Guilty Pleasure

For my last blog entry I've decided to come out with my love for trashy TV. When reality TV first began gaining popularity I thought it was the worst type of TV ever thought of. I refused to watch one episode of any one of those "trashy" shows as I called them. I actually didn't watch much TV. There were only a couple of drama shows that I was hooked on.

One day my best friend told me to watch a show called "Project Runway." I resisted at first, but after watching one episode I was hooked. I told her, and myself, that this would be the only reality TV show I would ever watch. I made excuses for the show. I said it was much better quality reality TV and it actually required skill to win. Unfortunately, this was not the last reality TV show I would ever watch.

After becoming obsessed with "Project Runway," much more smut followed. I began watching "America's Next Top Model" and then "Flavor of Love." I soon became a regular reality TV watcher. I now watch most reality shows on VH1, E!, and Bravo. I understand how horrible they are, and I actually spend most of my time making fun of what's happening, but I just can't stop. These trashy TV shows pulled me in and I can't find the will to stop watching them. I am a little embarrassed by my love for these shows, but I suppose we are all entitled to our guilty pleasures.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I almost forgot, but it's not midnight yet. I was lying in bed, thinking about all the work I have to do this weekend, when I realized that I hadn't written my blog yet. At 11:30 pm I got out of my warm bed, turned on my computer, and began to write my blog. I find myself at a loss of words. I usually write my blogs as soon as I get an idea; however, this week I did not get an idea. That is why I am here now, just before the dead line, trying to find an acceptable blog entry.

The only thing I can even think about right now is school. I am in my fourth year of college, but I am not happily awaiting graduation in May. I have another year to look forward to. I am starting to realize just how hard I am going to have to work to graduate in May of '09. This realization is putting my stress tolerance to the test. It has been difficult to chill out in the present while I am trying to plan the future.

This is a common problem with me. Sometimes, I think so much about tomorrow's problems that I find it hard to focus on today's events. I often have to tell myself to slow down and take one thing at a time. Right now I am exceptionally stressed because I have a lot going on, including finals --- and I know every student reading this right now is feeling that stress. To add to everything going on in my life right now, I am sick. This is such a wonderful time of the year for us college students.

Blind Love

It's hard to love a person so much, and then watch them get treated so poorly. That's what I have to do when it comes to my roommate. I love her dearly. She is such a wonderful person who is filled with so much potential. If only she could see this in herself. Instead, she holds on to her, excuse my language, asshole boyfriend from high school who treats her like crap. Everything she allows herself to be is shaped around him, whether she sees it or not.

He talks down to her. Everything he says to her is demeaning. He is the kind of guy that thinks a woman's place is in the kitchen. Nonetheless, my roommate, and good friend, sees none of this in him. She still sees him as though she is a sixteen year old girl and he is the big eighteen year old that she is lucky to have, and he makes sure she stays stuck in this way of thinking. He makes sure that her self-esteem will stay very low, so she will feel lucky to have anyone, especially him. He tells her she is putting on weight. He tells her she needs to stop eating and start exercising. He blames every little thing that goes wrong on her, and she follows suit, putting the blame on herself. He never tells her how beautiful she is, or how amazing she is. He never lets her believe she can be anything else besides his whipping post. Still, she refuses to see any of this.

It makes me absolutely miserable to see the way she allows him to treat her. He is a rude pompous, idiot; to top it all off, he isn't even the tiniest bit good looking. In fact, I would say he is downright ugly. Not that good looks are totally essential, I am just emphasizing that he is ugly on the outside as well as the inside. It is completely obvious to everyone but her that he cheats on her all the time. Yet, she will not acknowledge any of it. It kills me to watch her go through this.

I just want to shake her and tell her how pretty and smart she is, and what a great personality she has when he is not around her. However, I know this would not do anything to help her. She has to open up her eyes and let go of him on her own. He makes her think that she is lucky to have him, but the truth is, he is totally blessed to have a girl like her feel for him the way she does. I hope someday she will realize this and finally walk away from him. Then she will be able to look back at how much time she wasted on him and see that he was the lucky one, not the other way around.

