THIS LONNNG WEEK.

CRISIS OF FAITH.

I've always been a realist. Ever since i can remember, i've never believed in something i couldn't see with my own two eyes. A couple times I've pretended to be excited about Santa Clause or surprised to find a couple dollars under my pillow after Ive lost a tooth. But I've never truly believed in any of these things. The hardest thing I've tried to believe, is the existence of a higher power, like God. Growing up, my Mom was really into taking me to Native events. Because my Father was Native American she felt it was important for me to be exposed to the native way of life or whatever. Native ceremonies and practices are probably one of the most spiritual cultures so ive always been surrounded by stories of who created the world, all this mother earth, father sky crap. Who we should be giving thanks to, who we should pray for. To be honest i found it all very boring. I could never help but think, Who are we praying for? Why can't I see him? I don't want to talkl to him if i can't see him, that's weird. My family is not exactly religious, we've never been to church and we aren't strict about praying before dinner or anything like that. But for the most part, they do believe in a God that exists. Which is sometimes hard for me, because i don't really believe in God. At all. And we never talk about it.

Like I said iv'e never truely believed in any kind of higher power, but i always prayed and gave thanks anyways to make everyone else happy. I guess my biggest crisis of faith came when i was six and my Father was murdered. When i was six nothing was more important than my pokemon cards, and my Daddy was my world. I didnt exactly question things then, except at the occasional Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners. But when my Dad died, i questioned everything i had ever heard. It was all pretty confusing. Because my Father knew alot of people there were probably about 3 or 4 memorials and services, And of course i had to attend each one. I noticed that everyone was saying similar things. Mostly praying, but saying things like he was in a better place confused me. How did these people know he was in a better place? And then i realized that they couldnt know that for sure. They hadnt experienced that, so i listened to other things they were saying and praying about. And i started to feel like all they were saying was just a bunch of bullshit trying to make themselves feel better about everything. But i knew where he was. He was in the ground where they had put him last, just drained of life, thats it. There was no spirit of him floating around somewhere, there was no God.
What was so good about God anyway? Why did people believe in him? I was told that he answered your prayers, keeps away evil and ends suffering. Where was he now, everyones crying, and my Moms' suffering, He's nowhere to be seen. And if he was so good why did he let my dad die?

I was always the kid who tried to convince you that God didn't exist. I would argue for hours if you disagreed with me. I remember thinking to myself, these people are so stupid to believe in something so obviously unreal. I really didnt know how to see things from a different point of view, I mean I wasnt even ten yet. Now that ive matured, obviously i have respect for other peoples faiths and religion. I don't think it's stupid to have strong faith anymore because ive heard some hard life stories about people who found there god and turned there life around, just like that. That doesnt mean i would ever commit to something like that though. Maybe in a way ive always wanted a faith. Sometimes i look back on ancient cultures like the Aztecs or Egyptians, like way back. Most of there everyday lives were spent praying and in religous ceremonies. There whole lives revolved around there god, and they made it there number one priority. They did things like human sacrafices and that was how strong there faith was. They built temples and preserved there dead, all in the name of whoever their god was. Maybe something solid like that in life would be good for me.
I think ive always been a little bitter about it though. I can't force myself to believe it, so i cant help but snicker when i hear things like 'Jesus can turn your life around.' It's not me being ignorant, i actually admire people who can really commit there lives to god. Because i dont have faith like that. I never have, and i dont know if i ever will.

While Your Busy Planning, I'll Be Busy Living.

The tension in my house is killing me, i feel like I'm slowly suffocating. Time is running out for me to figure out what to do with my life, and my mom won't let me forget this. It was bad before, but now it's worse. Now it's every morning, every time i come home, every dinner conversation. Every conversation. I'm being suffocated with questions, not just about school now. She says she wants to be able to talk, then she says shes not a friend. She tries to talk to me sometimes but it ends in fighting, always. All shes doing is pushing me away and making me not want to be near her. I'm losing all feeling, it's just a person i cant get off my back now. That's all. And that's how it is now, i don't want to be here. I don't want to be in this house with her, in this stupid school with these people, in claustrophobic Alameda. I'm just getting through everyday and that's it, waiting. I don't want to think about my life and how its going to be, i just want to crawl into my bed, the only thing i find comfort in, and sleep until the day i turn 18. Crawl out, and run. Ive never wanted something so bad. Ive never wanted to leave so bad. I don't think you get it though.
Away from here, i want to go on one long road trip with my best friend. We planned it out already. Pack up and leave this place that makes me sick with dread every time i have to get up in the morning. I want to cross over high street bridge and know for sure I'm leaving Alameda, for good. Sounds stupid right? Sounds pretty dumb, i might just ruin my whole life...for what? A little freedom, a breath of fresh air that Ive never had.

