Hello dear blog, how I have missed thee. It may have seemed that the demon house had succeeded in killing me, but not so! After a three month hiatus in which I have been extremely busy trying to survive the house with it's various gas leaks, spontaneously combustive toasters, and numerous attempts to electrocute me, as well as surviving Organic chemistry and a zombie apocalypse on the CSU campus, I am back with much to report about life on Plum street.
I have noticed a curious and frightening trend sweeping the nation. . .or at least the CSU campus. I've found that this year's fashion trends consist of girls wearing nothing more than tights with uggs and puffy jackets with a fur lined hood. First off, this is about as practical and attractive as wearing miniskirts and uggs in the middle of July. Second, may I point out that tights are not actual garments, they are undergarments! Let me break down the word for you, under- meaning under. garment- meaning something you cloth yourself with. undergarments -meaning things you wear under your clothes! It was bad enough when girls were wearing tiny tiny skirts with leggings, but now these poor girls are so preoccupied with themselves that they are forgetting to even put on actual pants before leaving the house! It's 25 degrees out there, and those things cannot be warm! Oh but I forgot, they have their uggs to keep them warm. And, may I add, looking sexy. Because I can think of nothing sexier than a stick thin girl with giant shapeless boots twice as thick as her legs are (a size difference easily emphasized by her tights) sliding around in the snow due to the fact that her trendy snow boots have absolutely zero traction. At least if she loses her balance and falls the giant fur lining on her hood will cushion the blow to her head. Perhaps one aspect of this frightening season in fashion has some sort of practicality.
The other side of the fashion world is equally puzzling: this year I have seen staggering numbers of guys walking around in the snow in shorts and a t-shirt. I realize that every winter there will be the occasional punk who tries to prove his manliness by pulling this stunt. But this year I've seen this occasional occurrence grow into a trend. Guys, when you wear shorts in the snow we do not think you're cool or manly, we think you're being stupid. Now go put on some pants.
Essentially, this year's fashion has proven that the desire to be trendy and noticed trumps our natural human survival instinct.
Speaking of human survival instinct; another terrifying trend that is sweeping college culture is the Twilight Saga. I had thought that it was only rotting the brains of unsuspecting prepubescent teenage girls, but it has spread upwards and has infiltrated the preferred literature of college students. You may think this is just an annoying fad, but in actuality the Twilight saga is ruining the minds and futures of hundreds of thousands of adolescent girls for years to come. And it's not even well written!! In fact, Twilight is probably one of the most one-dimensional, petty, dull, and all-around horrible books I've ever read.
To clarify: yes I have read it-I made a deal with a friend that if she read the Screwtape Letters I would read The first two books of the Twilight Saga. She definitely got the better end of the deal.
Let me sum up all 700ish of those pages for you: Bella is a unremarkable girl who lives in Arizona (I think, or some other deserty place) and takes care of her mom because her parents are divorced and her mom is apparently incompetent. When her mom gets remarried she moves to Washington with her dad. At her new school every boy is for some reason obsessed with her, including Edward, who is extremely pale, cold and angsty. After saving her life because apparently Bella attracts trouble like fly paper attracts flys, she discovers he's a vampire! She has also caught the fancy of her dad's friends son Jacob who lives with the local Native American population and hate vampires. Oh my! The story that ensues can basically be summed up as this:
Bella is obsessed with Edward, Edward doesn't want to ruin her life. Bella decides that she doesn't care about her family, friends, life, or Edward's wishes because she wants so badly to be with him. Edward decides that he loves Bella so they can be together. Bella spends about three hundred pages blowing off her family and friends to be with Edward, all the while pushing him to the point of almost killing her multiple times because she's frisky. At the end of the first book Bella almost gets herself killed by a pack of evil vampires so Edward leaves her at the beginning of the second book for her own good because he has caused her nothing but trouble. Bella proceeds to go into an existential funk that lasts about 200 pages completely shutting everyone and everything out of her life. . .except Jacob, who she quickly becomes best friends with. Suddenly she decides to jump off a cliff because it sounds like fun, causing Edward to return because he thinks she's suicidal. Once Edward's back Bella returns to him, breaking Jacob's heart. Oh, and a whole bunch of other stuff happens with the evil vampire and the "vampire supreme court", but that really takes a back seat to the awful "love" story.
