;

I noticed that I've stopped using so many semi-colons in my speeches; I am unsure if this is a good thing.

Bumper stickers and catchphrases

I was wandering around Berkeley a year and a half ago, trying to decide if I wanted to go to Berkeley, when I found this beautiful sticker. It seemed like such a perfect phrase for my socialist/teenage radical mindset. As long as you complain about the perceived problems, you are upholding freedom, justice and Mom's homemade rhubarb pie. As Mad Eye Moody would say, constant vigilance!

But bumper stickers are misleading.

Dissent for the sake of dissent, or the lack of compromise due to focusing on the negative is very harmful. Enter Poland circa 1600. Poland was a proud nation, hell bent on protecting each lords' freedoms. In their version of Congress, each representative had a series of rights, the main one being the right to "explode" the diet, or end conversation/legislation on a particular topic. Due to the massive amounts of exploded topics, Poland was not able to legislate effectively; the dissent caused too many arguments and not enough compromise. Eventually, the nation was swallowed up by its less progressive and more assertive neighbors. Dissent killed their country.

Bumper stickers don't tell the whole truth - they just wrap up one side of it in a pretty message and a bow. They sound great and make it seem like you are intelligent - and you don't even have to think! [That was sarcastic.] But really? Save yourselves. Don't slogan me.

Goofball

I have realized that some people just need to be mentioned in my blog, due to their proximity to me. QED, I needed a cover name. Not only do I like covert action, but calling people "dude" throughout a post does not add to the depiction of a scene. Besides, if two girls or guys are featured in a story, it becomes fairly confusing if I have to use pronouns.

She and her alternate ego came up with an idea. She thought it was brilliant. Which one? You'll never know....

The person who may or may not feature prominently in these stories on a fairly regular basis is my boyfriend. Although calling him "boyfriend" works, it lacks finesse (a word that would never attempt to say). So, I asked him what name he wished to be known under. It went something like:

th3 egotist: I want to use a nickname for you in my blog. Because I am a kind and gentle soul at heart, I wish for you to choose a name for yourself. I do not wish to dictate your life to you.

Boyfriend: It doesn't matter; whatever you want to use is fine by me.

th3 egotist: I want you to pick because I am your loving girlfriend. I love you, dearest.

Boyfriend: Just use whatever you want.

th3egotist: Look, if you don't pick something, I'm going to call you Pookie-Bear. Forever. Grrrrrrrrr. *indicates aggression*

Boyfriend: Okay, if it's that important to you, how about Goofball? You call me that frequently.

th3 egotist: Thanks! Did I mention how much I love you? You are SOOO sweet!


Or something like that.

But, th3 boyfriend is now and hereafter called Goofball, for his goofy, pun-loving ways. He thinks he's puny and he's right. But are puns funny? I don't think so. [More on this later].

The Bus Stop

Due to a spontaneous decision to attend a lecture on the latest Iranian election, I had no transport back to my house. My cell phone had died, so I could not call for a pick-up. I borrowed a cell phone and told my parents that they shouldn't worry - I was going to ride the bus home.

No sweat.

I headed over to the nearest bus stop and began to wait for my bus. There was a lady sitting there who was quite agitated. It seemed that a friend had invited her over for the weekend, but this lady decided she was not comfortable with the friend, and so she left his house. Unfortunately, she is legally blind and has no car with which to travel the two-hour-by freeway journey. She had no idea where to go and her abrasive manner scared the crap out of everyone who traveled past. She didn't want to walk anywhere, because she didn't know where the best place to go would be. On top of this, she was a recovering alcoholic and wanted something to drink. I decided to take the next bus up the road to another transfer stop.

This may have been a bad idea.

The next stop was considerably more crowded - at least one other person was there the entire time I was. Probably the most interesting person there was an old man. He was well-dressed, but had a problem with one of his eyeballs - it was twisted up. He had a voice the jabbered - a bit hard to understand and fairly easy to ignore. He was sweet to me, singing me this song, but he threatened other passengers with a pair of scissors that initially looked like a very small blade and a lighter, that he would occasionally turn on just to stare at it. He was probably drunk.

A man named Victor was seeming to look out for him. Victor would tell him to knock it off or, once, physically pulled him away from two college kids. He confided to me that the dude had a moderately wealthy family that hired him to do an intervention and that there were cameras all around the street that were put in place to show the crazy guy how bad he had been (or was). Victor told me that he was thinking of quitting - it was too stressful of a job. He asked me to go out with him sometime with no strings attached. I declined - citing my boyfriend and pulled out his picture. He agreed with me that said boyfriend was an idiot for shaving the beard. Eventually he left to go chase after his charge.

Besides these two, a fair amount of students used the bus stop. I met one dude who had graduated from my same high school 5 years before I did. Once it was established that we went to the same school, we chatted for a bit and he asked for my number. I declined - citing my boyfriend. End of conversation. Many students from the other college went by as well - two dudes had a pizza and were heading back to their apartment to eat it, and a group came down to grab a bunch of doughnuts. They were mostly chatty with one another and freaked out by the other people waiting for the bus.

I waited for about 2 hours total before realizing that the bus line I was waiting for had already done its last run for the day. I called my dad at 10 pm from a local store and asked for a ride home. This took 20 minutes. Moral of the story: Public transportation sucks when you actually want to get somewhere.

It's a wonderful life.

I'm laying on the grass in my quiet college quad. The birds are chirping and the grass is refreshingly cool in the shade. I was just paid for a week's work. Life is good.

