Basking in the artificial glow of ignorance

I was resting my eyes today; just enjoying having a couch to lie on and generally not doing anything even remotely productive. And while I was failing to be a productive member of society, I thought about getting up and turning off the lights so that I could have a proper sleep. But because I was by far to lazy to get up of my butt and turn them off, I thought about it instead. When you flip the switch, why do the lights turn out? Other than "because you flipped the switch" I realized I didn't know. Which is terrible as I have been flipping switches since only goodness knows what age, and I have never bothered to figure out why they turn out the lights. I realized that this was true not only of light switches, but also of televisions, computers, the internet, cars and a lot of other things that I use and see every day. And then I wondered if everybody takes things like that for granted. It's there, it works, who cares how it does it?  Developing countries all over the world have nothing, and we have a lot that, 99% of the time, no one bothers to think about. We benefit from a ton of behind-the-scenes technologies, the workings of which the masses ignore and enjoy the benefits of. Are we, as a society, basking in the artificial, bliss-like, glow of ignorance?
(not rhetorical, if I'm the only one out there this oblivious, feel free to let me know.)

Famous Amos

I am packing my life into cookie boxes. Specifically, Famos Amos cookie boxes. They've been sitting in the basement for most of forever and are now finally going too use. Don't ask me where they come from; we never eat store bought cookies if my mom can help it, but somehow we wound up twelve or so boxes downstairs.
A couple weeks ago I decided I was going too renovate my room, first steps are just now being taken. All my bobbles, odds and ends, curio and conversation pieces are slowly making their way downstairs. I swear, from this day on, I will live sparsely if I never have too pack my sheer amount of stuff ever again.
Anyway, rest period over, I still have sooo many boxes to pack....

(*Arrrrrgh!*)

Neglected

I am a terrible parent.

I have absolutely neglected my blog for the past couple weeks (months?) and I know there is no excuse for this behavior. My blog hasn't done anything to me, in fact, it's been quite cooperative, considering. 
I would be a better parent, but good parenting means being there and I just can't find time.

I would be around more, but there's homework to do, and I have a whole lot of other writing projects, not too mention books, on the go. All of which isn't an excuse for continued criminal negligence of this (very) little bit of cyberspace, but there it is.

And the tragic part? I can't even promise that I'll stop. Even this little baby post is taking up all my homework time.  



Anywho, farewell. My little bro is bugging to get on.



See ya! (whenever that will be)

Thanksgiving came first!
Some of you may have heard about the buzz in the blogsphere, started by Jim Suldog last year, I heard it from Michelle Hickman at the Surly Writer.

The issue is this: stores who put up their Christmas decorations before thanksgiving is even over.

Or Halloween. There is just something wrong with having the Santa cutout standing next to the horrific zombie cutout. Why don’t they just go all the way and start putting up zombie Santas? That’s how ridiculous this is. Come on people!


Not only is it really annoying to have to sift through Christmas decorations to find your turkey or Halloween candy, but it really ruins Christmas itself: it turns a holiday that is essentially a celebration of family and family values into a money-grabbing scheme. Now don’t get me wrong, everybody should get the chance to make money, but couldn’t they just sell the right things at the right time? I, personally, don’t think we should have to see tinsel and Christmas trees until at least the day after Thanksgiving, but hey, that’s just me.
If you agree, stick it to the man and post a post about thanksgiving.

Fight the power!







Oh, and happy Thanksgiving :)

Things of Note and my First Post

(I know this is my first post and I should probably do some sort of introduction, but there’s really no point, I mean, what is there to say? I could say that I’m new to blogging, but that’s probably obvious, or I could say that I welcomed you all to my little piece of the blogosphere, but that would be cliché. And then, if I was really putting myself out there, I could say I’m glad you’ve come all this way to read my blog, or that I’m glad you are. But there’s no point. So I won’t.)


Today was a professional development day, which means we get a day off. Hallelujah! Because it’s Friday, this also means a three-day weekend. So I decided to spend my god-sent free time, you guessed it, sleeping in.
I love sleeping in on a Friday, you can just lie there and not do anything; you have the rest of the weekend to clean your room, or vacuum the house, or do whatever it is you do on weekends. I hesitate to say that I sleep in because I’m a teenager, because I’m not sure if it’s just me who can lay for hours without feeling the need to get vertical again, or if we all do that, stereotypes aside.
Eventually though, even I had to get up or risk my body turning to goop. After I managed to drag myself out of bed and into some clothes, shoved some breakfast down my throat and then watched TV for an hour to catch my breath, it was time for the ritual Walk to the Library.
The Walk is a half an hour stroll along a busy street, across a parking lot, and behind a movie theater with occasional stops at gas stations for refueling. I go on this Walk every couple of weekends to restore my book stash and return the ones I’ve read. It is a full on workout to haul back my catch; I have been known to pick up more than a dozen hefty books at once.
The Walk is long but usually uneventful, not today.



Here are some of the unusual things that happened to me today:

-    Got stopped for directions twice, and to the same place, which, naturally I had no clue how to get too. You see, I’m sort of (very) directionally challenged because I cant be bothered to look around when I’m being carted from place to place. All I can say is that when I can drive, I’m going to spring for a GPS (in order to avoid embarrassing phone calls home asking to be picked up)
-    Had a librarian tell me I was making the other people at the Library nervous. Nervous?! I spend my weekends at the Library for peat’s sake! I capitalize the word “Library”! Who’s going to feel threatened by me? But apparently I was standing to close too the lady in front of me in line. I was tired and I was just leaning on the corner of the check out desk, excuse me if I’m about to collapse. Geez.
-    Had a biker guy, complete with beard, multiple piercing and a scary tattoo, open the door for me like a perfect gentleman. Isn’t irony beautiful? We live in a day and age where polite, modern men run for cover at the idea of being courteous to young women for fear of being pursued for harassment and/or chauvinism. The only guys left who have the balls to be polite are the bikers! What kind of world are we living in when you have to be brave to be nice?
-    Had a conversation about giant pens from Staples with the cashier and said biker guy. Ok, yeah, it was weird and random but also kind of funny
-    Got honked at by my dad who was coming home from work.

(I’ll post as soon as possible. No promises that it’ll be anytime soon though.