Stuck in a Rut

I am so stuck on this final right now! I'm having trouble with the Mario case because there are so many holes to be filled, and I feel that by addressing them all, I can't incorporate the reading at all! This is tough guys!

So nuts....

After further reflecting on the situations that I have experienced throughout the semester, I realized that there there is no use in feeling sorry for myself; I must learn and grow from the problems I have faced.
From my father being diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, to my parents filing for divorce and choosing to break the news to me over the phone; from acquiring mono and as a result, catching every flu, cold, or both at the same time that slyly floated around our campus, to being placed in the hospital for having a stomach ulcer (probably from all the fucking stress I've been under), I have received the right to say that I have experienced HELL.
But, in the midst of all the chaos, there, in the front of my four different classrooms, stood four professors who understood, who had the decency to find it in their hearts to attempt to understand the chaotic situation/s that occurred in my life. For this, I thank you. And to you, I dedicate this poem: (It's meant to relax the reader)

Cypress surrounds me.
The unsullied air
pervades through my lungs
as I take in each breath and exhale.
The drums
of the falls tunefully
whipping the rivulet below.
A gust of wind blows
through the trees.
My mind is at ease.
The leaves wave hello
as the breeze flutters by.
The birds
with their chirps
sound like delicate
chimes.
My mind is at peace
with what life brings
to me.

Last day blues

As happy as I thought I would be to be finished with school this semester. It seriously hit me like a tidal wave!! I had no idea it was coming, honestly. I am sitting in class right now and just got really sad because it is seriously over; not completely, over yet, just for this semester. I only have two semesters left and it's kind of crazy and surreal at this point. I think it will hit me when I have to complete my capstone, but I hope everyone is having a great finals week and stay strong! Don't go too crazy guys!

Blessed-A Poem

I found this old poem I wrote from high school, and I cannot believe what a tortured soul I was!

Blessed by the silence of a white room faded black,
i feel your prescence with me now,
i sense you're coming back.
sometimes i like to imagine that the sky is just for me,
the way the sun just rises to gently in the east;
the way the sun just sets so firmly in the west,
proves to me that mother earth is so, by beauty, blessed.
sometimes i feel the ocean is meant for just my eye;
it's silky sapphire way of look?
a gift from father sky.
why do we as beings rule out the beauty that we've been given?
and why do we take for granted the miles mankind has driven?
as i look back into the past,
at things i've done,
i simply ask,
why does life drift by so fast?
and where do we go when it's over at last?
now, as i watch the sunset
in my white room faded black,
i open my eyes and realize
that you're not coming back.
i've bumped heads with reality
as the sun sets in the west,
"it's ok," i tell myself,
i, by life, am blessed.

I never once considered Facebook to be the CULPRIT

As you all are aware, my parents have recently filed for divorce. While they both admit that they have been unhappy for years, I blame part of the reasoning for their divorce on FACEBOOK.
"Jack and Jill had been married for seven years when Jack stunned Jill by announcing one day that he wanted a divorce. Initially, Jill was utterly shocked and devastated. When she was able to think a bit more clearly, she admitted that she had noticed Jack had become somewhat distant over the past few months, and that he was spending a lot of time on the computer. "What she didn't know was that her husband was having an affair - and most of the foreplay happened right in the marital home. Jack, you see, had reconnected with an old girlfriend on facebook." (www.imagolady.com)

THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED TO MY MOTHER; she reconnected with an old friend from high school, and coincidentally, a few months later, my mother and stepfather filed for divorce.
An article on CNN.com discusses the dangers of becoming addicted to Facebook. The article follows the story of a mother who chooses not to help her daughter with her homework because she was too busy on Facebook. "Paula Pile, a marriage and family therapist in Greensboro, North Carolinasays problems arise when users ignore family and work obligations because they find the Facebook world a more enjoyable place to spend time than the real world.


My mother actually flew to Zanesville, OH (her hometown) to visit "Bill" (the facebook man) which really pisses me off because she told me she went to visit my grandmother (her mother); which obviously turned out to be a lie. Will the facebook fantasy ever end? I feel as though my mother was in a vulnerable state and when a fantasy like Bill comes along, we all get a little lost.

The Addict Continued...

We are all addicts feeling a void with our drug of choice, I am just coming to that realization that some obsessions are not as bad as others. I know when my mother collected Native American artifacts, she got a high from picking out or finding that new one to add to her collection.
I know my father spends hours fine tuning his turbo Porsche and planning out trips because it gives him a high to do so. We all have something we like to get obsessed over...
Is it to fill a natural void that we are all born with as human beings, and therefore, we'll never feel completely satisfied with our lives? Some people could fill that void with the drug of religion; with which they become obsessed, or so it seems on the outside; however, to the religious, they are absolutely fulfilled, no holes to fill or that haven't been already filled by their religion.
I bet I could find a golfer who has the same religious experience when he is out on the course. So what am I replacing that unhealthy addiction with, extreme sports like surfing, (which has been referred to as a type of therapy for stress and anxiety as well as being referred to as a drug) religion, shopping WHO KNOWS. Can I force myself to become happy in an obsession as innocent as picking seashells on a beach or maybe growing a nice garden.
If obsession creates happiness and fills a void, then why is it looked upon as psychologically unhealthy? In psychology we are told that we need to dig into that void and fix it, but have we not already agreed it is good to have hobbies, and that we all have SOMETHING that we do that gives us a high that we are everyday planning on how we will attain that next high. So I ask you the reader of this blog, what are planning right now that gives you that uplifting joy that I call high.

