It was completely my fault that I got locked out, and it was a mistake, so I went ahead and ruminated on that for a few hours before starting the 40-50-something mile trek home along precarious highways, right? No, sir! I came up with a tactic for getting over the barbed-wire fence, and went to find someone nearby with a phone so I could get my parents to come help me out. Look, the point is, sh*t happens, and sometimes–perhaps a lot of the time, depending on the klutziness of the given person–it’s a mistake on your part that threw it at the fan. When such an event occurs, it can never be solved by repeating, “boy, I wish that hadn’t happened” and taking the most direct route home; you have to almost forget what the mistake was, analyze the situation in which you are currently placed and forced to resolve, and move forward with a rational solution. All I’m saying is, we’re in Iraq now–regardless of whether it was the right thing to do five years ago or not–and need to keep moving freaking forward, lest we die–or at least get injured–from the 40+-mile walk home through shady neighborhoods alongside dangerous highways.

Anyways, I also have a question: what’s the deal with Pakistan? I believe I heard at some point that they weren’t letting us search for Al Qaeda within their borders. Feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken; I’m not anywhere near certain about this.

I’d gotten up at some point to get some organic(?) Oreo-like cookies we had lying around, so that’s about all I got on that part. Really, Obama was really weakening, and McCain really came off pretty strong here, especially in the way of mentioning all his foreign policy experience, which I was rather happy to hear about due to all the mention lately of Palin not really having any.

The End:

Yeah, I started getting a little tired and bored and my mind began wandering with thoughts of what I might mention in this post, so I really didn’t catch most of it, and what I did didn’t stick. Thus, I can’t say what I thought of any particular topic or who prevailed more in this portion, but consensus seems to be that both candidates seemed relatively stable in terms of offense/defense from the middle portion on.

I did notice, however, that throughout the whole thing, neither candidate ever spoke directly to the other, despite the host(or whatever)’s urging. Now, I wasn’t very politically active during the Bush/Kerry debates–and especially not during the Bush/Gore ones–so I don’t know if that’s a common occurrence or if both candidates were simply somewhat afraid to speak to their opponent after the long campaigns where they both threw such offensive accusations at one another through commercials without ever really being together in person.

Alright, that’s all I’ve got for now. Good night, America!

Hey look, Hazel managed thought! Hippies and general idealists beware: here there be logic.

There’s this quote from Stalin–of all people–that goes, “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” I’ll admit that there’s an element of truth in it (seriously, those evil tyrants have some mad-interesting thoughts. Hitler was pretty genius when it came to controlling “the masses”, as would become readily apparent if you read some of the stuff he’s said), but not really for the seemingly implied reason. Or, perhaps, not for the implied result.

Truth is, it’s impossible to see the death of a million people as the death of individuals. First of all, no one could possibly even know a million individuals. I suppose, however, that one could (theoretically) say that it doesn’t matter whether you know a person or not–it’s a life, and each death that occurs still takes that away from someone. However, and this may seem cold, but why should you care if you don’t know the person? Death is just about the only certainty in life, so how is it any of your concern if someone you’ve never met has reached that point?

Well, the butterfly effect could be used as an argument for why you should care, but one would be hard-pressed to find a line going from every individual to every calamity.

The thing is, you shouldn’t care about every individual because you can’t. It’s simply impossible. Take 9/11 as an example; we all feel deeply sorry for all the people who died or lost a loved one in the terrorist attacks, but we’ll never be able to mourn all 3,000 the way we would a parent, sibling,, child, friend, or other relative. It simply can’t be done; it would take far too much energy out of someone if they were to try. The ability to not care is more of a defense mechanism than an evil of humankind, and it exists to protect our sanity.

We’re better adapted to live in bands of a few dozen people, and really don’t seem to have figured out how to cope with living in a community that consists of six billion people, much less how to handle the deaths of more than, I don’t know, maybe 50 or 100 of them at once.

The point I’m trying to make is that yes, humans tend to care more about the death of one individual than those of many, but it does not make us all heartless bastards or anything of the sort because of it. Perhaps it is indeed a flaw, but imperfection is far from synonymous with evil.

My creative juices have been flowing like gorram rhyolite this week. That is to say, not at all. I’ve tried, and can’t seem to come up with a topic that I have enough to say on to form an entire post. I’ll still make another attempt for the next couple days, but don’t be surprised if it has little or no relevance to the real world.

At least there’s one Muse that’s never let me down. Yeah, that’s four songs… I had to, sorry.

