The Truth behind the News

There's many that i want to be, and few that i am.
I could tell the truth behind the news, but who then will listen?
I could be the one to uncover the lies, but who's to say i'm not a liar?
Is truth to be found, or shall it hide another day?
Will i know truth when i meet it? Will they see it too?
Who will care enough to try? And unspeakably, who wishes lies to stay?
In all Truth, How could truth change our world as it now stands?

Those who yelled truth from the housetops of the holocaust died in the lonely gas chambers of lost dignity.
The screams of the children in african wars falls on 150 deaf nations.
Police forces of select nations send trapped women back to their brothels.
All the world will not listen, but only wishes to discover truth through its own experience.

Safest is the one in shadows and corners, the one who makes no comment.
A peacemaker and a diplomat may be what the world needs,
perhaps a hero behind the scenes...

Either way, safe is where i stay.

Mary Kay Parties

So a neighbor of mine invited me to a Mary Kay party she was throwing to have 'fun' and to 'help out her friend' so she could earn a car. I've had mixed feelings about Mary Kay parties in the past, but this sounded like mostly no pressure, so i went.

And i hated it.

It was an hour and a half of selling product, selling the idea of becoming a consultant, and selling me on going to another mary kay event. I feel like its so deceitful to say it's a no pressure fun party, and then spend the whole time listening to a sells job that pulled at your emotional 'help me earn a car' and 'of course you WANT all the products listed... but which one the most?'

This was a pedicure party, so we tried about 5 different lotions all over our body... and, did i mention i hate lotion? I felt disgusting by the time i got home... and took a shower. However, i didn't wash it off my face for some reason, and a couple hours later, my face was so oily, my husband was disgusted... which is rare.

My very favorite part of the whole party (and that's severely sarcastic) is the part where we wrote down our favorite facial makeup item and then whoever relinquished the greatest number of friends and phone numbers got their favorite item. I hate getting referred, so the last thing i want to do is help my friends get contacted. However, i got talked into playing the game... and i got the most names down... so i won... except my phone numbers weren't there, so then i lost. Then since i lost, i decided i definitely wasn't giving up my list of friends personal information, changed every phone number, and then left early before she could collect my paper.

Of course, she called me a couple days later. She changed her mind and told me i had won, but that she needed my paper, and she would bring over the facial makeup item. Of course i won now... she just lost proof of me even being to that event, plus she was 10 phone numbers shorter. I didn't call her back.

Now, i know i have a few friends who work mary kay. And that's fine... it is a job. But, my anger is with how the company seems to set it up. The product seems to need salesman because it's overpriced and the quality is debatably not competitive. Secondly, the company sets it up so that salesmen are motivated by rewards and working on your own time, but at the expense of your friends. I know a few people who avoid mary kay consultants simply because they do not want to deal with being confronted with buying something. Thirdly, they use emotional strings, fun games, and promises of rewards or prizes to get you to buy into it.

Mary Kay is like car sales. (This is the part where my reader needs to stop reading. Because at this point, i'm just ranting.) Definitely out to sell, and not to Actually care what you're Actually interested in. I'm Actually not interested in make up at all. I don't think i've even worn any in 5 months. Next, i'm broke. And she only had $35-60 product packages available. Of course, i've been broke for 10 years now... actually, my whole life. I've got about 100 items on my buy-someday list, and makeup hasn't made it on that list yet.

I hate sales. i hate sales. i hate sales. i hate sales. i hate sales. I like salesmen who are informative and helpful, but if they start applying pressure at all, my walls shoot up and i get defensive and uncomfortable. I hate sales. i hate sales. i hate sales.

The End.

Living in the Present

I had a friend come over last night, and it turned out to be quite an adventure. She's never been to my new apartment and has difficulty with directions so she followed me home from work [Adventure #1]. We were pretty hungry for dinner at that point, so i started cooking up a quick box meal, put it in an 8x8 glass pan, and cooked in the oven at 400 degrees for the specified time. We sat outside on a couch perched on the deck, chatting about life and her recent dating irritations. Upon the timer ringing, we went back in and found a disaster in the oven. Apparently my glass container shattered [Adventure #2].

I turned off the oven, and we went out to eat. WoOt! We walked there, which was a bit adventure, because of the way the buildings are set up, and we walked into a 10 foot drop... luckily not before we saw it. We ate at Noodles & Co. which is one of my favorite places. My friend had never been there [Adventure #3]. She chatted on about boys again and at some point i interrupted and said, "So what do you think about the food?" She seemed to snap out of her trance and say, "Oh, um, it's really good! I think it's my new favorite restaurant too!"

