...and so it goes...

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

man, i feel like a woman

so i'm taking geography 101 this semester... that's right, i'm a senior, so i get to take the easy classes. my professor is this goofy guy who always refers to the "third world" as the "global south", which distracts me immensely because everytime i hear "global south", i think of the aalyah song with the phrase "dirty south". inevitably, the song is stuck in my head for hours on end.

in general, the class is... well... boring, but it has some interesting concepts. we talk alot about how every white individual is the spawn of satan because we like to colonize places. i tend to agree. but once the prof got done bitching about how sucky we are, he started bringing up some issues in which there's hope for redeeming ourselves.

for example, today, we watched this video about the mortality and morbidity of women in third world countries. the theme of the movie was about how we need to get across to these countries the use of contraceptives, since they start poppin' out kids when most of us are just getting out of the cootie stage. needless to say, these women haven't developed their "birthin' hips" (as my friend aaron likes to say), and suffer chronic complications from pregnancy... both physically and socially.

i have come to appreciate being a woman in our society, and the minimal cultural restrictions that we have. now, i am definitely NOT a feminist... i'd rather not have too many women in congress (for fear of tripling the national debt), and i'm extremely content with a male-only draft (because i know i wouldn't want our national security in a female's freshly manicured hands). rather, i just enjoy being a lady. for instance, i got 5 stamps today at espresso when i only bought 1 drink (just for smiling and looking cute), and i didn't have to open more than 3 doors today (since there was always a male in front of me). i guess it's just made me realize how much i'm looking forward to being a housewife and child-bearer, and i'm really excited about having someone to fix things around the house and kill bugs.

God is amazing in how we can be wired to long for the things that are expected of us. so all those fem-nazis can keep on protesting about women's rights, but i think that us women have it great in this society. in fact, i have done my research, and discovered that there are many "benefits of being a woman"

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

daily dose

-take as directed with chocolate and alcohol

Friday, September 23, 2005

donald miller is my hero!

one of my friends j.k. was reading this book called "blue like jazz". i decided that the cover was pretty cool looking, therefore it's contents must be good. you see, i'm a target audience for all marketing scams... if the product comes in a pretty package, i'll believe everything they say!

so i decided to buy it off of amazon.com for some leisure reading, and amazon.com has this awesome system to suck you in where they say "other customers who bought this product also bought...". well, i ended up buying 2 more books (needless to say, the ones with the coolest covers), and i have been actively reading ever since.

first off... blue like jazz was the most amazing book i've read in a REALLY freakin' long time. i finished it in 24 hours, which is amazing considering my reading comprehension is comparable to that of a 7th grader! the truths that were spoken in that book were just what i needed. a very "hey, i'm human too, and this is how i understand faith" outlook on christianity. i highly recommend you go buy it right now, and perhaps you will be sucked into buying 2 more books that "other customers" purchased.

second off... i am now in the process of reading another book by the same author, "searching for God knows what", which i put marginally below "blue like jazz", but still a very good read. i thought i'd kinda comment on one of the things that the author (donald miller) stresses in this book that i found to be extremely beneficial:

basically, one of the chapters is about how we perceive jesus and the gospel today. when miller was teaching at a bible college, he asked his class to list the ideas/steps necessary for becoming a christian. with no surprise, his students listed out a nice concise bullet-point list of ideas.
1) man is sinful by nature
2) sin separates us from God
3) jesus died for our sins
4) we could accept jesus into our hearts
5) etc, etc, etc
after this, miller asked his class to list the ideas/steps necessary for a guy to fall in love with a girl. amongst chuckles, the class started to formulate their list.
1) a guy would have to get to know her
...several seconds of silence passed while the class thought of the next step or suggestion, when one kid spoke up and said, "it isn't exactly a scientific process."
i guess this particular part of the book stood out to me, because it is very easy for me to describe my "faith", but it is extremely hard to describe my "love" of someone/something... and i don't think that is possible. our relationship with christ should be much more complicated to understand than our relationship with any other human - God is just beyond what our minds can grasp, and people, well, they are tangible... you can actually feel them hold you.
i think that maybe i've just been looking at my relationship with christ as more of a scientist than as a child, and therefore i have been looking at my faith as more of a formula than a relationship. so what do i do with this new-found glitch in my thinking? how do you take facts and beliefs and turn them into emotion? no idea... but i've come to the conclusion that i should've been an english major or something, and i wouldn't have this problem of trying to fit the gospel into an efficient protocol! :)

lil' sis

as a matter of fact teej, i really do need a cute little puppy to go along with my kitten!!

