Helloooooo!!!

Um, yeah...so I've been slacking BIG time with this blog, but hey, I was busy (and the hard work paid off)...

But now, I'm back!

Pirates...

This whole Pirate thing off the coast of Africa has really been irritating me. I just cannot seem to shake the notion that it is, at least to me, unfathomable for there to be pirates in 2009. I mean...we have satellite imaging, are capable of launching missiles from hundreds of miles away directly to your location, and oh yeah, we have amazing sniper riffles! You can run, but rest assured we WILL find you and blow you up!!! It's 2009 punks...not the 17th century where you could kidnap people, hold them for ransom, release them and run away. YOU CANNOT RUN! This is NOT Pirates of the Caribbean! I just really don't understand people's logic. I guess people think they are smarter or slicker than world governments...FALSE.

I am so glad this stand-off is over. And lol at all of the mentally slow reporters at that news conference I watched on CNN today. I don't know why it was so hard for some of them to realize that the three pirates lives were ended by sniper rifles. And no, the pirates probably weren't in a situation where there was an imminent threat to the hostage's life. Most likely orders were, if you see a pirate, gun him down! I don't understand why this was such a hard concept for reporters to grasp, evidenced by the fact that they kept asking how and why the pirates were shot down...on repeat.

Perhaps, and I'm just venturing a guess here, just maybe my experience as a Black female/person in the US has desensitized me to occurrences of civilian executions by police. Furthermore, the ones I am accustomed to hearing are those where the slain men are carrying a wallet/inhaler/[insert any non-weapon], not freakin' pirates of Africa who are as guilty as sin! I cannot for the life of me figure out how these reporters seem so confused as to how three pirates wound up dead, but look unfazed when minorities around the country are shot down dead for no real reason...

Random aside: I would much rather be a ninja than a pirate!

Black n' Blue Wedding Bells

What's this I hear? RiRi and her abusive beau are scheduled to get hitched in the Bahamas (or where ever she is from)?!?

Perhaps this is old news (I have been busying and consequently, neglecting my daily dose of Bossip), but this came as a complete shock to me. Just a few days ago, a local radio station broadcast that they were giving away two tickets to the wedding for a lucky caller. Granted, it was April Fool's Day, so I wasn't taking anything seriously, and then I decided to look up this nonsense online...turns out its true, or if not true, at least it's a very popular rumor circulating around Hollywood.

What in the world is going through RiRi's mind?!? This young boy, a year her junior, just publicly molly-whopped you and now you're going to vow to spend the rest of your life with his mentally unstable self? I'm not saying that they should necessarily break up over this (note, if a man EVER lay hands on me, they'd probably wind up being run over with their own car), however at least get counseling and therapy and give it time before you pick up your relationship from where you left off...not take a giant leap forward.

Domestic violence is real, and I fear that the way this pair of celebs are choosing to "deal with" this problem is setting a very bad example for young people of both sexes. To young girls and boys it shows that this kind of behavior is acceptable and goes without repercussion...or at least so far. Maybe something will happen between now and this alleged wedding...

Until then, I'm praying for some type of intervention, because if he hits you once, he probably will hit you again. Aaaand, it's not like he just hit her. Her hit her multiple times and bit her. Who does that?!? What happens next time he's acting a fool and then flips out on her?

Sleep.

The worst relationship of my life deals not with another human being, but with Sleep. [Note: I am writing this post at 4:24am...after having class from 4:30-7:30 and shift from 8-midnight] I'm telling you, Sleep and I, we have a love-hate relationship. But, before I get into my little discussion about my battles with Sleep, let me tell you a little something about myself that may help clarify some of the issues I am having...

