So they finally came. My seasonal change allergies, that is. I've been heavily drugged for THREE days now - Hobbes is overwhelmingly fun in sinus headache drug stupor.

School has been good. I'm working on not being scared of talking in class, mostly because Erin would be like, "Rebecca, nobody cares if you say something stupid." I know. I think too much about everything. It's my superhero weakness.

On that note, yay for a new season of America's Next Top Model. What a good show. I can't believe I still watch it, but, man, there's something about pretty people getting picked on and photographers and cool makeup and cat fights that is intensely appealing to me.

I've really been missing the parents lately. I love them so much and I really want to just converse and hang out, but I feel like now that I don't live there, it's always going to be me as a guest, not me as a daughter. I may be wrong, and I hope I am, because I would feel so broken if my family stopped being my closest friends. I'm going to B-ton from Oct 7 - Oct 11, so yeah, there will be parent time.

On the other side of the family issue, I've been feeling intense dog need. I wish I had a bigger place or somewhere with a yard so I could get a post-puppy and make him my family here. I love other people's dogs, but there's nothing even sort of comparable to an animal that puts you first that you can depend on. My apartment's not big enough, though. A dog would be really cramped. There's a part of me that thinks that maybe that's a role that a guy could fill, kind of, not exactly, and there's a part of me that knows it will, but I haven't sparked with anyone here. I guess that's how the game is played...

Time for the Theraflu knock out of the night...tomorrow's ikea and locke day!

Consider this the official merger of my two blogs. From now hence, I will cross post to this and to livejournal (well, sometimes), whenever I deem it necessary to post something.

First, a review of life without a keyboarded instrument:

It is amazing how easy it is to sing wicked high when you don’t know how high you’re singing. I’ve been working on some new arias (in hopes of auditioning for some not-my-church ensembles next semester), and the fast, little teeny high notes are totally not hard (ok, they’re hard when I’m with the music and the guitar, but they’re surprisingly easy with the awesome recordings I’ve procured). I guess it’s all just in my head, these high notes are. Oh Emily, you were always right. I’m still pursuing this impossible dream of cheap and reasonable keyboard, though. Guitar kind of sucks for not-guitar stuff.

I bought modge podge today in hopes of creating…school is just really intense. There’s approx 150 pages a week of reading for 2 of my classes (the third one is a combo intro to stats/intro to econ class that just seems so done already), which doesn’t sound like a lot until you start reading Hobbes and decide that he obviously doesn’t believe in standardization of language or punctuation. I wonder if, like Dickens with words, Hobbes was paid by the comma... It’s hard to be awesome and harder if you, god forbid, fall behind.

I’ve been digging walking everywhere recently, except I have brutally destroyed my feet. I have so many blisters, scabs, etc on them that shoes are not my friends right now. Oh well. Oh, and my adorable ipod shuff decided it was going to have issues, so I have to take it to the mac doctor to get it fixed, so I can’t even listen to music…sob.

So weird thing: when I’m sick(or just allergied...I don't do sick well), I put a hiatus on eating food. I had like a cup of vegetable stew today and that was all. Nutritious? Yes. Energy giving? Probably for only like an hour. Strange.

BED!

Un vent petit

1. DCFC in Rolling Stone for two successive weeks:  Very good.  VERY bad that they compared their success, based on awesomeness, with the success of Napoleon Dynamite (which I would prefer to define as a Suck-cess).  Basically, mad props for writing lyrics and making music that is appealing in its intimacy and complete in its sentence structure (unlike ND which barely deserves a title and which people only like because they think it’s artsy and stuff even though it’s just a bunch of stupidity and lacking anything personable at all).

1. Noon not being in the middle of the day:  People call noon midday, when, in fact, very few people get their 8 hours between 8 pm and 4 am.  Noon does not evenly divide the waking day into even parts, which makes me wonder why we even put noon where it is.  I mean, why do people stay up later rather than get up earlier?  Would life feel more balanced if hung evenly on midnight?  That too…if it is, in fact, the middle of the night, why am I always awake for it?  Why do we live in such an anti-early morning world?

1. Chipotle: What a dumb idea.  Chains usually look like chains, but stupid McD’s decided they wanted to make a chain restaurant maraud as a local restaurant so they could capitalize on the type of people who support local establishments.  DUMB!  Admit that you’re a chain!  Say it!  Show it!  Don’t pretend to represent a non-main-stream less capitalist culture!  (nothing against main-stream capitalist culture, I just think it should be honest about what it is).

