*isn’t dead*

I’ve been slammed with school. I’ve got finals next week. I’ve got post ideas in the brain.
Will return to semi-regular posting if I live through it. This has been a public service announcement.

On the Duggars

UNPOPULAR OPINION TIME!  Yay!

So, in case you haven’t seen it on the news or read anything on the internet, allow me to inform you: Michelle Duggar, the mother of 19 children and the grandmother of 2, is pregnant again. Yes, with child number 20. And so far, she seems to be doing okay.

Now, to be honest, this really doesn’t bother me. It’s her family, she can make it as big as she wants providing they can afford it and the kids are healthy and well-cared for. What bothers me more is the purely hateful comments being thrown around on the internet by people who, frankly, have no idea what they’re talking about. I understand that people are entitled to their opinion. I understand that by agreeing to have your own TV show, you’re opening yourself up for lots of positive and negative comments. Fine. But some of the things people are saying are just plain ridiculous.

I’m going to address the comments I’ve seen that bother me the most:

1. “SOCIALLY IRRESPONSIBLE! There are so many kids out there that need homes, and she sees fit to just keep popping out more?!” 

Yes. Yes she does. How on earth is it “socially irresponsible” for a couple to have children when they’re financially able to care for them, have room, and quite obviously know how to handle having a baby and a large family? This claim is like saying “How dare you decide to work two jobs to support your family when there are people all over this country who have no jobs?”

I saw in an advice column once (because I’m an old lady and I read those sometimes) that a girl about my age with hair so long she could sit on it was harassed at the grocery store by someone she didn’t even know because she didn’t donate that hair to Locks of Love. There were SO MANY responses from people who have had similar problems. This illustrates my point: when did it become people’s business to decide whether or not someone should have children or grow their hair out?

It’s her right to have as many children as she wants. If these people are going to stand up for “a woman’s right to her own body” and use it to justify abortion, then they had better apply it equally to childbirth.

There ARE a ton of kids that need homes. And there are also plenty of people who can’t have children. Take it from someone whose family runs a foster care/adoption organization: what we need to do is recruit the couples who can’t have kids, or who want more but don’t think that they are healthy enough, or the ones who have always thought about adopting but weren’t sure, and open their eyes to the needs of the children in “the system”–NOT criticize the ones who can have and support children and therefore choose to do so.

2. “She doesn’t even watch her own kids, the older kids do!”

I don’t come from a family of 21, but I do come from a family of 11, and most big families operate the same basic way. Big families only work if EVERYONE helps. They don’t work if Mom watches all the kids and does all the work, all the time. Just because her kids aren’t raised to “look after number 1” and never help with their siblings, doesn’t mean that Michelle does nothing. Big families with older and younger kids are actually easier than caring for a bunch of kids that are all the same age. If my biological sisters and I (the three oldest) stopped helping, our house would not work the way it does now. Nor would it work the same if my 8 and 9-year-old brothers stopped helping. So all this “They never get any time to themselves, they never get any freedom cause they’re homeschooled, FREE THE DUGGAR GIRLS” business (yes, I actually read all of that in one comment) is crap. They are happy to be a part of their family, leave them alone.

*disclaimer: some of you may remember an earlier post I did on the two types of homeschooled people. The Duggars fall SQUARELY into the latter category: they are home-LIFE-ers, with a few exceptions.. (You should read that post, I’m actually pretty proud of that one. 😛 ) So no, I do not endorse their lifestyle completely and yes, I do think they’re too strict in a lot of areas. But you know what? Those are their beliefs and they’re happy with it. (Also, I can’t figure out any other way to link this…here’s that post.)

https://lifeofcaroline.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/i-was-a-teenage-homeschooler/

3.  “There’s no way that she has enough time or love for all those kids.”

Okay, hold up.

Does every person have a “love quota” that they can run out of? So, does this mean that I can’t love my 20+ cousins (I have a lot of cousins) equally? How many friends do you have? I bet more than 20. And I bet you manage to find enough time for all of them. Now imagine how much more effort you’d put into spending time with them if they were your own flesh-and-blood children that you loved dearly. I’m not a mother, but I can imagine that that kind of love doesn’t just “run out” when you reach a certain number of kids. As for hours in the day? No, there’s not enough time for her to spend one solid hour with each individual kid, every day. Heck, that didn’t even happen when my family had 4 kids. But that does not mean that she doesn’t devote time to all of them.

