So, when you run out of things to do on Facebook, what do you do? Here's a good list.
Sporcle is a great website to kill time. Testing your memory and knowledge, it's a ligit time waster (when I have time to waste, of course).
Stumble lets you choose what you like to read about then takes you to pages related to that. It's completely random but usually you find some extremely interesting things that you never would have found on your own.
Pandora is a free website that lets you put in a song or artist you like and comes up with a radio station just for you that only plays the kinds of music related to whatever you typed in. It usually does a pretty great job and you can find a lot of music you might not have discovered otherwise.
Netflix instant play. Need I say more? If you subscribe to Netflix, they have some really great movies to watch instantly.
Ebay isn't just great for finding cheap stuff but sometimes it's fun to find out how much you could sell that old doll for or your signed Babe Ruth Baseball, even if you will never let it leave your sight.
Shutterfly is awesome for saving all those photos you can't fit on your flash drive, sharing them with friends and family, and even gives you a few editing options. It's free and they never delete your photos no matter how long you have them on there or how often you visit.
Steep and Cheap offers deals one at a time on outdoorsy stuff like sleeping bags, coats, GPS devices, and sunglasses. The items are super cheap but once they are all gone, they are gone and they move on to another deal. While I have never actually purchased anything from this site, I find it's a good place to get ideas for gifts and if I am looking for something in particular, I check it often to see if it's there.
Life--Because who can deny the beauty and horror that has been captured in Life Magazine over the years?
Equine.com may not be for everyone but it's a site to sell and buy horses. I like to keep up on my childhood dream that I'll eventually have a horse.
New York Times and CNN are my places to stay up on news without letting my fellow classmates know that I give a crap about what's going on in the world. I prefer to keep my news knowledge private and not engage in two hour debates with people here at my Liberal Crazy School.
Arizona Diamondbacks and MLB websites are now on my frequently checked websites, though I blame my boyfriend for this one!
Scrapbooking ideas can be hard to come by, good ones at least, but this website has a ton to browse and admire!
Money Origami is not just great to look at but great to fold! Definitely recommend trying it!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Break Up
I am writing this having stolen an idea from a blog post my aunt wrote a very long time ago. The general idea is to write a break up letter to something you need to rid from your life, perhaps an obnoxious toy or a bad idea. Here is my break up letter.
Dear Procrastination,
This break-up has been a long time coming, but I am finally ready to stop wasting my time on you. Your qualities have really pulled me in for years now, but I just can't take it any longer. You cause me too much stress in my life and there are so many other things I need to be doing with my life.
We definitely had our good times. If it were not for you, I would not have learned so much about photography, popular literature, make-up, and how to get my hair to curl with a straightener. At our best we were singing songs, going out with friends, and shopping. But in the end, we resigned ourselves to playing Farmville. While none of these things seem terrible, I neglected my other work. I am tired of being distracted. I am tired of staying up too late to finish work I would have had done a long time ago if it weren’t for you, and because of that I am tired of being tired!
People have been telling me for years that I need to get over you and, while this is not easy for me, I know it is time. I know that they have been right all along. No one really understands pressure until they have had the intimate relationship we shared, for better and worse.
While this may be hard for you too, I know you, when it's do or die, you will finally come to terms with the fact that you must face what you have feared and DO. I know the way you work and I know that you will suffer and contemplate the pain of it all for a very long time before finally realizing it isn't all that bad, but perhaps you should rethink this way of operating. I know I can’t fix you, I can only fix myself which is why I must separate myself from you. I am afraid we can’t even be friends. You will move on and find someone else. I am sure you already have.
I feel that I must be brief and will stop here.
I wish you the best of luck.
Yours no longer,
K
Dear Procrastination,
This break-up has been a long time coming, but I am finally ready to stop wasting my time on you. Your qualities have really pulled me in for years now, but I just can't take it any longer. You cause me too much stress in my life and there are so many other things I need to be doing with my life.
We definitely had our good times. If it were not for you, I would not have learned so much about photography, popular literature, make-up, and how to get my hair to curl with a straightener. At our best we were singing songs, going out with friends, and shopping. But in the end, we resigned ourselves to playing Farmville. While none of these things seem terrible, I neglected my other work. I am tired of being distracted. I am tired of staying up too late to finish work I would have had done a long time ago if it weren’t for you, and because of that I am tired of being tired!
People have been telling me for years that I need to get over you and, while this is not easy for me, I know it is time. I know that they have been right all along. No one really understands pressure until they have had the intimate relationship we shared, for better and worse.
While this may be hard for you too, I know you, when it's do or die, you will finally come to terms with the fact that you must face what you have feared and DO. I know the way you work and I know that you will suffer and contemplate the pain of it all for a very long time before finally realizing it isn't all that bad, but perhaps you should rethink this way of operating. I know I can’t fix you, I can only fix myself which is why I must separate myself from you. I am afraid we can’t even be friends. You will move on and find someone else. I am sure you already have.
I feel that I must be brief and will stop here.
I wish you the best of luck.
Yours no longer,
K
Monday, April 19, 2010
Things I want in my future family home. . .