I don't really know what happens in the rest of the books, but it can be assumed that Bella continues to be self centered and cause mountains of trouble to those around her, and I'm sure she eventually forsakes her soul for the sake of becoming a vampire.
Lets unpack why this book has, more than just a poor plot line, the potential of destroying young adult relationships for years to come.
First, while books like Harry Potter carry themes of the value of friendship and good triumphing over evil and The Chronicles of Narnia carry these themes as well as being an allegory of Christ's selfless love for us, The Twilight saga carries a theme of rooting your happiness in your boyfriend and forsaking your entire life and your soul for this relationship.
Second, the plot is absolutely unbelievable (I mean aside from the fact that it involves vampires and werewolves), Edward, while he may look like a 17 year old has been alive for thousands of years and has thus had ample time to mature and cultivate a wide range of wisdom and knowledge, why would he fall for a selfish immature 17 year old girl that gives nothing to the relationship? Oh ya, because for some reason her blood smells better than everyone else's. Apparently smell is the determining factor of whether or not a relationship will last.
Third, these novels are for adolescent girls what porn is for adolescent guys:
A true relationship requires wanting what's best for the other person which means that absolutely no objectification can go on, whereas in porn there is no love necessary, nothing has to be given and everything is there to take, the participants (particularly the women I would assume) are reduced to noting more than objects for pleasure. In twilight, while Bella may think she's fallen in love she's really fallen in lust; she gives pretty much nothing to the relationship and takes eveything Edward has to offer then demands what he's unwilling to give. While it is almost painful for him to be with her because every moment spent with her he has to fight the instinct to eat her, she insists on being with him all the time because it makes her happy. When he tries to leave for her own good she falls apart then chases down the next best thing; Jacob.
Girls everywhere will read these books and decide that this is exactly the kind of "love" they want, then they'll be shocked when they find out that a.) the boys they are dating are nothing like Edward and b.) they actually have to put some sort of effort into the relationship to make it work. go figure.
And thus, Twilight will be the downfall of the nuclear family unit.
Deo Omnis Gloria
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Death on Plum Street
As I sit here in my house on Plum street, musing on some of life's deeper questions-
" What am I doing here at CSU? How is it that I came to be living in this house on Plum Street? What does God have planned for me this year? Will I survive O-Chem? Why was the word "colleges" made into a link in the blog description? it's completely arbitrary. . .-
it is called to my attention that my house is trying to kill me.
Don't get me wrong, life is beautiful, CSU is wonderful, My roommates are fantastic, Plum street is lovely, I've even developed an optimistic affection for our quaint little house that's out to get me (it's what I like to call an "awkward mom" affection - in and of itself the thing in question would seem strange, bothersome, awkward, etc. but you can't help but love it despite (or perhaps because of) it's little quirks. like an awkward mom.)
But the fact remains that from the moment I climb out of bed in the morning to the moment I climb back in at night (and sometimes even after I've climbed back in), every moment spent in or around this house becomes an epic battle for my very life. And the house is good! Like a guerrilla terrorist stalking his query through the jungle, its sly and ruthless and when you least expect it, it strikes with deadly force! For one thing the front porch on the house is about two and a half feet off the ground, so there's a daily battle I often loose in and of itself, but in addition to the little things like this that persistently plague me, there have been some major events that shed light on the house on Plum Street's wrathful tendencies
It all started before I had even moved in and was up with my roommate Lindsay and our friend Allie painting the main room. We had no ladder and the ceilings are abnormally tall in this house, so we were getting creative in order to paint the top part of the wall. I was standing on a stack of phone books which were stacked on an end table (an end table with wheels, actually. . .) holding a paint brush and paint tray and stretching to reach the top of the wall when suddenly the end table rocked backwards as if something had pushed it and I found myself spinning a 180 in the air and struggling to find footing while the phone books flew from beneath my feet like frisbees. Finally my foot made contact with something solid -a phone book, which slipped from beneath my foot as soon as it had landed. I slipped backwards like a cartoon character slipping on a banana peel and landed sitting cross-legged on the upturned end table, facing away from the wall I had just been painting with paint brush and paint tray still in hand - not a drop spilled. It was, I must admit, pretty awesome. I thought I had escaped the whole ordeal without even a scratch- guardian angels: 3, demon-house on Plum Street: 0! (I've decided that this epic battle for my life will be scored using football rules) - until a couple minutes later when I noticed that my forearm was badly scratched and bleeding. How? I do not know. One can only assume the injury was accrued during the crazy James Bond fall. I guess the house gets a field goal for that one too.
