A couple of days ago, I had a realization. Not so much a new one, but the notion finally congregated into a tangible concept in my mind for the first time. I was sitting in the dining room of our house, and looking up at the trusty wall clock in the kitchen I noticed it was 5:15 in the morning, and I'd been studying for 11 hours. The next day was an exam, and I was underprepared and overwhelmed.
In situations like those it's easy to blame life, claiming some extraordinary force is influencing you in a direction you don't want to go. And a lot of people do this, whether it be blaming God or fate, luck or karma. Eventually, though, you have to wonder: What exactly was your own part in the events that precipitated this very moment or situation/circumstance? How did you, subconsciously or consciously, affect the course of your own life and the intrinsic value - good or bad - supposedly contained in the concept of fate?
My second realization this week, midterm week, was one of responsibility. I bombed a test (or two, I'll never feel comfortable admitting defeat), and the psychological aftermath was daunting. A pattern emerged, in my own life, revealing the fact that when it comes down to brass tax, when I evaluate the causes and effects leading me to the status quo, I am the only one responsible for what happens to me and for me. Sure, people might try to affect you and diverge your path in good or bad ways, but in reality the concept of choice (free will) still ends up being the deciding factor in the outcome.
As a part of this line of thought and general feeling that I am indeed my own worst enemy at this point in time, I have compiled a list of (not quite a million) ways I continuously work against myself, ways I truly self-sabotage for (as of now) unknown reasons. Enjoy, while I writhe in discomfort.
1. Convincing myself that pulling an all-night cram session before any exam will leave me more than half educated and less than fully exhausted.
2. Believing I have the superpower of accelerated learning, giving rise to the practice of only cracking the book for an exam a mere 24 hours before the actual exam.
3. Never doing the problems. This one is nonsensical, but still persists: I'm greatly allergic to homework problems, somehow believing them to take away from my free will and thus, sense of freedom. If I never do them, at least I won't feel like the problems own me (or my time).
4. Reviewing notes or reading ahead is for nerds and the 'slower' guys - CK surely doesn't need to see/hear information more than once (3 times seems like thrice the agony).
5. Believing, truly, that watching either Heroes or House will somehow transmit knowledge of medicine, a special power (to learn), or instigate incredible problem solving skills (see #3 though) simply by relaxing the brain and "taking care of myself."
6. The treacherous power of justification. Anything can be rationalized or justified if you have the right angle - adding phantom positives to something usually negative or unwise will yield a favoring of the actions themselves, even though objectively still not the best course to take. TV instead of homework anyone?
7. Socializing, since it makes me happy, surely must affect my academics positively by proxy. Let's talk about our feelings, I can do the genetics problems.. uhm.. after midnight. Right.
8. Not having time to work out stems from the imaginary enormous load of things I have to do, so as soon as I imagine taking care of those (after some Heroes, of course) I will get going on those sit-ups.
9. If I don't seriously try, the outcome doesn't reflect my ability (only the effort I put in). This means that if I never do the problems and fail a test, I'm not too stupid to understand genetics, I simply didn't try hard enough. Now the failure is a step removed, and I don't have to internalize the consequences.
10. If you can't win, don't play. This gives rise to the self-defeatist attitude that devolves into environmental blame, once again removing the quality of the outcome from my own character. Hey, the game's rigged, there's no way to win, so throwing the game makes more sense.. no?
11. Sleep is (one of) the best feelings in the world. Sleeping has a million positive effects on us, with the added bonus of making us alert and focused if enough is had. And by enough I usually mean going to bed at 3 AM and sleeping until I at least missed genetics or religion. Hey, at least I'm rested, right? That is paramount in today's overly stressed world (wait, we had a test today? Ooops).
12. It's okay to have junk food, snacks and any form of sugar when I'm doing homework, studying for a test, or generally needing the extra energy. Never mind that I'm cracked up daily anyways, plus I have an unfortunate caffeine habit, my brain biologically NEEDS the refined sugars to function, damn it!
13. The study plan I made is mostly for peace of mind, and looking at it more than once (when I type it up) is useless.. who stays organized nowadays anyhow?
14. Distractions are meant to be followed. People who are that random and that impulsive surely lead more interesting, fun lives. Never mind that I won't get my studying done - we're having popcorn during the movie! Hm.. what was I saying?
15. Schedules are for control freaks. By which I mean I might have made one (four), but that following it would be limiting myself and my freedom.
16. Doing it later means having more time right now.. to think about what to do later, do nothing, or do something fun, all of which should be repeated when it comes time to do 'it' later - which in most cases will be postponed indefinitely.
Okay. There it is. The written form of my self-accusation, put on paper (screen) to make it undeniable to myself: I'm my own worst enemy, with the potential of being my own best friend. It sounds weird, I know, but self-promotion has a long-standing tradition in this country, and those who aren't doing it fall behind.. far behind. The promotion of my own skills, potential, intelligence and acquisition of knowledge should not be a negative and chore-related concept; the fun and joy will come from the positive consequences. It's not enough to dream, as dreams without actions remain simply good intentions. And let's be honest: I'm better than that.
Seeing is believing. Yet you shouldn't believe everything you see. Crazy people know that all too well. Yet - and here comes the super-awkward segway - I see things everywhere (see, that no make the sense, yes? Anywho). And now I've decided to share these fascinations with you, again.
I love the internet, I do. When at work, I have fun in the non-work parts (anytime the phone doesn't ring, which actually happens at times) and explore all the newness happening everyday (on what my buddy Mike would call 'the interwebs,' haha..) I kid. But all joking aside; check out TechCrunch once in a while. If you love gadgets and Twitter and general Google Magic, I think you'll love that site.
That was the recommendation of the day. Check.
A place I make tons of observations, is at the gym (what else is there to do there, right?). In the US I usually work out at the local Y, where all kinds of people frequent that StairMasters and treadmills. At the Y, the common midsection (pun, get it?) of the population works out, resulting in at least my own feeling of adequacy compared to most of the grandmas, men in their midlife crises, and generally the low-on-funds obese hipsters (no stereotypes, of course). I can show up in sweats and a t-shirt, drink my water from a recycled Diet Pepsi bottle with the label torn off, and put in the miles needed for self-respect and shallow goals. People are nice, with the exception of the weight room guys grunting away and refusing to move their towels from equipment they're not using, and of course a random personal trainer or whatnot being too full of themselves. The rooms are worn down and smell faintly of old basements, but you get your squats and curls done and go home. Good enough, in other words.
