Stuff I enjoyed reading

Well, since my Livejournal account that I typically use for horrendously personal stuff (including fanfiction recommendations) is being a dick, I'm going to repost this list here for me to send the link to people I give at least half a damn about online that are not on my Livejournal.

Homestuck Fanfictions I Read And Liked:

Self-Commitment

Well, I'm now onto week 2 of my diet, 'cause I'm sick and tired of being fat. However, I have another ulterior motive to dieting, aside from the obvious "losing weight": I want to prove to myself that I have willpower. The willpower to do not what is easy, but what is right.

I say this because I want to go back to school again, maybe with a change in major, but I'm incredibly wary because I'm already $20k in debt and barely keeping my head above the proverbial water to pay for my lack of willpower.

What happened?

I was a smart kid all through school, and it made me lazy. I never studied but still got A's, wrote papers at the last minute, that kind of thing. I also just suffered my way through my depression and anxiety issues on my own.

But the stress of moving to a college dorm for the first time in my life simply magnified those issues. I was in a strange place with no friends or family, and having to get used to having to find my way around without a car. Going grocery shopping may not seem like a big deal...until you have to spend most of your day to do it. It was an hour, one-way, to go to Wal-Mart. Way different from "30 minutes if you hit every traffic light and get stuck behind a tractor on the road".

It was essentially a mental illness clusterfuck. Coupled with a program of study I thought I'd like but didn't really, I ended up wasting two years and $20,000. The main reason I went to this school is because they have a good Japanese language program, however, they didn't have a Bachelor's of Japanese, instead the closest they had was Asian Studies, which includes a bunch of history, religion, and whatnot. I absolutely love the language courses...not so much the rest.

So if I can stick to this diet thing and get into at least a "less-round" shape, I'll consider taking out yet more student loans and trying this again. Their Computer Information Systems degree looks interesting, and not too much programming, and I could always minor in Japanese.

The "Kodak Moment" Allure

So, I don't really know if any of you caught my undertones of it, but I consider myself "childfree". My viewpoint on the whole deal is kids are great, just not for me.

Now, though, I'm kind of starting to understand what it is that makes some people absolutely baby-crazy. I'm the oldest of three girls, and my just-slightly-younger-than-me sister had a baby back in March. Because she works and her husband is in the military (getting sent to Fort Hood after Thanksgiving), often my mother, other sister, and I help out with the babysitting. So in a sense, I'm almost a sort of part-time mom for my niece.

So although I've seen my niece in the throes of a screaming fit, I've never had to put up with the getting up at three in the morning for feeding. And honestly, it's an experience I'm glad to do without. I enjoy getting to help spoil her, and there's a certain satisfaction in getting her to sleep when she's been fighting it.

But I cannot imagine giving up my entire life for the 'joys of motherhood' because although there are joys, there's also plenty of tears, screaming, poo, and vomit. Some people accept this and harbor no illusions that everything will be perfect all the time. These are the mothers I respect. But some people want to have a baby as a fashion accessory, not understanding it's not as easy as some parents can make it look. There's a domineering pressure in the media that the only way for a woman's life to be complete is to have a baby. I wish that more people would just think before they have a baby. Let it be something you do when the time is right...if you even want to at all. I refuse to have a baby of my own because, at least at this point in my life, I would only resent him or her and that wouldn't be fair.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is....THINK. It won't kill you.

More Political-type Ramblings

So, some of you may be shocked to hear that I currently support Obamacare. Why? Because it's better than what I have -- namely, NOTHING. Is it possible that Obama could have come up with a better way to give more Americans healthcare? Maybe. Perhaps overhauling the Medicare/Medicaid systems and reducing fraud would have brought more money available to make the programs available to more people.

As it is, it's rather infuriating that my current only option is "Hope that if you have to call in, you're calling in dead, because you can't afford to be sick."

I live in northwest Georgia, where there are hundreds of laid-off folks looking for jobs, and nobody's hiring. I'm lucky to have a job I genuinely enjoy, despite the fact that the hours suck. My paycheck pays my student loans, with very little extra, so I go to donate plasma twice a week for an extra $60 per week. That pays my car insurance and gas, and I'm lucky enough to have parents who are willing to let me live at home rent-free.

So for me, the $40 to go to the local walk-in clinic if I get sick is way out of my price range. Thankfully my daily medications are all on the Cheap-Ass Generics list, but services aren't easy to get. I've had psychiatrist appointments re-re-rescheduled to where it was six months before I got to see the doctor again, but you can't complain too much when it's free. Planned Parenthood isn't exactly cheap either, but part of that is because they've had their government funding reduced and so they have to charge people more.

Anyway, this is heading into wall-'o-text, so I'm out for now.

Blogging and Working, oh my!

Well. Tonight I am posting from my place of employment. This isn't a usual thing, since I usually work early in the morning and wish I had a job with more hours. But, tonight is a night I Get More Hours, 'cause I'm covering a shift.

Still, where I am, jobs aren't easy to come by, especially jobs that you actually like, so though my scheduled hours are fail, it's still a number that is greater than zero and I don't go home wanting to kill myself every day. Hell, this job would be perfect if I had full-time hours, or at least closer to full-time.

Thanks a lot, Bush, for throwing the American people under the bus for eight years, and thanks to you Tea Party nutjobs that think that Obama should have somehow been able to magically get us out of this mess in only two, then pitch a fit when it turns out, hey, he's only human.

Anyway, that's as about as political as I'm gonna make things for now, unless you want to hear some more of my ranting about the idiots in office. That, and my mind has suddenly started to go places that are really quite disturbing.

Just plain crazy, or trying to make a social statement?

So, I've been sitting here looking at this photo, trying to figure it out. Was it some sort of silly matching Halloween party outfit idea? Or maybe even as early as whenever this picture was, these people were already trying to make a statement about how phones had impacted society. Perhaps the man's mask is calling attention to the 'facelessness' of telemarketers, versus old-fashioned door-to-door salesmen. The woman is a bit harder to come up with a similar idea for, though it could be something like a subtle prod at the view of women as secretaries, bound to answering phones rather than being in charge.

Of course, I could be totally wrong, and these could just be Lady Gaga's grandparents and fashion inspiration. What do you think?

Why you shouldn't give Grandma too much beer

Are you feeling wonderful during this trouble in paradise? Grandma sure is! She's always up for a good party. Remember, it's all fun and games until you run over someone when you're drunk!