I have a life obsession with maximizing time. I swear, my ears can hear my life clock ticking down, and consequently, I often find myself trying to efficiently handle anything I'm facing. Whether that be driving from point A to point B or getting a stupid little school project done, I like to do things right, but as fast as possible. Furthering this point, I feel that sleep is the ultimate waste of time. We're all familiar with the sayings, "Sleep is the cousin of Death" and "I can sleep when I'm dead," and while it may be true that people who get inadequate amounts of sleep have increased likelihoods of developing more health problems and typically die younger, it is something I mentally cannot get over (fyi - people that oversleep run the same risk). I know that while I'm sleeping, someone out there is not, and thus, they have an edge over me - they have 24 hours to get accomplished what I have only 16 hours to do. Even if 40% of what they do is b.s., in theory they are living a fuller life by being active when I am asleep. Thus, I rarely get even 5 hours of sleep a night. Why sleep when I can be doing something productive, right? Now, back to my personal battle...

I will go for months living off of 2 hours of sleep a night/every-other-night and be just fine. Actually, often times I try to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, and find myself laying in bed staring at the ceiling, mad at myself for having wasted two hours lying on my back accomplishing nothing! And yet, as hard and as often as I avoid
sleep, I often lapse into periods where I basically sleep for 7 days straight - and boy is that sleep gooooood! So yes, I admit that I love the sensation and pleasure of curling up in my warm, fluffy bed and drifting off into slumber land, and yet, I so actively avoid it.

Though, to be perfectly honest I really am not that productive during the wee hours of the morning. During my undergraduate days, it was a different story - I would seriously focus on all the work I neglected during the daytime hours. Thanks to those four years, I have been trained to stay up all night, except now I do my work during the day, leaving me to catch up on t.v. shows and movies online, as well as get up-to-date with my favorite blogs by night. (insert random epiphany: Perhaps this explains my caffeine addictions...AH-HA!)

You know what my battle with sleep reminds me of? South of the Border (and I'm NOT talking about the restaurant). For anyone's who ever driven down to Myrtle Beach, SC, you are all familiar with the infamous South of the Border. This dinky, sketchy little place resembles some bad, stereotypical depiction of a sort of Little Mexico (I mean, their self-proclaimed mascot is Pedro...'nough said). Anyways, this is a very boring drive, so one looks for any type of entertainment along the way. And what did this sketchy place have the nerve to do? Tease bored drivers with alluring signs for 175 miles, posting a new sign promising great enjoyment every 1-2 miles. The end result? A: Hours driving along bored, anticipating getting to this great wonderland, and just when you think you will never get there or that this fabled place doesn't exist, you encounter vast disappointment and resentment when you finally do arrive. Unless we're talking about the 7 days straight of sleeping episodes I encounter, the sleep I do manage to get on a typical night is unsatisfying (to say the least). Usually, I sit and wait for Sleep to come, and when it finally does come it feels that no sooner had I closed my eyes, than something outside of me awakens me. I do not awake refreshed and energized, but rather groggy and irritated that I even wasted any time attempting to grab hold of Sleep. And how does that leave me feeling? Pissed at Sleep - that's how. Sleep taunts and tempts me for weeks, if not months, and then when I finally grab hold of it Sleep becomes my master for 7 days straight. Sleep, I HATE YOU!!! But, I love you too :(

What's a girl to do? I was supposed to go to a sleep center last year so they could monitor my brain activity while I sleep...perhaps it's time for me to take my doctor up on that order - especially while I have health insurance...

A Losing Battle?

One step forward, two steps back.

We are all too familiar with the saying. As I retrace my footsteps, observing this all-too-familiar pattern, it is easy to see how one can get down on oneself. How many times have I established a goal for myself, only to find myself losing steam halfway through and falling back into old habits? To see the fruits of my hard labor and then, for no apparent reason (or maybe because I have grown too comfortable in my success), regressing into old ways that have proven time and again unfruitful, if not downright detrimental to achieving my goals...disturbing.

