Today, idly enough, I considered dropping out of CFUD completely.

And in doing so, realized that I could do it.

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So! I think I'm done fucking with my journal for a while. Rehashed the whole layout to work in S2 which is really nicer just a little more complicated to work with, can DO more but is also harder to specify what you want to do. I may add in some white background type thing cuz it's sort of dark now but eh. Later.

Anyway! So now that I can USE TAGS (I love tags) I'm going through my journal from past to present tagging all my entires. I'm currently in may of 2004. Eighteen was a really depressing year for me, the tragic thing being I didn't actually realize it until like, six months later when I was starting to come out of it. But GOD I was such an emo whiner, shit no wonder I felt lonely. I want to punch myself.

It's sort of tragic to look back on you old self and realize you were always exactly like everyone else your age. Teenage anime girl blog reads exactly like teenage anime girl blog. Saah. I suspect in four years I'll be able to say the same of this.

In other news, watched part of Paris is Burning today in human sexuality class, which is an amatuer documentary film on drag queens/kings in new york in the nineteen eighties. It was fucking FABULOUS. I'm going to go look for the rest of it on youtube.

I haven't updated in a whiiiile.

I COULD CATCH UP but why bother. I'm here to talk about STUFF.

So. Life. Sup I'm twenty-one. I'm taking college classes mostly to avoid boredom, somewhat to force myself to write. I have a job which is unlikely to go anywhere, but I like it there well enough in the mean time.

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So once upon a time I knew this girl. Her named was Rachael and she was my best friend by default of the fact that our parents were best friends. She was one of those godblessed children with pretty dark skin and the ability to run everywhere barefoot without ever being hurt. She could do cartwheels better than me, had hordes of friends that I was always jealous of, and her ears curled forward in a weird way that managed to be quite pretty when she eventually hit puberty.

She was two years older than me, a little less, and though I loved her dearly we fell out of contact. Especially after I moved and our mothers didn't see each other as much. Especially after I discovered the joys of the internet, chat rooms, forums and computer games and she found that she her friendly, social ways and attractive looks made her popular. I never begrudged her the distance, as she remained one of the kindest people I'd ever known, we just went out separate ways as it happens when people grow up and find their own interests. I always have and always will remember her fondly as the girl who had dozens of horse dolls and hung her barbies from clothing hangers by their hair, who had fairytale movies I never got sick of watching and boardgames that I never did learn how to play. I'll also always be sad that we didn't stay friends, but in that distant way we feel the regrets that never quite touch us anymore.

This girl got married while she was still just a girl. I honestly can't recall when it was. I believe I was eighteen, but maybe it was sixteen and she was eighteen? Five or thee years ago.

Then I was dazed by the fact that a girl I had grown up with was getting married when I'd still never been kissed. To her highschool sweetheart no less. But I couldn't fault her for a thing, she'd done it all right. She graduated early with all AP classes, she went to a good college and go (was getting?) her degree. She's smart, you see, and likes numbers for some reason so she became an accountant or something similar, a good one. She got a job right out of college and her new husband was... I don't even remember. Was it realty? Well, whatever it was, they were able to get their own home and live comfortably, at least. I never saw it herself. Infact I only met her husband twice, once before the actual marriage and never since. But he seemed like a good guy, they'd been going out for years, and Rachael is a smart kid so I wasn't worried about it.

They moved to Australia last year, finally giving in to one of her husband, Jordan's friends demands that he come help out with a business there. They kept begging him to come, making the offer sweeter and sweeter until they couldn't refuse. So despite how incredibly family oriented Rachael is, they packed their bags and went down under.

I actually didn't really know this much, or didn't register it, the last I remember hearing about it they were still undecided on the move. But it's possible I was told (wasn't Suzie, Rachael's mom, scattered and desperate for company for months because of her daughter's disappearance to the other side of the globe?) I just sometimes fail to register things.

Regardless, yesterday my mother called to tell me that Jordan had died in accident. They don't know the details of what happened, he was biking and his bike was found in some trees at the top of a cliff, his body at the bottom.

I didn't know Jordan. I met him twice. This is the closest a death has ever been to me. Strange because three of my great grandparents have died while I was alive, but all of them and were old and senile at the time (none died younger than 95) and I was young and untouchable. So I feel closer to this, but still not that close. I feel something, but I think it's more awe than sadness, amazed at the movement and happenings of life, regret that this has happened to my friend, but for Jordan himself? Nothing.

