Juliana Tests Positive for Unstable Loner

I "stumbled upon" this personality test. Here were my results.

Global Personality Test Results

Stability (13%) very low which suggests you are extremely worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious. Orderliness (73%) high which suggests you are overly organized, reliable, neat, and hard working at the expense too often of flexibility, efficiency, spontaneity, and fun. Extraversion (36%) moderately low which suggests you are reclusive, quiet, unassertive, and secretive.

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personality tests by similarminds.com

I'm boring, unstable, and I have a stick up my butt. Cool. Then here was the "trait snapshot" they gave me.

"Introverted, neat, needs things to be extremely clean, observer, perfectionist, not self revealing, does not make friends easily, suspicious, irritable, hates large parties, follows the rules, worrying, does not like to stand out, fragile, phobic, submissive, dislikes leadership, cautious, takes precautions, focuses on hidden motives, good at saving money, solitary, hard working, emotionally sensitive, prudent, altruistic, heart over mind, unadventurous."

It's sad because it's true. I think I'm a little more fun than it thinks I am, but maybe not. Please help the cause by checking this box.

Yes! Send love to Juliana!

Love,
Juliana

Todo Pasa

The best advice I ever received was from a story in my Spanish 3 reading workbook called Todo Pasa, or Everything Passes. Basically, the story is about a King whose servant offers him a piece of paper with a message on it and says to keep it in his ring and only read it when all else has failed. Later in the story, the kingdom is invaded and the king remembers the ring and reads the note that says "Esto también pasara" or "This too will pass." Everything gets better and his kingdom is like the best ever. The servant tells him to look at the message again to remind him that his success won't last either.

It means that time passes and things that seem really important or really horrible right now won't last forever. Things will get better, but it's the same with really good things. Those won't last either.

"Ninguna cosa y ninguna emoción son permanentes. Todo viene y va como el día y la noche. Habrá momentos de alegría y momentos de tristeza. Acéptalos como parte de la dualidad de la vida; es la naturaleza misma de la existencia."

Nothing and no emotion is permanent. Everything comes and goes like day and night. There will be moments of happiness and moments of sadness. Accept them as part of the duality of life; it is the nature of existence.

Love,

Juliana

Looks matter, but not in the way that you think

People (self-righteous holier-than-thou free love anarchists) like to say looks don't matter to them. It's just an inevitable fact of nature that they do. Things that are more aesthetically pleasing are more attractive, and this applies to art, nature, architecture, people, everything. Looks shouldn't dictate our judgments about people -- they're part of a genetic lottery not everyone can win, but that's not the whole story. There are aspects of appearance that people can control very easily, and it is by this more than anything that people are judged.

I used to argue about this with my dad endlessly when I was little. He would yell at me to take off my chipped nail polish and cut my gross nails, and I would yell back with "I don't care! No one ever looks at my nails!" He would say "If you look like you just don't care, why should anyone care about you?" When I was eight, I thought this was ridiculous. Now that I'm 18, I wish I could time warp 10 years and tell myself to listen to Dad.

Your genetics are out of your hands, but the way you present yourself is your choice. It's shallow and unfair to judge guys on a scale from 1 to Chace Crawford, but they just ask to be judged when they voluntarily choose to look like a hobo. If they have the means to cut their hair, shave, and wear clothes that match, and they don't do those things, that screams to the world "I don't care what you think, so don't bother to think about me."

It's a matter of respect for normal social customs, and those who defy them only ask for judgment. People like to criticize those who judge by looks and label them as shallow, but looks can tell you a lot about a person. Everyone makes a conscious decision about their appearance when they get dressed in the morning, and this choice can immediately tell you how lazy or apathetic they are. It doesn't mean spending an hour doing your hair or wearing pounds of makeup, but looking clean is just a little thing anyone can do to respect themselves and everyone who has to look at them.

Don't judge a book by it's cover? The cover is not the whole story, but we shouldn't ignore the choice that went into it. Someone chose that cover to represent the book.

Love,

Juliana

I feel like a bad person, but...

