Monday, June 18, 2012

More psychic moments

I've mentioned before that I can be oddly psychic. Perhaps psychic is too strong of a word; if you're more comfortable with intuitive, that works too. I tend to just get weird feelings about things sometimes. It's usually never anything super important. And as much as I'd like to talk to ghosts and stuff, no such luck (and buddy, I have tried). I will say that my intutive moments are becoming more specific as time goes by.

Before my brother graduated from Purdue in 2011, he was working on his senior design project. I have to take a moment and mention that it won for best design or whatever and it is being patented and shopped around to companies and all kinds of big time important stuff. Check it out here.

One day, I thought about Will working away at his project and I hoped it was going well. All of the sudden I thought about him not being able to get a part of the project to work. The next thing I saw in my mind was Will praying about it and then the next thing he tried fixed the project. I also saw him call my mom and tell her that. That doesn't seem that impressive until I mention that my brother is not one to pray. He doesn't really go to church or follow any specific religion; he's agnostic (at least the last time I checked). So that was the end of that thought. Later that day, on my way home from work, my phone rang and it was my mom. She was all excited and said she had some amazing news to tell me. I already knew that she was going to tell me all about Will and what had happened--and she did. Pretty much word for word, what had happened in my head apparently went down in West Lafayette, IN. I thought that was pretty cool.

The next example happened just last week. I had a dream about a friend of mine. I don't see her that often any more because she doesn't live in Lexington. All I know is what I see in my Facebook newsfeed. I had a dream that I got a pink envelope in the mail. I opened it up and there was a card inside, along with the card was a polaroid picture of some rings. I read the note and it said something about how she and her boyfriend were dumpster diving (this part of the dream is not accurate, they do not dive through dumpsters looking for goodies) and they found these cool rings. One of the rings had a ruby on it, I don't really remember the other one. Turns out, these rings fit and they took it as a sign that they should get married. So, this card was an invitation to their wedding that would be going down in a week or 2. This dream was so vivid that when I woke up, I creeped on her Facebook to see if it had happened. Later that day, I relayed the dream to a mutual friend to make sure that it hadn't happened. Once I confirmed that it had been a dream, I messaged my friend to tell her about it. Her response (other than loving the bit about the dumpster diving) was that they had in fact been looking at rings lately (in normal ring places, not dumpsters). Again, not that impressive. They've been together for awhile, they live together, it's a natural progression. However, the ring that they picked out on Etsy has a ruby in it. Oddly specific, am I right?

Friday, June 15, 2012

Being pro-choice


I saw this quote on Pinterest last night and I typed out this whole commentary about it and then it wouldn't repin! Oh well, my commentary was more of a blog length than Pinterest caption length.

A lot of people had commented on this pin; I saw a lot of negative comments from people who are pro-life. I should mention that I hate the term "pro-life" because it makes me sound as though I am "pro-death" (and I'm not).

I can see how [pro-life] people might be a little angry about this quote. It does make it sound as though she doesn't care one bit for unborn children...but I don't think that's what she was going for.

I'm pro-choice for a number of reasons. For the most part, I don't think that abortion is a decision that anyone makes lightly. There might be a few people who just don't care and are using abortion as a form of birth control, and there probably should be some sort of monitoring system for that, but most people view abortion as the last option. I also think that most people who get abortions have to deal with that decision for the rest of their lives. The point is, none of that is my business because it's not my body. I don't have the right to tell them what they can do with their own body any more than they can tell me what to do with mine.

When I read this quote, I see it as focusing on the root of the problem. Sure, abortion could become illegal. Would that stop the procedure from happening? Absolutely not. People are going to do what they want to do--no matter what the law says. Making abortion illegal does not address the real issue which is how can we help people avoid "unwanted" pregnancies and thus avoid getting abortions? To me, the answer is education.

If we start focusing on children (specifically girls) and educate them properly, I think that we will see a decrease in the number of unwanted pregnancies. Educate girls so that they know about contraception and safe sex, invest in their lives and foster their self esteem so they don't rely so much on sex in order to feel loved.

To me, this is not an either/or issue. I'm not choosing to worry about a child rather than a fetus. It's my concern for both that reflects my decision. I care about the fetus, but there's nothing I can do about it. A fetus is a hypothetical, and I have no control or influence over it. I do have an influence over children. If I use this influence in a positive way, I could very well help out future fetuses.

It's the same as any other issue we face--we focus on the wrong part of the problem. As a perpetual dieter, I can tell you that focusing on the wrong thing doesn't help at all. Of course a fad diet of nothing but celery and lemon juice sprinkled with cayenne pepper would make me lose weight. But what about when I try to stop eating like a crazy person? Have I learned anything? Do I know about portion control, exercise or healthy food options? No. I might stay thin for awhile, but ultimately I'm set up to fail. The plan looked good on paper, but when it's put into practice it's not so useful.

