are often the best. I keep repeating this, but it’s true.
Today, I was walking home after work, and decided to stop by the Creamery. They have these little tiny 4 oz. cups of ice cream, which are just enough to make me happy with deliciousness, and not quite enough to make me vomit from all the milk. My little cup of fudge ripple and I then went up to the top of the East Parking Deck, where I haven’t been since my first week back to University Park in January. The sight of the mountains from up there still takes my breath away. You look in any direction, and you can see mountains surrounding all of State College from that parking deck. It’s beautiful. Being down below, walking around campus, or downtown, sometimes it’s hard to see what surrounds you. At the top of East Parking Deck, it’s usually empty. A beautiful, quiet place to sort through your thoughts and soak in the view.
about chocolate-covered ants and chocolate-covered cockroaches. The only thing is, they were still alive, and the person I was talking to was keeping some in a mini enclosure on their desk. Little plastic fences containing waddling little chocolate covered ants and cockroaches (waddling, because the chocolate prevented them from moving correctly). I don’t know how they were fed or anything, but there is an important thing to remember, here. Chocolate-covered ants and chocolate-covered cockroaches are mortal enemies. They can’t tell the difference when they’re all properly covered in chocolate, but if one of them gets a little too uncovered, a member of the opposite species will immediately fight them to the death.
Yeah, I don’t know what’s wrong with my mind either.
When I was little, St. Patrick’s Day (or the closest weekend to it) meant dressing up in green, and a car ride that seemed like it took forever (but was really only about an hour long). We met up with my dad’s side of the family at my cousin Scott, and his wife, Barb’s house. My dad’s side of the family has a decent portion of Irish in it, and they’re always looking for a good reason to drink beer and eat loads of food, anyway.
Scott was my favorite relative, even back then, and even if he hadn’t been, I would have loved going to their house. They had an arcade-style, full-size pinball machine in the basement, with a basket full of quarters next to it. I played it over and over again while all the grown-ups stayed upstairs and talked and prepared dinner.
Traditional St. Patrick’s day dinner included the usual finds: corned beef, cabbage (with plenty of red wine vinegar), mini red potatoes, rolls or corn bread, and lots of delicious desserts.
It was also traditional for everyone to compliment Scott on how he made the Corned Beef, because nobody in the family could imitate it properly.
After my dad’s mom died, my aunt and uncle started hosting St. Patrick’s Day, instead, though I don’t think I was ever told the reason. My aunt never made the corned beef quite the same way, and it was still common topic to bring up how Scott always made the best corned beef, at which point my aunt would tell him that he needed to make the corned beef the next year (though it never happened).
A few months ago, I wrote a post about Scott’s funeral. Today, apart from my family, I’m thinking about Scott and my childhood. A bit sad about not being able to make the traditional foods, I dug up a can of corned beef hash to make up for missing out on corned beef and potatoes, and I baked a cake then decorated it with green icing, to share with my roommates.
I can only imagine that someone at my aunt and uncle’s house, today, brought up the fact that my aunt still couldn’t make the corned beef as well as Scott could.
![insanitywithheld:
losferwords:
thegirlnextdior:
thedailywhat:
On Kony 2012: I honestly wanted to stay as far away as possible from KONY 2012, the latest fauxtivist fad sweeping the web (remember “change your Facebook profile pic to stop child abuse”?), but you clearly won’t stop sending me that damn video until I say something about it, so here goes:
Stop sending me that video.
The organization behind Kony 2012 — Invisible Children Inc. — is an extremely shady nonprofit that has been called ”misleading,” “naive,” and “dangerous” by a Yale political science professor, and has been accused by Foreign Affairs of “manipulat[ing] facts for strategic purposes.” They have also been criticized by the Better Business Bureau for refusing to provide information necessary to determine if IC meets the Bureau’s standards.
Additionally, IC has a low two-star rating in accountability from Charity Navigator because they won’t let their financials be independently audited. That’s not a good thing. In fact, it’s a very bad thing, and should make you immediately pause and reflect on where the money you’re sending them is going.