I get excited about college when I think of it as an escape from all the relationships that make me feel trapped and from all the people I don't like. As much as it scares me, as much as I'm not ready for it, and as much as I'll miss my family and best friends, I kinda like the idea of a new beginning. I won't start college committed to anyone, and the constricting ropes of some of my current relationships will loosen and let me breathe again. Hopefully I won't make the same mistakes in college and get into these situations all over again.

Love,
Juliana

When happens when your best is not good enough?

It sucks to be told you're not good enough. It sucks more to be told you're not good enough when you actually try, but it sucks the most to be told you're not good enough when you try your best to do something you actually care about. It hurts to know your best isn't good enough.

You know why I try to get good grades in school? It's not because of a stupid letter on a piece of paper, it's not because of my parents, and it's not because of college. I need those grades to feel good about myself because that's really all I have to make me feel like I'm worth something.

Not sure if people realize this because I didn't even realize until recently, but I'm competitive and I'm a sore loser. I can't be happy for someone who beats me. I know that's immature and makes me a horrible person, but there are people I need to compete with and people I need to beat. I constantly compare myself to other people. I didn't realize just how much I do it until I thought about it, but I not only can't go a day without comparing myself to other people but I can't even go an hour. It affects everything I do and I base my self-worth on how I compare to other people.

Let me say first here that I hate rubrics. They're boring, annoying, and allow people to write a horrible paper that hits the criteria of the rubric and scores perfect. I do however acknowledge the need for them because without them, how would you know what's good and what's bad? I did my oral for Theory of Knowledge today on beauty as a symbol of status in society, and even though I'm probably going to get a devastating grade despite pouring my soul into it, I think there is a lot of truth to the idea of people needing a hierarchy, whether it be based on beauty, grades, skill, etc, to give them a real-life rubric. They often complain about it and say they don't like it, but they're the ones who let it consume their thoughts and dictate their behavior. Whose fault is it?

The people I like best are the ones who don't color in the lines. I love brilliant people who can't fit a rubric, even when they try their hardest, but they always write the most interesting things you'd ever want to read. I like artists who can create something imaginative without rules. I envy them. I wish I had that ability to create something from scratch that would blow people's minds.

I can't do this. I'm not great at anything, even though I would like to be. I used to want to be a writer. No rules, no rubric, no grades. All I would have to do is write something people want to read, and I was confident that I could do that. I got realistic and realized that there are thousands of people who want to be writers and the majority can't get published or make a career out of it. What makes me think I'm special?

I'm not. No one should think they are.

Love,

Juliana

Miss Independent? Mistaken.

I hate how much I need other people. I wish I didn't need my friends to make me happy, and I wish that I wasn't so afraid of everyone else. When my friends decide to skip a pep rally, all decide to stare into their math books at lunch, or cancel plans last minute, I let it break me. In those situations, I always wish I could be cool with it, say in my head "I don't need you," and go talk to some other people like a normal person...but I can't. I make the most awkward attempts to talk and when I do forget to be afraid and act like myself, I get embarrassed. I can't come out of my shell...not because I'm protecting myself but because I feel so inferior to them that I don't think I deserve to come out.

I still feel like the freshman in a room of seniors, even when I'm the senior in a room of freshmen. I hope one day I stop being a scared little freshman and lose the shell, but that's been at the top of my wish list for a long time and I don't think it's getting much better.

Love,
Juliana

Let's talk about faith?

I was always afraid that if I questioned my belief in God, I would go to hell, so I never did.

I went to Catholic school for the first nine years of my literate life. Nuns who wear habits and live in a house on the school ground, statues of saints next to the playground, crucifixes over the chalk boards in every room, and Hail Mary every morning before the Pledge of Allegiance...who would think to question it? I was the best guilty Catholic, the best grace-saying, Jesus-loving, hell-fearing child that Sr. Ann and Sr. Mary Theresa could have hoped to have in their religion class. I learned that all I had to do to go to heaven was believe in Jesus.

It took a while to adjust to non-sectarian high school. No Bible readings, no Thursday mass, and the teachers don't start each class with a prayer. Strange. I met atheists for the first time. Stranger. Atheists have no problem talking about God as a belief instead of a divine entity, something I was never comfortable with. I would push those thoughts from my mind for fear of going to hell, but as I became more comfortable thinking about it, I realized my religion was a matter of tradition, not faith.

