Made this post today...

I was responding to someone's post about education and the state of it in this country and I sort of got off on this diatribe... but I thought it was a decent blog post so here it is:

I should do a little research into this county's administration, but to be honest, there are schools just a few miles away that aren't even close to the quality of the one my kids go to.

I remember when I was a kid I went to school with a pencil. That's it. Maybe in a few grades I went with a cool Binder that I bought, but the school didn't give my mom any lists of stuff to buy -- we just got what we wanted. Actually, the schools I went through all the way to high school (graduated in 91) were all very well funded. California Lottery cut /huge/ checks. I distinctly remember every year getting new stuff.

Then again, a High School closed in 92 and the High School I went do was never the same with 2x the load. Glad I missed it.

It really baffles me how people in administrative and governing positions just do not consider education a priority. How can anyone in good conscience take money away from it?

I mentioned this in another thread a few months back, don't know if anyone recalls, but when I was in High School my Senior year I was a student aide for my Biology teacher that I had as a sophmore. I helped with experiements and graded tests, etc. I loved it, he was a great guy. In one 'game' that he had, you pretended you ruled an entire planet. Every year your GNP was 10BUX You got to allocate where you wanted to put each BUX every year on a sheet that would give you a code for each 'allotment' (Development, Education, Health Resources, Construction, Defense, etc. There was about 15-20 possible choices). At the time he used me as a sort of litmus test and told me quietly to put all 10BUX into Education every year. I think we did 50 years of simulation. It took two days to complete. At the end we announced our results. It was some sort of graph system. Anyway, mine was the pinnacle of 'civilization'. Everyone was fed, healthy and had a job on the planet.

I know its idealistic, but the lesson was well learned. Our real foe is ignorance is all it's terrible forms. It is the hardest thing to combat on this entire planet and I really don't know what to do about it.

I know you all think I'm this evil bitch from hell, but believe it or not, I think about stuff like this often and get frustrated in my life that I really can do nothing about all the pain and suffering from just a lack of education in this world.


There are several reasons I think that we as a species continue to suffer from abhorrent ignorance.

Mostly biological. We are still a slave to our limbic brain without regard to the higher functions. Wanna get laid? Go get it. Wanna eat? Go eat. Wanna crap? Go crap. Most everything revolved around those three ideals. I would say the entire reason our higher brain functions evolved was to [i]help[/i] us with those three necessities. Well ok maybe not crapping :D

Collectively, as a species, we have not evolved enough. We are still animals.

Plenty of things try and swerve our attention from this fact. Religion is a big one. But try as it may, people end up just making religion serve their own needs. Indeed that is the entire reason for it in the first place, to help us feel like we have a place and a reason here instead of the randomness that is our existence.

A huge price we pay for consciousness, and we're just eeking out trying to crawl and stumble our way to something better and bigger. I think some visionaries can glimpse something good on the horizon, but most humans are left in a muddle of despair -- and we're not going to get out of it anytime soon if we're still so concerned with who gets the biggest nest with the most food to feed their squalling babies so they can grow up to pass on their own ideas to even more people.

I realize all this is completely idealistic crap. I have zero idea on how to help educate the world in any /real/ sense that would benefit everyone and not reduce anyone's standard of living right now.

I've rattled on enough.

Movies, motivations and me....

A little alliteration for the night.

Saw Alien vs Predator tonight. I really liked it. Thought the storyline was clever and that they blended the two types of monsters into a neat little package. Was entertained, on the edge of my seat for the entire time. But I'm easy that way... man those Aliens scare the bejeezus out of me!! But not really, just that fun 'jumping out at you from nowhere' scared.

Been warring with myself heavily. Not sure what I want to do with my life in general. Feel rather like I'm squandering it, doing nothing useful. For quite sometime I had fooled myself into thinking that being a housewife in the 'housework' sense of the word would fulfill me. What the hell was I thinking? It worked for a little while anyway.

It is really terrible, how I feel. Difficult for me to talk about because I know people I know will read this potentially. Don't like to show any weakness! But overall I am feeling scattered and aimless and I wish to hell I could find some motivation to follow my dreams. Hell, any dreams.

I also get so frustrated with people nowadays. The slowness of people. Ignorance. Inability to have a decent conversation without blanketly admonishing any opinion that differs from their own. I admit I can resort to doing that myself, but I never begin that way.

Too cynical anymore.

Apathetic, too.

The thing is, I didn't start out this way -- but when I begin to care, people always screw it up with their own problems and issues, that clutter my own attempts at friendship. I endlessly find people who I like (because really, I like almost everyone at first) but then they begin to show their true colors. Prejudice. Greed. Selfishness. Pettyness -- that's a BIG one. And I'm just not living in that sort of world. I don't get off by gossiping. I am sick to my bones of that being the only recourse to resort to having any conversation with anyone around me.

Alright I have ranted long enough. Last time I ranted I got some random e-mail from a reader who decided to pick it apart a la Will Hunting (from Good Will Hunting) and analyze me.

So much for Lucy's $.05 charge :)

Hmmm...

I remember after my first couple of posts someone told me that the luster of a blog would soon wear off and I would find it harder and harder to login to write.

She was right!

However, my life has bloomed into activity with the beginning of school for my kids and me getting into my website, then, the darkness descended....

I started playing Dark Age of Camelot again!!!

