Here’s the final week of my “A Month of Things” Google+ posts. I hope you enjoyed learning about me 😀
Dec. 22nd:
For “A Month of Things” topic #22 I want to talk about something that I know people debate about a lot: weight. For me, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it and come to the conclusion that I wouldn’t be happy being skinny. By that I mean I weigh 160 right now and, while I could stand to lose maybe 10 pounds or so, I don’t think I would be happy if I weighted like 130 (which is what the BMI shit wants to me weight).
It has little to do with any stigma about being fat/skinny or something like that but rather I know my body and I know I would look funny if I was only 130 lol I look healthy now at 160 even though I have some pudge. At 130 I would look like a stick figure (at 140 I looked pretty slim). I don’t care what anyone says when it comes to how I should look, that decision is solely mine and I say I’m happy being “fatter” than what some stupid chart tells me to be. I would rather be and look healthy than trying to look skinny like some model.
Embrace the pudge and be happy within your own skin!
Dec. 23rd:
One more “A Month of Things” today with topic #23: I like foreign music. And I don’t just mean I like J-Pop because I’m some crazed Japan fanatic lol I like all kinds of foreign music just the same as I like all kinds of music. From rock to instrumental to rap to polka, I will listen to anything I find enjoyable because I could give a crap less about genre. Same with language, I have playlists that mix English (American, British, and elsewhere!), Japanese, Korean, Indian, German… even a song from Liechtenstein.
It doesn’t bother me that I can’t understand word for word what someone is saying, although I always go and look up the lyrics when I first here the song to get the basic idea of that their talking about. It’s simply about what I like emotionally and what my ears enjoy. Personally I think people who don’t broaden their musical experiences outside of a couple bands is really missing out on some amazing tunes. I would have missed out on several great English-speaking (or in this case, singing) bands from other countries as well as Rammstein, Monkey Majik, Utada Hikaru, Ayumi Hamasaki, Brown Eyed Girls, Tablo, Elis, and so many more!
Sure it can be a bit weird at first listing to a song in another language but don’t focus on the words right way, I think that’s the mistake most people make when it comes to music. The lyrics are such a small portion of the whole yet get way to much attention. Just enjoy the song for what it is, don’t judge it or compare it. Spend the day experiencing something new, you never know what you might find!
Dec. 24th:
Christmas is finally over and so now I can hopefully catch up on everything I need to do. Lets start with “A Month of Things” topic #24. Speaking vs Writing. Some people are better at one than the other and for me it’s writing. Words on a page, even though I am always editing them, generally just come out better for me than words from my mouth.
My mouth likes to mix up words and sounds so sometimes what I say comes out funny… stupid mouth 😛 I know exactly what I want to say, it just doesn’t come out right. Chris loves to make fun of me when I say things like “the leaves look interesting now that all the trees have fallen off.” Har har I know, but I don’t so much find it funny as I do annoying. I guess I was just never meant to be a great public speaker 😛
Dec. 25th:
“A Month of Things” topic #25 is about me being a writer, more specifically it’s about me being a story teller rather than a writer. I always start out saying I am a writer though because most people don’t know there is a difference. Most people think that writing is writing but really there is a big difference between being able to tell a story and being able to write.
A writer is someone who can write, someone who is good at the craft of writing. A story teller is good at telling stories. They do mix but they are not interchangeable. Stephen King is a good story teller and writer whereas Stephanie Meyer is (perhaps) a good story teller but (definitely) a horrible writer. You can be an excellent writer but still produce a dry, uninteresting story just the same as you can have a great epic but be unable to but it in the proper words or format that gets people interested.
For me, I am a good story teller first and foremost; although I have been told I am a good writer as well. I just have lots of ideas that I want to see out in the word and it doesn’t matter to me who writes them. I like being creative more than I like being a writer which is probably why longer writing projects are so hard for me… it doesn’t help that my brain things in novel length either xD
Dec. 26th:
“A Month of Things” topic #26 is something my mother and sister hate about me: I’m ok with germs and chemicals. Oh does it drive them nuts that I don’t eat “healthy” or carry around a little thing of hand sanitizer. What drives me nuts is that they don’t listen to me when I try to tell them the facts. Like how our body’s are mostly made up of germs or that constantly cleaning your skin can leave your immune system lacking. “Oh if you eat that, you have such and such percent higher chance of dying from a heart attack”…. Whatever you say, I’ll believe you when you get a Ph.D in “healthy living” 😛 which is impossible since it’s all subjective.
