Lets talk about race baby, lets talk about you and me.

Here is the deal.
I am a sociology minor who grew up in the middle of nowhere.
Sometimes I feel as if that puts me at a disadvantage because there were no minorities to speak of where I grew up, so there weren't any overt race issues.
And that may be true, but I am just now grasping the seriousness of discrimination/prejudice in the United States.

Race is always something I've brushed off since coming into college. I can't say honestly that I stand by, unaffected by things that other people say, and I can't say that I've not said some of the same things.
But I'm getting to the point where I just don't know who to be upset with.

White people always say that black people have a chip on their shoulder, that Hispanics are lazy, Asians are taking "our" jobs and that Indian people are doing that, but also that they smell... or do that annoying head bobble, or even more ridiculous things.
And being the imperfect person that I am, I have found myself agreeing with some, if not all of the aforementioned stereotypes at some point in my life.

My point in writing this is that people seem to underestimate race.
White people always say things like, "racism is over, now the (fill in the blank) people need to get over it"
I'm going to be the shit-stirrer that I am and say... It's not.

White people are afraid of other races, and that comes out in prejudice or discrimination more often than not.
Since taking this incredibly bothersome sociology class this fall, I've come to see how real racial issues are.
In reading stories about pig processing plants where white people get paid more for putting together boxes, and Mexicans get paid dollars less an hour for standing on a 45 degree chopping floor, hacking apart pigs, with their extremities going numb.
And also in a story I read just this morning about Harlem drug cops.

I am so frustrated by this issue, it's hard for me to even vocalize my feelings.

But I think what needs to be done is maybe to STOP talking about race.
Because the ignorance which is oozing from the White people, Black people, Asians, Native Americans, Latinos, Europeans, Arabs, Muslims, Jews, Germans, Poles, Canadians, Brazilians, Australians, and every other race and ethnicity is holding back progress.
And apparently talking about it doesn't help.

Maybe I'll finish this blog at another time... I'm just really frustrated right now...

practical atheism

it's not a big surprise,
to anyone who has been anywhere near me, but
i've been having a really hard time.

on saturday, out of nowhere one of my friends called me to go on a mini road-trip.
i don't know why i said yes, it's a well known fact that i'm not the sort of person
who goes out of their way
to show they love others.
but i went.

it was great visiting with friends.
really.

but on sunday morning... i was dreading life.
i have reached a point
where i just don't care.
where, i don't want to care.
i don't want to think about how badly i've failed, or how much my life hurts.
i don't want to feel sorrow for widows and orphans,
i don't want to feel a lump in my throat when i think of victims of great tragedy.
i want to stare down injustice, and to win.
i want my stoicism to look blankly ahead, i want my cold heart to stare the results of sin in the face, because if i am unaffected
the victory is mine.

on sunday morning... we went to church.
lately i've been turning myself off when i go to church.
it's just an extra hour where i can think.
where my bitterness can grow.

in the opening prayer, we prayed to be disturbed.
i really did pray.
i knew the place i was in, and i prayed that God would reveal himself to me.
that i would want to tear my flesh off.

the next hour was one of the most convicting hours of my life.
i learned about practical athiesm.
a term i had heard, but never cared to acquire a definition for.

practical atheism is believing that there is a God.
but living life as if he doesn't exist.
believing that our private life, does not affect our public life.
that our will matters more than God's
that our effort is worth more than God's grace.

to be completely honest...
i've never had an "oh shit" moment.
where i knew that what God was teaching me was of utmost value
where i was seriously convicted of the life i've been living.
where everything was so plainly laid out for me,
on sunday
i had my moment.
i was in a room with hundreds of people... and some of my closest friends.
but i was utterly alone.
i was standing, before God, completely naked and vulnerable.
the affects of the way i had been choosing to live life, had finally caught up with me.

and instead or crawling up inside myself to decay a little more,
i went to God.
God, the only being whose blank stares communicate more than mine.
God, the only being whose heart is colder than mine.
but then i realized.
i am not God.

i realized.
my God is bigger than this.
my God loves,
my God is faithful.
my God weeps for the widows and orphans,
He feels great pain.
my God meets me where i'm at, broken-hearted over my decisions, and my life.
but my God embraces me, shelters me from what i cannot handle,
and purifies me with that which i can.

i have it.

tonight i had a revelation.