so, i'm "down home" in MC (mt.carmel for you newbies) to celebrate my mom's big 5-0. i just came in to surprise her before they left for their celebration trip. the folks are heading out to las vegas tonight... which is not a surprise because they seriously go there at least 3 times a year. my mom is hooked on all the "has been" celebrity shows. this weekend, they're going to see the doobie brothers! woohoo! i'm jealous!

most importantly, i guess, i'm here to stay the weekend so that my little sister and/or cousin doesn't decide to throw a big party (and to make sure the dog doesn't starve). it's really ironic that my mom is now having me be the "watcher" when not so long ago i was the "watchee". it's funny how things change like that. sometimes i get disappointed that my little sis doesn't try anything crazy that i can bust her on... since that little snitch used to get me in trouble all the time!!

speaking of the little sis, i went to her volleyball game tonight, and she rocks! it made me sad to watch the game and not get to play... i miss sports! oh well, i guess just one more year of living vicariously through her, eh?!

well, i guess that's all for now. love love.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

angrylittlegirls

haha - i couldn't resist.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

temporary amnesia

well, it's 2:40am, and for some reason, sleep doesn't seem to want my company. i guess i just had a stressful day of pop quizzes, exams, papers, and schedule mishaps... and my brain didn't feel like shutting off!

speaking of my brain working overtime...i've been doing some research for my thesis, and i came across this paper that got me thinking. basically, these people took rats, exposed them to something to provoke fear, prevented some proteins from being expressed, and then tested their long term memory of the event. i'm still a little leary about how they actually test to see if the memory was consolidated or not, but apparently they were able to completely detroy the rats' ability to turn short term memory of that single event into a long term memory.

it was an almost creepy parallel to the movie "momento" and (less attractively) "50 first dates". i was taken aback by the thought of really not being able to remember beyond a certain point.

another part of the paper discussed the recalling of memories and then the reconsolidation of them. apparently, whenever you encode a memory to long term, it is static and stored away. however, when you recall a memory, it is taken out of "molecular storage" and becomes a reformable event...therefore allowing you to actually change an existing memory and reconsolidate it into it's static state. just by altering 1 protein during the recall stage, they were also able to erase a memory that had already been consolidated.

i guess this is where i mention "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind"... the ability to remove a single memory, or the memory of a specific time point in your life. what would it be like if we could just erase a bad event, and exist as though it never happened? how would that change the dynamics of who we are? and in the end of the movie (skip this part for those of you who haven't seen it)... the two end up together anyway, as if they had never met before. does this imply that we are incapable of growth outside of past mistakes? or does it reinforce the concept of fate? and going back to the "50 first dates" situation, does it mean that unless we have some sort of outside intervention, we would live the same day over and over again?

i sometimes wonder if i had this conversation with God before he put me in the womb and was like "ok val... here are all of the things that Satan is going to throw at you, and here's how to overcome that", and i was like "pssshht... hell, i just have to live the life of a upper-middle class, white, educated, american female... piece of cake!" and then God erased my memory, threw me in the womb, and look what a mess i've made of that!!

so where am i going with this? hell, i don't know, it's 3am... but i guess what i've been pondering lately is the amazing impact that our past has on who we are and how we live our lives. is it possible that tomorrow is completely planned out for me? and even if i could go back in time, would i make the same mistakes that i regret to this day?

Monday, September 19, 2005

at it again!

well friends... i have been requested to get my butt in gear and update. most of you probably read some of my italy adventures, and thanks to you. but now you're like, "so where did they go?" have no fear!! http://realworlditaly.blogspot.com contains all of my italian stories!

the real truth is that i didn't all of the sudden decide to update this thing. i'm actually finding an excuse to not study for my neuro exam that is tomorrow, and that will most definitely kick my ass! i guess that's ok... i'm probably due for a good ass-kicking by now.

nothing really new since i got back in champaign. i made some new friends, ran into some old friends, went line dancing, went a whole week on cheese and bread, and slept ALOT! most of you know about my kitten pessa. well, the stupid thing turned into a cat when i was abroad. i still refer to her as a kitten in hopes that she won't become a fat, lazy, stuck-up pest like most cats i know. the good thing is that she loves me... but that's probably only because i feed her. :)

well, i guess that's it for now. hopefully i can keep this up (referring to both the blog and the not-studying). later!