The 5-hours I spent traveling (albeit, only three were spent actually working towards our destination; sidetracks include: Cracker Barrel, J&R, and getting lost looking for a Cracker Barrel) give me an excuse only for this one day to make a lazy post. Yep, I’m taking the opportunity.

Now, for the musical selection, I’ve got a dilemma. I could post something by Nightwish, which I’ve been listening to all weekend, or I could post Hell by Squirrel Nut Zippers (a name almost as great as Rzeznik), which stood out amongst the weekend listenings. I suppose I just dd both (each letter in Nightwish is actually a different song. I’ve just always wanted to do that), so there seems to not be any problem whatsoever–and that’s what happens when I spend five hours in the car with The Sister and The B.I.L.T.B.

Actually, Nightwish is reminding me that I still need to put DragonForce on the laptop. Dang. Speaking of which, The Sister just found out that I have one–we kept it secret until after her birthday, so she wouldn’t be so angry, since she, herself, just got one. A much better one, too–far more than my 1 G of RAM, and purple.

Speaking of computers, I’ll be moving the non-laptop to the dorm next week, frankly because it can run more programs. By which I mean World of Warcraft (which I’d somewhat quit for a while, but have been starting to miss–especially since the B.I.L.T.B. let me make a Death Knight on the Lich King beta), Doom 3 (which I never finished… or really began way back when), and that one annoying program for my Archaeology class (it won’t let me choose between turning in an assignment late and skipping a problem).

Seriously, though, I’m getting mighty excited about that WoW expansion. May actually even try to finally get my warlock to 70 before it comes out… just so I can be forced up to 80 immediately after. Yep, fun.

I’ll shoot for substance for the next post or two. Also, just so you know, no new I’d Hit It for a couple more weeks (sorry, if you’ve been reading).

Listen up, ye scurvy seadogs! It be International Talk Like a Pirate day, and ye best be followin’ the rules, ‘case the crew feels like watchin’ a good keelhaulin’.

Me Landlubber Sister(TM) be takin’ me farther inland today, since it be her birthday as well. Tharefore, I shall be unable to sail the waters of the Internet fahr a few bloody days. On the other hand, me mother be makin’ a cake, so ’tis not all bad.

To celebrate this day, I’ll be tellin’ a couple jokes pillaged from other ships in the ocean, and providin’ a song from good old YouTube. First:

A pirate and his parrot were adrift in a lifeboat following a dramatic escape from a valiant battle. While rummaging through the boat’s provisions, the pirate stumbled across an old lamp. Secretly hoping that a Genie would appear, he rubbed the lamp vigorously. To the amazement of the castaways, a Genie came forth. This particular Genie, however, stated that he could only deliver one wish, not the standard three. Without giving any thought to the matter the pirate blurted out, “Make the entire ocean into rum!” The Genie clapped his hands with a deafening crash, and immediately the entire sea turned into the finest rum ever sampled by mortals. Simultaneously, the Genie vanished. Only the gentle lapping of rum on the hull broke the stillness as the two considered their circumstances.

The parrot looked disgustedly at the pirate, and after a tension-filled moment spoke: “Now yee’ve done it!! Now we’re goon to have to pee in the boat!”

ARR!!!

Q: What do a pirate and a pimp have in common?

A: They both say, “YO HO!”

Yarrr har har har!

Q: How many pirate jokes are lame?

A: Most of them ARRRR!

Aye, that be enough torture for ye.

Today’s musical selection be from Flogging Molly. I admit, they be more Irish than pirate, but I’ll walk the plank meself if ye be able to find a pirate band. At least the song has good mention of the “trade”. Drink up, me hearties, and listen to Seven Deadly Sins.

Ah, I guess I could possibly use music from the Pirate movies. Here be the song from the first scene in the third–best part of it, methinks (’twas still better than the second one). Arr… I best go now, lest me curiosity find too many songs in the “Related Videos”. Enjoy yer weekend, ye scalawags.

In my Abnormal Psychology class–which I suspect will come up in here a number of times, seeing as my fellow students are (for the most part) complete idiots and I rarely get called upon in class–we all have to participate in a debate on some issue in the field of Abnormal Psychology. The first took place last week, and was on whether or not forced treatment of seriously mentally ill individuals was justifiable.

I began on the “yes” side, for reasons I now can’t quite figure out–I was most likely thinking only of severe Psychosis or Schizophrenia, and even then must have been assuming that everyone with these shows dangerous behavior. However, I rather quickly switched positions once it became apparent what the debate was actually about (plus, the “no” side was rather convincing in their argument–interestingly, the primary debater was the “devil’s advocate” from before).

