The clover under your feet is shooting stars in the night
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In Your Own Time
I got together with a good friend of mine that recently just came back from volunteering overseas for a couple years with the Peace Corps. We had dinner together and caught up a little bit. We were talking about how different our lives are. I'm relatively settled and she's not at all. Either of our situations are not bad, just different. She asked me what it was like to be in this stage of life (married and settled) and if it was weird. She's going back to grad school for another degree so our lives are very different right now. More Here...
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XX
By The XX
Islands
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Stop SOPA!!!
This is what my posts (and your posts) could look like if SOPA is implemented (a whole lot of black and nothingness). Don't know what SOPA is? Check it out here! (Highlight the rest of this entry to see what my blog posts could still look like without SOPA.)
There's been a lot of buzz about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). SOPA is basically censorship without due process. If someone thinks that you are possibly pirating an image, video, music, etc., your online life could be shutdown without warning. Search engine companies could be forced to censor the searches that you're able to do Piracy sucks. We've seen some of the effects of it here on Xanga. People get really upset when someone's posts or pictures get stolen and rightfully so but I'd rather take the routes that we have now (i.e. reporting possible piracy or stealing) than having the craziness that is SOPA. Orwellian in the first degree...
So what can you do? Email or call your representative. Sign a petition. Make your voice heard. I don't have a senator because I'm in DC but I have contacted my representative and I've signed Google's petition. Make your voice heard!!!
Currently
The Family Jewels
By Marina And The Diamonds
Oh No!
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Guess I'll Wait...
Another thing that I've been doing since not being on Xanga is watching lots and lots of the GOP debates. I can't say that I'm really excited about any of the candidates.... sigh.
I watched the debate on Saturday and I think I figured out what bothers me about all of the candidates and the election race in general: They aren't talking about real issues!!! With everything that is going on in this country, I'm not sure standing one way or another on a social issue is going to have any bearing on building our economy back up or job creation. I would argue that those two issues are two of the most pressing and most difficult issues that face our country right now. I'd love to see just one of these candidates come up with a real, tangible plan for fixing some of the ills that our country faces.
With me, it's political...If someone would come up with a good plan (or even an interesting plan. At this point, I'll take an interesting plan), I'd be all ears. But it's just all noise. I guess I keep watching the debates just hoping that someone says something to intrigue me or light a fire (or perhaps its because the debates have rivaled SNL in hilarity). Eh, gotta find your something, no?
Have you watched any of the debates? What do you think?
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Oh Hai!
So the other day for whatever reason, I started thinking about Xanga. I'm friends with a lot of Xangans on Facebook so I see everyone's posts as well as the posts in the Xangaville group. It really made me sort of miss this place. Okay and I started thinking about all of my various political rants here in this space and I miss having that outlet. So maybe I'm back...
So what have I been up to since the last time I posted? The answer is not too much. Lots of work. Lots of play. Lots of enjoying just living in our Nation's Capital. It still sort of blows my mind that I live so close to all of this stuff. I love it down here. I definitely can't do it forever but for right now, it's good for the Architect and I. It's funny; I feel like we used to see a lot more of DC when we didn't live in the city. Now that we live in the city, we stay in our neighborhood or the neighborhoods just to the north and south of us. There's so many things to do right here that we don't feel like we need to leave that cocoon.
Living down here has also made me feel a lot busier than I used to be. It's like you can't get away from the pulse of the city. I think feeling overwhelmed is part of the reason that I've been scarce on Xanga.
Anyhow, I'm anxious to catch up with you all! Tell me the best thing that's happened to you in the past week!
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10 Years Later
For most Americans, this is a hard weekend. It's hard not to remember where you were and what you were doing 10 years ago today. I live in DC proper now and those memories have sort of been thrust in our face by the news warning of things like increased suspicious activity (the bridge by my house that I walk over at least twice a day to get to and from the Metro to get to work was closed for a few hours on Friday due to a suspicious package) and heightened security warnings. It makes everything that happened 10 years ago feel that much more fresh. I'm not scared; I figure that we're safer now than we have ever been and especially on this day, everyone is on high alert and everything will be just fine.
It's amazing how fresh and raw the wounds that our country suffered a decade ago can feel. All week on the news, there's been clips of that day. I vividly remember that day but now the footage and the pictures are starting to look old.
10 years ago, I was a Junior in high school. I was sitting in my AP U.S. History class. Little did we know how the course of history would be changing for our country at that very moment. I can remember the look on my teacher's face. I remember his indecision on whether to keep changing or to go to another classroom to watch history changing (history being made won out). I grew up in a town less than 50 miles away from DC and it has an Army base and therefore I went to school with a lot of kids who had parents in the military and were down at the Pentagon a lot. It hit close to home.
