Now Here I Am...

Now here I am, the sum of my experiences, my beliefs and convictions, my hopes for the future.
Where was I years ago?

10 years ago...
I was 12, grade 8. I was angry, those who knew me can attest to that.

5 years ago...
I was 17, grade 12. I knew who I was; I had the answers to all the world's problems. I was immature.

Today...
I am almost 22, 5th year of university. I know more...

xoxo
-girl behind the curtain

Up to Date

Wow, life seems to go by fast when you actually get some time to just sit and think about it.

Where am I right now?

Well, I was just looking for a piece of paper with some data on it but I can't seem to find it. My room is a total mess. I have time to clean it, I just rather wouldn't. I feel like I'm in the need for more posters or artwork or something to decorate my room. It feels very sterile and impersonal. Maybe that's why I can't sleep. The zombies don't help either.

I dye grass...

So I'm in school, at U of T. My thoughts on Toronto? Hm. I love that its always busy; there's always someone out on the street. There's lots of new things to look at, somethings that I never thought I'd see anywhere but the internet. But apparently the internet has laid its bestial hands on Toronto. There's street art, public chess boards, giant statues, pubs. That is the third time the street cleaner has passed my window tonight. Toronto, for all its artsy and busy-ness, is actually quite predictable. Every night at 1015-10:30 the street cleaner comes by my window. Somewhere between 11:00 and 11:30 sirens pass. Then at around 12:45 a street racer zooms by. It would be a strange night when I don't hear those things. The windows and walls are not very capable of keeping noises outside. I never really feel silent. Restlessness of the soul, the ears, the body. I don't think I'd be able to live in Toronto. I need to take a breather every once in a while.

By the way, I'm the queen of digressions tonight.

The bags under my eyes are getting too heavy to carry but I'm not tired. I feel that I could stay up all week and still not feel tired.

Classes are okay. I feel like I'm in elementary school again. Never have I had teachers in high school or university that treated the students like little kids. I'm filling out charts and reading little anecdotes, getting off my butt and having digressive conversations. Better than aggressive conversations I guess.

I've become more confrontational with people. I can see why I used to not be keen on people. It's not necessarily there fault either. I believe I'm just argumentative by nature. My knee jerk reaction to most things is to disagree and that comes to people as well. I think I'm also a bit of a control freak.

I haven't exactly felt physically well since I've been at school again. Is it the Toronto air? Is it the thought of the impending future? Or is it the flu?

My fingers want to type more self-centered sentences. I'll hopefully be more coherent in the morning.

G'night!

-c.s.

Some Thoughts From Our Dear Friend Kurt Vonnegut

"Oh, I have what a lot of people would call communistic thoughts", said Eliot artlessly, "but for heaven's sakes, Father, nobody can work with the poor and not fall over Karl Marx from time to time--or just fall over the Bible as far as that goes. I think it's terrible the way people don't share things in this country. I think it's a heartless government that will let one baby be born owning a big piece of country, the way I was born, and let another baby be born without owning anything. The least a government could do, it seems to me, is to divide things up fairly among the babies. Life is hard enough, without people having to worry themselves sick about money, too. There's plenty for everybody in this country, if we'll only share more".

"And just what do you think that would do to incentive?"

"You mean fright about not getting enough to eat, about not being able to pay the doctor, about not being able to give your family nice clothes, a safe, cheerful, comfortable place to live, a decent education, and a few good times?"

-From God Bless You Mr Rosewater

This book is about a man who decides to love people unconditionally (unless of course they call him on the fire dept line). It is about the people who believe he is insane for this love. It is a very interesting treatise on American society and what the alternatives are.

-C.S.

