Hesitate

The human heart is a scary part in fact.
'Cause I could break you and you could break me back.

Though my head says "just forget it,
You'll get hurt and you'll regret it,"

Ask me now and I won't hesitate.

One last thing.

This was the whole reason for me even posting something today. I found this picture. I love it. I have no idea where it is or if its even real, but I love it.

Records

I looked up and the first thing i saw was: records. Caitlin and I have about fifty old 45's strung together with fishing wire hanging from one of our walls. They're kinda cool actually.

The rest of the stuff on our walls:

wrapping paper to make it more colorful

old 45's (records)

random drawings and notes from over the year

a portrait of me done by Morgan in charcoal (she's not an artist, but Picasso would be proud, haha)

Bob Marley poster

surfing poster

cross country poster

Beatles/abbey road poster (its about 5 ft by 6 ft)

Muhammad Ali poster

Boondock Saints Poster

101 Best Movie Quotes poster

random decals with flowers and polka dots

pictures. everywhere.

The amount of pure crap we've accumulated in the past 9 months has to be completely packed up and removed by May 6th. Which means, we're getting started this weekend. Our goal: get everything off the walls by Sunday.

There is one minor problem, the walls are ridiculously messed up. We've shoved thumb tacks in them, used sticky tack on them, and accidentally ripped off some of the paint/sheetrock in places. We've got to buy a tube of spackle and re-do parts of the walls or we're getting fined, big time. It was all accidental, but still. We should have been WAY more careful.

Oh college. Only three more years.

Wednesday

I don't see the point in numbering these anymore. I don't know why I did it in the first place.

Its the end of the year and that literally can only mean one thing: room mate problems. Don't get me wrong, I love my room mate dearly. She's one of my best friends. But we would be a lot better off if we didn't live together. First semester was fine. This semester, once we became closer, we just started driving one another crazy. That sound ironic I know. We're just completely different people with completely different lifestyles. I think I'm just tired of sharing a room. I'm ready to go home!

Easy Mac. You know, the microwaveable mac and cheese. Its gross. And it smells even worse than it tastes. I can handle instant oatmeal, its not terrible. Ramen is tolerable at 3am and there it NOTHING else to eat. Usually I go for the cereal though. We eat a lot of frosted flakes and raisin bran around here. But easy mac. I don't get it. Its powdered cheese mixed with water mixed with noodles that you can cook in a microwave. Its disgusting.

I'm exciting for my housing situation next semester. I'll be sharing a room with a really great girl, we get along great and are a lot alike. AND, there is a full kitchen in the house. Which means, no more crappy microwaveable food. Which means, actual cooked meals with nutritional value. No more questionable cafeteria food. Finally.

I think I've gone vegetarian without even realizing it. Honestly though, I can't think of the last time I ate meat. I'll eat chicken occasionally when I need the protein and I'll eat fish when I need more iron to counteract being anemic. But I'm not anemic at the moment (Finally! Actually the last time I was legitimately sick was before Spring Break, which is a record for me. I was sick off and on from December to March. It sucked.) and I've discovered a new source of protein- peanut butter, haha. I'm healthier now too, not eating as much meat as I did before. So I don't know. Maybe I'll go fully vegetarian. Maybe I'll just stick to my "one piece of chicken every two weeks" deal. Who knows.

Happy Wednesday! Its HUMP DAY!

Twelfth.

On a random side note before I even begin, "twelfth" is one of the weirdest looking words I've ever seen. It just looks... wrong.

I'm heading home in a few weeks and I just can't wrap my head around that. Its hard to believe that my freshmen year of college if over and I've only got three more years of this left. Its definitely been a growing experience, to say the least.

I lost some friends, and made so many new ones. I got hurt. I fell for someone. I got in trouble. I passed calculus! I started to learn who I am in the world. I have a new relationship with my brother that's stronger than ever. I started going to church again. I found a church I feel at home at. (I don't know that I'm doing to do. I feel so at home at my church here, what am I going to do when I leave for the summer?)