This list does not include people and sentiments. It merely includes objects. . .and a few living animals!
- Blue China--I guess it is white but it has the blue details on it. I want saucers and tea cups and plates, the whole set
- Miniature wiener dog! SOOO adorable
- A very large dog, mastiff, great dane, Rottweiler, or doberman will do!
- A room with floor to ceiling bookcases, filled with books
- Large brick fireplace
- Huge staircase with a railing
- Large chandelier above the staircase landing
- Huge wood dining room table. I would really like the one my parents have, refinished
- Wood floors, oak or pine
- A huge mirror in the entryway
- Horses with a horse barn and field and what not
- A big comfy rug to walk on in the living room
- A large wooden desk in a grand office
- Fountain or other large water feature
- Cedar chest
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Thoughts from my Professor....
Today I had a brief meeting with my Advisor and he kindly expressed, "Wow, only a year from now you will be preparing for law school, a whole new part of your life, and you still have so many options, there's no way of knowing where exactly you'll end up." While I believe he meant this to be inspirational I got a little panicked. He's right. I could end up going to a law school anywhere. And really, I have no idea. I don't remember feeling this way my junior year of high school. . . At least he thinks I'm going SOMEWHERE though, that's a good sign!
So I thought I would make a list as to the good and the bad things about being only a year away from preparing for law school life.
I will start with the bad, or things that maybe are just scary, mostly the unknowns.
So I thought I would make a list as to the good and the bad things about being only a year away from preparing for law school life.
I will start with the bad, or things that maybe are just scary, mostly the unknowns.
- I don't know where I will be.
- I don't know if I will be any good at it.
- I don't know where I will be living.
- I don't know if I will be able to get a job close to school, since I have no idea what that school may be!.
- I don't know how I am going to be paying for law school.
- I don't know what my LSAT score will be.
- I'm not sure about visiting colleges.
The good things
- So close until I never have to come back to THIS school if I don't want to.
- I will be starting the track to the life I really want.
- A new place is a clean slate.
- Things will start happening quickly and I won't have too much time to really worry about them.
- My options are open for my future.
- I have a future.
- I will likely be closer to family and friends that I have been away from for far too long.
- I'm still young.
- I am almost done with a part of my life I feel has little relation to my desired career and future life.
- Wherever I am going, there will be less snow than here.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Love
Today, as I was half listening in my philosophy class and half paying attention to a letter I was writing, I went off on a tangent about love. And while many many many more intelligent people than I have tried to define or even just describe love and have failed rather miserably, I guess I am tossing my name in the hat and putting in my two cents.
Science is proving that love exists because of chemicals in the brain. So it is not just some odd phenomenon that people create based upon their physical attraction to someone, it's ligit. Love exists and is about as necessary as oxygen for humans to function properly.
I would like to clarify that I am talking about romantic love not familial love or friend love, etc. So here's some of what I came up with and a bit more that I have been thinking about...
Obviously, love is something that cannot be seen with the human eye (and few of us have the time, money, or gall to ask someone to get a brain scan to see how they feel) so it is something that we must trust exists in the object of our affection, that what we feel is reciprocated. It is faith, not knowledge, that allows us to fall in love completely, trusting that the other person will meet us half way with their devotions. Knowledge, I think, is the second part, the part that makes or breaks relationships. The age old question of what does love mean is individual to each person and really, only complicates things. Once a couple trusts that they share love for each other and not some ulterior motives based on lust, forming a bond based on how to love one another is the key.
I don't think it really matters what love is as a whole. Love is so personal, it could never be defined for every person in one way and that is what makes it so special. It is when your idea of love matches up with someone else's idea of love that you have found the person worthy of sharing that love with. For one person, love may mean going out together for dinners, having sex, and coming back weekly. If they can find a partner who believes the same thing, more power to them. However, human nature and selfishness rarely allow people to believe that true love could exist outside of a one to one relationship. So there is one defining factor of love that applies to many people, they want to be the only one the other person loves. Personally I think that is more than fair, which I guess means that is one of the ways I would describe love. Love is entwined with every part of life. The question, do my partner and I have the same ideas of love? might lead to a billion other questions like, do my partner and I have the same goals in life? Do we want to be treated the same? Do we want to cuddle under the stars at night? And do we want to do these things together? Are we willing to give up looking for another person that might have a similar idea of love to us? Are we willing to give up lust for others in order to be with each other?
Love itself is not complicated. It's there or it isn't and you trust that it is or isn't in another person. The complicated part is in finding someone who feels love the same way.
Most fifteen year old girls believe they have found true love or think they need to find it right away, and while some do, many get their hearts broken. I don't think this is because of anything like puppy love or that they didn't love at all. I think what people find at fifteen, really is love. Usually, however, they are too young to know what love means to themselves let alone what love means to another person and confidence is usually a little too low to sit down and talk about their life goals and what love really means to them with their teenage partner. Most adults don't have the courage to do this. Eventually, most people grow to realize that the love they shared in high school was not true, everlasting love. It was a way of learning about love and developing what love is to them.
