[[Sur]] Real Life

Walks of Life

2010-07-05T12:36:00.000-07:00

In the past week, I've seen more people than I think I have in my entire life.

I traveled to Kansas - the farthest West I've ever been - to see my sister by plane for the first time.

I've met many people in three airports as well as one very large new city, and I've recently adopted people watching as a sport. I even made a small list of things to look for:

- Find someone from a country you've never heard of

- Find someone who looks like your best friend

- Find someone who you want to know better

- Find somebody with more kids than the largest family you can name

- Find a boy who wants to be a man

- Find a man who wants to be a boy

- Find a stranger you would do anything for

- Find a person whose life you can make better

- Find somebody as scared as you are

- Find someone who has seen the world

- Find someone who wants to see it

- Find a biker in a library

- Find someone famous

- Find someone who should be famous

Thus far, I think I can say I've found them all. I just guess I wasn't looking hard enough.

Parties

2010-03-17T18:24:00.001-07:00

One thing can be said about America:

This is a party nation.

I'm not joking. Think about it. We host parties for EVERYTHING. From the announcement of a possible birth to a death and for every event in between, there has been a party thrown somewhere by someone. For that matter, Americans throw parties for Tupperware, sleeping, adult toys, or sometimes, nothing at all.

Keep in mind, our lovely nation is approximately 12.6 billion dollars in debt, not to mention constant budget cuts, poverty and a national unemployment rate of approximately 1o percent. Then we take into consideration the environmental destruction as well as the deterioration of landmarks that require restoration which requires funding of some sort that we don't have, can't afford, and probably won't be able to in this lifetime, and add that to the amount of money we don't have. What do we do about it? Throw a party!

Then you must consider parties throughout this lifetime:

Baby showers:

Quite honestly, this is one's first party. The fetus has been discovered inside its mother's womb, and this calls for celebration. Cake, food for an undetermined amount of women, presents, party favors, decorations, not to mention the basics: tablecloths, forks, plates, cups, etc. Gifts are expected to prepare the expecting mother for birth and her baby's childhood.

Holidays:

There has been a party sometime, somewhere for every holiday you can possibly think of in America. This includes the ones that no one actually cares about, despite them being marked on the calendar. This strongly resembles Rule 34, but in this case, if the holiday exists, there's a party for it. Period.

Holiday parties might consist of simply gathering a bunch of people to eat, drink, and give each other well wishes for the day, or they might be extravagant. Galas are not unheard of in the slightest for New Year's, Valentine's, and Christmas.

Birthdays:

Birthday parties, let's be honest, for a baby, are totally pointless. Face it, the kid doesn't care who shows up, if all of its baby friends come with the latest rattle, or if you drop $1,000+ on party favors that are more to please the other parents than the other children. This has become a highly common practice in places such as New York, where parents constantly try to outdo one another with gifts to send home.

A birthday party for a toddler is essential, but a ton of money shouldn't be spent on it, because after all, will they really remember it in ten years?

Between the ages of about 5 and 12, parties are completely acceptable. The kids will actually remember this party, but beware of stupid games... Enough said.

So then comes teenage years. Teen parties are fun, but usually cost a lot of money and in most ways are entirely pointless. They'll either be spent making out or doing things that kids probably shouldn't do... Truth or dare, for example, where my ex-boyfriend licked a window. If you take part in this, for God's sake, hide the camera!

Twenties on up, parties for birthdays are gonna be food-related. It's either gonna be a fancy restaurant, a bar-b-que, or going out clubbing. In rare cases, a movie or something equally entertaining might be thrown in.

For the most part, birthday parties revolve around food, and/or blowing a ton of money on random things/events.

Pointless :
Tupperware, Adult Toys, Make-up and other product parties fall under the "pointless" category. You're gonna show up, be shown a bunch of stuff you really don't need, be compelled to buy, then use it once and forget about it.

Also under "pointless" are the parties where everyone shows up to get trashed and then trash someone's place.

