always too extreme
as previously noted, things that i read in the news frequently blow my mind in terms of how absolutely extreme they are.
here are a few new ones:
1. today, Michelle Bachmann renounced her dual Swiss citizenship after being accused of being unpatriotic. really? does having a diverse background make someone unpatriotic? I’m really glad no one told my great great grandparents that when the got here from wales and Germany, because otherwise they’d have had to entirely forget about their past to loyally establish their futures as Americans… this is ridiculous. we force diversity down one another’s throats, yet when given the chance to truly diversify, we berate someone who made a decision like that?
2. mitt romney bullied someone in high school. mitt romney is double my age, and i have some serious concerns for someone who hasn’t gotten over it yet. and, for anyone who wants to keep bringing this up, i will be reminded that any incident in your past is fair game - regardless of when you committed a certain act that i am not allowed to assume that you may have “grown up” or decided to make alternate life choices at a certain age. i really hope that i am not treated that way. lots of things have caused me to change and grow up and i am proud to say that i have evolved as a person…
3. speaking of evolving… president Obama had an evolving opinion on gay marriage. he stated that he was supportive of same sex civil unions, but was not ready to be fully supportive of gay marriage. i, too, am ok with same sex civil unions. however, i also realize that my “marriage” by the state of Georgia is not the defining factor of my real marriage. my marriage is defined by what i make of my relationship with my husband, family, and God. because of this, i do not really agree that Obama was not supportive of gay rights until he used specific language. I was deeply saddened that people decided that his support of same sex couples in a legal sense was not enough. come on. last night as we were discussing this, my roommate questioned, “wait, i thought he already was supportive of same-sex unions.” i reaffirmed that he was. she asked “then what’s the big deal.” i said “he didn’t use the word ‘marriage.’” we both looked at each other and simultaneously rolled our eyes.
4. war on women. first, pay for your own birth control or abstain. or use one of those magical 10 cent devices called condoms. secondly, this war on moms, war on family stuff is garbage. everyone in this world has their own definition of “success” (similarly to having their own definition of “beauty”) and we need to stop defining it for one another. if you aspire to be a wonderful stay at home mom and that’s what you are doing and you are happy doing it, then you are successful. if you aspire to be a c-level executive and you aren’t going to stop til you get there, that is also successful. finally, war on women goes much further - to the point that our popular culture is the greatest culprit in the objectification and “war” on women. we need to stop pointing at politics and start pointing at pop culture as the biggest offender.
on an entirely different note, dan and i decided that we are undecided voters at this point in time and can’t wait for the debates. we also decided that both parties are so extreme that we can no longer identify with either. i’m not sure why problem solving became so politicized. can we stop pointing fingers and start solving problems, please?!
engaged
dan and i are engaged.
he did a phenomenal job with the proposal and i was SHOCKED. that is what i have always wanted - to be completely blindsided. props to him for pulling it off.
here’s how it happened:
unknowingly, justin planned a trail run for all of us, and dan and i decided to go on this run. this played perfectly into dan’s plans, because he had intended to propose after either a run or a bike ride. i had once told him that the time i am most distracted is after i work out, because i am hungry, planning my next workout, and evaluating my performance. as far as dan was concerned, justin’s invitation was more than perfect to throw me off even more.
unfortunately, throughout the entire run, i was having severe knee pain but decided to gut it out. when we finished, we immediately came back to the house where i was insanely distracted by the pain in my knee, excessive hunger, and the chills from the sweat finally cooling on my body - just as expected.
as i headed upstairs to shower, dan blocked the stairway and started teasing me and playing with me. he picked me up multiple times, walked me as far from the stairs as possible and ran back to block them. while carrying me, he seemingly innocently and jokingly asked “and you want to marry me?” my response, while suspended a few feet above the ground, was “yes! now put me down!” but when dan put me down, he was on one knee with a box in his hand. he gently said “i’m serious, will you marry me?”
he had the rest of the day planned out. he immediately gave me a photo album of a lot of our memories with the last picture being one of the ring captioned “will you marry me?” we proceeded to jump in the car where he handed me a card as we headed to lunch. we went on a series of little dates through atlanta, all with a themed card and a brief stop including many of our firsts, our favorite places, and our church.
i am really excited! i am nervous, but it’s a healthy nervous. how can i possibly be a good enough wife for a guy like him?! i’m so glad to be joining his family, and to have him joining ours. i’m also nervous about being an army wife, but i’m sure i’ll figure it out.
my dad told me that many people keep congratulating him. he asked me why they are congratulating him, since the only reason he can come up with is that he’s FINALLY getting rid of me. 
