Leadership doesn't have a gender...

I really cannot stand Hilary Clinton.

I don't know why, just because I'm a woman, I'm expected to support Clinton. Just because of gender?

My aunts are all ecstatic about having a woman as a president. But when you think about it, does it really matter whether the president will be man or woman? Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

I'm not going to vote for someone because they're a woman. That would be idiotic and blind and you would become like every other American, you would become like sheep. I vote for whoever has the best ideas and has the best plans for leading this country. I vote for the person who will best lead this country.

How stupid is it, that people vote for someone just because they are black, or a woman? It makes no sense at all. I don't care if the next hundred presidents are men, as long as they make this country successful and lead it well. Because that's what the position of President is about.

What famous leader are you?

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

....I have no comments at all.

Missions 2008

I've just come back from Challenge Missions in Isleton, California. I must say, it was really impacting on me for a number of reasons.

Reason 1.
I know, a lot of people are extremely irritated by groups who go door-to-door and telling people to convert. I know that I'm irritated by that. But this weekend I became on of them. With my group, I went door-to-door inviting people to come to Easter Mass and to bring their kids to the kid's camps. Let me tell you, I was dissapointed that so many people don't go to church at all. After hours of going to houses where the doors were slammed in our faces, it was so refreshing to find the house of a good Catholic family that would invite us in. I have learned the true goodness of people who offered their homes, their foods, and their showers (blessed showers, never shall I take you for granted!) to us, we who don't know them. Just because we come telling people about Christ.

Reason 2.
Never have I known real generosity until this weekend. There were 14 girls in total and we had some food donated to us. Yet, families donated lots and lots of food. Oh, it was some of the best food I've tasted. And to think, they donated so much without knowing us.

Reason 3.
I was so deeply moved when the other group of girls came back and told us of this man they met. They had come to this house and the man invited them in. They began to chat with him when suddenly his daughter came out and began to yell and swear at him. The girls quickly left but turned back to see him standing outside and sobbing. They returned to him and though at first he refused to talk, he broke down and confided in them that he was miserable. His daughter disrespected him and seemed not to care for him. He was alone in the world and had noone to rely on. They consoled him and talked a while. They invited him to the service that night (Holy Thursday night) though they were sure he would not come. But lo and behold, he did come. One of the girls, Jessica, became closest to him and sat next to him, explaining the whole service to him. At the end, he thanked them all deeply. The next night, Good Friday, he came again and sat through the whole thing, eagerly drinking it all in. He came again and again and the night before he left, he thanked the girls from the bottom of his heart. He felt like he had come home. I watched all this, impressed and touched.

People criticize people like us for being "too religious". Tell me, what is their basis for comparison? What does "too religious" mean? I don't condemn people for believing what they believe. Why should they be angry at us for believing what we believe? All we are doing is inviting people to the Church. We're not shoving our religion down your throats.

I'm Catholic and I love it.

An Artic Tern...

I've heard of the television show Who's Line is it Anyway? but have never seen it until recently when, curious, I searched clips of it on Youtube. I have now found love.

If you cry, I'll smack you...

Do you know what irritates me? People who are too sensitive.

I actually used to be a bit of an over-sensitive person. I used to worry a lot about what other people thought, and if someone critisied me I always took it to heart and sometimes even cried. However, I'm grateful to my mom who always told me, "Take it like a man and toughen up." Now I can withstand almost any barrage of biting comments (or at least I'd like to think so).

Now that I've toughened up, one of the things that angers me the most is overly-sensitive people. I can't even be blunt and say what I think without having to worry about stepping on someone's toes. It irritates me to no end when people get offended by the slightest thing. I know, I know, I shouldn't be one to talk, yet I can't help but be annoyed.

The other day I was talking to a friend, who shall be called A, and she told me that she was incredibly angry at this man who helps at school. He had been working on some strenuous work around the school and had seen my friend A and her friend S sitting and talking on a bench. He passed by and on doing so, told S that he shouldn't sit so much because he would break the bench. He said so jokingly but A and S were so offended that they shunned him.

