More Human Rights Issues

Ok I was told tonight that I had to re-enter the blogging world because I was having so much fun looking at the Westboro Baptist Church website. I have to admit that I found it hilarious when I finally got to blogging and saw that my last blog was also a Human Rights Issue post. I guess we know what riles me up! Well the news in Buffalo is that the Westboro Baptist Church was here today protesting the funeral of Dr. Alison Des Forges a Human Rights Activist fighting to end the Rwanda Genocide. First of all I don't understand what they could possibly have against her especially since the first line in their explanation of their picket is that "God hates silly women" (WHAT!) This doesn't make a lot of sense not to mention that they must have missed the DR. in front of her name.. this is not some foolish person this is a well educated intellectual. This woman devoted her life to human rights and bettering the world and the thanks she and her family receives is picketers at her funeral... have some dignity for God's sake! But wait it gets better they are returning on Sunday for a double header in the area. They will be protesting the memorial service for the victims of the plane crash in Clarence and then moving on to protest the memorial service for Dr. Alison Des Forges. These people have got to get a life! This community has suffered a terrible tragedy and they have the nerve to come here and torment the families of the victims in their time of grief.. this is not the lord's compassion that we hear so much about. On their picketing schedule posted conveniently on their website http://www.westborobaptistchurch.com/schedule.html for all those (like me) who have to check it out for themselves. They give an explanation (most of it in Bible Verse) of why they are protesting each event.. they have the nerve to refer to the victims of this tragedy as "burned, rotting corpses" Now I am all for the 1st amendment and freedom of speech but these people have taken it a little too far I'm afraid... what about everyone Else's freedom of religion... do these normal, and by normal I mean non-psychotic people, have the right to mourn their losses in the fashion that THEIR religion warrants without interference from some radical CULT! If you feel really ambitious I urge you to check out their FAQ page. They have some great answers, again mostly in Bible Verse but I find it amusing that you can ask a question about the forgiveness of sins and the answer always some how comes back to hating "FAGS" and when asked why they use the word Fags they refer to it not as a term of hate but they say that they use it because it is a metaphor used in the scriptures, that it is not name-calling. Funny Fag is not name calling but they also call a Dr. a "Silly Woman" they use the term above for the victims of the plane crash and I'll name a few more: they call the queen of England a "Whore", Australians are "Freaks" and " insincere, violent, feces-eating brutes".. the list goes on and on but you expect me to believe that using this insane kind of name calling that using the word fag is only because it is in the Bible... give me a break. These people enrage me.
Most of you know from previous posts or just by knowing me that I was raised Catholic... this is not the God that I was taught of ... what happened to the golden rule? (Which by the way they make reference to in another question they answer)... so am I to believe that they then would like to be called all these names and they would like to be treated with the disrespect that they are showing these people who are mourning the loss of their loved ones. I firmly believe that God is more concerned with how you live your life, how you treat other people and if you make a difference in this world than he is with how you choose to worship or even more so who you sleep with! If you listen to these people Heaven is going to be a very lonely place and I would rather be in Hell. From what I understand the founder of this "church" is Pastor Fred Phelps and his congregation has about 70 people in it, most of whom are in Phelps' extended family... sounds like heaven is going to be a Phelps family reunion in their eyes doesn't it? Count me OUT! Stay tuned tomorrow for my take on their view of soldiers!!

Human Rights Issues in North Tonawanda

Tonawanda News Story

So Brenda and I read this story in the Tonawanda news this morning and I have to admit the article isn't nearly as bad as the comments are. But the closed minded people that have set up the community to leave comments have made it imposible to register to use it. Instead I shall broadcast this rant to the Blogger Community instead.

Ok in the comments at the end of this article does anybody else notice a little bit of the blame the victim mentality here. How could you say that a teenager was asking to be the victim of a hate crime. Everybody in this world have certain undeniable human rights. You wouldn't blame a rape victim because they were wearing a mini skirt would you... (Well I don't know about the people leaving these comments). The schools have a duty to make for a safe and educational environment for ALL students reguardless of their sexual orientation, gender expression, race, religion, etc. Schools are supposed to be a place where students can go to learn and better themselves not a place where they should be harrassed and belittled simply for expressing themselves. High Schools are supposed to be preparing these students for the work world, readying them to get a job and live on their own. These same actions in a work environment would not be tolerated. You can not go around leaving death threats for your fellow co-workers can you? And the idiot who wrote about how kids will be kids needs to be smacked. Kids act out and treat others the way we as parents have taught them to. Teenagers are old enough to be given responsibility for their own actions. If a teenager goes out and kills someone they are usually tried as an adult because they have already reached the point where they should know right from wrong. And to say that anyone should have to tone down their self expression is ridiculous. When I was in high school their were goths and preppys and jocks and yes even a few out students and I don't recall the schools asking the goths to take off thier makeup or the jocks to take off their letter jackets. Everyone has that same right to expression and the situation should have never come to a court case because instead of blaming the victim to the point where he had to withdraw out of the school the students that were harrassing him and leaving him death threats should have been expelled. What happened to that Zero Tolerance rule of thumb. As long as the person who is the victim is something that the school personel does not approve of does that mean that they lose all of their rights as a student. Besides let's here three cheers for North Tonawanda's Bully Proof School District!!! What a crock of shit!!!!