oh, and as for that knee pain i was experienced during my run? i have a stress fracture. i’ll be on crutches for a few weeks. my doctor says that it will heal faster if it is non-weight-bearing. great. just what i need.
not to worry, though, the crutches really compliment the ring.
comments based on observations
i take a lunch to work everyday. not only does it help ensure that i am eating the proper things, it helps save money. today, i had almost all of the required lunch box items with the exception of my daily sandwich. fortunately, my office has a cafeteria where i can have a custom made sandwich to fill that void.
i went to the cafeteria to get a tuna sandwich to add to my greek yogurt, orange, granola bar, and blueberries that i had packed for lunch. i hopped back on the elevator to go up to my desk and eat.
however, the elevator was not empty - a man with a to-go order of fries and a cheeseburger hopped on the elevator with me. the following encounter ensued:
Guy: Is that all you got?
Me: Yes.
Guy: A tuna sandwich?
Me: Yes.
Guy: That isn’t enough food. You are way too skinny.
At that point, in my mind, the conversation was over. I don’t feel the need to justify to this guy what i’m eating, when, and why. i don’t need to ease his concern over my daily caloric intake because frankly it’s none of his business. what would have happened if we reversed the conversation, and i made the same observations back to him, except those observations would have resulted in me telling him that it was too much unhealthy food and that he was overweight.
i’m not sure why people feel as though it is ok to comment on someone’s food, body build, or lifestyle in a negative way regardless of what they are saying. it isnt’ ok. it’s just as rude as telling an overweight person that they eat too much. and frankly, if i did have an eating problem, i would hope that those trying to put me back on the right path would be friends and family, not a stranger in an elevator.
something for nothing
i had an interesting discussion with my highly-intelligent friend nick today. he told me he had been perusing my blogs and had some comments. his insight was wonderful.
nick commented that the underlying issue to all of my complaints was that we live in a society that defines success as getting as much as we can for as little effort as we can put forth. we are the something for nothing society.
we started talking about small examples like “advanced” education: where students expect that going to college and getting a degree will align them to make millions and be highly successful, but that the effort that students put forth is just enough to get them the grades to get the degrees. they don’t really get much value from it, they just check the box. something for nothing - - or, something for as little as possible.
next, we moved on to the failure of a universal healthcare system in the US. the universal healthcare system, in theory, is meant to allow for people to receive health care and check ups semi-annually to prevent major issues over time. however, let’s face it, our society is burdened with health issues not because of the need for preventative medicine, but for the lack of personal prevention. our society eats a big mac every day for a month because they know that eventually they can just take some kind of drug to fix them once they’ve damaged themselves to a dangerous level. universal health care can work, but it can only work for a society that doesn’t require something for nothing. a universal health care system in the united states would go bankrupt so quickly because it is not designed to handle covering the high priced operations, treatements, and long-term care required by the average united states citizen. it’s designed to handle the cost of small treatment, short term preventative care that will help to significantly decrease those high priced treatements down the road. however, people LOVE the concept of universal health care… it takes care of those piling sky-high existing medical bills that many people acrued because they couldn’t be bothered with taking care of themselves. something for nothing.
then we started talking about capitalism. one of the main points went straight back to the fact that everyone wants something for nothing. without saying it, i think both of us had OWS in mind, because we started talking about people feeling entitled and a lack of competition. these days it seems that no one wants to compete - everyone wants to win by doing the bare minimum. in a capitalist society, competition should be a driving force, but for one reason or another, american citizens don’t feel that they should have to compete or improve themselves for a job. and if they don’t take the initiative to improve themselves, then the government should be required to help them out. something for nothing.
finally, nick and i talked about people feeling that they had every right to have their opinions respected by anyone who read or heard them. we found this a little ironic, in a way, because demanding that someone respect your opinion is exactly asking for something for nothing. many of the opinions we run across these days are ill-founded, uneducated jibberish with no educational, factual, or substantiated basis behind them. however, if you disregard that person’s opinion, he/she feels slighted, belittled, and as if they didn’t get what they deserved. seems to follow a common trend here, doesn’t it? it blows my mind when an unread, uneducated member of society outwardly objects to an opinion that is based in fact, years of research, and conversation simply because they once read “some article on the internet” that said something else. everyone is entitled to their opinion, but they are not entitled to having their opinion respected by anyone else.
until we change this “something for nothing” society, all we’ll produce is a whole lot of nothing. it isn’t successful at all. it’s entirely counterproductive. do we need to change attitude, or do we need to change our perceptions of success?