Why am I Catholic? I don't agree with the Bible. I don't agree with the Church. I definitely believe there is a higher power, but how do I know it's the God I learned about in school all those years, exactly the way they taught Him in the Bible? Do I even believe in Heaven? I don't know. I don't know what I believe anymore. Without someone to tell me what to believe, I can't decide for myself. There are too many options.

I want my religion back. I want to be a good Catholic girl again because I want to believe in something again. I want to believe in Heaven, but to believe in Heaven, I have to also believe in Hell. Instead of Heaven or Hell, is it better just to believe that when you die, your life ends? You won't know you're dead. Logically, it's better to believe in Heaven because, if you're right, you will go to Heaven for believing in it. If you're wrong, you will never find out. That thought doesn't comfort me. I had to write an essay in sixth grade about what I thought Heaven would be like. My description did not include the possibility of knocking on the door and no one answering.

Even writing this, I'm afraid. I'm so paranoid that I heard my mom calling for my dad down the hall, but he wasn't answering, and I thought of the possibility of something bad happening to someone I love just because I'm thinking about this. The strongest part of my faith that remains is my fear. Even at times when I think that God was made up by people looking for answers and guidance in their lives, writing the Bible to give others the same sense of direction and purpose, I walk carefully down the stairs in fear of my punishment.

Believing in God just makes sense, more sense than anything actually. Without God, there would be no absolute truth and nothing to rely on to always be there. God is the answer to everything, giving guidance, direction, purpose, meaning, hope, and simplicity to a complicated world. Maybe God doesn't do those things, but maybe those things are God. Maybe God is just the presence of all those things in the lives of people who believe it. We can never prove God exists just as the religion believe, but in the end, does it matter? What if God is a myth? That doesn't make Him any less real to those who believe.

I could go on with this train of thought. I need to go to sleep now, but unlike I did when I was little, I can't just recite my little prayer before bed and feel assured that everything will be okay.

"Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. May angels watch me through the night and wake me with the morning light."

Love,
Juliana

The Bell Tolls

Sometimes I forget that life is a temporary condition.

My grandpa died from a heart attack when my dad was 17 and he was only 56. When I was too young to understand death, my parents told me that he died because his heart just stopped. I believed that death was a random and unexpected occurence, something that could happen to anyone at any time. I would constantly check to make sure my heart was still beating, and I remember being scared in the car because I couldn't feel my heartbeat through the vibrations.

When I was little, I thought about death a lot. When I was very young, probably even younger than six, I believed that dying meant falling asleep and not waking up. I thought that every time you went to sleep at night, there was a chance that you wouldn't wake up in the morning. I was so afraid that my parents wouldn't wake up the next morning. When I was too young to understand death, I understood the unpredictability of life and that everyone I care about could disappear in a moment.

I remember sitting in the corner of the kitchen on the floor in my old house, which means I was definitely younger than 7, listening to talk of some natural disaster on the news. I sat there hugging my doll (which I had a major attachment to--it's still in my room) and thinking about how I can't ever let go of her because if the world ended, I would want her to be with me. I thought that everyone else can run, but my doll needed me to carry her.

I don't think much about death anymore. Now I know that your heart doesn't just stop. I know that sleeping and dying are not the same thing. Whether it be my own or anyone else's, and it's hard for me to even imagine until a real, unexpected, heart-just-stopped kind of death makes me think. A healthy 16 year old girl died unexpectedly. I didn't know her, but all I could think about was how her parents, her brother, and her best friends must feel. It made me think about what I would do if I lost my best friend like they lost her. I can't even imagine how that must feel, but it was enough to make me cry a little. For them and for her.

Now it seems so easy to take everything for granted. You don't consider the possibility that everyone you love may not wake up tomorrow. You don't think about that probable day in the future when your best friend is no longer your best friend, when your relationship is reduced to awkward generic conversations on holidays. Over something as simple as geographic distance or as serious as the difference between life and death, you can lose someone who means the world to you.

When life disappears, love stays.