Yahtzee Party 2006

So I figured I had some time on my hands and I should post about yesterday. We had the Jessie/Baby A/ Yahtzee party at Grandma Baker's yesterday and it was a day full of fun if you ask me. I really enjoyed myself. The Yahtzee tournament was a lot of fun... although I must say that there needs to be some safety net put in place for Yahtzee beginners such as myself lol. I was eliminated in the first round which made a whole lot more sense when we got to the final round and realized that I was put up against the winner and the runner up of the whole tournament... Brenda's mom and Brenda! Congrats hunny :) It was all good fun though... Jessie made it to the second round and Brenda played her mom for the championship which she lost... oh well... second place is not soo bad lol. They made up a plaque for the Baker Family Yahtzee Tournament which was an awesome idea and a wonderful tribute to Grandpa Baker. I really enjoyed spending time with everyone Baby A is one adorable baby and Jen we need to chill more often... and for the record... I REALLY like Mark. I hope everyone there had as good a time as I did. The cake was beautiful... It was made at Wegmans complete with a picture of Jessie holding baby A at this year's penguin days. Jessie got an absolutely beautiful outfit that I am sure she will be wearing on Easter with my family provided that it fits. A good time and a sincere thank you to everyone in Brenda's family because I can't believe just how welcome you make me feel every time that i am there. Love to you all....

Grrr... Easter

Ok so for those of you who know me you also know that I dislike Easter emencely. Well the easter maddness continues for me. I am really nervous and worked up right now and since nobody is home except for me and the 6 year old I figured the blog was my next best outlet. I was sitting around tonight thinking about all that is going on and I realized.... IT'S EASTER SOON!!!! Ok so why don't I like Easter... here is the list of the top 3 Easters in my lifetime (In Chronological Order) ...

8th Grade: The night before Easter my Grandfather (Mom's Dad) gets sick... prognosis not so good... he manages to pull through but still the most tramatic event in my life thus far.

9th Grade: Easy Easter... need I say more if you know me you know what this is in reference too!

Sr. Year of College: The day before Easter my Grandfather (Dad's Dad) Passes away.

So needless to say I am not too fond of the holiday. Well this year all good things on the horizon... it's the sunday before Jess and my Dad's birthday, I am scheduling a trip home for a couple days after Easter, I will be starting my full time job with the YWCA that week. All good things... so needless to say I wasn't thinking much about the bad... well while I was sitting here alone tonight worrying about my nana... my great-grandmother who is having surgery tonight and who has been in and out of the hospital on what seems like a pretty regular basis lately I realized... "SHIT EASTER" it's just a bad omen that's all. That is now what Easter means to me in my life.. the realization that something bad is going to happen. That there will never be an Easter without a tragedy. Well as you can well imagine it made me pretty upset to even think about it and now I am sitting here thinking to myself... should I plan to go home earlier, what should I do, why hasn't my mother called with an update yet? I'm really glad that we have planned to stay home for Easter instead of going to Bren's mom's or currently my mom's we are just planning a quiet Easter in North Tonawanda with Aunt Ellen, Uncle Ken and family. A part of me really just wants to tell Brenda she needs to go into edukids and make sure that she can get that monday off and head down to my mom's on saturday instead so that I can be home for Easter and make it down to Jersey earlier to see Nana. Although I do realize that this is not as easy as I wish it was. I just want to know what's going on, I just want to have an Easter that doesn't feel like it's the end of the world. I want to be 6 again when Easter meant baskets full of candy, egg hunts, and family... not where it means... oh shit what else could possibly go wrong right now... yeah I know there's nothing like a pessamistic attitude but sometimes you just can't help it. For me... Easter is that time when it just can't be helped. grr....EASTER!!!!!!!

In review

So it's been about a year since the craziness of last year. For those of you who don't remember that would be the 5 funerals in a matter of 4 months. There was Brenda's grandpa, then my grandma, TJ, my grandpa, and then Masani's partner. So needless to say at this time last year things were a little rough. But it looks like we have made it and we are hoping that this year will be a little bit better... ok who are we kidding ALOT better. Unfortunately I do have some bad health news to report. So far this year Brenda's Grandmother has been diagnosed with alzheimers disease, my grandfather's sister (my auntie Sara) passed away a couple of days ago in South Carolina, and my Aunt's Chemo isnt' going so well. Unfortunately it looks like we might be in for another rough year and my thoughts are bombarded by the circumstances.

On a note about last year I was thinking about everyone and everything so I decided to go back and check my blog posts from the time and I found a comment that was posted a couple of months ago that I had never seen. Under the posting of TJ's obituary was a comment from his mother saying that she was searching the web for things about TJ and found my blog. She said that it made her feel really good to know that I was remembering him in it and that I should get in touch with her (which I fully intend to do now that I have found the comment). Now I find myself wishing that I had posted more than just an obituary because I do have many memories of TJ that I would have loved for her to read. Unfortunately there was so much other stuff going on that I neglected to do so at the time. I just want his mom to know if she is reading this that TJ is still and forever in our hearts and that that is something that will never change with time. RIP TJ we all love you and miss you tremendously.

