So, I've been thinking about Mary, lately. When I was growing up, I remember that Mary was actually a pretty kick-ass character in my litany of female biblical figures. You figure, there's this perfectly human woman who is visited by an angel of God and he tells her, "So yeah, I know your a virgin and your trying to get started in a new life with you husband, but BAM your pregnant" and she's like "Cool" and gives birth to the SON OF GOD! Plus, she's the lead female role in the church christmas pageant.

The older I got, though, people started to giving Mary a lot of flack. Mary was too pure, it seems. The other Mary was more interesting because she might have been a prostitute. The Virgin Mary was the center of cultist ideas, her role in the bible may have been fabricated as it doesn't appear in other gospels: blah, blah, blah. It was kind of annoying for me, because she was sort of my favorite. I mean Ruth was pretty neat, deciding to stay with her mother-in-law after her husband died, but I think her greatest achievement was getting married. Then, of course, we have Ester, who could be considered cool if her success was not boggarted by her Uncle. Delilah was evil. Eve was stupid (ooo, let's trust the snake!) and then who? The Witch of Endor? Bethsheba? Most of them are pretty accessory to biblical stories, not the center of them. But Mary? Mary was badass. Mary was cool.

Sometimes, I wonder if the church and/or the feminists are actually on my side! What if Mary really was the only decent example for godly women in the bible. I mean, Jesus works the same way, hunh? Well, Joseph was pretty cool, but pretty much every other man did very great things coupled with really dirty things. King David for instance: 1. devoted follower of God. 2. kickass wielder of a sling and 3. the guy who sent Bethsheba's husband to die in battle so that he could marry her! ...w007. Moses? Led the Jewish people out of Egypt, got the ten commandments, didn't speak a word of Hebrew and had most of his commandments translated through his long lost brother Aaron and last? Smacker of rock, a misdeed which keeps him from ever entering the promised land (okay, so that was a pretty raw deal). Point? The Bible is filled with mediocre heroes, otherwise known as: real people.

So, why is it so bad for a girl like me to look up to Mary? ... I don't know.

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I have found, more and more, horror movies disgust me more than they scare me. I will never be a fan, I realize that, but I have a fair amount of friends who enjoy the genre and so I've been slowly being desensitized to the emotional swings that they bring about: if ever so slightly. I realize that this is in large part because I no longer expect them to get out alive. In every horror movie there are horrible things that happen in ordinary circumstance and inevitably, most of the people die and the ones that don't probably wish they had. It's a wholly depressing genre that has become more like tragedy to me. Tragedy, you grit your teeth through, sometimes you laugh, but you are not scared because death is no longer a question. Laughing at tragedy, though? Does that not make tragedy into humor? Strange, isn't it:

Horror = Tragedy = Humor

Does humor then equal romance and romance equal drama and drama equal action? All of the genre's are really just one giant soup of possibilities? Probably.

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I am listening to Steppenwolf, right now. They are discussing the inevitability of war and how no one thinks about their own role in how it is brought about. I think that I know mine and I am surprised that I am not shocked or ashamed of it. That thing in me that makes war is the same thing in me that keeps me alive, that makes me strong, the keeps me whole.

You see, I believe in fighting back. Many times I have gazed in horror at the back of my eyelids or sometimes into nothing at all and seen in it dark alleys and the eyes of evil men who wish harm upon me and I think, I have the right to fight back against them. I know that the bible says to turn the other cheek, but in the face of rape and violence and death, I wish to fight for one more day of life not as a victim and not living in fear. It is this same thing that causes people to go into war, but not the only thing.

You see defending myself is not enough. I believe that other people, who find themselves caught in anguish through no fault of their own, should not have to be caught in that anguish and if my effort can alleviate that in any small part, then I should do it. Though perhaps if I did not, then there would be no violence at all.

But then I forget the aggressors, those �evil men� who probably live in me somewhere, what causes them to fight? Well, I do not pretend to understand it completely, I do have a story. There is a word: assuage. I used to like it because I liked how it sounded in my head. I thought it was pronounced like �massage� without the �m�. It was because I did not see the �u� because my eyes play tricks on me. When I found out that this was not the case, I still clung to that pronunciation. I think that may have something to do with it.

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I just finished Water for Elephants... which was a great book, really intriguing and captured my attention all the way till the end.

The story is about a boy, Jacob, suddenly without options, who hops a circus train as a way of escape. In the somewhat fantastical world of the circus, Jacob learns about life, death, women, love and himself. This is paired with a narrator subplot of the same boy as an old man in the current day who struggles with the difficulties of getting old and being stuck in a nursing home.

It's not exactly an completely historically accurate book. It misuses the work "F*@#!" for the period and borrows the term "paranoid schizophrenia" from the wrong time period and had it expressed with entirely the wrong features, but... who really can get it all right anyway. Also, I should probably warn you that there are parts of it that run a little like a smutty romance novel.

It's strong points are its unique and complex characters that you quickly come to know and love, it's colorful descriptions that set the stage for the events without boring the hell out of you, and the intense amount of research done in other areas, such as the circus terminology (though I admit, having never been on a circus myself, I cannot truly attest to their accuracy). It is very good with the expression of emotions and infusing the story with reality.

I had a lot of fun reading it. The characters are people and animals that I am happy to have collected into my memory and the world was fantastically generated. It was meaningful without the generally high death toll and insightful without preaching. I think I would confidently recommend this to most anyone who asked about it.

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Certainly not the first thing that came to my mind when I thought of going to Korea, but it seems like this is the topic on the minds of most of the female doctors, nurses, optometrists and cleaning ladies that I have been talking to as I prepare for my trip. They all seem to think that I am going to go to Korea for a year and come back married.

I heard it for the third time today, as I wandered out of the dentists office. I was looking a little like two-face or Sylvester Stallone, my face warm and numb. I asked the lady if there was anything else that I needed and as a fair well, she calls out, "Now I don't want you to come back married!"

This is very silly, I think. I suppose meeting your true love could happen anywhere, but in the next year? Somehow, 23 years into this whole 'life' business I feel that is unlikely. After all, even if I do meet someone, how long will it take for us to get together and if we aren't 'ready', then at the end of the year, we will probably break up and go back to/stay in our respective countries and never see each other again... Though, I suppose it's a nice thought.

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I'm going to Korea to teach English. 'm all set to go... for the fifth or sixth time.

It's a lot like this puzzle I just finished. I've been so close to it being finished for a long time... and seeing as three edge pieces are missing from the bottom of the puzzle, I shall always be almost done, but since I'm pretty close: it's done.

Likewise, though there will be more and more to do and these things will become more apparent the closer I get to my leave date... but I am thinking, will my visa materials off in the mail, I am finally getting to the step of "done" at which I can really get excited about going to Korea.

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