Later that day I was trying to unplug our circa 1960's oven from the wall in order to paint the kitchen and was having difficulty freeing it from the outlet (judging by what we found under the oven it probably hadn't been unplugged or moved in twenty years). I was holding on to the plastic part of the plug and being careful not to get to close to the metal prongs and yanking with all of my strength. Suddenly, the outlet released the plug all at once and in the process my fingers somehow slipped and lightly touched the metal prongs and I was electrocuted. My 220 volt oven electrocuted me!! I am not exaggerating when I say that I almost died, 2 20 volts is more than enough to stop your heart. Touchdown on a hail-Mary pass for the guardian angels! plus a two point conversion makes the score 11, demon-house still stands at 3.
Not but 5 days after the oven ordeal I went back up to the house with a ladder to finish painting the bathroom and kitchen and to paint my room. The plan was this, I go up at night to paint and get the house ready, then my parents come up the next day with all my furniture to help me move in. Sounds like a great plan right? except when I got dropped off at the house at 10:30pm I found that both the electricity and water had been turned off, despite the fact that Lindsay had already called the power company and everything was supposed to be taken care of as far as electricity goes. The roommate who was paying the water bill was going to just let me call and switch the bill over to my name, but apparently she changed her mind and decided to cancel the service anyway. So there I was stuck in the house over night with no power, no water, and no car. Oh and things get better, all of our blinds were broken and I had no light to fix them with, so I had no way of covering the windows. I slept in a papazon chair crammed in the corner of our living room trying to stay out of sight until the sun came up. touch down house- the score stands at 11:9
Then, the next day when my parents came up with all my stuff, while my dad was changing out the light fixture in the kitchen, he found that not only was the wood that the light was fixed to rotting, but the wiring was shoddy and was probably close to burning down the house. Seriously, there were burn marks in the insulation. the house gets the extra point conversion for that one, but the guardian angels also score a touchdown due to the fact that since I had no power I was unable to turn on the kitchen light and potentially burn down the house. God works in mysterious, amusing ways. angels: 17, house: 10
Then I actually moved into the house, and the real fun began. This new chapter in the saga begins with my parents dropping me off at school on our way back from a family camping trip and me realizing that I did not remember my purse which contained all my money, my keys, and my identification, shortly after this realization I resigned to the fact that I would have to wait at least a week to get my purse back. Not having any keys I had to climb in and out of our house via the kitchen window, which is unsettlingly easy to break in through. the first time I had to do it my mom was there to hold the window open for me so it worked out great. The second time, however, I had to do it all by myself and as I was sliding across the window sill into the kitchen the window suddenly lost it's hold and slammed down directly onto my butt. which sucked. The house only gets a field goal for this one though, because if the window had to slam down with me in it, at least it slammed on the part with the most padding. angels: 17, house: 13
Shortly thereafter, I was trying to turn off the light in my room and managed to hit my head on not just one of the ceiling fan blades, but all five of them, at least once each. To explain how this happened I will briefly have to describe my room to you: I have a double size loft bed in my room with a desk underneath it to save space. This is extremely convenient, but since the bed is double sized it overlaps with the ceiling fan and light fixture, which is located directly in the center of the room, by about one foot in the top right corner of the bed. For most people this would never pose a problem since there is about four feet between the bed and the ceiling and therefore plenty of space to avoid the fan, but since my house is out to get me I wasn't so lucky. One night I was stretching from my bed to turn off the light by pulling the light cord but in the process of doing so I also accidentally pulled off the lower part cord. So in the dusky dark I leaned even further over to try to reattach said cord, unknowingly placing my head directly below rapidly spinning fan blades. In the position I was currently in, my arms were not long enough to reach the shortened light cord, so I sat up a bit taller to give myself the three extra inches necessary to reach it. In doing so I raised my head directly into the fan and was whacked somewhere between 5 and 8 times in the exact same place on my skull. I collapsed back onto my bed with a pounding headache and a large lump forming on my skull. This reinforces Amanda's theory that ceiling fans are shady, up-to-no-good characters that are in league with my demon-house to destroy me. The house gets a full-on touchdown for that one- I still have the bump on my head from almost a week later. but I'm not giving it the extra point, because that was a cheap shot: clearly I was sleepy and not in prime battling condition. Bad form demon house: twenty-yard penalty. The score stands- guardian angels: 17, house: 19
