I have discovered that I may have a curious affliction. I have decided to blame it on the karma because it is natural and a little bit more satisfying that blaming quantum physics. It means that I actually did something for the horrible luck I�ve been having and also makes a considerably better story.

You see, as a child, I slept well� ridiculously well. I slept through gerbils, sirens, dinners� I slept well at my house, I slept well at other peoples houses, I slept well on the floor, and I always took sleep when I needed it. It was great.

Now, there was a dark side of my joy, I was also the single most noisy child that you ever heard of. When I was awake, I would be constantly singing or humming or making up dialogue for my stories (Yes, out loud. I was a very strange child that decided to grow up in a fairly unusual adult.)

Then, karma caught up with me. The first time I spent away from home, the girl across from me like to sleep with a plastic purple giraffe in her mouth, an object that made her snore like a freight train. The second time, I slept in a room with a person who was allergic to light (or at least she seemed like it) and would insist on turning them off early and yell at me every three seconds if I tried to read with my portable one, which was a little bit ridiculous on my part, but then you have to consider that she also wouldn�t let any bug be killed in her presence� and yet refused to escort them outside, which meant that I had to pick up this gross what�s it called and dump it in the rocks for her.

Sleeping in Germany wasn�t half bad, (but I suppose, considering the rest of the trip, that would be cruel and unusual) so I managed to get pretty good sleep until college. I lived right next to the lobby, which was the local congregation spot for everyone on the floor. Also, my next door neighbor liked music� a lot and proceeded to play it at every imaginable hour of the day, including once at four in the morning where I finally threw down the gauntlet and asked her to turn it down (I�m really a pushover when it comes down to it). Before you think I�m just sensitive: that room got a record number of noise complaints that year, a feat only beat by the previous year by the same person.

The following year, I moved down the hall. My friend lived down there and she said that it was much quieter. Unfortunately, that year she got a new roommate and they all decided that right in front of her door was the best place to gossip nonstop about everyone else on the floor: this was when I started to suspect that I was in hell.

The following year, you heard about. On one side was a new music afficinado with the great sound system and on the other was the girl who was depressed all the time and loved to talk about it very loudly and at great length right next to my wall.

That summer, when I lived in a house all by myself, I miraculously got a wall that adjoined that of my neighbors though which I could hear the complex stages of their turbulent relationships complete with makes up sex.

But it really wasn�t until this year that I started to put things together. An entirely new place, an entirely new room and here: a new set of noisemakers. The girl right next door to me is a singer. She sings a lot during the day, but at night, she will hit random vibrato keys. She says it�s because she�s afraid it will go away. Sometimes, however cruel that may be, I wish it would. Also, they seem to be magnetically attracted to hanging out in front of my room. I�m by another �lobby�, a place not designated as such until the chairs came in *shakes fist*. That�s not the end of it though. Every morning at seven or earlier, the dump truck comes to pick up out large trash can outside, complete with back up noises.

That�s when I decided: I�ve been cursed. I suppose quantum physics would be kinder to me, it would mean that my string of bad luck would eventually go away and I would eventually be able to sleep like a normal person. Even vengeance might be a nice solution: I am loud and therefore they are loud. But it seems that despite the lengths I go to keep my music absolutely mute and not hum at all, the situation has scarcely altered. I suppose I will resign myself to my karma, carrying in my mind the memories of yesterday, the days that I sung and laughed, the days when I slept through anything.

Comment! (2) | Recommend!

I've been having a little bit of a problem with writing lately. I guess it falls into the category of not doing it much. While I kept a fairly regular journal at the beginning the year, my time and my mind has been eaten up by worthless extras. I have found that I am not only not myself, but not exactly sure what that self is. Who am I if I don't write, I think, I guess that's the unfortunate truth. Without some stream of imagining, I am missing a great part of my being. Somehow, I don't really make a whole lot of sense without it.

I was reading this book, "Living Biblically" by A.J. Jacobs. It is an interesting book because it is almost a journey that processes a developing obsession. At the beginning of the year, September, he is an atheist who is interested in the bible and particularily interested in systematically, but fairly, unveiling the more odd sections of the bible. However, as the book goes on and he gets more in touch with the rthmyic rituals it entails, it becomes a part of how he views the world, who he is. I understand that kind of obession. I have my own little manias that last me months and years, connect me with all sorts of new people, new people that I, one moment, feel incredibly connected with and the next feel that I have drifted away from, instead obesessed with another of my manias. Writing, however, is my single chronic mania.

Before I could write, I wanted to write. I remember sitting down in kindergarten, so excited about scrawling out my first letters and being appalled at how bad my "A"s looked. Up on the board, Mrs. Browsley was tracing these beautifully legiable "A"s and there were mine, these squiggly monstrosities. When we started figuring out how to put them together, I started writing stories. There is one in particular that I hope I still have, a little book cut out of lined paper. It's about this hawk that stalks a mouse (as in, like a panther). It hides behind a rock and then leaps out and tackles this poor rat and eats it. The sentences are barely legiably and the spelling is so atrocious that I am not even sure if its correct grammar. I've always been a little ahead of myself.