I don't want a fucking life plan. I don't want to come home everyday from a 9-5 job, sit on my ass and watch TV. Get up and do it again the next day. I don't have a faith and i don't believe in reincarnation, so why the fuck would i waste my life away. Not that there is anything wrong for those who do that everyday, you do what you gotta do, but its not me. I would end up in an institution, going crazy looking at four walls. Kinda like now. Except not, because i wont let myself get there.
None of these people matter, Everyone here is plastic, I'm gone in three years anyways, no strings attached, I'm leaving everyone and i won't feel bad about it. I refuse to sit and watch everything pass by. I want to see things with my own eyes. I want to see everything. Adventures, hitchhike, experiences, who cares. At least I'll be living. Doesn't matter if i don't have a cent to my name, maybe I'll be living out of a car, maybe I'll be risking my life. At least I'll be living. And at the end of the day i want to sit on the edge of the biggest mountain watching a sunset with some guy i met at a pit stop, sharing a cheeseburger and breathing freedom, thinking about how miserable life must be for those still stuck in claustrophobia.

CATS.

Cats have been associated with humans for at least 9,500 years and are currently the most popular pet in the world. Due to their close association with humans, cats are now found almost everywhere on Earth. Until recently the cat was commonly believed to have been domesticated in ancient egypt, where it was a cult animal. A study in 2007 found that the lines of descent of all house cats probably run through as few as five self domesticating african wildcats 8000 BC, in the near east. The earliest evidence of cat domestication is a kitten that was buried with its owner 9,500 years ago in Cyprus. Cats can function at only one-sixth the light level required for human vision. Cats have excellent hearing and can detect an extremely broad range of frequencies. They can hear higher-pitched sounds than either dogs or humans, detecting frequencies from 55 Hz up to 79 kHz, a range of 10.5 octaves; while humans can only hear from 31 Hz up to 18 kHz, and dogs hear from 67 Hz to 44 kHz, which are both ranges of about 9 octaves. Cats conserve energy by sleeping more than most animals, especially as they grow older. The daily duration of sleep varies, usually 12–16 hours, with 13–14 being the average. Some cats can sleep as much as 20 hours in a 24-hour period. The term Cat Nap refers to the cat's ability to fall asleep (lightly) for a brief period and has entered the English lexicon—someone who nods off for a few minutes is said to be "taking a cat nap". Cats are known for their cleanliness, spending many hours licking their coats.The cat's tounge has backwards-facing spines about 500 micrometers long, which are called papillae These spines allow cats to groom themselves by licking their fur, with the rows of papillae acting like a hairbrush. Some cats, particularly longhaired cats, occasionally regurgitate hairballs of fur that have collected in their stomachs from grooming. These clumps of fur are usually sausage-shaped and about two to three centimeters long. haha.

All the colors around us.

Last friday i made up a brilliant theory. So, it was super late at night and i was at a friends house with a couple people. We had just finished partying and we were just relaxing in his backyard around a fire. I was pretty much staring into the fire blankly when the subject of the fire's colors came up. We basically started talking about all the reds and oranges and yellows and blues. Why we thought they were these colors and gases and just a whole bunch of shit. It was a pretty intense conversation. I heard someone say that the bottom of the fire looked pretty yellow or something like that. Well, it looked pretty blue to me. So, i said that it was blue, not yellow. No, it's blue/No, it's yellow/blue, yellow, blue, yellow. I WIN.

But then i started thinking about some trippy shit. It went alot differently in my head, like it was a way more OMG feeling at the time, but it's still pretty crazy. So, what if the colors everyone saw were different, but we just called them by the same names. Like the sky. Everyone calls it blue, right?! Well, what if someone standing next to you was seeing the sky as yellow, or maybe seeing a pink sky. But they called it blue also. Or maybe were all seeing different colored things, just anything, books,computers, purple, red, blue, green, yellow, pink. I started freaking out.

So my whole theory was that, were all standing here thinking were seeing the exact same thing everyone else is seeing, but were seeing whole different colors, whole new worlds that i can't even imagine. In a sense i guess, we would all just be color blind yeah, but how do we not know this?! It changes everything. They say everyone is so different, so why couldnt this exist?

So, i tried explaining it to everyone. Some people got it and were as freaked out as iwas, others were too far gone to understand. Anyways, i just thought it was a crazy subject. And here i was thinking all humans are alike. Sorry if it doesnt make much sense.

FINAL.

• How do you like having a blog? How has blogging changed the way you write, the way you think, or the way you think about writing?


• Where do you get your ideas for blog post topics? What inspires you to write?


• What have you learned from your struggles with writer's block? Why do you tend to get stuck? How do you tend to get unstuck?