The final incident I will report happened just a few mornings ago. I needed to get to campus to mail a biology textbook I had just sold on e-bay. I had spent the night before scrounging around my room for money to pay the shipping on the book since my wallet was in my purse at home. I managed to find seven dollars strewn throughout my room, then my friend Jay who was visiting graciously gave me four more dollars to cover the potential shipping cost. The next morning as I was getting ready to leave my friend called and asked if I would like a ride to campus with her and her brother, which I gladly accepted. Just as they pulled up in front of my house I realized that I couldn't find the sticky-note with the address to ship the book to on it (the demon-ceiling fans in league with my house probably stole it). So as my friends patiently waited in the street I scrambled around my room trying to find it. Finally after about five minutes I ran out my back door (I chose not to go through the front door since I had no way to lock it) and across our gravel driveway to their car. When I was only eight feet from the car I caught my foot on a tree root and did a superman straight onto my face; arms splayed out in front of me, book underneath me, ego shattered and strewn about me. Surprisingly, the angels get the touchdown for this one, and here's why: despite the fact that I took a nasty spill, I escaped with nothing but a few bruises on my legs and a scrape on my wrist. Second, I prayed for humility, and God delivered in an extremely entertaining way. Third, because the soft-cover textbook I had just sold was not destroyed in the fall, which I am extremely grateful for. So as of now the score stands at guardian angels: 24, out-to-get-me-demon-house-with-ceiling-fan-minions on plum street:19.
I do realize that many of the things that have happened to me in this house are my own stupid mistakes. But hey, I'm 18. My oyster hasn't exactly had ample time to cultivate any sizable pearls of wisdom here. I stand by my belief that this house is capitalizing on my dumb decisions. Most people get away with their stupid decisions without the threat of death looming around every corner.
But be warned demon-house! I will prevail! Thou shalt not overcome me! Life on plum street shall go on! Ever singing march I onward! I will rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, and persevere in reckless decisions! For yea though I climb through the kitchen window of the shadow of death I will fear no ceiling fans, for thou art with me!
Deo Omnis Gloria
" What am I doing here at CSU? How is it that I came to be living in this house on Plum Street? What does God have planned for me this year? Will I survive O-Chem? Why was the word "colleges" made into a link in the blog description? it's completely arbitrary. . .-
it is called to my attention that my house is trying to kill me.
Don't get me wrong, life is beautiful, CSU is wonderful, My roommates are fantastic, Plum street is lovely, I've even developed an optimistic affection for our quaint little house that's out to get me (it's what I like to call an "awkward mom" affection - in and of itself the thing in question would seem strange, bothersome, awkward, etc. but you can't help but love it despite (or perhaps because of) it's little quirks. like an awkward mom.)
But the fact remains that from the moment I climb out of bed in the morning to the moment I climb back in at night (and sometimes even after I've climbed back in), every moment spent in or around this house becomes an epic battle for my very life. And the house is good! Like a guerrilla terrorist stalking his query through the jungle, its sly and ruthless and when you least expect it, it strikes with deadly force! For one thing the front porch on the house is about two and a half feet off the ground, so there's a daily battle I often loose in and of itself, but in addition to the little things like this that persistently plague me, there have been some major events that shed light on the house on Plum Street's wrathful tendencies
It all started before I had even moved in and was up with my roommate Lindsay and our friend Allie painting the main room. We had no ladder and the ceilings are abnormally tall in this house, so we were getting creative in order to paint the top part of the wall. I was standing on a stack of phone books which were stacked on an end table (an end table with wheels, actually. . .) holding a paint brush and paint tray and stretching to reach the top of the wall when suddenly the end table rocked backwards as if something had pushed it and I found myself spinning a 180 in the air and struggling to find footing while the phone books flew from beneath my feet like frisbees. Finally my foot made contact with something solid -a phone book, which slipped from beneath my foot as soon as it had landed. I slipped backwards like a cartoon character slipping on a banana peel and landed sitting cross-legged on the upturned end table, facing away from the wall I had just been painting with paint brush and paint tray still in hand - not a drop spilled. It was, I must admit, pretty awesome. I thought I had escaped the whole ordeal without even a scratch- guardian angels: 3, demon-house on Plum Street: 0! (I've decided that this epic battle for my life will be scored using football rules) - until a couple minutes later when I noticed that my forearm was badly scratched and bleeding. How? I do not know. One can only assume the injury was accrued during the crazy James Bond fall. I guess the house gets a field goal for that one too.
