I’ve never been a very competitive person when it comes to games, particularly online games. I realized early on that bad hand-eye coordination does not a l33t gamer make. So I stick to strategy games where I have a bit of the upper hand (Civilization IV for instance). Anyhow, I’ve had some friends that were serious gamers and while I personally did not see the appeal, I understand their draw. I just really don’t get why people take the games so seriously…

 This morning, I heard a story on the radio about how some guy in France got so angry at someone killing his character in a game called Counter-Strike (I’m not familiar with it) that he spent the next 7 MONTHS plotting revenge and tracking the other guy down and showed up at his house and stabbed the guy approximately one inch from his heart (luckily the guy lived).

Seriously? It seems crazy to me that someone would get so up in arms about something like this. Even if you put a lot of time and effort into “growing” your character, I don’t see how it can be such a serious issue that if your character dies that you would go try to kill another person. People are insane.

Anyone care to shed some light on this matter?

The past several months have meant running all over. I really haven’t had a break. Every week has been busy between work and all of the errands that seem to have become necessary. Every weekend has been filled with various different things. It’s been fun but I need some time to regroup. Last night, I was absolutely exhausted and was having may-ja issues with allergies. I felt run down. I ached. I went to bed at 9!!!

Finally this weekend, I am getting a reprieve. We’re going to the Architect’s family’s cabin for the three day weekend with my future in laws and some family friends. The cabin is in the middle of nowhere in PA. You barely get cell phone service and there’s definitely no email to be bothered with. The cabin looks like it got trapped in a 1970s time warp. It is ridiculously peaceful; exactly what I need. I plan on bringing a few books and hopefully the weather will be nice enough to sit outside and read a lot. It sounds like perfection to me.

This week has just been kind of strange. Quick run-down of the odd/crazy/interesting things that I’ve done or seen this week:

- The Architect and I went out for a date night in DC. We went to one of our favorite restaurants (I had a platter of ahi tuna and avocado with this amazing wasabi honey dipping sauce that I want to try to recreate) and to a tea house that has the most amazing cookies evar and super yummy green tea. On the way there, we were mystified when we saw this older lady with very large breasts lift up her shirt, itch her bra-less boobs and put her shirt back down like it was nothing. Only in DC, eh?

- We attended a Renaissance/ninja turtles/ legends of Zelda wedding.

- I got a Kindle from my aunts, uncles, and cousins for graduation. I’m super excited to start using it. I’m just waiting on a case so I can take it with me safely.

- So almost 40 days after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama is finally putting a six month banning on new offshore drilling, including the drilling that was supposed to be occurring off the shore of my neighboring state of Virginia.

What are you doing this weekend?

I enjoy Facebook and social networking like many people. I have family and friends spread all over the world and it has been nice to see their pictures and kind of keep in contact that way.  That being said, I really hate what they’ve done to interpersonal relationships. Since the beginning of the year, I’ve played witness to several areas where someone has relied on Facebook when they probably should have written a letter or even called on the phone. It’s kind of sad that people seem to have forgotten about some of the basic tenets of the care and maintaining of good relationships.

Case 1:

I received a wedding invitation by way of Facebook message. To me, if you are going to ask people to some event like a wedding, you probably should have the courtesy to send them an actual paper invitation.

Case 2:

I had a close friend get upset with me because I didn’t notice that her dating status had gone from single to in a relationship on Facebook. We were at dinner together and she started talking about her boyfriend and I was totally confused. I believe her line was something like, “What? You didn’t see it on Facebook?” Seriously? I’m sorry that I’m not a Facebook stalker. A simple phone call to tell one of your good friends this good news would have been nice…

Case 3:

This weekend, I found out that a girl that I consider a pretty good friend got engaged through Facebook. This girl is in my wedding!!! I was actually pretty hurt that I didn’t get a call before the engagement was “Facebook official” (I hate that term by the way). I kind of thought that we were better friends than that as evidenced by me having her in our wedding. The Architect and I were very, very careful to announce our engagement to all of our close family and friends by phone or in person (if possible) before putting anything either here or on Facebook so as to avoid hurt feelings. So being nice, I wrote “Congratulations” on my friend’s wall. I got a call a few hours later and she did apologize for me having to find out through Facebook at least. She also asked me to be in the wedding, which makes me a little more mystified that I didn’t get a phone call before the Facebook world was notified.

Don’t get me wrong; I love Facebook. I really do but it has seemed to make communication really cheap. People expect you to know every aspect of their life if they put it on Facebook. My generation and the generation after us have become increasingly involved in social networking and while it has been good in some aspects, there’s a lot of baggage that comes along with it. I’m not a big phone talker at all but at least in Cases 2 and 3, a phone call would have been nice at the very least.

