Merry Christmas and Paper Towns December 26, 2010

I had to put Merry Christmas in the title in recognition of the Holy Day. (That’s actually where the word holiday comes from, or so I heard.)

So after the opening of presents and the general hubub, I did what little sunnylunatics do when they have time off–I read a book. And this book happened to be the novel ‘Paper Towns’ by John Green, whose amusing video-blog which he shares with his brother Hank, happens to be a favorite Youtube channel of mine.

Paper Towns is a book about a guy named Quentin who is in love with a girl named Margo Roth Spiegelman, and how he goes looking for her after she dissappears/runs away. Except that’s not what the book is about.

I can’t say a lot without giving away the whole theme of the novel, and if you want to get it, I really want you to read it. But the idea of it is about people. And about every person being a person. And how we don’t really see people in people, we see little reflections of ourselves and use those reflections to try and understand them. But it’s even more than that. It’s about youth and freedom and changing and geekiness and Black Santas and all sorts of fabulous, amusing things.

Paper Towns got me thinking about, well, me. And about how I see people and the world itself. I can’t be anyone else, so I can only see things how I see them and hope that others can see them that way too. And hope that I can see things the way they do. And see people the way they are. But I don’t and you don’t and nobody does really. And I think we want to.

I learned in Psychology, about this thing called the Fundamental Attributional Error. When things go wrong in our lives, (and this is especially common in Western Culture, and it increases after childhood) we are likely to attribute the wrongs/mistakes/percieved wrongs and mistakes of others to their personalities. And when such things go wrong for us, it is the situation, not the person, that we attribute the issue to. And that’s another part of the problem. We don’t see people as us, we see people as them. When you are inside your own head, you understand that you might, say, cut someone off because you’re in a rush to get somewhere. But if someone cuts you off, they’re a terrible driver and have nastier words shouted after them besides. We fail to realize that other people’s situations effect them as much as ours effect us. I think that this FAE (Fundamental Attributional Error) is one of our main issues in seeing people as people. We don’t seem to take into account that when they are away from us, they could be having awful hardships that we don’t know about. (For an excellent book demonstrating this, I suggest Don’t You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey by Margaret Peterson Haddix (who in my opinion, is a great author all-around.) )

So on this Holy Day, (or in the case of the many of you that will read this on Boxing Day (The Second Day of Christmas)) it might be nice to think about people. The people that Christ came to save. They aren’t ideas, or one-dimensional figures. You only see one side of them. And in remembering that, I think that we help make mankind a kinder species. Understanding is a step towards peace, and it’s appropriate, for on this day we declare Peace On Earth and Goodwill Toward Men.

Merry Christmas and God Bless

Sunny

Project For Awesome December 22, 2010

I don’t know if any of you out there are Youtubers, but if you are, then you are likely aware of the Project for Awesome.

(If you’re not, here’s a quick summary. Brothers John and Hank Green (nerdfighters and leaders of nerdfighteria, a group of nerdfighters (geeks who follow them on Youtube)) do a youtube event every year to decrease what they refer to as world-suck. This is the badness of the world. They encourage all their followers (nerdfighters) to pick a charity and make a video explaining it. Then everyone sends the videos in and they try to take over youtube for a good cause.)

Well I didn’t see many P4A videos, but out of the few I saw, these two particularly caught my eye.

The first charity, Love146, is an organization trying to halt child sex slavery. I have posted the link for it below:

http://love146.org/

The other charity is the Uncultured Project and it sponsored students in an orphanage in Bangladesh. Link for the P4A video posted below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_864369&v=Yzi2BNkyq7s&feature=iv

Both of these charities I thought were doing something great and I wanted to share them with anyone and everyone who might be following or stopping in on my blog. I try to do something good with this blog, so that even if I’m not on here as often as I’d like, I’m still giving you something worthwhile when I am here. So thank you for reading and please go take a look at those two great charities. It’s nearly Christmas and maybe the season can move you into giving time or money or publicity from your own blogs or websites to help with the great work these organizations are doing.

If I don’t see you until 2011, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Sunny

A Convoluted Post About Privacy and Human Connection December 11, 2010

If there is one thing I really hate about the internet, it’s probably how you lose the ability to have privacy. People add you on Facebook and Blogs and Twitter and Tumblr and whatever other sites you have and you lose the ability to limit the things you’re sharing with people.

Let’s say I’m having a bad day. I post on Facebook that I’m having a bad day, just giving my buds a heads-up as to why I’m not talkative. Suddenly, my math teacher, my boss, my distant relatives, my people-who-aren’t-exactly-friends, all know that I’m having a bad day. And they want me to tell them the whole story. They want my whole life story to explain why I’m having an awful day. And there’s my problem.