What is the difference between a simple obstacle who's purpose is to make us stronger and a pure failure? To me, the line separating the two is not necessarily easily defined. We overcome obstacles and become (hopefully) better persons for having used our own resources to surmount the roadblock - that is the simple one. Now for the complicated one - when does an obstacle that derails us turn into a failure? And when does repeated failures or setbacks become a losing battle? Is it when we no longer learn from our setbacks that they then transform into failures? Or is it when we no longer can summon the energy, courage, or willpower to lift ourselves back up? Perhaps these temporary derailments are meant to knock us out of the snarls of complacency - to rekindle the fire beneath us. Or maybe they are there to remind us that we need to continuously rely on a higher power (i.e. God), who so often gets ignored and demoted to the back burner once people start getting what they want out of life...

While I believe that the glory in the beautiful struggle that is life is to simply rise one more time than you are knocked down, learning something new about yourself each time and with each successful retry making us a stronger and better person for it, what happens when you reach the place where you no longer see the point in getting up anymore? I believe the term we learned in psychology is learned helplessness. [Not that I am there yet, but I am one who likes to analyze all possible scenarios.] For those of you unfamiliar with the historical experiment of Seligman, allow me to give you a brief summary. Basically what he did was split dogs into three groups: Group 1 was the control that was simply harnessed, Group 2 dogs and Group 3 dogs were harnessed to one another and received electrical shocks. Group 2 dogs had access to a lever that could stop the shock, while Group 3 dogs could not access the levers and had to simply wait for the shocks to end. The dogs were unharnessed and placed in a box from which they could escape. When shocks were administered to the dogs, Groups 1 and 2 jumped out of the box while most of Group 3 simply sat there. That, in sum, is learned helplessness - even though Group 3 could escape, they had learned from their previous experience that it was futile to fight their way out. (yes, this is a sad experiment)

The battle I often find myself facing is between learning when to push myself to get back up and when to learn to lay down. Now, let me pause for a second and say that I am a fighter. It goes against every fiber in my being to just sit back and take anything. HOWEVER, and this is a BIG however, certain battles really just are not worth fighting. I am not sure that I would necessarily classify these as learned helplessness...afterall, how many times did Jesus "sit back and take it" (i.e. turn the other cheek) when He certainly had the ability do whatever He so chose. I suppose the battle can be redefined as learning when to conjure enough strength to fight and when to summon enough willpower to restrain oneself... Hmmmm, now there is an interesting thought.

Still, there remains a difference between staying down out of willpower and staying down out of weakness. Learning and fully embracing the dichotomy inherent in the word strength is probably very key to living a fulfilled life. (At least in Western culture, does it not seem that strength is presented ubiquitously with exerting some force over another? Although here, I suppose you can modify that to exerting force over oneself - to go against human nature) Determining which situation necessitates which use of strength is the challenge we all face. For it would be easy for one to fall into the habit of blaming one's own lack of action and resolve to having the willpower to not fight back (even though they should have)...but then that is what happens when people start assuming the role of the victim, now isn't it?

And how does all this relate to me? To be rather honest, I suppose my one step forward, X-amount of steps back probably falls under the category of simply lacking the desire to do the right thing and get back up immediately. In my situation, I would emphasize immediately as I find the sooner that I address my shortcomings the easier it is for me to move back on the right track. I liken it to being knocked off of a horse into a very deep pit of mud. The sooner I regain my senses from the fall, swim to the edge, pull myself up, and chase after my horse, the sooner I can get back on and riding again. Now, if I get thrown off, take my time to evaluate what events just transpired, sit and decide whether it is worth pulling myself out, the further from the edge of the pit I drift and the deeper into the mud I sink. Once there, it takes a lot more time and energy to resurface, swim to the edge, pull myself out, and then run after a horse that I have no idea of it's location. (Perhaps this is a stretch of an analogy, but it works for me!)

So I end with this: Study your footprints well and honestly, remembering that no two sets are alike, and know that you are the key determinant in having your battle be a W or an L.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. Confucius