On the way home, we stopped at Paradise Cafe (another one of my favorites, and a new place for her) and got a free chocolate chip cookie with a coupon i had, and we split it. She was very impressed. "I should take my mom out to eat here." [Adventure #4]

By the time we walked back to my apartment (5 min), she had created and solidified plans with other friends... boys included... and needed to leave to make it there on time. She invited Dave and I, but we're too broke for a theater movie right now, and i told her that upfront.

Looking back on the evening, I see many adventures worth noting that evening, but what stuck out to me the most this time, is her apparent utter lack in acknowledging the amount of wild fun we had. I can imagine her going to the movies with her other friends and saying to them, "Oh, i just went and saw Keshia. I was at Keshia's and Dave's Apartment." with no further detail. Because in her mind, nothing exciting happened.

The saddest part about this is that there are hundreds of people who live their lives this way. So focused on what they don't have that they miss everything they do have; always looking for a better time when a great one is right in front of them.

Photo Album organizing

Today's blessing and curse is that we can take too many pictures too easily. A blessing because then we're sure to get a good picture. A curse because there's a high potential that i'll find a reason to need to keep all of them, therefore leading to photo chaos... piles of priceless photos stacked everywhere... despite the lack of quality in a great majority of them.

Up until this week, it was my intention to scrapbook all of them in 8x10 binders or a 12x12 scrapbook. However, since i have about a small shoebox's worth (600 photos) of printed photos to scrapbook and about two or three more shoeboxes worth unprinted... I'm considering photo albums. On top of that, some of the pages i did only 4 years ago, are already becoming un-glued. They're not going to last.

The problem with the photo album is i can't put anything except photos in them... and i have a crate full of programs from talent shows and performances i participated in, letters, cards, love notes, and movie tickets. Plus there's the occasional picture printed in a larger size than 4x6. What do i do with those? My second problem is that i've randomly scrap-booked all parts of my life; so to keep these photo albums and scrapbooks in order, i would have to take apart some of my hard-labor scrapbook pages. . . or fill in all the missing pages (ie hundreds of photos) andthen start doing photo albums.

My Best solution so far, is to

1- scrapbook the missing pages here or there

2- scan the several pages that i may end up taking apart

3- print and organize all photos

4- put excess or bad pictures in a 'giveaway' box

5- insert any knick-knacks that can fit into a photo album

6- select sections of photos to scrapbook in an album, accounting for the size of the album

7- create binders of all other material that cannot be added into a photo album and scrapbook them in a "no-photo scrapbook" as outlined on google sites.

I'm still frustrated though. partly because i can't pay for prints right now... and partly because i'm not sure how well this system will actually work. The system i really want... scrapbooking everything on 8x10 or 12x12 ... is unrealistic, unfortunately... since most pictures register as 'important.'

How does one know when a picture is a keeper or a 'giveaway?' Google has a list...

1- a decent and rare picture of a family member or loved one

2- it touches an emotion of a viewer and impacts their life [for good]

3- a picture of a life-changing event in one's life

4- it shows beauty and/or truth. Shows my point of view

5- it's proof of an event

6- no particular picture is the best, but the collection together in a series

i could fit most of my thousands of pictures under these 6 reasons... but perhaps knowing the reasons can help me determine better what's worth keeping to me. The last thing i consider when trying to decide whether to scrapbook or trash a picture is asking myself these three questions:

1- Does the picture make you feel happy? or otherwise? Is this something you want to remember forever?

2- Is this something you want to share with your children or friends? Will they see it if it is scrap-booked?

3- Is this picture worth the cost of (A) saving on the computer's memory, (B) printing, (C) putting into one of 200 slots in a $15 photo album, or (D) the cost of the scrapbook paper, stickers and glue on the page?

Lastly... i have a lot of random pictures in the middle... should i make an exception to chronological order for topical order... family photos verses college life... and how do i do that?

Any additional insights?

Environmentalism

My mom rolls her eyes every time she hears about an environmentalist idea... such as banning (BPI?) plastic out of water bottles because it's toxic. I don't know that I'd ever be an advocate of envirnmentalism on any level of conviction, but if drinking water out of non-BPI plastic makes my water taste better, i'm all for it!

JobSearching and Interviewing

?Yikes@ i just got out of an interview for a job... and i find out on email tonight if i get it or not. I was nervous, and therefore a bit shy, but other than that i did okay. one or two questions i could have answered better. whoops. oh well. i haven't had an interview for a while... I'm a bit rusty.

And now that I've had an interview... I'm ready to run away! scary! I'm going to go hide in my social activities and my hobbies again.. except for the fact I'm running out of money... hate how that happens.

I wanted to call someone to help chill out, but I'm out of cell minutes... and they're not online at gmail, so here i found blogger. Woot.

