Shouldn't Imaginary Lives Rock?

We all have an imagination of some strength, weak or strong. Most of us have at one time or another come up with some fantasy about how we would like our lives to be. The general idea is that a fictional life would be sweet, with no problems in it.

Seldom is this the case, however, in fiction for entertainment. Generally the hero's life stinks. Compiled from my memories are some of the worst lives led by fictional characters. Starting with the least horrible, ending with the absolute worst, here they are.

Coming in at 3rd place is none other than Tidus, the main character from Final Fantasy X. Now, overall one would think that his life is pretty sweet. He's the star athlete for a sports team, had a famous father, and lives on a pretty kickin' boat. From then on his life takes a turn for the worst. He's playing a good competitive game, and a giant sea-monster attacks his town, utterly destroying it and casting him into the "future." After various shenanigans involving nearly freezing, being attacked by monsters, and dealing with various nationalities, he finds out that he really likes Yuna, the main female character. Shortly after this great discovery, he makes another one that cements his spot on this list. Tidus finds out that the giant sea-monster that destroyed his home was none other than his famous father. In short order after that he finds out that neither he nor his father really existed in the first place, and even now only exist on a technicality. And then when Yuna realizes she loves him too, he fades from existence (simultaneously destroying a world religion). Yes, Tidus life kinda sucks.

Coming in at a solid Number 2, Rand al'Thor from the Wheel of Time series. He leads an idyllic life in a small community, he has his friends, he has his work, he even has a potential wife. All this comes crashing to a halt when a mystic visits his town, and he leaves with her in hopes of sparing his town the horrors of... whatever. He's kinda unclear about just what might happen. To make a long (very, very, very long) story short, he finds out that he has magic powers also, and that these powers will drive him mad before long. The knowledge of this leads him to a great deal of stress, and he also finds out that he has the much-vaunted task of saving the world from the Dark One. Usually this honor is liked, as it will lead to a great deal of fame and women (of which he already has 3, all knock-out gorgeous). In this case it means that Rand will have to die to save the world. Not quite what he had planned. Yes, Rand's life also sucks.

Winning the contest at a bleak Numer 1, Brom, the old man from Eragon. This man's story is simple, and also equates approximately to the author saying, "I need this character, but I really wish I didn't, so I'm going to make his life stink like a pig on a humid day." Thus Brom ends up with the destiny that runs as such--he will ultimately fail at everything he tries, except for one thing. Lucky for the world, that success didn't come at making the high school football team, but instead at ridding the world of a public menace. But seriously? Failing at everything he attempts except for one thing? What a bum rap...

Because This Has Been Bothering Me Lately

Recently in my Government class it has become apparent to me that many people seem to have a strange understanding of the concept "separation of church and state." Maybe I'm just misunderstanding the intent of their remarks, but to me it seems that they think everything said in a church is non-permissible in government. Take a part of today's discussion, for example. We were talking about stem-cell research, and how Bush had put some major road-blocks in the way of it, based on his beliefs as a Christian. One or two of the people were spouting off about how horrible that was, asking whatever happened to separation between church and state?

Well here's the answer for them. The concept of separating church and state has absolutely nothing to do with keeping church morals out of the government office. It keeps a church from controlling government, and keeps government from controlling a church of its own. It is my humble opinion that people need morals, and like it or not, churches happen to be a good place to come by them. If someone who goes to a church should *gasp* become President or something drastic like that, more power to 'em. This means I know that they have some morals at least. I expect for the person to then act on those morals, regardless of where they got them. If Bush had gotten the idea that killing embryos for research was bad from somewhere asides from church, it's his prerogative to act on it. Just because the opinion comes from a church does NOT mean that the church/state barrier is being broken.

Now, if his minister had told him that he should look into passing some law against that evil science thing where they kill babies, then yes, that would be crossing the line. But when the church as a whole (and him by extension as a member) believe that killing embryos is wrong, no line is being crossed there, he's allowed to have his beliefs just like the people who don't have any problem with it, and he's allowed to act on that belief just as they are.