Alright, maybe the man didn't realize that he would offend them. He was only kidding. Yet it annoyed me when A told me how they were so angry. Almost everyone in school criticizes and makes fun of the poor man and yet they are so offended when he jokes around with them. S's friends say much worse things about S and he never feels offended.

These sort of things make my stomach burn and just hearing this makes me feel angry. Maybe I'm being too tough on people or maybe I'm just stupid, which is always a possibility. But sometimes I wish others would "take it like a man".

Thoreu and T-shirts

“Hard Rain”
by Tony Hoagland

After I heard
It’s a Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
played softly by an accordion quartet
through the ceiling speakers at the Springdale Shopping Mall,

I understood there’s nothing
we can’t pluck the stinger from,
nothing we can’t turn into a soft drink flavor or a t-shirt.
Even serenity can become something horrible
if you make a commercial about it
using smiling, white-haired people
quoting Thoreau to sell retirement homes
in the Everglades, where the swamp has been
drained and bulldozed into a nineteen-hole golf course
with electrified alligator barriers.

You can’t keep beating yourself up, Billy
I heard the therapist say on television
to the teenage murderer,
About all those people you killed—
You just have to be the best person you can be,

one day at a time—and everybody in the audience claps and weeps a little,
because the level of deep feeling has been touched,
and they want to believe that
the power of Forgiveness is greater
than the power of Consequence, or History.

Dear Abby:
My father is a businessman who travels.
Each time he returns from one of his trips,
his shoes and trousersare covered with blood-
but he never forgets to bring me a nice present;
Should I say something?
Signed, America.

I used to think I was not part of this,
that I could mind my own business and get along,
but that was just another songthat had been taught to me since birth—
whose words I was humming under my breath,
as I was walking through the Springdale Mall.

Chew, Chew

Have you ever wondered what exactly is so appealing about gum? What is it that makes people so addicted to it?

I mean, really, if you consider it, all gum is is a piece of soft rubber. It's a piece of rubber you chew on. You can't eat it, you can't derive any nutrition or helpful benefits from it. So why is it so popular?

Sure, it's got great flavors; flavor that eventually disappears. Oh, but we enjoy it while it's here. At the moment, I've got a piece of Juicy Fruit in my mouth and am currently savoring its fruityness. But you know, I can get a piece of fruit and it would taste just as good and possibly even better. And it would kill my hunger.

And then what's the difference between brands? All the brands of gum have the same WinterMint and SweetMint. They all have cinnamon flavored gum. So which one has the better flavor, if they're all the same?

I've even heard that people are able to remember facts better when chewing gum. Is it because they are associating the chewing with this fact? I wonder, I really do.

I wonder what the appeal is to be chewing for a long while on a piece of rubber. Gum. One of the many mysteries of mankind.

Obssesiveness

I've been assigned a research paper to write this week on any subject I chose. And I chose caffeine.

Did you know that caffeine has the very same effects on your brain and nervous system that crack and cocaine do? Who'd believe that a cup of coffee could stimulate your brain just like a dangerous drug could? It blows my mind to know that a can of Pepsi gives you a high just like an illegal drug.

Now just think of those people who become addicted to cups of coffee every single morning to keep them awake. My principal has an addiction to Diet Pepsi and cannot go a single day without at least one bottle. If she doesn't drink one, she goes into withdrawal and cannot survive the day.

I'm not one to judge (though I can't help it sometimes) but I pity those who are held captive by addictions, whether it be drugs, alcohol, or even something as simple as a cup of coffee every morning. It's not that coffee is so terrible, but I tremble to think of myself as held prisoner of an inanimate object. I could never submit myself to such a prison, yet I'm sure that I too do the same. I've been addicted to listening to my mp3 player (I'm too cheap for an Ipod, haha). Yet I recognize it and for Lent, seeing as how I'm Catholic and it's a tradition to give up something during these 40 days, I have given up listening to my mp3.