These parties are highly overrated. I mean, what are you going to take home? A hangover and possibly a STD or a poorly-thought out tattoo.

Today's generation believes that partying is part of life. Everything from raves to grand balls take place all over the country. While parties are fun, they usually involve large amounts of either food or money, usually a combination of the two.

Creativity

2010-03-14T17:58:00.000-07:00

Or lack thereof.

Recently I've noticed a significant lack of creativity... So much that plagiarism runs rampant and parents have taken to naming their children after fruits...

Alice in Wonderland, produced by Tim Burton this year, was a huge success. Not only because it contained a bunch of big name actors or the producer happens to be the new Spielberg, but because of the creativity shown both in Lewis Carroll's story, as well as Burton's visualization for the set, costumes, and props.

It takes viewers into a foreign world in our own backyard, where caterpillars can talk and the daisies can argue. It builds a kingdom of solid white, and shows a mad man who really isn't that mad at all. It reminds viewers of the things they once believed in as a child. Ask yourself: Do I still believe in this?

What happened to our creativity? Where did it get lost? When did it become a rare thing to meet a creative person?

At some point in time, Creativity was crushed by the oppressive forces in the education system. We are told to stop dreaming and start working, almost constantly. Dreams have become laughable, and not in a good way. Dreams are officially labeled "Impossible." and stamped with a bright red ink stating "DENIED." Creative approaches are considered "too liberal" and the creator is mocked and humiliated.

Creativity has been so crushed that now students shudder at the words "creative assignment." Rarely is the assignment done, much less is it original. For the most part, it's a PowerPoint presentation or a three minute lecture, then it's forgotten for the rest of the year.

Creativity is frowned upon. Do not veer from the recipe, it will either a) taste bad, b) create a mess, c) be too obscure for people to convince themselves to try it, on the off chance they might enjoy it, or d) all of the above.

When we're young, we're discouraged from coloring outside the lines. It doesn't look good, and all appearances must be in order, so that if anybody sees it, it will be dull, boring, and completely unremarkable. The same goes for coloring a dog pink, or drawing people with exceptionally colorful skin. All must be totally realistic.

Few consider that sometimes, the tired mind needs an escape from the realistic. Sometimes, the completely awake mind in a state of pure sobriety must escape from the tenebrous reality known as life.

Renew the arts. Start a modern renaissance. Encourage imagination. Encourage unreality.

Be weird. Be different. Be creative.

Valentine's Day, an interrupting post.

2010-02-13T20:11:00.001-08:00

Sorry I haven't been around and up to date, but things have been a bit hectic.

Anyways... Onto the post:

SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY:

So for starters: Who the heck is this guy?

To be honest, no one actually knows whether he's a martyr, a priest, a bishop, or for that matter, a group of people or if this person/these people actually existed. Supposedly he was buried on the Via Flaminia, for what it's worth.

Secondly: Why's his day associated with a bunch of hearts and pink and fluffy, mushy, gushy crap?

There are actually a few different takes on this. There's a version where an emperor banned marriages in hopes of expanding his army, but Valentine opposed it, so he married couples in secret. This got him thrown in jail. There's also a version that he healed his jailer's blind daughter and fell in love with her, so before his execution, he wrote her a love letter and signed it "From your Valentine"

Then there are these disputes of how the estimated time period (ca. 629) means that this would have been focused on sacrifice, not love, yada yada yada, blah blah blah.

The easiest way to sum this up: It has as much to do with it as bunnies and eggs have to do with Easter or trees with bulbs have with Christmas: NOTHING.

Welcome to Hallmark Holidays, everyone.

So what's the point?

Businesses making profit off of your chocolate, flower and plushie shopping binges. Restaurants benefiting from that date you know you have to take them out on. The greeting card industry getting rich off of all those frilly pink pieces of paper that you could actually make yourself for half price.