First and foremost in my mind right now is my aunts health. She is by far one of the most important people in my life and she means more than the world to me. She has been fighting cancer for over 5 years now and she has proven to me just how much of a fighter she is time and time again. Some of my best memories of my childhood involve my aunt and I actually have a full photo album dedicated to all of the things we used to do when we would go visit her. When we were little Aunt Anne and Monique lived right outside of Boston and we used to go out to visit her on our school breaks and durring the summer. They taught me how to Ski ("this is the most horrible day of my life"), they taught me how to ice skate, they took us sleding, they taught me how to ride a horse, they influenced my mother to let us get a dog, and they took my sister and I to Zoom Flume in the Catskills for a weekend of "summer water fun." There are pictures of Sharon and I sleeping in our Raggedy Anne and Andy sleeping bags on their floor curled up with one of there numerous stuffed animals in hand. As of right now all I know is that the Chemo she was taking this time has stopped working and she is awaiting an appointment in Boston to find out what the next step in the treatment is and we are all waiting anxiously with her too. I really have to plan a trip up to Vermont to see her and I know that it has been way too long.

Mardi Gras... and the day after

Ok so let me start this post by saying that I do not regret going out for mardi gras at all but the day after was living hell...

Mardi Gras was a lot of fun this year. I guess it doesn't take a lot to make you happy when you spend most of your life at work and you never seem to see the light of day. It was good to see cousin Jen we need to hang out more often I miss you!!! Tara, Brenda and I set out to meet cousin Jen at Cozumel with me as the DD and all set for an early night of fun because I had to get up and be at work by 6:45 in the morning. So we were waiting for Jen and I was talking to the creepy, drunk guy outside cozumel who wouldn't seem to leave us alone. Jen came out and then he wished us all a happy Mardi Gras and we were on our way. We bar hopped alot trying to find people we knew with not much luck at all. Jen and I did manage to load ourselves up with beads though ;) If you want to see the pictures check out Jens blog at www.allthingsjennifer.blogspot.com then finally at the end of the night things got a little more exciting we went over to Roxy's for the second time of the night and found Shan, Angela, Jen, Jackie, Christina and a few others. Cousin Jen, Tara, and Jackie managed to get them selves T-shirts though I will leave it up to your imagination as to what they had to do for them :) Well seeing as Roxy's was our last stop and it is the first place we really knew anybody we ended up haning out there a bit too long and by the time I dropped everyone off at their houses and picked up J from the babysitters I only got about 3 hours of sleep. Which leads me to the day after Mardi Gras

Well the fist shift of the day at the YWCA was not too bad... kids were crazy as usual but nothing out of the ordinary. Then I headed to edukids where my lead teacher in the room was away for the week and if you have ever dealt with a room full of two year olds than you know that they need structure and consistancy or everything goes to hell. Well needless to say the consistency and the structure was gone with out the lead teacher there and the kids were more than a little wild. I guess it didn't help much that the girl who was subbing for us the day before decided to quit and not come back which left us short on our child to teacher ratio as well. Ok so I get through that part of the day and I am walking out the door talking to my boss when I told her that I actually went out the night before and was exhausted she said "See you are in that married with a child lifestyle and you just don't get to do those things anymore" wow another one for the list of things that make you feel old post right there. So I go on my merry way trying to stay awake and I get to the YWCA for my second shift of the day which is agian a little hectic. I told them that I was tired, that I hadn't gotten much sleep and that I might be a little grouchy thinking that maybe... just maybe they would send me home early and let the guy that they always send home early stay to his scheduled time... which is the same as mine. So I go about my business when a coworker pulls me aside and says "well Lori you have monkey's on your underwear don't you" Shocked and a little appauled I say yes and she says that there is a rip in the back of my pants and I should go check it out... red faced and embarrassed I go down to the bathroom to find that the rip was not as bad as she made it sound but alas you could see the monkey. So luckily I was wearing a sweater to work that day and I took it off tied it around my waste and went back to work. Told my boss thinking now she has to let me go home right?!?!? WRONG!!! she says well you can't tell with the sweater!! AHHHHHH Ok so didn't really want to go to the gym today cause I usually play with the kids in the gym and I didn't want to dissappoint them when I was down there and tell them that I didn't feel like playing with them today but low and behold guess who gets sent down to the gym. So sitting in the gym trying not to move too much cause I dont' want the kids to see the rip in the back of my pants..... and l stand up to do something, sit back down and hear.... rrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiippppppppppppp!!! "FUCK" back to the bathroom to find that the little rip up by my wasteline was now from my waist ban all the way down to my knees... in other words there was no longer a back to my pants. Get up go tell my boss now she has to send me home first this is like a liability right??? NO again she says well I really can't see it with the sweater like that. so I continue to work the day with my ass hanging out. (Meanwhile I think every single one of my coworkers asked me to see the rip because "it can't be that bad"... yeah right in your dreams). So push comes to shove and I sit sedintary for the rest of the day. 5:30 rolls around and my boss sends the other guy home and as a slap in the face as he walks out the door he says "Wow it's gonna be cold when you walk to the car later" and he leaves. GRRRRR.. so now I am stuck because there are only two of us left which is the minimum that we can have and then to top it off the mother of the student I who's always there the latest comes to get her late... so I walk out the door at about 6:05 and drive to go get Jessie at the gym only to find out that I am going to be sitting in the car waiting for Brenda to take her out and then waiting somemore til Brenda goes on her break so that I cna see her at least once the entire day and so by the time I got home it was around 8:30 got the kid to bed and was fast asleep by 9:00. And then miraculously the day from hell seemed a little funnier when i woke up!!!