There’s a wonderful thing about anonymity. Using a pseudonym, I can share deep feelings or hard times or my joys and I can share that with people. It’s the ability to get a load off my chest, like how sometimes you find yourself havig a deep conversation with a man at a bus stop, because your life is going downhill. Or how you might tell a stranger that your wife is pregnant, because she doesn’t want any of your friends to know yet but you have to tell SOMEONE. I’m talking about the human interaction between people who aren’t necessarily friends. Or people who don’t even know each other. The ability to share the human experience with others without having your acquaintances or boss or mother-in-law bring it up every ten seconds.

The thing about the internet is you feel safer there, because you can share things without being judged for looks or age or class. There is nothing wrong with human connection in real life. Actually, there’s not enough of it today because it’s all electronic, but there’s something to be said for the experience of sharing something with a stranger. Like the bus stop guy I mentioned before. And I think that while our real-life human connection is dwindling as we grow increasingly electronic, the increased internet connection that supplements our lack of human connection barrs us from that connecting-to-a-stranger. That reaching out to share a joy or a sorrow with another person in the daily grind. To let them know that they’re not alone in pain. Or that the world is a better place because of something that caused you joy.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this. Or where I went. I’m only eighteen years old. I have a lot to say, some of it makes sense, some of it doesn’t. I, like a great proportion of the world, am still working out who I am and what I want in life. And I miss that connection-with-a-stranger. The reaching out to a member of humanity to say something. Even (especially) if you never see them again. There’s something to be said for a single touch. And I think I could use one. Or someone else could.

Sunny

*Massive Explosion of Excitement* November 30, 2010

I DID IT.

The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000-word (or more) novel in a month. I’m currently at 50,215 which means I WON. (If you hit 50,000 words, you are a winner.)

My story isn’t done. Not even close. But the point is that I started out as a panicked college student, wondering where I would find the time and ideas and inspiration and drive. This was all about 29 days ago. And here I am now, a successful Wrimo, a novel well on the way.

‘We Are the Champions’ by Queen has been playing on my youtube for about…oh…half an hour now? It feels like victory. My facebook status has no spaces and is in all caps except for the bit that says ” *screams of joy* ”

This, readers of my blog, is victory. (I would say that this is Sparta…but I am riding a writer’s high that tells me that Sparta isn’t nearly as cool as what I’ve accomplished.) (Give my ego a day or so, I swear I’ll be back to normal soon.)

The current title of the novel is ‘Fayte.’  Keep an eye out for it on shelves….if ever….in about two years. Because I still have to keep writing and then there’s editing and revising and finding a publisher and blah blah blah. But if I finish it fully, I’ll be sure to tell you all.

Well, it’s 1 AM and the adrenaline rush is finally wearing off, so I’ll talk to you all later.

Best wishes!

(EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!!!!! I’M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Sunny

ZOMG BABIES!!!!! November 1, 2010

Hi.

For those of you who don’t understand zomg…it’s like omg….just with a z….(oh and also, when I say zomg or omg, I mean oh-my-gosh. Always gosh. Just in case there are a few jerks out there waiting for me to trip up and do something you can hold against me…well…sorry. Not this time.)

I realize I just made a post, but this one was made separate for a reason. It’s about……BABIES!!!!!

(Ummm, sunny, the title says ‘zomg babies’. We kinda figured.)

Oh….okay then. You guys aren’t the slow group.

I’m making this post all entirely based on something one of my suitemates said.

J was chilling and channel-surfing and I walked into the room to see what she was doing. My other suitemate, K, also stuck her head in, just as a movie popped up. Zooey Deschanel (from 100 Days of Summer, and some other stuff) (Sister of Emily Deschanel, who plays Dr. Brennan on the popular crime show ‘Bones’.) was in a bathroom and on the sink was a pregnancy with a pink tip and two lines, indicating that it was positive. The character she was playing was pregnant. K, immediately said in a sort of ‘she’s in trouble’ voice,

“Oh <explecitive>.”

We didn’t even know what movie it was. We didn’t know what was going on. But she saw a positive pregnancy test and her immediate reaction was that it was a negative thing.

(Ummm, sunny? To a college student, having a baby IS a negative thing.)

And THAT is exactly what I’m talking about. A baby is not a negative thing.

(But you’re in college! You have plans and your whole life ahead of you!)

Yup. And to you, a baby isn’t a person. It’s an inconvenience in your life. And I’m getting really sick of that outlook. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen my suitemate react this way. When I learned about the new abortifacient birth control, ‘Ella’, I warned them that it was an abortifacient (it causes abortions.) Her reaction? A shrug.

“As long as I don’t have a kid.”

One of the other girls agreed.

…

SERIOUSLY???

(And this is not directly aimed at her. This is a general opinion of a LOT of girls.)