1. Weeds: Mad props to Showtime for making that show.  I can’t wait for the DVDs, because my free Showtime is almost up.  Anyhow, yeah, great show about pseudo-utopia and drugs.

So, basically, I have been a bundle of creativity and no focus for the past week. Ok, I take that back. Creativity/focus til today. Today, I haven't been able to sit still for more than like ten minutes - I'm supposed to be reading a book right now, but even the relaxing atmosphere of starbucks and the caffiene-induced "focus" hasn't been able to get me through more than 10 pages! I don't know how I read all that Thucydides this weekend... All I want to do is write short stories and sing. Neither of these has any bearing to the stuff I'm supposed to do (ugh! And that sentence was all wrong!)Basically, I think I NEED to go to the gym. And I need new dress shoes. And I need to make my bed (ha ha).Oh! So I'm on student council! I'm a senator. Isn't that tremendously nerdy and great? I also hit up the pisco campus ministry yesterday - what fun people! I'm totally going to hang with them as much as I can. But it killed me that the gospel choir was rehearsing above us. I never knew how much I would miss the daily singing rythem I've had in my life for so long. Next semester, I'm planning my classes around various choir rehearsal schedules...I NEED music in my life. How crazy. I feel like I took it for granted for too long.Ok, off to read about why our over-centralized and over-commercialized information system (ie. media) is ruining community. (Oh, and I am SO glad I had Waycross. Apparently, not many people anymore have that intense community experience. I feel like that place created so much value in my life.)

Get over who we are and be our friend when we're in need

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4215336.stm

There is nothing that sets me into greater fits of fury and that ties my stomach up in knots and forces tears into my eyes than knowing that I am hated. There is little pity for a middle class white girl from an academic family and an idyllic background, and I know I cannot understand the pain that so many people go through on a daily basis, but I too feel it. I decided that I wanted to work in diplomacy to help the world understand that, although the US is a democracy, and in theory, all of us have a vote and representation, the people cannot always be blamed for the actions of the nation. This is a tremendous country, filled with a wealth of experiences, passions, achievements, and also wealth, self-assuredness, and self-interest. However, just as with a forest, an onlooker sees not the differently shaped leaves of the sassafras or the needles on the pine.

I know that now, I am surrounded by Americans: patriotic ones, political ones, liberals, conservatives, anti-nation ones, anarchists, artists, writers, intellectuals, parents, and the people who make my and other’s lives run smoothly. However, my English teacher overseas saw only a greedy, cocky nation who only wanted to export our image to suck the world into our approved way of life. He saw that, and he told me that since I was an American, if was my problem. I wasn’t even old enough to vote.

It disappoints me that tremendous loss in my country is only important to the rest of the world as yet another opportunity to pick apart the administration here. Some fail to see that the people affected by the hurricane and the flooding are not regular guests of the White House, do not set foot on red carpets daily, and do not live the life of Mr. Pennybags. They are real people, and yes, our current system put many of them in a position of substandard life, which is my fault, as a voter, but not an issue to be taken up by the rest of the world when people are coping with loss: of life, family, belongings, and normality.

I suppose the world only sees the water, the admonishers of the system, and the newscasters. They do not see the panic of people around the world concerned for relatives and loved ones who have not yet been found. They do not feel the concern and the helplessness of those unable to give to the cause. They see images that remind them of third world countries ravaged by storms or tsunamis but dismiss the imagery as that of the richest country in the world and assume that it is their fault for letting it get worse. (We do have a wealth distribution problem. Just because the GDP per capita is high does not mean we don’t have people living in poverty. We’re working on it.)

Not all people are rich. Not all people are generous. Not all people have concern for others. That is not something that is limited to the US, and it does not fall under any treaty or universal law. The government cannot make people care – they can try, but caring is something completely owned by the individual. In times of crisis, action is the most important step. After the problem has been solved, it can be reflected upon or the process criticized, but until damage is undone, people are rescued, families united, and lives reinstated, urgency remains. Please, world, in times of crisis, don’t see us as the spoiled child on the playground and ignore us as we choke, or leave us on the side of the road, beaten and unprepared. We may not ask for help, we may not need help, but don’t curse us until people are safe.