Later that day I was trying to unplug our circa 1960's oven from the wall in order to paint the kitchen and was having difficulty freeing it from the outlet (judging by what we found under the oven it probably hadn't been unplugged or moved in twenty years). I was holding on to the plastic part of the plug and being careful not to get to close to the metal prongs and yanking with all of my strength. Suddenly, the outlet released the plug all at once and in the process my fingers somehow slipped and lightly touched the metal prongs and I was electrocuted. My 220 volt oven electrocuted me!! I am not exaggerating when I say that I almost died, 2 20 volts is more than enough to stop your heart. Touchdown on a hail-Mary pass for the guardian angels! plus a two point conversion makes the score 11, demon-house still stands at 3.
Not but 5 days after the oven ordeal I went back up to the house with a ladder to finish painting the bathroom and kitchen and to paint my room. The plan was this, I go up at night to paint and get the house ready, then my parents come up the next day with all my furniture to help me move in. Sounds like a great plan right? except when I got dropped off at the house at 10:30pm I found that both the electricity and water had been turned off, despite the fact that Lindsay had already called the power company and everything was supposed to be taken care of as far as electricity goes. The roommate who was paying the water bill was going to just let me call and switch the bill over to my name, but apparently she changed her mind and decided to cancel the service anyway. So there I was stuck in the house over night with no power, no water, and no car. Oh and things get better, all of our blinds were broken and I had no light to fix them with, so I had no way of covering the windows. I slept in a papazon chair crammed in the corner of our living room trying to stay out of sight until the sun came up. touch down house- the score stands at 11:9
Then, the next day when my parents came up with all my stuff, while my dad was changing out the light fixture in the kitchen, he found that not only was the wood that the light was fixed to rotting, but the wiring was shoddy and was probably close to burning down the house. Seriously, there were burn marks in the insulation. the house gets the extra point conversion for that one, but the guardian angels also score a touchdown due to the fact that since I had no power I was unable to turn on the kitchen light and potentially burn down the house. God works in mysterious, amusing ways. angels: 17, house: 10
Then I actually moved into the house, and the real fun began. This new chapter in the saga begins with my parents dropping me off at school on our way back from a family camping trip and me realizing that I did not remember my purse which contained all my money, my keys, and my identification, shortly after this realization I resigned to the fact that I would have to wait at least a week to get my purse back. Not having any keys I had to climb in and out of our house via the kitchen window, which is unsettlingly easy to break in through. the first time I had to do it my mom was there to hold the window open for me so it worked out great. The second time, however, I had to do it all by myself and as I was sliding across the window sill into the kitchen the window suddenly lost it's hold and slammed down directly onto my butt. which sucked. The house only gets a field goal for this one though, because if the window had to slam down with me in it, at least it slammed on the part with the most padding. angels: 17, house: 13
Shortly thereafter, I was trying to turn off the light in my room and managed to hit my head on not just one of the ceiling fan blades, but all five of them, at least once each. To explain how this happened I will briefly have to describe my room to you: I have a double size loft bed in my room with a desk underneath it to save space. This is extremely convenient, but since the bed is double sized it overlaps with the ceiling fan and light fixture, which is located directly in the center of the room, by about one foot in the top right corner of the bed. For most people this would never pose a problem since there is about four feet between the bed and the ceiling and therefore plenty of space to avoid the fan, but since my house is out to get me I wasn't so lucky. One night I was stretching from my bed to turn off the light by pulling the light cord but in the process of doing so I also accidentally pulled off the lower part cord. So in the dusky dark I leaned even further over to try to reattach said cord, unknowingly placing my head directly below rapidly spinning fan blades. In the position I was currently in, my arms were not long enough to reach the shortened light cord, so I sat up a bit taller to give myself the three extra inches necessary to reach it. In doing so I raised my head directly into the fan and was whacked somewhere between 5 and 8 times in the exact same place on my skull. I collapsed back onto my bed with a pounding headache and a large lump forming on my skull. This reinforces Amanda's theory that ceiling fans are shady, up-to-no-good characters that are in league with my demon-house to destroy me. The house gets a full-on touchdown for that one- I still have the bump on my head from almost a week later. but I'm not giving it the extra point, because that was a cheap shot: clearly I was sleepy and not in prime battling condition. Bad form demon house: twenty-yard penalty. The score stands- guardian angels: 17, house: 19