What you want is SO important that you’ll kill someone to make sure you get it. You are the only concern of your life. Another person is not a person, it’s an inconvenience. Is anyone else just sick of this? Of seeing people assume that they are the one and only important thing in the world?

Newsflash:

IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU!

(What is is about then?)

God. Or if you don’t believe in God, still God. If you refuse to believe that, then go with something like making the world a better place. Or being the best possible person you can be. Or making a difference in the lives of others.

No matter what you want to tell yourself to make it okay to think it’s all about you, forget it. The world is constantly screaming,

“Me! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!”

And it’s deafening. We can’t hear anyone else over the constant self-serving nature of our society. Keep up with the Joneses, buy more things, make yourself happy, your life isn’t good enough, you need this, you need that, it’s all about you–just STOP.

This isn’t just about babies. It’s about the homeless and the people who really need help in this world. It’s about the kid who gets bullied every day. It’s about a teenager who cuts himself. It’s about the college student addicted to meth. It’s about the poor in foreign countries who get by on less than a dollar a day. It’s about the people battling cancer. It’s about the elderly person in a home who never gets visited because they’re a ‘burden’ to their family. It’s about a military veteran who has nowhere to go so he begs on the street. It’s about the people all around you every day that you don’t see over the screaming void that pulls anything and everything you want from the world towards yourself in your own desperate attempts to please every whim that tickles your fancy. Think about it. In your classes, at work, the other PTA parents, whoever. Do you know them? Do you care?

What about your community? Does it have a shelter? A soup kitchen? A coat drive? Do you know? Do you care?

We are so in love with ourselves, that we forget to be in love with our peers, our communities, our world. We are a nation, a world, or people. Not of you. Of billions of people who also have their own hopes and fears and dreams. Who struggle and triumph and fail and go home (or don’t) every night trying to make the best of things. What are we doing to see that? To care?

After all that, people generally get aggressive.

“What are YOU doing to change it, if you’re so high-and-mighty?”

“What makes you think you can preach to me about what I should be doing?”

“Why are you judging me?”

This isn’t about me. It’s not about you. It’s about everyone. And it’s about trying to do something. Which is where the next problem comes in.

“I can’t possibly make a difference. There’s so much need, I wouldn’t even be making a dent.”

And that’s when I totally change what I’m saying. Yeah, it’s about a community, a world. But it’s also about one person.

“We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”  ~Mother Teresa

Don’t go out trying to make the whole world different. Only try to make a difference to someone’s world. Because just like every vote builds up to elect a president, a prime minister, a council member, a senator, a congressman, every little thing we do to help builds up to make a difference to the world. So…actually…technically…yeah. Go out trying to change the world. But look at each little thing you do to make that difference as its own special act of love.

“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”  ~Mother Teresa

(Well what are YOU doing?)

I’m participating in a clothing drive at my school that’s running all year. I plan on protesting outside an abortion clinic. I’d like to volunteer at a local school, if I can find a way to get there. When I go home on winter break, I’d like to do some work at the animal shelter. My best friend and I did it together freshman year of high school, before I moved, and I think she’d like to do it again this break. We always had fun.

So go find something to do. If you need an excuse, try for the holiday season. If you believe that 2012 nonsense, use that. Teach your kids the importance of helping others. Use it as a team building activity. Just DO it.

And remember, everyone. Babies are people. And just like anyone  else in this world, they deserve love. They deserve respect. They have a right to live.

Sunny

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
~William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice

A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words October 5, 2010

DISCLAIMER!!!!!: None of the images are mine. I got them from the wonderous awesomeness that is Google. (Which I also do not own.)

 

 

 

I am a blob of cells.

                             

I cannot survive outside the womb.

 

My mother provides me with food, water, and shelter.

           

I depend on her for survival.

        

You can’t hear my words, I have no voice, but I speak with my body, my growth.

   

Give me time, and I can even survive outside the womb.

       

I am a person.

             

I am a child.

 Not a choice.

 

 

 

Respect All Life.

On Babies and Doctor Seuss September 27, 2010

Okay, so we all know the story of Horton Hears a Who, right? You know, the little speck on the flower that had a whole world inside it. Well I’m here today to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart. (No, not chocolate.)

BABIES!!!

Yup, little cuddly cute humans, with no teeth and the ability to make a room go ‘awwwwww’ simultaneously. And I don’t just mean the born kind of babies. I mean ALL of ’em. Born and unborn.

If you’re of at least average intelligence, you’ve probably picked up that I’m about to talk a little about abortions. So: if you’re pro-life, this’ll give you some ammo in a world that just doesn’t value human life. And if you’re pro-choice, stay. Learn something. (However, if you’re one of THOSE people (the kind who claims that all pro-life statistics are made up) then please leave. You’re not helping anyone, and frankly, I don’t think too highly of your intelligence. It IS possible for there to be facts that refute your beliefs. Dealing with this will hopefully make you a better-informed person.) IF: you are a guy: stay. It’s your child too, and if his/her mother is considering killing your child, have information for her! Show her why to say no to abortion.