I am not the only one who feels like this. All of our friends agree with me. We have all tried to talk some sense into her, but she wont listen to any one of us. This is not surprising, because when it comes to matters of the heart, no one ever listens to the good advice they are given. Every time he throws her away like yesterday's garbage, and then decides to take her back for a bit, we all cringe at her delight to be with him again. I wish I could disconnect, tell myself not to care, but I cannot. I am a compassionate person and it hurts me to watch my friend get stomped all over by a worthless loser. I am patiently waiting for the day that she will finally throw him away. Actually, we are all waiting for that day.

A Creative Block

My whole life I have loved to write. I wrote poems from the age of six. I wrote short stories from the age of ten. When I was fifteen I wrote my first song; my brother wrote the music and I wrote the lyrics. Writing has always been an enjoyable past-time for me, something I could do to unwind. Nevertheless, I have seen that change over the past few months.

My life has become increasingly busy and stressful and my creative juices have slowly dwindled away. I have tried to sit down and write, write anything, and my pen will not move on the paper. I had trouble getting out a simple short story for my creative writing class. Creative writing is a subject that I have always excelled at, and yet my latest short story was just not up to par. Although I received positive feed back, it was not something I was exceptionally proud of.

Each week these blog entries become more difficult to get out. Now I am even having trouble writing research papers and simple homework assignments. I never really knew what writer's block was until recently. I can say with complete certainty that I am currently suffering from a severe case of writer's block. I wish I could just break down the wall and write all my troubles away, but that does not seem to be an option. Since I cannot figure out how to cure my problem, I must continue to do what I have been doing since the beginning of the semester. I must push through till my last final. The end of the semester will lower my stress level, and hopefully allow me time to clear my mind and get to writing again.

A Comcast Caution

If you have just moved into a new place and are wondering what cable service you should get allow me to give you one piece of advice: DO NOT GET COMCAST. I had never experienced such horrible service before getting Comcast hooked up in my house. They are the only cable providers in this area so they think they can treat you as poorly as they would like. We have had Comcast installed for only a month, and that month has been a month of cable and Internet hell.

Comcast does not care if you are a student and need to use the Internet for research purposes. Comcast does not care if your roommate just wants to relax for the first time in weeks but cannot watch the broken cable. Comcast does not care about any problems their customers endure. They will let your services be broken for days without sending a technician. When they finally do schedule you an appointment, they will take you off the schedule just as fast as they put you on.

The point here is this, Comcast is evil. I would advise every single person considering Comcast for their Internet and cable provider to go another route. Direct TV is the smarter choice. It isn't an option for everyone, but if you can, go for Direct TV. It is a little bit more of a pain because you cannot get Internet through Direct TV, however, it is worth the extra time of setting up a phone line with AT&T as well. Then your television service will come from people who will actually give you proper service, and your Internet will come from the phone line.

COMCAST IS EVIL! Seriously.

Make-up Blunder

I just got home from the gym and I can't stop thinking about something I saw there. A woman, working out, with a full face of make-up. Why on earth would any woman want to have make-up on while she is working up a sweat? I did not see her after her work out, but I am sure her make-up was running all over the place. Unless she was only there to pretend she was working out, but really just trying to find hot guys. If that was her reason for being there than I have no words to describe what an idiot she is.

I should not be so mean because I don't know her reasons for being at the gym. I'm just trying to point out the obvious, it is ridiculous to wear a full face of make-up for a work out. Maybe she just came from work or somewhere that she had to have on make-up; I have done that, but I always wash it off before I begin my work out. I just thought she looked ridiculous.

It makes me wonder how many woman do this, and if all the women who do do this are trying to impress men. If this is a common practice then I have to figure out another, more solitary, kind of workout. It took me a long time to convince myself that no one is looking at me work out while I'm there because it makes me so uneasy to think that people are watching me. If the gym really is a place to pick-up on the opposite sex, therefore watch other people workout, than I am going to have to buy my own equipment for my home.

Life...

In high school I was on stage performing at least twice a year. I kept up with my voice lessons and performed in musical theater shows often. When I went to study theater at Long Beach State I found that those theater majors did not consider my personal favorite form of theater to be "real" theater. They turned their noses down at musical theater. To my fellow students, dramatic theater is was the only theater form worth studying. This was a very sad realization for me.

By my third semester in college I was searching for a new major. That's when I took my first political science class. I really enjoyed the topic and decided this was the path I would take. Shortly after I decided on a creative writing minor and I was finally settled into this whole college thing.