So, in short, leave the woman alone, don’t watch the show if you’re offended, don’t talk about things you don’t understand and please, please, don’t post hate comments on this post. If you want to comment and have a differing opinion from me, I look forward to talking to you, but only if it’s civilized conversation.

I digress. I’m getting off my soap box. The end. 🙂

ThunderQuakeFloodNado 2011.

You read that correctly.

I can’t believe I’ve resorted to blogging about the WEATHER, but oh well.

Being from Oklahoma, Mother Nature’s testing ground, I have experienced some crazy weather-related things in my life. These include but are not limited to: sunshine and a freak hailstorm at the same time, fires and thunderstorms threatening my area at the same time, a week that swings from below freezing to 70 degrees, more tornadoes than I care to count, and more than 2 straight months of 100+ degree weather. Now I can add “earthquake” to that list!

On Saturday night, we were hit by a 5.6 earthquake, part of an escalating string of quakes around the state. Most of them have been too small to notice, but this one was actually felt by pretty much everyone. It was my first earthquake and I thought it was pretty cool! We actually had more than ten aftershocks, but I only sort of felt one.

All that to preface the apocalyptic weather of last night.

Last night, there was a rather huge band of storms headed across the state. Normal, fine. Except for the fact that there were tornadoes accompanying it. In November, that’s weird. But we’d had a lot of cold weather that got warm really fast, so it created good tornado conditions. So, as I’m sitting in my room under heavy thunderstorm warning and tornado watch, it starts raining BUCKETS. It was hitting my window so hard I thought there was hail for a few minutes (but that came later). The lightning was intense and frequent. Within a few minutes, flash flood warnings are popping up. The thunder got really loud, and we started to worry about rain-wrapped tornadoes (which you can’t see). Then after a HUGE clap of thunder, my walls made a *boom* sound and started rumbling, and my bed started swaying back and forth. Yep, another 5-point-something earthquake. Mid-thunderstorm. The rain continued, heavy as ever, and I learned that several of my friends in the older dorms were being evacuated because their rooms were flooding–the top and bottom floors. The campus roads were pretty much impassable, and you couldn’t even see the commons for the puddle (it was dubbed “Lake Eagle” for quite a bit.)

So, couple all of that with a brief episode of small hail and a couple more small aftershocks and you have ThunderQuakeFloodNado 2011.

My. State. Is. Insane. Why do we stay here?

So, OC is right above the word "Oklahoma City", and you can't see the town name for the storms. You can't even see the orange, red and pink (read: bad) parts of the radar because there are SO MANY LIGHTNING STRIKES.

 

I love Thanksgiving. I really do…but…

But I’m READY FOR CHRISTMAS, DARN IT.

I broke my own rule and listened to Christmas music “early”. This was a good and bad choice. It was good in that it filled me with happy feelings and all that good stuff. It was bad in that it made me realize that it’s not even Thanksgiving yet.

I turn into a small child at Christmas, no joke. I wear flannel pajamas (I own at least 3 sets) and fuzzy socks, and watch Christmas movies under a blanket at my Nana’s house while drinking cocoa with whipped cream. And I enjoy every second of it.

I told you. Small child.

This is what I’m ready for:

-Christmas music on the stereo. Especially the classics like Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. We listen to a ton of other stuff, but for my family, Bing Crosby IS Christmas. Thanksgiving night we pop in the CD and Christmas officially begins.

-All that delicious baking that comes with Christmas! Egg nog pound cake (it’s every bit as delicious as it sounds), a million different cookies, bread, Chex mix (does that count as baking?). It’s all amazing.

-The excuse to drink coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon and hot cocoa at night.

-FIRES in the fireplace. I don’t get those in the dorm.

-Decorating my house/my dorm. My roommate and I actually have a tree this year, and we plan on making this place explode with Christmas-ness.

-Hearing Christmas music everywhere. In every store, on the radio, at the mall, on the street.

-Singing Christmas hymns at church every week, with the trees and the wreaths in the sanctuary.

-Is it just me or do people actually get a little nicer around Christmas?

-The movies!! It’s A Wonderful Life, Muppet Christmas Carol, A Christmas Story, Holiday Inn, White Christmas, Elf, Home Alone, Christmas Vacation…the list goes on and on.