The Addict - A Dead End

I don't know how many people who read this are going to be honest with themselves, but I want you to ask yourself one question. Are you an addict? I recently discovered that I, myself, am an addict.
From freshman year of high school and on, I have been trading one drug for another; constantly looking for a new high. For example, the first time I tried smoking weed, I was hooked-not for life, just until the next best high came along. That next best high happened to be Ecstasy- 'E', 'X', Thizz or whatever they call it these days in the East Bay. While experimenting with Ecstasy, (stimulants turned out to be my drugs of choice) I discovered psychedelic mushrooms, LSD, Cocaine, Oxycontin, anything you could possibly think of, with the exception of anything involving needles; I was never too open to the idea of needles.

This craziness lasted up until my senior year of high school; during which I discovered alcohol. Alcohol: so innocent, so feeble compared to the experiments I had previously conducted. Alcohol: so NOT innocent, so preciously disguised by its legality.

The purpose of this particular posting is not to give the reader a better impression of me :); it is a personal riddance of the void in my life with which for SO long, I have been attempting to fill with drugs. It is as if for my entire life, I have had a large hole in my heart; a hole I did not know how to fill-- a hole I think that other people with the disease of addiction can relate to. Drugs are temporary "void-fillers," not solutions to our problems. It is amazing, however, to think that one little alteration of a person's brain-chemical makeup can temporarily satisfy the need to fill a void affecting their entire outlook on and way of life.

Divorce

Divorce. The institution of marriage has been mutilated by society having the ability to take the "easy way out." I hate it. For the second time in my life, two people who are nearest and dearest to me (my mother and stepfather-who has been in my life since I was three years old and has practically raised me) are getting a divorce. The way my mother went about telling me was far from respectable and/or expectant; she broke the news over the phone believe it or not, laughed at me when I cried, and was just overall patronizing. She was saying things like, "Come on, Blaine, you knew this was coming...," and "Why are you reacting this way?..." I have never heard my mother talk to me that way; I'd at least expect her to have a little sympathy. I am in my senior year of college which, as a result, puts me under a tremendous amount of stress, and I just had my world completely ripped apart OVER THE PHONE. It just really upsets me because like I said, for the second time in my life, (my mother and father divorced when I was three)my parents got a divorce.

Second Blog - Human Trafficking

It is the world's third largest crime next to drug and weapon trafficking. Human trafficking has become nearly an epidemic in third-world countries. In a Time magazine article, “Iraq’s Unspeakable Crime: Mothers pimping daughters,” an Iraqi human rights' activist, Atoor (her last name was not listed), went undercover in Iraq posing as a teenage prostitute slave who had been sold by her mother. “She goes by ‘Hinda,’ but that's not her real name. That's what she's called by the many Iraqi sex traffickers and pimps who contact her several times a week from across the country. They think she is one of them, a peddler of sexual slaves. Little do they know that the stocky, auburn-haired woman is an undercover human rights activist who has been quietly mapping out their murky underworld since 2006.” (Abouzeid 2009)

Apparently, Iraqi mothers have been selling their teenage daughters for sex ever since the Saddam Hussein regime. In addition, travelers and tourists who venture to these third world countries, run the risk of being kidnapped and sold for sex as well. Ostensibly, the younger the girl, the more she is worth. Girl s from ages 11 – 14 can go for as much as $30,000. “The victims are trafficked illegally on forged passports, or ‘legally’ through forced marriages. A married female, even one as young as 14, raises few suspicions if she's travelling with her ‘husband.’ The girls are then divorced upon arrival and put to work… To date, the government has not prosecuted any traffickers.” (Abouzeid 2009)

I was personally never aware of this problem. It frightens me to consider the possibility of something like this occurring in the United States. After reading this article, it seems women in America may take for granted the freedoms and luxuries we have. I wrote this blog to ask everyone who reads it to consider the possibility of this happening to someone you know. I myself cannot, nor do I want to imagine that chance.

Article URL:

"Scabby the Rat"

I found this article about "Scabby the Rat" on CNN.com (before commenting on this blog, I would suggest reading the short article: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/05/scabby.rat.free.speech/index.html). "Scabby the Rat" is an inflatable rat which has been used "by labor unions as street theater since 1990 to protest anti-union activities." (www.cnn.com) The police had fined $100 against an official from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers because of Scabby, and ordered for it to be deflated due to the aesthetic and safety issues Scabby presented. The workers protested that they had the right to display Scabby, and that the fine was in violation of their first amendment rights. Conclusively, the judges ruled FOR the union-workers, and the town's restrictions on expressive displays "do not justify a content-based restriction of non-commercial speech." (www.cnn.com)

After reading this article, I realized that, obviously, the United States is utterly and irrevocably BORED. What happened to getting together with thousands of people and protesting against wars, having peace rallies (a.k.a hippie-fests), burning "the flag" while listening to free-spirited rock music? Protesting for some inflatable RAT seems hardly comparable. Come on America, get back to your angry roots! Let's protest against something really interesting. Enough said!