Rachael is two years older than me, but her birthday is May 20th. She's in Australia right now, twenty-two and a widow.

And for her I do feel. Rachael never deserved this, but then they rarely do, right? But everything was going for them everything. It's like any girl's dream, right? Marry your highschool sweetheart, get a good job, a good home, be an attractive couple, do what you want to do, live how and where you want to live. But she's twenty months older than me and she's a widow.

Sometimes I wonder why bad things always seem to happen to the people I care about, but who are just distant enough that it never truly effects me, and instead all I get to feel is horrible that I'm so uneffected.

I'll be in Phoenix on Saturday and Sunday, Saturday for a Jewish mourning tradition called "sitting shiva", Sunday for my first funeral.

QUICK UPDATE AND THEN BACK TO HOMEWORK I SWEAR.

First of all, happy V day kids.

SECOND OF ALL. I am in proverbial possession of tickets that shall take from Phoenix, Arizona to Savannah, Georgia. IT SHALL BE A FLIGHT FOR THE AGES for my travel time is about ten hours, includes on layover and the flight THERE is leaving at eleven-thirty PM. I actually think the red-eye idea is BRILLIANT for not only does it mean I can get to GA at nine am and hang out THAT MUCH LONGER but the flight will hopefully be deserted (though upon picking my seats it doesn't look that way =\) and I can sleep on the plane. I am, infact, more capable of sleeping on planes than beds, I do not fully understand it myself.

Anyway, the trip is to visit Snake over spring break. We are getting outselves a hotel suite instead of hanging out in her dorm room, and we shall play video games, watch anime, get drunk, and crash when absolutely necessary I AM EXCITED.

In OTHER NEWS I got a 500gig harddrive for 150 bucks, smokin' deal over at newegg. I SHALL NO LONGER HAVE TO DELETE ALL MY ANIME. I am also excited about this.

IN EVEN MORE NEWS I have to have Beloved finished by my class today, AND I have to write a letter for one of my characters which I DON'T EXPECT WILL BE DONE X.X And then I have to have 20 pages (double spaced) original writing done by. Monday I think. Lol.

SO BASICALLY. YOU DIDN'T SEE ME HERE.

Note: very long. contains a lot of bitching and moaning and general aviy-is-having-a-bad-week-ness. sry.

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Well we finished our work early Saturday morning and subsequently have spent a lot of time being bored since then.

As far as the work itself, the bottom two floors of the two houses are pretty much done. They need some touch up paint and caulking, screens have to be put on and everything has to be cleaned, they need to make some steps to actually get up the foundation, put in the sinks and toilets and showers and hook up the rest of the plumbing. They figure in two weeks they'll be moving in the kids, girls to one house, boys to another. In reality, all we really did was stain and sand twelve doors, and paint the frames around them. We did some touch up stuff earlier on but that's about it. And why? Well. We work about... five hours a day I'd say. Seriously a lot easier than I was expecting. Mum pointed out that the main idea behind us coming here wasn't so much physical labor (Because frankly, they can hire as many haitians as they want) but the act of showing people what's going on here, what the country is like, getting them interested in involved in the mission.

Of course, I don't like hard, physical labor so I'm not worrying too much over how much time we clocked.

But in my defense, it was over 100 degrees every day we worked. IN JANUARY.

Yesterday we went to the beach again. Just the adults this time and to a little cove. It was nice enough. The sand (and thus the mud) wasn't as good. I did sit in the waves and manage to get sand in very hard to reach places.

There were a few merchants on the beach, selling their touristy stuff. Fatina is the lady that came to the orphanage earlier in the week, and I guess that beach was her regular haunt. The other two people there were some guy and Fatina's cousin. The cousin had better necklaces and I bought three, one for myself and one for each of my cousins, and then Fatina had the one I asked her to lengthen (which is now too long, really, sigh >D, I like the one from her cousin more) and I got all four for ten dollars >D

The other guy. FATINA'S COMPETITION is hilariously stupid. Those two literally sell THE EXACT SAME STUFF within FIVE FEET OF EACH OTHER but he tries to charge more. Michelle wanted to buy something, and to be nice to them she was going to get the same thing from both of them. But Fatina said it was three dollars and the other guy said HIS was five dollars, so Michelle was like... okay, then no. And didn't buy from him. Fatina and the guy then spent the next thirty minutes arguing with each other >D I UNDERSTAND that the guy actually broke Fatina's arm once, but apparently she initiate the fight. He went to jail for it though so I guess he lost in the long run.

