50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind

I'm not normally this hippy-ish, but I found this post appealing. As I sit down to give my own answers, I haven't even read all the questions. Yet, I feel the need to reflect and to ponder some things about my life. I know that I've been struggling with a lot of disappointment lately and it's time to examine where I think I'm heading in life. However, I know some of my answers here may further disappoint me.... but that's what I need to work on. :)

These questions have no right or wrong answers.
Because sometimes asking the right questions is the answer.

1. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are? Either 15 or 40... I guess I average out pretty well.
2. Which is worse, failing or never trying? I'm going to go with never trying.
3. If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do? Because we have a hard time taking risks and leaving our comfort zone.... also b/c society forces us into dead end jobs in order to survive.
4. When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done? Right now, yes. But I'm working on fixing that.
5. What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world? There's a lot... separation of church and state, of corporation and state, end corruption and eliminate the two party system. Also, can we just put an end to stupidity and make it physically painful to lie? Like look at the areas of the world wear they actually believe that raping young girls (virgins) will cure AIDS... that's the kind of stupidity I'm talking about.
6. If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich? photography, dancing, acting, singing, playing music, sex, wearing corsets (?), lol.
7. Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing? Definitely settling... under the justification that I will one day be doing something worthwhile.
8. If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently? Well... I would seriously do away with any plans to have kids. I'm more than half-way to the grave and wouldn't even get to see them grow up.
9. To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken? That's a damn tricky question, and one that's hard to answer accurately. I've controlled most of my adult life... I haven't let other people make decisions for me, but I also haven't gotten the opportunity to do many things I would like to.
10. Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things? Both, unfortunately. I like to do the right thing, but I'm always stuck on doing things right.
11. You’re having lunch with three people you respect and admire.  They all start criticizing a close friend of yours, not knowing she is your friend.  The criticism is distasteful and unjustified.  What do you do? Tell them they're being unfair and explain why I disagree.
12. If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be? That's really not a fair question.... no advise you could give a child would be remembered and, even if it was, them implementing it would hinder their own knowledge and development.
13. Would you break the law to save a loved one? Yes.
14. Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity? I think so... :)
15. What’s something you know you do differently than most people? Reason... socialize...
16. How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy? I'm not as simple, or as easily abated.
17. What one thing have you not done that you really want to do?  What’s holding you back? Start my own Ren circuit act; location and travel are holding me back.
18. Are you holding onto something you need to let go of? Maybe my dreams?
19. If you had to move to a state or country besides the one you currently live in, where would you move and why? Probably back to PA.... houses are so damn cheap.
20. Do you push the elevator button more than once?  Do you really believe it makes the elevator faster? No, and no.
21. Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton?Why aren't geniuses allowed to be joyful?
22. Why are you, you? Because I have no other choice than to be honest to myself.
23. Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend? Yes.
24. Which is worse, when a good friend moves away, or losing touch with a good friend who lives right near you? Losing touch... that's just laziness.
25. What are you most grateful for? My wonderful fiance, who takes care of me, loves me, and lets me pursue my silly academics.
26. Would you rather lose all of your old memories, or never be able to make new ones? It's tought, but I'd have to lose the old ones... there is a lot of bad in there and, yes, I'd lose some good too, but I don't plan on having nearly as much bad shit in my future. Plus, I have a terrible memory as it is, so I've forgotten half of the past already, lol.
27. Is is possible to know the truth without challenging it first? I've often had inherent knowledge about things that, when confronted with, just seemed obvious. So, yes.
28. Has your greatest fear ever come true? My greatest fear is falling... Although I have recently comer face to face with my 2nd greatest fear .
29. Do you remember that time 5 years ago when you were extremely upset?  Does it really matter now? No, not at all.
30. What is your happiest childhood memory?  What makes it so special? When I finally found out my mom was proud of me...
31. At what time in your recent past have you felt most passionate and alive? Probably our recent trip to Vegas, it was just nice to relax and experience new things with my boy. :)
32. If not now, then when? I'm thinking about 2 years from now.
33. If you haven’t achieved it yet, what do you have to lose? The will to try again?
34. Have you ever been with someone, said nothing, and walked away feeling like you just had the best conversation ever? Of course.
35. Why do religions that support love cause so many wars? Tatemae... or a much too lengthy rant.
36. Is it possible to know, without a doubt, what is good and what is evil? Only in some cases.
37. If you just won a million dollars, would you quit your job? Yes. My job already isn't very important. However, I would still work; just on something I liked more.
38. Would you rather have less work to do, or more work you actually enjoy doing? I like staying busy, but only if it has meaning.
39. Do you feel like you’ve lived this day a hundred times before? Probably.
40. When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in? Oh.... that's not an idea I'm comfortable with.... hmmm.
41. If you knew that everyone you know was going to die tomorrow, who would you visit today? My family.
42. Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years to become extremely attractive or famous? I think I will actually have to say yes to this. However, it is not out of vanity. I don't care about being attractive or famous, but I care about the impact I would have the potential to make if I held some sway and could influence the way of government functions. Basically, if I was famous I could run for office and actually stand a chance of winning.
43. What is the difference between being alive and truly living? Working toward something, doing things you love, taking time for yourself and those you cherish; doing anything other than going through the motions, day in and day out.
44. When is it time to stop calculating risk and rewards, and just go ahead and do what you know is right? Whenever you have the ability to do so. (Some situations require money or resources that you don't always have.)
45. If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake? Perhaps the fear that we should have learned sooner how to avoid it.
46. What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you? Not wear clothes, lmao.
47. When was the last time you noticed the sound of your own breathing? ... right now.
48. What do you love?  Have any of your recent actions openly expressed this love? I love learning... I finished submitting my grad school applications earlier this week.
49. In 5 years from now, will you remember what you did yesterday?  What about the day before that?  Or the day before that? I've always had a terrible memory...
50. Decisions are being made right now.  The question is:  Are you making them for yourself, or are you letting others make them for you? Well.... decisions are being made right now, on my grad school apps, and I wish I didn't have to, but I must allow others to make them.

