Will be's and going to's

Habits are simultaneously wonderful and horrible. At present, I am trying to break a few and form a few and it is incredibly difficult. Human that I am, I object to and avoid change as much as, and sometimes more than, the next but I, with the help of some friends and family, am trying my hardest to make some changes in my life. The first and foremost being my eating habits. While I don't necessarily eat poorly, I can eat better and I want to so I along with a friend joined a site where we can track what we eat and pay attention to our intake of calories, carbs, fats, and proteins versus how much we burn in a day. Because I'm not always near a computer, I even carry a small notebook to record what I eat. That notebook serves a dual purpose. Not only do I record what I eat, but I also use it as a journal of sorts. It's in this notebook that I pen whatever I want to write in that moment so I can piece together my jumbled-up thoughts. This is another habit I'm working to form. Writing everything out serves to help undo stress and help me relax when I can't use my other go to methods (meditating mostly).

With school starting in exactly one week I'm also trying to get back into learning. A four month break is not helpful with that. My brain is foggy on certain areas and so I'm working to attempt to fix it. Speaking of work, I've been working overnights all summer. I do not recommend this to people who crave the sunlight and time with family as much as I do. While I did get a fair amount of sun, I did not get the opportunity to spend time with my family as I so wished and wanted to. I'm trying to find a new job because of this.

Previous semesters I managed to get by on my financial aid, a part time job where I only worked weekends, and babysitting. However, this semester I need a substantial paycheck so that I can save money for another change that is coming. My grandparents are selling their house here so I need to find a new place of my own unlike the majority of my peers. A terrifying endeavor because along with that, I need to find a four-year university to transfer to. I'm not content with simply an AD and would like to achieve a PhD in my life. This, however, also means figuring out what field I want that PhD in. Challenges abound in trying to support myself and get through school because I face this with only myself as my launch pad. "Home" as I knew it before doesn't exist and I'm facing becoming my own home being as independent as I can manage. I'm not going to fool myself into thinking I can do it all on my own, I know I'll be turning to my parents for help in certain areas but for the most part I've just got me. I'm looking at a nearly insurmountable obstacle and I'm desperately hoping I don't fall flat on my face.

I'm not going to apologize for my long absence considering you 4 are my only followers and have been able to keep up with me on facebook though I will say I do intend to write here more now.

P.S.- I'm terribly excited for the return of Doctor Who!!!!!!

P.P.S.- I'm catching up on Falling Skies and Torchwood: Miracle Day because I adore sci-fi oh so much :)

Nostalgia

"One minute you're defending the WHOLE galaxy...

the next you're sucking down Darjeeling with

Marie Antoinette and her little sisters..."
~THE Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story

I'm a sucker for the movies from my childhood. I know way more about Disney movies and the like than I really should. My extensive knowledge regarding children's movies is part of what makes me such a nerd and I'm not at all ashamed of it. There are days when it's especially nice to have on hand my favorite movies when childhood. You know, those days when being a grown up just sucks and no amount of ice cream or chocolate or kind words from a friend will do. Even if it's just for an hour and half, it's good to feel like the world is full of wonder and spectacle.

It's just a short post today. I'm not making very much headway in the reading list, sadly. School and work have to take precedence no matter how wonderful the story.

Have a wonderful day!

Oh so sentimental...

I've heard it said

That people come into our lives for a reason

Bringing something we must learn

And we are led

To those who help us most to grow

If we let them

And help them in return

Well, I don't know if I believe that's true

But I know I'm who I am today

Because I knew you...

The lyrics from one of the last songs in the musical Wicked (that I have yet to see). I thoroughly enjoy the music and the story of this musical. It's so fun and it's just good! Anyway. There are so many people still or no longer in my life who I can honestly say I am better for knowing. What about you?

So, this is my thank you to all of the people I love and have loved. It's because of the support and love of you all that I am where I am today. I hope I've had at least a portion of the impact on you that you've had on me. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CImGTTuEMEI

Nay-sayers? What are they? I'm gonna find out!

I promise that with this post I will most likely alienate quite a few people I know. That being said, hear me out before you freak out. I'm not just some silly girl spouting off random opinions on a whim. I've thought long and hard about this. Not only that, but I've done a lot of research on it. Even today, my fingers have been itching to write this. Here we go.

Today marks the 38th anniversary of a very important and controversial Supreme Court case. Roe vs. Wade. It's the abortion case. Because of this case, the government can not make laws against abortion, only regulate when it can be performed. There are various regulations but for the most part a woman can choose to have an abortion before she's been pregnant for two months without any trouble.