The Problem

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future"
~Jeremiah 29:11

As I sit here looking at the computer screen, I realize something. If I''m going to start writing posts like this after I decide to go to bed, I should probably get a pair of glasses, since with my contacts out I really can't see too well what I'm typing. Here's hoping I don't type anything embarassing...

Jump back 5 minutes or so, and I'm lying in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking about relationships and many of the issues that go along with them. I'm thinking about all of this, and how some of my relationships have petered out since starting college, and I'm brought again to the crashing realization that I feel like half a person right now. I mean, sure, at least I'm the smart and sometimes witty half, but that other half leaves quite the hole in its absence.

Time for some backstory. I've never been what one might call a very social person. I wish this wasn't so, but events conspired and God planned to make it so. Regardless, much of my childhood was spent with only having a few "friends" at a time. Maybe I could blame it on Dad's job, and that we always seemed to end up at small congregations, but that's only part of it, and not really all that big of one either. Maybe I could blame this on there never really being all that many kids around wherever we lived, but that hardly works either, since the kids that did live near us were usually my age. I'm going to say that this is just the way God made me to be at first, but I do NOT believe that He means for me to be that way forever.

Starting when I got into 5th grade, I had more friends around me most of the time. What brings about this sudden change? We moved to a new town, and went to a bigger school. Here's the catch. Sure, the school we went to was bigger, but it was 10 miles away, and so was everyone else who went there. Guess what this meant? It meant that since we really didn't have the car-power to transport Dave back and forth to frined's houses all the time, even if he'd been invited to many parties he couldn't go too often. I don't begrudge anyone for this, things happen, it falls to us to make the best of the situation.

But Dave never really got invited to anything. Sure, at school Dave was "the new kid" and some kids made the effort to make me feel part of the group, and I thank them for that. Some kids couldn't care less if I had a bloody nose every recess for half a week (true story), after all, I wasn't that great a football player and I had those geeky glasses to boot. I don't hold grudges for that. I refuse to believe that I'm such a cool person that everyone should just automatically like me, no questions asked. Besides, I'd rather have a few close friends than many average friends any day of the week. Looking back at those years now though, I realize that I acted like an outsider sometimes. "I didn't grow up here, why should I know that?" "I live 10 miles from here," "I just moved here, I don't know where that is," etc. etc. I also did something that no self-respecting student in grade school should do... that's right, I would regularly read books for fun. I know, foolish, right? But that was me.

Fast-forward a few years to when I get into high school. I had the distinct "pleasure" of my two older siblings not only having gone to the same high school, but still being there when I got in. Whatever. I had my crushes in high school, I'd even had a few childish ones in grade school. But for some reason I never acted on any of them. Enter stage right, Dave the Coward. I came up with reasons why I shouldn't ask these girls out. A pretty popular one was that they wre already dating someone, and I had no need or want for that kind of drama. My favorite though was, "What if I mess up?"

Have you ever been so afraid of screwing something up and hurting someone you've been friends with for years that you don't even try? I have. Katie, Lyzz, I'm sorry I was such a coward. Have you ever finally screwed up the courage to jump somewhere you know you have no clue what's going to happen, but you hoope that someone you care about will go with you? I have. Has that person ripped out your heart and tripped you before you even got to the jump? What do you do then?

You fall back on faith and tell yourself, "God must not have it in the cards for me yet." You keep telling yourself that until you almost fully believe it. You settle back into being as good a friend as you can be, and let every opportunity pass you by because you're a coward, because "I'll only screw up."

Then she drops out of the sky, or, in my case, rolls onto the skating rink. For a time I was truly happy, and now that's somewhere between limbo and existence as well.

God, this didn't go where I was planning.... not at all. What I meant to talk about is I feel I've pinpointed something of my problem with people. Don't get me wrong, I like people, don't know what I'd do without them. But as much as I'd like to be a social person, I'm held back by my gut feeling. That gut feeling almost always tells me the same thing. "Dave," it says, "You're being the third wheel in this group, and the group wasn't designed to be a tricycle." Let's pretend though that I'm even just the only other person in the room at the time, or that by some miracle I've attracted someone's attention. I don't know what to say. All those clever pickup lines that I joke abouot with some friends abandon me, and I'm left there feeling like a dumb mute, my intellect tied up with the question, "What could I talk about that this person could possibly care about?"