-Lighting Of The Commons at school. It’s this big thing where we have a giant Christmas party with pretty much the entire town, with music and Santa (aka our registrar) and cocoa and cookie decorating. And then all the Christmas lights on the trees surrounding the main lawn get turned on at once and it’s kind of a big deal. I love it. And they’ve already started putting up the lights!

-The fact that the clock tower at school (which is normally lit up blue) changes from red to green about every 8 seconds every night from Thanksgiving break until Christmas break. And it sort of turns into a campus-wide game of “red light, green light”.

-Getting together at my great-grandmother’s house. We already do it a lot, but it just seems even better at Christmas.

-Being HOME for more than a few days! And not having any homework to worry about!

-The memories and traditions that my family has had for so long. From the silly ones like the Big Mouth Billy Bass that gets passed around every year as a gag gift (I think my brother’s getting it this year) to the handmade stockings and the antique nativity that’s practically falling apart.

-IjustwantChristmasrightnow. The end.

Nerds in Love

Nerds in Love |.

So…I saw Three Musketeers.

And, well, hmm.

Some thoughts:

• It’s almost like they were going for a farce originally, but then decided, “Just in case this doesn’t work, let’s throw in a little plot, some endearing moments and some cool action.” They stopped JUSTSHORT of a joke movie and got a total cheese-fest with its good moments.
• Logan Lerman. Congratulations on your face.
• The music may have been the best thing about this movie. I thought it was AWESOME.
• I did hear some very Pirates-esque music during the sequences where the warships were fighting, which made me giggle because I’m a nerd and notice things like that.
• I hated Milla Jovovich’s performance.
• Also her character.
• This movie was SO made-for-3D, it’s not even funny.
• The fight sequences (the ones involving the main 4 guys, at least) kicked serious butt.
• There was at least one Wilhelm scream. Which made me giggle because I’m a nerd and notice things like that.
• I liked MacFayden’s Athos. I’ve always loved Athos, and I think he did a decent job. But in my opinion, the best Athos ever is John Malkovich inThe Man In The Iron Mask, and it’s hard to beat that.
• It was very steampunk. Which was odd given the era that it was set in.
• Orlando Bloom is not the best villain ever. Maybe it was just what he was directed to do, but I wasn’t convinced. But he was nice to look at.
• Back to Logan Lerman—he actually did a pretty nice job. He seems to have a habit of giving a good performance in movies that, overall, miss the mark. I enjoyed his D’Artagnan, despite the lack of any sort of European accent. He managed to pull off being a cocky little you-know-what while still making us love him.
• King Louis is actually kind of adorable by the end, but I feel like they missed the mark with him…
• The flying-warship-things…WHAT?
• WHAT?
• And why did the filmmakers decide “Hey, let’s land the things on the top of Notre Dame, it’ll be awesome.”
• I liked Porthos and Aramis too, but they were very underdeveloped.
• Most of the characters were.
• They set up for a sequel, and I have a feeling there won’t be one unless they pull a Green Lantern and make one regardless of how the movie performs.

All in all, I’m glad I only spent 4 dollars on this movie, but I had fun.

My poor little fangirl heart can’t handle 2012.

I think that the world just might end in 2012. Not from the Mayan calendar, but from all the awesome movies hitting theaters next year. (The previous sentences are code for: this long post will consist of me geeking out over 5 movies the entire time).

Possible SPOILERS ahead for The Hunger Games, The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

1. March 23: The Hunger Games. I’ve pretty much been tracking this movie’s progress before there was anything to track (unless you count “Yes, they’re making the movie”). And now they’re done shooting and we have a torture I mean, teaser trailer. It’s surreal to think that in 5 months and a matter of days, I’ll be seeing Katniss, Peeta, Gale, Prim and everyone else on the big screen. The whole time I read the book, I was thinking about how each scene would look in movie form, and I couldn’t be more excited. I, unlike some of the fandom, trust Gary Ross, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, etc., and think they’ll do a great job. Scenes I’m most looking forward to (this was difficult to narrow down):

• The reaping
• The flashback to the Dark Days (because they had BETTER have one)
• The interviews
• When Katniss shoots an arrow at the Gamemakers
• “Girl on Fire” scene
• Katniss blowing up the supplies
• Rue’s death (even though I will bawl like a baby, I expect it will be fantastically done)
• Anything Peeta. Because I am in love with that boy. Don’t judge.