I'm neither pro-choice or pro-life. I don't see the point in identifying with either because if I were to do so, immediately your mind would go to the extreme. So, allow me to explain my position.

I'm not against abortion. There are situations in which I would advocate for one. There are situations in which I would advocate against one, as well. Times come when an abortion is definitely the best option for those involved. Take, for example, a victim of rape. That is an extremely traumatic experience. It's a violation of humanity in the worst way. Now, becoming pregnant as a result of rape is estimated to occur in about 4.7% of cases it could be more or less. The woman involved has gone through what is, in my opinion, the very worst thing a person can do to another human being. Granted, there are times when she does not want an abortion and views the pregnancy as a blessing regardless of how it came about but there are times when that is not the case. When it is the latter, that woman should be allowed to terminate the pregnancy without harassment or ridicule from anyone, she has gone through enough.

Another time when I would be first in line to scream "YES!" to the abortion is when the mother's life is at risk due to the pregnancy. It happens. There are several pre-existing conditions that would make this true. Also, there are many strange cases where it is necessary to terminate the pregnancy to protect the health and well-being of the mother. Notice I mention the well-being of the mother as well. I'm also in favor of an abortion when there is no chance for that fetus/child to come into this world alive. There are, once again, certain conditions and disorders that make this happen. I can't remember the specifics very well, but I recall a story in the news recently where this was the case. A couple was seeking an abortion because there was not chance for the fetus/child to be born living and the process risked the life of the mother. They were already the parents of three children. This couple received plenty of flack for there decision to terminate from there church and other people they knew. Now, c'mon! I was rather disturbed by the reactions of those around the couple. Would you really risk that woman's life for a pregnancy that will not result in a living child?

All of that being said, I'm not okay with someone using abortion as birth control. I'm also not okay with reasons such as not wanting stretch marks. That's ridiculous. If you feel you are not ready to have the responsibility of taking care of a child in person first of all, don't have sex. Abstinence is the only 100% effective means of not getting pregnant. Secondly, there's this thing called adoption. It's an incredibly difficult process to go through emotionally but rather an easy one legally. Actually, there are times when it's not even that hard emotionally. Not only that, but there are so many different options for adoption contracts. You can have a totally closed one where the birth mother forfeits all rights to the child or you can have an open adoption where there are a myriad of ways the birth mother has access to the child. I'm generally in favor of the open adoption and I think it's one of the most awesome options for an unwanted pregnancy.

Back to abortion, it's a rather large grey area and nothing has taught me more about grey areas than philosophy and ethics. I challenge anyone who reads this to think about the subject on your own. Give it a lot of thought. I've had this topic on my mind for three years now and I'm still not entirely sure where I stand excepting the points I made above. Do research. Read the abstracts of different case studies (the actual studies are terribly boring). Read other people's opinions. Talk about it with people who's opinions you respect whether you agree or not. In my experience, the best way to figure out what you think on a subject is to discuss it with the people around you or even strangers if the situation comes up. As I said, I'm still not entirely sure where I stand because honestly, I don't think I could make the decision unless I absolutely had to. I'm not going to sit here and say "Well, if this happened to me blah blah blah" because that's a really good way to not only look stupid in the future but sound stupid in the present.

I just had to say something about it.

Don't even blink!

Blink and you're dead.

Name that nerdy show!

You figure it out?

It's Doctor Who!

I'm a huge fan of this show. I asked for every DVD box set for Christmas and got 3 out of 6 making my aunt extraordinarily jealous :)

Anyway, the Doctor is a 900 year old Timelord from Gallifrey who travels through time and space in his TARDIS which is disguised as a blue Police telephone box from the 1960s in England. Oh. He regenerates. And is an absolute genius.

I love the aliens, the history references, and the generally crazy stuff that's on that show. What I love more than these, however, is that it is a witty and intelligent show with wonderful story lines. Plus, the actors who have been cast as the Doctor as of late are quite spectacular. Christopher Eccleston, who played the Ninth Doctor, portrayed a rather war-torn version of the Doctor, slightly intense but also very fun. David Tennant, who played the Tenth Doctor, was a very intense Doctor who fit very well with "burning through time" what with all of the passion displayed. Matt Smith, who is the Eleventh and current Doctor, is a much more mellow version compared with the last two. He's very fun, quirky, nerdy, much more humble, but also very confident and angry when it's necessary.

Actually, the whole purpose of this post today was just to update my reading list :)

The ones with the * are completed. If it has a ~ next to it, I'm currently reading it.

