Lotto!

This week’s lottery is around two million dollars.  Granted that’s a lot of money, but usually it gets to be up in the eighty-ninety million dollar range.  That got me thinking what I would do with all that money.  Well half of it would go to taxes, which is complete bogus, but unavoidable, and then that would leave me with around forty million dollars.  I think another half of that (at least) would go to charity.  But a good one.  Like helping kids in Africa or Haiti or donations toward research on neglected diseases…not the Jersey Shore Relief From Stupidity Fund, which on second thought might not be such a bad idea…Alright so I have around twenty million dollars left to be spent on a boat for my parents, because they’ve always wanted one, tuition for the college of my choice, travel around the world and…housing for later in life.  Not too frivolous, I don’t think.

Family Ties

I guess I should also say, following up on my previous post, that my life has been by no means bad.  I have nice parents and good friends and a best friend who I love to death and share everything with.  And my extended family is pretty great.  On big holidays, like Christmas and Easter we have big family parties and there’s always amazing food and fun traditions that I treasure with all my heart.  For example, on Christmas Eve, we have a really fancy party at my Aunt Kris’ house and everyone gets dressed up in nice dresses and suits and we have a gift exchange and my Aunt Kris makes roast beef, which I never eat because I hate meat, but the rest of my family really enjoys.  And my Aunt Sherry makes this amazing array of the most fabulous Christmas cookies ever that are quite possibly the most delicious things in the world.  I mean she makes like fifteen different kinds alone and then at least twenty of each kind.  Which is probably a good thing because I have a pretty big family (four sisters and their husbands and then eleven immediate cousins plus more extended family like my deceased uncle’s brother Larry and his wife Cindy and then my cousins’ wives and their kids…so it’s big).  Anyways, even though my life is kind of boring thus far, I still intensely value certain aspects of it.

True Living.

I feel like I haven’t really lived that much.  Granted, I’ve only been alive for seventeen years which is a relatively short time.  But I was thinking about it the other day when I learned that one of the prompts I have to write for a college essay is: evaluate a significant experience in your life and its effect on you.  Well…I don’t know that I’ve really had an super significant experiences.  My life has kind of been the same routine for the past seventeen years repeated over and over.  Which is just really sad because I don’t want to be a boring person.  I wish I had amazing experiences to think about and reflect on, but I just don’t.  I’ve lived in Ohio for the past four and a half years and before that I lived in Michigan since I was born.  Not super exciting stuff.  I’ve never even been out of the country unless you count Canada, which you shouldn’t because it’s not that exciting there either.  I went to New York City for a weekend, but nothing really happened there other than that I realized how expensive everything is and how relatively little money I have.  I don’t exactly want anything bad to happen to me, or anything like that…but maybe just a departure from the mundane that has been my life up until now.  I’d really like to travel.  I’d really like to meet interesting people and learn, hands-on, about cultures other than my own…I think I’d just really like to do SOMETHING.

Religion...

Sometimes I have a hard time with religion.  I want so badly to believe in a higher power, but then logic takes over and science infiltrates my mind to the point that it just doesn’t seem reasonable that all the Bible stories I’ve learned for the past seventeen years of my life are valid.  Proven scientific theories, like evolution, completely contradict the story of Adam and Eve.  And for that matter, are we supposed to literally interpret these stories, or take some sort of subliminal message from them?  And then there’s the whole conspiracy theory that the Bible was made by a bunch of religious officials way after the supposed dates of the actual events.  If you think about it, the whole idea is kind of genius—make everyone believe that there is a higher power that will punish them if they don’t follow a specific set of rules (that the officials could have made up themselves) all so that they could just get everyone to do what they wanted them to do and have an society to their own specifications.  But then things like what just happened to the woman I work for happen.  She should have died in childbirth, but is already back on her feet after hundreds of people prayed for her.  That seems a little too crazy to be a coincidence.

Wondrous. Simply Wondrous.

I just saw Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium and I think I may be in love.  The movie quickly became one of my favorite movies of all time.  The creativity and imagination expressed through it was simply magical.  It transported me back to a time when I believed anything was possible and made me wish that I could live in a place where magic was real and true and beautiful.  Mr. Magorium depicts a fabulous picture of a childlike adult—a total wizard in the realm of imagination and enchantment.  I almost wish that everyone could be like him.  That everyone could just accept things the way he does and live life in such simple belief that the world is a magical place.  Kudos to Dustin Hoffman on a magical performance—I really believed his character and felt a remarkable connection to him, like he was the imaginative child of all our pasts.