I’ve really enjoyed having a blog this recent year. When I heard that it was required to make a blog, I wasn’t to happy about it. I had only ever heard blogs being about serious things like politics and government; so I thought that’s what we would have to write about, which didn’t exactly excite me. But once I heard that we could write about whatever we wish, I knew it was going to be pretty cool. Every teacher has always given us topics to write about, limits, and guidelines about the subject matter; I mean what else is new. It’s not that having ‘rules’ when writing is a bad thing, its just…boring. This is why I find blogging very interesting. I like the fact that we get to use our own personal creativity in coming up with new things to write about each week. How hard is it to write about anything you want? Blogging is something that I really like because it’s real. It’s exactly how you feel when your writing about a certain topic. There’s no wrong answer when you’re writing.
Blogging has changed the way I write in many ways. I think between the quick writes each day and the blogs each week, my writing has definitely matured. I have always had the same problem when writing something, and that’s taking something from my mind and putting it into words. Not only in writing, but in just speaking too. It has always frustrated me how our mind is something so cut off from everything else, you can think this whole scenario up and then can’t even explain any of it when someone asks. It’s like having a great idea, and no one to share it with. Like somewhere between my mind and my left hand, my ideas got lost. I think the constant practice writing each day has improved my writing into more of a flow of ideas, instead of them getting stuck and not being able to write at all. Last week, my mom found a quick write draft that we did in class and I had turned it into a blog. She was very impressed with the amount of detail and maturity that had gone into it; because I had never seen me write like that before, carry on a story without being distracted onto another topic. I was pretty happy about the compliment, especially from a perfectionist like my mother.

Most of the topics I write about are pretty random. Most of the time I don’t really think about them beforehand, I just sit down and start typing because I like ‘in the moment’ things. A lot of my blogs are just about my week has been, good and crappy. Then there is a couple stories that I wrote and some blogs are just thoughts on things. Mostly, if I'm in a certain mood, I’ll write about why I'm in the mood I'm in. Sometimes if we talked about something interesting in class that week I would add my own comments and thoughts on the subject at the end of one of my blogs. As I look through my blogs, I can see the progression in my writing. As time goes on, I start detailing things, making them longer, and having more to write about. I do want to continue blogging, but I want to write about a more variety of things. A lot of the time, I will see something on the TV or hear something interesting on the radio that catches my attention and I think that it would be a good topic to blog about, but I never follow it through and I think that is something that I can remember for future blogging topics.
I think anything can inspire you to write, because there’s no limit on what to write about. You can basically write about everything and anything. Some things that inspire my blogs would be books, topics in class, moods in general, etc. A big inspiration would be other people, surprisingly. Being able to look and comment on other classmate’s blogs is a very helpful idea. Sometime you will read someone’s blog and be like, I can add to that or I have a different opinion about this. Also, I think a lot of the discussions in class are the best for starter ideas when doing a blog because there are so many different people contributing their ideas. Then you go create your own blog on the topic and have more than enough ideas to keep you from not getting stuck.

I’ve always had problems with writers block. I think anyone who has ever written anything since the beginning of time has experienced writers block! What to write next? It’s the worst possible thing to get when you’re writing. I hate it because it ruins what you’re trying to write. Instead of having one full thought, it’s like little pieces coming out one by one. It slows you down and most of the time you just forget all together what you were trying to write in the first place. I tend to get stuck and have writers block when I get distracted by something or I'm trying to multi-task to many things at once. If I'm writing and just typing away, and someone says something that catches my attention or maybe even just a loud noise that takes my attention away from what I'm writing, I’ll try to go back to typing what I was writing and totally blank out. I won’t even remember what I was trying to say. There are distractions everywhere so this is always very frustrating when it happens.
I have found some personal ways to get around writers block though. Music is important in stopping my writer’s block. Music is not the distraction for me. I noticed if I'm listening to my Ipod while writing, I can get much more accomplished and written down. When I'm listening to music, it kind of takes me to a different place, separate from all the other distractions. It’s turns into a trance-like state, where I'm able to fully focus on simply writing and nothing else until the task is done. I’ve learned that writing blocks suck but they are normal and anyone can develop new ways to get around them, it’s definitely not impossible.

Thingggy Due Today.

I think that these new writing groups will help people develop as a writer more effortlessly. The sharing of ideas and opinions and getting other peoples views on things definately helps when writing. One big thing i would like to get out of these writing groups, is getting past writers block. It's just a huge problem when your trying to write. Another part of that is distraction. I'll be writing or typing something and someone will say something outloud and it will throw me off track and i'll forget what im writing and have a huge writers block. I think this could possibly improve by these writing groups. If you get stuck on something it would be helpful to have someone there to give you there opinion on what you should write next. Also, i'd like to change topics every once in a while but i can never think of anything exciting or new to write about. Other peoples ideas and thoughts can help me figure out what to write about next.
We could all contribute to our writing groups by simply putting thoughts and topics out there. Alot of people get stuck, so we could all just help eachother out. Other things we could do is proofread and edit your groups paper because that way you can get a feel for where other people are coming from. Posotive commenting on bloggs, i think would be helpful also.
I think that it is important to feel comfortable with the people your working with to really take there opinions into consideration. But i also think working with people who are writing similar or same things is important because you share the same ideas. So i think that we should pick our groups and go with whoever your comfortable with.