My new gym is the exact opposite, and the words 'premium' and 'high-end' are used everywhere (so is the price, by the way, and the $110 a month really cuts into more than the body fat). You enter the gym, and you're greeted by former or current blond model babes of the fitness world - the kind that look like they're posing for a glam shot on the cover of Women's Health when swiping your membership card. The showers aren't showers, they're raaaaain showers (*sigh*). The changing rooms are, though, equipped with 3 different kinds of unisex saunas (can you name more than two kinds?) and a cold spring for cooling down inbetween the included pampering. The gym itself is no worse, sporting at least 4 machines in 3 different brands (ranging from fully assisted to the bar bell/weight plate type machines). Parading around in the various rooms are so-called "Motivators," whose only job is to get you re-energized and pumped for a workout, and of course the Adonis-like personal trainers who are there just to make the guys feel worse about themselves than they already do. The many classes range from fancy Yoga Karaguladingdongwhatnot to cycling/bike classes, except the latter is spelled "Xycling" and obviously the coolest class to take.
I do appreciate my new female personal trainer, though, who really seems dedicated to my fitness and achievement of my goals (plus, obviously, she ain't an uggo). My new diet, derived mostly from the incredible wealth of knowledge found in Men's Health, includes mostly veggies and tuna, whole grain pasta and fruit, and of course the daily 5 cups of coffee to handle work without ADD meds (yay). I am shaping up, though, and the definition of my muscles and midsection (I think I might see a 2-pack or a 4-pack down there somewhere, lol) is growing more apparent every time I work out. I even take my vitamins and so on, as we all like faster recuperation after an intense run/lift/whatever combo.
My best bud Mike's making his way to Viking Land in 2 weeks (more like 13 days, I'm counting), and I couldn't be more excited. The schedule, though secret until the time at which it will be executed (sounds more like a military mission, doesn't it?), is rigorous at best, and includes so much fun stuff I really can't wait. Really - I can't wait.. I'm gonna petition the Powers of Time for a slight fast forwarding of the next 2 weeks to get to the good part of this summer.
In other news, my job at One Call (cell phone company - the customer service section) has me calling myself 'Customer Care Consultant' while answering people's random and incredibly retarded phone calls. My immediate supervisor's favorite website is, not surprisingly, NotAlwaysRight.com, where all the smart stuff this breed called customers tend to say is shown off. Really hilarious, true-to-life stuff. Oh, and for my specific job, telling people what's wrong with their phone even though they could've figured it out themselves, this Flash animation should have been sent to all of them (and can be used with any random question).
That actually concludes my shift at work this great Saturday (I get paid double for working 10-2 on Saturdays, yay! That means double my hourly $23, haha) - which goes to show how much I had to do today.
Some things in this world are pretty self-evident. The sun rises in the morning, we breathe air and the grass is green. Pepper goes with salt, friends are the opposite of enemies, and doing the right thing always pays off in the end.. wait, that last one is actually not all that true. At least not from what I've seen so far, and that's what I want to talk to you about. Karma is, as the saying goes, a bitch.
In my ideal world, hard work is rewarded, and good things pay huge dividends compared to bad things. It should never pay off to choose the wrong path, on purpose. In fact, that's where the mystical order of the world should naturally step in, and bad things should never happen to good people. If only the world we live in was that predictable and logical.. but it's not. Let me walk you through a.. hypothetical example, that happened to.. a neighbor of mine:
Josh was an even-tempered, nice guy who always tried his hardest to please everyone, and to always do the right thing. He overexerted himself to stay on the right path, to be just, and to always follow his strong and deeply rooted principles and morals. He never lied, never tried drugs, or even smoked a cigarette.. and he made sure that his younger brother, uhmm.. Peter.. was always taken care of, no matter how screwed up the rest of his family was. And Josh felt pretty good about this, and was sure that in the end, when push would come to shove and people were to count their marbles (no more metaphores, please), they'd remember the good and right things he'd done, and count him among the select few, among the good guys. That was all he wanted, and except for this the random acts of kindness and helpfulness were all out of selflessness and appreciation for his fellow man.
One day Josh got a true slap in the face, from nowhere. He was going about his business, studying hard for finals and trying to get good grades and finish group projects, in addition to being sociable and hanging out with friends before break. Suddenly, on a Friday before his big tests, he was told that he'd been implicated in something not only big, but of such a nature that he couldn't believe it.. he'd been thoroughly framed for someone else's wrongdoings, simply due to being the perfect sacrificial lamb. Through being the straight arrow that never stood out as anything bad, he'd now been turned into the ultimate scapegoat for other people's inconvenience. In return, the people that had framed him, the people claiming more intensely than ever that he HAD to be the perpetrator, got to sleep soundly at night imagining that they'd found the right guy to blame. When break came around, they all left campus for home, all making themselves believe that their long-fought struggle had now ended, that their ugly chapter had been closed. What they never seemed to consider, though, was Josh' innocence, and the fact that not only was their choice of person to pin the blame on not guilty, he had never done anything mean or evil in his entire life. He did, truly, not even know fully what he had been blamed so thoroughly for, and was now sentenced not only to roam the States for Christmas without any friends to keep in touch with, he had now lost his faith in humanity.
People never seize to amaze me. I have always believed that people jump to conclusions way too fast, and almost every time that is based on really, really faulty information as well as the group effect. The group effect, in Josh' example, refers to the witch hunt process that starts with an intense need to find someone to blame, escalates with someone's ingenious mentioning of a good scapegoat, and ends in everyone reinforcing the belief that they must be right by only discussing their finding with each other, inside the group. If the people in the above example had, at any time, taken the time to not just concoct little schemes internally in the group, fueled by the need for drama, but actually talk to any single one of Josh' friends and close ones, the idea would be dismissed at once.
People are consistent, if nothing else. We have our set ways, our character, and we stick to it. That means, in Josh' case, that it wasn't just unlikely that he'd ever do anything hurtful to other people, nor would he ever scheme, lie, or gossip in any way. By not taking his character and moral values, and their personal experience of his personality, into account when considering his guilt, the group of 'friends' that ultimately decided to try to break him down acted on the weakest of all possible foundations: convenience.