We’re not meant to live forever and some of these health food nuts (not referring to my mom or my sister) just go crazy because, in my opinion, they are simply terrified of death; so much so that even the slightest little hiccup sends them running to the organic food store. Not to mention most of the facts they spit out about things being “doctor” this or that are total bunk and myth. Doctors do about as much research as scientists do handed out prescriptions and where there is one study saying one things there is always another saying the opposite; which one makes it on the nightly news just depends on which one has the richest benefactor.
Besides, I’m not that unhealthy. I eat moderately, when I can (see post on health issues), and take vitamins when I feel I might not be getting enough proper nutrition because of said health issues. But because I’m not “organic” (more health food BS) and still eat things like Hamburger Helper and Betty Crocker Brownies on occasion, I am just a sinful mess of unhealthy evilness… and I like it that way 😛
Dec. 27th:
For “A Month of Things” topic #27 I want to talk about my roots, my genealogy… and I don’t mean “these are the famous people the great Ancestry.com says I am related too.” I’ve always believed that we are formed by everything that has happened in our past and the past in general so, for me, my roots are important to me, but I won’t go into any extensive detail here cause that would take way to long hehe It was my mother who first got me interested in genealogy when she asked me to help locate her father’s father and it all snowballed from there.
Speaking of my mother’s grandfather, we did eventually track him down and located a whole other side of the family we didn’t even know existed (well, sort of didn’t). That was one of the biggest brick walls we set out to break down and we discovered so much, it really was amazing. We haven’t really figured out when most sides of my mother’s family immigrated yet (they’re from Holland, France, England, Scotland, and a few other places) but we do know they have been in Alabama, Tennessee, and Virginia for ages. We also discovered that my 3rd Great Grandmother was full blooded Cherokee Indian. We’re also related to John Napier of Merchiston (the math wiz who discovered logarithms) on her side as well.
On my father’s side I have been lucky enough to learn that his roots are deeply based in Quebec/France on one side and Switzerland/Germany on the other. With help I have been able to trace my Swiss roots back to around 1755 in Ziefen (pretty much right on the border of Germany). A trip to Toledo, which is where my 2nd Grandfather and two 2nd Uncles immigrated too, revealed not only their family grave plots but also tons of family history. My 2nd Grandfather, Jacob Christof Koch, owned a large farm that was very self-sufficient (meaning they were quite wealthy) and also had a son who died of Typhoid Fever the same year his first and only child was born (he died a few months before the birth). That was another brick wall that took combing through old newspaper obituary’s to figure out and things are still not fully answered as the “official” death certificate was never filled out properly (it was literally scribbles, the lady at the office didn’t even charge us because it really didn’t say anything at all).
I’m going to stop there as I could go on for hours 😛 but for me it is truly an honor to not just know the names of my ancestors but also to know about their lives and history. It’s an honor to be able to say I have visited their gravestones to say hello.
Dec. 28th:
“A Month of Things” topic #28 moves away from pride in my heritage and into the unsure territory that surrounds my national identity. What I mean is that I am American… for most Americans that would bring about a feeling of national pride but I’m not so steady-footed on such matters. It has nothing to do with thinking being American is bad or anything like that, just that I am not really sure what having national pride means. Don’t get me wrong, I feel an incredible love for the soldiers and the innovators who have paved the way for this country to become great, but I wonder if that is national pride or just love for people putting others before themselves.
Some years ago, on Memorial Day, I saw on the news that Governor Granholm had ordered all flags in the state to be lowered to half-mast so that people would be reminded of what the day was all about. I drove to my parents’ home that day, which is about an hour from mine, and pasted several flags on my way; all of them flying high. Even at the Michigan Fallen Heroes Memorial, I saw zero flags actually lowered. In the back of my mind I tried to imagine some old veteran waving a cane and yelling how he was not going to lower any flag that his fellow service men died to raise but I know that’s not what’s going on. I started questioning how I fit with national pride when I past the memorial that day.