Now not to boast, but it's been hard to not pick up that music player and rock on to my music. There have been times where I needed to listen to something to ease boredom. But I have triumphed over this attachment. I have actually been able to resist the call of the music and leave the player where it lies.

Of course, I'm not perfect. I know I'll become attached to something else soon. But I thank God that I do not have to keep injecting myself with needles to keep my mind active and alive.

It just makes me sad to know that people do not rise above attachments to material things and cannot see the bigger picture. But then again, we are human.

Now excuse me while I go for another vanilla frappachino.

Wearing Purple and Red

“Warning!”
Jenny Joseph

"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me,
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple."

When I am old I would like to be one of those old ladies who can go up to a couple of punks and laugh in their faces at their multi-colored harstyles and multiple piercings and freakish clothing. I would like to be one of those old ladies who knows how to dance and is the life of every party, including those filled with cynical bratty teenagers. I would like to be one of those old ladies who never lives a dull moment.

There are times when I consider what my life would be like when I am old and grey, living in a cottage or a little apartment with my old husband. What would I be like then? Would I be old and crotchety? Would I be one of those mean spiteful old women who are crabby and gossipy? Or would I be a frail lady, who's all good and sweet and never says a swear word and never does or says a bad thing? I've considered and I've decided that I want to be like my Grandma Lulu.

Now Grandma Lulu knows how to dance. She can dance like nobody's business. She can fling about a few bad words and not care. She can speak her mind as bluntly as possible. She can play pranks and crack jokes and still keep her dignity. She is possibly the most fun Grandma ever.

And yet, if you could see her and hear her tell her story you'd wonder how she kept herself from becoming a hating spiteful thing. If you'd have seen the tears fall from her eyes, as I did, when she tells you of the struggles she lived through, of the total abject misery and poverty she survived, then you'd know what it is to suffer. And you'd still wonder how she survived without breaking beneath the strain. I think of her at times when I suffer my petty misfortunes and how they hardly compare to hers. She struggled and she fought and noone and nothing could bring her down. My Grandma Lulu is truly an inspiration to me.

She had every excuse to hate and blaspheme God. She had the right to cry out "Why me?". She had the opportunity to crawl within and pity herself and hate the world. But she didn't. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. And I thank her for that.

When I am old, I would like to be one of the old ladies who drives a Harley and can still wear two-inch heels.

"Words are..."

"of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind."
- Rudyard Kipling

Hey there, welcome to my little corner of the Internet. It's my space where I can babble on about God knows what and no one can shut me up. Free speech is beautiful, isn't it? I can go on and on and on and on and on without end about me, my life, my stuff. This thing certainly feeds your ego.

If your reading this, you obviously haven't got a life. Who would spend their time finding out what goes through somebody elses head? Isn't that certainly a waste of time? Hey, you could be using the past few minutes to finish that award-winning novel that you've been planning to write. You could be finding the cure for the common cold. You could be doing homework (gasp) or intellectually stimulating your mind. But no. You're here reading the inanity that is my blog. I laugh at your pitifulness.

But I shouldn't be one to talk seeing as how I'm the one writing all this up. Well, I suppose my blog needs a nifty little opening post before I get into my actual writing. So I guess this is where I put all the warning signs.

WARNING: Reading this blog may cause dizziniess, headache, confusion, naseua, hyperventilation, and random bursts into songs from cheesy musicals. None of these symptoms are fatal but can cause damage to your brain and take your IQ down a notch.

I just though it was fair to let you know.

Yeah, I also wanted to tell you this: I don't promise to be entertaining. I don't promise to be funny. I don't promise to be politically-correct or even to make any amount of sense. I can only promise you what's in my title. An amazed and strange little person recording what goes on in the little grey matter in my head. It's good enough, right?

Now go and finish that novel.