the perception of power
i’m horrified that everywhere i look, there is a new headline about some kind of sexual crime, sexual deviance, adultery, rape, etc. most recently, herman cain, a republican contender for the presidential nomination, was accused of inappropriate advances as well as having an affair. cain utterly denies all allegations and pledges complete commitment to his wife. but as i look around beyond the political scope, i can’t help but recognize that men view sexual relationships with women as conquests. men will try to show they are more desirable, suave, powerful, etc by increasing the number of partners they have. not only is that completely ridiculous, but it’s the exact opposite of the mindset of some of the world’s greatest cultures and thinkers.
did you know that thousands of years ago, sexual abstinance was considered the mark of a powerful and strong man? if a man could conquer his greatest and strongest instinctual desire, then he was certainly a man with greater conviction and power than anyone else. it was actually frowned upon for a man to have outward and public relations with a woman because it showed that he was weak - he was unable to overcome himself, so how should he be trusted to overcome the other troubles that would be sent his way as a man in power?
what has changed this attitude? i think the ancient cultures were correct: showing that one can overcome desire and exhibit self control is far more honorable, admirable, and powerful than the man who constantly indulges in every temptation.
the headlines
as i was perusing my twitter feed the other day, i noticed an interesting 140 character post. it lead to an article which described the startling differences, in the author’s opinion, between what was important to americans versus what was important to people in other parts of the world by comparing the covers of Time magazine. the first example was the cover of Time in the US, which depicted a story about how anxiety could actually be good for you. on the cover of Time outside the US, it showed startling images of riots in the Middle East and featured an article describing the unrests, deaths, protests, and destruction.
i started to think about this more as i read the news. today, i noticed three highlighted stories that absolutely confirmed the author’s observations. on cnn.com, the center story with the largest graphic was the euro 2012 selection. sports. two other headlines made me ashamed: siri not pointing people to abortion clinics, and how to handle unwanted facebook friend requests. REALLY?!
a few weeks ago i admitted to a friend that when i looked at a map of the middle east, i incorrectly placed oman, yemen, and tunisia. i was ashamed of myself, especially because of the huge implications that middle eastern politics has on the well-being of the entire world. then i realized that most of my peer group couldn’t properly locate turkey, iraq, iran, afghanistan, or pakistan. there is something seriously wrong about that. upon further reading, i then realized that most of my peers don’t even know why we are in wars in iraq and afghanistan, and will swear up and down that it has to do with nuclear weapons and oil. as i’ve made clear, i don’t necessarily agree with the wars we are fighting, but i’m at least glad that i can say i understand them.
americans are more concerned with themselves and their own personal entertainment and happiness than they are with the real issues. is your pending facebook friend request and kim kardashian’s ridiculous marriage really more imporatant than sanctioning iran, the EU debt crisis, syria, and iraq/afghanistan drawdowns? our society is gifted with advanced technology, and americans are not using it in ways to further educate themselves, they’re using it in ways to further entertain themselves. with all of the opportunity, education, and technology that we are GIFTED here in the us, why are we so utterly consumed and concerned with only our personal lives? why does no one care? people are entirely incapable of recognizing how lucky they are, incapable of recognizing how selfish they are, and incapable of looking outside of their really tiny bubble. i’m just afraid of what will happen when the bubble finally bursts.
sixty-four dollar christmas quest
last night i watched a really interesting piece on the nightly world news with diane sawyer that stated the following fact:
on average, americans spend $700 per year on christmas gifts. if $64 of that $700 (9% of total money spent) was used to purchase products made in America, it would create 200,000 jobs.
this was remarkably interesting to me for two reasons. 1. my christmas budget is $700. in fact, i even keep a spreadsheet every time i buy something for someone and put it into the spreadsheet to ensure i am not going over. this makes me EXACTLY the average american. 2. i go to china multiple times a year in support of manufacturing products made in china. i see the factories, i meet the workers. i actually love china and am slightly obsessed with it, but i also love america and oftentimes see no reason why we can’t just make it here. today this is even louder to me, because i was informed that china will roll out another wage hike for its workers (15% wage increase in 2012, after wage hikes of 18% and 17% respectably in 2010 and 2011). i have nothing against the chinese at all, in fact, i wouldn’t have my job without chinese manufacturing. i just additionally have a vested interest in the health of the american economy.
abc news is running a “made in america christmas” campaign to try to encourage domestic product purchase. i decided to join in.
