Oh! Kristen has a blog?

Heated Political Atmosphere

2011-01-11T08:06:00.000-08:00

My plan is to get really involved in the political process for the upcoming 2012 presidential election. First, and most importantly, I would like to express my condolences to those who lost loved ones Saturday morning in Tuscon and wishing a speedy recovery to Rep. Giffords and the rest of the injured.

I'd like to blog my process and growth as an informed citizen of the US.

2010-05-13T10:17:00.001-07:00

? ????? ???3H?~?C?i?NO???0 t ????? J???q?\&???9?]g?A?2 ?v???v $f????9?v?@I ????tP? ???l2H\ ??n ? ???t :?^?? :Z?????: DG?A?p? J???2~????

2010-05-13T09:56:00.001-07:00

Interesting thought / haikus as status updates / on cold rainy days

#7: Short but interesting topic

2008-10-18T23:06:00.000-07:00

Does anybody remember back early in the presidential campaigning when people were saying Barack Obama was "unpatriotic" because he was not wearing a United States Flag lapel pin? Some went so far as to say that his lack of jacket adornment would be a "vulnerability" for him this election.

okay, good...

Now, has anybody else noticed that in ALL THREE presidential debates, McCain's jacket is flag pin free? Has anybody bitched about that? Further more, by searching the interwebs, other Blogsters have pointed this out and yet the news networks have not. I just thought that it was long past due for someone to question the Republican candidate about the same thing that Obama was criticized for.

I could see if being some cocamamie "Johnny-Cash-only-wearing-black-till-all-the-MIA/POW-soldiers-are-home" crap.... ridiculous.

#6: Go Connecticut!

2008-10-10T18:34:00.000-07:00

So a big !!!HIGH-FIVE!!! to Connecticut's Supreme Court today for joining the group of decent states that support gay marriage. I'm totally surprised and thrilled by this! This comes at a great time for me personally because in my English class I'm doing my research projects on same-sex marriage. If you hadn't already gathered, I'm a big supporter.

Mainly because I am a big fan of a very simple principle: separation of church and state. I was meaning to write about this anyway, but this sort of spurred me to do it sooner rather than later.

Our country was originally settled by a group of people trying to escape religious persecution. Some of the main founding pillars of America was freedom, of speech, of religion etc. So I don't understand how this principle has degraded so much in the last two centuries. Yes, we are allowed to follow whatever religion we want, but some people make it very difficult to be of a faith differing from the status quo. I understand that the majority of Americans are of generally the same religion, over three fourths of Americans call themselves Christians of some denomination (ARIS, 2001). And that's fine, be Christian, but don't force your faith on me. Plain and simple, I know your God is out there and I know where to find him if I want to. Don't knock on my door, don't mail me a letter, and, no pun intended, for the love of god, don't work your religious doctrine into the laws of out country.

I understand very well that two hundred years ago, to base a government off of the religion of the general public was not an unreasonable thing. But it is now. You now have a nation full of people from every belief and background.

What I'm talking about, better yet, what I'm pleading for, is true, complete separation of church and state. *gasp!* What is she talking about, you might say. We have separation, don't we?

WRONG!
Part of the problem with having three fourths of a nation be of the same religious orientation is they only vote for leaders who share their views and who they feel will protect the views that they hold dear. Translation: If you're not Christian, your religion doesn't get counted in politics. Which would be fine, if Christianity held no sway with politics. But it does. teh suck.

My main goal with this rant is to pitch my personal opinion regarding how the whole separation should be handled. Why not have legal matters be solely legal matters. Why not have a Legal Marriage Institution and anyone who wants to get married can; hetero, homo, polygamous, whatever, as long as it's between consenting adults or minors with parental consent. AND THEN! You can take it up with your church to make your union valid in the eyes of your Deity. Legally get married, and then have the big traditional ceremony in your place of worship of choice.

I personally don't feel that sexual orientation should be no more relevant than skin color, gender, eye color, height etc. It's a way that you are that you can't help. And gays are being persecuted because of it. Do you shun your left handed friends? Do they pass laws saying marriage is a union between two right handed people? No, because it's silly.

And as far as the Christians who want to say that it's wrecking the sanctity of your straight marriage, grow up and quit bitching. You should be comfortable enough in your relationship to get over it. What do you do when you find out that your fellow clergy member is having an affair? Do you say that they are hurting the sanctity of your marriage? No, because what other people do is irrelevant to your personal relationships. Infidelity is a bigger deal than homosexuality. Notice Adultery is on the Big Ten List and being gay isn't?

That's because homosexuality wasn't frowned upon until the year 390. That's several centuries after Christianity was established. Why the delay? I'm gonna guess because some disgruntled Roman was getting any man-ass, but that's my highly uneducated guess.

All I'm trying to say is, let's really separate things so people can live their lives by their own set of beliefs.