Sorry I know it took me a long time to post this but I figured it had to go up :)

Funny as hell

This is so funny... I got it in an email but it needs to be posted..... (sorry Jenny)


THE CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL HAS ISSUED A WARNING ABOUT A NEW

VIRUENT STRAIN OF SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASE.

THE DISEASE IS CONTRACTED THROUGH DANGEROUS AND HIGH-RISK BEHAVIOR.

THE DISEASE IS CALLED GONORRHEA LECTIM AND PRONOUNCE "GONNA RE-ELECT HIM."

MANY CONTRACTED IT IN 2004 , AFTER HAVING BEEN SCR-WD FOR THE PREVIOUS YEARS.

COGNITIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF INDIVIDUALS INFECTED INCLUDE: ANTI-SOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDERS, DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR WITH MESSIANIC OVERTONES, EXTREME COGNITIVE DISSONANCE,INABILITY TO INCORPORATE NEW INFORMATION, PRONOUNCED XENOPHOBIA AND PARANOIA, INABILITY TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR OWN ACTIONS,COWARDICE MASKED BY MISPLACED BRAVADO,UNCONTROL FACIAL SMIRKING, IGNORANCE OF GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY ,TENDENCIES TOWARDS EVANGELICAL THEOCRACY,CATEGORICAL ALL-OR-NOTHING BEHAVIOR,AND PRONOUNCIATION DIFFICULTIES.

NATURALISTS AND EPIDEMIOLOGISTS ARE AMAZED AT HOW THIS DESTRUCTIVE DISEASE ORIGINATED ONLY A FEW YEARS AGO FROM

A BUSH IN TEXAS---

Hello again

Hey so I haven't written in a while but I decided it was about time to update you all although I do admit that my life rarely changes much. So here are the major fronts:

The Home Front:
Well not much changed here. More problems with landlords (to be expected). Did a lot of cleaning yesterday so the house is looking pretty good. We went out and I bought Bren Rent on the first day it was released so eat your heart out world. The puppy is no longer really a puppy, he is full grown now and a year old (unfortunately the vet told Brenda that he may be full grown at a year but he won't mature until 2 so one more year of this puppy attitude) Jessie is doing well. We decorated as well as cleaning yesterday so there are new pictures of Jessie around. My family in white plains is doing well... I assume I must admit its been a little too long since I got down there. Nana is in rehab but she should be getting released on wednesday so that will make her happy. I guess that's really all that is new on the home front.

The Work Front:
Well there is some good news to report from this front. A couple of weeks ago I started working one day a week in the YWCA office and I must admit it is a lot different than I thought it would be but at least we are supposedly heading towards a full time position by next school year. I have written out a bussiness letter, two surveys, proof read a survey someone else wrote and made a bunch of phone calls to different colleges... all in a days work I guess. Edu kids is going well too. I love those little munchkins. I really enjoy working with the little ones. They are only 2 years old and they are sooo adorable and all. So besides the fact that I am putting in 11 hour days 5 days a week it seems to be going well. Money on the other hand is still tight.

School Front:
Well this front is unfortunately right where it was when we left off, no I have not graduated, I have a little more done on my thesis than I did before and my incomplete in nutrition has gone nowhere :( Sorry those 11 hour days are killing me if you think I want to come home to school work you would have to be kidding me. I did however finally make contact with my thesis advisor again and she said that she is willing to grade my paper as is because "she knows how incompletes just hang over your head and all" well I would gladly take her up on this offer if it wans't for two things A) My pride... I feel like I need to give this paper my all and I really want it to be good and to impress you know. and B) The only part that I am missing is my conclusion and we all know that I can not very well turn in a paper that comes to no conclusion so I guess I have a little more work to do before I get it graded. I am thinking I should be able to do what I need to do and contact her again at the end of this weekend or possibly the next at the latest.

This is a very important add in on the home front and I hope that some of you bloggers out there will see this before it is too late. The SUNY board and the University at Buffalo is trying to do away with the Women's Studies Department. They have already changed the name to Women in the Global Community and now they are in the process of firing all of the adjunct proffessors as well as many of the Graduate Student professors. Well these are the first steps at undermining and eventually eliminating the WS department as a whole from the UB campus. There is something that we can do however. The Women's Center is holding meetings about this issue and is right now focusing on trying to save our adjuncts. There is a petition cirrculating and there is also going to be a letter writing campaign and an email campaigne. If anyone is interested in more information about this or wants to help save WS at UB please let me know and I will try to get you in contact with the right people.

