Facebook is the Devil

I'm tired of being tagged in Facebook notes by acquaintances from high school that would lead me to believe that Facebook is the anti-Christ, and I've only been tagged in two of them.
How closed minded of someone to deny themselves the right to something they enjoy doing. How simple and naive to believe that deleting your Facebook account will bring you closer to God. If Facebook is your biggest "sin", you haven't been living in the real world very long and honestly if that's distracting you from being religious, you're going to have so many more issues if a real distraction ever presents itself.
People use Facebook. A lot. It's a rampant social networking tool and love it or hate it, most people use it on a daily basis. It's a form of communication between people who otherwise would never take the time to keep in touch. Much like these two people I know from high school, I would probably forget a lot of people exist because they just don't play any part in my life. Why would I take the time to write a letter to someone I haven't talked to in 3 years? It's just not feasible.
If we're assuming Facebook is causing you to sin and not do the things you're supposed to do, how is eliminating it going to help? Aren't you just going to find something new to distract you from God? These things are completely unrelated. Why don't we assume then that the Internet, television, rock music, dancing, caffinated beverages, books about witches and wizards, and women wearing pants are also going to distract you from God and cause you to sin. Are America's Christian youth really heading in such a Puritan direction? As far as I know, people who cite Facebook as being religiously distracting are still doing all of these things. Who's to say that it's really any different?
Rejecting new media is a huge landmine that journalists are trying to diffuse. The mass majority of people turn to the Internet because it's instant and accessible at all times of the day. This is why people use the Internet for everything from pornography to Bible verses. It's a tool. It's there. Rejecting something will not make it go away or make your life easier.
Why wouldn't a good Christian try to salvage their already dependent relationship with Facebook in order to foster new Christian friends by using a tool that can be a distraction for good. You could do a number of things to make your time spent on Facebook much more fulfilling for yourself, but mostly for the people in your life who need to hear about God. Leaving a massive group of sinners who are readily available to be subjected to your words completely isolated from you is selfish. Dare I say, un-Christian?
And after I read a note about a girl deleting her Facebook for religious reasons at the end of the week, she then continued to update her statuses. If it's so important to quit, why would you continue to compromise your faith by allowing yourself to repeat your addictive habits?
In conclusion, deleting Facebook for religious purposes is a really dumb idea and is very closed-minded. I don't agree with it and I feel like people who do so are being selfish to their friends, religious and non-religious alike.

I Hate You SO Much Right Now

I thank God every time I hear my roommate yell on the phone that the tumultuous chapter in my life has ended. The fighting, the phone arguing, the ignoring, the uncertainty, the mistrust, the insecurity, the crying, and all the bits and pieces of a disconnected relationship are completely in my past. How did I, the least confrontational person on the planet, put up with 4 1/2 years of bickering and major arguments?
I'm thankful I'm with someone who loves me (possibly for the first true time in my life) and that I have the sense to put past relationships where they belong- in the past.

Tina Fey: I Salute You

The more I watched 30 Rock the more I realize that the show is incredibly clever and is full of fantastic characters and spot-on humor. At first, I kind of arbitrarily watched it after The Office was finished because it was on and Tina Fey was on my T.V. and I like her. After my slow immersion and tuned out watching, I started to actually enjoy the show for it's uniqueness.
After watching an episode of 30 Rock with 3 guys and listening to their reactions, though I was already a fan, I must salute Tina Fey.
She has brought the allure of geek chic back to the mainstream, reinstating the time-honored fantasies of the sexy librarian or school teacher. She is desired not only for her body, but for her wit and intelligence. Men like funny women. She is bold, quirky, confident, intelligent, and hilarious. As far as I can tell, this drives guys nuts and that leaves hope for the rest of us normal women.
I like to imagine that Tina Fey is low-maintenance, down-to-earth, and can keep up dissing insults with the boys, much like myself (or so I try to be).
And her hair is fantastic and so low fuss. Adorable.

Welcome to the Dumps, Population: Me

My hormones have me under their command sometimes and it's days like these I wish I had a y chromosome.
I've been very on edge and easily upset.
I feel like I'm not able to access my full creative potential.
I feel academically inadequate and unable to comprehend simple things.
I feel physically incapable of being beautiful.
I feel really sad and crappy and I really just want to cry and for someone to say that I'm wonderful and everything will get better.
I'm scared that I will never have a decent job and will live in debt the rest of my life.
These are all real fears I have that really shouldn't be relevant at this point in my life, but they are.
I'm sad and scared and forgetful and uninspired.

"I've been around a mirror enough
to know it's hard to change.
We're like magicians when we dream
but we wake up... nothings different."

The Faint, Mirror Error

Mother Would Be Proud

It's the eve before spring semester begins and I must say, I am surprised. I'm feeling anxious. Not nervous or excited, but anxious. I don't know what the semester will bring, but I've already made some fantastic steps just today.