By IC’s own admission, only 31% of all the funds they receive go toward actually helping anyone [pdf]. The rest go to line the pockets of the three people in charge of the organization, to pay for their travel expenses (over $1 million in the last year alone) and to fund their filmmaking business (also over a million) — which is quite an effective way to make more money, as clearly illustrated by the fact that so many can’t seem to stop forwarding their well-engineered emotional blackmail to everyone they’ve ever known.
And as far as what they do with that money:
The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending.
Let’s not get our lines crossed: The Lord’s Resistance Army is bad news. And Joseph Kony is a very bad man, and needs to be stopped. But propping up Uganda’s decades-old dictatorship and its military arm, which has been accused by the UN of committing unspeakable atrocities and itself facilitated the recruitment of child soldiers, is not the way to go about it.
The United States is already plenty involved in helping rout Kony and his band of psycho sycophants. Kony is on the run, having been pushed out of Uganda, and it’s likely he will soon be caught, if he isn’t already dead. But killing Kony won’t fix anything, just as killing Osama bin Laden didn’t end terrorism. The LRA might collapse, but, as Foreign Affairs points out, it is “a relatively small player in all of this — as much a symptom as a cause of the endemic violence.”
Myopically placing the blame for all of central Africa’s woes on Kony — even as a starting point — will only imperil many more people than are already in danger.
Sending money to a nonprofit that wants to muck things up by dousing the flames with fuel is not helping. Want to help? Really want to help? Send your money to nonprofits that are putting more than 31% toward rebuilding the region’s medical and educational infrastructure, so that former child soldiers have something worth coming home to.
Here are just a few of those charities. They all have a sparkling four-star rating from Charity Navigator, and, more importantly, no interest in airdropping American troops armed to the teeth into the middle of a multi-nation tribal war to help one madman catch another.
The bottom line is, research your causes thoroughly. Don’t just forward a random video to a stranger because a mass murderer makes a five-year-old “sad.” Learn a little bit about the complexities of the region’s ongoing strife before advocating for direct military intervention.
There is no black and white in the world. And going about solving important problems like there is just serves to make all those equally troubling shades of gray invisible.
[kony2012.]
The only time I’ll post about this. Educate yourselves people. Don’t just blindly follow.
In case you couldn’t click the link I posted earlier read this. Nice to see ‘The Daily What’ make a post like this.
Do your research people.
Alrighty. So. While I’m in the process of being late, I’ll keep updating what I post.
Here’s some new information.
My view: Maybe the organization who put out the video isn’t the greatest place to throw your money. Yes, I’m terrible at doing research half the time, and if something gets to me enough, I’ll just repost it somewhere (or everywhere), and not dig into the possible negatives such a thing will create. But that, in itself, says something about the video. It’s getting the information out there. I’m willing to bet that 99% of the people reposting that video had never heard of Joseph Kony before (and I’m one of them), and the fact remains that it opened people’s eyes to something important. For those of us living in America, we’re not faced with things like this on a daily basis. Most of us don’t even pay attention to the issues that happen in our own country (poverty, homelessness, abuse, prostitution, trafficking, etc.), let alone the ones that occur in other countries. So, do your research (or look for a reblog of someone else who has done the research…). No matter how you do it, though, educate yourself. Learn what’s going on in the world. If that means you’re watching a sensational video put out by a charity with issues, so be it. Just learn what’s going on outside of your daily life.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0iyiw3Jv01qzpwi0o1_r1_1280.jpg)
On Kony 2012: I honestly wanted to stay as far away as possible from KONY 2012, the latest fauxtivist fad sweeping the web (remember “change your Facebook profile pic to stop child abuse”?), but you clearly won’t stop sending me that damn video until I say something about it, so here goes:
Stop sending me that video.
The organization behind Kony 2012 — Invisible Children Inc. — is an extremely shady nonprofit that has been called ”misleading,” “naive,” and “dangerous” by a Yale political science professor, and has been accused by Foreign Affairs of “manipulat[ing] facts for strategic purposes.” They have also been criticized by the Better Business Bureau for refusing to provide information necessary to determine if IC meets the Bureau’s standards.