Oh Ke$ha

Okay, I know I keep harping on Ke$ha, but I just read an article about her in a magazine.  Apparently, she’s a certified genius whose I.Q. is over 140 and got a 1500 on her SATs.  AND she was in IB.  I can’t decide if that makes me want to respect her or makes me even more disappointed in her.  I can totally appreciate that she’s so involved in her music and everything that she left school to pursue her dreams, but it’s just so…indescribably sad to me that she wastes her time singing about the things she sings about, when she has the potential to really make an impact on the lives of young girls by encouraging them to stay in school, and treat education with the importance it deserves.  Instead, she sings about wild Hollywood parties and glorifies excessive drinking and other illicit activities.  I mean, perhaps I’m a little biased because school is one of the most important things in my life and I’m about as straight-edge as they come, but really.  What Ke$ha should be doing is encouraging young women to respect themselves and using her accomplishments in academics to do so.

Promises, Promises

I think the world would just be a better place if people didn’t make promises.  Because they can rarely keep them.  Take marriage for example—that’s basically a promise that you’re going to stay together forever and love each other and be faithful and whatever.  But at least fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce.  Another example, parents promise stupid things to their children, like gifts or special events, but rarely follow through and claim that they never promised in the first place.  People make promises to their friends that they don’t keep.  Workers make promises to their employers that they don’t keep—but then they often get fired.  Maybe, if people quit making promises that they can’t keep, there would be a lot more disappointment in the world and everyone wouldn’t be so pissed off all the freaking time.  Or maybe, and this is probably a long shot, but maybe if people would get their effing acts together and only make the promises they knew for a fact that they could keep—maybe then people would stop fighting and there could be some semblance of peace among the human race.

Sick Jerks.

I hate being sick.  And what I hate even more is people who come to school when they’re sick because they’re selfish and don’t care about getting other people sick.  It really drives me nuts.  Seriously, have they no common sense??  I mean, they know they’re sick and likely contagious, but all they care about is getting their own work done and don’t care at all about the fact that they’re probably getting other people sick.  Maybe even more sick than they were if the other people have weak immune systems.  And then—and here’s the real kicker—those people who got sick from the jerks who come to school sick get so sick that they can’t come to school, and then they get behind and struggle all because some people are rude and selfish and stupid.  And then those people who got sick, like responsible people, have to go to doctors and get poked and prodded and stuck with a finger prick and have the back of their throat swabbed with a Q-tip to check for strep.  All because the people who got them sick wouldn’t stay home in the first place.  Jerks.

FAIL.

I was thinking today (big shock) and I realized something really upsetting.  I have read so few books in my lifetime.  Granted, I’m only seventeen but still.  It’s pitiful.  I mean, I claim that I want to be a book editor because I love to read so much, which I do, but I’ve read such a small portion of the classics.  I’ve decided to make a list of the classics I’ve read, and the classics I have not read.  Alright—ones that I have read:  Romeo and Juliet, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible, Huckleberry Finn, The Stranger, The Secret Life of Bees, From Sleep Unbound, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Beowulf, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, The Catcher in the Rye.  Classics I have not read:  Tom Sawyer (although after Huck Finn, I don’t know if it could stomach it), Farenheight 451, Robinson Crusoe, Raisin in the Sun, All Quiet on the Western Front,  The Importance of Being Earnest, A Tale of Two Cities, Anna Kareina, A Farewell to Arms, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Great Expectations, Animal Farm, Oliver Twist, The Iliad, Molby Dick, The Odyssey, Moll Flanders, Out of Africa,  The Picture of Dorian Gray (tried and failed), A Streetcar Named Desire.  This is so pathetic.  And I call myself an IB Student.

Brave New World

For English, I’ve been reading this book by Aldous Huxley.  It’s called Brave New World and it’s apparently a classic (though I’d never heard of it up until this year…which actually isn’t such a good way to determine its literary merit).  Anyways, it’s about this society whose morals are total polar opposites to those of the society in the time when it was written, around the 1930s.  Everyone sleeps around, no one has children or families—the concept of a mother or father is completely taboo.  And everyone in the society is controlled by early life stage conditioning, which is put in place by the World Controllers.  The whole aim of the society is to ensure the happiness of the individuals who exist within it.  Everyone is happy because everyone is conditioned to be happy with their place in society pretty much from birth and also because of the encouragement of instant gratification.  I’m curious as to whether or not Huxley knew the direction societal morals were headed in, because quite a few of the ideas he presents in his book are strikingly parallel to the emerging moral standards of this time period—especially regarding sex.  Except perhaps not to the same degree in the novel.  It’s not my favorite book, but it was certainly an interesting read.