I love both my major and my minor but now I feel like something is missing in my life. I miss singing and I miss being on stage. Life is so hectic with school and work it is hard to find time to perform these days. I hope that I will be able to get back into theater once I am done with school. At least until I figure out what else I am going to do with my life.

A System That Could Use Some Technology

Recently I interviewed the federal receiver of prison health care in California. The interview was pretty close in time to my rant about the use of technology in the library. In this interview, however, I discovered a system that is running entirely without technology. I ranted and raved about the sole use of technology in the libraries and I was so upset about the lack of a back up system. Then I learned that the medical care system within the state prisons does not use any technological record system whatsoever. This made me feel a little bad about the harsh tone I took with the libraries dependency on technology.

I can't believe that medical records for any kind of health care system can be kept without a computer. I also learned that they don't even have a neat filing system. All the medical records for the state prisons are kept in shambles. It is the year 2007, I think it is time for a little advancement.

Although I still think it is irresponsible to depend solely on technology and have no back-up system in case of a power loss or whatnot, I also understand the importance of technology in today's world. It is the smartest and most organized way to keep records, such as medical records, in proper order. We have become dependent on technology and I find it strange when it is not used where it so obviously should be. Still, I cannot stress enough how important a back-up system is!

Technology: Not Always a Good Thing

Isn't it true that libraries used to use no technology whatsoever? There was a card catalog and one would go look up the book one needed manually there. Now libraries, or at least the libraries I go to, are cataloged and run with computer systems. It is not so strange to think that they would still have a back up process, just in case the computers were to, say, fail. Unfortunately, I have not found that to be the case. I have found that when a library computer systems are down us students are stuck with no way to access the things we may need very badly.

I needed to get a sort of study guide that was on course reserve for a midterm I had today. I decided I would study first then get the study guide the day before as a sort of helpful, extra tool. So yesterday I go to the library between classes and try to go to the course reserves desk. However, there was a problem. The computers in the library were down. I asked if there was no other way to find the item that I needed. The man helping me said that they had absolutely no other way of locating this document without the computer system working. All I could think was "this is absolutely ridiculous!"

Am I over reacting, or does it seem absurd that a library would have no back-up system in case of computer failure? So many people count on libraries, especially ones as central and the Martin Luther King Jr. Library. Technology is not always the best option. We can not fully rely on it. There must always be a way to back-up such unstable"advancements."

I Forgot...But I Had Good Reason

As I am sitting at my computer writing a paper for my Human Sexuality class it suddenly hits me, I completely forgot to write my blog for Friday. So now I am two days late and hoping that if I write two blogs this week I can make up for my memory loss last week. There is an explination for my slip up. Allow me to give that explanation.

This semester is the semester from hell for me. I have never had so much reading and so many assignments due on a weekly basis. I know this is college and I need to learn to juggle such things, that is fine. I can learn to juggle the school work with my job and my other life responsiblities on a normal basis. However, this last week was exceptionaly crazy.

I currently have a very bad roommate situation so I have been looking for a new place for about two months now with no luck. Then finally two weeks ago I found a place and began moving in last week. Moving and working and doing massive amounts of homework all at once is a difficult task. I am not complaining, I am just pointing that out. As if that wasnt bad enough, I had to begin moving in the two weeks in a row filled with the most homework I have ever been assigned at once. This week comming up is filled with 4 different writing assigments, a whole bunch of reading assignments, 2 midterms, and a quiz.

Now I know this is no excuse, I should have remembered. I just wanted to supply an explination as to why I forgot my weekly blog last Friday. I am stressed beyond belief right now. Isn't a girl allowed to forget sometimes when placed under such pressure?

Please Excuse This Rant

I don't understand how love works. You think you are in love with someone, then you break up. Then you find someone else and swear you have never been so in love, then you two break up. The cycle continues to repeat itself until one of two things happens; you either find someone you are really compatible with and spend a relatively carefree existence together or you simply give up on finding love. At 21 years old it's impossible to say which direction I will end up going in the long-run. However, at the moment I feel as though I should never try to love again.

Men are too complicated. You go along in a relationship thinking everything is wonderful, then out of nowhere you are blindsided by the idiotic things your significant other has been doing behind your back. The things he has been doing might not seem so bad in another person's eyes, but to you it is a total violation of everything you two shared together. He swears that he didn't think he was doing anything wrong, but can he really be that stupid? So now you have a decision to make. Give him forgivness and try to move on or walk away and move on by yourself?