Additionally, IC has a low two-star rating in accountability from Charity Navigator because they won’t let their financials be independently audited. That’s not a good thing. In fact, it’s a very bad thing, and should make you immediately pause and reflect on where the money you’re sending them is going.
By IC’s own admission, only 31% of all the funds they receive go toward actually helping anyone [pdf]. The rest go to line the pockets of the three people in charge of the organization, to pay for their travel expenses (over $1 million in the last year alone) and to fund their filmmaking business (also over a million) — which is quite an effective way to make more money, as clearly illustrated by the fact that so many can’t seem to stop forwarding their well-engineered emotional blackmail to everyone they’ve ever known.
And as far as what they do with that money:
The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending.
Let’s not get our lines crossed: The Lord’s Resistance Army is bad news. And Joseph Kony is a very bad man, and needs to be stopped. But propping up Uganda’s decades-old dictatorship and its military arm, which has been accused by the UN of committing unspeakable atrocities and itself facilitated the recruitment of child soldiers, is not the way to go about it.
The United States is already plenty involved in helping rout Kony and his band of psycho sycophants. Kony is on the run, having been pushed out of Uganda, and it’s likely he will soon be caught, if he isn’t already dead. But killing Kony won’t fix anything, just as killing Osama bin Laden didn’t end terrorism. The LRA might collapse, but, as Foreign Affairs points out, it is “a relatively small player in all of this — as much a symptom as a cause of the endemic violence.”
Myopically placing the blame for all of central Africa’s woes on Kony — even as a starting point — will only imperil many more people than are already in danger.
Sending money to a nonprofit that wants to muck things up by dousing the flames with fuel is not helping. Want to help? Really want to help? Send your money to nonprofits that are putting more than 31% toward rebuilding the region’s medical and educational infrastructure, so that former child soldiers have something worth coming home to.
Here are just a few of those charities. They all have a sparkling four-star rating from Charity Navigator, and, more importantly, no interest in airdropping American troops armed to the teeth into the middle of a multi-nation tribal war to help one madman catch another.
The bottom line is, research your causes thoroughly. Don’t just forward a random video to a stranger because a mass murderer makes a five-year-old “sad.” Learn a little bit about the complexities of the region’s ongoing strife before advocating for direct military intervention.
There is no black and white in the world. And going about solving important problems like there is just serves to make all those equally troubling shades of gray invisible.
[kony2012.]
The only time I’ll post about this. Educate yourselves people. Don’t just blindly follow.
In case you couldn’t click the link I posted earlier read this. Nice to see ‘The Daily What’ make a post like this.
Do your research people.
Alrighty. So. While I’m in the process of being late, I’ll keep updating what I post.
Here’s some new information.
My view: Maybe the organization who put out the video isn’t the greatest place to throw your money. Yes, I’m terrible at doing research half the time, and if something gets to me enough, I’ll just repost it somewhere (or everywhere), and not dig into the possible negatives such a thing will create. But that, in itself, says something about the video. It’s getting the information out there. I’m willing to bet that 99% of the people reposting that video had never heard of Joseph Kony before (and I’m one of them), and the fact remains that it opened people’s eyes to something important. For those of us living in America, we’re not faced with things like this on a daily basis. Most of us don’t even pay attention to the issues that happen in our own country (poverty, homelessness, abuse, prostitution, trafficking, etc.), let alone the ones that occur in other countries. So, do your research (or look for a reblog of someone else who has done the research…). No matter how you do it, though, educate yourself. Learn what’s going on in the world. If that means you’re watching a sensational video put out by a charity with issues, so be it. Just learn what’s going on outside of your daily life.
First, it was little things that grossed me out, but were acceptable in a way:
Then it progressed to a new level:
But this past week? Seriously?
I am terrified of what I will find next >.<
Today I decided I was going to start on the path to responsibility and grown-up-ness. I was in a shit mood yesterday, and I’ve been cranky and unfocused and upset about everything for 2 weeks.
And then, today, the sun came out.
Literally.
Figuratively.
Both.