I'm not really nervous about the job or doing the job. It's something i think i could do well and really enjoy. But proving or showing them that i can do it, is something entirely different... well, i might have to do lesson plans for the kids... i've never done that before. But i'd like to think i can do it because i've not failed at hardly anything before. But this is someone who's naive about the topic. I bet i'll find out it's a lot harder than i think.

the glbtq arguement

Many of the arguments I've heard in class and elsewhere I’m coming to conclude are completely twisted and invalid, on both sides. First, I’d like to comment on Sodom and Gomorrah and using religious scripture as a basis for argument. Then I’d like to explore oppression experienced by gay and other minority groups. I’ll touch on what seems to be the Gay movement’s agenda and finally, I’ll close with showing that all arguments on the topic are invalid based on the foundation of each argument.

On the topic of Sodom and Gomorrah, scholars such as Comstock (1991), identifies eight possible references to the disapproval of homosexuality in Judeo-Christian scripture but there are debates among scholars about whether all of these scriptures are actually talking about homosexuality, or if they’re talking about some other subject (Diversity/Oppression, p. 183). Leviticus is considered to be the most clear, but the argument is then said that those verses were actually added to the Bible in 1946 (Diversity/Oppression, p. 184). I think that it is difficult to make any argument about homosexuality using the bible or other scriptures because there are at least 15 translations of the Bible and often 2-3+ interpretations of a single verse. Does Comstock account for the several versions of scripture, or is he using only a couple of the dominant translations to “prove” his point? In the movie Kip showed in class, it even mentioned that Sodom and Gomorrah didn’t even exist anyway, which is ironic after it just argued that Sodom and Gomorrah was about Hospitality and not Homosexuality. Secondly, the Leviticus scripture was referring to the Mosaic Law, which no longer applies. In Judeo-Christian religion, God established a higher law at his first coming, and the Mosaic Law was no longer in effect. The American nation was created first and foremost so that the citizens could exercise their freedom of religion and worship. The country was therefore established so that those religions, which were already being practiced in the United States, could be continued without disruption from the government. After 230 years, we are now a nation that is voting on Gay rights vs. freedom of religion, and it can be agreed on that we are standing on very dangerous ground.

I admire gay people for putting up with all the rude comments, violence, and oppression that they receive on a regular basis - especially when it comes to things like getting fired from a job for being gay, because their orientation had nothing to do with their job performance. A lot of oppression and discrimination may come from Judeo-Christian believers who use the scripture to condemn and hate the “sinner,” and therefore justify their discrimination and violence against them (Diversity/Oppression, p. 183). But in doing so, they show they do not understand and live their religion in other ways, such as the belief that God is the judge of mortals and not other mortals, and they seek to judge and cast stones at others, despite the sin they, themselves, are guilty of in other areas of their life (adultery, fornication, lying, stealing, etc. which also had the same punishment as homosexuality in the mosaic law).

Religious saints and homosexuals seem to go head to head in this debate – but in many ways, I think they are suffering from a portion of the very same oppression… and don’t kill me for saying this. Hate crimes are committed against homosexuals such as the time when a student at the University of Wyoming was hung for their (perceived or factual) sexual orientation… verses the Columbine shootings where hate crimes were committed against admitting Christian believers. Both homosexuals and Jews were slaughtered in Nazi concentration camps (Diversity/Oppression, p. 192). There have been a number of San Francisco riots having to do with hatred toward homosexuals and the Christian-based LDS church was massacred in Missouri in the early 1800’s for their non-traditional Christian beliefs. Shortly before those massacres suffered by the LDS saints, they petitioned the government for support and protection against the Missouri mobs, and received no support… much like the gay community is receiving little or no support from our current government and social institutions. As the debate of gay rights vs. freedom of religion continues, individual acts of hate and rudeness go both ways.

What baffles me the most is that Gays push that all people should accept their homosexual behavior as part of who they are, and be accepting of their lifestyle and choices. But as social workers, if a client comes into our office that has problems with drinking and driving, we’re not required to accept their drunken behavior and choice to drive under such conditions as a part of who they are and be acceptable of that behavior and that lifestyle. We are required to be objective and pass no judgment, except to accomplish the goals of that meeting set forth by a collaborative effort between client and worker. So why must the world accept gay behavior as an acceptable and correct way to live? And vice versa, why should non-denominate citizens be made to feel they cannot live their lifestyles how they please because of dominant religious values which the majority of gays do not share?

I think this argument could go on and on, but I don’t think the argument is even valid anyway. Gays and supporters are fighting on a logical and legal standpoint, while conservatives are fighting on a moral and religious one. But who defines morals? And who defines what is logical? All can be argued, all can be “logically” deconstructed (or rationalized) but no answer can be made when you’re fighting from different planes of reasoning. Science has “proof” on both sides and therefore cannot completely back up one side or the other. Therefore, all arguments can be dismissed.