I think about the way that things have changed in the past 10 years and it's almost hard to remember how things were... -
A Grand Adventure
I'm getting ready to go to Ukraine (yes, Ukraine) of all places two weeks from today. I've had my tickets for several months now (can't remember if I talked about this before I became a derelict Xangan). I'm going to go visit one of my dear, dear friends who is currently working over there. I'm getting a little bit anxious to go. I'm going by myself and that's by far the furthest I've traveled by myself. My friend is meeting me right at the airport but I'm having recurring nightmares that somehow I don't find her and end up chillin' in the Kyiv airport for two weeks (which would be teh suck). I'm sure it'll be fine.
We have a lot of grand plans to see Kyiv and to visit Odessa, a town on the Black Sea. We also plan to visit the smaller town where she's working. My great-great grandparents came directly to the States from Ukraine so I'm also excited about the familial aspect. Unfortunately the town that my great great grandfather was from no longer exists and the town my great great grandmother was from has been swallowed up by Poland (it's crazy how much the country borders in that area of the world have changed during the 20th century!).
It's going to be a fabulous trip and I can't wait to share pictures when I get back!
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Congress: Stupid is as Stupid Does
This morning, as usually for most Sunday mornings in the Cheshire/Architect household, we had the Sunday political talk shows on. The topic d'jour was of course the debt talks taking place here in DC-land. The deal is that something needs to be done about the debt ceiling as we're scheduled to crash into it in early-August.
Watching the Republicans and Democrats fight back and forth about this whole thing is pretty crazy. Rick Santorum was on one of the shows that I was watching and he said something smart (and bless his heart, he doesn't say smart things too often!). He said something along the lines of Washington doesn't do anything until there is a crisis. Sad, but true. Even though we seem to be at the point where something needs to be done but no one seems to be willing to compromise or to come up with something daring. It's crazy. Cut spending or cut taxes or cut benefits. No one seems to want to do any of it.
It's hard not to be frustrated. Compromise should be one thing that politicians should focus on. It's ridiculous that our elected officials don't seem concerned with actually working this out.
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On Getting Older...
May was a hellacious month. June is definitely starting out a little better. I tried to write a couple Xanga entries in between my last one and this one but it felt like all I really had to say was complaining about something. I miss writing, I really do so I'm back for now...
The Architect's grandfather passed away last week after a long hospital stay of over 2 months. We knew it was inevitable but it's never easy. The Architect's grandmother now needs to move out of her house because she really can't be there alone. I think losing your independence when you get older has to be one of the most traumatizing things to go through. It's not like when you're a little kid and you haven't yet tasted the freedom and independence of adulthood. At that point in your life, you've tasted it and slowly it's taken away.
I've had getting older on my mind for awhile. I don't fear turning 26 like I will this year and I don't fear hitting the 30 and 40 and 50 and 60 milestones. 70, 80, and 90 are a little more scary. I volunteered in a nursing home throughout high school and saw many people who either didn't have family alive to visit them anymore or their families had simply dumped them in the nursing home and went on with their lives. I just hate the thought of nursing homes... Luckily I have a long time before worrying about that but I just can't help myself from thinking what might happen.
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Hi For Now
Guys, I think I'm still on break from Xanga for awhile but I did want to let you all know what I've been up to during my longest Xanga break ever.
- Working a lot, a lot, a lot. Pure exhaustion is a lot of the reason that I've been on a Xanga break
- I've been gone a lot during the weekends doing some things, some not so fun things!
- I've been doing a lot of work over at my book blog, A Bookish Affair. It's going well and I've begun to get books offered to me to read. I've even done a few author interviews. I also set up a Facebook fan page for my blog that I'd love for you to like.
I miss a lot of you and I will be back. I got really annoyed with a lot of the drama that was going on when I left. I thought I was ready to come back until I heard through other means about something really horrible that happened to someone I really care for and respect on Xanga and decided that I wasn't quite ready to come back yet. I do plan on coming back but I just feel like I still need to re-examine in what capacity I should be here in.
Tell me something good (or bad if you'd like). How are you? What are you doing? If it's too long for a comment, send me a message. I'd love to hear from you! -
Integrity and Tea
I first read Three Cups of Tea several years ago. If you aren’t familiar with this book or the author, Greg Mortenson, basically the book tells the story of Mortenson visiting a mountainous region of Pakistan after a failed attempt at climbing K2. He is essentially taken in by some villagers and falls in love with the area, determined to do something to help them. He sets up schools, which kind of takes on a life of its own. I was really touched by the story and thought that it was wonderful, a sort of educational micro-finance and by micro-finance, I mean foreign aid of sorts given by a private citizen, organization, or company to another specific group.
Now there is controversy over whether Mortenson really told the truth about some of his adventures in the book after a damning 60 Minutes report. Mortenson is now accused of lying about when he visited the town that he initially set up the school in and about being held by the Taliban. On top of this, there have also been questions on the funding and handling of money given to Mortenson’s organization, the “Central Asia Institute.”