I seem to have been the only one.

After the two groups had gotten out their points and counterpoints, it was time for questions and comments from the “audience”. The first couple questions were relatively run-of-the-mill, but things got a bit interesting when one guy spoke up with a case that he had personally observed of a homeless, schizophrenic guy who was (or, at least, so he said) perfectly happy as he was, selling stories and magic rocks. This guy had apparently been homeless for a long time, and had never hurt himself or anyone else. From there, the “yes” side continued defending their position rather regularly, and the “no” side elaborated on that point; it wasn’t until the girl sitting in front of me spoke up that I got to really thinking.

She immediately went on a tirade about how no seriously mentally ill person knows they have a problem (even though many do–read up on anxiety disorders) or would want treatment, and that the aforementioned schizophrenic homeless guy simply can’t be truly happy the way he is because he’s “trapped in his own body” (if I may interject: the guy’s been homeless for just about his whole life. If he were to be treated, he still has no education, job experience, money, friends, family etc. Personally, I might be happier selling magic rocks rather than starting life in the middle of adulthood). It was all interesting, listening to this girl rant about how we must force these people into therapy (surely, they can’t possibly have any choice in the matter–I mean, they’re crazy!), but it was the girl herself in relation to this topic that is really relevant to my interests. See, this girl comes into class late every time she does come to class, always smells rather strongly of cigarette smoke, always shakes her head aggressively to any point made in the class, and tends to talk rather loudly.

The whole thing brought back memories from my child/pre-teenagehood, and an interesting hypothesis my sister thought up back then. My cousin had just finished explaining to me just how beaten up she’d make me if I ever did X (X is most likely smoke, drink, or have sex. I just can’t remember which one was the great evil that particular time). I told my sister about this, and she said that she (my cousin) is just one of those people who can’t control themselves, so they turn around and control other people to make up for it. This turns out to probably be an extreme case, as my cousin has since been diagnosed with bipolar disorder (and about time, too. The stupid doctors wouldn’t make it official until she had a major depression stage after turning 18).

Now, is this always the case when one wishes to control other people? I don’t know; probably not. Is it always the case with people with little or no self-restraint? I can’t be sure, but there seems to be a possibility. If I may digress somewhat to gun-control debates–as I seem to be doing with increasing frequency–one argument I’ve heard used is, basically, “I wouldn’t even trust myself with a gun.” It implies that a lack of one’s own control permeates throughout all of humanity. I can’t be trusted with this, so why should anyone else be? It’s an assumption that “I” am either the pinnacle of humanity, or exactly the same as every other individual on the planet. To be nice, I’ll assume that it is the latter.

Also to be nice, I’ll not completely change the topic of the post to delve into that right now.

So, are those who are incapable of practicing self-control more likely to try to force others to do things than those who are? Well, I still don’t know, but the more I think about it, the more likely it seems to me, with yet another possible cause. The first (actually thought up by Freud, of whom I’m not usually much of a fan) is the defense mechanism of projection–and actually, what I’ve been describing is about the exact definition of the mechanism: attributing one’s own unacceptable motives or desires to someone else. For the textbook example, a man who is attracted to a woman at work accuses his wife of cheating on him.

Yet I still feel that my first thought–that they simply assume that no one else has any more restraint than they, themselves, do–is more accurate. They’re simply trying to provide for others what they, themselves, need, and more than likely lack. I suppose it’s–again–something we all do. The particular situation in which an uncontrolled person attempts to force others to do things or act a certain way just happens to stand out, I suppose, at least in my mind.

But then again, I surely can’t say. There’s a reason Psychology hasn’t been practiced by simply thinking in a few thousand years.

I’m fairly sure that as of today, it has officially been one year since I created this weird little website. Frankly, some things have changed a great deal since then, while others seem to have stayed relatively static. Content in general has, perhaps, deepened since then, though I do acknowledge my continuing tendency to simply post for the purpose of posting. While I also feel that myself and my opinions on some subjects has–and is continuing to–mature, my thought and writing organization still seems to remain a tad sloppy at times.

Since it’s such a special day, I’ll not yammer on forever, but celebrate with one of my most favorite songs of all time. When I was a child, I didn’t have much of a liking for classic rock–my parents listened to it, so it was dubbed, “old-person music”. Of course, I’ve since learned the error of my ways, but there was one song for which I’ve never once held any dislike: In a Gadda Da Vida, by Iron Butterfly. A year ago, they didn’t have the entire thing on YouTube. Of course, that was preposterous even then–until you take into account the fact that it’s 17 minutes long (as was well illustrated once in The Simpsons).