Scary Statistics for one day of the year:

15% of women in the USA send themselves flowers

73% of flowers are purchased by men

1,000,000 cards are exchanged, making it the second largest card-sending event

3% of pet owners will actually give their pets presents

110,000,000 roses will be sold and delivered, mostly imported red roses from South America

Back in the Swing of Things

2010-01-06T17:24:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Now that everything is back on track, I'm pulling this blog up to the front again, and I'm ready to start pouring my thoughts into words... "Parties" will be moved to a weekend because I've quite a bit to write where that's concerned. Here's a tentative itinerary for the next month, though.

1. Printers

2. Politics

3. Hospitals

4. Letters

I'm somewhat low on inspiration, so if you've got something you'd like for me to ramble about, message me!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

2009-12-25T16:51:00.000-08:00

It's time to spend time with the family and close friends, so I'm going to push back updates until the new year.

Hope you have a great one.

All my love, The Authoress

Coffee Cups

2009-12-21T18:11:00.000-08:00

It doesn't matter whether they're filled with coffee, tea, ice cream, soup or hot cocoa, coffee mugs are common in every American household.

I originally wrote "kitchen" instead of household, but lately I've noticed that mugs seem to be everywhere EXCEPT the kitchen in my house.

Upstairs, there's a strict "no food or drink" policy. It's ignored in the case of coffee. The same rule applies to the living room, as well as the exception.

It doesn't seem to matter how immaculate my house is, there's always a stray coffee cup.

Coffee cups are available in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Stylized with patterns, designs, pictures, slogans and witty remarks, they make great personalized gifts.

Textbooks

2009-12-21T17:52:00.000-08:00

Ever notice how textbooks have a way of hiding themselves?

It doesn't matter who you are, at some point in your life, you have misplaced your textbook at least once. In my case, I've done it more times than I can count.

The subject that hates me is the one that I'm actually good at: Math. Ever since I went back to public school, Math has hated me.

Four years ago, I was in Pre-Algebra. That textbook would vanish and reappear at random. I once had it in the living room, only to find it in the car the next morning. This pattern continued that year.

Then the next year, I was in Algebra. About halfway through the second quarter, my book vanished. We hunted everywhere for it. At the end of the year, about a week before school ended, my bus driver randomly asked me if the textbook that had been under her seat for five months belonged to me... My jaw dropped.

Last year, I took Geometry... which was possibly the worst class I've ever had. Two weeks into the school year, my book went bye-bye. It turned up a few days later with the corner eaten off of it, courtesy of my sister's dog.

This year, my Algebra book vanished. I freaked out because I needed it for an assignment and spent a week searching for it.

The other day, I was picking up music around my piano, when I happened to look up while on the floor. There sat my book, right where I had put it for safe keeping.

Textbooks are just a pain, I've noticed. No matter where they're put, they have a way of vanishing for a few moments, then they turn out to be hiding in plain sight.

Moral of the story?
Textbooks just don't like me, especially those of the math variety.

Calculators

2009-12-20T12:50:00.001-08:00

Calculators were made to make life easier, yet lately it seems that they make it increasingly difficult.

Near the beginning of the year, my TI-83 vanished completely, about two days after my best friend lost his TI-84. Graphing calculators are not cheap, so both of us freaked and vowed not to tell our parents. I found an old but effective, scientific calculator while he borrowed his girlfriend's old calculator that just so happened to be a TI-84 like his missing one.

This is the third calculator that was of no use to me. My first one, the one that's in the visual with the poker chips, quit working. Don't ask me why, I don't know. It just stopped in the middle of the school year, leaving my sister to gift me with her TI-83 from college statistics. At the end of that school year (two years ago), my shiny TI-83 vanished amidst a bunch of boxes. This brought me to a very practical scientific calculator that was only about $15, but ridiculously helpful. I used this calculator straight through last year and started off this year with it. Somewhere between now and then, my TI-83 arose back to the surface, so I switched back to using it.

Then came along the week of Vanishing. I went back to using the old calculator. It worked, but we needed the graphing function for my math class. My mom finally caved and was a paycheck away from buying me a new calculator when I found mine again.