The Reading List:

*After by Amy Efaw

Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin

Extraordinary by Nancy Werlin

~The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney

Forever by Judy Blume

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Never Let Me Go by Kazou Ishiguro

Lady Macbeth's Daughter by Lisa Klein

Red Riding Hood by Sarah Blakely Cartwright

Jay's Journal by Anonymous (A companion diary to Go Ask Alice)

Intrigues by Mercedes Lackey

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

68 Knots by Michael Robert Evans

Red: The Next Generation of American Writers - Teenage Girls - On What Fires Up Their Lives Today edited by Amy Goldwasser

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Wait... What happened to that thing about you reading books?

I noticed recently that I've only ever mentioned one book here. This is disturbing to me simply because of the sheer number of books I read not to mention how much of an impact the exceptionally good ones have had on my life. I love books. I have for as long as I can remember. I like to joke that I've been reading since conception but seriously, I've been reading books for a really long time. Robert Munsch, to this day, is my favorite children's author. I still adore Ramona the Pest and Ramona, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary. I never really got into the Babysitters Club or Goosebumps as a kid but I did read some of the Metamorphosis books if anyone remembers those. Also, Judy Blume. I remember writing a lot of book reports from Judy Blume books. I was really into books about the Titanic and the Holocaust as a kid both of which are kind of weighty material for a third grader now that I think of it. OH! The Hatchet, that's one that sticks out in my mind from the elementary school years. We read that one in Library class (yeah, we had that. Definitely was one of my favorites). The first three Harry Potter books were a major impact in my childhood. I grew slightly bored with Harry Potter after that until the third movie came out when I read books 4 and 5 in 9 hours with a sammich break between them. Yeah. Then I picked up The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit followed quickly by The Chronicles of Narnia twice in a week and around this time people began to think it weird when I didn't have a for fun book on top of my school books.

My point is, I'm an avid book reader. Most of my Christmas list each year is books or money for books. I get Barnes & Noble and/or Amazon gift cards for my birthday and Easter.

So, now that I've got that out of the way, I'm going to introduce an idea. There's one girl on YouTube that I really like and I even follow her blog. Her name is Kristina Horner and I'm following her on here so you should check her out, too. Well, on her blog she tracks things at the end of each post like flights taken this year or her WoW levels and stuff like that. I'm going to be a copycat. I've decided to track the books I'm reading/have read this year at the bottom of my posts.

"every question you took the

time to sit and look it up in the

encyclopedia" ~ Airplanes by Local Natives

It is going through my head and I love it!

^Random side note ^

That's all for today and to steal the closing line from pottercast, keep each other safe and keep faith. :)

The Reading List:

After by Amy Efaw

Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin

Extraordinary by Nancy Werlin

The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney

Forever by Judy Blume

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Never Let Me Go by Kazou Ishiguro

Lady Macbeth's Daughter by Lisa Klein

Red Riding Hood by Sarah Blakely Cartwright

Jay's Journal by Anonymous (A companion diary to Go Ask Alice)

Intrigues by Mercedes Lackey

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

68 Knots by Michael Robert Evans

Red: The Next Generation of American Writers - Teenage Girls - On What Fires Up Their Lives Today edited by Amy Goldwasser

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Stream of Conscious

Laying in bed tonight I was thinking

And listening to all the dogs

And the sirens and the shots

And how a careful man tries

To dodge the bullets

While a happy man takes a walk

And maybe it is time to live

P.S. You Rock My World by The Eels

I love this song. I got it from a book, actually. It's kind of awesome and you should go check it out. This verse specifically makes me think of taking risks. Risks are a terrifying and necessary part of life. Without risks, you don't get experience. Without experience, no lessons. Without lessons, you don't grow. What risks have you taken in your life? So, maybe it's time to take more risks, maybe it's time to live.

I don't know about you, but I want to freak out my children/my friends' children and cause them to have the "Wait! Mom and Dad had lives before they were Mom and Dad???" moment that I've had several times. I love hearing about the exploits of the adults in my life. They tend to be really good stories and I loooooove a good story. I have a few good stories already but I want an anthology. This is all really funny to talk about because it really sounds like I'm just doing all of the things I do to cause shock and wonder in my future kids which is kind of true but, c'mon, the shenanigans are really fun. Such as my most recent shenanigans.