DISCLAIMER!!!!!: I don’t believe in blowing up abortion clinics, the death penalty, or prosecuting women who have had abortions. I am merely a girl who loves children and people and wants to help women be well-informed and avoid the pain of abortion.

So: a woman from North Carolina did a talk at my college about abortion. She has a whole presentation about it which I’ve got a link to after the warning.

WARNING! THIS PRESENTATION CONTAINS A VISUAL EXPLANATION OF HOW ABORTIONS WORK. ALSO, IT CONTAINS PHOTOGRAPHS OF ABORTED FETUSES. DO NOT SHOW THIS TO CHILDREN AND VIEW WITH DISCRETION. THANK YOU.

 Abortion: The Facts

WATCH THE POWERPOINT BEFORE CONTINUING READING THIS POST!!!!!

Okay: on one of the slides it asks about what the mom does and what the baby does in the pregnancy. (Making breast milk, inducing labor, allowing mom’s body to accept baby, ect ect ect.)

It didn’t say it in the powerpoint, but it was discussed in the talk (I asked specifically for this to be emailed to me for this blog.) about who actually makes all that happen. A lot of people think it’s half mom’s body, half is what the baby does. Nope. You’re wrong.

Baby does it all. Everything from the umbilical cord to breast milk is baby’s doing.

So to you ‘my body my choice-rs’ out there, YOUR BODY doesn’t have much to do at all with it. You’re the baby’s house and food source, (and of course, half of the DNA comes from your DNA) but that’s it. The baby knows just what to do and it grows happily inside you until it’s time to make its way in the world.

So for all you women who are all for killing that little child in you, I want you to remember something: that baby is not you. Is it a bundle of cells? Yeah. And so are you. And so am I. But we’re all so much more. Think of all the little things that it takes to make you a person and not, I dunno, a bacteria. You can see. You can feel emotions. You can move your limbs. You can speak and understand language. As soon as the baby is concieved, it has everything all written out in its DNA. What color hair and eyes it will have. Whether it will look like you or your spouse. Everything that your DNA can tell you, that baby’s DNA can tell you that too. As soon as the sperm hits the egg. Blam! Baby. For those of you doubting THAT fact, here are two links. I suggest you watch both. #2 is a bit longer, but it’s got better references and is more of a person-to-person thing rather than a fact-spitting thing.

http://www.abort73.com/videsos/the_case_against_abortion_medical_testimony/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4MnelFIJr8&feature=related

I also wanted to talk to you about the risks abortion causes, but those were in the powerpoint. Ah well. It can cause CANCER, people! Because your body is in the middle of all these chemicals and hormones telling your body to change and be pregnant and get ready to care for a baby and then BAM! It’s all gone. This isn’t actually a good thing, people.

Okay. So you’ve got that now. Babies…life…abortion…there was something next on the list…Planned Parenthood. The biggest abortion provider in the USA. So I have 2 more videos for you. One is a list of quotes Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) made. She was a eugenicist. (she believed in a superior race. Other Eugenicists included THE NAZI PARTY!)

The second video is a bit tedious, but it contains good information.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6pPsIXlXwI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEja-1emRic&feature=related

Below is a link to a little editorial-type thing about Planned Parenthood, abortion, and birth control.

http://abort73.com/abortion_facts/birth_control_and_abortion/

For more information about Planned Parenthood and it’s questionable motives/practices, check out this article. It contains further links inside.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=20712

And last, (but of course not least) I want to talk to you about birth control. Now:  Several birth controls say something along these lines: Prevents the sperm from reaching the egg and in the event that the egg has already been released, stops the fertelized egg from being implanted into the wall of the uterus.

So, seeing as you now know that fertilization is actually the beginning of human life, you can understand how blocking the baby’s ability to attatch itself to the uterus wall is killing it. It’s a living little baby and it’s essentially stopped from living by a little barrier set up by birth control. So birth control can also be a first-trimester abortion.

THE FDA LIED TO US???? WHAT????

There’s a new birth control out called ‘Ella’. The FDA hasn’t classified it as an abortion drug. The same drug in the UK has been classified as an abortion drug. Listen to the doctor in the video. She’ll explain it better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo2fY0N-OKE

And let’s finish it up with some happy things, okay?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vupEpNjCuY

That’s the trailer for the Babies movie. Awwww…look at all the babies!

Hope you learned something!

Sunny

PS: For more info on the pro-life movement and such, check out:

http://www.abort73.com/

http://www.all.org/

http://www.nrlc.org/

http://www.prolife.org/