The saddest part of the above example is the character of the people deciding to frame Josh. Not only did they not know Josh very well, obviously, but they were also perfectly content with sacrificing someone whom they've only seen do good and helpful things. At one point, Josh told me, his best friend in the group had also been sold the perfect scapegoat idea, and it took less than a second for her to buy into it.. probably due to the sheer number of people that had already told each other that they thought he was the guy. The best friend, now corrupted and becoming nothing more than a weak tool for the Blame Party to utilize, then proceeded to try to 'lure' and set up Josh by hinting that she was a huge fan of whoever had carried out the original crime. Josh, although baffled and scared by the thought, started suspecting his best friend of being the real McCoy, although he never brought this to anyone's attention before he was in the crap to over his head. When he was then informed that the people he had trusted and leaned on the most were in fact just as brainwashed and hateful as the rest, Josh was out of options, out of ways to defend himself. Without real proof of someone else being the perp, his former friends left campus thinking they could now sleep soundly, and that justice had been served. Little did they know, or care, that the innocent guy now framed was left back at school with no way to prove the truth that now only he believed in.
Karma might not follow the rules of the road, or any other rules for that matter. But truth still does, and it has a way of emerging just as we think it will never come forth. And when it does, when truth sees daylight again, Josh will be there, still hurt and still disappointed, waiting for his apologies. But in the long run, in the end, apologies can never mend this incredible misjudgement of character. Best friends will never be best friends again, and friends will never be friends. Some things, some betrayals, are too much for any relationship to bear. In the end, only justice can heal the wounds now inflicted by people hungry for a quick fix and with a disregard for the actual truth. In the end, justice will be served.
Too often are bad things like lies, deceit, infidelity (cheating), gossip, violence, psychological terror/abuse and other crap rewarded by people everywhere. I see guys cheating and lying, only to be either taken back or kept around in some other form. For the rest of us, who never would even think to breach the trust and hurt a girl like that, this seeming injustice is not only unfair, but sad. The concept of karma, being that of good people being rewarded by good things happening in their lives and vice versa, is not always applied by people around us. This has its reasons, and sometimes the circumstances are mediating, but some ultimate bad acts should still consistently be followed by bad repercussions, or the good acts will all lose their meaning and inherent goodness. If a cheater is taken back after cheating and is shown the same amount of love, what is the point in staying faithful? If a liar is forgiven time after time, why ever speak the truth? If someone who breaks every girl's heart through pure disregard for anything but his own feelings, is not only kept around and held in the same regard as the good guys, but even regarded higher despite this, what is the point in ever doing the right thing or treating the opposite sex with respect and dignity?
It is through the consistent support and forgiveness of evil that it prospers, and by this mechanism how the good acts and intentions lose their meaning. If bad is treated like good, what is the difference? In a perfect world, we would all shun the bad guys and girls, the heart breakers, liars and cheaters, the people who don't care, and make sure they don't get to feed on the positive energy of good things like friendships or attention. We would make the good our standard, and make sure that we make our own karma. Karma is mostly a human made concept, after all, where we through reward and punishment of good and bad deeds make sure justice prevails, and where we make sure our lives contain an abundance of the pure kind of good.
(Before you read this, expecting stuff about my recent Miami trip, let me warn you. This is about something more abstract, but will be followed in a few days with a bigger Miami-post)
I've been thinking, and I have one big want in life. I want to be unambitious. I want whatever drives me to aspire higher and not have a regular, 9-5 life to go away. And I'd love for my ego to be fine with that. College life is so many things to people, from fun and carefree, to an everyday hassle and struggle just to keep one's head above academic water. Since I landed in SD, with the exception of that amazing Boundary Waters trip and chilling in Beresford, my life has been the latter, and it's not pleasant. As I wrote in one of my previous posts, I want my life to contain more living, and less fast-forwarding to the good parts. Making every moment, every day count for something. And that seems very hard to do nowadays. Classes have me working my tail section off for scraps (the scraps being less than stellar grades since I have 3 major science classes on my plate at the same time), and the fun times never seem to last long or even exist at times. That's not how college was intended.
I frequently hear people, older people, talk fondly about their wild and carefree college days when they never had to cook or pay bills, never had to think about much else than writing a paper now and then, before spending the weekend (or week) drinking with their friends. But they must not have been pre-med, and they can't possibly have been Augie science students. I see my own college life in contrast, and see how I go to bed at 1 am almost every day, but not because I have fun or party. I always have 146 pages to read or problems to solve, and the bad conscience that comes with letting go once in a while puts a wet blanket on any fun times that might be had. That's when I fantasize that my life minus ambition might very well be a happier one.
Ambition pushes you to do more work to attain higher goals. Reaching goals is a good thing, and makes you feel accomplished and (in theory) happy. Yet, when considering people of less ambition, lower goals, and perhaps lower aptitude, I can't help but notice that nowadays on the road to life as an adult, they're having a whole lot more fun. And they seem happier and more carefree, as well. Plus, the sad thing is, they are going to be that happy for a long while, because when your goals are low enough and you are comfortable not doing anything special or other than a 9-5 thing, you will get there, and thrive. While, paradoxically, people who strive higher and work harder to accomplish something, are less happy or content with their lives getting there.
I'd love to have both, as I usually say, and I have to find a way for that to happen. There MUST be a way to both be happy and have fun and get somewhere. I've been researching alternate majors that might still lead to the same end goal (med school), but that might still allow me more enjoyment and fun from my present-day life. My natural (sadly enough) abilities are actually more philosophy/sociology/psychology or even language based, so now my idea is to go for what I'm good at and build from there. I'd still be taking med school prerequisites like physiology and organic chemistry, but my main emphasis would be on things I naturally master. And we all know mastering something is more fun, leads to less time spent on the subject while still acing the class, and this again leads to more life to be lived. The latter is not only important, but crucial, to a happy and more carefree existence, and yes, might ultimately lead to college years I actually want to remember and re-experience.
So I'm back. And for most of you, this is the only sign of life you have received from your favorite future doctor in the exact month (that's 30 long days to those of you with a longing for Christian and a passion for numbers). Whether you're reading this on Blogger or Facebook, man, do I have news for you. Sit down, grab your most comfy blanket, a box of tissues, and your biggest jar of nitroglycerin, because this post might just alter the course of your life.
Okay, I'll be sincere. This isn't about you (it's about time you start your own blog, I guess), it's definitely about me. And while we're on our way, let me first recap the past month of my life to you. Briefly (yeah, right).
Alicia and I landed in Sioux Falls (often referred to as SooFoo or Sucks Falls, the latter being more derogatory than it deserves) on August 11th, and her family greeted us at the airport with (silent) screams and hugs that couldn't have been more genuine. We went out to eat (count 1 of multiple fast food visits these past weeks) at Fuddruckers, and had the most amazing burgers (and my first Cherry Coke) over pleasant conversation with the family and one of Lish's friends who had tagged along. I immediately got along with her parents (I am a parent favorite, not surprisingly), and my somewhat crude, sarcastic sense of humor seemed to fit right in with the Coggins crowd. Now, our getting along was technically also the only option, because of the week we had ahead of us.
