So I am (slowly) working on a MBTI-related thing for my Disney post series and so am reminded once again how much I dislike the sensing vs. intuition dichotomy, so here's a rant about it. (This post is public because I'll probably be linking it when I actually post my Disney MBTI thing.)

( Intuition and Sensing, Left and Right Brain (dichotomies I hate)Collapse )

Sorry for the poor organization of this post. I'm sure I could make it flow more logically if I took the time to rewrite it, but I've already spent way too much time on this, so...

Okay, so this is kind of late, but I thought I'd post something about the elections.

I was a little depressed back in September because of
(1) the boost McCain had gotten from picking Palin as his VP
(2) my finding out that a bunch of people on LiveJournal are Republicans
(3) the community republicons (which has an ingenious name -- but is just... ARGHHHH)
(4) seeing too many women who actually LIKE Sarah Palin; and seeing too many men and women both say that those who insult Palin are just jealous -- um... what???

Maybe I'm sheltered or something, being a college student living in Illinois, but this is just surprising to me, that there are actually (normal, young) people who are either on the fence or pro-McCain. :/ It's just weird...

Yeah, I know, I get offensive when I'm in politics-mode. :S

But here's another thing to think about:

"What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said 'I do' to?
What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Obama were a member of the Keating-5 (a past scandal)?
What if McCain were a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference."

This is so true. Honestly, if the qualifications were switched (even if we switch it so McCain is inexperienced and young and Obama is experienced and old), nobody would even be talking about Obama -- he would have been out long ago.

In short, I'm a Democrat and I voted for Obama today. If he loses, I will cry. Cry foul, that is. :)

A rant! :D I haven't done this in a while.

Okay, I've known a lot of people who do this, and since they're my friends it doesn't bother me much, but I hate when people blame every single change or abnormality in mood to one of four things:

1. Too much / too little sleep
2. Too much / too little sugar
3. Too much / too little caffeine
4. PMS

Very commonly, if I'm giggly, my friend (who knows I generally get very little sleep) will ask me, "How much sleep did you get last night, again?" I'll reply (trying to foil her), "A decent amount, actually: seven hours." "Ah," she'll reply, "You must be hyper because you actually got a decent amount of sleep for once."

Or, people will make cracks like, "Somebody's had too much chocolate today."

Or, people who are agitated must have had too much caffeine. Or, if they drink caffeine usually, but haven't had much, they are agitated from not having enough caffeine.

And then we get to PMS.

( There is such thing as just being stressed outCollapse )

So basically, if I'm really cranky, you can be sure it's because I'm stressed out. Just like if I'm giddy, it's because lots of good things happened to me recently. It has nothing (or comparatively nothing) to do with sleep, sugar, caffeine, or PMS. Although if I've been getting very little sleep consistently, yeah, that'll make me cranky. But it's also because of the homework that has made me stay up that late in the first place.

Huh... I just don't understand this. Why is being politically correct so bad nowadays? I mean, there's nothing wrong about being polite as long as you're being sincere about it, yet for some reason everywhere I see people panning and ridiculing political correctness. Maybe I'm over-sensitive (I've noticed that in several situations over the past year, I've taken offense at something where someone else, in either the same position as me or in a position where they should be MORE likely than me to take offense, laughed it off). Still, what's wrong about being sensitive to how others want to be identified as long as you're not doing it for purely suck-up purposes?

I'm well aware of the fact that I only use this journal to whine, but... still...

( WhiiineCollapse )

Okay, I'm not cut out to be an original fiction writer. Seriously. I am sadly uncreative. I remember that I used to write stories with my best friend. She came up with all the ideas. I did the writing, probably just because I spelled better and was faster at typing. But yeah, now that I have no friend standing next to me giving me ideas, I can't write anything original. I keep falling back on really bad plot clichés. Wah. Wah. Wah.

Arg, I'm hoping that by writing freely and ranting, some idea will come to me, but nothing's coming.

I think it's because I write better under limits. For example, tell me to write free verse, and I pull my hair out and die trying to think of something to write about. But tell me to write a sonnet and I'll be able to put something down. Eventually.

With fanfiction, I'm limited by setting, characters, and genre (to a certain extent), so that helps me write. But with original fiction, it's like, "Okay, write whatever you want. You can choose the setting. You can make up the characters." I just can't write like that.

Plus, I have a sort of copycat streak to me. Like, I'll be reading a novel that I like, and then when I next write, somehow, my writing style will sound more like the author I read than my own.

So yeah... I wish I were more original. It seems like, as I get older, the less creative whatever I write is. I used to write really crazy weird stories that make me wonder, "How did I come up with this stuff?" but not anymore. Most of the time, it's pretty clear where I came up with this stuff. All throughout my creative writing class, I essentially wrote Kids Next Door fanfiction. One poem was inspired by Tolkien's The Hobbit. Another was inspired by the video game Secret of Mana. It's really pretty sad.