Throughout my life I have meet several people from other countries, both visiting and American citizens, who beam with pride when they talk about their nations. British, Mexican, Armenian, Canadian, Indian… if ever you asked about something going on in their home country it would be like you just turned on a light switch in their eyes and they would feel so proud to talk about things, so engaged. I don’t see that in my own people (the ones I have encountered at least) and I certainly don’t see it in me. I know some believe that if you love your country than you should question everything your government does, and frequently. Others believe that if you love your country you should prove it by joining the military and helping to defend it. But I want to find out what I believe. What I, as an average American with no desire to get into politics or join the military, believe about national pride.
I went to a baseball game shortly after that Memorial Day and, like every sporting event, they sang the national anthem. Normally, I would always stand and show respect but I wouldn’t place my hand over my heart and my eyes, just like my thoughts, would wonder. This time I tried to really get into it though. I stood, removed my hat, and placed my hand over my heart. I keep my eyes on the flag and sang along while trying to think about what this all meant to the stadium of people around me. That particular attempt at going deeper into things was marred by family matters but I did feel more connected with the people around me at the time. I felt as if I was honoring everything and everyone that had gone into making America what it was today but still I questioned whether that was pride in my nation or simply pride in the people within. Is loving a country’s diverse people and background really the same as having pride in your nation as a land? I don’t know, and I doubt it’s something I will answer anytime soon.
Dec. 29th:
For “A Month of Things” topic #29 let’s talk about something that everyone has: opinions. Oh the joys of being able to make up your own mind and the torment of forever knowing that you will never completely agree with anyone 😛 We all know opinions are subjective, so I’m not going to get into anything down that alley, rather I want to talk about how other people’s opinions affect my life.
Generally, the opinions of people I don’t know don’t really matter to me. …We all say that don’t we? But the truth is that if you get a lot of people together who are saying the same thing about you than it’s going to have some effect on you. I don’t mean in some bullying sense, but if people kept coming up to you saying you smelled, you would probably start listening after a while even if you couldn’t tell yourself.
For me, I’m a humble kind of person who doesn’t really like to blown my own horn, so I rely a lot on what my friends and family tell me. For example, if they keep telling me my jokes are hilarious then I guess they are even I think they come out wrong or flat rather than just me saying I’m a funny person. Granted, I don’t rely completely on others to tell me about myself (I do have my own mind after all) but, as a Psych major, I know that we are not always the best judges of ourselves. I simply choose to acknowledge and accept others people’s opinions about me above my own sometimes… I know, crazy right?
Dec. 30th:
Simple and slow, that’s topic #30 for “A Month of Things.” Several years ago I came to the realization that things were moving too fast. There was too much going on in my life; too many people, too many obligations, too many projects, on and on… I just didn’t want to do it anymore. I figured, what was the point? My life wasn’t any better trying to do everything under the sun and it certainly wasn’t helping my completion rate 😛
I decided to look into a different way of living and discovered the Slow Movement. I find that it keeps me in check with reality, reminding me that I can’t do everything and should focus just on the things I really want to do. Slow living focuses on quality over quantity. Slow food focuses on real, tasty food rather than the shit fast food chains throw out. On and on, something for every category, even whole cities (Cittaslow)! Some people confuse it with green living and what not but it’s not exactly the same thing, they do cross paths though.
I don’t need to be in such a hurry all the time; I can’t take it with me after all. I think we all need to slow down and enjoy life a little more, we need to stop running around so much in order to remember what’s really important. For me, I found that I was doing a whole bunch of things that I really didn’t care much about but somehow got sucked into. My priorities are thankfully a lot more focused these days 🙂
Dec. 31st:
It’s amazing how certain things stand the test of time. For me, it’s this post that I made on my birthday 2 years ago. So, since the last “A Month of Things” topic is about my being ok with being ordinary and insignificant, I am just going to re-post it! No sense in repeating myself 🙂
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(See Jan. 27, 2010 post: “Ordinary, because I don’t need any extra” It would make this post way to long to relist it here :P)
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Ordinary is that great gray expanse that covers everything between black and white. Don’t try and tell me ordinary is boring. If you do, I’ll just say you probably think movie life is ordinary and are just looking for your next fix of something grand and new. Enjoy what you have, stop trying to search for something else. Eventually you’ll reach the end and be left with nothing.