In the meantime, I had to take the PSAT, and for some reason, the room I was in couldn't use anything more than a standard calculator, even though the test book said we could use our own, and I had borrowed a graphing calculator from a friend who wasn't testing.

The calculators, meant to make my life easier, just made it more difficult.

I ended up doing most of the PSAT math in my head, using the calculator only for finding oddball things such as square roots and exponents. It was the biggest waste of my time to even have the calculator.

Moral of the story?
Just do the math in your head if you can help it.

Simple English

2009-12-20T08:35:00.000-08:00

Lately I've noticed a disturbing amount of adults and high-school students who FAIL at basic English skills.

A few days ago, we received the school's newspaper, and our entire school learned that our editor didn't edit anything at all. There were grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization errors abound, and a frightening amount of usage issues. This is a high school newsprint. I could understand if it were, say, an elementary school paper or something like that. I might even be able to forgive a middle school making mistakes of that degree, but this was ridiculous.

The thing that screws with me the most? They're/Their/There.

They're taking their kids there.

I don't know how many times I've had to explain this particular fallacy.

They're: A contraction of the words "they are" meaning that a group of people or objects are in a state of being. If you can't use this particular one properly, just say "They are..."

Their: A possessive showing that a group of people or objects own or have something. If all else fails, say that something belongs to them, if you can't use this one the right way.

There: A place, this usually acts a pronoun so instead of saying something was at a specific location, (e.g. The party was held at Rei's house.") If you cannot use this one properly, (e.g. The party was held there.") just say where the party was actually held.

That irks me more than you could ever know.

Another thing that kills me is when someone misspells something they've typed. For goodness sake, the computer has spell-check. If you use Google Chrome, it automatically checks your spelling as you type. There isn't an excuse for poor spelling in written print, and there's definitely not one for mistakes in type. I can understand screwing up a ridiculously long word, or even words that completely ignore phonetics, but things like "shrewd", "friend", "maybe" or "definitely" just make you seem dumb.

The worst possible crime, in my humble opinion, is when people use chat speak in everyday writing or speaking. This means the people, like many of my classmates, who say "L-O-L" instead of just laughing, or "R-O-T-F-L" when it's obvious they're not even laughing to begin with, or "G-2-G" when they're leaving. "Got to go" has the SAME amount of syllables as saying "G(ee)-two-G(ee)", for those of you who say it. It doesn't make you sound cool and it definitely doesn't make you sound smart; however, if you're aiming for sounding like a preppy bimbo, you've hit the mark on the nose.

I'll forgive the punctuation issues (those can get rather tricky), and even some of the grammar issues, such as "good" instead of "well" or "bad" instead of "poor" and situations with odd comparative and superlative adjectives (do I say "more green" or "greener?") but there isn't an excuse for some of the most common mistakes in the English language.

In the case of the editor, I just don't think she read over it, maybe she was in some sort of rush, because she would have phrases with odd spacing between words (e.g. "al lthe" instead of "all the") or she would only capitalize part of a name (e.g. "john Henderson" instead of "John Henderson"), so I'd like to think she knew better, just didn't pay attention. I'm not entirely unreasonable, I understand being swamped, but she should have slowed down some because it made the school paper a huge joke.

The moral of this story? Slow down and think: you have tools, use them.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-19T21:37:00.001-08:00

So the other day we were driving through town when I realized they had changed the Christmas light display from "Merry Christmas" to "Season's Greetings." I understand a need to be politically correct and such, but the point is lost when less than fifty feet away stands a 3-story Christmas tree. (Which, by the way, I found this on the day of the town's Christmas parade.)

It is very silly how we try to appease everyone. In a nation where it's freedom of religion AND freedom of speech, it's rare to find a greeting that doesn't offend someone. People are so petty as of late. "Happy Holidays" isn't even safe anymore. There are people that don't celebrate any holiday in December. For example, someone from China. They don't really have any holidays at the end of the year. Same thing with Hindus. It's impossible not to tick anyone off.