Words

Craziness—foolishness in some while brilliance in others.  Some outlets are good, some not so good.  Take Alfred Hitchcock for example.  Total wackadoo, total creative genius.  But then again, take Charles Manson.  Total maniac.  Period.  Though of course, there might be something to be said for the fact that he was a master manipulator who used religion to get people to follow him.  I guess my point is that the term “crazy” can have so many different applications.  You can use it as an insult, in jest—it can even be a term of endearment.  The only real thing that separates the various meanings is context or intonation.  Wouldn’t it make more sense to have a different word for each meaning.  Why didn’t the people who came up with language think of that?  And for that matter, who even came up with the idea of language?  Who decided what words meant what?  And how did they get their ideas around?  Especially if no one spoke.  Oy vay.  Personally, I think that everyone has a little crazy in them, as the thought process of this post so vividly displays.  Some people are just better at expressing their own madness.

Conception

Another movie that really blows my mind is Inception.  That movie is such an amazing idea.  It’s even a little upsetting because it makes me wonder how someone could every come up with something like controlling someone through their dreams, because I sure as hell couldn’t.  But it presents an interesting idea—the force or impact that our dreams have on our lives.  I don’t know how many times I’ve had a dream about something I’ve been thinking really hard about and taken the result of that dream as a sign or warning.  Maybe that’s stupid or crazy—but I don’t think I’m alone in having had that happen.  I think dreams are really, essentially, our subconscious telling us our true feelings.  As much as I hate to do it, I have to reference Tess here.  After Tess’ husband, Angel, learns of her impurity, he totally shuts her out.  But at one point in the novel, he sleepwalks over to Tess and demonstrates his true feelings for her.  Therefore, the sleeping Angel was more real and true to himself than the awake Angel.

Darko

I just recently saw Donnie Darko for the first time, and I have to admit that I’m a little obsessed.  I mean, really.  WHO COMES UP WITH THESE MOVIES?????  Richard Kelly is truly an amazing thinker.  I cannot believe the sheer creative genius that it would take to come up with an idea like a six foot man in a bunny suit that prophesizes doomsday to a teenage mental case and then proceeds to force him to do his bidding, all the while holding over the boy’s head the fact that he saved his life from a jet turbine that crashed through the roof into his bed.  And then, infuse all that with a bittersweet—albeit quite abnormal—teenage love story and you’ve got yourself a winner of a movie.

Gleeful

I love Glee.  I really love it.  Maybe it’s silly, and quite possibly trite—but I just CAN’T seem to get enough of it.  And I know I’m not alone.  Maybe it’s because the show pushes the dreaded envelope in a way that makes sense—it demonstrates the real obstacles teens in high school face—teens who refuse to blend in with everyone else, or try desperately to, but just can’t seem to be able to do it.  Or maybe it’s because the show is simply fabulous entertainment.  It mixes just the right amount of the hits of today with those of the past, and, more importantly, it is nothing like High School Musical (i.e. the characters rarely break out into random song, thank GOD).  And I love the characters themselves.  I love that Rachel is a total diva, but still has some semblance of a heart.  I love that Finn is the quintessential jock, but is still such a nice guy.  And I LOVE that Emma is an obsessive compulsive neat freak of a guidance counselor, with an impressive collection of adorable cardigans.

The Decline of Music

I was listening to a favorite duet of mine by Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand—masterfully redone by Lea Michele and Chris Colfer of Glee—and couldn’t help but reiterate some of the alluded to sentiments of my previous post.  It’s so…sad to me that those two women—with all their grace, poise and talent—are being replaced by the likes of Ke$ha, whose voice is so computerized, it’s disgusting.  Women like Garland and Streisand actually deserve the awards and acclaim they gained, while Ke$ha (I’m getting really sick of typing that stupid dollar sign) and others like her gain theirs by imitating actual originals like Madonna and posing in barely-there bikinis on their album covers.

Old Hollywood vs New Hollywood

Old Hollywood represents a genre vastly different from that of today.  What used to be Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra has become Lil’ Wayne and Lady Gaga.  What used to be Judy Garland and Humphrey Bogart has become Lindsay Lohan and Heath Ledger.  What used to be the Donna Reid Show has become The Jersey Shore—one television phenomenon that I will never understand.  That’s not to say that what we have today is always bad or distasteful—those few shows, actors and singers that don’t try to push the envelope as far as it will go do have their respective merits and assimilate well into today’s society.  I just think it would be interesting to see how today’s society would respond to the modesty and clean-cut-ness of Old Hollywood, which also undoubtedly had its own problems.  What might be more interesting would be to see how the society that enjoyed Old Hollywood would respond to the raunch and all around bad taste of some of the rising stars of today.