The final incident I will report happened just a few mornings ago. I needed to get to campus to mail a biology textbook I had just sold on e-bay. I had spent the night before scrounging around my room for money to pay the shipping on the book since my wallet was in my purse at home. I managed to find seven dollars strewn throughout my room, then my friend Jay who was visiting graciously gave me four more dollars to cover the potential shipping cost. The next morning as I was getting ready to leave my friend called and asked if I would like a ride to campus with her and her brother, which I gladly accepted. Just as they pulled up in front of my house I realized that I couldn't find the sticky-note with the address to ship the book to on it (the demon-ceiling fans in league with my house probably stole it). So as my friends patiently waited in the street I scrambled around my room trying to find it. Finally after about five minutes I ran out my back door (I chose not to go through the front door since I had no way to lock it) and across our gravel driveway to their car. When I was only eight feet from the car I caught my foot on a tree root and did a superman straight onto my face; arms splayed out in front of me, book underneath me, ego shattered and strewn about me. Surprisingly, the angels get the touchdown for this one, and here's why: despite the fact that I took a nasty spill, I escaped with nothing but a few bruises on my legs and a scrape on my wrist. Second, I prayed for humility, and God delivered in an extremely entertaining way. Third, because the soft-cover textbook I had just sold was not destroyed in the fall, which I am extremely grateful for. So as of now the score stands at guardian angels: 24, out-to-get-me-demon-house-with-ceiling-fan-minions on plum street:19.
I do realize that many of the things that have happened to me in this house are my own stupid mistakes. But hey, I'm 18. My oyster hasn't exactly had ample time to cultivate any sizable pearls of wisdom here. I stand by my belief that this house is capitalizing on my dumb decisions. Most people get away with their stupid decisions without the threat of death looming around every corner.
But be warned demon-house! I will prevail! Thou shalt not overcome me! Life on plum street shall go on! Ever singing march I onward! I will rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, and persevere in reckless decisions! For yea though I climb through the kitchen window of the shadow of death I will fear no ceiling fans, for thou art with me!
Deo Omnis Gloria
Friday, July 31, 2009
19 never, 29 twice
As my birthday swiftly approaches I can't help but be reminded of the fact that I'm extremely young for my age. Not only am I the youngest of the Cfriends, but I'm the youngest by nine months. (That's enough time to have a baby! any one of my cfriends could get pregnant on their birthday and their baby would have a birthday before I had mine; but I digress). While this may be a plus in a few very rare situations (though none come immediately to mind), it is, for the most part, kind of a drag. Let me tell you, there's nothing better than going off to college and meeting a cute guy. . . then quickly reaching the mutual understanding that he's a grad student and you're jail-bait. it's awesome. Oh, and curfews, they're fantastic.
In a recent conversation with my friend Kaitlyn, she brought to my attention that she was very excited to soon be turning 20 because 19 is an extremely awkward year. And she's right; 19 is the fifth wheel of the post-adolescent experience. For one thing, it's the first time in seven years that your birthday is not a big deal:
13-teenager: "I am so cool"
14-. . .slightly older teenager: "now I'm even cooler"
15-permit: "I thought I was cool before, but now I really am because I can drive with my mom in the car"
16-license: "gosh, my coolness is so cold it's almost uncomfortable. . .good thing there's a heater in my car!. . .which i can drive!. . .by myself!"
17- "I can go see R rated movies without sneaking in! I am so mature."
18- "I'm Legal! Let's go buy a lotto ticket then spray paint some dry ice"
19-. . .well crap
And furthermore, being 19 is like being in age limbo: you're not a teen since "teen" tends to encompass 13-18 year-olds, but your not not a teen -that's what happens when you turn 20. What does that make a 19 year-old? Tween part deux?!
My tween years were bad enough back in middle school, I refuse to be a tween again. It seems that, over all, my 19th year is completely superfluous; nothing but wasteful fluflu.