I have changed so much in the past ten months, but completely in a good way. I'm a stronger, bigger, better, person than I was when I left home. In a way, Charleston feels like home now. I'm nervous to go back to Norcross. I have family there and a few close friends. But my life is 90% in South Carolina now. Its going to be... weird... going back home for the summer.

Eleventh.

I believe that love is one of the strongest emotions in the universe. I believe that is has the power to tear you apart and break you down. I also believe it is the most positive emotion in the universe. I believe it can heal your heart, lead you in the direction your life should be going, and make you whole again.

People say that love hurts. They're wrong. Abandonment hurts. Rejection hurts. A broken heart hurts. Love can heal all of that. Love is a beautiful thing, it makes everything seem just a little but brighter.

Love comes in many forms. The love between and parent and child is one of the strongest bonds and has been that way since the beginning of time. The love between you and your God is even stronger. That love is the healing kind.

I say "I love you" on a regular basis. To my mother, my father, my brother, and my friends. I never end a conversation with a family member without telling them that I love them. In a weird and sad way, if that is the last time I'm ever able to talk to them, I want the last thing they hear from me to be how much I love them.

Open your heart to love. Please. Everything will turn around for you if you just let someone in and let them love you. It doesn't have to be a romantic love. It can just be a supportive, "I'm here for you, let me help you" love. But please, open your heart.

Tenth.

I rarely say that I "hate" something and even less frequently will I say that I "hate" someone. There are certain things and certain people that I extremely dislike and will do all things possible to avoid, but hate is too strong of a word most of the time.

I don't like unpleasant people and I would prefer not to be around them. Especially the ones who find it appropriate to yell at me in the middle of lab and use certain expletives while doing so. If you don't have anything nice to say, then just don't say anything at all.

I don't understand why some people think they have the right to speak to people like that, its belittling and hurtful and just plain mean. You have the right to free speech and all and I respect that, but jeeze... there's a line that doesn't need to be crossed.

Ninth.

Let me go into a bit of detail about the situation I was talking about earlier: Female infanticide in Northern India.

This isn't just present in the lower castes of civilization. It happens in all levels of society.

It occurs in the lower castes because:

1. Males are needed to perform rituals that females can not.

2. Males are believed to be able to better support their kin (specifically their parents) than females can.

3. The lower castes practice a "dowry" system. When a daughter is married off to another family, her kin sends some amount of wealth with her to the new couple. Since the new couple resides with the groom's kin, the dowry benefits his family, too. Dowries are not inexpensive, which is the reason female children are deemed too "expensive".

It happens in the upper castes because:

1. The dowry system is basically irrelevant, most times the dowry is actually refused or not even offered, but the upper classes of society want sons so their family name will be carried on and so that a male can take over whatever family business there is.

Wealthy families that can actually afford multiple children, regardless of whether or not they are female, will get an abortion if their child is female simply because their culture supports that idea. More often than not, its the husbands pushing the women toward abortion. The video we watched today made the statement what husbands and their family "force" women to abort their female babies. I take issue with that, you can't force someone to have an abortion. You can pressure them, do everything you can to persuade them, but ultimately, showing up at the abortion clinic and saying "Yes, I want this" is the woman's decision.

There are organizations of Indian women that are trying to put a stop to female selective abortion. They've managed to shut down ultrasound clinics that will reveal the sex of the baby and they will physically show up at the houses of pregnant women and talk to them about their options if the child is a female. Adoption is one of the main things they try to talk to the women about- carry the baby to full term, then give the child to a family that can't have children and will actually APPRECIATE the child just for being alive, regardless if the baby is male or female.

These people practicing female selective abortion have clearly stated that they believe abortion is a sin but that they don't have "any other option". Murder is a sin, but you don't see me going around killing people that make my life a little more difficult. Adultery is a sin, but just because a couple is having marital problems doesn't make it okay to be unfaithful.

These women are aborting their pregnancies up to SIX MONTHS of their pregnancy. That is ridiculously dangerous, not only because its actively killing an innocent child, but because of the health risks that come from having an abortion that late in a pregnancy. These women may have up to six abortions in their lifetime, many of them between four and six months of their pregnancy. In at least a half of those, the children turn out to be male anyway, because the ultrasound technician mis-read the ultrasound.