–

2. May 4: The Avengers. THE AVENGERS. *insert happy dance* Finally, the superhero movie to END ALL superhero movies. Being a bit of a Marvel movie fangirl, I’ve watched the interviews, the Comic-Con panels, and the recent (epic) trailer…more than once. Speaking of trailers, this comes out in May and already has a full-length trailer out. GET WITH, IT LIONSGATE. We want a legit Hunger Games trailer! Anyway. I cannot think of a way this movie can be bad. From what I’ve seen, it will be amazing for multiple reasons, some of them being:

• Tony flippin’ Stark.
• EVERYONE ELSE. Honestly, I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Hulk are all gonna be in the same place AT THE SAME TIME. It’s gonna be so cool.
• Loki/Tom Hiddleston. If you haven’t heard of this guy or seen his stuff, he’s amazing. In the three weeks or so since I (finally) saw Thor, he has become one of my favorite actors. His performance as Loki blew me away, so I proceeded to Google him and become a definite fan. Anyway, he should be fantastic. And it looks like Loki is going to be marvelously (pun not noticed at first but now totally intended) evil in this movie.
• Joss Whedon.
• Thor vs. Loki. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.
• Cap getting used to this century.
• I…I have to admit it…while I do want to see this movie for the characters and plot…there is SO. MUCH. HOTNESS. In this movie.

Behold, the awesome.

–

3. July 20: The Dark Knight Rises. I wasn’t really into Batman until the Nolan movies. *dodges the purists throwing Batarangs at me*

But I LOVE. The Nolan movies. They’re fantastic and incredible and…just…yes. I have been obsessively reading everything TDKR related for months now, and instead of reasons this movie will be awesome–because you don’t need a list of reasons to know it will be awesome–I’m gonna post this article, because I agree with everything in it. It’s in two parts:

Part 1:

http://www.hypable.com/batman/2011/09/29/hypables-top-8-things-we-can-expect-to-see-in-the-dark-knight-rises/

Part 2:

http://www.hypable.com/zexclusion/2011/09/29/hypables-top-8-things-we-can-expect-to-see-in-the-dark-knight-rises-part-2/

4. December 14: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I’m not gonna lie, when I saw that first Hobbit video production blog, I just about jumped up and down from the happiness. I’m a huge fan of the LOTR movies, and I’ve loved The Hobbit since I was a little kid. It took so long for production to start–I’m still coming to terms with the fact that it’s being made at all. And that Howard Shore will be composing not one, but TWO scores for it. If those scores are anything like his LOTR scores, they will be heart-wrenchingly gorgeous. And the CAST. Oh, the cast. Seriously, is there anyone in that movie that wasn’t already incredible to begin with? I can’t think of anyone. Thank you, Pete Jackson, from the bottom of my heart.

5. I forgot about this until I was actually writing this post…LES MISERABLES. They are making a movie version of one of the most incredible stage musicals ever. And LOOK AT THIS.

Phantom of the what? I couldn’t hear you over the superior awesomeness of this movie.

Feel free to disregard this post.

Apparently, I have temporarily lost my ability to write anything of value besides notes, factual reporting and semiotic analysis.

This is a very bad thing.

I have stories, ideas, scenes, characters, bits of plot lines floating around in my head, and I can’t seem to get them organized enough to put them onto paper or even onto the computer. And it bothers me.

I’m doing really great in school right now. And I currently have all my homework done. Yay. Now if I could please find my creative writing, wherever it’s hiding.

Maybe I should just get a recorder and talk out all these ideas. Maybe that would help. But then I’d find myself transcribing what I said, which sounds FAR too much like journalism class for my taste. OR…maybe I should write these things on index cards and plan them out on a big table. That sounds too much like studying, whichI have to do enough of anyway.

I’ll shut up now. Maybe I’ll go read and get more ideas…yeah, that should work.

 

Let’s Hear It For The Boys (or, Platonic Heart-Smiles)

My old neighbor Chelsea (I miss you girl, come back to my hallway!) uses the phrase “you make my heart smile” a lot, and I have since adopted it. I’ve dedicated a post to my girls already, so I’m gonna devote a little space to the boys that make my heart smile. Platonically.