Compounding this problem is that I am not, I repeat, NOT! a person who likes talking. Contrary to my siblings' opinions, I actually am not too thrilled with the sound of my own voice. I do not feel that I have any skill at small talk--no matter what my mother may tell me. And then while I'm trying to come up with some conversational question, or something to say, whoever I'm "talking" with slowly comes to the realization that I just may not be all that interesting of a person. Jump to me walking back to my apartment, alone, instead of going off somewhere to hang out and have fun. Sometimes, I hate where my life is

Against my better judgment, I think I'll actually post this. I trust the one person I know will probably read it, and to anyone else, here's a piece of Dave's soul.



Maybe I don't need the glasses. I typed this with my eyes shut.

Insurance... A Truly Broken System

"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong"""
~Murphy's Law


So, I am currently involved in the process of looking to replace my car with a better one. For those of you who know my car, that could actually be accomplished by driving around in Hotwheels car. However, whenever looking at a car to buy, one thing I have no choice but to consider is, "What is it going to cost me for insurance?"

Here's my problem with insurance. IT DOES NOT WORK!!!! For all the thousands of accidents that take place daily, how many hundreds of thousands of drivers make it from point A to point B without so much as cutting off another driver? Yet every single one of them (hopefully*) has insurance on their car. Each and every one of them pays some amount of money per month so that when they wipe out and break someone else's car, or when someone else wipes out and breaks their car, they don't have to pay for all of it. No offense to any and all who have car insurance, but how stupid are you to buy into this system without questioning it?

Allow me to build a situation for you. Alfred pays $200 a month for his car insurance (hopefully he has a relatively nice car). Alfred drives this car for 12 years without ever missing a payment, and never needing anything more than routine maintenance, never hitting someone else or being hit, never even getting hail damage. By this time, Alfred has paid $28,800 into his insurance plan. Next thing you know, some idiot driver slams on the brakes and Alfred rear-ends the guy. When the situation is all worked out, it'll cost $2000 dollars to repair the other dude's car, and about $1000 to fix Alfred's car. Hey, no problem, right? Alfred has faithfully paid his car insurance for the last 12 years, almost 30 G's into the system. They'll cover it all easily, right? Wrong! Alfred's plan has a $3500 deductible. Since he only had to pay $3000, the insurance doesn't kick in at all. Does anyone else see the problem here?

Now, don't get me wrong, insurance can have it's uses. For example, if someone else hits your car, they get to pay for the damage repair instead of you. Or if you completely total the car, the insurance will replace it. But the chances of that are so infinitessimally small it hardly counts. Personally I'm willing to play the odds on this one, and assume that I'm not going to get in any kind of accident. Hell, in 2 years of driving, I've been in a ditch once (no damage to the car) and never once--not once!!--hit another vehicle or been hit (again, for those of you who know my current car, they were all there when I got it). On a day to day basis (despite Texas drivers having on average the common sense of a wheel themselves) I do not fear getting into an accident of any kind. And yet when the time comes and I buy a replacement car, I'll have to insure it because on the whole the American populace wanders around their daily lives individually scared spitless that they'll be the one out of fifteen thousand that gets into a headon collision on the highway.

Hells, going back to Alfred's case, he would have done better to have been putting all the money into a separate savings account, so that not only would it be there for him to use in the event of an accident, but it would gain interest instead of helping to pay for someone else's insurance claim.

Insurance is no less than people paying for protection that they will probably never use, and that might not help them if they need it. What a broken system...

We're off to see the Wizard! Wait, I'm only one person...

So, in one of my History classes today, the teacher used the Wizard of Oz as a teaching tool, and it worked out pretty well. It never occurred to me that the story had been written before the movie came out, and was a very good allegory to the times as they were, with political leanings and such. So, all in all, quite the interesting class, and I feel that I definitely learned something.