What are your thoughts?

Yesterday, there was a story of one of our (relatively) local high schools where yearbooks were being recalled because the yearbook included anonymous comments from students that included some controversial information. Some of the anonymous quotes from students within the school included things like “I have sex to feel wanted” and “I had an abortion and my mom doesn’t know.”  The comments are very Post Secret like (which may have been the yearbook staff’s intention but I do not know that for sure).

I am not a parent but I totally understand why parents would initially be very put off about some of these comments. I can understand being upset that the faculty advisors for the yearbook staff would let the yearbook go to print but since the book is already printed, I would look at it as a point of conversation with my teenagers instead of something to simply try to push out of my (and my kids’) sight.

No one wants to think that their teenagers are engaging in things like sex just to boost self-esteem or having abortions. That’s incredibly hard to deal with. It would be hard to deal with if it were one of your kid’s friends let alone your own child. The school’s solution was to offer $10 WalMart gift certificates in order for students to give the yearbooks back and reissue new, cleaned up versions of the yearbook in June. Returns were trickling in but some decided to keep the yearbooks with the anonymous quotes.

If I were a parent, I think I would use it as one of those infamous “teachable moments” (and there were many) that my parents thrust upon my sisters and I. Drugs, sex, and perhaps rock and roll (if that subject appeared in the yearbook quotes) are all things that shouldn’t be swept under the rug when it comes to teenagers. I hope that when I eventually have kids and they grow into teenagers that I will have the strength to address some of these tougher subjects. Hopefully the parents who are returning the yearbooks aren’t just ignoring these issues because it is what makes them comfortable.

What would you do in this situation?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I like the anonymity that this city provides. I like that I can walk the streets as just another nameless face. Sure, I seem to have a proclivity for running into really random people that I know but for the most part, I don’t know anyone and they don’t know me. I like that. Some have argued that this seeming anonymity has made the city a cold place and to a degree, I will agree.

DC-ers can be mean. We’re candid. We’re oblivious. Maybe we aren’t that observant or maybe we choose not to observe. We function within our own realm most of the time and it’s hard for many of us to break out of our coldness to help another. There isn’t any excuse for that though. And this week, our coldness has hit us hard.

On Monday, workers of the beleaguered Metro system found a dead man on a train. The man had died of natural causes and had been on the train for 5 hours !!!  The body spent three of those hours in a train yard. The remaining two hours would have been enough for the train to go back and forth on its route.

I have to wonder how no one notice that there was something wrong? Even if he died of natural causes, didn’t anyone notice he wasn’t breathing? Did someone sit next to him? Why didn’t anyone try to wake him up once the train got to the end of the line? I know that I’ve woken up a few people once we got to the end of the line because how much would it suck if you didn’t get woken up? It’s very awkward waking up strangers but I’d want someone to do it for me (I’m a very deep sleeper so I could definitely see myself taking a long ride if no one woke me up).

I think this whole scenario could have been avoided if people were more cognizant of what was going on around them and more thoughtful towards their fellow man. Maybe the man may not have been saved by another passenger or even a Metro employee but to have a body forgotten in a train yard like that for several hours is just sad.

Last night, I made reservations for the Architect and I to fly south this summer to my very good friend’s  (known to this blog as La Bonne Fille) wedding. I’m her maid of honor, which I’m really excited about.  I have my dress ordered and I just ordered shoes last night. The wedding will make this trip exciting but the fact that we are going someplace that neither of us have ever been makes the trip special as well. We’re flying into New Orleans on a Saturday and then we’ll drive on to Alabama’s gulf coast. The wedding is on Sunday. On Monday, we will drive back to New Orleans and spend the night in the city for the Architect’s birthday. This is one part of the country that I really have never been to before.

Typically when I think about traveling, I usually think about going abroad and not going around the country. I have an older friend who spent most of his life living in other countries for a job and once he told me that while he really enjoyed living and working abroad, he was kind of sad that he had not been so many places here within his own country. He really felt like he missed out. I, on the other hand, have had a lot of opportunities to travel around the country. The only places I haven’t really spent a lot of time in is the far north New England states, some of the Eastern middle of the country states, and the Deep South (although driving through LA, MS, and AL will alleviate that).

It’s so easy to take some of the places within our own countries for granted as they seem so much more accessible to us because they are in our own countries. The Architect and I have decided that after we get a few more of our big, planned trips out of the way (Alaska for both of us to visit La Bonne Fille  and Ukraine for me to visit my friend who is over there currently), that we want to start seeing a lot of the National Parks throughout the United States. It’s a great way to see the country.

What places do you take for granted in your country?