In fact, as I'm thinking of what I want to write, I keep thinking about anime or games that I like, or characters that I like, or storylines that I like, that have already been done. Is this normal? I'm trying really hard to come up with something, but I keep stealing templates from books and anime and games and altering them slightly to make them just slightly different.

Yay, more rants.

( On Numbuh 86's Inconsistent PersonalityCollapse )


( On the Shortcomings of Op. POOLCollapse )


( On the Ending of Op. GRADUATESCollapse )



By the way, I haven't really reviewed POOL (along with all the other season 4 episodes), so I'd just like to say that although there were some parts of POOL that weren't executed well, I still enjoyed it a lot. Maybe it was the 1/Lizzie-ness. *giggles* Numbuh 1 glomped Lizzie! XD


EDIT: Just realized that I meant to say NEGATIVE Numbuhs 2, 3, and 5.

I need to rant. This is an e-mail that I received from one of my friends:

This is by a daughter of a murdered couple in Raytown who had a Bible and Bookstore on 63rd street.

Just one more example:
When I had to testify at the murder trial of my parents a week ago, I was asked to raise my right hand. The bailiff started out "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?" I stood there and waited but she said nothing. She said "Do you?" I was so stunned I blurted out "What happened to 'so help me God'?" She came back with "Do you?" I replied yes, but I was perplexed. Then the judge said "you can say that if you want to." I stopped, raised my right hand, and finished with "So help me God!" I told my son and daughter that when it came time for them to testify, they should do the same. It's no wonder we have so many problems in this country. If I'd had my wits about me I'd have told them that taking God out of the courtroom is only going to result in more criminals and murderers like him being in there! I don't know what can be done about it, but it's time we stepped up and did something.

CNBC this morning had a poll on this question. They had the highest number of responses that they have ever had for one of their polls and the percentage was the same as this: 86% to keep the words, 14% against. That is a pretty commanding public response. I was asked to send this on if I agreed or delete if I didn't. Now it is your turn... It is said that 86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore I have a very hard time understanding why there is such a mess about having
"In God We Trust" on our money and having God in the Pledge of Allegiance. Why don't we just tell the 14% to Sit Down and SHUT UP!!!

I'm not mad at my friend for sending this, but as a person who is nonreligious bordering on atheist, this kind of mentality really makes me mad. Seriously, it's utterly offensive to take out the words "so help me God", but it's okay to insinuate that non-Christians are immoral? ("...taking God out of the courtroom is only going to result in more criminals and murderers like him being in there!")

What kind of a world do we live in? A world where the majority can tell a significant minority to just shut up? And how is it offensive that people now have a choice whether or not they want to say, "So help me, God"? Don't they think that I'm offended in the slightest bit that they completely disregard my opinions and insult my moral character?

And I mean, people, since when was it BAD to be inclusive?

Okay random rant:

I hate it when EVERYBODY showers love upon something, especially when that thing doesn't deserve it. This includes, (in my opinion) Operation: E.N.D., Bill Weasley, and most importantly, LADYBUGS.

I hate ladybugs. I can stand Operation: E.N.D. and Bill Weasley because I like C:KND and Harry Potter, but I can't stand insects and I can't stand ladybugs.

And the worst thing is, whenever I tell someone this, they immediately rush to defend the poor little ladybugs. "What's so bad about ladybugs?"

Me: They bite.
Person: No, only the Japanese lady beetles do!

Okay, let me say something: Japanese lady beetles, even though their name has been souped up to disguise them as something different and alien, are actually another species of ladybugs. Yes, the alternate name for a ladybug is a lady beetle. Therefore, by saying, "Ladybugs don't bite--Japanese lady beetles do!" they're effectively using logic similar to, "mammals aren't furry--foxes are!"

I must admit that there are a few things that complicate my view on ladybugs:
1. They're helpful for agriculture (they eat aphids).
2. Mankind, not learning from its previous mistakes, introduced those Japanese lady beetles into America, and now they're a pest, so I'm not really judging local ladybugs, but an invasive species.

However, in all my arguing with my friends at school about this, they haven't once mentioned the agricultural perk of ladybugs, and I still can't like ladybugs. People think they're cute. I think they're pesky and they always disturb me during the fall by flickering around the lights and getting burned, and falling down on my math homework, squirming. I don't think they're cute.

I would like ladybugs a lot better if people didn't idolize them and get defensive whenever I say that I don't like them.

Why am I saying this? No, my house hasn't been invaded by ladybugs... yet. No, I haven't argued about this with anyone within the past few months. It just came into my head randomly, resulting in this random rant.

Also, similar to ladybugs, I don't like roly-polies. People always coo at them and think they're so cute, but I can't think of them as cute. It's strange.


Also, more random-ness--

Random fact: Kraft cheese melts at room temperature. Also, Kraft cheese is labeled, not as "cheese", but as "cheese product". I have no idea what the difference is.


And more random-ness--

It's past 12, meaning... yay! It's my birthday!