Ok well I guess that is all for now Please, Please, Please get involved in saving the WS department... I dont know where I would be right now without it and I know a lot of people who feel the same way. Please do what you can... every little bit helps. We can make a difference.

This one's for you Jen...

You're Sophia!

"Picture it. Sardinia, 1932. I was on a tour of the great caper factories. I was a cookie kid going through my piccata period -- a wedge of lemon and a smart answer for everything. Anyway, I was slicing an onion when, suddenly, a big basil tree fell. I don't have a story about taking advantage of a dead guy. I have a story about a Moroccan and a monkey. But that falls under the heading of lust." You're Sophia, the wisecracking know-it-all with a past as zesty as your famous marinara and a penchant for dating the famous (Picasso, Julio Iglesias and all three members of the Yalta Conference, to name a few).


Which Golden Girl are you? Find out now!

Hurricane

Ok so I have been spending a lot of time working on my thesis which happens to be about the construction of race in this country. So I have also been watching the news to keep up on the Hurricane in the south. Boy has that given me something to write about. Did anybody else see the pictures of the black woman and the white woman coming out of the stores with baby formula... maybe someone can explain to me why the white woman was "doing what she needed to do for survival" and the black woman was "looting and rioting." I don't get it. I have had many conversations with people recently about my thesis and about the Hurricane and sombody please tell me why nobody can see how racially charged this Hurricane experience has been. Letting alone the incident on the news which I just spoke of above but New Orleans and the surrounding areas are heavly populated with African Americans and for some reason, it took days to deploy the coast guard down there for emergency rescue, the emergency rescue missions were stopped because peope were looting.. of course they are looting... they have NOTHING to survive on. What did you expect them to do. The stores are all flooded anyway does it really matter much if a woman is taking formula to keep her baby alive and more importantly is that really a reason to stop trying to rescue people who are drowning. There have been more and more reports about how big a catastrophe this is and how many people are going to be dead at the end of it... not hundreds but thousands... oh well what a shame maybe we should go tend to the looters instead of pulling people out to the water. How does someone's brain work like this. Is it more important to arrest people for doing what they need to do to survive or to save more people. I dont' get it. When is the madness going to end. When are people going to wake up and smell the coffee. Alot of what happened could have been avoided... alot of the damage and definitly a lot of the deaths but when you are dealing with a bigoted gov't headed by the biggest bigot of our time and you are talking about a place that is mostly african american people... i guess I see how it happened. Oh well I got to go... more to come... I hope.

Lori and Brenda's top 10 list of ways that Six Flags makes you feel OLD!!!!

Ok so on the way back from Darien Lake tonight Brenda and I came up with a list of about 25 ways that Six Flags can make you feel old.... here are our favorite 10... hope you enjoy and keep in mind that all 10 are true...

#10 The lazy river doesn't seem so lazy any more

#9 Going to the Park no longer leaves you energized and excited... instead it leaves you utterly exhausted

#8 You find yourself packing a cooler and sandwiches to avoid the extremely overpriced food items that your parents always tried to avoid buying

#7 You have become the person who buys the waterproof canister necklass to keep your money (and your cigarettes dry)

#6 You find yourself willingly making conversation with people twice your age

#5 You find todays bathing suits more than a bit too revealing

#4 You find yourself shaking your head numerous times at "the youth of today"

#3 You find yourself critiquing the safety of every ride you go on

#2 The water slides don't hold the same appeal for you because there is no way you could possibly make it up that many stairs 2 times in a row nevermind carrying the raft with you. (this applies to smokers and non-smokers alike)

#1 Your FAT ASS can't fit in the seats of all the rides!!!

Ok I will update as I usually do.. .

So here is life in a nutshell... well possibly a fairly long nutshell...

school...
Ok so as far as school is concerned everything is going alright. I have about 15 pages done on my thesis so that is about half done. Beth is supposed to be finding out whether masani is reading and grading my paper or if she is this week so she can let me know next time we meet. All i have to say is that if it is the new chair and beth is wrong there is going to be hell to pay.. I do not like this lady. So far she has... cut beth from teaching, the 213 collective was shut down which was the class that most people entered the major through, she has Voichita teaching 101 which will have to take over that spot and draw people in.. but the curriculum for that course is drier than dry and at least I don't find Voichita to be the most welcoming of teachers, apparently she is thinking of canning Caroline (the assistant to the chair of our department), the nicest sweetest person you will ever meet, while Masani was trying to make her full time. Well I guess I will stop there... enough is enough of this shit. I am so glad that I am getting out of the department now and that I will have nothing to do with this chair. Besides she is a sociologist.. .that is how she made a name for herself not through women's studies and from what I and the people around me have seen she doens't hold true to any feminist ideologies. I still have to do and get in my nutrition labs because to be honest I really just haven't had the time to sit and get those done with all the other stuff I am doing right now in fact nutrition is worrying me the most out of anything that I have to get done this summer. Spanish is actually going pretty well. A friend of mine told me that it was going to be really dificult to do in the summer because of the amount of stuff you have to learn and the short time in which you have to do it but right now from my figuring I should have an A right now. So that about wraps up school right now...

