okay many issues going on right now which make me annoyed and emotional. and normally i'd just not talk about all of them so as to not launch into some tireless tirade but tonight i'm just going to rant rant rant and throw it out there.

drama. i'm seriously seriously annoyed by the whole situation. i feel like i'm all the committees rolled into one. i mean, honestly, what's the point of having an ex-co right? we delegate stuff to the various committees that should handle their side of the work so that things can run smoothly - it's been a whole three weeks and the publicity com does NOTHING? they can't even come up with a simple pub stunt. and i seem to be the only one who cares enough to bother to lose sleep over trying to come up with a script. which in the end, may not go through, because hey, maybe they can't even get actors/costumes/props. GALVANIZE YOURSELVES MATEYS! i'm not exactly like model leader of the year but at least i know a bit more responsibility and care more about this cca than you do. and i'm willing to make it my priority. drama is going to fall to pieces. honestly. and i hate how people just come up to me and ask why we're not doing anything and make remarks like 'nj drama..' then snigger and shake their heads, even friends have done that IN FRONT OF ME, and you know what, i'm trying, and i really want to so badly, but if no one helps me what can i do? WHAT CAN I DO? i'd really appreciate if no one ever asks me how drama is doing because that's one topic i just hate discussing with my friends. i go get the quotes for the drama centres in other schools, but in the end we may not use them because they're so damn indecisive and if we don't book fast enough it'll be gone. i wish they would just bloody hell wake up.

friends. friends come and go. and on saturday night, certain events occurred which led me to conclude that there are some friendships i'm just going to let go of. don't get me wrong - no hard feelings. i forgive her and i don't judge her for what she's doing because hey, there are times in our lives when we're really mixed up, but till she sorts out her priorities, i'm just not going to bother anymore. i have trusted many times, i have put up with awkward situations enough to know that i'm not doing it anymore. sure, i really do think back sometimes. i miss the time we ate a whole big tub of lido sweet popcorn together because we agreed it was best, i miss the time we ran in the rain from lido to delfi, i miss the time we decided to try waxing, i miss all that stuff. but all relationships are transitory, so get used to it and quit crying over the glorious past.

on to less angry things. here are some random ideas and thoughts.

it just struck me as rather odd suddenly, that we attach degrees to names. like, Phil Austin, M.D or something. i mean what does that stuff really mean anyway. and it's kind of like attaching this extra thing to your name - does it become your name? so people start referring to you in their articles and stuff as X Y, M.D. hmmm. do people actually like that in their names? maybe they figure they slogged so hard for the degree it's worth it to let the whole world know by attaching it to their names at the end.

the woman on life support got taken off it and as a result, died. i still wonder if it really was her wish, but even then - she doesn't know what's happening around her, so it doesn't really make a difference does it. i'm not clear on the issue here. if i'm not wrong, christians believe that as long as the person is in vegetative state, it's okay to pull the plug. but somehow, i find it hard to think that no matter how braindead, we'd pull the plug on this person who still has a heartbeat. i mean honestly anything could happen right? miracles defy science. and it disgusts me that many americans would rather she die if they were the ones who had to pay the medical bills. i suppose in a way there's an issue there - it's all about the money and maybe i can't fully understand because i'm still a student and haven't experienced all the financial stuff. but it just seems so inhuman to view it in such a way.

then i started to think about organ donor issues. they've been saying that certain people on the receiving end of heart donations have taken on some characteristics of the heart donor and scientists are trying to find if there are some memory cells left in the heart that cause this. in a way it's really quite beautiful. though i suppose it may be quite painful for a family to finally let go and declare that their relative is an able donor, in a way it really does create chances for people to continue living their lives and fulfilling their purposes.