I think that was why, when my dog Dizzy died, I asked my mom to help me out. I guess I went to her and said that I had a story to tell but I didn't know enough words to write it down. So, I had barely begun to write and I dictated my first story. Actually, it won a prize.

Somewhere around seventeen years later, I'm lost. I guess I know that I want to write, but just like those many years ago, there are things that stand in my way: I don't know enough, i haven't read enough, I am not that good at writing, I'm dyslexic, I'm disorganized, I can't finish what I start. However many of those are true, I am probably not wise enough to say. What i can say is that I'd rather be punching my fingers against a keyboard and filling the screen with pounds and pounds of pure lard than I would be doing anything else... even sleeping. I guess, in the end, this entry is more for me as many of the things I write are. Sometimes, I look back on my entries and smile, because half of what I put in there was just to make myself laugh some years down the road.

So what the hell. I'll keep writing.

Comment! (1) | Recommend!

So, I got this book on the history of theology. I am reading about the Partristic period and a whole bunch of people that I never really realized existed? Its funny, because you hear about these stories, but there is a part of you who thinks that it all happened sometime during the middle ages, but all of the stuff where they argue over the canon and the churches are breaking up over doctrinal issues and stuff like that, are all happening only one hundred to four hundred years after the death of Christ when the church was finally given sanction.

Furthermore, it talks about other discussions going on in Rome. Like how the Romans believed the fall of Rome was because Constantinople turned his back on the gods to follow... God. And I bet you only thought Christians thought that sort of thing! Anyway, it is an interesting study and I feel sad that I borrowed it from the library and someday it'll have to go back. It's a textbook. I can't stop reading it. What in the world is wrong with me?!

Well, in conclusion, History of Theology is HoT.... lol... rofl...

Comment! (1) | Recommend!

...duh.

Okay, so I've been reading all these articles and they are like, "Oh! Sexual abstience doesn't prevent pregnancy!" and I know they are about how the abstinence programs in schools are not necessarily detering kids from having sex, but I feel like I have to set the record straight and say ABSTINENCE DOES PREVENT PREGNANCY. That is: if you are not having sex, then you won't get pregnant. (that means your bodies or your cells, folks) There are some extenuating circumstances (see: Jesus) but generally... yeah, uh-hunh, it pretty much covers you bases.

Now, if you, in the heat of the moment, say 'what the hell', then, yeah, you could get pregnant... but that isn't sexual abstinence in the same way that eating a brownie in the middle of the day isn't fasting. It is just a little frustrating that people seem to ignore facts in an effort to tear down the chastity arguement. Let's get this straight:

If you don't have sex you won't get pregnant. Period.

Opinion 1: It might not be that fun not having sex.

Opinion 2: It's still worth it because of the heartache and anquish that you avoid by not having sex.

No judgement, no funny figures, just facts.

Comment! (3) | Recommend!

I am in the honors house right now. It is a lovely place, filled with the sweet smells of newness. The whole place has been bustling with excitement. Whereas the old hall was a dull murmur of hellos and goodbyes and no one was really around for a long time, something about this place is drawing everyone inside it, populating it and filling it with sound.

We have a kitchen, a big one, big enough for a family and certainly big enough for us. It has a fridge and a stove and a microwave, too. We even have a dish washer! Washakie is brings over food for us every week, stocked with everything we need for breakfast. I can just walk down in my PJs and pour a bowl of something before I lumber off to one of my many 8 o'clock classes.

I am tired, though. There is so much excitement and yet my classes continue to go on much as planned. The portion of the semester is coming around the bend, which means that everyone regardless of major or communicative efforts with other faculty, have chosen this time as the time when everything is due. It means that soon enough I can look forward to the soothing lull which follows the storm and I suppose by then I will have started fall into a habit of being here, in this lovely place.

Things still need to be fixed. The water is not always hot, not all of the ethernet chords are working, the cable is down and the wireless is non-functional. There are fixtures and dressings that have not come, but these are small tiles in the lovely mosaic that make up this place. I feel home here. I like it here.

Comment! (3) | Recommend!

"She was so open minded that her brains started falling out."
"Your mind is like a window, whether it is stuck open or it is stuck closed, you have still lost use of the window."

I've always had an issue with people calling other people 'closed minded'. It's just a phrase, an idea of judgment, that really ticks me off. Who are you to say that they are 'closed minded'? It's like you are saying that you are somehow enlightened, when they are not. How are you so sure that you understand their perspective so intrisically that you can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that there is nothing that you can learn from how they see the world. Until you can say that, until you can know that, I can't see how you might call anyone 'closed minded'.

I suppose it all boils down to a sense that you are truly not justified in judging anyone and to discount someone based on the material of 'closed mindedness' is not a great struggle as it would be to not judge people of other things, but rather an act of arrogance that renders you incapable of enjoying those who don't see the world the way YOU do.

In this rant, however, I must confess that I am judging these people myself and that I am a hypocrit merely in the retelling. But I am a sinner and I know it, and, while I see the irony, I also feel shedding the Light on this issue is worth it and I will try not to ever use one's 'closed mindedness' statement as a reason to discount them, either.

All I want to say is that we have a lot to learn and we should keep our options open as far as who we premit ourselves learn it from.

Comment! (2) | Recommend!