The idea behind Three Cups of Tea is a really cool one but I’m wondering if the potential lies might not take away from some of the story. I’m really struggling with this. Personally I believe that acts of micro finance can do a lot of good on a small, local level. Often times, I think it’s easy for foreign aid given to governments to be misused or just to not get to the people who could really use aid. Micro finance allows for the support of a specific group, project, or sector at a more direct level. In all facets of life, I’d rather hear the truth no matter how bad/boring/indifferent/ugly/ [insert other world with negative connotation] it may be. Pretty lies don’t do anything for me.
So I have two questions for you:
- How important is integrity if your point is still really good?
- Is there ever a need to embellish the truth?
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Fluff of All Sorts
The Architect is away this weekend at a bachelor’s party for one of our dear friends, who is getting married next month. I have nothing planned until noon tomorrow. Tonight, I plan to open a bottle of wine and watch some girlie tv shows or movies. I also have a stack of magazines calling my name. I have Cosmo, People, The Economist (hah, one of these things is not like the others).
Now I do love the Architect a lot and I love when he’s home with me but it’ll be sort of nice to catch up on all of the bazillions of Royal Wedding shows that I’ve been recording without my dearest husband poking fun at my not-so-intellectual tv choices.
I’m all about having a slow Friday night every once in awhile!!!
What are you doing tonight?
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Worth Getting Arrested For?
Last night, our mayor and several of our city council members were arrested just outside some of the Congress buildings! Oh brother…
So what were they arrested for? They were arrested for unlawful assembly, which carries a paltry fine of $50, which is so not worth getting arrested for. The mayor and the council members had been protesting some of the lovely policy riders of the new budget agreement that Congress is working on this week. Basically the policy riders allow Congress to meddle in DC’s money and how it chooses to spend said money. Some of the things included in the riders are the school voucher program, the needle exchange program, and city-funded abortions. If DC were a state, Congress would not be able to dictate what the city can spend its money on. Alas, DC does not have statehood.
Living in the DC-MD-VA area for most of my life, I’ve always been aware of DC and the issues surrounding the lack of statehood. Moving to the District has made me acutely aware of what issues not having statehood brings. If a government shutdown had happened this week, many of the District’s services would have been closed. No DMV. No trash pickup. No library. It would have sucked big time.
I don’t really understand what the big deal about DC becoming the 51st state would be besides the fact that we would no longer be a pawn for Congress… it’s so frustrating.
Even if the mayor and his compadres didn’t exactly get arrested for defending DC rights, they obviously feel strongly about the issue. It got me to thinking about whether or not I could think of something, some issue that I would be willing to get arrested for. I can’t really think of anything that I would risk being arrested for. I don’t know what that really says but what say you?
What would you be willing to get arrested for?
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Outrage Over Pink Toenails
The street I grew up on had a lot of girls on it. A few of those girls had brothers and they always wanted to play with us girls since there were more of us anyway. Being the industrious (okay, sort of mean but in a goofy way) kind of girls we were, we made sure that we got to dictate the rules if the boys wanted to play with us. Usually these rules involved either being the baby or the puppy if we played house and fetching us things.
There was one particular family that we played with a lot. They had a daughter whose age fell in between me and my next sister’s age and a son whose age fell between my sisters. He always wanted to play with us and he was sort of a push over so we knew we could get away with a lot when developing our rules of play. One of our favorite things to do was to dress him up like a girl (wig and all). He’d even let us paint his fingernails. He was just so desperate to play with us and he was a really good sport.
Fast forward about 15 to 20 years: He’s now a huge football player type and married and just about as masculine as they come (not that it wouldn't be fine by me if he was not). I’m quite doubtful that us girls dressing him up affected him in any way or made him re-think gender roles. And we dressed him up quite a bit.
I think nature is more powerful than nurture many times. Of course, there are some cases where nurture takes over but nature is what it is.
There’s been some debate over a J.Crew ad that features a mom painting her young son's toenails hot pink. There are some people who believe that the ad is promoting transgender-ism or the revoke of gender roles. I think it’s pretty nuts; pink toenail polish does not have the power to change a child from who they were originally destined to become.
What say you?
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On Cheating
It gets to the point sooner or later where you need something more out of a relationship. I haven't been getting that lately but I understand, or at least I think I do. I fully believe every relationship needs to give each partner enough room to sort of spread their wings (if you will).
Full Disclosure: I don't know how to say this really but I feel like I can be honest with you Xanga. We've been through a lot together and I think you'll understand where I'm coming from. Hopefully you will....
I've been cheating...
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Pulse
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It's hard to take you seriously when you don't spell check or grammar check on FB. #wordnerd
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Man, the rec button is not working on my posts. *sad panda*
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Haha, I missed all of the crazy political schtuff on Xanga.
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