nobody calling on the phone

Somehow you get from listening to Glee music to Shontelle to Rihanna to Glee again and then to Kate Nash, it's possible. I did it, but I started thinking when I somehow got hooked into listening to "One of Us" despite the fact that I don't really enjoy this song very much. I find it kind of mocking of Christianity in some ways? Like, the whole point of their worship is that God is not one of us. He's much, much better than us, he's bigger than us, and he's infinite in all ways. He's not a stranger on the bus. The Pope cannot call him.

That being said, I kind of love the implications of this song? Because it seems to me that it inspires us to look around at the people we interact with all the time and look at them as if they were more than what they are, and not in a creepy serial killer way. ONE OF THEM COULD BE GOD. WATCHING YOU AND MISSING THE BUS THEN HAVING TO RUN AFTER THE BUS UNTIL HE'S UNATTRACTIVELY SWEATING. Yes. So yeah, what if God was one of us? Would I be forced to believe in Jesus and the saints and aaaaall the prophets? Obviously that would depend on what GOD we're talking about here. But would I want to accept all of the bullshit that's in the Bible along with God's existence? I honestly have to say no. Something about a religion can be true without everything being true; take Jesus' existence. It's true, right? Yes? But that doesn't mean he was the son of God. It doesn't mean that he rose from the dead after three days.

Christianity is mostly based off of interpretations of the Bible; the Bible itself is incredibly warped and misinterpreted. I recently read something that says that Jesus' name itself is completely wrong, and that his name was originally Joshua before all the translations the texts went through. Translating a single sentence through technology these days means that the entire meaning can be lost -- can you imagine several BOOKS of knowledge being translating multiple times? Who knows that the Bible may have originally meant or said? I can't trust a book that isn't even a real thing. That is honestly my biggest problem with Christianity; the complete blind faith and trust put into something made up of fallacies. Which, I realize, is the foundation of Christianity -- faith. Faith is wonderful, and important, and life-changing, and I don't begrudge anyone it. But blind faith can become naivete, and it's painful to see how religion can harm people because of it.

I like to believe that whatever created us is content to let us live our lives; that each of us was made for a reason, however small. That men and women can like men or women, and that's fine. That the colors of our skin are nothing more than the sun affecting us. That people from any culture can find something that they have in common. I like to believe that whatever made us is watching us, but watching us from a distance; it doesn't care if we believe in it, worship it, worship something else altogether. I feel like something has to have started everything (but then I think WHAT STARTED THAT and my head hurts) but that doesn't mean that I prescribe to one point of view.

I grew up Methodist, but I don't know if I ever believed it. I sing praises to God, but as a child I questioned Him. I read Genesis and I am literally unable to fathom how people think that they know what happened before people existed. I can't understand how people can ignore science; the same science that helps heal lives. I can't believe that people think that facts and faith have to be mutually exclusive.

I am constantly changing, and therefore, my beliefs will too. I cannot live in a structured world where I must believe something or suffer eternally for it. I don't think God would create people only to have them suffer.

Wow, Glee, provoking the big subjects.

be quiet let me leave let me go

So. Apartment shopping is the worst. I'm not going to lie and say that I'm not used to a rather cozy lifestyle, but I've spent the last year in a dorm room. A ROOM. WITH COMMUNITY BATHROOMS. I don't even have a fucking sink of my own. So yeah, I'd like to be a bit comfy in an apartment.

The thing is, everything is so expensive around here. I think it's because they know students aren't going to want to live on campus and so they think they can get away with 630 a month. Look, amazingly awesome fantastic fucking apartment for two, you don't even have a washer/dryer in the flat. So shut up.

We did find a reasonably priced apartment with the washer/dryer included, plus a lot of nice furniture, plus an ISLAND IN THE KITCHEN (Love, so much love.) The downside is that it's totally carpeted (ugh), we'd have to have a third person, and it was sort of a weird place. Like, India flat out said she couldn't live there because of the "ambiance" of the place. I kind of agree, but I'm trying to be optimistic here. Living there is still going to cost me about 600 a month, jfc. I know there has to be some places somewhere closeby that aren't shitholes and don't cost a lot, really. I KNOW IT. We're going looking again next week, but I don't have high hopes after this afternoon.

One of the places we went to had all these layouts, including a townhouse one that included two floors, and the prices were the same for all the types; all that mattered was rooming, apparently. We went inside and it was disgustingly not taken care of. You'd think that a model home would have at least a cleaner interior, jeez, but the carpet was full of gunk. It wasn't decorated and had no furniture, and at this point I was getting a little suspicious. Nothing in the kitchen, nothing in the bedroom. EVERYTHING IS EMPTY.