Reading this, however, I am reminded of a book I adore. "Looking for Alaska" by John Green. There is a point somewhere near the beginning of the middle where Pudge asks Alaska what she wants to do with her life or something along those lines and her reply is "Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. (...) You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present." The first time I read that, I stopped reading the book. I literally placed my bookmark, and closed the book to ponder this point. Frankly, I love the character of Alaska Young. She's an appealing character with wonderful ideas and philosophies. Anyway, that quote resonated with me. Myself, I had the revelation that I had in fact done that so often. Aren't we all pretty much expected to be that way? In school, the teachers told us they were preparing us for the next step. On TV and in movies and in books the characters not in high school are constantly speculating about what high school will be like and the characters in high school are speculating about college and the college kids are speculating about their careers and so on until you've reached the elderly and they're always wishing they could relive the old days! Why do we do this to ourselves?

Why not live in the present?

Because there are consequences to our actions.

Oh, right. Hmm? Well, why not live in the present but keep the future in the back of our minds? You know, kind of like a balancing act? Or just being responsible?

I propose we consider the possible consequences of our actions but do not dwell upon every possible ramification of the choices we make. Not only this, I propose that we not only set goals and try to achieve them but also live in the moment.

I recently had a conversation with a young lady my school who is very goal oriented, driven and hardworking. She explained that she was trying to get through school as fast as possible to get to her career and work as much as she could so she had the means to pay for school and other necessities. Not only is this her attitude now, but it was also her attitude all through high school. While I applaud her drive, I have some concern. You see, I read somewhere that some pyschologists consider our generation a generation of burnouts. We work very hard and very long with little to no breaks causing our mental well being to suffer. You've heard the saying "All work and no play..."? Yeah, achieving goals is a wonderful reward. Yes, I know that school and work are all part of growing up. I also know that denying yourself the chance to relax every now and then is crippling. I'm not saying to stop trying; I'm simply suggesting that you take it down a notch or two and try to have some fun.

So, go to school if that is your vocation. Go to work if that is your calling. Do the necessary things to survive and succeed. But also take the risks. Leap from the top of the waterfall. Have dinner with that guy or girl. Go out with friends and do something totally crazy (and legal). Live while you're young. Find your stories.

Spirit, Self, Books, and People

Western philosophy is pretty much about freeing the mind from the body. About learning and acquiring knowledge. I find this very comfortable as someone who has sought to enrich her mind with as much as she can cram in there. Yet I feel a huge disconnect following this philosophy and while I respect, understand, and find comfort and familiarity in it, I don't think that's how I want to be for the rest of my life. I want to be connected to people and to God and just to be connected and feel apart of it all.

I'm very intellectual, as a friend told me recently, but I find that I'm also very spiritual. I feel off when I haven't tried grasping new facets of faith, like I'm empty. I took an Introduction to Psychology course in my first semester of college. In the class, I learned so much but the thing that I took out of it most was meditation. For one whole class period, we meditated. The professor lead us through various techniques and I know that after that class I felt more refreshed than I had since I was a little girl and still took naps. My body was relaxed, my mind was calm, my heart was light, and I could think more clearly about the things that had ben troubling me before class. Since then, I've only meditated a few times and every time with the same result but I haven't meditated in months and I can feel it as much as I know it.

Did you ever see the movie 'Dogma'? It's quite hilarious if you haven't. I'm thinking of one scene, in particular, that I seem to relate to quite a bit today. The female lead who's name escapes me is at work talking with her coworker about having gone to church the day before. She says that when she was a kid, she was like a cup overflowing with faith and now that's not the case. Her coworker tells her something she'd hard her rabbi say. That when you're a child, your cup is smaller so it's easier to fill but as you grow, so does your cup, making it harder to fill. I know what that feels like.

Today I watched Eat Pray Love. If you have not heard of this Julia Roberts movie, you should go look it up. It reminded me of what I've been lacking lately. I realized, after the movie and then listening to some music, that I've been neglecting my soul, my heart. I've been focusing on gaining knowledge and forgetting to find any wisdom. A new friend asked me what I believe recently and I was only able to give him the basics because, as I told him though I'm not sure that it's true anymore, I hadn't figured out the rest. He told me this was sad because he thinks I'm brilliant and would be an excellent person to discuss the matter with. I think it's sad for a different reason. In being blessed with rapid recovery from surgery, a wonderful and flawed guy who puts up with me, great friends who've been there through it all, and most of all a beautiful family who love and support me despite my short comings, I forgot how to be thankful. I forgot where my heart was. I forgot what I knew to be true. I lost my balance.

So, here's my New Year's resolution. I'm changing my focus. I've spent a long time just helping others and not helping myself, filling my head with knowledge and emptying my heart of meaning. I became cynical, jaded, sarcastic, and slightly pessimistic and this is not who I want to be. Instead of just filling my head, I will also be filling my heart.