11:59PM - Rejection Letter

Well, at least I had prepared myself for this, so I'm not completely distraught...

I got my polite rejection email from UCSD. Now my options are dwindling. 

This is the 1st school I've ever been rejected from. I really expected it to be more monumental. In high school I only applied to one college and got accepted... because I knew I could. I actually feared applying to this school, because I didn't think I would be accepted, but I did anyway because I had to try. I suppose it's a good thing I got that fear out of the way. Too bad it had to be on the best school (as far as suiting my needs is concerned).

Now my options are 1) go to mediocre school and get my M.A. 2) go to mediocre school and work on my M.A. for a year and reapply (my GPA was certainly a tragic part of my downfall). 3) go to a good school that's an hour and a half away.... this is, realistically, less of an option than I would like to let myself believe.

If I reapply after getting my M.A., UCSD may approve that work to count toward 4 courses.... basically saying that spending 2 years working on my M.A. is only worth 1 semester of their time. *sigh*

Either way, I'm wasting time. And my life. That's the shitty part. I'm kind of putting all my eggs in one basket with this whole grad school thing....

Of course, if I get my M.A. I'm qualified to teach at any of the plethora of community colleges in the area. It really seems quite pathetic, but so does the whole community college system here. (Well, I can't say just here. I'm not familiar with any other community colleges. We didn't have those in Erie.)

I may also be able to get my teaching credential and just teach dirty, loud children.... *shudder* The only thing that is even moderately appealing about this option is that I can get my student loans forgiven after 5 years of [qualified] full-time teaching. That almost seems worth it.

I'm a miracle worker.

The boyfriend goes, "You should bake something. You like doing that." I go, "But I don't have the stuff to do that..." I wander out to the kitchen and do a bit of scavenging; an hour later we have No-Bake Coconut Cheesecake. I'm a miracle worker.

Yeah, it's a shitty picture, but the post was too short otherwise.

 

Comic-Con

I got my Comic-Con tickets this morning. After about 2 hours of fervently hitting F5, I finally managed to get a confirmation.

What craziness. I know they were avoiding many of the larger companies such as TicketMaster and Amazon, because of the expense - TicketMaster would have charged the customer too much in fees and, apparently, Amazon wanted too much from the actual seller - but, seriously, this shit was ridiculous. We've been waiting months for these tickets, as have thousands of others. I'm pretty sure the majority of us would have preferred a small increase in price (or fees), rather than the inconvenience we have paid with instead.

I think of it like this, I'm making decent money now with my new job and with the time I wasted getting tickets (both today and other days they attempted to sell them) I could have made about $80 or so, if I had spent that time working instead. And I really should have spend this morning working.... I have to leave for a training session and I hate feeling so inadequately prepared.

English Pronunciation Poem

Unfortunately, I do not know where this originated, but I have seen it posted a few times on Facebook and I'm quite fond of it. I've even contemplated doing it as a monologue, though it's been some time now since I've needed one, lol.

If you can correctly pronounce every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.


"Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!"
- B. Shaw