So what happens when people break what you thought was their idea of love? The trust is broken, the easy part is broken, and the hard part has to be redefined all over again. When someone cheats on their partner, it doesn't necessarily mean they don't love them, it means their ideas of love have changed, or maybe that person just made a big mistake and found out more strongly what love means to them. Whether or not their partner's idea of love includes forgiveness for that kind of behavior is then what is challenged.
In this sense, people are constantly finding out about what they believe is love, what they would do for love, and how their own love aligns with another persons. It is a continuous path of redefinition and discovery.
One of my favorite passages about love doesn't really address the idea of growth and definition, but as far as finding someone who compliments you in any way, I think it has it about right:
We're all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you've been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there's no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complimentary way. But it takes a lot of living to fully grow into your own wrongness and it isn't until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems-- the ones that make you truly who you are--that you're ready to find a life-long mate. Only then do you finally know what you're looking for. You're looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: The right, wrong person--someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, "this is the problem I want to have."
--Galway Kinnell
When you've found that special someone who is wrong in just the right way, you've found someone who shares your ideas of love, someone who you can grow with and perhaps, your definition of love grows to encompass not the idea of that person, but the person in and of himself/herself.
So I guess what it boils down to is that Love is easy, thinking, knowledge, and learning to have faith in love are what complicate things, but are also what make love really worth the effort.
Science is proving that love exists because of chemicals in the brain. So it is not just some odd phenomenon that people create based upon their physical attraction to someone, it's ligit. Love exists and is about as necessary as oxygen for humans to function properly.
I would like to clarify that I am talking about romantic love not familial love or friend love, etc. So here's some of what I came up with and a bit more that I have been thinking about...
Obviously, love is something that cannot be seen with the human eye (and few of us have the time, money, or gall to ask someone to get a brain scan to see how they feel) so it is something that we must trust exists in the object of our affection, that what we feel is reciprocated. It is faith, not knowledge, that allows us to fall in love completely, trusting that the other person will meet us half way with their devotions. Knowledge, I think, is the second part, the part that makes or breaks relationships. The age old question of what does love mean is individual to each person and really, only complicates things. Once a couple trusts that they share love for each other and not some ulterior motives based on lust, forming a bond based on how to love one another is the key.
I don't think it really matters what love is as a whole. Love is so personal, it could never be defined for every person in one way and that is what makes it so special. It is when your idea of love matches up with someone else's idea of love that you have found the person worthy of sharing that love with. For one person, love may mean going out together for dinners, having sex, and coming back weekly. If they can find a partner who believes the same thing, more power to them. However, human nature and selfishness rarely allow people to believe that true love could exist outside of a one to one relationship. So there is one defining factor of love that applies to many people, they want to be the only one the other person loves. Personally I think that is more than fair, which I guess means that is one of the ways I would describe love. Love is entwined with every part of life. The question, do my partner and I have the same ideas of love? might lead to a billion other questions like, do my partner and I have the same goals in life? Do we want to be treated the same? Do we want to cuddle under the stars at night? And do we want to do these things together? Are we willing to give up looking for another person that might have a similar idea of love to us? Are we willing to give up lust for others in order to be with each other?
Love itself is not complicated. It's there or it isn't and you trust that it is or isn't in another person. The complicated part is in finding someone who feels love the same way.
Most fifteen year old girls believe they have found true love or think they need to find it right away, and while some do, many get their hearts broken. I don't think this is because of anything like puppy love or that they didn't love at all. I think what people find at fifteen, really is love. Usually, however, they are too young to know what love means to themselves let alone what love means to another person and confidence is usually a little too low to sit down and talk about their life goals and what love really means to them with their teenage partner. Most adults don't have the courage to do this. Eventually, most people grow to realize that the love they shared in high school was not true, everlasting love. It was a way of learning about love and developing what love is to them.
So what happens when people break what you thought was their idea of love? The trust is broken, the easy part is broken, and the hard part has to be redefined all over again. When someone cheats on their partner, it doesn't necessarily mean they don't love them, it means their ideas of love have changed, or maybe that person just made a big mistake and found out more strongly what love means to them. Whether or not their partner's idea of love includes forgiveness for that kind of behavior is then what is challenged.
In this sense, people are constantly finding out about what they believe is love, what they would do for love, and how their own love aligns with another persons. It is a continuous path of redefinition and discovery.
One of my favorite passages about love doesn't really address the idea of growth and definition, but as far as finding someone who compliments you in any way, I think it has it about right:
We're all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you've been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there's no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complimentary way. But it takes a lot of living to fully grow into your own wrongness and it isn't until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems-- the ones that make you truly who you are--that you're ready to find a life-long mate. Only then do you finally know what you're looking for. You're looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: The right, wrong person--someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, "this is the problem I want to have."
--Galway Kinnell
When you've found that special someone who is wrong in just the right way, you've found someone who shares your ideas of love, someone who you can grow with and perhaps, your definition of love grows to encompass not the idea of that person, but the person in and of himself/herself.
So I guess what it boils down to is that Love is easy, thinking, knowledge, and learning to have faith in love are what complicate things, but are also what make love really worth the effort.
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