And that is where my ingenious plan comes in; I will simply not be 19. This year I'm skipping directly from 18 to 20, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars (unless there actually is 200 dollars to be collected, in which case I will do so). In addition to the afore-mentioned reasons as to why this is a good plan, here are some more pros:
A. I will finally be the same age as the majority of my friends. When my birthday arrives and I surpass you all in age I expect you to begin treating me with respect worthy of one of your elders.
B. I will not have to wait till my senior year to be 21. It's not so much that I want to be able to drink, although that is a definite plus, it's more so that my dad is a fantastic cook and I know all his secrets, the problem is that most of them involve cooking with some form of alcohol or another. That and I would finally be able to go swing dancing at the Sundance any time I want rather than just after 10 on Fridays. Likewise, I won't have to be the awkward friend who can't get into to any of my friends' 21st birthday parties.
C. 19 is a prime number so it has no divisors and is, therefore, not a team player; it would be best to avoid it altogether.
D. It gives me a freebie year later on. I skip 19 now an ten years down the road when I'm dreading turning 30 or 50 or whatever I can pull that bad boy out of my sleeve - "Just stop right there Mid-Life Crisis, I just so happen to have been saving year 19 for a rainy day. How do you like them apples?" - and thus stave off the dreaded year for another precious 365 days (366 if it's a leap year; double freebie!)
F. Years are just a human construct devised to deal with our limited understanding of time and pattern. Why conform to such a human and therefore imperfect archetype.
Now the only thing left to address is the legal issue of being a year older than what it says on my driver's license. I could defraud the government and lie about my birth year, which may or may not be considered a felony (but then felonies are only constructs of the government created to deal with our limited understanding of justice. . .). Regardless, lying to the government would probably be counter-productive.
After much consideration I have concluded that the best way to achieve my plan is to measure my life in Cesca-years in the same way as some people measure the lives of their pets in dog or cat-years. I imagine telling people my age will go much like this:
"How old am I you ask? Well legally I'm 19 but I prefer not to associate with prime numbers so in Cesca-years I'm 20 and in cat years I'm 3 and 4/5."
Shortly after hearing this, people will come to the conclusion that, despite my cesca-age, my mental age is actually 14. But hey, at least it's not a prime number.
Deo Omnis Gloria
In a recent conversation with my friend Kaitlyn, she brought to my attention that she was very excited to soon be turning 20 because 19 is an extremely awkward year. And she's right; 19 is the fifth wheel of the post-adolescent experience. For one thing, it's the first time in seven years that your birthday is not a big deal:
13-teenager: "I am so cool"
14-. . .slightly older teenager: "now I'm even cooler"
15-permit: "I thought I was cool before, but now I really am because I can drive with my mom in the car"
16-license: "gosh, my coolness is so cold it's almost uncomfortable. . .good thing there's a heater in my car!. . .which i can drive!. . .by myself!"
17- "I can go see R rated movies without sneaking in! I am so mature."
18- "I'm Legal! Let's go buy a lotto ticket then spray paint some dry ice"
19-. . .well crap
And furthermore, being 19 is like being in age limbo: you're not a teen since "teen" tends to encompass 13-18 year-olds, but your not not a teen -that's what happens when you turn 20. What does that make a 19 year-old? Tween part deux?!
My tween years were bad enough back in middle school, I refuse to be a tween again. It seems that, over all, my 19th year is completely superfluous; nothing but wasteful fluflu.
And that is where my ingenious plan comes in; I will simply not be 19. This year I'm skipping directly from 18 to 20, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars (unless there actually is 200 dollars to be collected, in which case I will do so). In addition to the afore-mentioned reasons as to why this is a good plan, here are some more pros:
A. I will finally be the same age as the majority of my friends. When my birthday arrives and I surpass you all in age I expect you to begin treating me with respect worthy of one of your elders.
B. I will not have to wait till my senior year to be 21. It's not so much that I want to be able to drink, although that is a definite plus, it's more so that my dad is a fantastic cook and I know all his secrets, the problem is that most of them involve cooking with some form of alcohol or another. That and I would finally be able to go swing dancing at the Sundance any time I want rather than just after 10 on Fridays. Likewise, I won't have to be the awkward friend who can't get into to any of my friends' 21st birthday parties.