Also- It rained a LOT today. By the time I was done with classes my jeans were soggy up to my knees. And it was only like fifty degrees so I froze. big time freezing.

#5: UIUC Conference

2008-10-06T09:01:00.000-07:00

WOOOHOO! :D

Had a super groovy time this weekend! A group of the ACM students went to the Reflections-Projections (omg!technologies!) conference in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. What this means is: a twelve hour car ride. How exciting.

Surprisingly enough, it was fairly fun. On the way to Illinois it was me, hubby, a South Korean transfer student, and a good friend of ours in the car. This resulted in some rather hilarious conversations.

Chris (the good friend) and Dustin (hubby) were having a very in depth conversation regarding theories of teleportation and time-travel. This would be fine, except for I was napping. I sleep like a baby in cars... half an hour in the car and I'm out. So I'm napping, they're debating, and clearly I wasn't really that deep asleep because I started dreaming about time-travel. Not just _about_ time travel, but I was dreaming that I was presenting this time-travel proposal to a bunch of suits. Then the conversation turned to quarks, itty bitty tiny little quarks. In my dream, somewhere in the translation of speech to visual image, quark turned into Root Beer Barrels. Ya know, the candy? Those tiny little hard candies? Yeah. So Chris and Hubby and Jueng (S.Korean kid) are talking about quarks and the flipping of the quarks, and in my Proposal Dream I see root beer barrels. I eventually wake up and I asked them what the hell they were talking about and they started recounting the conversation and it was more or less, excatly like my dream. It was exhausting.

And Jueng, who I believe said he's only been here about a month, was having some difficulty with some of our phrases and sayings. He's got this little computer machine and he can type in English words and it will tell him the South Korean words so he understands. The machine did not know what S.O.L. was. Have you ever tried to explain what s.o.l. means? It's tricky!

The hotel was rather ghetto. Liveable, but not comfortable in the least.

The speakers were really great! There was a guy from SpaceX there talking about commerical space travel, there was a research and development guy from Dreamworks Animation, there were some more technical (read: boring to me) guys, and there was a funny, brilliant British man talking about taking risks.

There was a quick jaunt over to the strip club. THAT was fun!!!!!!!!!

I had me first Mayan Hot Chocolate. (Yes, I realized that I did that in initial caps, much like an important name. Yes, it's that good.) I'm hooked for life. BEST BEVERAGE EVER

Then it was time to come home. We had two different guys in our car for the trip home. They were really nice, but rather geeky. They were back there with their PSPs totally flipping shit over their video games, they sounded like that were playing with action figures they were so rowdy about this game. Very funny.

Then we got home.

The End.

#4: Still no comments.... but plenty more rambling.

2008-09-24T10:09:00.000-07:00

Seriously, guys! How long does it take for my blog to get really popular?

Oh, that long? Really?

But I don't have any comments!

Oh, that's normal? ....huh

Well, I guess I just need to keep plugging along and trying to provoke a response from the whoever-you-ares who read/have read this.
But I really don't have a lot to say. So, I'll just ramble. That should fill up a post nicely.

Nihilism. I didn't realize there was a name for it. Being an atheist, and rather gloomy, I was somewhat naturally inclined to feel that way. However, dear Hubby and I had a rather in-depth discussion last night (and considering he's probably the only person who checks this, there's not a real need to post this). He says his purpose is to make peoples' lives better, to enjoy life as much as he can. I just can't quite wrap my head around that. But I'm going to try to focus on that and see if I can't achieve the same opinion.
Maybe some people need faith to feel purposeful. But I think I would rather have a gloomy outlook than to go back on my views of religion, which are rather harsh. I find myself in a degenerate path. I'm gloomy because I feel there's no purpose. I feel cynical because of the gloominess. Feeling cynical makes me feel more gloomy. Downward and onward, over and over. I get sad because I'm sad.
I really have nothing to be upset about. I have a great life. Really, I do! Not to sound pompous or boastful, but I have a great husband, a great apartment, a great job, a great (and I use the term great loosely here... ) car (hey, it drives!), great friends. There's no reason for me to feel cynical. And yet, I still find myself feeling bitter towards people. What a Debbie Downer!
On a lighter note! I had an exam in Sociology today and I feel that it went really well actually. Sociology is a very strange class. Basically, sociology so far has consisted of taking all the things that we know, common sense regarding people, and gives it fancy names. That makes it pretty easy to study and learn in that class.
My University Studies teacher is still grinding my gears. GIVE THE TIRADE ON MICROSOFT A REST, ALREADY! Sorry, I'm better. Seriously though! Several times a class period, "Stupid Microsoft!" "Damn Windows!" "Windows copied Apple and got it all wrong! They ruin everything!" It gets old. Really fast.
I applied for a different position at my job. I would really love the dollar an hour raise. That would be nice. It's a slightly more stressful position, I would be managing all of our projects and making sure they were being worked on by the appropriate people. THE POWER!
I think I've blathered on enough for one day. I need to pay attention in class.

bye.