Although I finished grad school about three weeks ago, I just graduated yesterday (thank you to those that commented on my pulse from yesterday; good thoughts were much appreciated ). The graduation ceremony itself was long. They graduated the doctorates, masters and bachelors all together and there were about 1,200 people! The Secretary of Veterans Affairs spoke which was pretty cool. At the urging of my parents, I snuck out a little early so that we could get on our way to dinner.

Now one thing about this area that I have never gotten used to is that traffic can be horrible and unpredictable. Our beltway was a mess. A ride that was supposed to take 20 minutes took about 45. My mom thought we were going to miss our dinner reservation so she kept trying to call the restaurant but just got a busy signal.

When we finally got to the restaurant, we discovered that the power had been off for about an hour at that point because the power company had hit some power line someplace. The power was off at all of the other surrounding restaurants and several nearby traffic lights. We quickly decided to go to this sort of dive-y sports bar that has seafood that redeems both location and decor as the Architect’s parents were with us and they still had to drive back to PA last night.

Dinner ended up being really nice. I got a few more presents. My very favorite was a scrapbook that my mom made me with a bunch of old pictures as well as letters written to me from all of my family members (grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles included!). It’s so awesome and such a thoughtful gift. My mom or one of her sisters has made my cousins and I scrapbooks for our graduations. They only started doing this a few years ago so this was the first one that I had gotten. I love keepsakes like that. It’s nice to have all the pictures, advice and sweet words from my fam all in one place!

Last night after all of the graduation activities were done, I had to drive up to my hometown for one of my friend’s bachelorette parties. It was fun but made for a really long day!

What did you do this weekend?

I’ve always been interested in politics but I would never run for office. I can debate with the best of them and the fact that I’m pretty even tempered and have a very long fuse doesn’t hurt either. Because one of my majors in college was political science, I had a few people ask me if I wanted to be a politician someday. And although I try not to curse in polite company, my answer was always a resounding “hell to the no.”  I like watching from the sidelines and have become increasingly convinced that in order to become a politician, you must either one, be crazy or two, be really frickin’ crazy. Oh, and you must have a fantastically large ego and be incredibly arrogant.

 I think I’m more of a sidelines person. I’ve been involved in behind the scenes stuff for a few previous elections either as a campaign volunteer or a voting judge. I enjoy doing that sort of thing but actually being the person that wants to be elected is a whole different animal.

 I’m currently reading “Game Change,” a book about the behind the scenes stuff of the 2008 election. The book reads like a salacious political playbook and has been endlessly fascinating for me. The political nominees played like larger than life cartoons. Some of the tactics used in the election were pretty insane.  I’m fascinated by political strategy but I’m not sure that’s even something that I would like to do. I’m much happier handing out flyers and registering voters.

Politics is a game and it’s not one that I really care to play. I’ve noticed that the more I work and live around the political arena that is DC, the more jaded I become. I’ve noticed that there are a lot of people down here that feel that way so I’m not really alone in that.

Would you ever want to run for elected office?

*** Of note: I have a busy weekend ahead. I have a function to go to tonight, which should be fun. Tomorrow I graduate (finally!!!) and go out for dinner with my family and future in laws. Then I have to drive up to my hometown to go out for a bachelorette party for a friend. Sunday means shopping and meeting with my wedding planner.

So last Saturday was the meet up. I had a great time and got to meet two people that I hadn’t met before, which was really, really cool. I met up with Roadlesstaken, Redheadablaze, Roadlesstaken’s friend and Repressedwriter for lunch in Adams Morgan.

From there, we went to watch a roller derby. Now I’ve never been to a roller derby before and so I wasn’t really sure what to expect or even if I was going to like it or not. We met Torri aka caffeinatedcupcake there and got seated. It’s pretty easy to pick up on the rules of the game. The girls use a circular flat track to go around. It’s pretty amazing to watch.

There were two bouts on Saturday. In between the bouts, there was a sort of halftime show made up of little kids doing all of these really fantastic jump roping tricks (I have video that I may try to put up here). They were absolutely amazing!

 During the second bout, those of us that were left moved to the so called “suicide seating,” where you are seated on a floor just outside of the track with nothing to protect you from skaters careening into you. It makes the game even more exciting.

I loved it and would definitely go back!

I’m here, there, and everywhere.

Things can go by in a flash. Our time here is not infinite. We are fragile. Our fragility can either be very frightening or you can look at it as a gift. It’s your choice.  Life is a series of You take what time you are given and you do what you may with it. No rules, no absolutes. Those come only with what you impose on yourself.

I’m walking fast. The rain starts. I let it fall on me. This is a simple pleasure but it is mine.

I’m wondering are we simply our choices or is there something greater there that’s leading us forward?