I don't typically write about such serious topics, but I found this quote very interesting and wanted to share it. I promise to return to my patented silly posts immediately.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Cold Front Sweeps through Hell

I'm not saying that Hell has frozen over, but I guarantee it got a little chilly there last night.

I may have completely lost my mind. I joined match.com last night. I've been putting this off for awhile now. At first, the plan was to join when I turned 25...then I turned 25, and put it off some more. OCD prompted me to push the new deadline to when I turned 30. So, why did I go completely rogue, turn my back on logic, and join at an age that is not a multiple of 5 (that may or may not keep me up at night)? I have no idea. I guess with everything else in my life in disarray, I figured, what the hell.

And to top it all off, I didn't just join. I perused some profiles and liked someone's picture. I even included a comment. I'm sure it was the weirdest, lamest comment in the history of the site, but whatever. And sure, maybe I felt a little like I was going to throw up and am still questioning whether or not I have been possessed by some dating demon...but there's not much I can do about all that now.

This has absolutely nothing to do with anything, but you get to choose a "headline" for your profile on the site. Lots of people have funny quotes and stuff (mine is an adaptation of a Dr. Seuss quote about finding someone whose weirdness is compatible with your own and falling into a mutual weirdness called love). This one guy's headline said something like, "Prepared to lie about how we met." I thought that was hilarious!

For those of you who are interested, here's a brief look into some of my thoughts on dating that have brought us to this point:

Sunday, June 10, 2012

So close

It has come to my attention that I experience irrational feelings of frustration when I find out a celebrity is married. It's always fun to imagine that Dave Barnes is writing an amazing song about me, or that certain comedians (like Mike Birbiglia) and I would host hilarious dinner parties. I like to keep my imaginations as authentic as possible, so before you know it I'm looking up this guy on Wikipedia to make sure he's not a Scientologist or a right-wing nut job. But then I find out they're married! Then I start to feel bad for myself...because that is apparently the only thing stopping our hypothetical love. Never mind that we would never meet in real life or a massive age difference. As far as my brain is concerned, it was a sure thing. It's almost funny how irritated I get. It makes no sense at all, but when I finally find someone who is single (as confirmed by a Wikipedia or Facebook page) that's going to be one of the many delightful traits to love about me.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Unmanned car


 Whenever I'm behind this bumper sticker I think, "if the Rapture occurs and I'm not taken to Heaven, I've got bigger fish to fry than the spontaneously unmanned minivan in front of me because apparently my baptism didn't quite take."

Comparatively speaking, a fender bender is most likely way easier to handle than the years of trials and tribulations described in Revelation (or to a lesser extent, the Left Behind series). My insurance premiums pale in comparison to the rise of the Antichrist, and all that receiving the mark of the Beast hoopla. On a lighter note, do you think the Jesus fish get raptured off the car, too?
Do you think anyone reading this thinks I'm going to Hell? Wait--do you think anyone is reading this? LOL! For the record, I'm pro-Jesus. I'm fairly confident that my car would also be unmanned upon Rapture despite my lack of religious bumper stickers and metal fish. But, I prefer to keep the sinner in traffic behind me guessing.

Hitting the fan

Once again, I've slacked on my blog posting. I feel like this time, I've got a pretty good excuse. There were rumors of pink slipping (when untenured teachers' contracts are not renewed for another year...it's not officially being fired, but it definitely feels like it). I spent several weeks preparing to defend myself if need be. I don't know what I thought having a "defense" would accomplish, but it felt better than sitting around doing nothing. Before Spring Break, it appeared as though I was safe--no pink slip for me. Unfortunately, when I returned from Spring Break I found out that I was not so lucky. I was pink slipped. On the plus side, I was able to enjoy my Spring Break at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

After that, things seemed to spiral. I couldn't imagine teaching anywhere else, but it appeared as though that's what was in the cards. I had to start applying for jobs and planning to move everything out of my classroom. On top of all that, I still had about 6 weeks of school left to teach. It's hard to finish out a job when you know you won't be returning to that job. However, I care about my students too much to just check out and go on autopilot.

With all the job related stress, my diet and exercise got out of control as well. So now, here I am--a hot mess. I'm determined to get control of at least one aspect of my life, though. On the bright side, I've got time on my hands to write some posts. I've actually had one written on my phone for awhile, but I literally have not had time to post it. I'm also currently working on a post instructing you how to be on the show Bridezillas. Without further ado, here is a less pitiful post.

Space Race

Was there some rich white guy meeting that we didn't know about where they all secretly decided to get super interested in space all of ...