• I dyed (part of) my hair red. Not my whole head and not a vibrant, bright red, but the underneath part is now red to some extent. I like it a lot. I've always wanted to do it and it didn't turn out disastrous. I'm sure my mother will be less than thrilled, but she doesn't have to see it until I come home.
  
• I am now a photographer for the Daily Gamecock! If you're not familiar with USC campus life, the Daily Gamecock is the school newspaper at the University of South Carolina. I haven't actually done anything yet, but my first meeting is tomorrow. I'm very excited about this, you have no idea.
• I'm in the midst of starting a photography group on Facebook to effectively cater to my friends' and acquaintances' needs for nice looking pictures, be it to promote recitals, headshots, or just a new default picture. This is purely for the joy of taking pictures of my friends and allowing myself to get some good field experience. The only roadblock I've encountered is that I don't know what to call it. While I figure I'll be shooting primarily musicians (as most of my friends are music majors), I don't want to narrow it to only that. The title says it all, really. It needs to be memorable, elegant, and not totally cryptic. I really like Ars Nova Photography. While it is a stylistic period in music of the Middle Ages (this is how I found it), it's Italian for "new art" or "new technique". Digital photography is a new technique and new art form, in relation to more traditional forms of art like painting or sculpting. I'm going to sleep on it I think.
  

I actually think I'm going to enjoy all of my classes this semester. I'm taking:

• Speech
• Intro to Econ
• Psych of Marriage (don't ask me why)
• Journalism Writing
• Graphic Production (Journalism)
  
• University Band

My primary objective is to get my Life Scholarship back and that can only be done by getting a cumulative GPA of 3.0 this year. I'm teetering at a 2.75 right now and it's taunting me. My frame of mind is leading me to believe I might actually enjoy learning this semester (gasp!) and for that my momma would be proud.

Dear Every Guy Who's Ever Wronged Me:

All I can do to counter the pain you caused me is to keep on loving him.
Harder. Better. Faster. Stronger.
He loves me and I owe it to him to love him.
And I will.
And I hope some how my happiness will spite you.

I'm sorry for my flaws.
Actually, no. I don't apologize for anything.
I did what I could. I am who I am. Forget you for not appreciating me.

Haha. I win. I'm in love.

P.S. I Love You

So I had been wanting to see the movie P.S. I Love You for some time now. I don't really know why, but the title and the cover of the dvd drew me to it. Little did I know that *SPOILER ALERT* the girl's husband dies untimely. And from then on I bawled every 6 minutes or so. It was kind of destined to be a tear jerker and I probably never would have got around to watching it if it hadn't been on HBO. The whole premise of the movie is that the deceased husband sends letters to his wife from the grave (actually it's through her mom, but whatevs) to aid her in grieving and moving on from his untimely death. Yes, it was a little creepy and sadistic to an extent, but kind of sweet.
However, what made me feel like this movie was worth writing about is the fact that it's movies like this that deal with real things faced by those in love that makes me realize exactly how much I care about someone and just how in love I actually am. Also, it makes me realize just how devastated I would be if I lost someone that means that much to me.

I'm Not Sure How This is Suposed to Feel

Timm is getting married.
To a girl named Coco.
She used to be a stripper.
She has a kid.
The ring is beautiful.

What do I do about this? Is there some kind of manual about how to deal with this kind of thing? What is the socially accepted protocol for my situation?
I'm not jealous and I don't miss him and I never want to be with him ever again, it just kind of threw my entire day off kilter to see his mug with his bulldog and his Coco. To think that a year ago he was begging me to drive home every weekend and we were fighting about how I was scared to get married and I didn't want to yet (or ever to him) and I was falling for another guy and I wanted out of that relationship so badly but was so scared to hurt anyone. Does this happen all the time? Do people always have to deal with their ex's getting married and just never talk about it? I think I'm finally to the point where I have forgiven Timm for every misdoing he's done to me and I've forgotten how miserable I was with him. I cried about him getting married. I should be happy for him. I don't know why this makes me cry. I'm just very caught off guard and weirded out.
Then come the "what if's": what if he wants me to be in the wedding? what if he invites me to the wedding? what if his crazy family is there? what if people ask me questions? what if she has my wedding?
It's just weird to think about how someone was a part of your life for so long and you were in love, no matter how awful things got and in such a short period of time, everything can be gone. You get over them, they get over you, you move on and you fall in love with someone better. People leave imprints on your life that you cannot erase no matter how painful they are. I wish I could be truly happy for him without crying for some mysterious reason, but I don't think that's possible.
Why does people getting married and having babies bother me so much? It irks me to my very core. I was rifling through my friends status updates on facebook and saw at least four girls with names I didn't recognize and then realized they had gotten married since I'd last seen them. I'm thinking that I'm jealous, even though I'm not to that point in my life at all yet. I want to be married. I want to have children. All some day. College carries so much uncertainty along for the ride. I long for the day I can be established and have a place to park my car without getting a parking ticket.

I Believe!