i was sitting on my bed, and i put a bobby pin in my hair so my bangs would stop getting in my lip gloss.

not that i care how i look, but i was curious, and too lazy to move to a mirror, so i opened up photo booth so i could see if i had crazy crack hair or not.

anyway, it was at that point, looking into my webcam, i realized...

my life is exactly the way i envisioned it to be when i really thought i'd never be able to go to college.

i have a great life.

even though some things are falling apart around me, and i can't seem to keep a friend in my life for over a year...

i'm in college.

i have an apartment.

with some really great roommates.

i'm completely independent... and not worried about where my next meal is coming from.

not right now anyway.

in lieu of sleeping

I find myself watching a true hollywood story on Soliel Moon Frye.

aka Punky Brewster.

Have I ever seen Punky Brewster?

no.

Do I know anything about Soliel Moon Frye?

no... well, just the breast reduction thing.

And yet... I'm still sitting here... not sleeping, turning my brain into gush.

knowing full well that I have church in 9 hours.

Where you lead me... I will follow.

Fall Retreat was this past weekend.

It was very hard for me.

Not in the conviction sense...

In the sense that I already know that I've been called to being a missionary, and the whole weekend was about being open to what God wants for your life.

I mean... Maybe He really doesn't want me overseas?

I'd be okay with that.

And really... I feel like there is no way that I could go on a project this summer.

But maybe God wants me to?

Either way, I'm going to fill out an application...

Maybe God wants me to go with a completely different organization?

Cool. Bring them to me.

Maybe God wants me in Ypsi,

Maybe God wants me in Esky.

Maybe God wants me to work at I&A.

Maybe God wants me to fight for a well paying job.

Maybe God's plan is that I don't get a job at all this summer.

Yeah, whatever His plan is... It will be hard at some parts, but I know that I don't know anything He does about my life, and that I can only see such a minimal part of what He desires for me.

So yeah, I mean, it convicted me in that, no... I'm not trying for every opportunity and just letting God close the doors... but I was never against that in the first place.

Maybe I'm just jaded.

lisps

There is something that is, to me, intriguing about lisps.
Not bad ones, when you can’t tell what the affected person is saying, or when the lisp is paired with the inability to say any word with the letter “R” in it.
I’m also not a fan of the “gay lisp”. You know, the forced, high tenor tone, paired with the egregious abuse of anything that could be misconstrued as “cute”.
I’m a fan of the completely oblivious lisp that somehow slips past the harsh ears of elementary school teachers into adulthood.

Sometimes I want to have a lisp, just for the day. Try it out.
Like those hair swatches that frame your face so you can see if you really want to go blonde.
In my mind, I think my day would go something like this:
“Hey, Mary, did you sthee that documentary about Canadian fish vendorth lastht night?”
“No... I didn’t, but did you per chance get a little more awesome over night?”
“Well, thort of... I’m trying out a lithp”

Unfortunately, I don’t have any friends named Mary, nor do I care about Canadian fish vendors. And I’m definitely not adventurous enough to try something that bold, and stupid, as to try out a lisp.

Intelligence, paired with a lisp is just... Neat.
Sort-of like the new internet fad, which is writing with impeccable grammar, yet avoiding the use of caps at all costs.
I find I am unable to do that. So, I stick with my snobbish caps.

AND SOMETIMES I WRITE LIKE THIS. BECAUSE I LIKE THE POWER IT GIVES ME INSIDE PEOPLES HEADS. YOU ARE NOW YELLING THIS INSIDE OF YOUR HEAD WITH MY VOICE, RIGHT?
I LIKE THAT.
But sadly, an unbelievable amount of people write in all caps, and totally abuse the power of yelling in other people’s heads. And when they do such, it is usually accompanied by very poor grammar and heinous misspellings.
So, I keep the caps to a minimum, trying to avert learned eyes from my grammar errors.
Because there are many.
Thankfully though, most college students are, to say the least, stupid. And for the most part they will never realize if I miss a punctuation mark or in an aloof moment, use the wrong form of the word “you’re”. Which I really hate doing. But, I find myself doing it more than I find socially acceptable (except that I have an insatiable urge to use write ‘you’re’ as opposed to ‘your’ at all times. Because I’m willing to bet that at LEAST 80% of people I know, do not even realize that ‘you’re’ is a word).