Last night we played Compatibility, which is a fairly fun card game where you and a partner try to pick the same cards to represent an idea or a word or something. Mum and I would occasionally get all the same stuff, and then get none of the same stuff >D

TODAY WAS CHURCH AGAIN and the only alcohol I got to have on my birthday was communion. It was hot and long and I passed the time by daydreaming about Roy and Ed having sex. Am I an outstanding addition to my religion or what?

I actually forgot it was my birthday until mum walked in and said happy birthday in the morning. The sad thing is? I haven't been looking forward to it nearly as much as I've been looking forward to going home. So my immediate thought on waking up wasn't "I'M TWENTY-ONE" it was "Only one more day..."

In truth, I've been feeling kind of down about spending my most important birthday in Haiti. I have... a progressively sadder history of birthdays in my life. I haven't had a party with friends since I was thirteen. A celebration of my birthday is usually dinner at a local restaurant (at eighteen it was a crappy chinese place >D but I got all the wantons I wanted =D) and then Melting Pot about a week later. It... doesn't bother me in general. But I've always wanted to have a real birthday, like you see on TV, with lots of friends and playing stupid games and staying up all night. Chira visited last year! But it's still not really the same... so all in all I've gotten pretty good about not caring too much about my birthdays, all while secretly wanting them to be cared about.

So... I've been feeling a little meh about it, since twenty-one is supposed to be such a big deal and here I am, unable to even go out and get smashed with some friends. (I can't get smashed tomorrow night either, cause it's my mum and my mum's friend for my birthday dinner, but at least I can drink >D) But... it actually turned out pretty good.

This is the first time in a long time anyone but my family has tried to make my birthday at all special. And they didn't do a LOT but... they're basically strangers and they did something. I got a christmas cake (red and green confetti inside, green frosting!) and Michelle brought an ice cream maker and made banana icecream with the local grown bananas (kinda sweet but really good). I got twenty one candles which I failed to blow out (it actually took me one big blow and like three little ones >\ I WANT MY WISH ANYWAY) and they spelled out "Happy Birthday" on the cake with sprinkles (Which they ran out of >D) and then by just drawing in the cake so you couldn't even REALLY read it. I got sung to, was force to endure photos and when it was all over we went snipe hunting.

Snipe hunting is hunting for a mythical bird in the efforts to get a group of missionaries to do hilarious things in an effort to catch a 'snipe'. We actually didn't really believe it much, but Michelle and Jo were very insistent with the "Oh, hold out your bags!" and "oh! do you see that? that's it's tail!" or "One just flew did you see it?" so we kept going along with it for a while anyway >D They got a bunch of photos of us acting like retards and I still photograph horribly.

So... not what I was expecting. Not sure it's even what I wanted. But pretty good anyway. I won't complain.

ALL IN ALL Haiti has been horrible on my skin >\ My acne has broken out pretty bad, and I keep getting bumps on my legs, possibly bug bites. I have scabbing bug bites everywhere and scabbing legs cause I cut myself while shaving a lot.

I HAVE HAD ACNE FOR OVER EIGHT YEARS NOW. I WANT IT TO GO AWAY. I'M NOT GETTING TALLER, MY BOOBS AREN'T GETTING BIGGER, I ALMOST NEVER HAVE PORNOGRAPHIC DREAMS. I AM OUT OF PUBERTY. THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR THIS.

We leave tomorrow morning at something am. We fly to Port au Prince and have to catch a ride to the other airport BY OURSELVES which is the scariest part of this mission yet. If we make it there alive and on time we fly to Maimi, arrive in Maimi. WALK A MILE TO THE BAGGAGE CLAIM. Rent a car, drive to Fort Lauderdale. Enjoy a four star resort ON THE BEACH where we will indulge in manicures, jacuzzi baths and air conditioners until we go to our seventy thirty reservations at Melting Pot. I will get SOMETHING TO DRINK (suggestions? I want fruity, or at least light, but something I can still get at least a good buzz on. Mum suggested a Mai Tai) and eat as much as I can stuff myself with. Then I will go back to the resort, full and slightly drunk, and enjoy a walk on the beach at night. Then I will sleep in a comfortable bed and eat a large breakfast but still allow room for Pizza before we fly out of Fort Lauderdale to Arizona.