On the 13th of August we all ventured, by car, up to Grand Marais (Minnesota) and the Boundary Waters, with everything from tents, food packs, canoes, paddles, sleeping bags and matches to bug spray. We spent our first night at a camping ground at the edge of town (our last showers of the week), before we embarked on the 5-night trip into the wilderness. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness has a no-littering, no-motors, no unauthorized fires, no toilets, and no other people policy, which means the most rustic camping around. The entire rest of the week it was life as only Rambo would have preferred it: up at dawn, preparing all our meals over the campfire, 4-5 hours of intense paddling to find our next camp site, making poopsies in the woods or specially engineered latrines 150 ft from the lake, and about 14 portages (that is, carriages of 4 kevlar canoes, several oversized backbacks and food packs, paddles and so on, from one lake to another, oftentimes through dense vegetation or up steep hills). You'd be surprised, though; I ended up loving it. The camp fire bonding, healthy physical exercise, incredible starry nights, sleeping on the rocky ground, and being without a shower or shave for a week all turned out to be exactly what I needed. Disconnecting from society, from the Facebook monster, from Mr. TV, and from all our ridiculous comforts is an amazing feeling, and I'd go back and do it all again tomorrow, if I could. As aching, smelly, hurting, and tired as my body was after the trip, my soul couldn't be happier. That, my friends, is the meaning of good pain.
Returning to Beresford, Alicia's hometown, we spent our next weeks relaxing and being spoiled. Dawn, Alicia's mom, cooked us incredible meals every day, and the evenings were spent playing Rock Band (on X-Box) or Dice (the Coggins dice game that truly grows on you after a while, as simple as it is - and it doesn't hurt when you ROCK it completely every time either). One of the nights Alicia and I went back to Sioux Falls, with one mission on hand: Wal-Mart. We spent about 3 hours just walking around, taking in the atmosphere that is Wally's World, and concluded they were the exact WM dosage we'd been craving ever since leaving the US last time. You might not appreciate it now, but believe me - Wal-Mart is up there with apple pie and peach cobbler when abroad.
On the 2nd of September, I moved into the dorms, and got my room set up. Thanks to Alicia and her decision to save money (on car insurance?) and precious time on living at a friend's house, I now have the sweetest room around. I bought a black fridge, I have a black loft, a black (coooomfortable) couch, huge TV, and even my own bean bag chair. I bought a blender (for those Men's Health smoothies and occasional Jimmy Buffet nights) - and yes, that is black too. I brought 5 (!) suitcases of personal belongings and clothes (and thanks to a mistake made by United Airlines, I only paid $100 for the 3 that were both overweight and in excess - remember, technically just 2 bags of 50 lbs each), so now I have almost all my stuff in one cool room. Classes are hard (I'm taking Organic Chemistry, Terrestrial Plant Ecology, and Genetics), but I'll survive. I'll have worse later, so this is a good time to prove I can do it.
Lastly, I'm single again. But you probably knew that one. And there's nothing I feel like saying about that on a forum as public as a blog, so I'll just leave it with that. Let me just, incredibly, quote Usher: "Breaking up is a natural evolution when you try to figure out what you want in life. If you're with an individual who isn't moving in the same direction and at the same rate that you are, it ain't going to work." And I suppose it didn't.
It's been a while (read: about 2 years) since I had one of my "metaphorical breakdowns," the ones where I frantically use metaphores to either define my circumstance through breaking it down into metaphores, or just simply break down and start writing jibberish disguised as metaphores. For some reason, the spring is the prime time for such psychological metaanalyses (yes, I just conjugated that seemlessly), with its newfound sun and optimistic greenery. You might remember (if not, here's a reminder) my post at Augie in 2006, called "My Deep Roots and Other Great Analogies," and how it dealt with both my choice of careers, the country to study in, and the university to choose. Fascinatingly, a lot has changed since then (I keep telling myself), but the feeling of indecision remains the same. So much, in fact, I debated whether or not to just call this post 'Indecision 2008' (and those of you who watch The Daily Show know where I have that title from).
2 years ago, I was wrestling with going back to Norway, going to Hawai'i or the University of Kansas, or just staying at Augie for the entire bachelor's. Back then, the first choice won, due to what I cite as family situations and a sudden regard for my financial standing. And that was fine, I'd make the same choice all over again (due to the nature of my reasons), but now the issue is back. What to do, what to do.
Let me pause this long, tedious recount of what has been, by taking the time to self-analyse. My problem seems to be a fear of letting go, and here begins my first analogy; the plunge. I have for years, since after high school, been standing at the edge of the pool of life, afraid to finally dive in and surrender myself to the whims of the waves. I have been afraid of letting go of the familiar, comfortable edge, due to the unfamiliar, perhaps cold and unwelcoming waters ahead. And, in order to actually hit the water, there'll first be a period of flying through the air, not knowing where I'll land. And that is the uncertainty I haven't felt ready to face. Yet.
I realize now that taking this plunge is inevitable if I ever want to tell my grandkids that grandpa actually started living life for real sometime. Fact is, if I don't take the plunge and fully invest myself in the present, the future will be dominated by the past. And that, my friends, is my proverbial limbo. Stuck in the past, never really living the present for fear of the future. A non-time existence, so flip-flopping and so indecisive only to keep dodging the beginnings of a future. That can't be the solution to anything.
My resolution gained from this train of thought thus has to be the opposite, e.g. decisive instead of indecisive. Breaking the limbo, taking the plunge, going for broke (and yes, that unfortunately means financially, too), and finally fully investing myself in whatever I choose. No more doing things half way because a 100% effort might actually mean furthering my own self, and lead to that menacing future. Starting now, I am serious about myself, and I'll accept whatever the fate of the future has in store. Mostly because the alternative of limbo sounds so much worse.
We all love words, and the power they can have when applied correctly. Words, like images, have the inherent potential of meaning so much more than their individual letters, illustrating exactly what we wish to portray in a way guided by our own personalities. There are, however, people out there (or right here, depending on where you are) who abuse this power so often, to such an extent, that it seems the right to speak one's mind should be revoked in some instances. The first kind of abuse comes in the form of ignorance (and its cousin hatred), when people just blurt out whatever inappropriate things they might be feeling. That is a completely different discussion. The thing that I want to address in today's little rant, is the concept of abstract bullcrap.