"So," I ventured, "is furniture included...?"

"Nope!"

India looked at me and I just felt like laughing my ass off. These places cost about the same as everywhere else, but they had nothing in them. They were completely gutted, no appliances, no beds, no desks or drawers or anything. And they wanted the same prices. I couldn't understand it. It wasn't like it was the holy gated community of heaven/paradise/whatever the afterlife is. It was a regular apartment-esque area. It was in the same area as all the other apartment/housing complexes. What the fuck made this place think that it couldn't put some shitty furniture in at least the model house omg. While we were checking out the rooms for simple courtesy to our guide, India would mouth at me dramatically NO. NOOOOO. Um, duh, India.

Oh life, why are you so needlessly complicated?

point me toward tomorrow

Last night I was sitting down on the toilet and when I glanced down, the insides of my thighs were a pale blue. Naturally I spent a few minutes wondering what the hell I'd been doing recently, and then realized that it was the same pale blue as my jeans. Holy shit, my jeans were turning my skin blue. I rubbed at them a little and nothing changed. It's like my skin has been dyed, or something. I look like my inner thighs are in early frostbite stages or something.

The whole point of that was that I'm in this heavy stage of procrastination right now. I've got a big speech tomorrow? I haven't written my note cards out, I haven't practiced, and I'm still not even technically done with my outline. I haven't put any of my bibliography in there, and I don't know if I even have a qualified bibliography. It's sort of fucked up, but I've reached this state of academic non-caring that scares me a little. I'm in college, and I love learning, but I just don't care about any of it. This is a dangerous thought process to have, all things considered, since Hope pays for a lot of my tuition and losing it means that I'm probably not going to keep going here.

I think this speech class has created in me this monster that cares about the class, but not about the speeches. I think they're far too heavily structured, I think they have juxtaposed expectations (I have to be short, concise, and scholarly while also being conversational? Really.) and I think far too much emphasis is put on the neatness of it all. I feel like the truly amazing speeches aren't ones that were grafted into perfection, but the ones that came from a place of deep meaning.

I also keep picking these topics that sound awesome at the time but end up being horrible. Right now I'm explaining why homeschooling isn't a good idea, but basically every source I can find states that homeschooling is good for various reasons, ignoring everything that I've personally seen happen. Look, I know that in certain situations, homeschooling might be the best thing that happens to a kid, but most of the time, there are too many factors working against them. I know four different individuals who have been homeschooled, and nothing good happened to them. My sister, who became isolated and dependent on me for social interaction; Ashley, who was left at home alone with too much free time and who was allowed to do the work if she felt like it; Megan, who's homeschooling has led her to extreme social needs and basically turned her into a slut; and Jamie, who's homeschooling has made her into her mother's puppet to do with what she wants, and who keeps getting caught doing bad things in the houses she babysits in. Maybe homeschooling is okay for their education, at least in Megan and Jamie's case, but the social issues they're going to have are far worse than anything education can count for. Jamie will become a unhealthily dependent young woman, and Megan is already someone who will do anything for attention, even sexual acts. She's younger than my sixteen year old sister. My sister herself was forced into a curriculum that held little interest for her, being religious based, and while she may have improved her behavior from her public middle school state, she became withdrawn and restless. My father was forced to basically put his work on hold to school her, and my grandmother would travel from her home two hours away to help out; several times I was come to for help because they couldn't understand the curriculum, which has vastly changed since they were schooled. There are so many things that can go wrong with homeschooling unless strict, personal attention is paid, and that just hasn't happened in all of the instances I've encountered. So why are there no professional articles explaining that? Why is it that all of the hyper-religious, controlling bullshit gets all of the attention?

Children need to be controlled and guided in order to attain moral standards, yes, but I heavily believe that a social group needs to be a deciding factor in those moral standards. If I had simply been homeschooled and taught everything about society by my parents, I would believe that homosexuality was wrong; I would believe that black people were causing huge issues that aren't necessarily their faults; I would struggle with my own sense of freedoms and personal desires. My parents aren't bad people -- they're the most amazing people I know, but I don't think that their standards should apply to me. I think that I should be allowed to make my own decisions based on what the world has to offer, and that means being exposed to it as a child and bearing witness to the indecencies and wrongs out there. Yes, this might mean that I have to see things children shouldn't, but it also means that I recognize it as a bad thing, rather than a foreign thing. I have never, in my nineteen years of life, been exposed to drugs; none of my friends, even the ones that do drugs, have tried to make me do it. I have never smoked, I have never drunk alcohol, and I have never had sex. I have friends that smoke, I have friends that drink copiously, and I have friends that have sex. I recognize that it's their choice to do what they want to with themselves, and my own moral codes mean that those things aren't what I want to do with myself.

