Murphy's Law.

It's true. (At least, it proves itself quite true in very short bursts, and then lies dormant for a while. Right now, it is not dormant in the slightest.)

I really don't have anything profound to say. I'm just waiting for my Digital Media homework to get off its digital rear end and upload.

The next two weeks were already going to be stressful. Good ol' Murphy. You really did it this time.

Are you pondering what I'm pondering?

Funny how when I most want to write, I have the least amount of time to do so. I should be studying for Euro or Calc now. But here I go anyway with a brief update.

--I really want to try my hand at poetry. AP Lit got me in that frame of mind. I'm not sure how this is going to work. I'm fairly certain that my writing style is best suited to essays. But I really don't think the essay will be a valid form of writing for much longer. (Oh wait. Blogs are just collections of essays. Darn it!) Anyway...there might be a sudden outburst of creativity up here when I have more time. Please, criticize to your heart's content. Whatever I write, I want it to be great, no matter how many drafts it takes to get there.

--I love Joey's "collection of quotes" post and am anxious to try my hand at it (I know, I'm not original). Again, that's rather time-consuming, or I'd have done it already.

--Here's a random philosophical musing for you.

Life does not get worse or better. We simply open our eyes and behold either the beauty or the flaws of the world and respond as our moods dictate.

Thoughts?

Jaded

I wonder how that word got its meaning. Jade is a pretty precious stone. It looks really cool (though I don't think Americans think that as much as the Chinese did). I have no idea how it became involved in a synonym for apathetic. But let's do what I always do and start with good ol' Webster (or his website).

"Jaded: adjective. made dull, apathetic, or cynical by experience or by surfeit"

We all are jaded in some way (at least, once we get past the age of five). We've realized that life has its downsides, and we can see some of them coming. By the time we're in high school, we can find them anywhere. We know the teacher's assigning homework just to keep us busy, not because they want us to learn anything (though AP teachers are less prone to this). We know our favorite reality shows are staged, our favorite athletes aren't the gods we make them, we know people will let us down. But sometimes we can swallow our rational, well-founded beliefs and just enjoy what's happening. American Idol can be entertaining, even if the winner is predetermined (jury's out on that one. If not, America, you have no taste in music--how did Adam Lambert NOT win?!). Tiger Woods likes having sex, Barry Bonds broke the rules, and every NBA star has at least one sex scandal to his name--does that diminish the fact that they dominate in their respective fields? Does that keep us from staying close to people?

Well, being jaded can't overcome one thing: high school anti-drug assemblies.

And for this most recent one, there's no excuse...for the presenter and the audience.

In my classmates' defense: that guy sounded idiotic. Apparently marijuana's defense mechanism is sending Mack trucks to run over Bambi, and your brains are immune to the effects of alcohol and cocaine once you hit 21 years of age.

In his defense: How said is it that people were laughing during his speech? Not necessarily those of us that found his logic hilariously bad (because it was, and I was laughing too), but that other people laughed and cheered at the prospect of legalized marijuana...and we were totally not surprised?

We surround ourselves with people ruining their lives in a million different ways. (Emily and Zac already covered two of them, so I'm focusing on this one.) And we don't care. We expect it. We look at people and lump them in the "stoner" category: glazed-over eyes, greasy hair, bad acne, short attention span...heck, I stereotype when I hear a certain kind of voice. We can spot a stoner a mile away. And we accept it. It's almost like an ethnicity--they're not bad, just different.

Only you can't die of being black or white or Asian or anything else. You can't change your ethnicity. There aren't interventions staged to change one's ethnicity (at least, I sincerely hope not). Drugs? Different story.

Okay, we can only do so much as high school students with no training in counseling. But at least we can show that we know that drugs are all around us, and we do not approve.

The words of anti-drug assemblies are falling on two different sets of deaf ears: those who are already committed to living drug-free, and those who are already addicted and won't be swayed by a few stupid Bambi references and neurological jargon.

Maybe some of the second group would be swayed if the first group gave a crap.

----------------
Now playing: The Classic Crime - Vagabonds

The obligatory 'time flies' post from a senior in high school.

I promise, this won't be as controversial as the last one. (By the way, I had another comment ready, but blogspot 'couldn't process my request,' which means it was too long, so it was promptly deleted. I spent ten minutes typing it. Bah.)

So, it's April now. I'm in drumline again, which means April feels like it's about three days long. At the end of this month I will be in a bus with at least 26 or so other musicians and a few staff members, on our way to Wildwood, where we will channel months of blood and sweat (not so much tears) into kicking arse and taking names as only a drumline can.

After that, it's AP Exam time. Three days of my life will be consumed by taking grueling tests, and all the other days will be used to study for said tests. And then it's June, and my time in high school is effectively done.

Holy crap.

All these years of my childhood trying to imagine what high school would be like...and now I'm almost done.

I'll have spent four years in marching band, 3 in some sort of jazz band, two in drumline, one on The Arrowhead.

Time well spent, indeed.

In the meantime, I'm really looking forward to Wildwood this year. We absolutely have the potential to do way better than Souderton's done in years. This show is freaking awesome. I remember how championships felt as a sophomore; the adrenaline was ridiculous. I can't imagine how much fun this is going to be.

Except then as soon as it's over, there's not a whole lot of high school left.

Don't worry about me, I'm rambling.