Abstract bullcrap can be compared to a cucumber, or even a colorful balloon. So beautiful, so shapely and pleasing to the eye, but completely devoid of any real relevance to us. Cut it in two, or poke a hole in it, and all you have is water and helium everywhere, respectively. Amazingly, though, there are still people who have this as their main form of conversation or expression, surrounding themselves with empty, inflated words in order to seem either smart, reflected, or artistic (oftentimes all of the above). Sadly, this is true for many of today's aspiring poets, and for many of today's teachers in the humanities (or, as is my case, nursing), as well as way too many of my fellow students nowadays. Hidden behind the term 'abstract,' these people get to spew out clichès, platitudes, and other little monologues of absolutely no relevance or meaning, receiving praise from other, less perceptive (or intellectually sceptical) individuals. Most of the time, no criteria of substance, factual evidence, or even coherency is demanded, as long as it sounds clever, insightful, and uses enough big, complex words.
The abtract bullcrap poet is the most prevalent form of bullcrapper online, seeing as the sceptics in other arenas seem to (for the time being) be aware of them and to deal with them appropriately. The abstract poem, manufactured in less than 2 minutes and demanding nothing more than a feel for sentence structures, should be relatively easy to spot. That's why it's so astonishing that people don't do so more often, and that these "poets" (notice my quotation marks) get any fans or readers at all. In fact, before I go any further, let me give it a whack:
Fall leaves Good riddance, never astounded Disappointing its minions Fall falls while we stand Trembling at the prospect Knowing is no more.
Ah, braaaavo, bravo. Again, again! No. The fact is, and let me emphasize this part, anything can mean everything. Then again, and this is my point, the opposite is equally true. Everything can mean anything, meaning that the abstract form of expression (here referring to verbal and written abstraction) usually means only what each individual interprets it as being. So, in fact, the next time something so abstract sounds oh, so beautiful and true, give yourself a pat on the back. In a sense, you wrote it, you are responsible for the beautiful part of it, seeing as the cunning abstract linguists are just providing you with the empty glass for you to fill with actual meaning. The people who in daily life, in class or elsewhere, spew out redundancies and abstractions, are simply masking their own lack of factual knowledge with whatever empty sentences enter their minds, well knowing these sentences are always true to some extent (and also true in almost any context, amazingly) but never specific or factual enough for them to be called out on the factual basis of their arguments.
My hope is that more people will put these people to the test, seeing as the abstract bullcrappers' worst nightmare is being forced to answer factually based specific questions. The best ones will always manage to get away somehow, but at least the rest will be forced to read up and join the real world after a while. Nothing is more annoying than redundant abstractions, when having to sit right there and having exposed what is going on, while being forced to watch most others give their praise in awe of the "brilliant" mind of the person in question. Expose the abstract bullcrappers, and demand quality over quantity when it comes to the arguments from people around you. Abstract isn't beautiful. It's bullcrap.
We're Dealing With Food, Not Missiles Here, Governor!
We ponder and talk about so many things during a week. The weather, food, travel, business, news, television, music, education, and even sex. But one sure favorite that hits home every time, because of its sheer proximity to who we are and how much time we spend on it every day, is work. We all have the perfect life carefully plotted out in our heads, or at least the qualities which to strive for, be it love or money, picket fences and dogs or visiting every one of the world's continents. And a commonality for most of us is that right now, right as we're sitting here browsing the web and reading blogs or cruisin' Facebook, is that we haven't really arrived at that 'ideal' point in our life yet. We're on our way, slowly progressing towards whatever we are sure will make us happy, whatever will complete us.
Personally I feel like I'm just getting started on that very journey towards what I want out of life. We all have to start somewhere, and that usually means getting a job which requires no real qualifications, skill, or previous experience. And if those jobs didn't exist, there wouldn't really be any place for people like me to gain that said experience most other careers have as a prerequisite. Last summer I started working for a pizza company here in Oslo, and the job turned out to be well paid too. Dolly Dimple's ("The taste that gets you hooked") Pizza is one of Norway's two big pizza distributors, and puts up a real fight in the competition for that coveted number one spot as far as quality and service goes. And service, well, that's where I come in. I work at the customer care center, and thus the phone, headset and computer are my primary tools in keeping the pizza hungry satisfied.
People are weird, weird creatures. Every, single day of our lives we stress that each and every one of us is special, equal, and that we should be treated the same way, without fault. If you are a teacher, stay at home mom, or a firefighter you're a hero, and if you happen to be a Wal-Mart clerk, a gardener, or a mechanic, you're a hard-working person just as deserving of the world's perks as anyone else. But this is where our society's bigotry and hypocrisy starts to shine through. If you ever find yourself to be working in the service industry, you might as well wear a hat saying "Lower Than Dirt" or "Kick Me in the Face, I Really Like It".
Dolly Dimple's has a lot of great customers, from all walks of life. But polite, cautious and considerate as Norwegians usually are known to be in person, they really can't handle ordering things over the phone. Like when you flip a switch, it would seem that most people think that when they dial the number to the pizza place, the person they're about to be connected to is the most lowly, abominable piece of undeserving trash they could ever find themselves having to talk to. They're sure people who work at customer care centers, people like myself, couldn't get any other job if they tried ever so hard, and that the dimwits and morons who take their pizza orders should count themselves lucky to be earning money (and not begging in the streets or selling magazines to passersby) at all.
On most days people at the very least find the decency to present themselves when connected to the customer care agent. But that's certainly not a given. Every day I get dozens of calls where all I get when saying my obligatory "Hello, you're talking to Christian" is "A huge pepperoni pizza, and I want it NOW! Get a move on!!" But that's a mild and reasonably well mannered person compared to other calls I have gotten. Consider this one, for example:
Me: Hello, you're talking to Christian. Man: Oh, yeah?! I don't give a flying f**k! I want my pizza!! Me: Okay, sir, then I'll need your phone number where you can be reached. Man: I don't wanna give you my f**king phone number! Write down my name instead! Me: That's not how it works, sir. We need a phone number in order to reach you, as well as register your order. Man: That is a F**KING LIE!! Get off your F**KING fat ass, you stupid f**k, and get your supervisor on the phone RIGHT NOW!! ME: One moment, sir.