#3: My Weekend

2008-09-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

I had a pretty groovy weekend.

Saturday was girls day. We meandered down Broadway and went into a bunch of neat little shops. I got a new purse. Very cute, it's got owls and lots of pockets. Then we went to a swanky italian place for dinner. I had expensive spaghetti with meatballs. Then I came home and hung out with Hubby and one of his pals and watched movies.

Sunday was pretty quiet. Had a strange moment when I woke up. I woke up at 5:32a, needing to relieve myself. I looked at the clock and was immediately confounded. Why the hell does the clock say that?! My brain then proceeded to think, "Oh! May 32nd! But May doesn't have thirty-two days. And it's September. Hmm..." The clock then changed to say 5:33 and THEN I realized, "Oh! it's five thirty in the morning. Cool.

Got Rock Band 2 about half an hour before I had to go to work, so I haven't had much chance to play. I did for a bit though after midnight when I get home from work. TOTALLY digging the songlist. Very pumped to get done with class today, shirk some homework, and BE A ROCKSTAR!!! *shifty eyes* I think I shouted out loud in class a bit.

Yes, I am that excited.

#2; Drinking Stats

2008-09-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

So yesterday in my University Studies class, we had a guest speaker. It was the campus's Associate Director of Student's Rights and Responsibilities. For an hour, she basically talked about underage drinking and the statistics of such on our campus. Firstly, it was very boring. I fell asleep a little. Secondly, I was relatively upset by some of her statistics. Not because they were surprising (86% of the campus students have consumed alcohol while only 67% are of legal age), but because some of those statistics were pretty bogus.

Apparently since 1975, and more importantly the enactment of the MLDA and the forcing of all states to comply, twenty thousand lives have been saved. That sounds pretty great, doesn't it? But how can you prove that? How can you say, twenty thousand people would have died if we hadn't done this? You can't. I was quite pleased with one of my fellow students, he asked the speaker how those statistics were gathered. She admitted that they can't attribute each of those twenty thousand lives to the MLDA. So I pause to ask myself, WHY THE HELL SHOW A STAT THAT YOU KNOW YOU CAN'T BACK UP?!

I personally support lowering the drinking age. The fact of the matter is, people are going to drink regardless. Rather than enforcing a throwback to the Prohibition, why can't we teach youth about alcohol and encourage them to drink intelligently rather than saying that abstinence is the only way. Same premise as sex education, teach them safe ways to partake in these normal activities. I think that we should make the age for everything 18. Drinking, driving, voting, everything. Encourage use of public transportation. I would be willing to wager that it's a LOT more common for people to drink underage than for people to drive without a license. If you don't have a license, you don't need a car. If you don't have a car, you can't drive drunk.

Let's take a look at the UK for a minute. It's a lot more difficult to obtain a license there. The punishments for abusing your license are much stiffer. So perhaps we should try that, how about? Instead of clogging the legal system with twenty year olds having a beer, encourage them to have A beer. Let law enforcement focus on serious offenses. Basically, let kids be kids and adults be adults. Hypocrisy is shown so clearly by the fact that we are adults at the age of 18, and yet we still don't have all of our rights. You're not an adult if you are still being restricted because of your age (unless you are thirty and trying to cry Senior Discount!).

I'm done with the rant. You are free to go.

#1: Introduction

2008-09-10T20:50:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!
This is my first attempt at a blog. I'm going to try really hard to update at least once a week. There's no set 'direction' for this blog yet, but I envision a journalesque approach with the occasional thought provoking rant. Please, leave comments. I think I will like comments.

Short Intro - I just turned twenty, college student working towards a Psychology major and Business minor, married to the greatest guy ever, work for a company doing document processing for lawyers. I'm easily entertained, a coffee junkie, and am currently pretty into Spore.

Quick story to start this party off right! So I'm in the mandatory University Studies class (yes, I am only a freshman) and my teacher has to teach us facebook awareness (don't put your personal info or drunk naked pictures on the internet). He proceeds to tell us that if we put our email addresses on facebook that the "guys sitting up in the IACC [computer science building on campus] until four o'clock in the morning write these computer programs that scan sites like facebook and steal your email addresses. Then they sell them to these big companies and that's why you get Viagra ads."

Yeah. I'm serious. What makes this all the better is, Hubby is a Computer Science major. I've yet to see the proceeds of these sales. *shakes head*

Another kernel of knowledge from him: "If it weren't for Bill Gates and Miscrosoft, we'd all be driving flying cars and wearing shiny space suits. If we didn't have to reboot so damn much, we'd be twenty years in the future! Get Macs!"

How am I supposed to take that seriously? really?

I am currently listening to Hubby's Pandora station which is delighting me ears with "More" by Junkie XL.