Love,
Juliana

What are you thinking? >.>

I read an article a while ago about this study on masturbation. The researcher said that his shows that it's not as common as other psychologists say because in his face-to-face interviews, only 38% percent of women and 61% of men said they did it at all in the last year. He said that he proved them wrong. He did mention that people may have lied if they felt awkward answering that question face to face.

Excuse me while I say NO DUH. Of course a face-to-face interview is not the format to use when trying to get valid statistics about masturbation. That's like...on the list of things you can't expect people to tell you. Another article provides a study about lying when asked an awkward question, discrediting the results of Mr. Brilliant's face-to-face interview.

This brings up the point about how people build secret worlds in their minds and will lie to keep anyone from breaking the walls. In an interview or even in a normal conversation, how do you know if people are telling the truth, or just telling you what they think you want to hear? You don't.

You really don't know what people think. I started clicking around articles and found one on sexual fantasies, saying that in a conclusion of a study of 23,000 people, the most normal people have the weirdest, most shocking fantasies, some of which he calls "frightening, violent, dangerous and disturbing." and that the "most disturbed people" have the most simplistic ones. You would never guess. For all I know, you could fantasize about penguins or something. For all you know, I could be one of the "frightening, violent, dangerous, and disturbing."

I've been put on the spot with questions similar to these, and although I don't have much to hide, I thought it was interesting to see what I couldn't talk about face-to-face but would answer in the dark (truth or dare) or over AIM. I also noticed that some kinds of questions immediately prompt a predetermined response, almost like a reflex, whether it be true or untrue. It's kind of interesting to know that you can hide in your mind and create a secret world you can't tell anyone about. Cost is you have to lie to keep it there.

Love,
Juliana

I'm Juliana, in case you forgot

I have a great memory for people. I could look around any one of my classrooms at any time and tell you everyone's first and last names, and I could tell you where half of them live. If I meet someone once, I remember them. I recognized the waitress from TGI Fridays because she used to work at Chick-Fil-A, I recognized the mother of a girl I went to preschool with when I saw her at Publix, and I recognized my cousin’s friend from elementary school at the beach, even though I only met him once or twice when I was 11.

The bad part of this, though, is that knowing so much about people makes it awkward when they don’t remember me. And they usually don’t remember me. This kills my self-esteem every time and I always thought either I just wasn't memorable or they were too self-involved to remember. I would think that was either a problem with me or a problem with them, but maybe it's just the difference between introversion and extroversion.

I was reading an article in Psychology Today called "Revenge of the Introverts" that talked about how introverts think and reflect on everything while extroverts barely finish their last activity before they're on to a new one. Extroverts thrive on social interaction, but they don't stop to worry about details. Introverts are overwhelmed by too much social interaction and would rather observe, but they consider the details and often overthink. Extroverts talk to everyone, but remember few. Introverts talk to few but remember everyone. I am definitely an introvert, and according to the article, introverts are outsiders in our society.

I do know some people who really don't care to remember other people. They mentally catalog the important faces and names and ignore the rest. Others just don't remember because they're not thinkers. I hate when someone I've had classes with for three years asks if my name is Carrie, or my cousin's friend who I've met at least six times says "nice to meet you," but I try to remember that sometimes it's me and sometimes it's them, but sometimes I'm just an introvert caught in a society of extroverts. And that's nobody's fault.

Love,
Juliana

Anticipation

I'm very afraid of needles.

I will worry, shake, and not be able to think about anything else. I cry every time, no matter how hard I try not to. But I know it really doesn't hurt, and I calm down the second it's over. I know it doesn't hurt, I know it's over in a few seconds, and I know it's no big deal. I can't tell myself this, though, because no matter how I explain it in my head, it's still a piece of metal piercing a vein. The time spent thinking about that, the anticipation, is far worse than the injection itself.

Anticipation, good or bad, is often better than the thing you're anticipating. Thinking about something, building it up in your head, is in itself a horrible period of anxiety or elongated periods of happiness. Actual events that make you happy or sad don't last long, and after the memories of them persist, but they fade as time goes on. With anticipation, those feelings get stronger as time goes on and the anticipated event closes in. Good or bad, anticipation is seriously underestimated.

