My Pretty Little Screen Shot.

I felt the need to upload this screen shot because frankly, its damn beautiful :]

WIN.

Addictions are so sad.

I am officially an addict.

Angry Birds has taken over my body.

Its the greatest and easiest multitask ever. I do it while i watch tv...while i talk to people, while im on the phone, while im in bed (case and point right now) while i blog (case and point its open in the task bar of my phone while i type in another window), i have even occasionally played it in class.

Okay....more than occasionally.

I dont get why its so fun. My vegetarian self is not usually a fan of hurling birds at piggies with a slongshot but i cannot stop.

Help me obi wan kenobi
You're my only hope.

Journalism. If what I'm doing right now even counts.

So I'm in journalism right now and I've already finished everything we're supposed to be working on.
And Motes left the room.
Which means I have nothing to do.
So I'm blogging.
Yay?
I found myself this morning considering which of the colleges I was going to attend next year. Not to unusual, only it wasn't brought on by stress or anything like that. I was just drinking coffee...and realized I was considering making my moving decision based solely on Safari Cup (best coffee around, brought strait from Tanzania. So strong, sooo yummy). Aaand then I realized I was considering making the decision about where to go to school and where to live for the next four years based on Chicago's greatest little coffee shop.
Oops? What can I say, its delicious coffee. And if I don't end up in Chicago, I may have to visit there first to buy about twenty pounds of their beans to make my own coffee. And then make return trips every couple months to deplete the small amounts of cash I'll actually have.
I'm thinking this could prove problematic.

Reform

AP comp is basically over...
which means I can use this blog however the hell I feel like it.
Not really sure how that'll be.
Stay Tuned?
Or maybe you should just stay classy :]

P.S. Documentary

Have i mentioned this video made me want to kill people? It did.
Maybe I could be the animal rights version of Dexter.

Documentary from Hell.

The brutal documentary I watched as the final part of my BLA assignment was called "Meet your Meat", and was filmed and distributed by PETA. I located this documentary because it was actually referenced by a source in my BLA book. And after watching/reading them, if I hadn't already been a vegetarian for the last six and a half years, I would have become one now.

THE ARGUMENTS:

The argument represented in my BLA book, Johanthan Safran Foer's "Eating Animals" was incredibly similar to the one in "Meet your Meat", with a few distinct differences.

"Eating Animals", though written by a vegetarian, is not a pointed case for vegetarianism or for veganism. The argument represented in this book is one simply against factory farming. Foer's research is all about the affects of factory farming on the people, economy, environment, and animals involved. He concludes that factory farming is immoral, wrong, and about a thousand other terrible adjectives. It is because of factory farming that he doesn't eat meat.

The PETA video has a similar argument in that they also argue against factory farming, and show cruel videos of the slaughter houses used in the factory farmers' system. However, the arguments have a distinct difference where eating meat is concerned. Foer recognizes the individuals' decision to or to not eat meat, while the PETA video argues vehemently against any eating of meat or animal products.

RESPONSE:

As I said, if I hadn't already been a vegetarian, after seeing this documentary and reading this book I would have become one. One member of my BLA group, Anni, actually converted about halfway through the book. Two of the others already were.

The strength in these arguments comes from their vivid appeals to emotion. In the video, shots are displayed of animals being brutally tortured and killed. This is an appeal to the readers emotions. As much as I did not enjoy seeing it, and hated the person who made the video for making me watch such cruel treatment, the video tugged at my heartstrings, as it would do to nearly any human capable of emotion.

The vivid video images are represented through text in Foer's book. The detailed and descriptive diction he uses to depict the terrible events taking place are strongly connotative to the reader, and are an incredible use of pathos.

The documentary I hated watching. The book, I hated reading. Yet at the same time I enjoyed both for the arguments they were making. They were both very effective arguments, and I am glad the documentary was made, and I am glad the book was written. Now people can have a chance to see what factory farming is doing to innocent creatures and hopefully respond to it the way Anni and I have.

Resolutions. Bah, humbug.

So I was thinking this New Years about what my resolutions should be and it occurred to me: why even bother?

Honestly, its not that I don't want to make an effort to "improve myself" or anything like that. I'm sure I probably should, and I could come up with a number of fairly legitimate resolutions. Don't swear as much, stop procrastinating (My 80 question physics is due tomorrow and I started oh, about a half an hour ago.), and I could probably due to be a tad nicer to my mother.

I know though, that any of those resolutions won't be kept well. Its only January, there's twelve whole months (why do I always want to spell it monthes?) for me to cave in on my resolutions, or to just completely forget what they are. And I'll face it. I fight way too often with my mother, and thats not going to change even if I have a resolution telling me it should. I have mopro next semester, so logically my procrastination is only going to get worse. And honestly, every time I miss a gate in ski practice, i swear about it. Loudly. Good thing my coach can't hear me from the chairlift.

So why do people even have resolutions to begin with? I'm sure the percent of people who actually stick to them is incredibly low. The number of people who actually mean their resolutions with sincerity is probably even lower. Do we make them anyway so we can answer people's questions the few weeks after new years without lying to them? Do we make them to feel good about ourselves? Or do we simply need them to make ourselves believe that really, truly, "this year will be better."? I am fairly certain its a combination of these things that drives us to set our resolve once a year only to fail it soon after. And we'll continue to do it for some time.

Me, though. I'm havent thought of a resolution that I will actually keep. Maybe that makes me a bad person. Maybe it just makes me honest.