Preaching to a Choir

As you can tell, I write too much.

I can sit here at this laptop and type and type and type…and I never even really say anything, do I? I guess I don’t really have anything important to talk about.

Because I’m uneducated, much like the rest of our generation. Seriously, all of these people are encouraging us to vote—I’m not even registered. At least I’m educated enough to know that I shouldn’t vote when I don’t really know what’s going on: that’s worse than not voting at all.

But really…we weren’t trained to watch the news or read the paper. I don’t know what’s happening in Turkey right now. A mass of people could’ve died this morning and I wouldn’t know. I don’t even know what we’re electing people for right now, but I can tell you it’s not the president.

I remember in middle school when they forced us to watch ChannelOne in the morning. Not one of those kids paid any attention; they just chatted the entire time. Unless it comes naturally to you, you’re a history/polisci major, or your parents taught you well, you generally don’t know what’s going on in the world…or your own country…maybe even your own town. Or, hell, school.

Did you know that, today alone, in the news, British drug experts have claimed alcohol to be worse than crack or heroin? (Ecstasy is only an eighth as harmful as alcohol.) Soon a search engine called Bekko will be released, where its websites have been pre-approved by people (instead of computers, while everyone else’s goal right now is all about Artificial Intelligence) as being the best sources of information for particular topics. Last night a Christian church in Iraq was attacked and at least 58 people were killed, many more injured—120 Christians were taken hostage. A $2.5 million humanoid was delayed and will officially be the first sent into space this Wednesday.  I mean, these are just a few of the stories that were released today, a casual Monday (the first of November, to be exact: rabbit, rabbit), where I was in class and meetings from 9-5. I was napping yesterday while 58 innocent people died. We need to wake up. Let’s be involved in this planet Earth we live in. Let’s remember that this isn’t your world, we can’t all be living in our own little world.

And that, my friends, is about as political as I’m capable of getting. There you have it.

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You know, not only are we a bit deaf to the current events around us (we can all, no doubt, robotically recite that in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue [you do all at least know that he didn’t actually discover America, right?]), but we aren’t really being trained much in other areas either. I mean, I’m not saying we all need to live in a home ec club kind of world, and I’m a big fan of working smarter, not harder myself…but I can’t tell you how many kids came to college not knowing how to do their laundry or sew a button back on a jacket. We can’t cook—we can pull through a McDonald’s Drive-Thru and order cholesterol on a bun. We don’t really know what to do when we get in a wreck, no one really teaches us how to file our taxes, and we can never remember if we’re supposed to run or freeze when we encounter your choice of dangerous creature out in the wilderness (or how to treat that bite when we make the wrong choice).

We wouldn’t have any idea what to do with ourselves if a nuclear explosion ruined all of our electronics in the matter of a few minutes. Or how to explain a realistic example of electricity-loss because we don’t know shit about nuclear explosions.

And what will we do if robots start taking over all of our jobs, in the medical field, military, education, courts…I honestly don’t think there’d be enough jobs for us all. Then again, maybe that will never happen.

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Something I actually miss about Texarkana (I guess you can’t expect much from the hometown) was its crappy music scene. Let me know if you hear what's up around here. I have yet to pay my respects to the Soundstage downtown, and I've heard you can apparently follow or watch Indieview to learn about some good music. Also, the Bear's Den seems to have shows pretty often and la Lucha space does some pretty cool things. But I'd love to get more involved with the artist's scene in the place I'm spending three-fourths of my time...if I ever have time. 

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My mother is on Facebook.

It's something we're all facing nowadays. We're either: 

• accepting the fact that our older not-so-technology-savvy relatives have a Facebook
• worrying about what/not to post
• freaking out when they try to add us
• blocking them before they can add us
• bulging our eyes when they get one
• praying that they won't get one

Why, oh why couldn't they just let Pandora's box be kept shut? Did they have to bite our apple? Do they have to talk about Twitter as if they actually know what it is?

I now have to worry about my 89 year old grandmother seeing my Facebook; not because she even owns a computer, but because she visits my 64 year old aunt. When my grandma asked me who the boy I was standing beside in a picture was, I had to go home and find that, guess what, I hadn't even added my aunt. She was creeping on my profile. Because of her, I had to change my privacy settings, even though I don't mind other kids my age seeing my tagged photos. Because of one silver-haired woman. 

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Did you know that 498 years ago from today the Sistine Chapel ceiling was opened to the public? 

Anyways, "this is what you're doing, and this is what I want you to do." I'm telling you, give me a keyboard and I can go on and on. I really hope I get to see Black Swan on December 3rd, it looks really intriguing. 

Here's the part where someone else would share a classy music video with you. I give you a lady with purple hair.