However, the usage of the story brought about memories of other thoughts that I've had concerning it. First of all, my whole theory of reclassifying science as magic* applies here. The Wizard himself is a prime example of a "magical" persona merely using science to his advantage. I had an epiphany the other day and realized that the Wizard also introduces the idea of placebos. Think about it, he gives the Scarecrow a piece of paper and all of a sudden the Scarecrow can think? He gives the Lion a badge and the Lion is brave? He does a heart transplant for the Tin Man and he all of a sudden has a... wait, scratch that last one, he didn't do that. He gave the Tin Man a heart-shaped clock that ticks, nothing more. What are these if not perfect examples of placebo cures?

Now I take into account the compatriots of Dorothy on her quest to find the much-vaunted Wizard. Completely ignoring the Munchkins and Good Witches or Bad Witches, and even her dog, I wish to call attention to the three main companions.
First is the Scarecrow. Here we have a gaunt figure, seen first hanging limply on a pole in a corn field. What is he doing there? Well, in all honesty, his job. But seeing as how he perks up and talks with passersby, he no doubt scares more than the crows away from the field. So we have a character that looks human but just isn't quite, and he's looking for something to the near exclusion of everything else--something no less than a brain. I don't know about any of you reader(s) but to me this sounds much worse than a simple Scarecrow. Dorothy is being accompanied by a Zombie.
As if the poor girl's troubles weren't enough, there is also the Tin Man. When found, the Tin Man is almost rusted in place, and begs Dorothy to help him. Being the nice (if possibly foolish) girl that she is, she oils his hinges and the Tin Man can move again. Lamenting over his inability to feel, and in search of an elusive heart, he then joins Dorothy and the Zombie on their way. This Tin Man may not be as inherently evil as the Zombie, but I now expose him for what he is--a Robot that seeks to be human! As any good sci-fi afficionado knows, this is never a good thing. Not even when the robot is played by a cute little boy and named David (it just isn't really that good of a movie).
So with a Zombie and Robot in tow--and two fairly vital body parts in mortal danger--Dorothy continues down the Yellow Brick Road. Next up they find the Cowardly Lion, who seeks courage. It is common knowledge that Lions not only are not as big as this particular cat, but also that they have considerable amounts of courage and lack the ability of speech (sorry Azlan). No, the Less-Than-Brave Lion is an overly large example of his species, gifted with speech but robbed of a characteristic trait. This Lion is a Mutant.

Dorothy could not have chosen worse traveling companions if she tried. But is she really all that innocent in the first place? Very little is explained of Dorothy in the movie, and although she seems sad about killing the first Witch, her moral qualms seem to die away when told to kill the second one. She is entirely focused on herself, and doesn't care who gets trampled in the process. All problems aside however, some things just don't add up about Dorothy. Being unsatisfied with life, I can understand. Being transported by a tornado into a mystical world where her first act is to kill an oppressive regime, I can take on faith. But a Kansas farm-girl wandering around in an immaculate blue and white dress, which never develops tears during the tornado or dirt stains of any kind? That is evidence of something beneath the surface, something we may need to worry about.

As My Biology Gently Weeps

Well, hello internet. We met a long time ago, and have since come to know each other quite well--so much so, in fact, that I now feel I must write you letters of my undying devotion. Those are all being kept in a vault hidden under a rock thrown from a bridge over a river through the woods past the field outside the town built on top of an ancient temple to the pagan god of good will and satire. In lieu of publishing those, I am here instead going to be posting something that more resembles a stream of consciousness, and will therefore be fairly unorganized and incredibly likely to not only segue but digress and tangentalize as well.
Of course, adding to the splendidness of this blog will be that quite often will I appear here as a form of avoiding homework that I really do not want to do, such as my Biology tonight.
Alas, however, for my writing cannot last forever, and the review must be done, so, off do I therefore depart to console my Biology homework, which has wept in my absence.


And left a watermark on the table