C. 19 is a prime number so it has no divisors and is, therefore, not a team player; it would be best to avoid it altogether.
D. It gives me a freebie year later on. I skip 19 now an ten years down the road when I'm dreading turning 30 or 50 or whatever I can pull that bad boy out of my sleeve - "Just stop right there Mid-Life Crisis, I just so happen to have been saving year 19 for a rainy day. How do you like them apples?" - and thus stave off the dreaded year for another precious 365 days (366 if it's a leap year; double freebie!)
F. Years are just a human construct devised to deal with our limited understanding of time and pattern. Why conform to such a human and therefore imperfect archetype.
Now the only thing left to address is the legal issue of being a year older than what it says on my driver's license. I could defraud the government and lie about my birth year, which may or may not be considered a felony (but then felonies are only constructs of the government created to deal with our limited understanding of justice. . .). Regardless, lying to the government would probably be counter-productive.
After much consideration I have concluded that the best way to achieve my plan is to measure my life in Cesca-years in the same way as some people measure the lives of their pets in dog or cat-years. I imagine telling people my age will go much like this:
"How old am I you ask? Well legally I'm 19 but I prefer not to associate with prime numbers so in Cesca-years I'm 20 and in cat years I'm 3 and 4/5."
Shortly after hearing this, people will come to the conclusion that, despite my cesca-age, my mental age is actually 14. But hey, at least it's not a prime number.
Deo Omnis Gloria
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Life on Plum Street: the Prequel!
After a year of corresponding via facebook threads while we were away at college, we, the cfriends (long story), returned home to spend the summer together. At some point early on in the summer (I fancy to think it was probably at Starbucks) the conversation came up that in the coming year I would be moving into a house on a street called Plum. the conversation went much like this:
"I'm moving into a house on Plum Street next year!"~Me
"That sounds like a book: The House on Plum Street."~Kaitlyn
"Probably because there is a book called 'The House on Mango Street.'"
"Probably. But you should write the book anyway, it would be way more entertaining."
"Ha, sure, I'll go start writing the manuscript right now. And I'll dedicate it to you. But we'll have to call it something else to avoid copy write infringement, maybe Life on Plum Street. . ."
We all then proceeded to come up with numerous chapter titles derived from random everyday conversations with one another to include in this hypothetical book; some of which include:
'A surprising lack of Tai Chi dvd's at the library'
"Stop destroying the cherries of my Family!"
'There are so many words you could be using right now that you're not'
and 'Koala Bears: possibly the most pleasantly scented members of the animal kingdom'
(I mean all they eat is eucalyptus, they probably exude the scent of it from their very pores. Their poo probably smells like vick's vaporub! but I digress.)
Eventually we realized that the book Life on Plum Street had become more a collection of random thoughts and phrases we called "chapter titles" which would have made very poor reading material, our lofty dreams of writing a book thus evolved into slightly more realistic plans for the blog Life on Plum Street, which, as you can see, is now a reality.
And thus this blog did come to pass, and God saw that it was good, and there was much rejoicing.
Deo Omnis Gloria
"I'm moving into a house on Plum Street next year!"~Me
"That sounds like a book: The House on Plum Street."~Kaitlyn
"Probably because there is a book called 'The House on Mango Street.'"
"Probably. But you should write the book anyway, it would be way more entertaining."
"Ha, sure, I'll go start writing the manuscript right now. And I'll dedicate it to you. But we'll have to call it something else to avoid copy write infringement, maybe Life on Plum Street. . ."
We all then proceeded to come up with numerous chapter titles derived from random everyday conversations with one another to include in this hypothetical book; some of which include:
'A surprising lack of Tai Chi dvd's at the library'
"Stop destroying the cherries of my Family!"
'There are so many words you could be using right now that you're not'
and 'Koala Bears: possibly the most pleasantly scented members of the animal kingdom'
(I mean all they eat is eucalyptus, they probably exude the scent of it from their very pores. Their poo probably smells like vick's vaporub! but I digress.)
Eventually we realized that the book Life on Plum Street had become more a collection of random thoughts and phrases we called "chapter titles" which would have made very poor reading material, our lofty dreams of writing a book thus evolved into slightly more realistic plans for the blog Life on Plum Street, which, as you can see, is now a reality.
And thus this blog did come to pass, and God saw that it was good, and there was much rejoicing.
Deo Omnis Gloria
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