Other examples, of course, include more extensive name calling, yelling, screaming, death threats, and even threats of violence and other charming human aggressional behaviors. But I could care less for the verbal abuse, it's actually the more subtle stuff that gets to me. People take their pizzas more seriously than anyting else, for some reason, and when considering it from the outside in it's actually immensely ridiculous. And it's the pedanticism and pettiness of it all that amazes me, and to some extent even fascinates me. Every day I (not a chef or even a deliverer) get yelled at by extremely angry people, who for some reason actually get worked up over something as trivial as not getting tomatoes or having to pick off the mushrooms themselves. Wake up and smell the coffee (or pizza) here, people!! It's JUST pizza. If I just denied you a liver transplant or amputated your legs for the kicks (no pun intended) of it, I would understand. But pizza?! Really? Could someone please realize that when people are starving to death every single second, wars are claiming lives every day, animals are going extinct, global warming will erase future generations' knowledge of snow, and women are being sexually assaulted every day, you have to be a simple-minded, egotistical, self-centered douchebag to ever throw a tantrum over not getting onions on your pizza? My goodness, have some decency. The people you're talking to are hard-working, great, clever people who try intensely to do their job and make sure you get what you ordered, and the pizza you ordered is not a new lung or anything but a simple meal. We're dealing with food, not missiles here, governor.
To begin with, I have to admit a defeat of mine. I might have (okay, you know this, because you have it right here on the blog, so I won't pretend it just 'might' have happened) audaciously claimed that I would write one blog post for every day of this very month. And I failed writing more than three, hahaha.. Oh, I don't care. That was an unrealistic goal, and would've made for an incredibly boring reading for you, the reader.. So, in effect, I actually did us all a favor by being lazy (or busy, or both). See how I just gave it a positive spin? :P
What's up with me nowadays? That is a hard one to answer. I am conflicted, like the rest of humanity, and I have so much going on on various fronts I have no idea how to make it all mesh with my schedule and succeed in everyday life at the same time. My cousin was born a few weeks back, and I still haven't found the time to come see the baby. I have two finals (not just one like everyone else in my class, because I didn't take the last one in March) that I need to study (a whole lot) for. I need to work 3-4 times a week, mostly 7 hours shifts, and at the same time find the time to study. I have to get in touch with Hawai'i Pacific University very soon, because I intend to attend summer school there beginning in the end of June. I need to pay bills, buy groceries, update Facebook and Blogger, schedule doctor's and dentist's appointments, send 2 packages to the US, and I have to do laundry and keep in touch with my amazing sunshine, Alicia. Getting my gym membership, school attendance, and finding time to being social is just an added nuisance on the list of stuff I have to do before the beginning of June.
So, that was a pretty stupid question for you to ask, huh? Now you got my whole present-day status, and I don't mean the one tiny sentence you get to squeeze in on Facebook from time to time. You just got the big lowdown, haha..
Anyways.. I wasn't planning on writing this much, but it just pours out of me when I get started. Now I'll finish this with a picture special, from May 17th.
I'm sitting here fantastically numb. I just got done watching episode 1.18 of House MD, entitled "Babies and Bathwater". And it was sooo good!
It features some pretty gripping and heartwrenching choices having to be made by a young, married couple over their unborn child, and of course a intriguing twist that has to be handled by Dr. House and his team of specialists. If you've never had the chance to watch this amazing show before, this is your chance. Every episode is conclusive, so you might as well start out by watching one that you know is especially good. And it's good; I'm not gonna lie, I might even have become a little teary-eyed by the end of this one. Maybe it's just me, but some situations just get to me every time, and this episode featured one such plight, artfully depicted by accomplished guest actors in addition to the show's regular, genius cast. After, or before, watching this one, you should watch episode 1.21 ("Acceptance") too, as this one really shows you the funny side of the show.
As you might have heard (through the grapevine, grape juice, or otherwise), I have a minor sleep rhythm issue going on nowadays. The extreme traits of my B-personality (going to bed late/waking up late) have skewed the sleep schedule to its default position time after time, which in societies like ours is considered a problem as everything is tailored to the schedules of those who go to bed early and wake up just as early. The other day I managed to literally fall asleep during a conversation while catching up with a long lost friend of mine, Sabrin, after having stayed up for 34 hours in order for me to restore a healthier sleep pattern. And today I managed to fall asleep on the couch in the break room at work while on my five minute break, and ended up sleeping for close to 15 minutes in there, until being woken up by a co-worker.. Wow, I'm a mess. Now one of my Easter Resolutions (there is such a thing, see a later post) is to restore a 11-8 sleeping habit, and thus managing the rest of my life a little better. Sleeping at weird times gives rise to a whole host of problems, most based on the fact that the rest of my friend circle and most of society is waking up by the time I go to bed. And last time I checked, everyone still needs to interact with other people to make things happen, in one's life or just to be productive. There is, however, fortunately no effect derived from this on my body mass or weight, as it has more or less been proven that eating at night doesn't cause weight gain. One thing it does do, though, is to make me so distracted and unfocused I don't perform as well as I should at school or work, and that in and of itself is a problem to be reckoned with. It's a work in progress, but I 'm pretty confident I'll win the fight against that 'craving for moonlight', and that all I need to accomplish just that is to realize how serious the consequences of the opposite actually are.
I am, as you might have derived from this, up late yet again, and thus have some ponderings (from the previously mentioned Awareness phase, remember?) to share with you. I have grown pretty fond of the lists, and especially the ones bulleted with the circles (never mind), so I will organize my very disorganized thoughts in just that way. Some of the points will surely be revisited later, in their own posts.
I love the show House, MD. I really do. Did I maybe share that already?
I miss certain people from Augie a whole lot, and find myself smiling at some random memory almost daily. Kei Takizawa's antics and attempts to teach me Japanese, for example, and the precious coffee shop nights with the gang (Kristin, Ashley, Denise, Amber, Jennapher, Jenni, Lauren, Maren). And I miss Philosophy 110 with O'Hara, hahaha… I do!
I also miss the small things, like singing the Daphnia song with Kayla, or going to the Commons to eat in the early afternoon when it's almost empty.
Of course, I miss Alicia most of all.
I love my new apartment (pics to come), and, of course, my new room. And I love the new fabric softener I have, which makes my clothes all smell so incredibly fresh and …clean. I get carried away with the little things.
I hate doing the dishes (and by hate I mean the kind of hate I have for celery… just imagine). And I shouldn't be trusted around plants, because apparently my presence somehow kills them. Or is it my absence..?