I also think that a huge part of schooling needs to be competition; and not just competition, but competition with peers. Maybe a homeschooler looks at tests and says, I need to do better than public school students or private school students, but I can look at a test and say, I'm gonna do better than Kevin on this, because English is my goddamn subject. I had faces to look at, and I had goals that I wanted to meet based on them. My teachers weren't my mom or dad, who I would rather die than disappoint, even with something as basic as a test score. There were lines between my education and my home life. I think that homeschooling puts a heavy weight on students; there's no separation between what your parents expect from you and what your teachers expect from you. There's no one that can really help you in the place of the other.

Again, I do recognize that sometimes, homeschooling is what's best. Homeschooling can work. It's possible, and you can give your kid all the extracurriculars, you can give them other social circles. But it takes a lot of work, and it takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of tears. It takes a parent quitting their job and simultaneously spending more money, it takes effort to learn ahead of your child so that you can adequately explain what they're learning. Most parents are not teachers; they don't know how to teach, unlike people who go to school to specifically learn it, and even those people have specific areas of expertise.

Basically, tl;dr, this speech is seriously hard to write, despite all of the things in that huge section up there, because no one else can write this without looking incredibly prejudiced. It's impossible to write against homeschooling because homeschooling caters perfectly to the people who are looking at it; it means controlling your kids, it means having a hand in their education, it looks like it costs less in the long run (I can't find numbers that agree, and none from scholarly sources) and it's easy enough to stick them in ballet or something and hope that they make friends. And if you say anything against homeschooling, they'll go after you; I've read enough articles to know that they're fiercely protective of their schooling style, which is fine, but I also feel like they're only showing the good in their system. Everyone knows the faults of public schooling, but homeschooling only has good media coverage because most of the time, no one cares about the details I've listed. Megan's just one more slut in the world, and who's to say that homeschooling even caused that? Ashley's just one more student who didn't go to college, and public schools are full of those. Jamie's just one more kid with messed up parents, and that's not homeschooling's fault. Maybe those things are true, but I think that homeschooling definitely did have an influence on them, and I think that homeschooling should at least acknowledge that it is not a perfect way of teaching children.

Hmmm. I wish I could just print that out and read it. Damn structures.

i try to live without regrets

My work is the most boring work you will come across, no exceptions: I am a cashier for a semi-hidden campus grocery store. We're stuck inside a dorm building that hasn't had students for years, and every now and then students will wander in looking for a bathroom and glance around at me, exclaim, "I had no idea this was here!" and then proceed to spend at least ten minutes looking around before leaving without buying anything. Yes.

I mostly work alone, so there's a lot of time for thinking. In fact, it's the only thing you can do. Even while I'm cleaning or restocking, I'm thinking. It's incurable, and the only way to keep from having the songs that blast through the speakers get stuck in my head (those damn Jonas Brothers). I think about incredibly inane things, mostly, but the other day I was pushing some Minute Maid into the fridges and thought, "Why the hell do I say 'have a good day/night' to these people?"

It made me pause. I say it to everyone, and they usually say it back; I also ask how they are and they ask how I am. It's a copy/paste situation every time someone comes to my register. Several times I get thrown off because someone deviates from the script and I'm left saying "I'm fine thanks," to "This is on dining dollars." It makes for amusing conversation but is highly embarassing.

But I honestly don't care about these people's nights. It's not like I'm wishing hellfire and damnation on them, or anything, but why am I telling them to have a good night like it matters to me? And why do they say it back? I know for a fact that most of the time, I'm not even registered as a person. That's the way consumers treat employees -- we don't see them as people, but as a means to whatever we're trying to get. And yet they say it back.

It made me think (as I wandered around looking for drinks that needed to be refilled -- Snapple never seems to be in our backroom, for some reason, but is always missing on the floor) about the structures of societal interactions and how fake they can be. We often put up facades of how we feel in order to keep from causing problems for society members. If I went around right now letting everyone know that I'm teetering on the edge of a mental breakdown, I'd be avoided like the plague. I act like I'm cheerful and happy and that I care about everyone even though I feel like breaking down doors with the power of my rage/depression.

And it's not like I'm not going to say anything to my customers -- for one, it could jeopardize my job, but for another, I was raised to be polite. I say polite things even when they're not necessary (like the time at the cookie shop where the cashier said "enjoy your cookie!" and I replied, "You too," ugh. I hate when they deviate.) While I honestly don't care if they have a crappy evening or the evening that equates to their own personal paradise, I want them to think that I care, because I care about society's perception of me.

Basically, what I came to realize is that society standards are all that are keeping me from ruining my dormitory door.