Love,
Juliana

Can you deny your thoughts?

You can lie about things you did, but it's hard to convince yourself and everyone else of a lie when there is evidence that won't let you forget. It's much easier to lie about your thoughts which have no consequences, but what if you shared those thoughts with someone? Then there's a consequence. You can lie about things you said or cover yourself by claiming you meant something different, or you could cover it by lying about lying. Complicated. All this to convince someone else, but can you ever really convince yourself?

This is my problem. Some thoughts need to stay in my head. If they're too influenced by a moment of intense emotion, immaturity, or mixed priorities, I need to let them burn out in the safety of my mind. But when someone forces them out, I usually have to go back and cover it up. This has changed my relationship with some people because although I think I convinced them, I never completely convinced myself. Even after they likely forgot, I always felt like that confession hung between us. I covered the truth with a lie, and that blurred the line between real and imagined because even though I knew the truth, if no one else does, it really doesn't matter.

When I'm the only one who knows, it makes it hard to be sure of those things, and in a way that's a good thing. If we could take every silent mistake and blur the memory, making the truth indeterminable, those unwanted thoughts of the past lose their grip over our lives. Nothing is really true until you say it outloud and tell someone else. On the contrary, it's scary to think that it's easy to fall for a lie, even one you tell yourself. If you can't be sure of what you think, what can you be sure of?

Love,
Juliana

Easy A, Belly Dancers, Refrigerators with Feet

I saw Easy A yesterday, which I thought was pretty hilarious. I posted the trailer a while ago but it's about an "anonymous" high school girl who starts to get recognition when rumors spread that she lost her virginity to a college guy. When other guys find out she's lying, she fakes having sex with them so they can tell people and get recognition. She goes along with her new image and pretends so well that she is the most infamous person in school, who everyone thinks actually sells sex for money. Amanda Bynes and Cam Gigadent (evil vampire James from Twilight) play over-emotional super-Christians.

This clip is of the weekend when she supposedly hooked up with the college guy, but she narrates "That didn't happen. This is what I really did that weekend." I was cracking up.


Then a few scenes later, her phone rings and her ringtone is this song this song.

I also danced with a belly dancer at a Greek restaurant on Saturday, very awkwardly and I'm still pretty embarrassed. I don't know why I did that.

Another thing: What do you think about a refrigerator with a foot underneath that comes out and kicks the door closed if you forget to close it? I had a dream about that, but I accidentally got kicked by the foot.

Instead of ending with my refrigerator dream, I'll bookend it with another clip from the movie. It doesn't show the whole thing, but it is so funny when she fakes sex with the gay dude. His grunting XD



Love,
Juliana

High School Relationships: My Input

A few people have asked me lately exactly why I hate guys so much. I want to clear this up. I do not hate guys in general. What I do hate is the way they behave in the context of high school relationships, just as I hate girls in the same context. When people are just people, they are who they are, good, bad, whatever. People in relationships totally change who they are. They get all emotional lovey-dovey, dependent, obsessive, neglectful of other things in their life like friends. They're stupid and blind-sided, and I really believe that.

When you're an adult, usually you date to find someone cool to hang out with for the rest of your life. When you're a teenager, you do it for fun. Of course, this isn't saying that adults don't do it for fun. They do, all the time, but the difference between an adult and a teenager is practice vs. experimentation. High school relationships are about experimentation when people are still figuring out who they are. If they haven't figured out who they are, letting someone else in is playing with fire. When kids try to light fire to unknown chemicals, there's a pretty good chance it's going to blow up in their face.

Three things get mixed together in teenage relationships: Emotions, peer pressure, and thoughts about sex. Everyone wants to connect to someone, everyone feels like there are certain things they need to do to be socially normal, and to some degree, everyone thinks about sex. The volatile chemicals of these awesome teen years. Mix them together, light a match, and see what happens.