It was a balmy 54 degrees out when I headed to class this morning, and my mood went through the roof. I spent the day in classes that I honestly enjoyed, and then went to get [delicious] pizza with one of my best friends, and we just sat and talked for an hour, after which I walked home (enjoying every second outside I could take) and called my mom. We talked for an hour, and it didn’t feel forced, I didn’t get annoyed or impatient, and it just continued my upbeat mood. And then I remembered that responsibility thing I was considering doing, and realized that I was already late to the meeting for my major, but decided to stop for coffee anyway. And then nostalgia kicked in and I made the choice to take time out for myself to enjoy the weather and the night, instead. Irresponsible? Perhaps. But for me, it was the best choice. I spent half an hour by the lights at Old Main, remembering my happiest moments up here, thinking about how close I am to being a senior, really taking a moment to think about this time in my life, and how young I am (yet so old), and just reflecting on things.
Not every day will go according to plan. Change generally sucks. And little things will continue to hurt me every day. But I have choices in all this. Sometimes the best days are the ones that deviate from the plan. As someone recently told me, it’s boring if nothing changes. And I have the choice to let things hurt me, to not forgive, to push people away, to hide. Or I can make the choice to push the past away when I can, to try to see past the hurt, to try to understand.
Some of the most important people in my life have been warning me and warning me against the forgiving path I’m on for one situation, but I’ve made my choice. For now, I want to be back where I was over a year ago. I want to be happy, I want to enjoy times with friends, I want to make new memories and continue to find myself at this point in my life.
And I choose to forgive. Not one, but both. Some days it will be harder than others, and some days I will need to take a step back to stop the hurt from being quite so painful. But when I can, I choose to take a chance at forgiving, and seeing how things go.
And if you have read this entire essay on my daily musings, thank you. I’m rather surprised you listened to me ramble for this long.
-M.
Everything went in my favor this morning. I woke up on time for once, discovered the joys of apartment life (the hot water doesn’t run out!), and got to the bus stop just as a bus was pulling up. I got the job I was applying for with no issues, and the lady who hired me was super nice. I’m also working M, W, F, 10-3, which is basically the exact schedule I was hoping for. Then I took a brief tour around campus to hit a few of my favorite spots from the past, and ended up running into someone completely random that I haven’t talked to since I was up here last fall. But he was surprised to see me back and hugged me and such. Now I’m enjoying lunch at my apartment before heading back up to the HUB to help out at the Involvement Fair (Yay PC!), and I’m sure to see some of my friends, there, too. :D
Basically super super great start to the year!
It’s throwback Thursday, right?
Well, welcome to my Throwback. I found this picture yesterday, and decided to scan it in and share it with you all. This was my senior prom (I’m the short girl, 3rd from the left, if you don’t know me). It’s funny, I can say how much I hated high school over and over again, but then I can look at this picture and remember so many positive changes in my life, when I met each of the other 3 people in this picture. The guy on the right has been my best friend for 4 years, now. I met him when he was a freshman, and I was a junior in high school. He’s still funny, ridiculous, and one of the best listeners I know. The girl next to me is Chelsea; she was my best friend for my last 2 years of high school, though we stopped talking by the time I was in my 2nd semester of college. We were both crazy and we started bonding when we met in the piccolo/flute section of marching band. The guy on the left lives in my neighborhood, though I’d never really talked to him until he joined band in high school. He was always wearing nice clothes—it was rare to see him wearing jeans and a tshirt—and he collected pens (no, seriously), but when he hung out with me and some of my other close friends, he was hilarious, and just as crazy as the rest of us. The day of prom, it was like the whole world wanted to make it special. The temperature was in the high 70’s (in April!), the sun was amazing, and my favorite tree (The Cherry Willow, we’re standing in front of) was in full bloom. Between getting ready, standing around/goofing around for pictures, and dancing/laughing our heads off at prom, all of these people made it be an amazing afternoon/evening.
It should also be noted that I’m wearing 5 inch heels in this picture.
Resolutions are basically glorified goals, and this year I’ve created 12 Resolutions (though I may add more if I think of them by the end of the month). I debated whether I’d share them with tumblr or not, but I’ve come to the conclusion that a) few people read my written posts anyway, and b) my resolutions might spur new ideas for those who do read my written posts. So without further ado:
