Twenty

I'm two decades old today.

Twenty years ago I was twenty years younger than I am currently.

I'm going to see Up today, hopefully it will be uplifting cause this whole getting older thing is really getting old.

Tonight we're going out to celebrate the fact that I have twenty fewer years to live.

Commence quarter life crisis. I'll have to go out and get a sports car and a bad hair piece.

Hope everyone else is having a wonderful June 12 :)

Edit:
Up is a very cute movie, and made me cry like a baby with how adorable it is. However, if you're feeling self conscious about age, don't see Up. Score one for the nursing home, 0 for Rachel. le sigh.

One

It's just one of those days I s'pose, one of those days where you have a song stuck in your head and a thought stuck in your heart and there's no sense fighting the feeling cause fighting gets you nowhere (silly). Now if only the weather would cooperate with my mood, everything would be golden.

I've just seen a face - Brandi Carlile

Where are We Going?

I got an A on my first STAT II exam of the summer session. Shove that in your pipe and smoke it, she who is to remain nameless (my ex-stats professor from my real college where I don't have to pay a grand per course d;lsfhd;rfhdsfs *obscenities*).

Rachel Maddow looks really tired tonight... le sigh. I'm pretty tired too. Tired of people hating each other and people fighting and killing peoples' fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers and friends. God bless that man who gave his life at the Holocaust Museum today (I'm well aware that he likely unknowingly gave his life, but he died defending the lives of innocent people and that's a hero) and God have mercy on the man who killed him.

I guess it's my opinion that, if we raise our children to be understanding, accepting, forgiving and embracing human beings (kind of like that being we are constantly killing and fighting and dying in the name of), the world will be a significantly better place than it currently is. In Catholic school when I was very young they taught us "do as I say and not as I do" (they also taught us "children are to be seen and not heard" which is probably the most traumatic thing anyone can ever say to a child), well it simply doesn't work that way. I learn from what I observe and I mimic the people I consider to be infallible.

So long as there are people in this world who will kill people simply because they disagree with a group of people, or for no good reason at all, this world IS hell, and these people continue to make it that way.

Where are we going? I guess I don't understand what extremists want, do they just want everyone to be as miserable and hateful as them? Don't they see that, even if their fantasies did come true and the world was rid of the people who make them tick, that they would still be hollow human beings searching for something to make them whole?

On a lighter note:
Maddows dead straight people and live gay people joke just totally threw me off, she's a real hoot that one is.

I'm turning 20 on Friday... oi my knees are already killing me. This getting older thing is really getting old. I know I'm full of shit but I'm so darn cute, and modest too.

Just live for today

Truly I Tell You

I wasn't a Christian all my life, in fact today is the four year anniversary of my baptism into the faith.

I'm not a born again, though I suppose you could say that I was born again in Christ. I'm a Lutheran.

I believer wholeheartedly in God (in whatever form you choose God to take), I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, I believe the Bible was written by individuals who heard the Word of God, through whom God spoke to the people and continues to speak today.

I also believe the Bible is the single most misinterpreted piece of literature in the history of the world, or perhaps more accurately the single piece of literature that has caused the most strife and bloodshed in the history of the world.

When I read the Bible, my heart feels full because it's like I am talking to God. God is telling me how much s/he loves me. I have a similar experience when I am hiking or when I am swimming or when I look into the faces of children. The Bible gives me a sense of being overwhelmingly full and at peace, knowing that everything is going to be okay because God, the most powerful being ever, loves me personally. You may disagree and say that God does not exist, and that is your prerogative to believe or not believe or to believe something different, it is a wonderful free country we have here. But every time a rain drop falls on my cheek or I look into my niece's bright blue eyes I know for a fact that God exists, and s/he is good.

But some people don't feel full when they read the Bible. Some people feel so empty that they feel the need to make other people empty, and so they tear others down, they tell others they are going to hell, they fight and they kill and they do it all in God's name. They read the Word, and they see that they have sinned, but they forget that God loves them and they will be forgiven, so they take all of their regret and all of their anger toward themselves and they turn it out into the world. These people are in our churches, our schools, our offices, our neighbourhoods. They are our uncles, our sisters, our mothers, our best friends. They are the ones who feel a deep shame within themselves when they read the Word, and take that shame and do harm to others with it.

Well I won't be shamed by you anymore, nor will I let my friends and loved ones be shamed by you either. From this day forward I pledge that I will love and be loved by God and I will believe in Jesus just as He believes in me because it's my right as an American to believe what I want and it's my responsibility as a Christian to spread the Good News, take it or leave it. I will go about my life, freely and honestly, and I won't make anyone feel bad about themselves just because I am insecure and I won't use the Bible to sway the opinions of others or as a code of law for my country, "free of the bias of religion."

It's been four years, and it took me four years to learn that I'm not doing anything wrong by living my life. So long as I mind my business, give back when and where I can, love everyone I possibly can and always believe, I'll be saved.

I hope those people who would damn me or say that I am a sinner will see the light of reason before it is too late for them. I have faith.

John 3:17 "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him"

Wisdom

I think one of my wisdom teeth is coming in... mmm not cool. I'm not sure though, because my far back molars hurt sometimes, which I just attribute to the fact that I have two wisdom teeth (one on the top on the left and one on the bottom on the right) and they're just chilling. Le sigh, I fear this may be the real deal, so to speak.

I've been wanting to say something about the Air France jet that apparently was lost at sea between Brazil and France. Well, I was praying really hard for those poor people, as I'm sure most people were. It's such a tragedy. People who did nothing wrong, just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I'm a firm believer that when your number is up, your number is up. But it just doesn't seem at all fair. I guess nothing is fair, but their families didn't even get a chance to say goodbye.

I hope they're all at peace and their families can find peace, it doesn't get easier when a close loved one dies but the pain does dull over time.

Peace to everybody out there, happy Thursday!

Turpentine - Brandi Carlile

Urrrrggg

I had no idea what I would find when I went into my gmail account today.

I haven't even looked at the thing since probably July or August 2008. And lo, mountains of email.

Henceforth I shall check my gmail account daily.

Wish me luck on my first statistics exam of the summer course (1 out of 2, not including the final) tomorrow at 10:15 am!! eee

June

Didn't realize this but I totally missed the one year anniversary of blogging, yay. It's been a great year, pretty eventful, a complete learning experience, but that's what life is all about. I hope you've had a good year too.

So we're back in June. June is probably my favourite month (though it's quickly becoming my least favourite month due to the fact that I somehow magically age one year every June... fml) because it's the start of summer and it's glorious. The pool is opened and we started hanging out outside more often and I'm free from the confines of the classroom (save for this summer... another fml).

This will be my first year of truly taking part in any pride events (besides starting and running the GSA and all that entails, going to Disney for gay days, going to P-Town on the regs, prop 8 rallies, etc.) because this year I'm going to Hartford Pride (next Saturday) and Boston Pride (June 13, the day after my birthday!). Hartford should be a good time because it's close to home so I don't have to drive a long distance, it should be small enough that I won't feel overwhelmed, and it will be a good opportunity for me to get a feel for real pride events.

Boston Pride is going to be huge, overwhelming, and probably a little scary, but it will be totally awesome because I love Boston and I haven't been out there in a few weeks. Boston Pride is one of the major pride parades so it should be really... insightful. Oh, and Melissa Etheridge is the celebrity marshal for Boston Pride 2009!?!?!?! Well, I don't think that means that she'll be there, but she's pretty freakin swell and I'd do basically anything for her so I'll totally be at Boston Pride.

Hope everyone is having a productive Monday thus far! Happy June!!