ABC News Made In America Christmas Campaign
i have made it my christmas quest to spend that $64 in american-made gifts and to ensure that they are amongst the gifts under my tree this year. i also plan on informing my family members of my quest, and to symbolize its importance to me by hand-making ornaments with a usa theme. of course if i make them, it guarantees they were made in america.
i know that abc has a list of possibilities, but i plan on further researching some gift options. this isn’t nearly as easy as it sounds, unfortunately, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.
join in!
never read comments, they create angst
it seems i will never learn my lesson. day after day, i read news stories that pique my interest only to continue to scroll down and read the comments section. resultingly, i frequently become so irritated that i cannot focus on anything because my heart is pounding, my blood pressure is elevated, and i wonder if anyone attempts to self-educate anymore.
today, the cause of my angst is the perception of the American war in Afghanistan.
firstly, as should be clear by now, i am in a serious relationship with an American soldier. i feel, though, that this does not bias me or my perception of the American military, politicians, or general world policy. most of the information that i have gathered has been a result of curiosity and my own acknowledgement of my personal ignorance regarding what is “actually” going on in the middle east. sadly, until this year, i could not look at a map of the middle east and name all of the countries in north Africa, the Balkans, and southwest Asia. additionally, as a frequent business traveler to china, i have a very keen interest in the political affairs of that rising super power.
that being said, i think one of the most irritating things i read is that “America is losing the war.” part of me agrees and part of me disagrees. in my opinion, what is going on in Afghanistan is a lost cause, and it always has been. however, this is more complicated than some government conspiracy or an attempt to take over middle eastern oil. in fact, those claims are dumb.
for decades (yes, decades), the middle eastern muslim radicals have opposed western governments, militaries, etc, for their stance on Muslim affairs: stemming from Israel, to interventionism, to African affairs, to oil fields, to Christianity - all of which affected different Muslim interests. and, for decades (yes, decades), figureheads (such as OBL) have spoken against these practices and raised support and funds for initiatives to end the actions of governments such as that of the US. OBL said for years “if you don’t stop some of these policies, we will attack you.” and then September 11, 2001 rolled around. OBL lived up to his word. (At this point, I recommend that you read a Michael Scheuer book or two). quite frankly, i wholeheartedly disagree with many US foreign policies, and have to say that in some of the instances that OBL outlined, he wasn’t entirely out-of-line. however, i am not condoning his actions in response. there’s nothing wrong with disagreeing with a policy or opinion, but there is EVERYTHING wrong with subsequent violence.
there is much more to the US policy in the middle east than simply this. there is civil unrest in the Muslim world, there are conflicting groups, there is murder, there are drugs, there is hate… and the us stance is typically to intervene on behalf of those who cannot. whether or not you agree with this is up to you. i am conflicted daily with whether or not we should be intervening anywhere - is it the right thing to do? maybe…. but is the investment and aftermath really worth it from both an economic and political standpoint? i cannot answer that. (examples in my mind at the moment: Sudan, Darfur, Kuwait, any genocide, human rights issue, famine, etc.)
however, back to Afghanistan. Afghanistan is not like Germany post world war 2, but some days i think we are treating it that way. we are occupying, establishing and training a government, imposing a particular form of government (whether desired or not) on a group of people who are unprepared, unfunded, and unsupported to maintain it once the US leaves. in order to establish this government, the American military is OCCUPYING Afghanistan to curb the violence and fight against people who are inciting violence in the name of Islam. sadly, Afghanistan is a 3rd world country. it is nothing like walking down the streets of Germany, or the US, or even china. it is an illiterate, impoverished, war-torn country. in fact, some Afghans think that American soldiers are soviets. we’re not dealing with setting up a country who is dying to get back on its feet. we’re dealing with a country who was never on its feet to begin with.
and yet, as always, there is much more beneath the surface. i think that many of the jihadists truly believe that they are fighting for God (their God and my God are the same God), but they do not necessarily understand (nor are they educated) about all of the pieces to the puzzle. others are war mongers or power mongers. oftentimes, for a large group of poor and uneducated people, trying to figure out how to differentiate is near impossible. i do not think that violence is the answer for political reform, but that is what we have on hand right now. i do realize that some jihadists believe the entire world should be Islamic, but that is not the stance of the entire Muslim community. these people are considered radicals (think of the crazy christian extremists - westboro baptist church, for example), and their numbers are much more sparse. we’ll never eradicate radicals.
why is the US military perceived as losing this war? because we are hardly “fighting” it. we fight PC wars today. there is no mass invasion and takeover. there are smaller missions to eliminate ONLY people who are considered extremely dangerous. other casualties are mistakes and were unintentional (for the most part- i am NOT about to place a halo over every American soldier’s head and have read stories that have enraged me). it is taking forever to establish a non-established government, and we won’t be able to. we’re not withdrawing because we don’t want to give up on a country that we’ve invaded and let it fall to more violence and breed more extremism. however, there are plenty of reasons to withdraw. unfortunately, withdrawal without a permanent resolution equates to failure in the minds of many… and that leads me right back to my previous observation of interventionism. should we…or shouldn’t we? what is the line between right and wrong? when should someone step in? when should we stay out? it’s so sticky, because maybe in part - bad policy/opposing viewpoints in the ME caused hatred, hatred in the ME caused an attack in the US, the US tried to fix the unfix-able, and now we have to decide whether to cut our losses, or to stay for the purpose of maintenance which will only result in more hatred.
that’s all i have time for during my lunch break. i just needed to lay some of that out there. clearly…. there’s a lot more trapped in my head.