Then when we ARRIVE in Arizona it's a two hour drive home AND THEN I CAN SEE MY ANIMALS AGAIN WHO ARE HOPEFULLY ALL STILL ALIVE.

And World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade releases the day I get back. Ajasdl;ifa I waaaaaaant. And will probably get.

LIST OF STUFF I NEED MONEY FOR

Wii (250)
-Zelda (50?)
-Extra controller (60?)

Ginormous HD 750 gigs (350ish?)

FFXII (50?)

iPhone (unreleased, unpriced, probably a hideous amount of money)

Burning Crusade (30?)
Monthly fee (13 a month)

Gamefly monthly fee (Saves me from buying a few of those games up there! 14 dollars a month)


I expect to get good tax returns, since I signed up for 18% when I got the job and my taxes aren't that high (I'm not sure I even topped 5k this year in income?) but. alskdj;a I wish I could get more than 25 hours a week.

So I've now eaten out in Haiti twice. Believe it or not they have hotels here, right along side the shacks, just a half a minute for the main road where they walk the cows and the pigs every morning. I can't speak for the quality of the hotel rooms, but we've been to two of their restaurants.

The mysterious part of it is that they try very hard to be... I don't know if american is the word, but civilized? To be... what I would expect to see at a restaurant. There are menus and water glasses and bread served with dinner. There are long tables on the terrace (the views, actually, are beautiful. Someone said Haiti is all about five dollar homes sitting on million dollar property, and that pretty much sums it up) and napkins and and music played over a speaker.

But the bread served with dinner is toast. Basic store bought, toasted, served in a basket. The drinks are refilled, the wine glasses sit on the table weather or not you use them. All little things which, of course, aren't a big deal at all, but that you notice. The big joke of it is really the wait time. It takes roughly two and a half hours to eat out in Haiti. Fifteen minutes to get your drinks ordered, another fifteen before they arrive, five more before you get water (this order can change around), it takes a half hour to maybe fourty-five minutes from when you order to when your food arrives. The portions are smallish but not anything that's gonna starve you. Assuming you eat at an average speed you're done in maybe another half hour to fourty-five minutes, then you wait around for your check, which takes a half hour minimum. It's fortunate Drex likes to talk, as you don't notice the time quite as much when there is conversation. But it's really crazy, and we make jokes about how it's taking so long because they have to go out and catch, kill, and skin the food first.

There are also some miss communication issues. Or something. I'm not sure. The first restaurant got our checks all switched around, and not even in logical ways. One guy got all the drinks and another got the food. This is despite spending the better part of the hour figuring the checks. And mum and Christine both got their meat rare when their ordered well (where as I ordered well and got it well). Mum poked at hers a bit and Christine (whose meat was pretty much still mooing, I seriously doubt it even touched an oven) sent hers back.

Tonight I got lobster, which I've decided I don't like. However, the beef, if properly cooked, was very good. All in all I have no complaints over Haitian food. And the time stuff doesn't bother me much cause I like being around people when they talk. Plus, we got to watch a lizard on the ceiling above us eat moths, which was pretty cool.

Still though, I've declined the offer to go out again on my birthday. The home cooking here is actually better eating than what I would scrounge up at home.

Work wise, we're pretty much done. The doors (twelve in total) are all stained and all that is left is to get a second coat of paint on the frames and surrounding areas of the door, which we'll do tomorrow. Then we go to the beach again with the kids, which I'm looking forward to (MUD =D) and Sunday should be little but being lazy and playing games. I might get dragged into working despite it being the day of rest. Not sure.

At dinner tonight Drex asked us to go around the table and give our thoughts on the past week. I took advantage of the fact that Drex is physically incapable of passing up even in the faintest opportunity to tell a story, or give his opinion (usually repeating himself about five times) and by bringing up the living situation of the kids (the fact that they are making multiple houses for them all to live in) was able to stall off having to talk about much in specific. Because I'm not one of those people who felt touched by god in this, and while I do think it's interesting, and a good experience, and while I've had fun and I know I've done something good and I'm glad of it, I can't say that I've had a wonderful time or that I want to come back. I sure as hell can't say that this has convinced me that I'm not really suited for missions trips, or that living so closely and so constantly with other people is slowly driving me crazy.