But, of course, people find ways… a few times, if you look through the “Related Videos”. Part 1, and Part 2.

New I’d Hit It Wednesday.

I need to think of a name for myself for my psychological/sociological musings. It’s not quite Hazel, but somewhat similar…

I was raised as a Catholic. Not a particularly strong one, mind you, but my mom took us to church every week, and we said a blessing at dinner each day (and, of course, I can still recite the Hail Mary, Our Father, and that blessing for meals). We stopped going to mass when I was about 9 under the guise of my mom’s Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, though I’ve recently learned that she just didn’t want to go anymore (plus, she really did have Carpal Tunnel). She doesn’t much like being told how to live her life–especially by an organization of some sort. I believe she just wanted us to grow up with morals of some sort–something for which I’m incredibly grateful, as I have come to personally believe in living morally… despite certain songs and shows I enjoy.

Fast forward a few years, and my friend (hereafter L… and unfortunately, not the guy in Death Note) invites me to start coming to her youth group. Her church was more or less non-denominational, and it was there that I was introduced to the protestant type of church which, suffice to say, is far more interesting and energetic than what I was used to from my childhood. I went there for, perhaps, two years or so, and even went on a couple of their trips. During that time, I grew incredibly close to another friend of L’s (let’s call this new one N). Through a series of some oddly coincidental circumstances–honestly, it was like fate–N and I started looking into Wicca and decided to follow that religion instead.

Ironically, this is also the time I was introduced to shooting and began becoming interested in politics. Naturally, I felt like a bit of an outcast in both the gun-loving and the pagan sides of American cultures. Since that time, I’ve gotten to know libertarians better and that stereotype has been mostly pushed from my mind, though I have yet to meet a Wiccan who shoots (I have pretty much disengaged myself from that community, though).

This conversion remained a secret between N and myself, frankly because we were afraid of losing our current friends (like L, who was incredibly religious–hence, her taking us to the youth group to begin with. Plus, the Ouija board told us they’d reject us for it). As with all secrets, it eventually came out and our fear was falsified in its entirety. The feeling that whole time, though, was that of being under a constant barrage of attacks from all of Christian society (unhelped by our discovery of internet forums and the fact that we both continued going to the youth group the whole time). Likewise, the youth group constantly felt the need to defend against the general immorality that is (admittedly) ever-present in American culture.

What I gather from all this is an interesting phenomenon in human nature, which I know has already been discovered and surely studied to some extent–I guess I just like figuring these things out for myself. In homeschool, I took a “course” in psychology, for which I read this book. In there, Baumeister breifly mentioned the “us vs. them” mentality (or something along those lines… not sure of the exact wording), though he never really went into too much detail.

That’s what I’m here for. Too much detail seems to be my specialty, actually.

Through my experiences with these various religions (and, of course, the different sects within Christianity in particular), I’ve come to find that they all are afraid of persecution of some sort. The Wiccans fear the Christians, who for the most part don’t seem to care at all about the Wiccans; the Christians seem somewhat worried about perhaps the Atheists and, really, anyone, including other versions of Christianity, and, well… the feeling is mutual. The thing is, they all believe themselves to be in the defensive position in whatever sort of “battle” may actually be taking place in reality as opposed to everyone’s mind.

For the record, I’m doing some mad-crazy generalization in here. When I say, “all” at any point in here, it never means every single individual in that group. Just in case that couldn’t already be gathered from you having actual intelligence.

Yet in any sort of battle or game, even when on the defensive you must make offensive moves against your opponent. You can’t just block; you have to throw a punch. If you refuse, your failure is as sure as taxes. The problem comes when everyone gets a–often imagined–feeling that they are under attack from another group. That’s the kind of occurrence that starts wars.

It should be noted that that’s surely not the only thing that starts wars. Oftentimes, there is, in fact, a definite aggressor who almost exclusively desires power. This was once the Christians–technically, the Roman Empire, but they used Christianity to unite the people, and a whole, huge, millenia-ish-long mess ensued–and is now, perhaps, communism and communists (see: Soviet Union, North Korea, China, North Vietnam, Cuba, etc.). Of course, the radical Muslims are coming into play a great deal and surely may also be one of these forces/people/whatever, but I try to generally shy away from that topic for the time being, as I have yet to study the history of that religion in detail. The Nazis were almost certainly one of these powers, though Germans in general all felt under attack from everyone due to the unfair treaties from WWI, so that’s a rather complicated subject of which I’m not entirely sure of all the details.