I’ve come to realize that the guy friends I have in my life are truly wonderful. While I have always had a fantastic dad and several other great “father figures” in my life, I consider these guys the big brothers I never had. There’s something to be said for spending a huge chunk of your time with a bunch of sweet, Godly young men who also happen to: be hilarious; always know how to make me feel better; know me enough to tell the difference between when I’m actually “fine” and when I’m having a bad day; can tell me that I look pretty without any connotation; give good hugs; open doors; stick up for me and, yes, lift heavy things (I freely admit to being an absolute wimp).

So, to all those boys that have been placed in my life right now (you know who you are), I love you. Thanks for being a great example of what Christian young men should be in so many ways (even though you’re idiots sometimes). I’m pretty sure that I won’t “end up” with any of you, but nevertheless, I hope that “that guy” reminds me of you guys in a lot of ways. And I’m sure some of you will need to approve of him before anything serious happens.

Thanks for being around, guys. You make my heart smile.

And now, brief evidence of our insanity.

Please stand by for a shortish post telling you all about the things I did/learned the other night.

What did I do?

-I went to Walmart at an odd time of night with 4 other people in a car full of yellow streamers and balloons (thanks, Gamma Rho).

-We wandered around Walmart for a while buying random things like lipstick and spending a little too much time talking in the feminine products aisle, not realizing it was bothering the one guy in our company. While the employees at Walmart may have been under the impression that we were slightly sloshed, this is not the case, I promise. There was not, nor will there be any alcohol involved in our (mis?)adventures. But…yeah, we kinda did seem tipsy because we couldn’t stop giggling over random jokes and none of us could get our words out right. (I actually said something along the lines of “I think they think we’re drunk. But we didn’t even have an-any-nndndb-alcohol!” which made everyone else laugh even more and probably reinforced this notion.)

-We left Walmart, continued making jokes and laughed so much and so hard that the driver had to pull over briefly because she had tears in her eyes and Kaylan thought she might get sick. No joke.

-Joel actually did feel sick. Ew.

-We got back to campus, two girls went to bed, and Joel, Haley (a super cool freshman) and I decided to try and go star-tipping. But we couldn’t find any stars. Darn you clouds.

-We went behind a gate that was closed and locked. In our defense, there was an open space right next to the gate. But a few steps in, we got the collective impression that we were a) being watched, b) about to be jumped, c) about to be abducted by aliens or d) all of the above. So we left.

-We went on the baseball field and Joel got stuck on top of an 8-foot wall.

-Haley got stuck on top of a 4-foot wall. Much more pathetic.

-We went back to the (locked) dorm where Haley lives, and had to call our friend/her RA to let us in. While she made her way downstairs, we decided that the most logical course of action was to sit in a circle in front of the door in typical meditation position. We tried, but, again, couldn’t stop laughing.

-We went into the dorm kitchen, grabbed a carton of ice cream and three spoons, went up the the study carrels, and made some new friends.

-We proceeded to do more ridiculous things until about 2:30, when we finally went back to our rooms.

What did I learn? (Prepare for a lot of weird, context-less statements. Context may or may not be provided upon request.)

-Slapping elbows is not showering.

-It is possible to laugh for so long and so hard that it becomes physically painful and you just might get sick.

-There is a nail polish color called “lingerie”. (Um, what? Does it only come in that color?”)

-Joel is scared of skunks.

-Haley can’t climb over a 4-foot wall. Also, Joel and Haley are both too blind to realize that there is an open gate at the end of the wall, which explains why I met them on the other side.

-Scarves are really called “snake blankets”.

-Don’t throw things at someone in the passenger seat when their window is open. If they duck, you lose that thing. (Luckily it wasn’t a valuable thing.)

-Sitting in a room with glass walls while eating ice cream and laughing is a surefire way to make new friends.

-And…the single best statement of the night and perhaps the most important thing we learned, courtesy of Kaylan: “Skinny-dipping without water is just nudity!”

My apologies for this ridiculous post. But we all felt that Monday night had to make it onto the internet somewhere, even if nobody cared.

Also, watch this. This is Dan, he is fantastic and wonderful, he writes Blogging Twilight and Blogging Harry Potter, and he runs laserfarm.com.