The other day we took a drive all the way out to the end of the paved road. It involved going through a river (which was pretty much dry) and over a dirt road (which hurt like a bitch since I was riding in the back of the truck). It's really funny how friendly everyone here is. Except for a kid who felt inclined to yell "FUCK YOU" every time we passed, the vast majority of the populace waved and smiled and said good evening (a few made joking, perverted gestures).

It's... weird, the contrast. Everyone seems so happy and nice, even in Port au Prince, but then Drex tells us stories. About how when they had an orphanage in Port au Prince someone was killed in the area on most nights, sometimes bodies were infront of their gates. How you can't go walking alone at night (or even in the day time, if you're careful) because you'll be kidnapped in a heartbeat. How there was a missionary group that was around during Rah Rah (or whatever?) which is a kinda Marti Gras type of party time, where everyone floods into the streets, drinking and dancing, and will tap on passing vehicles with their machetes. But it's not really dangerous. Only this mission group didn't know about it, hadn't been warned, and freaked out and drove too fast, they ran over a child on accident and the populace dragged them out of their car and killed every one of them.

Or a almost similar story where Drex and Jo went driving through Port au Prince at the wrong time, when for some reason there were riots, and got lost, got surrounded by an angry mob beating on their car with machetes. They got out, obviously, by following a blue car that disappeared into nowhere once they were safe and sound, but on the same day the mob killed a red cross driver and the van's occupants.

Or how just last night one guy killed another guy with his machete, and someone else burned down the dead guys home. The murderer was put in jail.

Incidentally, they know how to do jail here in Haiti, and American's taxes would drop considerably if our governments would take a few leaves from their book. The way it works is if you go to jail, you don't get shit. There is a dirt floor with a hole in the middle for doing your business, it's a large room that everyone shares. You don't get air conditioning or fans, you don't get beds, you don't get food or water, you don't get a TV and a library and a work out room and a certain amount of hours outdoors each day. And unless you have someone who cares about your sorry ass on the outside? You starve to death. Your family can bring you food, a cot, clothes, whatever you need, but someone has to bring it to you. If you are in jail for three months than someone brings you food and water every day for three months if they want you to live. Apparently the general opinion among Haitians is that if they have to go to jail, they'd rather just be shot dead.

Also, everyone out here has a machete. Carlos uses them to weed the yard, I see guys hacking up sugar cane to sell every day. It's kinda neat.

The next two days will probably be a little boring, but we sleep a lot and keep fairly busy with work or seeing the kids or just driving to go see something. But just the same I've finished my book, a few manga, and have started writing. Was going to write some ToA I have planned but I lost Tear's voice and need to go beat the game again, so I've restarted THM instead.

We watched Barnyard, a CGI movie, in french with the kids today. It's basically the Lion King with cows. It's actually pretty hilarious. You could have a drinking game of "one sip every time Barnyard steals a scene from the Lion King" and end up nicely smashed by the end of it.

Some little stuff I forgot:

Mum chopped off my hair a few days ago. I decided it was way too long for this kinda weather, even when I had it in a pony tail it was too heavy to really do any good, so I showed her how long I wanted the ponytail to be and she cut off about five inches. I didn't realize how short that would make it when it was hanging free so now it's just at my shoulders which is the shortest it's ever been. Actually kinda cute, but I need to have it fixed up into a real haircut when I get home.

We were visited by a lady who knows Drex and Jo and she brings out all her wares which are touristy souvenir type stuff. I only bought one necklace which I need her to make longer for me, since all in all I'm not big on that kinda stuff unless it's actually good quality. But mum got a picture and some painted animals. I debated getting one of these neat stone statues of haitian women balancing stuff on their heads, but I don't have anywhere to put it.

So last night we went to a pretty nice restaurant. Not the kind of service I would put up with in the states (I think we spent longer waiting for our check than we did eating our food, and two steaks ordered well came out still mooing) but such a novelty to have HERE that we pretty much just laughed it off.

We met up with two other mission groups there and had a very enjoyable time though. Danny and Theresa, a funny couple with two adorable babies (one their own and one a haitian kid they want to adopt) a Haitian couple that spoke very good english and three Canadians who kept being harassed by Danny, eh? Two of the canadians were pretty regular missionaries, I guess. One of them was going to be staying here for a year and the other is here for a month but goes on missions pretty often. Neither of them are more than a few years older than me.

