Wednesday, July 30

My Mid-Life Crisis

Hey guys, look - it's me!
No, really! Allow me to explain.

Fun fact about me: I'm a sucker for online personality quizzes. Since I have no hope of ever understanding me on my own, it's only natural that I should resort to the omniscient Internet for assistance.

There's only one problem.

Those quizzes are grossly inaccurate.

Oh sure, I was pretty thrilled with the results of the "What's the Color of Your Aura?" one (pink) and the "What Kind of Guy Will You Fall For?" one (the gentleman - naturally).

But then I decided to take a risk. I did something so hugely unprecedented that...well, it was so unprecedented that there is no way for me to even describe the unprecedentedness of this unprecedented event.

There's been this one quiz popping up all over Facebook the last couple of days, taunting and teasing me, tempting and tantalizing. And I just couldn't resist.

"Can We Guess Who You Are in Only 20 Questions?"

Now I was pretty curious about this one. How specific was this thing going to get?

Would it know my name?

My age?

My favorite color?

My deepest, darkest secrets?

So I set out on a quest to figure out who I am.


The website asked me deep, personal questions like, "How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?" and "Do you prefer beef or chicken?" (Chicken, in case you were wondering)

I pressed on through question after question, determined to discover who I am. Sweat dripped from my brow, my head ached from the extreme mental strain, my hand cramped until I thought I could never let go of the computer mouse ever again, I almost gave up hope, and then...

It ended.

The quiz was over.

My quest to find myself was complete. I breathed a sigh of relief, wiped tears of joy from my cheek, and eagerly began to read:

Here is our best guess at who you are:
1. You are female.
2. You are currently in your mid 40's.
3. You are raising a beautiful family, you have a career you're quite pleased with.
4. You've recently started volunteering in your community. 
5. You are taller than average, you have gorgeous dark hair and beautiful brown eyes.


...

Sayeth what?

Either I'm having a mid-life crisis, or....or....this quiz is wrong. Very, VERY wrong!

(I double checked on my Facebook page, and I'm still an average height, blonde-haired, hazel-eyed teenager with no children or career who likes to sleep instead of volunteering.)

So guys, I think I learned a valuable lesson today: The Internet has no idea what it's talking about 80% of the time (because they at least got the female part right).

And neither do I.

Adieu.

Tuesday, July 29

This is Not a Judge-Free Zone

I know quite a few people. And like I mentioned in my previous post, they are all difficult to understand sometimes. 

And for someone like me who's been raised in an almost exclusively Christian environment, it's been pretty eye-opening over the last couple years to realize that not everybody believes the same things I do.

So I came to the conclusion that not agreeing about everything is not necessarily bad. Just because we have different standards about music, dress, relationships, entertainment, etc. doesn't mean that any one of us is any holier than the other.

But that was when I was still interacting only with other Christian young people. However, as my circles have expanded more, I've started getting to know teenagers who believe all kinds of different things. And since we're all young whippersnappers and most of us are pretty proud of ourselves for figuring out what we believe (Ha.), and since naturally everyone wants to know what we think (Ha.), we share our opinions. A lot.

So I've been exposed to all sorts of new things. People I barely know have spoken freely to me about their personal lives and how various occurrences have affected their beliefs. They've asked me what I think and they've told me I'm wrong. 

And one thing I've heard from every single young person I've had this sort of discussion with is this: "I'll respect your beliefs if you'll respect mine."

I respect you. I'm sure you're a very nice person with lots of cool hobbies who is super fun to be around. But frankly, I'm not going to respect your beliefs or your attitude about your beliefs.

See, we live in a society that exalts the individual. We've been participation awarded into the belief that there is no standard of excellence. As long as you're okay with yourself, everybody else should sit down and shut up. 

Wow.

I was spanked when I was younger (a lot). I was taught that I'm a sinner by nature. I was told that I was rebelling against my authority and being disrespectful.

This was news to me.

I was definitely pretty okay with myself while I was sassing back my parents and disobeying them.

But you know what? I could have been totally okay with all that and still be sent straight to hell for eternity. 

Regardless of the mediocrity our Godless culture force-feeds us, there is a standard of excellence.

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

I don't like being at odds with other people. I would be very much happy if everybody would just love each other and put others first and all those lovely things. But that's not very realistic, is it?

I know you don't want me to judge you for what you believe. But even if I don't, God will.