I am somewhat worried about my future as a medical professional. The thing is, there's no way the brain can keep all the world's medically relevant facts, there must be some memory limit to things like that. Most medicine is very complex, and it's all connected to each other in specific ways, where it's all more a web of causes and effects than a clear and exclusive chain. One symptom, 100 possibilities, even more tests, and the one could be causing the other or vice versa. It's beautifully complex, that's all.
After getting my own place, the concept of shelf life has taken on a whole new meaning. Refrigerated items don't have a very long shelf life here, for some reason. In the US, refrigerated things have usually also undergone the infusion of a vaster array of chemicals than any 40 year old drug addict goes through in a lifetime, and thus keeps fresh for mysterious amounts of time. I don't want my milk to outlive me. It's just not biologically comfortable. But then again, the Norwegian stuff can't even handle a few days in the fridge before starting to go bad, and that can't be right either… There must be a middle ground?
Whistling is really fun, and I enjoy it a lot. But, when other people do it, it's so incredibly irritating. Somehow I feel that whistling invades my personal sphere or something, and it just hits me as real arrogant behavior when out in public.. Loud, high-pitched sounds like that are a way for some to show dominance over other people, and thus annoys the heck out of me if I don't know the person.. Weird, huh?
Lastly, I'm dreaming of taking a good, ol' road trip on the long and scenic US highways and byways some day. In an open convertible, roof down, sun shining.. Ah, how great wouldn't that be?
Okay, so I took the whole list thing a little too seriously, and ended up with a semi-list/semi random paragraphs thing. But, cut me some slack here. It's 4am, and I probably won't piece together more lists after this one. Next time, maybe I'll use a table?
Today's date certainly did live up to its name in so many ways. Friday the 13th. A favorite among horror flick directors, and now, not exactly a favorite of mine. Today's post is going to concern a letter I got in the mail on this day of bad luck and superstition, a letter I think is going to be a bitter landmark in my biography whenever it is published in 98 languages and outsells the Harry Potter books. I got my draft notice today, a letter telling me that I am one of the thousands of pissed youngens summoned to serve in the country's biggest playground for an entire year; the Norwegian army. Yes, you read correctly, Christian has been drafted to the military, and has thus beaten any weak story you might have had of yourself falling down and spraining your wrist on the eerie Friday 13th, missing your prom because you lacked a healthy hand to place that pink corsage on. Forget that. This, my friend, is much worse. And if being drafted when you're 21 wasn't terrible enough, I have actually been drafted to the most remote and cold place in, possibly, the world, Troms in northern Norway.
Now, let me outline for you, exactly what my problem with this whole idea is. First of all, Norway is small. Norway is tiny. And to think Norway, with its minuscule number of armed men (and some women, in all like 20,000), might ever actually carry any weight as a military power of any kind, is a foolish pursuit better left to the people who aren't all that great in neither math nor psychology. Norway is, of course, a member of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, one of the world's most powerful defense unions. If any country was to ever attack or threaten a NATO ally, all other allies would come to the country's aid immediately. So, for the sake of this post, I will admit Norway needs a viable military force in order for it to uphold its part of the treaty and in turn be deserving of other countries' aid, but what is my problem is actually the draft itself.
An army is never stronger than its weakest link. Following this analogy, and applying it to the present-day Norwegian military, Norway couldn't even win a war with Greenland if it wanted to. The thing is, the Norwegian army uses the draft to muster up the manpower to look as if it's fulfilling its obligations as set forth by the NATO agreement, which states that all member countries must have a certain number of standing troops at all times. The problem with that is, however, that you get tens of thousands of dissatisfied, disgruntled, angry, fed up, defiant, uninterested, and most importantly unmotivated young people serving and protecting whatever brown goat cheese and lefse there is to serve and protect.
Each and every teenager who is drafted to the military nowadays has a lot of things at stake. Education and careers are finally taking off, you might just have gotten yourself a girlfriend, started to settle down, and there it comes; a letter outright ordering you to pack your bags and report to whatever place they see fit, in a matter of months. If you refuse, which is the natural reaction to being ordered to do anything once you're out of high school, the penalty can be as severe as 3 years in prison and fines so big they'll deter any runt trying to have a mind of his own and make a run for it. If you ask me, this archaic practice of drafting young hopefuls, with the threat of prison lurking in the background for anyone who's not ready to accept the ultimate power of the state over its citizens, is long overdue for a revolution. The fact is, Norway is not a communist regime. Norway is supposed, although it seems to forget this when it comes down to it, to be more like its cousin the US in the battle for a individualist society. We all agree that we should be able to make our own choices, decide the course of our own lives, and decide how to spend our time and precious years on this planet. Taking away the freedom and liberties of the citizens has conventionally been thought of as something we can only do to the criminals and wrong-doers in a society, but what we also seem to forget is that we also impose the same way on a select group of young men and women who are not guilty of anything else than bad luck and falling victim to the state's unpredictable whims. It's a severe imposition on a human being's life when forced to undergo generalized military training that is, for one, never going to be used, and, for another, the person has never volunteered to participate in. The citizens' lives aren't the whimsical pawns of any state, seeing as we are all supposed to be guaranteed freedom and certain inalienable rights, and the very fact that the armed services don't try to recruit willing, young men, and make for a more motivated and goal oriented military, is beyond me. Instead, forcing and coercing thousands of not needed others into spending an entire year of the most fruitful period of their lives somewhere they themselves haven't signed up to be, or want to be, has been the path they have chosen.
The draft is unconstitutional. Yes, the draft itself might be in the constitution and all that, but it breaches one of the more basic of acts; the society is here for the good of the people. It is here as an instrument for the individual to further his or her own dreams, and to ensure the freedom and liberties of every one of its members. The society has been given the power to punish those of its citizens that cause harm to said community or society, or its members, but that power was never meant to be used against law-abiding and innocent people. The society has no right whatsoever to force its citizens to do anything, seeing as we are individuals and are supposed to be able to govern our own lives freely. A state that takes over the control of its citizens' lives, with the threat of prison time and fines for those who don't obey, sounds eerily much like the type of societies the western world is currently waging war against. Wait… is that our own tail?
Since I've been more than a little abscent from this blog lately (read: this past year), I have decided to start taking this literal vent more seriously and make myself write more. To start things off, I will take some advice from another blog I stumbled upon the other day, and sit down every single day for the next month and write up a post right here. And just so we're clear on the rules, this one will count as number one, and every post from now on containing more than a picture will be a consecutive post. Contents or length don't matter, as long as it's done every day and they contain little tidbits conveyed by the alphanumeric alphabet.