I'm well aware that 30% of this post is cold, hard fact and the other 70% is COMPLETELY my opinion and my reaction to this situation. Feel free to develop your own opinion if you so choose, I'll respect it. I expect you (whoever actually reads this) to respect my opinion, too.

Eighth.

We're reading an article in my anthropology class about "Female Infanticide and Child Neglect in Rural North India". It talks about female selective abortion and female infanticide. The main idea of the article is that females in rural Northern India are "too expensive" and "too much of a liability" for their families. The article specifically says that the pride of upper castes and tribes in India pushes them to murder female infants rather than give them away to more dominant groups AND that the families don't want to have to pay the expensive dowry that goes along with marrying off a daughter to another family.

Anthropologically speaking, SCIENTIFICALLY speaking, I accept what infanticide is. If you don't have to economic resources, or the space, or the food to feed a child, then infanticide is "appropriate". I feel terrible for saying that though! From a human perspective, infanticide is wrong. Its murder. There is absolutely no reason why a child's life should be taken, regardless if you have the economic means or not. Adoption agencies exist for a reason. The foster care system in the United States is awful, and from what little I know about the adoption process, its a really rough thing, especially on the kids. I don't even know what kind of system exists for abandoned children. But infanticide is murder.

The article goes on to talk about "female selective abortion". Pregnant women who follow the practice of female infanticide will request an amniocentesis and upon finding the sex of the baby, will request an abortion if it is female. Now most clinics in India don't offer amniocentesis testing for this very reason, so female selective abortion can't occur at these clinics. BUT IT STILL HAPPENS. I don't get it.

The particular people we are studying right now are Orthodox Jains, a particular culture in Northern India. Jainism supports NONVIOLENCE TOWARD ALL LIFE FORMS! These people will wear cloths over their mouths when the sleep so they don't swallow flies. They don't plow into the earth because they're afraid the'll cut a worm in half. I'm not exaggerating, these seem to be the most peaceful people on the planet. BUT a Jain woman is willing to abort a female fetus in the sixth month of gestation because the cultural disfavor toward the birth of daughters is so strong. It makes me sick.

We're supposed to take an objective approach in anthropology, especially when it comes down to studying other cultures. But I don't know that I can be objective about something as disturbing as female infanticide and female selective abortion. I can be objective about marriage customs, food preferences, gender roles in society, but not this. If accepting that other cultures view female infanticide, ANY form of infanticide, as appropriate and acceptable, then I'm not cut out for anthropology. I can not accept that in the world it is socially and culturally acceptable to murder a child or abort a fetus simply because of their gender.

My whole desire to be an anthropologist comes from my desire to bring new levels of understanding between vastly different cultures that have had differences in the past or are still at odds with one another. I don't know how I'm going to be able to accomplish that when I can't even grasp this situation.

At some point, later in life, when I'm married and have somewhat figured out my life (although that may never happen), I would like to have children. I love children of all ages. I love watching them grow up. I love being with them. I absolutely love everything about them, even the hard/messy/rough/difficult things about them. I have two of the greatest parents anyone could ever ask for and I know that because of them and the wonderful job they have done and are doing raising me and helping me grow into an adult, I will be able to be the same kind of parent to a child some day. I'll make mistakes like everyone else, but I will be a good mother whether I have sons or daughters or both. Even thinking about having children some day, I can't comprehend what it would be like to decide to end one of their lives. I couldn't and I WOULDN'T do it. There is absolutely no reason to. And this is where I struggle with drawing the line between my culture and the cultures of the rest of the world.

Seventh.

Maybe, one of these days, I'll learn from my mistakes. That's what we're supposed to do, right? Learn from them?

I keep making the same mistakes. Over and over again. And I'm starting to think I'll never learn from them.

On a different note, Happy Easter! I went to church for the second week in a row, and I'm going back next week too. I'll get back to where I was with God eventually. Its just going to take some time.