I know, I know.

The thing is, I did cancel. It is still canceled. Subscription should run out September 6th. But I'm having a ton of fun in the meantime. But I know my limits. I'll start to hate it in just a couple of days. The newness will wear off and I'll begin to hate the level grind again.

Just waiting for that feeling to settle in.

Massive Multiplayer games are wicked. Too much fun for words. They are the bane of work everywhere for the gaming-inclined.

Especially for someone like me, because not only do I enjoy the immersion, I'm competetive as hell, and I like being in the lead pack when a game starts fresh.

And it means nothing but pixels on a screen, but it is fun nonetheless.

Ah well, horseback riding today, gotta go take care of a few things before we're gone all afternoon!

Rainy Days...

I love them! It's been rainy all day, quiet and subdued. Quite the Fall feeling in the air. It's been a pleasant and quiet day.

That doesn't count the 2+ hours I listenend to extremely loud music while playing Dark Age of Camelot though. :)

Figured out that the one issue with my photo page on my website is the fact that MSIE doesn't read image maps so well. The gallery pages work just fine in Mozilla Firefox and Opera browsers. Good ol' MSIE. Old and antiquated as usual. I will have to re-slice that page and start from scratch.

We need a babysitter!!! We have missed so many movies that have come out lately. Manchurian Candidate and this friday is Alien vs. Predator. Come ON I must see this movie!!

Ah well, one can hope. We're going to try and tap the grandfather since he works in the same town -- come by afterwork, get free dinner and watch the kids for us. Wee!

What to do next?

Now that my website is completed (shhh, we're not talking about the problem with MSIE and my gallery pages :P ) I am floudering for something to do.

It was wonderful to have such purpose and to be so busy. I need to focus that energy into something substantiative. I really need to finish my screenplay for chrissakes.

I think someone could analyze the hell outta me on why I am not getting it done.

Ah well. I did a lot of research over the weekend into my subject matter... and thing is, I have over 30% of it actually written. I just stopped one day and never picked it back up. It's been months!

I think it was the class I took. I submitted my work, got overwhelming positive feedback and somewhere in the back of my head was 'oh, alright I can do that' and BAM, no more urge to excel and complete it anymore.

The story of my life.

The thing is I want to complete it. If anything just to have completed it.

If I can just get over myself long enough to take this seriously, that will be my biggest hurdle ever.

Here's to trying!

Caffiene is just wrong!

Spurred on by another post, I decided to write about my caffiene woes.

It hasn't done a single thing to my health. I don't even get that much of a jazz out of it. I suppose it does keep me awake,

However, I realize the terrible affects it does have on you -- I learned about them in my pregnancies and I steered clear.

However, the phosphorus content in the carbonation isn't good for you, either. And niether is the carmel coloring.

Let's not go into the sugar substitute, because the jury is still out on that one.

But really I do not need the caffiene in my lifestyle. I 'went back on it' a few months ago to see if it would be an appetite suppressant. I think I lost 5 pounds. And holding. So umm no. The worst problem with my appetite is hormones and PMS. I crave everything bad for you in massive amounts.

However, I don't like the false energy that it gives and the sleep crashes that happen every so often aren't any fun, either.

So I think I'll miss the bubbles, sure. And when we go out I'll get some in the form of unsweetened tea. I just can't get into water, and I think that is ultimately my problem.

No taste!

At the present, my favorite drink is Ocean Spray's Diet Tea & Juice.

Maybe it's not cold turkey then :)

My website is done!!!

Well, pretty much :)

There are some issues with the look and feel of the photos page and the gallery nested within -- but I can deal with them later. It isn't perfect, that one page, but I don't have the werewithal to go buy another MySQL server and add another gallery just so I can customize. Not yet anyway.

http://www.aequinox.com

There it is! Take a look :)

I am so tired today. Getting up at 6:15am to get the kids ready for school is just punishment. I never get used to it, even if I go to bed at a decent time.

Hubby is on a bit of the shitlist today. He never goes out and parties -- but of course last night, when I have the car, I expect a call from him around 7pm (to pick him up) and he rolls in at 11pm, having gotten a ride from a co-worker . I feel moderately satisfied that he has been puking his brains out all morning. :p

But like I told him last night, I can't get that mad at him, he only does this once a year, if that. Maybe once every 18 months. Not much to complain about there.

I still wanted a damn phonecall. I thought he had been mugged or was dead. Common courtesy!

Ah well, besides the incessant yawning, today is a nice day. Going to go buy Hidalgo on DVD. Taking son to Shaolin this evening.

And oh yeah! My website's done!!!!!

When was the last time....?

I posted? Ahh been a busy weekend, as usual. Kids start school on wednesday, and surprisingly, I am feeling a little bummed out. I thought I would be excited to get my own time back, but in reality I think I will feel a little lonely.

I am positive it will pass :p

Working diligently on my website. I have found some awesome guys at Dreamland.ro who are helping me with my gallery. I wanted some serious customization and since they wrote the code, I figure I might as well go to the source! They are the nicest guys, so friendly and willing to help a gal out.

I have to get some other images done today, namely screenshots of my characters of the many MMORPGs that I have played. I am a little irked that I didn't keep some of my oldest characters.

I had a plan to make a little page for all my gaming exploits. Since it's been years and years of gaming, I have rather a lot of them!

Going to get back to work now.