Job...
Ok so I have been giving this a lot of thought lately. what am I going to do when I finally get done with school? Beth said that she can help me out in finding a job within my major and I am hoping that she comes through with that. In the meantime however I have an application that I am debating dropping off at the Wilson Farms across the street. For now it will at least be something and it will be convenient enough considering bren and I are working on one car. I have had the application for a couple of weeks now and I just haven't brought myself to turn it in yet. I guess I am just debating whether or not it's something I want to do. I mean a job is a job but at the same time I am about to graduate from college do I really want to be working a cash register again? Well only time shall tell how that pans out. I guess it wouldnt' be all that bad until I find something better.. .a little extra money in my pockets.

Kids...
Well we just dropped jon and jessie back off at grandma's last night after a fun trip to Darien Lake with them. (check out my livejournal for my personal opinion) I think Jon enjoyed it and I know Jessie did. I just feel bad that we didn't get to stick to our plans and take the kids on monday like we wanted to but Bren's mom decided that Jon had to be back up earlier than she originally said. Oh well thus is life. Jessie either has really bad heat rash or really mild chicken pox but they don't seem to be getting any worse so I think we are deciding that it is heat rash. Oh well... i kinda wish it was chicken pox because at least then it would be over with it's better for her to get them when she is young and during the summer so she wouldnt' miss any school. Well I guess that is about it for the kids right now.

I guess that's about it for the update too... later

Yikes

Ok so this is disgusting. I know that brenda blogged about this a couple of days ago and I am a little bit behind the ball but I'm sorry I can't just let this one slide by. Ok first of all the "gay panic" defence is just the same as "white fear" and I am writing a paper dealing with that right now. It's just amazing to me the things that can hold up and even be legitamate defences in our courtrooms. "White Fear" is basically a defence that says that the defendant was so afraid of said non-white (usually black) person that they felt as if they had to kill them. This is basically self-defence against someone's race. This defence can be and has been used and successful before in courts. I don't know what everybody else seems to think but to me... claiming this defence is basically confessing to a hate crime which should buy you more time in prison not get you off. If I am saying to you that I am so afraid of black people that I had to kill the one that was in front of me at the time... isn't that basically saying that you killed him because he/she was black? The same thing goes for "gay panic"... it goes something like this "oh my god I thought that guy was hitting on me so I killed him" or in this case "I thought my son might be gay so I beat him until he slipped into a coma and died" hmmm... doesn't that just scream hate crime!!! He KILLED HIS SON BECAUSE HE THOUGHT THAT THE 3 YEAR OLD WAS GAY!!! Come on people does anyone else see where I am going with this. First of all I wouldn't be surprised if he has or would be involved in ANOTHER hate crime against a gay person and lets be real either this guy has some pretty intence gaydar to pick up on a 3 year old OR he is a little too touchy about this issue. Ok so I guess that's it on my rant on this guy but there are just three words for this story... Oh My God!

Stuff

So here it is... I have about 5 minutes if that to write. It's Angela's birthday and we are all going out for a while. I have decided that my blog is not living up to it's name so I am going to focus on more radical things with the occasional update on my life too. So since I don't have the time now this is just an update but that is the future plan. Hopefully once I get done with all this school shit I will have the time to really look at the news and critique it but until then... alas I am stuck. Anyway, school is going pretty well. I didnt' get nearly enough done tonight.. too many interruptions but I am hoping that the quiz tomorrow will be ok anyway and then I will have some time to work some more on my paper before meeting with beth tomorrow night. Yes that's right I am meeting with beth and she is finally getting a look at all the work I really haven't gotten around to on my thesis yet. Oh well I have been working on it the last couple of days and pounding out some more pages of the actual paper at least. I guess we will see how it all goes. I didn't get through the books that I was supposed to be looking at for her but I did get through some of them and I have notes on them of stuff I want to plug in and if I finish plugging them in than I guess maybe I don't have to bring any evidence of how much I didn't actually read... I dont know maybe it is just me but I really felt like a lot of this stuff just wasn't relevant at all but then again I guess Beth knows better than me. Tara is buckeling down and she has gotten quite a bit done on her thesis so I am proud of her... I just wish I could do the same... I am so focused on being done with school that the things that have to get done before I can be done just aren't on my mind for some reason but you know what... Bren you are right... I just have to focus on this stuff for another 2 months and I am done with it so I guess I really have to put all that work energy that I have into the schoolwork for the time being. So yeah that's it about school I guess because quite frankly... I dont want to even talk about it anymore :(

So incase you guys didn't see it I now have a link up to my puppy's new blog... he's so cute so if you guys want to take a look at how the puppy is going and all the fun little things like pictures etc... check it out. If for some reason you can't use my links... the website is www.darkanddevious.blogspot.com check it out and let me know what you think... comments are always welcome lol... unless you are going to say that Bren and I are too obsessed with the dog... cause we already know that lol. Ok well I guess it is time to be going and meeting up with those friends of mine that I rarely see anymore... Off I go and a good night to all. :)