Let there be light! or, alternately, Fuck My Life

For the past year and a half, I have been without electricity in my bedroom. This has been quite a hassle, as one side, then the other, then the small bathroom lamp have all been eliminated from the electrical grid. During this time, I managed to adjust, bringing an extension cord in for light, using a desk lamp instead of a light overhead, not using electronics in my room (including a very dear boombox), and sleeping on the couch in the adjoining room. But all that ended today. My uncle came over, with my parents, and it was announced to me that he would be fixing my electricity problems. Sw33t! After a hasty clean-up of my room, hiding all undergarments and trying to make my room less of a disaster-zone (this was not expected), I came down with a big smile upon my face. Inwardly, I was rejoicing. [If you have not gone without some non-natural light source, you have no idea how hard it can be. I once went an entire day with a headband that I thought was brown in my hair. It was neon pink - color that has never, is never, and never will be represented in my wardrobe.]

I digress.

My Uncle literally flipped the breaker in the garage and my lights worked. All of that for a flipped switch! Still, I had light in my bedroom - something that I can't ignore. I was very happy and immediately flipped the switch and relished the flickering yellow light cast from the three naked bulbs in the center of my ceiling. I had light!

And an hour later, I sit in complete darkness - the breaker is still broken and I still have power problems. But for a flickering moment, I saw the light.

Obligations

The most superficially busy year of high school for me was my sophomore year. Because I had just shifted schools, I had no friends, and few acquaintances - certainly no one that I could hang out with. I had all this extra time that I needed to fill up with something. So I joined clubs. My first semester at this new high school was filled with a club everyday of the week.

Literally.

I had Christian Club, JSA, Interact, CSF, and an additional tutoring day which I spent tutoring or attending the Friday lunch service. My life was scheduled around my activities and my activities were my life. Without some structure, my life would have crumpled very easily. It was very hard to integrate into a school that had already established social groups and unwritten boundaries for me to navigate. It was like re-doing freshman year with the added disadvantage that all your classmates already had friends and knew their school status. Frequently, no one knew mine.

Luckily, I met some friends in my English class who introduced me into their circle of friends, so I wouldn't have to eat my way though high schools in pursuit of time-wasting activities. But at the same time, having friends meant that I would have to give up on some of my clubs and the duties incurred in them, insofar as any organization would trust a strange-looking 10th grader with anything. I happily tossed my scheduled life aside for friends, a choice I will never regret.

But now the choice returns full circle - I am over-booking myself, with 2 speeches in the next two weeks and research for debate due each week. I can hang out and enjoy life, or become a sucessful speaker, an accomplished Toastmaster, a brilliant debater, and a dedicated student. But I can't have it all. I need to balance my time spent working and having fun - no question about it. But what is the ratio that I can thrive at? How can I balance my obligations to the community AND to my personal happiness?

I need help.

Purple Fingers

I really shouldn't be writing right now - I have a paper for a class due tomorrow that's half written. Again.
But all that I can concentrate on is on my right hand's flanges. As indicated, they are an unnatural color, due to a leaky bottle of food coloring and my penchant for grilled cheese sandwiches. I can't stop looking at the mottled purple splotches that cover my index and middle fingers. When I forget and re-notice the discoloration, I have to remind myself that my hands are, in fact, clean, despite their strange appearance. This is not really helping. For gosh sakes, I have spent 4 hours writing a two page paper. This is taking waaaay too long. And purple fingers are NOT helping the process.

Percieving is believing

Life is all about perspective. What experiences you have had predicate what views you uphold. With a elementary school teacher for a mom, and an avid interest in reading that included the monthly union notices from the ACE, CTA, and NEA offices, I grew up quite pro-union, especially in the realm of education. How dare anyone impose teacher pay on a scale determined by "merit"? The ways we have of measuring teacher aptitude are based solely on student achievement - which eliminates any other factors that might play into the student's performance. These may be as varied as familial interest in school, appearance of behavioral issues, hunger level, interest, and roots in the community - factors which the teacher frequently has no control over. This is clearly a dumb idea, but has good intentions.

In the same way, I had firm opinions on NCLB. Like any good liberal, I was certain that this Bush plan was as stupid and ill thought out as the rest of his presidential term. But, last year, to enter the public forum debate, students were required to research the academic achievement of the NCLB. I was certain that the evidence would prove the neg (the opposition) to be irrefutably right. After all, all the articles I had read said that the program was screwing up our education, yeah? But, as I looked at reports and studies, the topic became more convoluted. The tests showed that the scores were increasing in tested areas - not only on the official NCLB test, but on the international, theoretically unbiased, NEAP. Well, crap. I had to reverse my original assessment to some degree. NCLB did what it was supposed to have done - it increased scores in Math and English on tests. My perspective suddenly shifted on this topic based on new experiences. What happens in your life makes your viewpoint what it is.

I never will get drunk - after getting drunk-dialed by my godfather all my life, I know what sort of embarrassing situations, a loss of control will put you in.

I am not having sex until marriage - my mom's siblings all had kids before they got married. Sometimes this worked out for them and sometimes it didn't. I don't want to put myself or my kid into that sort of situation - when it didn't work out, it was the kid and mom who were shafted or stuck.

I'm paranoid about cool people. After a good banishment from normal social means, what self-respecting nerd wouldn't be?

Naturally, someone else might have a different position. For example, my boyfriend's father offered to buy him some condoms for college experimentation purposes. His ideas of the appropriate situation to have sex and mine are very different. Who knows what experiences gave him his viewpoint; I only can know my own. Although it would be informative to implant one's experiences into another person's mind, it cannot be done. Nope. Nosirre. The only way to not butt heads and yell at your boyfriend's father for encouraging unwanted random sex is to -le gasp- compromise. In essence, I promise not to reproof the man or to invoke mother-of-boyfriend if he doesn't bring up the subject again. So far this is working. But life may throw another curveball and provide a new experience to change my viewpoints once again. I just hope that it isn't how to have the abstinence talk with dad-of boyfriend.