State of Hypocrisy

The State of the Union Address by the President last night was...audacious, to say the least. It was impossibly hypocritical of Obama to say that neither party should block a bill, due to the grudges and spite of certain senators (undoubtedly referring to the recent decease of the Democratic super majority), when, should the situation be reversed, he would have absolutely no problem with the Democrats blocking a bill by filibustering to high heaven! Obama said a lot and talked a lot about all the reforms that would take place this year, but he did the same during his election campaign and what has happened thus far? He’s been in office for a year now and the most consequential thing he’s done so far is to get the Nobel Peace prize…for absolutely nothing. Obama should be ashamed for trying to humiliate the Supreme Court Justices in front of the world by criticizing them on their conclusion that there should be no restrictions on corporate spending on campaigns (advocacy ads), which only leveled the playing field with the Democratic Union unrestricted advocacy ads for 100 years. Such hypocrisy. It makes total sense that the corporations should not be entitled to the same freedoms and say in politics that unions have had for many, many years. Unions that consistently support Democrats. I think it’s safe to say that the President has made an enemy of the Supreme Court for the rest of his term, unless of course he tries to undermine the Constitution, yet again, by wiping out the Supreme Court and filling the seats with his own men. Again, may you ask? Yes, again. It was unconstitutional for the President and the Democratic Congress to attempt to mandate Healthcare to the states. The constitution clearly makes a separation between federal and state governments and power. It was unconstitutional for the President to give the unions ownership rights over GM and Chrysler that they were not legally entitled to versus the bond-holders who actually held the legal rights. Never before has there been this great of an overreach of executive branch power into the private sector in United States history—it is simply unconstitutional and undemocratic. Finally, it was unconstitutional for the President to attempt to void and nullify the contracts of bank employees, whether they be right or wrong, simply because he did not like them. Contracts are legally binding. You cannot just tear them up because you don’t agree with them! Even if you are the President.

Our Bodies Are A Wonderland...

This week in biology, we’re learning about cellular respiration and let me tell you—it is complex. It seems crazy to me that something with so many steps and processes can be a totally involuntary action that we really didn’t even know about until this week. How can we be doing something every second of every day without knowing or knowing how it works? And it happens so fast. We breath in and by the time we breath out, almost all the cells in our body (and there are trillions and trillions of them) have completed the three-process reaction (with each process containing like ten steps) to fuel enough energy to keep us living. That’s teeny, tiny, microscopic cells doing enough to make energy for us to perform basic as well as complex functions. Seems pretty crazy. It seems to me that such an important reaction inside our bodies would automatically be programmed into our brains so that we just know it, know how it works, etc. Our bodies are quite literally a wonderland.

Evolution of Music

Music: the tones or sounds employed, occurring in single line (melody) or multiple lines (harmony), and sounded or to be sounded by one or more voices or instruments, or both. What an inadequate definition. Music is much more than just a bunch of sounds. It’s a medium for expression, like poetry or painting or drawing or dancing. It’s a collection of ideas mashed into one message that means something different to everyone. Everyone knows what it’s like to find that one perfect song to match their mood or help them grieve through something difficult—like a death of a friend or family-member or the end of a relationship. Which is why it’s so sad that music has started evolving into telling stories about beating and raping women or killing people… How can something so pure in concept turn into something so devoid of any morality?

Synonyms of Love: Jealousy, Passion, Hate

We started to read Wuthering Heights in English class this week, and even after my brother told me over and over how much he hated it and how boring it was, I actually really like it. It’s intense, to say the least, but rich with universal themes we can all relate to—jealousy, revenge, love, hatred. While we may feel them slightly less intensely than the main character Heathcliff, we can still relate to how much he hates Edgar Linton and Hindley Earnshaw. We can still sympathize how it must feel for Heathcliff to love Catherine as he does, yet to be constantly reminded that he is beneath her. From what I can tell, Heathcliff’s love, hate, jealousy and blood-lust are what eventually leads him to his downfall. How perfect would the world be if there was none of that…and yet how boring it would be. We all know how wonderful it is to be in love, and we all know the excitement that comes with revenge (whether or not we should feel it is a completely different issue). While they can cause intense pain and regret, they also are what make us human.