School

So here I sit at school again killing time before it is time to run off to abnormal psych. We have a test today so that should be fun. That means at the very least that I should be getting out a little bit early.. yay. Oh and lets see... I have a quiz in Mythology tomorrow... well every friday and they suck... I definitly failed the first one.. it was ridiculous.. i wish I was taking it with the same professor everyone else took it with... at least I hear he was fun.. .but no I have the graduate student.. dude look like a lady ;) so I don't know what I am going to do. I guess that means I am going to be studying my ass off after I get out of psychology tonight because I don't know anything that she wants us to know. I have to have a response paper in to her by monday and that class is just driving me nuts.. I mean it's really interesting and it would be a lot of fun if I wasn't too busy stressing over her insane expectations of what 90% of the class who have never had a greek nor mythology class in their lives are supposed to know... she is filling every class to the brim with stuff with a ton of reading every night and she expects us to know and absorb every tidbit from it for these damn tests... and we are not talking have a general knowlege... no she wants the specifics... it's crazy... excuse me for not knowing the greek word for truth.. what relevence does that have... ahhh... ok so enough ranting about that class.. I have about 15 minutes to get to my other class and then decide where I am going to go to study afterwards... stupid summer hours... the library is only open til 9... wtf. Ok so Jessie is with Jessica again and that's great... gives me a little bit of a break and some free time ... well if you consider classes and studying to be freetime. So I ran her in to Aunt Ellen's and Uncle Ken's house tonight and Aunt Ellen stopped me to let me know that we are going to be their bowling partners for the upcoming season... starting in like late august early september.... haha I'm going to be in a bowling league.. should serve to be interesting. Ok well I really should go but just a little reminder to everyone out there as to why I am SOOOO excited about this upcoming weekend... PRIDE!!!! Enough to put anyone in a better mood.. at least if you ask me. Love you baby.... hope you are having fun at work and hopefully I will have gotten enough studying done by the time that I pick you up that we will be able to get some stuff done before we go to sleep... the house is a disaster... ok bye for now :)

Peace

Ok so I am currently sitting at the computer at school trying to print my hw for the night. Yes that's right... summer classes have begun and are in full swing already. The computer is being stupid... whenever I try to print I am getting a message saying that the document exceeds the # of pages allowed or some shit like that. I didn't write it I'm just trying to print it... ahh not fair... If I don't get this to print I dont know what I am going to do because I need it for tomorrow. Anyway so here is what's new in life. I started classes today. Fun stuff as usual. bren is at work right now and we have a babysitter for Jessie so that I can have some time for hw and thesis and stuff of that nature. I have a feeling that I am in for a very full summer. Ok well what else... it feels so good to be out of the house. I am convinced that I was completely losing my mind because there was just nothing to do anymore and Jessie although I love her to death was driving me nuts... just too much time in the house I guess so hopefully school time and stuff like that will help. Midnight is doing well. He is listening a lot better, sleeping through the night and all... it's great. Very few accidents.. again a plus. Bren is doing well too. Even though today was the first day I think that she is really enjoying her new work schedule. It gives her a little bit of time to be home during the day and get some stuff done that she needs to do and god knows that I love not having to get up at 4:45 every morning. So that's working out well all around. Jessie has field day tomorrow at her school so bren and I are going and we are competeing. That should be fun. I told bren we are probably the best parents to be competing so we signed up lol. Ok well I guess I really should try to figure out a way to print this so I will talk to you all soon. Lots of Love... Peace

that's me

You Are a Plain Ole Cup of Joe But don't think plain - instead think, uncomplicated You're a low maintenance kind of girl... who can hang with the guys Down to earth, easy going, and fun! Yup, that's you: the friend everyone invites. And your dependable too. Both for a laugh and a sympathetic ear. What Kind Of Coffee Are You? Take This Quiz :-) Find the Love of Your Life (and More Love Quizzes) at Your New Romance.

update

ok so here it is... we figured it out!!! Last night we figured out a routine for midnight that helps him to sleep through the night. If you don't let him nap between 8 and 11 and you play with him a bit then by the time 11 o'clock roles around he is so tired that he sleeps through the night... success. We had a our first decent nights sleep in a while thanks to that oh yeah so good a nights sleep that Jessie was a little late for school cause we all over slept. Hey I think we needed it and she'll only be like 5 mins late anyway. So Bren and Jessie are on their way to school and I am using this time to catch up on the things that I wanted to do... like blog. The puppy is definitly doing so much better. He hasn't been having the accidents in the house really and now with the sleeping through the night that we are keeping our fingers crossed that he continues to do ... all is well. We bought some flowers yesterday to plant in the front yard to spruce it up a little bit but I think we got a frost last night so we had to pull all of the flowers in and off the porch for now. This weather is crazy I mean it's 80 one day and like 30 the next... something has to give. Bren works today from 2-10:15 and I am going to have jessie and Dolores. Dolores is the 3 year old daughter of one of Bren's coworkers and she needed somebody to watch her today so that she could work some extra hours.. we figured since they have watched Jessie for us more than once... why not. So that should be fun... I bit exhausting cause that means a 3 year old, a 6 year old and a puppy but all is good... and it shouldn't be that bad. Ok well as a sims update cause that is what I am about to do... bren and I are both old now... we have a kid named Jamie and Jessie is an adult. We moved into a huge house but don't have the money to furnish it.. oh well.... such is life. Talk to you all later. it's SIMS TIME!!!!

so...

