A Timeless Reality

Everyday I drive on this certain highway to get to school. There are 2 northbound lanes and 2 southbound lanes, divided by a grassy median. For the past few weeks, the paving company has been in the process of re-paving some of it. Needless to say, morning traffic+paving=pain-in-the-derriere. Anywho, last week they painted the stripes on. Of course, those gorgeous little diatoms make the new paint stand out like a neon sign, so I noticed them. Now, what the heck is there to notice about road stripes? This leads to the blogs title.

As I was driving along with the new stripes screaming at me, I started to laugh. The painter truck had messed up the lines!!! The line along the median was yellow, the stripes between the lanes were white, and the line along the "shoulder" (we don't have actual shoulders here) was white as well! Now, think about that... that is some more-than-slightly skewed symmetry. And skewed symmetry really bothers me. So I keep driving as I smile and shake my head...

Then *climax* I hit the old pavement. Guess what? The lines there are yellow-white-white as well!!! What the heck??? What kind of sense does that make?!? Now I can't drive without being distracted by the dis-symmetry! So if anyone has a logical explanation, please share!! :)

This is a picture I found of a Virginia highway.

Some bummer things have happened to me this week, but despite these things, I've had a great week! I don't really know how to put this week into a pretty sounding, nice flowing blog post, so I'm just going to write.


The Election Bad...

Anyone who knows me semi-well knows that I am a conservative (although the people in my Lit class think I'm a left-wing nutjob who encourages suicide... yeah...it's a long story). Because of this, I wasn't terribly excited about how things went Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Yet, I wasn't upset like many people were. I decided weeks ago not to worry about the election. I knew that it was all under control and everything was going to work out how it was supposed to.

At Rhythm last night, Craig was talking about how he was embarrassed by his fellow Christians this past week. I agree with him wholeheartedly. It doesn't matter who is in office, Christians have been commanded to love and respect them. Sending ugly texts and emails containing mean jokes and racial slurs is NOT loving or respectful. It's terrible. I have to admit, I laughed at one of the jokes, and I feel horrible about that. But as far as I can recall, when discussing the elections, I never made any ad hominem statements about President-Elect Obama.

I'm not saying that I'm better than everyone else, because I'm not. This just happens to be something that I don't struggle with. I've never enjoyed the radio talk shows with the conservatives slamming the liberals and the liberals shredding the conservatives. I've never enjoyed people belittling our head-of-state. I've never understood how people who call themselves Christians can be so full of malice and slander towards others. It doesn't matter which side of the aisle a Christian is on. If he/she claims to be a Christian, we should be able to see it in their actions.


The Election Good...

In the past I have taken part in an AMAZING program called Teenpact. Teenpacters are the most awesome people that you will ever meet. If every teenager was like these teens, then our country's future would be so bright that we would be blinded.

I'm always greatly encouraged when I hear about some Teenpact alumnus running for political office. This year, I got a Teenpact newsletter email about this 19-year-old guy named Kirk Lundby. Kirk was running for a state representative seat in Great Falls, Montana. My mom, of course, has her links in the MT political scene, and one of her friends actually knows Kirk fairly well. So she emailed Kirk to let him know that we were excited about what he was doing.

Kirk ended up losing his race, but I think what he did is amazing. If I wasn't moving away from my town next year to go to another college, I would LOVE to run for some local office.

Our country's future is not in a whole bunch of stuffy old people sitting in plush chairs. It is about my generation. It's about the young, bright minds who are being molded into America's new leaders. I don't know why people think that politicians have to be old. I don't have anything against "old" politicians, but let's face it--- they're rather boring. Young politicians bring an incredible, vibrant energy to a crumbling system of rules and hierarchies. Their excitement gets me excited. I feel more alive than I've felt in months. Kirk Lundby and other young people like him inspire me. They're making a difference in this world, and it makes me hope, that someday, in some little way, I might be able to make a difference too.

In my American Lit class we've been asked several times what we thought was literature. Some people have said anything that was written down, others said writings that give us a glimpse into the past. I've been thinking about my answer for a few weeks, and the other day in class I decided to voice my opinion on the matter.

Literature is anything that makes you think. It can be a novel, a newspaper article, a poem, the "literature" in the doctor's office, a textbook, or even song lyrics. I don't mean those Boxcar Children books we read when we were kids. I don't mean those trivial emails you get that have been forwarded a billion times. I mean stuff that you don't forget about 2 seconds after you read it. I mean the stuff that makes your brain form a thought, and then form another thought, and then another and another and another. If it makes you think, then it's making you better.
People these days don't read anymore. At least not like they used to. Now we get everything we know from tv, from politicians, from talk radio, from anywhere except for printed material. That's not necessarily bad, but it scares me. Why? Because if people are getting all their information from CNN or FOX news, they don't think for themselves. They accept what the tv tells them and they don't question it!

If people don't read, all their thoughts are not really theirs. They have been hugely influenced by the newscaster. The media is supposed to be un-biased, but that is far from true anymore. Everyone has opinions and they aren't afraid to share them.

Authors share their opinions too, but if you are reading it, you have time to stop and think about it. If you're just listening to someone, you don't have a chance to digest the material and decide your opinion on the matter, so you just take what that person says as your opinion. That's sad. That's scary.

So please, think for yourself. Please, read.