Wish I could say things to certain people's faces.

The people to trust are the ones who hate you, they'll do exactly as you expect.
Raw Laws.  A lot of girls, actually.  My mother.

The people to fear are the ones who have no doubts, they can't see themselves.
My father.  Elliot Shuck.

The people to need are the ones who owe you nothing, they'll be the most honest

Hannah O’Callaghan.  Miranda Amey.  Ian Cassidy.  Children.

The people to want are the ones you love, for obvious reasons.

Kyle Messner.  Leah Jereb.  Jake Hays.

The people to be wary of are the ones who are fragile, you might break them
My mother.  Elliot Shuck.

The people who need you are the people you owe nothing, they don't expect you, and that makes all the difference.
David Bretland.  Some friends.

The people who make changes are the one's who don't shout, for they are the one's best heard
Steve Meyer.

The people who make you are the people who you make, they see themselves in you, and you see you in them

Leah Jereb.  Hannah O’Callaghan.

The people who eat the most have the most to fear, they're contentment won't save them when we're all running from a bear

lol grandparents.....I shouldn’t say that, but we’re not actually related.  I would say not being related by blood didn’t matter if they’d actually tried to establish family bonds with me, but they didn’t.  So here’s my thoughts on them.  They could change their lifestyles if they wanted.

The people who say the least are the one's to listen for, they are the people who hear the most
Katie Clark.  Teachers.....at least on the last part.

The happiest people know what they have, not what they want

Leah Jereb.

The people who know you are the people you treat the worst, they can see your faults

Grandparents.  Anyone who fake tans.  Jacob Rusk.

The people who love you are the people who know you, but forgive you

Kyle Messner.

Thank you IB, for preparing me for anything.

It’s gotten progressively harder to be the best of the best.

I know a few teachers that graduated from high school at the top of their class.  However, they achieved the goal because the excelled in one area.  They were good at subjects like history and english, or math and sciences, etc.  And because they were so excellent in these subjects, it made up for the subjects they weren’t too strong in.

Students then didn’t necessarily strive to take as many AP classes as they could, because schools haven’t always offered so many.  So they were able to just pick and choose which ones they wanted to be in.  Also, they didn’t have IB, which weights all classes on a higher scale.

It’s fairly common for the top 10 students to be from IB.  Also, it’s almost impossible to be top of the class unless you’re IB.  IB forces students to be well rounded, and though we might not be strong in all areas at first, we do learn and adapt.

I just found it really interesting that being at the top means something different now.  It might not mean that you’re a genius at a subject like it used to, but it does mean you’re proficient in a vast abundance of areas.  And, if you don’t even know what you’re going to do with your future, that’s a valuable quality because it keeps all doors open.

Crushin' my hopes and dreams

A few weeks ago I was on chatroulette, because despite its horrible reputation, I’ve met some really decent people on there.

And Katy Perry.

However, I was procrastinating homework as I usually do, when I came across an American living in Germany.  Half doing homework, half talking, I was surprised when he told me he used to live in the states.  When he asked what homework I was doing, I told him I wasn’t exactly sure, I had so much that it sometimes just jumbled up in my brain into a giant mess.  I said it was just a normal day in IB Land.

What surprised me was when he said, “You’re in IB?”

Slightly cautious, I told him I was.  All he did was snicker and shake his head.  He proceeded to tell me that his entire family had gone through IB, he being the last and youngest.  I was really really pleased to find someone like this, especially on a video chatting roulette, and we talked about it for a while.  When I was beginning to realize I should probably stop procrastinating, I said, “I just have one more question......is it worth it?”

I think my heart shattered when he responded.

“I’m going to just not answer that, and let you attempt survival at the last year and a half you have left.”

Seriously.....if all of this work doesn’t pay off somehow, then I’m going to be really upset.  I know that it’s the experience that makes the real difference, and that it prepares us tremendously for college, but I’ve REALLY been hoping for a lot of credit hours to get rid of, especially since I probably have about eight years of school even after high school.  The credit hours IB could earn me would save a tremendous amount of money.

But seriously.  I’ve been hearing a lot lately that IB didn’t really pay off, and although I like to think I’m broadening my scope of learning, I can’t completely disregard the words of people who have experienced it already.  And have gone to college with IB on their belt.

OAIJGOAEIJRHO;ALIJRL. This is my brain right now.

I'm agnostic

...and I go to church every Sunday.  

My entire family is Catholic, and they’re all very, very conservative.  They’re narrow minded, and they lack respect.  However, I respect other religions enough to humor them and attend, even if it makes me REALLY uncomfortable.  Especially when they start preaching against gays....that’s just awkward.

I respect other religions because everyone is entitled to their own opinion, even if I think the idea is completely absurd.  Because although the things they teach seem completely improbable, they are not impossible.  The fact that no one knows for sure keeps me agnostic instead of being atheist.  I’m not so arrogant to think that my beliefs are concrete and absolute, because that would make me as bad as any religious extremist.  Even if I get carried away when people try and tell me that God is the only way, because that’s just insulting.  If I’m respecting you I expect equal treatment.

The most annoying thing to me is when people try and tell me that depression and suicide occurs because people don’t believe in Jesus.  They say that people need God/Jesus in order to have hope in their lives.  I’m sorry, but if you think I can’t provide my own hope, then you think I’m a lot less strong of a person than I am.  I had to learn to hope on my own because whatever God you think is out there wasn’t here to protect me when I needed it most.  My lack of faith didn’t cause me to be depressed, it was quite the other way around.