I've been realizing, lately, surrounded by other christians who are active in their faith, that I'm not really fit for it anymore. It's a little confusing given that I grew up in this environment. But... Hm. It's hard to explain. Like... when someone says something along the lines of "I go where God wants me". This doesn't offend me and I don't scoff at it, but at the same time, possibly due to my closeness to the subject (or knowledge of my distance?) I can't quite just wave it off without thinking about it the way I would with another religion. Or look at it purely from the perspective of "Oh, that's interesting!" the way I would if it were say, a buddist monk who saves his head and zens for five hours every day. And this is nothing LIKE that. "Going where God wants you" Is such a basic part of the religion it kind of goes without saying, and yet... I no longer believe it, I suppose. Maybe it's the fact that it goes without saying and yet it doesn't apply to me that I almost want to say it.

Either way, it doesn't quite make me uncomfortable or anything, but it makes me THINK and realize how far I've come... gone. I'm not sure.

When I was a kid we were told "God has a Master Plan". We were told this constantly, it was one more mantra in between learning the alphabet and how to add and memorizing bible verses and saying out daily pledge. I forgot about it, the way we forget as many of those often repeated things as we remember. I didn't really think about it again until a few years ago when mum mentioned it for... some reason. I don't really remember why, but she said it in a way of "They just need to understand that God has a Plan for them" as if it was a comforting thing, and I realized that... it wasn't. I don't know if I believe in fate or not, but I don't live as if I do, and I prefer to think that it doesn't. For me there is a HUGE difference between "God is all knowing and thus knows how things will turn out" and "God decides how your life will go". The difference is free will, and if you take free will out of the equation Christianity is no longer a religion I can tolerate, because it would give credence to all the claims that "no God who would cause all the pain and suffering in the world could be good or merciful", because if it's Fate, if it's a Plan, than it takes the responsibility away from the sinners. Afterall who are we, weak humans, to struggle against the Plan of an all powerful God?

So... I like to think of God's Master Plan as simply him knowing how things end up, and not driving us all toward that end. Does he show up and effect our lives? Oh, sure, but that's still different than giving us no choice. Even Jonah, who was eaten by a whale, still had a choice. A crappy choice but he had one.

I've never felt any calling of God, as far as I know, though I suppose I thought I had a few times while I was younger. I've had my moment of religious fever, of action brought on by the fear for the immortal souls of my friends, but no particular urge to go here or do this that I can't say was just my conscious, my own self knowledge that would haunt me if I didn't stop and get that homeless man something to eat, that kinda thing.

I'm enjoying the trip, in a way. I mean, it's an experience and I like experiences. The people are nice, the work is hard but for a good cause. I'm sleeping regularly and reading in my spare time, listening to music and thinking about the stories I need to write as soon as I have the time and energy. I can't say I wouldn't rather be home, but I don't regret coming. And I'm really not complaining here... it's an amazing chance and I glad I took it but... realizing where I am with my religion makes me somewhat melancholy. I don't regret that either, I don't think. I'm happy with who I am, but it's not who I ever expected to be. I wonder if I'm faithless or failing, if I'll have any belief left at all in ten years.

When I was younger I couldn't for the life of me understand how people could possibly go through life without being active in at least A religion, that's just how important it was to me. How could you not think about a god every day? Wonder at the beginnings and endings of the universe and your place in it? Now I'm surprised that anyone has the stomach for that type of thing. Surprised I ever did. My mum listens to Christian music and nothing but it every day of the week and doesn't understand why, even if I like some of the songs, I never listen to them willingly. And I can't explain that regardless of my beliefs, I don't want to be reminded of them every day like that, because it inevitably leads to thoughts like these and I couldn't stand to do it constantly.

I'm not built for missions, I've realized. I guess that makes me selfish or whatever. But... I do like helping people. I like giving money to the homeless or buying them food, I like donating to organizations and giving what I have to give to charities. I like buying presents for people who don't need them, like my friends and family, and not worrying about the money involved because it doesn't mean that much to me. I like doing good things but... I don't like living it, I support. I like retiring to my bed at the end of the day, and seeing my friends. I would rather travel to europe and japan than haiti again. I can't imagine spending a year away from my comfortable home doing god's work. And when you get right down to it? I don't even feel like I'm doing that here. I know we are, and I know everyone else feels that way. But I suppose my heart isn't really into it. I feel like a better christian when I buy someone a sandwich than when I fly halfway across the world and build orphanages. Perhaps because I know I'm really just tagging along on my mother's holy quest.

It's clouded today, so hopefully my sunburn won't get any worse, and maybe it'll even rain, that'd be nice.