i did watch million dollar baby in the end, quite some time ago with my parents and younger brother. it was a very heart-wrenching movie. not much hope in it at all, maybe a tiny sliver. the boxing was exciting, but what made for the best part was the emotional attachment the coach formed while training his fighter, and coming to love her as much as his own daughter. a cold broken man taking a white trash waiter into his gym and making her a fighter. what happened in the movie was that at one of her big matches, the coach gave her a present, a boxer's hood with the words 'mo cuishle' emblazoned at the back of it. no one really had any idea what it meant except the coach, because it was in gaelic. and he told her that if she won her biggest match, he'd tell her what it meant. well, as the story would go, she lost her biggest match, got knocked to the ground by a cheating boxer and ended up paralyzed neckdown. her body just started to go because she couldn't move at all, and finally she asked of the coach to give her euthanasia. he brought the thought with him to his priest and was told it was a grave sin, but in the end he came one night with the adrenaline shots, and before he put her to sleep, he told her, 'mo cuishle means my darling'. that scene was the most powerful and painful scene i've watched in a film. the movie ended with him walking away from God and losing the one person who he loved very much, as well as himself. i just felt so moved by the intensity of emotion - to do that to someone that means that much to you, it must really kill you. i just cannot describe the complexity of issues brought to light when i watched that movie. it's a bleak movie, but i found a small spark of hope in the fact that at least for a little while, he remembered what it was like to have a daughter again and she remembered what it was like to have a father again. is it worth it to go through so much pain for that one experience of warmth and love?

yes, i think so.

and finally, a big issue. the pope's dead. although i've not really been into all these rites of catholicism such as revering the pope greatly and all that, i did feel sad for a bit. he was a great man, a good pope and one who really dedicated his whole life to doing God's work. there are a lot of protestants that condemn the catholics for revering the pope but at the end of it all i don't see how they can hate someone who has made it his life purpose to serve God. isn't it rather ironic? but at the same time, i do wonder why it's a rule set by roman pontiff that we have to pray a decade of the rosary every night for the pope's soul - i mean, honestly, he's a man of God. why do we have to act so worried about his soul? he's back home in heaven. and sometimes, i feel like i really am unsure about my faith - in that i'm divided when it comes to certain moral issues. generally i'm a conservative and pro-life but recently, when it comes to issues of homosexuality i find myself unsure. i don't understand what it is about homosexuality that makes it so utterly wrong - but i'm not saying it's right either. and even if given, it is a sin, we all sin. Christians aren't better than other people. we're ALL sinners. being a Christian doesn't make you any holier or pure than other people - it just means that you're forgiven. so saying homosexuality is a sin, then why don't we have protests against liars too? and against thiefs? heck, it seems more acceptable to be a shoplifter than a homosexual in society doesn't it? my point is, all of our sins are equally bad, so why do we pinpoint homosexuals and put them through so much persecution. i don't believe in that whole exorcism, the devil makes you gay thing. it's just a sin like any other and not some sort of demon possession. and you know what? i think Christians who continuously persecute homosexuals and stage all these anti-gay protests are just taking advantage of the fact that homosexuals are a minority and thus can be bullied. they use all this to make themselves feel better, and i think that is disgusting. at the end of it all, we're all sinners, so who are we to judge? let God decide.

there are some things i am starting to believe in very strongly now. and recently i've started thinking about the yellow-ribbon project. i feel that we really should remove the stigmas attached to ex-convicts - though actually, that really is impossible. but i think everyone deserves a second chance no matter what they've done and no human being deserves to be put on death parole. i know it's hard. when i think about it and put myself in the shoes of a person who has had herself/a family member harmed by this other person - the first reaction would be anger and to seek for justice and a want for him to be put to death for his grievous sins. some sort of revenge and justice. but what's the point? what's been done is done, and killing off that person won't set things right. does it really please a person to know that he's won a case in sentencing another human being to death? i don't know. maybe if put in the situation myself i'd feel differently - though definitely it's something i would not want to experience. reading about the crimes committed i really do feel very angry and sad sometimes and it amazes me all the time that God loves these people too. God's love amazes me.

okay, i've said my piece for tonight. and angela, thanks for the card, i'll write you one back. i owe a lot of people mail.

+ posted by M @ 8:42 PM