Easter came and went. This year, apart from a delicious and ooooh so bad Easter egg filled with too much (hm, lying) candy, Easter didn't get the usual significance it should have. Sure, I watched the gruesome (Easter themed) movie Passion of the Christ, but on the spiritual/religious side, that was as far as my efforts went. I didn't go to church, but then again that part of Easter isn't mandatory, and really shouldn't be either, but I somehow felt I should have. Alicia and I went to church the Sunday when she was here, which was nice, so to some extent the church-going for this year has been done, at least when excluding my Christmas visit. And sadly, the extent of my church participation is actually typical of the average Norwegian, all citing 'personal religion' and 'a personal relationship to the higher powers', and thus eliminating the need for a church to pray and worship. I'm of that opinion myself, to some extent, but when I visited the main city church with Alicia a couple of weeks ago, and when going to church with the US family in December, I definitely felt a calm, a warmth, and a peace, that I think is the reason why people do go to church. Churches have remained important to people throughout the ages, and are still so today, and logically I think there must be a reason why so-called educated and modern people seek out a building topped by a cross every Sunday, and sit there for an hour or more listening to one person. And thus I think houses of worship must serve some purpose, fill some important voids, in people's lives, that they can't have filled at home, no matter how good their relationship with the Almighty might be one-on-one at home on their bedside. I will, is what I'm trying to say, take my religion more seriously, and try to attend church more often than I have so far. Who knows, maybe I'll even enjoy it?
The main focus of my post this time wasn't really the individual's practice of religion, believe it or not, it was more my time management skills. This last break has thrown me totally off my normal schedule, and turned my day upside down. On a normal day last week, I'd wake up around 5 or 6 pm, have dinner by 10 or 11, and stay up until 7-8 am. And have I corrected this incredible, yet so comfortable schedule by now, you ask? Hardly. Actually, as we speak (and I type), it's 4:30 in the morning, and I have school at 9. I suck. The hard thing about having to change schedules like that fast is that you either have to stay up all night and all day to pull it off, or you have to accept having a 7 hour day before forcing yourself to go to bed again. And obviously none of the alternatives are very comfortable, so I have resisted until now..
Don't worry, I won't let this ruin anything big, I just enjoy imagining being on break for longer than I should sometimes.
Life is weird. And sometimes, we're forced to take a closer look at just that life, and in particular, ourselves. Our personalities are certainly complex, and the factors that make up this personality even more so. "If something's not broken, don't fix it," is the ever sounding proverb of our day, and throughout my life I seem to have added to this, making it something like "If you manage to ignore something that's broken, you don't have to fix it."
I am an egg. Well, a complex egg, but it works well for my analogy. I surround myself with the always thicker shell, protecting the vulnerable soft core of my existence. People can be cruel, people don't always consider your feelings, and this especially counts for people whom you've never met. New people, thus, don't get the same Christian everyone that knows me get, they get the ridiculously shielded and guarded Christian, and this one is not a very personable character. I avoid new people's eye contact, avoid their questions by answering in short, amputated sentences to not give away anything that might have them attack or make fun of my self or appearance, and due to this Christian is an arrogant a**hole the first time they meet me. People who by nature don't give people second chances or fair shakes at a second impression then end up sticking to this feeling of CK as a bastard, a bloated idiot who thinks he's too good to even talk to them. If they just knew that just inside that hard outer shell, a scared, fluffy, considerate and friendly Christian is hidden, just waiting for that added security of a second meeting to bloom, to shed some insecurities and reveal the second layer of myself.
My egg white. My egg white's white, yes, but not in the exact angelical sense. I am in no way perfect, even though the people who brush me off after getting rejected by my hard shell might think that I think so. I know I need people around me, after all people are flock animals and thus need closeness and socialization, but I have always been highly selective when it comes to my friends. Quality over quantity, so to speak, has been my motto, and considering the fairly small number of people who choose to give me a new chance after an encounter with my arrogant casing, I'd say the people who have gathered to make up my friend circle testify to the effectiveness of this filter. It's sad though, that I reject people based on my own insecurities, and this is certainly something I'll have to work on, seeing as it also makes the number of people that dislike me bigger than the ones that like me. And that is no way to be happy. I was told today, and this is probably why I thought I'd do a post on my inner workings, that I am somewhat of a needy, pushy and intrusive person, which actually blew me away. I happen to think my good qualities outweigh my bad ones, so hearing that people I call my friends can only handle a low daily dose of Christian isn't easy to take. But I guess it makes some sense, too much of anything is bad, after all, and I realize that I can be a bit much when exposed to me for longer periods of time. The fact that my hand-picked network of good friends is small results in more time I will spend with each one, and thus a higher chance of being taken in larger, harder to swallow doses.
If my outward personality, the real outward personality, is the egg white, then what could the yolk be? Well, my soul I guess. The base of me being good or evil, or the intricate balanced gradient inbetween the two. My hopes, wishes and aspirations, my deeply rooted insecurities and the ever present history of my mess of a family, all things that will always be at the center of me together with whatever degree of selflessness, love and other good things I possess. And the many memories I have, good and bad, the memory of my grandmother and my cat King Farouk I, the memory of being bullied for being fat in school and then rising up against it one day when I chased down my oppressor and pounded him to the ground, the many times I have been ignored or looked down upon as a person just for being fat, or even the memory of my parents' happy marriage before everything was blown to pieces, are all stored in my own, deeply rooted yolk.
It's not easy being anyone, and we certainly have a million things that decide just what we think, feel or act like in any given moment, all a combination of so many factors. In order for people to understand me, which I feel is happening less and less, I felt I had to write this to have them understand what the "me" is really comprised of. And seeing as I don't even understand it, and other people obviously think they do and that what they are looking at is broken, I felt I would give my side of "me" without being told that what I think I am is incorrect. I certainly have things to work out, as do people who think they don't (and they probably more than the rest of us), but in the end all that matters is how we feel about ourselves. I might be broken, by so many standards, but inside of me I also know that there are so many things that are complete and beautiful, and I will not let a few cracks in my armor tear me apart.
Brought to you by the life philosophy part of Everwood, which I have recently come to appreciate. "Moving away isn't going to fix the things that are wrong inside." A quote that I felt hit the spot.
What stories make up a life? And are some stories more important than others? This fall I began a journey into the world of biology comfortably back in the US, after a year of nursing in Norway. In this blog I intend to share all the little intricacies of my life with you, and you have the option of reading it or not. But prepare to be captivated. Maybe even mesmerized.
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