Ten or fifteen years ago, it didn't matter what religion you were, you said "Merry Christmas" if that's what you celebrated, and if you didn't like it, you either ignored it or you responded with "Happy Kwanzaa/Hanukkah/Yule/Solstice/etc." Whatever made your boat float, that's what you said. There wasn't any of this "Happy Holidays" crap. In a town where the vast majority is Christian or at least celebrates Christmas, you might as well say "Merry Christmas", especially if you're going to throw a Christmas parade that shuts down the city for a good three hours, at least. Unless you plan on throwing a Kwanzaa or a Hanukkah parade, it's pointless, we know where you stand, Small Town, USA.

The moral of the story:

If you have a problem with something someone says, you don't have to listen to them, or instead of whining about it so that people have to be politically correct, insert your views. Let's save the BS for the politicians.

So, from my viewpoint, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone. Hope it's a great one.

Clothespins

2009-12-19T12:31:00.000-08:00

MISSION: Find clothespins to secure tablecloth.

The other day, my mother and I were trying to arrange our kitchen for a Christmas party. She had placed a plastic table cloth that was red and decorated with candy canes onto our 50s diner-style, oblong table.
It didn't fit well at all.
It kept sliding off onto the floor, dragging the table decorations with it, and it would wrinkle in the oddest manner. Finally we'd had enough. My mother decided we were going to find a way to hold it in place. I jokingly mentioned duct tape.
She decided that she could use clothespins and curling ribbon to tie the tablecloth into place.

CLOTHESPIN COUNT: 0, n remaining.

This resulted in a fifteen minute hunt for clothespins.
She found three in the laundry room. She wanted four.

CLOTHESPIN COUNT: 3, 1 remaining.

I perused my house and found one lone pin in my closet.

CLOTHESPIN COUNT: 4, MISSION COMPLETE?

During the three-minute excursion, she had decided she needed at least two more, but four would be better.

CLOTHESPIN COUNT: 4, >2 remaining

I frantically search my house, as we had much else to we had to do. I can't find any at all, but reach for the scissors, only to find three clothespins behind them.

CLOTHESPIN COUNT: 7, MISSION COMPLETE?

We need one more, it is soon decided. I sit clueless, lost to any possible locations.

CLOTHESPIN COUNT: 7, 1 remaining.

My mother walks into her bedroom and pulls a handful of clothespins out of her dresser. They had been there the entire time. It was disheartening.

CLOTHESPIN COUNT: 8, 0 remaining, infinite resource, MISSION COMPLETE.

So we tie down the table cloth. It hands awkwardly around the table, so, frustrated, my mother and I decide it's not going to work. After I had crawled through and around beneath the table with ribbon and clothespins, my effort was wasted.

However, I have a solution to our new dilemma (or is it our old one?) I had mentioned duct tape earlier in a sarcastic moment; now, this would be our savior.

I crawled beneath the table one final time, and when I finished, no edge was left loose. No one can tell it's been taped in place.

The moral of this story? Why use clothespins when you can use duct tape?

On Real Life

2009-12-19T12:27:00.000-08:00

I'm making this about real life.

Real things, not petty teenage drama.

I'm avoiding love-sick crooning or sentimental memorandums, this journal is simply of things that are real.

My disclaimer: I'm not trying to offend anyone, I'm just making my views known. Nothing I say is absolute, there is an exception to every rule. If you see something differently, by all means, let me know, I love second (or third or fourth or fifth or seventy-fifth) opinions. Add a comment, tell me what you really think.

Real situations, real people, real issues.

A brief overview of some of the things I'm going to cover:

1. Clothespins
2. Merry Christmas
3. Simple Grammar
4. Calculators
5. Textbooks
6. Coffee cups
7. Parties

So let's move to my first post: Clothespins.

Note: This blog is named [[Sur]] Real Life for a variety of reasons.

1. Real Life was my original name for this blog, but it was already taken.

2. Surreal is my screen name for a variety of things.

3. "Sur" is the French word for "On"

4. Some of these topics seem a little unbelievable but are entirely real.