But I digress. When you identify yourself with any particular group, you tend to automatically believe that group to be better than any others. Hell, I do it a lot: Tang Soo Do > Tae Kwon Do, old Mercedes’ > any other car, gun-owners are nicer than non-gun-owners, and so on and so forth. Patriotism, sort of by definition, is a form of this. Almost the only thing I don’t do that with is my Psychology major–I occasionally get somewhat ashamed of that one.

Now, having groups with which to identify is an important and necessary part of being human. I’m not saying it’s in any way a bad thing. The fact is, though, that for every group, there’s always going to be an opposing group with a different opinion. Naturally, this causes conflict almost immediately between the two, which was pretty perfectly illustrated here. Side one believes that x is better than y, but they then come upon the people of side two, who are absolutely certain that y outranks x by a landslide. Well, side two just insulted side one by implying that x is worse than a lowly y, and that’s just completely intolerable behavior on side two’s part.

That alone explains a large part of what I’m talking about. Anything not on side one is insulting and thereby threatening side one simply by not being for x. Things get even worse if there was persecution of the side ones in the past. If the conflict grew to such a point that side one insults or injures side two so severely that side two starts thinking that it would be easier and make everyone much safer if there were no more side ones and that anyone who likes x more must be inherently evil (since, after all, it was a large group of x-likers that attacked side two). Thus, side two attempts what is essentially genocide against side one.

Ah, but there is no such thing as complete eradication. Hundreds of years down the road, side one and side two are both back to plenty in number. Side two has long since ceased hostilities against side one, and lives in relative harmony with them. Side one, however, has had stories passed down throughout the generations about how side two once persecuted side one terribly. Thus, side one has a deep anger being held down towards side two, who never really got comeuppance for their actions. Yet the stories of what side two once did to side one instills a fear even all these centuries later that side two might return to their old ways. Thus, side one feels as if they need to defend against any minor insult from side two–and that sometimes includes the simple fact that side two looks down upon x.

Escalation sure is a bitch. Perhaps we’d actually be better off repeating history rather than learning from it…

Since humans have such a long, spread-out history all over the world, though, just about everyone has been persecuted and/or conquered by someone at some point. Christians by Pagans, Pagans later on by Christians, Jews by… everyone, Slavs by… someone, Africans by Europeans, Africans by other Africans, Japanese by Koreans, Koreans and Chinese then by Japanese, parts of Europe by Russia, parts of Europe by Germany, Canaanites by Jews, someone by Mongolians, a bunch of people by Persians, a bunch by Greeks, a bunch by Egyptians, everyone by Romans, and the list just goes on and on for ages. Thus, anyone who identifies with any racial and/or religious group feels the aforementioned hostilities.

That history helps them pick out one particular group of which to fear (and fear, of course, leads to fight or flight, and people seem more likely to fight unless immediately threatened. It’s less dangerous to fight an enemy if they’re far away… generally).

I think I got off-track again somewhere. The thing is, when one identifies with a group and really cares about it, it’s hard to imagine anyone not caring about it. It’s odd to me that so many people just don’t care about gun-rights, just as it may be hard for an abortion activist (pro- or anti-, doesn’t matter) to realize that some people are apathetic to the cause. It’s not necessarily that most people actively think, “if you’re not with me, you’re against me,” but it’s a sort of general emotional reaction to getting deeply involved with anything.

Therefore, you get the very small “us” of those completely on your side, and the large and fierce “them” of not only those actively against you, but everyone else as well. Naturally, this is intimidating, and you’d need to be Spartan to feel any confidence when facing those odds. But since we’re animals and have that pesky survival instinct, we feel the need to fight (or fly, but… well, we’ve gone over that).

I believe I’ve gotten into circular logic-territory at this point, which is usually a sign that it’s going nowhere at the speed of light. There seems to be no real conclusion to be drawn from all this; I suppose it’s more for my own benefit, to just try to understand it all. Hope it’s thought-provoking enough, nonetheless–certainly long enough.

I know it’s been a few days since the last post. This is because, frankly, I couldn’t really think of what to post about.

I finally decided on school, and some stuff not having to do with school–with pictures! I considered attempting to put it in poetic form, but not only would that make it difficult to include the pictures, but I haven’t written any in a while and it’d be hard enough to find rhymes for many necessary words (like, say, Linguistics).