Ok.. tired oh so tired. Dog kept me up all night last night and then Jessie kept me up this morning. I can't wait for brenda to start working nights... this 5:30 bullshit has got to go. So I am sitting here after taking brenda to work at 5:30 and Jessie to school for 9:00, took Brenda from breakfast at work and now it is a little bit of blog time for me then school work. So speaking of school.. in order to graduate this summer here is the list of things I must do...
1) Finish incomplete for Colins and hope that she grades it (doing that today)
2)Take classes over the summer
3) Finish up my incomplete for nutrition over the summer
4) Get in my paperwork by the begining of July
5) And last but definitly not least, what promises to be the hardest part of my summer... my senior thesis. There is something really daunting about writing a 50 page paper... I don't know if it is just me but damn.

Ok so that wraps up school... as for last night.. the couple of hours that I did actually manage to sleep I had a really bad dream... well if you want to know what it was ask and if I deam you worthy... I shall tell you but believe me when I tell you it sucked.

The house is coming along nicely... I am quite pleased. I love having a porch and a yard... it's great. Jessie is enjoying the time she gets outside too which is always a good thing.

Oh and then there is this... because of the new computer I have been able to rediscover sims but this time it is in the form of Sims 2... ok well first things first... brenda hates it... mostly because I play it ALL THE TIME! but as usual I am addicted. Right now Bren and I live in a 2 bedroom house. Jessie is completely grown up but is still living with us and we have a brand new baby girl... Jamie. It's really cute they grow up in this version... man it's great... oh and in case I forgot to mention Bren and I are also only 5 days away from being considered elders but lord knows that by our lifestyle that won't be much of a change... Let me know if you want to be added into the sims game... it could happen. Oh another interesting thing that came out of the sims game. Bren and I discussed baby names and we have successfully named our first born son. Robert Edward Dean-Stein. So if you know us well enough I am pretty sure you can figure out where these names came from. If not... well keep guessing and maybe we will tell you. Luv you lots
Lori

110 Banned books, Well... yes if I've read it .... no if not
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman... no
#11 The Prince by Niccoli Machiavelli ... no
#12 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe... of course
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank... yupper... and I own it
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert... no
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens... I think so
#16 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo... no but I have seen it does that count?
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker parts... no
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin... no
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding....no
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne... no
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck ... no
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon... no
#23 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy... no
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin... I'm sure I have read parts of this... well I know I have
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce...no
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio... no
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell.... of course... doesn't everyone read this at some point
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.... yeah but as much as I know it's a sacralige... I didn't really like it.
#29 Candide by Voltaire... no
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee... read it... own it
#31 Analects by Confucius... I think I might have it but I haven't read it yet
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce... no
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck... no
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway... no
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal... no
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx... no
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire... no
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle... no
#39 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence... no
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley... no
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser... no
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell... actually no
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair ... I have at least read parts of this... very disturbing
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque ... no
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx ... no... maybe parts
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding... no but i own it
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys... no
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway... no
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy... part of it... maybe all of it
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury ... no
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak ... no
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant.... no
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey... yes, yes, yes... I loved it
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus... no
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller... no
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X... no
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker... no but I think I am going to... saw the movie :)
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger ... one of my absolute favorites
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke... I dont' think so
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison... no
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe....no
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn... no
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck... no
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison... no
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou... no but I want to
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau.... no
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by Fran?ois Rabelais... no
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes... no
#69 The Talmud... no
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau...no
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson... yes... why is this banned???
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence...no
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser... no
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler... no
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles... yes... but I didn't know this was banned.. why??
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath ... no
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck... no
#78 Popol Vuh... no
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith... no
#80 Satyricon by Petronius... no
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl... no but I didn't know it was possible for Roald Dahl to be banned lol
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov... no
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright... yes
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu.... no
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut .... no
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George.... no
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle... no
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder... no
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin... no, maybe parts.. I'm really not sure
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse... no
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene... no
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner... no
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner... no
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin... no
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig... no
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe... no
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud .... no
#98 Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood ... I love this book... read it... own it
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown... no... but it's a great song
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess... no
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines... no
#102 mile Jean by Jacques Rousseau... no
#103 Nana by mile Zola... no
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier... no
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin... no
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn... no
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein.... no
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck... no
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark... no
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.... yes... great book... read it... own it

Okay... so the conclusion that I have come to after going through this list... I have my work cut out for me... I have a lot of reading left to do... I have read Heather Has Two Mommies though.. I know that was banned... does that count?? And Jessie Owns it :) yay for banned books!