The Catholic Church and Artificial Insemination

In between classes, I decided to grab a bite to eat and flip through one of my many textbooks. I decided to pick up a book called Twelve Tough Issues. It's by an Archbishop and discusses the Catholic policy on, you guessed it, 12 tough issues. Abortion, divorce, homosexuality, women, celibacy, all the things that you would expect to find in a book on religion and controversial issues are covered. But then I saw something interesting: a chapter on artificial conception. My first reasoning for this chapter being present before even reading it was that it was going to take about cloning. So I open to page 13 and read: "The insemination of a woman with the sperm of a man other than her husband is tantamount to adultery, even if both she and her husband consent to the procedure". He goes on to justify his moral objection: "To permit or procure anything else reduces the marriage partners to the status of consumers and the offspring to the level of a product". Even now I am trying to fight back the tears of anger. How Dare He!, my insides scream. With no Biblical backing he commits a hypocritical crime, reducing children of the world to commodities. I looked up the Catechism that backed this and found that reproducing via artificial insemination is found morally abject because it takes away the meaning of sex. Well I have a few things to say in my defense.

First of all, nothing in the Bible (to my knowledge) supports this outrageous statement. I know my Bible pretty well and unless there is some obscure reference to an Old Testament passage about artificial insemination then I don't believe there is anything. In fact, when I rack through my mind about relevant Bible passages, I can think only of ones that would support artificial insemination. I quote from the Message because it is in plain English but I have checked it against the NIV. Jesus says to his disciples: "Marriage isn't for everyone. Some from birth seemingly never give marriage a thought." (Matthew 19:11). As some of you may or may not know, I identify as asexual. I do not desire marriage; it's not in my life plans. Jesus seems to have hit the nail right on, some people want to marry, some people don't. Is it a coincidence that just 3 passages later Jesus says: "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these" (Matthew 19:14). Isn't considering artificial insemination hindering the children? People often cite this passage in the fight against abortion, so why can't the same beside in the fight to have children via artificial insemination?

Not only does this ideology of the church upset me religiously and personally but I can't believe they would reduce children to products. The feeling that I get from reading the chapter and the Catechism is that the church does not look favourably upon children born in this method, as if there was something wrong or inferior about these children. I don't see how any religion could shun the people that Jesus told us we must be like in order to enter the gates of heaven. The dignity of the human being and human life is shattered in artificial insemination according the church and Pope John Paul I's Donum Vitae. However, I believe the dignity of the human being is shattered, not by artificial insemination, but by such untutored, unfair, and unfounded statements. The article mentioned, Donum Vitae, was written only after the pope JPI met Louise Brown, the first baby born by in vitro. I see that as a personal attack not only on Louise, who was then just an infant, but on all subsequent children who were brought into this world, into the heart of Jesus, into the heaven of God through artificial insemination.

-C.S.

CHANGE

Obama says we need change. I think its time we listened. People are still cracking jokes at Bush and I think the time has come to stop.

I'm not going to deny the power of humour. But there is an essential difference between cracking a joke to get a laugh and cracking a joke to raise a point. It is too late in the career of George W. Bush to laugh at his mistakes. What he has done is no laughing matter! He has taken human lifes; he has made a mockery of Christ; he has ravished the world for his own gain and all we can do is laugh.

What do you think allowed him to stay in power as long as he did? Your psuedo-political views; you hoping on the bandwagon of "let's make a laughing stock of Bush"; when it all boils down to it--your apathy is to blame. I am sick of people who don't have opinions; who don't believe that politics affect them. I want you to stop for just one second. Stop laughing, stop partying, stop! Look around you. Everyday people are dying of starvation, of easily curable diseases, from bombs being dropped on their houses, from stepping on land-mines. People are being born into starvation, poverty, refugee situations. How can you just sit around while this is happening and say that you don't have an opinion!?

How many of you are in university? How many of you consider yourself intelligent? How many of you are aware of what is happening outside of your front door? How many of you care?

I read all this junk in your profiles about how "you should be the change you wish to see in the world" or about how you really care about world issues. But these are just words. Do you really believe it? If you really want to make a difference you can't just sit on your butt and laugh at (or make) jokes about serious issues. Ask yourself why the joke was made. Was it made just to get a momentary giggle? to fodder some lame comedian's gig? or was it made to inspire you? to show you that something is wrong?

Please get off your butt and do something. Educate yourself. Stop and talk to the people passing out flyers. Use Google for God's sake.

The world is at your finger tips and the sole purpose of the internet is not just to entertain you but to inform you!!

Get with it!

-C.S.