…I’ve already thought about my next post…. why republicans know they are right, and why democrats know they are right, and why both sides really can’t see how anyone could think otherwise.
Note: my intention was to capitalize all religions, countries, and names. i wrote this entirely in notepad and do not typically capitalize because of habit. if i missed a few of them, it was unintentional and not meant to be offensive.
i’m never not mad about traffic
five days a week. two major atlanta highways, each with 12+ total lanes. sadly, i’m only one of about four million people who tackle these roads each day.
however, with that in mind, my traffic tolerance is quickly diminishing.
i know the commute like the back of my hand and i likely drive in the same lanes on a daily basis because my brain is on auto pilot. i know when a lane ends, i know when it becomes right turn only, i know what lane i need to be in to exit properly. however, it seems like my fellow commuters don’t, and i’m convinced that’s what’s causing half of the backups.
i mean, afterall, if the exit lane to 75S after work isn’t packed, but the two for 75N are, why do people insist on driving in the 75S lane as long as possible, only to slam on their brakes and sit idly until someone allows them to merge into the 75N lanes? all that creates is yet another traffic backup for everyone who is actually going south. but when more than one person pulls this on a regular basis, all 6 lanes of 285W become a parking lot…largely because multiple people insist that they shouldn’t have to wait as long as everyone else. i see this every day on the way to work too, 285E to 400N. the sudden exit lane should come as no shock to people who are also completing this same commute at least 240 times per year.
it isn’t actually sitting in traffic that drives me crazy. i think i’m actually pretty patient with it in general. i understand that whoever planned the city of atlanta really didn’t plan much at all, but decided a free-for-all would be the best method. traffic is bound to be horrible with that approach, and i can tolerate that. i just can’t tolerate the drivers who think that they’re the only ones who want to get home.
i got to work at 6:30am this morning, and let me tell you… the only wonderful think about it was the complete lack of traffic congestion, and that is something i can deal with.
maybe some people hate sitting in traffic and just can’t do it (i know my boyfriend can’t, that’s for sure). but more than anything, i think i just hate the commuters. the rest is just an exercise in patience.
the brain’s complexity
recently i’ve been reading a book by david eagleman called “incognito.” if anything, this book has piqued my curiosity as well as inspired me to get an MD and PhD in neurophysics. unfortunately, 8 additional years of school isn’t my cup of tea, but that doesn’t prevent me from continuing to learn on my own.
one of the greatest points of interest for me was the impact of biology and chemicals on the brain, ranging from hormones to tumors to drugs. some of the case studies that eagleman highlights really bring the detrimental effects of these factors to the forefront, such as extreme anger and agression caused by a tumor, a modified natural rewards system influenced by a drug due to its chemical makeup, and even the effects of hormones on a female’s actions and thought processes at different times during a month.
noting the last point, there are times when i surely don’t feel like myself and cannot explain why. i can identify that something is not right and is driving me to act differently that i normally would expect of myself, but i just can’t figure it out. in fact, i feel that way today.
additionally interesting was the point that different physical states can actually trick our bodies into different moods. sitting up straight, for example, tells the brain that the body is more attentive and pleased with the situation it is in. holding a pencil in between teeth forces the mouth to mimick the position of a smile, so the brain somehow believes that we’re happy based solely on that smile pose. resultingly, our brain reacts accordingly. i really want to set up an experiment to test this but i’m not sure that using my friends, family, and coworkers as my own little science experiments is really fair. however, who better to use as guinea pigs? without telling them why, i’d like to have one group hold a pencil in between their teeth while writing emails for a day. i’d ask them to record the number of emails composed and their overall mood during each hour increment during the day. i’d ask a second group to place a pencil behind their right ear while composing emails and ask them to record the same information. this group would be my control group. hopefully upon examination of the data, there would be a correlation in the teeth-pencil group to an improvement in mood. who knows, though. i just find this kind of stuff interesting.
i highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand behavior better, and even try to understand how/why we come to the conclusions we make and our decision-making ability overall.