How is one person supposed to make such a big decision? You don't know which decision will be best for you in the end. You can't look into the future to see what you are supposed to do. You are basically stuck making an impossible decision that no one can help you make. Either way you are going to be hurt for a time. The question is, which hurt will be better for your soul? Love is too tricky for me. I have no interest in loving anymore, or at least for some time. Love is a complication that young people, such as myself, do not need.

Help Me!

Searching for a new apartment is a very annoying and stressful task. You could search for months and find nothing. Being young adds even more obstacles. I've had many people make up random excuses for not wanting me and my two roommates to rent their homes. It is even more stressful since I am searching for a new place in the middle of an extremely busy school semester. My limited location options don't help much either.

Since I am still a student my mother helps me out by paying my rent, as she did for my brother and sister when they were in college. However, she says that I must live somewhere that I can either walk to school or walk to the light rail and take it to school. So my options of locations to search in are limited. I am so stressed out because my current lease is up in October and I have to have a place to move by then. I can't stay in my apartment because I cannot stand my roommates any longer. I wish there was a rental fairy who could come solve all my apartment hunting problems for me.

Baby Fever

At 21 years old, I could not imagine taking on the responsibility of a baby. It is a 24 hour a day job that I have no desire to attempt yet. This is why I don't understand all the young people around me I am seeing with babies. I walk through the mall and see all these very young people with their babies. A friend of mine lives with her best friend and her best friend's baby. My friend Desiree, who is only 20, just had a baby four months ago. I just sent an RSVP to attend the baby shower of my friend Jamie who is only 22. Just last year Jamie's younger sister had a baby. Most of the girls I know who have children don't have a father in the picture. It seems as though young people are overcome with baby fever.

I wonder if they understand the responsibility that they are about to take on when they are so eager to have babies. I am fully aware that at this point in my life I am far too selfish to have a baby. I am 21 years old and I love going out and partying whenever I please. I enjoy getting sleep for as long as I please. I like thinking about myself first when I am making important decisions. This may sound bad, but I am just aware of who I am right now. This isn't just me. Jamie, who is now six months pregnant, was a go-go dancer at a club. She would go out with a different guy every month. She loved having fun. She loved her life. Then her younger sister had a baby and she decided she should have one too. I just don't understand having baby fever at such a young age.

As I write this blog there is a baby crying in an apartment close to mine. This same baby kept me up last night because it was crying all night. My guess is that the baby's parents are young and not sure how to make their baby stop crying. I don't want to be misunderstood. I love babies and I believe I will make an excellent mother someday. In fact, when I am ready to have children, I would like to have three of four. I just don't understand why so many young people are in such a hurry to have babies. There is plenty of time for babies. I think you should have children when you are stable and ready to take care of them. I am a strong believer in using your early 20's to have fun and figure out who you are and what you will be doing with your life. That is hard to do with a baby attached to your hip.

Can She Be Serious?

My roommate and I don't always agree. Abby is a conservative while I am very much a liberal. Our opinions don't always mesh. Although we get into heated debates from time to time, I have never been as fed up with her as I was last Friday. We got into an argument that lasted for what seemed like a life time. It wasn't even a conservative vs. liberal argument. It was a ridiculous topic that seemed to me like common sense.


Abby and I were discussing TV shows when the show "The Colbert Report" came up. She told me that she was able to get her boyfriend to watch it because it is a conservative show. I laughed when she said this because I thought she was joking. Moments later I came to find out she was serious. She actually believed this political satire was based on conservative beliefs and ideas. She was appalled at the notion that Stephen Colbert is actually making fun of conservatives. I could not imagine how anyone who watches this show on a regular basis could believe this. It is so obvious to me, and most other people I know who watch this show, that he is spoofing conservative talk shows. So we argued about this until we just could not argue anymore. She would not even consider that I might actually know what I was talking about.


This argument got me thinking. I wonder if there are many other conservatives that watch this show and feel the same way Abby does. I wonder how many conservatives chuckle at Colbert's sarcastic attacks on liberals not understanding the actual point of the show. I never considered this before Friday, but this show could go over the heads of many people who tune in every week. If this is a common occurrence, than these conservatives who do not grasp the point of the show are almost justifying what Colbert is saying with his show.