For the first time in my life, I am proud to be an American. I voted in my first presidential election and watched as our nation took one gigantic step towards making a change for the better of all people; hearts pounding, fists raised in the air. I saw tears and smiles and embraces. I even saw a girl outside of my window jumping and screaming in pure joy. I wholeheartedly admire Obama's grassroots efforts to reach voters that McCain simply did not try to sway. The young and the ethnic, two of the largest demographics in America, I felt were not adequately touched by McCain's campaign. I myself saw no draw to voting for him. What good would it do to vote for a quasi-Bush doppelganger?
Why is socialized health care viewed as Satan's HMO? What's so bad about taking from the haves and sharing that with the have-nots? No one calls Robin Hood the anti-Christ.
Barack Obama is not a terrorist. Nor is he a Muslim. His father was raised a Muslim in Kenya, a country where 10% of the population practices Islam, as opposed to the .6% of Muslims in America. His father later became an atheist. Barack was baptized in 1988 as a Christian and has evolved his religious views throughout most of his adult life.
Even if he were a Muslim, why should it matter? America was founded on the basis of religious freedom. Where Obama came from is not of importance. His struggles, race, family life, and beliefs are of no relevance to his political ideals and his leadership skills. Some may disagree with me, but I think a successful tenure as a United States Senator is experience enough. While I do recognize that he lacks the experience that McCain more than makes up for, Obama has qualities that far exceed political experience. Obama has good foreign relations and can increase our allies abroad. This is imperative in order to pull our hard-working troops from Iraq. Support of Obama is support of peace.
I'm finding a mixture of sadistic joy and unbridled disgust rising up in me as I read some of my friend's facebook statuses. There's even a few people I was friends with mainly for appearances whose racist and ignorant reamarks have swayed me to revoke that friendship. I'm ashamed to be associated with some of the right-wing nutjobs (for lack of better adjectives) that I had no idea were on my friends list. But I digress, it's not my opinion that matters here, but the blatant re-posting of things people put out on the internet.Don't be offended if your status shows up here. I respect the 1st Amendment right of all Americans to say what they feel and believe. I'm not pointing fingers or calling anyone un-American, racist, fascist, or ignorant. Just some of the phrasing of opinions come across as such to me and it bothers me down to my very core that my peers in the year 2008 would still have such backwards things to say.
To avoid any potential complications, I've removed names, but the stinging sentiments remain:

• "hang on America. The road to Hell is a rocky one. 4 years until this nightmare ends. Welcome to Socialism, comrades."
• "isn't looking forward to socialism."
• "says: Socialism is not the "change" America needs right now...South Carolina ready to secede again?"
• "Scared for my future though, no guns/ammo, gay marriage, taking troops out of Iraq??"
• "says congratulations to Comrade Obama. Heed my warning: he promisses change, but he didn't say we would like it." (NOTE: this person changed their profile picture to a Communist flag.)
• "is think how stupid america is for electing a muslim to be our president. Time to move to canada."
• "is trip to australia anyone??"
• "is so happy I'm getting a doctorate degree just so my salary can be cut in half!! Socialism is not the way to go!!"
• "is expecting a check for my college education from this whole share the wealth thing."
• "is moving to Canada...thanks Obama..."

I find it incredibly poignant that many of these folks spouting their distaste for Obama's socialist policies are opting to move to Canada... the poster child for socialized health care and a country far more liberal than the United States.
My one plea is that those who disagree with Obama can learn to accept the direction that the vast majority of our country is moving in. Respect the president and work together to forget our differences and patch up the holes in our nation. It's not about Republicans and Democrats anymore. It's about what's best for our country as a whole. It's not about red or blue, black or white, but about President Barack Obama. It's about progressive change for a better future for our country. It's about fixing the problems that have evolved over the past 8 years.
I voted for Barack Obama. I support change, hope, and peace. I do not support the war in Iraq. I do support socialized health care. I do support taxing those who make over $250,000 a year. Call me crazy. Call me Communist, Marxist, Socialist, or un-American. But I believe in the future. I believe in a president people can support. I believe in a president that I feel will listen to the needs of the people. I believe that my voice can be heard. I believe in America.

Sadly Mistaken

I thought I was ready for something. Someone new. I had all these expectations of what things should have been like, but it just didn't happen that way. I'm disappointed that the relationship didn't work out. I'm just not ready to be committed to someone completely yet. I thought if I forced myself to be happy, I would be and it worked for a time, but doubt settled in and I realized that I couldn't go on with this charade any longer without becoming incredibly unhappy. I'm more and more independent as the days go on, but I need to be completely self-reliant and self-actualized before I can take on the responsibility of being in love. I'm damaged goods. I will never quit saying that until I believe it to not be true. I still have feelings for my ex even though he ignores me and undoubtedly must loathe my existence. I still have a complicated friendship with an old flame from last year that may have been worth all it's volatility. Who knows what other opportunities may present themselves? I really don't know exactly what I want, but I have a general idea.
I just need time.