----------------
Now playing: Foo Fighters - Everlong

To every person who hates Christians for any reason,

On behalf of my fellow believers, I would like to apologize for everything we've done wrong for the past two thousand years. We have done a fantastic job of making Christians look and become bigoted, ignorant, hypocritical, stupid and condemning. No Christian can honestly claim innocence in this regard (including myself).

More specifically: I apologize for being so uptight about our beliefs regarding the origin of the world. These stem from the refusal of many to understand that God may have created the earth in a way that agrees with science (though His role in the whole business, I am not willing to refute). We have made evolution seem like the words of Satan himself. In all honesty no Christian can claim with certainty how God made the universe, we can only claim that He did, and here we are. Our attempts to vilify those who offer theories as to how are pointless. I know I specifically am guilty of this ignorance--forgive me. I also have no intention of attacking those who believe God did create the world in seven literal days with no evolution whatsoever--I merely hope that those people do not use their beliefs as a reason to hate those who disagree.

I apologize for our actions towards those whose lifestyles and values conflict with our own. I believe that homosexuality is wrong, do not get me wrong. But I think it is just as wrong to publicly damn them, and it is just as wrong to create a website called godhatesfags.com in the name of God. I apologize for those who practice other religions (or none at all) whom we have vilified and slaughtered. We have been judgmental, condemning and arrogant--none of these are attributes of the Lord and Savior we claim to serve. I apologize for the disunity within even our own church. I can't blame anyone who calls Christians hypocritical--we want everyone to come to Christ, yet we can't agree on how we're supposed to do that, and in some cases we killed each other over these decisions!

I apologize for our political failures. So many Christians have made the Republican Party an extension of God. We've rejected liberal ideas as ungodly. Let me set the record straight: God is not a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Socialist, Communist, or fascist. To live and believe that He has any political preference is foolishness. (Certainly there are Christians who honestly have more conservative political preferences. I find no fault there, I would merely like to acknowledge that those who think left-wing ideas are somehow sinful because they are left-wing are in the wrong.)

To make a long post short, my fellow Christians and I have tacked on so many superfluous things to the Gospel. What began as a message of hope and freedom has become one synonymous with ignorance. Christianity deserves every stereotype it has been given. So I would like to take the opportunity to try to bring it back to basics.

I believe God made the world and everything in it...somehow.

I believe God gave man the choice to serve Him or the self, and man chose the latter, bringing sin into the world. I believe that blood must be shed to pay for these sins.

I believe God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to live a perfect life and bear all the sins mankind had ever committed or will ever commit. I believe he died and rose again, defeating sin and death once and for all.

I believe that all it takes to enter heaven is to accept that the above is true. I also believe that I could never give this idea the explication it deserves.

I believe that true Christianity makes caring, charitable, kind, loving individuals. I do not believe that Christianity makes life perfect, but I do believe there's a certain peace in knowing a loving Father God is watching my back.

I do not believe that God will be standing outside the gates of heaven with a checklist, making sure all who enter are judgmental, ignorant and unloving, as the stereotypes have made Christians out to be.

Why am I writing this? Not because I'm the perfect Christian or because I have some delusion that I can undo our errors. I'm writing this to help non-Christians realize that the Christianity they rightfully hate is not Christianity at all.

I believe Christianity is both so much less and so much more than we have made it out to be.

--Mike.
(Yes, I know you know that I wrote this. But I started this like a letter, so I have to end it like one. Yes, I'm a dork.)
----------------
Now playing: Project 86 - The Sanctuary Hum
(How appropriate! http://www.allthelyrics.com/song/1052861/)

Politics again.

How many times can I handle my own family members saying that a national healthcare system will destroy our country before I go insane?

So America was founded on the blood, sweat and tears of the individual? False. The founders were a bunch of guys who didn't want to pay taxes and maybe some beliefs in individual rights that many had preached before them.

Hard work should bring success, yes. (Obviously chance plays a role, but let's not get into that.) But that doesn't mean the government should be denied the right to lend a helping hand.

Frankly, I'd rather see a government that actively helps those who need it (and maybe those who don't deserve it) than one that insides on siding with the greedy misers that I see spouting off about the evils of healthcare.

There are plenty of intelligent arguments against the healthcare bill. But there is nothing sinful about a government helping out its people. Want to disagree? Then let's go back in time and see how you like the Great Depression without FDR's help.

Yeah, I'm kinda ticked off right now.

----------------
Now playing: Styx - Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)

Sacrilege

Yesterday I went biking. The weather was just too good to pass it up.

I decided to break my normal routine of just doing laps around my neighborhood. I went straight out past the old high school and realized I wasn't far from my old church. So I biked around the parking lot for nostalgia's sake.

On my way home I saw three people; they could have been son, father and grandfather. The father was talking to the grandfather, and the kid was standing there. I couldn't discern his age--he could have been a very hefty thirteen-year-old or a slightly-bigger-than-normal fifteen-year old. He might have been playing basketball--there was one in his arms. But what I saw was a phone with a QWERTY keyboard. He was texting with both hands.

All around him spring was lighting up the sky, heralding winter's defeat. And I, the kid who spends the vast majority of his life indoors, was outside, engaging in an activity that I've loved for a good decade. (To be fair, I was listening to my iPod, and I would take occasional breaks to text Diana.)

There was something almost sacrilegious about this scene.

----------------
Now playing: Styx - The Grand Illusion