Ignorance Is Bliss

When I was little, I was convinced that I was Snow White. It’s funny how little kids believe something, and it automatically becomes true to them. How wonderful would it be if people continued to feel that way as they grew older? There’s also no stress when you’re little. The biggest dilemmas of my childhood consisted of what to be for Halloween and what I wanted for lunch—peanut butter and jelly or a hotdog? I didn’t have to worry about schoolwork or driving or really my future when I was little. I just let my mom and dad lead the way for me and I was happy to do what they told me—except when they told me to take a nap. That I wasn’t too thrilled about. I never had to worry about failing tests or getting that dreaded B on a report card. Now, as a junior in high school I’m faced with worries about getting into the right colleges and making something of myself when I graduate. I have to worry about leaving my parents to live on my own and not becoming a complete failure in the working world. When I was in fifth grade I told my mom I didn’t want to go into the sixth grade because I didn’t want to grow up anymore. These days, I feel like saying the same thing.

PDA. Really.

I didn’t bother watching the AMAs the other night, but I certainly heard about Adam Lambert’s…shocking, to say the least, performance. As well as his comment afterward about how it’s the 2000s and people need to get with it. Sorry, but I ain’t getting with that. I have no problem with people being gay or lesbian, in fact I have a close friend who is gay. And I think it’s great that Adam Lambert is so comfortable with his sexuality. But there’s a fine line between being comfortable with your sexuality and exploiting it. It was gross, inappropriate and just completely unnecessary. Little kids could have been watching the awards show and he gets up there and sticks some guy’s head in his crotch! And he needs to get over the whole “it’s because I’m gay” thing. People were just as upset when Britney and Madonna kissed on stage and when Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson did their little number at the Super Bowl. There’s a time and place for that and it most definitely is not in public—much less on TV with young viewers watching. And I, for one, think that it’s a pretty lame excuse to justify his actions by saying that people need to “get with it”.

Attraction

This week, for “le journal” in French class, the prompt is “Could you marry someone who you do not find very attractive? Beauty—is it the most important thing in love?” This poses a very complex and difficult question. People who don’t want to seem superficial would automatically say, “Oh no! It’s not the most important thing in love! I could marry someone who I don’t find attractive!” Give me a break. Sure you could, but then you wouldn’t be in love. While attraction is not the sole most important thing in love, it’s definitely a major player. Without attraction, it’s not love—it’s friendship. I don’t care which way you spin it! Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder as well and people grow in attraction as they get to know one another, but at some point, if it’s not there, then it’s simply not there. Aren’t attraction and passion pretty much synonymous? And isn’t lack of passion a main reason why people get divorced? Of course, it seems very gentile and progressive to say that beauty is unimportant, but come on. LIESS.

Acting vs. Reality--A Fine Line

I was talking with a friend the other day about how audiences fall in love with the actors in movies. For example, Jack from “The Titanic”—Leonardo DiCaprio has become a heartthrob for women of all ages. Then we started talking about how hard it must be for the actors to separate their life on screen (well, their character’s life) from their life in the real world. Hey, I sure wouldn’t be able to do it. I suppose that was the problem for Heath Ledger, as well as others, who weren’t able to perfect this ability. But really, how did Kate Winslet not fall in love with her costar in Titanic?? I mean, I guess it’s not real life, but when you’re passionately kissing some guy, even onstage, even if you’re “just acting”, it has to get pretty hard to separate the two worlds. I guess that’s just the skills that come with being a good actor. And for that matter, how do their wives and husbands (if applicable) feel about their husband/wife pretending to be in love with someone else every day? I sure as heck wouldn’t be okay with it—look what it did to Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston…but I won’t even get started on that one…

The Dangers of Twilight

Twilight has become a huge phenomenon, not just in the United States, but all over the world. The characters are unique and unlike the typical vampires of myth. People have fallen in love with the characters Stephenie Meyer created, especially Edward, the vampire with intense good looks and the ability to read minds. How is it that people are able to fall in love with a fictional character? I just feel bad for the poor sucker who has to play him in the movie, Robert Pattinson. He will, most likely, for the rest of his life be held to such a standard that every single girl he ever becomes involved with will expect him to be perfect, just like Edward is. Not to mention the fact that men all over the world probably hate him for the impossible standards he portrays in the film. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard about girls breaking up with their boyfriends because he’s “just not like my Edward”. For many women of the world, though they are unaware of this, Edward is the emotion block in front of their relationships—personifying the wonderful and most perfect guy that simply doesn’t exist. Can we get an Edward-aholic Anonymous meeting started somewhere???? Though I’m sure with good intentions, Stephenie Meyer has created the single most dangerous thing to many relationships—that kind of perfection simply doesn’t exist, and the sooner people realize that the better.