I’m sorry to say that no matter how much I used to hope and pray for some kind of salvation from the hell I was going through, nothing changed.  Nothing ever changes unless you take your own initiative and drive yourself and give yourself hope.  God isn’t going to do that for you.

And now I’m on a tangent.........

Anyway.  I go to church out of respect, and yet my family refuses to administer equal respect.  Any time I ever even hint at the fact that I don’t share their faith, there are extreme consequences.  They forced my non Catholic aunt to have her son baptized, because no grandchild of theirs was going to be brought up in anything besides Catholicism.  SO NARROW MINDED I WANT TO PUNCH SOMEONE.

Also, my grandfather constantly talks about how all gays are going to hell.  Okay.....I’m going to be a doctor so I can volunteer overseas and save lives and treat people that can’t afford it, instead of being a doctor in America where I can make millions on bureaucrats....and I’m going to hell.  SWEET thanks guys for showing so much compassion.  Isn’t that what your religion teaches?

ALSO, today in church our priest kept talking about how “we will not stop until God is brought to all countries, and all countries worship him in faith, and follow us in his teachings”.......if that’s not evidence that religion is just a way to control the masses, then I don’t know what is.

I feel as if this could have been said in a few sentences, but it’s not often that I can just rant about religion.  And I wouldn’t even have to if I was allowed to just practice my own beliefs instead of being denied that liberty.  Or if religion wasn’t so...weird.

On that note, I’ll leave you with this.  I thought it was funny.

vvv

http://www.bspcn.com/2009/06/23/11-things-the-bible-bans-but-you-do-anyway/

It's continual.

This is really late....but I don’t understand Thanksgiving at all.

Just like I don’t understand Valentine’s Day.  If you love someone, you should show them that you love them every day.  There shouldn’t have to be a day where you remind them.  They shouldn’t need to be reminded.  Granted, humans are not perfect, and so sometimes we fall short and we need to remind those we care about that we do, in fact, care.  But for there to be a specific day for this doesn’t make sense to me.  Our love should be continual and ever present.  We should be spontaneous with our gifts, both concrete and abstract, and surprise our loved ones, because that will make them feel even better than a gift on a designated day could.  It shows them that we are thinking about them at the most arbitrary of times.

The same thing applies to Thanksgiving.  I’m thankful for all that I have every day I am alive, because the fact that I am still alive is something to be thankful for in itself.  With all of the obstacles and challenges I’ve experienced, life truly is a gift, even if I haven’t always recognized that fact.  And so I don’t understand why we have one day to be thankful.  We should embrace our gifts every day that we are alive.  Even if we lose sight of how blessed we are at times.  All it takes is a gentle push in the right direction, and we’ll remember all over again.

Be thankful every day....not just on Thanksgiving.

Just do it.

I over think everything.  I spend way too much time worrying about what could go wrong, and trying to plan out every single detail for so long that I end up having to rush to even get something done.  These blogs, for example.  I didn’t start until now because I was just so worried about everything that I could say, and how I could say it, that I just kept putting it off.

I’m a perfectionist, but that’s fatal in a world where perfection does not exist.

Also, I don’t start art until the last minute because I’m just SO scared to start.  I worry too much.  But, I think most of us do.  We spend too much time worrying about the destination, not the journey.  We forget that we can change things as we go, because no one gets it right the first time.  Life is filled with trial and error, but if you never even try, you can never succeed.  You can’t succeed unless you’re willing to fail.

But I’m not willing to fail, and perhaps it will be my downfall.

In order for me to become more developed as a being, I need to let go.  I need let myself learn, because life is a process.  But I always think I should just know how to do things automatically.  I expect too much of myself, which is both good and bad.  It’s the driving force that encourages me to always do my best, but it is also the thing which KEEPS me from doing my best.

In order to become the best person I can be, I need to start trusting myself, and that I will get to my destination, no matter how long the journey lasts.

Get a room

I’m not a huge supporter of strong emotions.  I believe that it takes a lot of capacity to be able to feel love, hate, loathing, true adoration, etc.  Thus, I don’t believe that we really love many people, nor do we really hate many people.  Many of the friends we say we love, we really don’t, and it’s just a combination of passive contentment and compatibility.

This is exactly why I get annoyed every time I see an “I love you babyyyy!!!!” on facebook.  One, because you most likely do not love that person.  You probably just say it as routine to everyone you date.  Because if you really meant it, you would say it to their face, not on a network where everyone in the world can see it.  And if they retaliated with, “it’s just because I’m not ashamed to let people know we’re in love,” I would come back with, “if you really loved them you wouldn’t care if people knew or not, and would just act like you really felt that way by respecting your emotional privacy.”

Real love needs no declaration.  Real love is evident within actions.  Real love is meaningful, not to be taken lightly, and taken for granted way too much.  Every time I see people proclaim their love for each other on facebook, I’m disappointed in the ignorance of society’s youth.

Seeing such a naive declaration of emotions they cannot even comprehend makes me cringe.  To really be capable of love, you must know a person completely.   You must feel their pain, feel their misery, feel their joy, and their hope.  You must be an extension of them, and they of you.  And the teenagers I see declaring their love for each other via facebook at every hour of the day, definitely do not have that.