So far this semester, my opinion of college has actually improved somehow. It’s coming off as more “real education” as opposed to “busy work so the teachers can pretend they tried to teach you something” like I expected from my public high school experience. I’ve gone down to 16 hours of 6 classes (from 17 of 6), basically because I was in a lab for one of them and found out that it actually wasn’t required, and I’d really rather do better in the ones I do need.

The funny thing about this semester is that all my classes seem to be amazingly connected to one-another. Geologic (or, rather, climate) changes in Africa drove us to develop bipedal walking (Geology leading to Archaeology). Due to that, tons of evolution happened and eventually language was invented (Linguistics), which gave us an even greater advantage. From that, societies developed, one of the earliest of which was the Greeks (Greek tragedy… I’ll be reviewing at least a couple of those plays, btw). All throughout this, of course, a small percentage of people had psychological disorders that everyone had to figure out how to deal with somehow (Abnormal Psychology). Seriously, the only one seemingly unable to fit so far is Archery.

They’re all terribly interesting and I realize, unfortunately, humanities as well (with the exception of Geology, but after Chemistry last semester, it just seems to fizzle as a hard science). My original intent was to try to space everything out, but due to my lack of having taken any courses at all in the fall of last year, I got very last pick, and all else had long since been taken. Therefore, lots and lots of reading and writing to look forward to whilst losing whatever basic algebra and calculus might still be clinging to my neurons. Hopefully better luck will come for next semester.

Well, as you already know, my Abnormal Psych. class is filled with feminazis. In case you needed barely-legible proof:

In my lovely handwriting and photo taken with the high quality that camera phones are known for. Anyways, there’s not much else notable about the class. There is the fact that professor really likes us doing group work, which is unfortunate for me due to my dislike for group-work and recent self-diagnosis of social anxiety, but nothing more.

Linguistics is incredibly refreshing due to one of its primary premises being, “screw grammar rules!” Also, the professor in there cussed on the first day of class during our discussion on infixes (or, rather, the one English infix (or, less offensive variations of it)), which is always fun.

My Archaeology professor neither looks nor acts anything like Indiana Jones.

I decided upon Greek Tragedy, not just to fill a requirement, but I’m actually truly interested in it. In high school, I took two semesters of Theatre, and Greek tragedy was about the only thing we actually learned anything about. It got me incredibly interested in the subject, and I’ve since bought translations of many of the plays and read a couple on my own. They were primarily counted as homeschool even then, but I still needed a bunch of other types of literature for the requirement (I’ve actually been thinking about Hamlet a lot lately, since I really enjoyed not only the play, but the character himself. I’m starting to want to read it again). It’s just cool to be going through a bunch of them for school instead of in spite of it.

Speaking of literature, new I’d Hit It coming on Saturday. I know it’s been a tough couple of weeks without Regina killing people. I’m also nearly done with writing the whole thing, which is pretty neat.

Not much to say about the remaining couple classes. However, every time I go to Geology, I get to pass by the greatest graffitti ever:

Ten points for knowing where that is, an extra twenty if you can guess the time of day within two hours.

Off-campus time has been about as eventful. The second week of school, my dog got really sick, and we thought it might be Addison’s disease, but she’s apparently perfectly healthy. Either way, she’s gotten a lot better since, so there’s no real current worry.

There’s also been some further preparation for the upcoming wedding, though I’ve not been doing too much. The dresses have been all altered, and my actually-not-fugly shoes match my dress perfectly:

Colors don’t show up too well with the camera phone, but they’re both the same chocolate brown… it’s an autumn-themed wedding, and thank goodness the shoes aren’t orange like The Sister wanted at first.

Speaking of the camera-phone screwing up colors, I’ve also been promoted to 1st gup in Tang Soo Do, which looks like this:

…only the stripes are actually a dark blue, due to that being our “black” belt. Black or blue, though, that top stripe means I’ve got 6 more months worth of asskickery down pat (uhh… don’t tell any of my instructors I described it like that).

One final thing: The B.I.L.T.B. finally got a full-time job, which is primarily a good thing, but it’s in Texas. Therefore, that is where The Sister will move by December (I believe she still needs to finish this semester here). She had been starting to bug me with her… well, constant purposeful bugging me about various imperfect aspects in my life (little, if any, exaggeration… you just have to know her), but I must say I’ll miss her a bit. After all, seeing her and The B.I.L.T.B. every week has been the majority of my social interaction for over a year now. Naturally, it’s looking like things will pick up with that this semester through various activities and the like, but I’ll still miss the two of them. Oh well, ’tis life.

I’ll try for actual substance on Thursday.