Demanding a judge-free, respectful attitude from others indicates that you feel like something is wrong with what you believe. Your conscience is bearing witness that any belief that is in disagreement with the Bible is wrong, and your attitude about what you think reflects that.

Everyone will face God someday to be judged, and I don't think that "Well, I was okay with myself" is going to mean much then.

If God is okay with you, then everybody else can sit down and shut up. That's the standard that we should hold ourselves to.

Which is why it's saddening to see that increasing numbers of my peers - even in my Christian social circles - are accepting what society tells them so unquestioningly.

Don't let anybody tell you what to think (except us) - be your own person!

NO.

I'm not my own person. 

And I'm okay with that.

Monday, July 28

*FREE COOKIES*

Guys.

I'm a bad blogger.


I know you already knew that, but I still feel the need to say it (every single post).

Do you ever just feel like you're super boring? That's a terrible feeling for me as a blogger because it creates the following dilemma:

I know I have an obligation to you, my loyal followers, to provide delightfully charming and witty tidbits to brighten your day (Ha.) but at the same time I feel so indebted to you because you guys actually like my writing (unlike my first semester college English teacher) that failing to meet your expectations (aforementioned delightfully charming and witty tidbits) would be simply unthinkable.

So the simple solution is that if you all would just stop reading and liking my blog, I would feel a lot less pressured and then I might actually post.

But in reality I love you guys too much and that would be heartbreaking. Although I can always count on the random readers who pop up in obscure countries bazillions of miles away from me to stroke my ego...

NEVERTHELESS

Here I am, I am here, HERE AM I!

*waits patiently for applause, cheers, and other assorted sounds of rejoicing to die down*

Anyways. As usual, I did stuff this summer and I have stuff yet to do this summer (Even though there is less than a month of summer technically left, I plan to stuff some more stuff in because stuff is naturally meant to be stuffed in. Why would it be called "stuff" if one was not meant to stuff stuff into stuff?)

And as always, when I do stuff, I learned stuff. So here's the stuff I learned this summer.

1. If you're tired enough, anywhere is a very good place to take a nap.
2. People are odd creatures, ranging from very lame to very cool, and sometimes going very quickly from one to the other. As soon as you think you understand one, they remind you that you very much don't. I personally find this irritating.
3. I am not a tolerant person.

By the way - I actually thought about blogging a lot while I was doing various non-blogging activities this summer, mostly about how I wasn't blogging and how I felt bad about not blogging. Just FYI. (Did you think about me at all?)

4. Detroit (like Nineveh) is not a very nice place.
5. How to spell Nineveh.
6. Piano teachers are very scary people.
7. Telling someone "no" will not be the end of the world. I have a really hard time with telling people no or talking back to them at all, but I learned more or less out of necessity that it is not impossible, even for someone like me who is afraid of confrontation (and people).
8. Urban Dictionary is not helpful when you want to know accurate information about anything except maybe the term "subtweet."
9. When your diet is suddenly switched to nothing but cafeteria food, Hot Pockets, and ice cream, there is one thing that will become vitally necessary. Once you discover the magic of this thing, you will never go back to your boring life beforehand because this thing will give your imagination the boost it needs to convince yourself that every plate of cafeteria food is your mom's cooking. Or maybe it just hides the cafeteria food so you can't see it... Either way, this thing is gravy.
10. Little things make a big difference. Something that may be little or no inconvenience to you could totally change someone's day.

For instance, if you're casually driving eighty-five miles an hour down I-65 and you throw a gummy bear out your car window just for fun, it may stick on the windshield of an eighteen-wheeler carrying a lifetime supply of Hot Pockets and cherry Coke, causing that eighteen-wheeler to careen out of control over a cliff, plummeting into my backyard and thusly making my day better by a factor of approximately sixty-two. (We won't think about the truck driver because who needs that kind of negativity in their life?)

Are you convinced?

I'm going to stop now because ten is a nice, even number.

Like...wow. Look how even that number is.

Just a heads-up for you guys, there's a good chance that my life is going to become suddenly interesting sometime in the hopefully near future, so I will either be blogging a lot or blogging less than my current rate (so whatever is less than never) depending on what kind of interesting it turns out to be.

Isn't life so fun? You never know what's going to happen. Every day is full of surprises.

I hope the vast majority of your surprises are pleasant and that the unpleasant ones are not more unpleasant than necessary.

If you're still reading at this point, here's a virtual cookie and a free self-esteem boost: You're awesome.