I think wanting to connect to someone is a big part of it. A lot of people don't have good friends, and they like the commitment of a relationship to give them some assurance or guarantee that someone will always be there to make them feel like they matter. Teenagers are babies when it comes to dealing with emotions. Quoting Zac Efron in 17 Again, "When you're young everything feels like the end of the world, but it's not. It's just the beginning." Emotions get tangled in a complicated web, and since these relationships are destined to end as everyone is subconsciously using everyone in their own experiments, the emotional strings attached get cut and people fall.

I think everybody needs to realize that they are going to get hurt. They can decide whether or not it's worth it, but they need to expect it to end. They make the decision to put their emotions on the front line, but they need to realize that the front line takes the first hits. When babies (dirty babies?) play with fire, they're sure to get burned. If they think they're adult enough to handle the flames, they still must remember that once they've thrown fuel to the fire, it's harder to put out.

Love,
Juliana

Shallow: No Diving

You've heard about the dangers of superficiality. People who hang in the shallow end are just a few inches away from hitting rock bottom. You want to swim in the deep end and explore what's underneath the surface, right? Well, that's great, but the understated complication of depth is the risk of getting in too deep, and it's a risk that makes the rocky shallow end look much more inviting.

When I get in too deep, I wish I was a shallow person, because even though I know I'll eventually make it out, there are those moments where I'm convinced that I'm going to drown in that water.

Love,
Juliana

A Little Info on Yours Truly

What are you doing right now?
I was emptying last years school papers out of my binders, but I got distracted/tired, so now I'm doing this.

Who was your first boyfriend/girlfriend?
Never had one and I don't want one.

Who's your celebrity crush?
Chace Crawford ;)

Who do you dream about the most?
There really isn't any one person that's in my dreams a whole lot, but there is this one random guy who shows up a lot. I went to school with him from K-8th grade, but I wasn't really friends with and have only talked to/seen him a few times since, but for some reason I dream about him once in a while and in the dreams I always get that butterflies feeling you get when you like someone. It's so bizarre.

Do you think looks matter?
I know everyone wants to say that they don't matter and it sounds shallow to say yes, but how can you be attracted to someone if you don't think they're attractive?

Would you ever kiss a stranger?
Not, like, today, but yeah, I would one day

What do you think about abortion?
That's controversial xP
I'm pro-choice, but I would never choose it for myself. If someone is willing to end their kid's life before it starts, I don't think it would be a good thing for either them or the child to force it.

Gay marriage?
Go for it. People who are against it are all "Well man-woman marriage is tradition" but the whole traditional point of marriage is old school now anyway. It used to be that a girl's goal in life was to find a man who could support her and give her half the genes for her kids, who she would raise for him and carry on his family name. Now, marriage is less of a big deal because the traditional point of it is based on antiquated social customs. We have new social customs and a new idea of marriage, so I'm all for it.

Do you believe in bisexuality?
I really don't understand bisexuality, but I guess it's legitimate. On Sex and the City, Carrie called it "a stopover on the way to gay town." I do think that someone would have to lean one way or the other though...I don't understand how anyone could be straight-down-the-middle bi. I would think you'd have to have a preference.

Are you hiding something from someone?
I'm hiding from my orthodontist that I chew gum. Shh. Don't tell him.

What are you afraid of?
Spiders, snakes, people, being alone in an unfamiliar place, sex, needles, dark alleys, sparklers, making phone calls, those 3D rides like Spiderman and Harry Potter, being betrayed by someone I trusted, losing my best friend, going to college, having a baby, going to the hospital, drowning, getting drafted into a war, ghosts, people reading my mind, the phone ringing

When was the last time you fell over or ran into something?
I tripped on the stairs at school today. I don't think I'm going to wear flip flops to school anymore.

Do you get butterflies around guys/girls you like?
It's been a very long time, but obviously I remember what it feels like since I dream about it.

Do you think it's bad to have sex at your age?
I guess it's okay at 17.

Will you be having sex in the near future?
Not a chance.

How many people have you slept with this week?
Two actually XD

Will you get married?
I don't know. I can't imagine finding anyone I want to spend my whole life with, and I think divorce is stupid, but that could change. I really want kids though.

Would you change yourself for the person you love?
Depends on what's wrong with me. I would try to fix the things that are wrong with me if someone pointed them out, but I can't/won't change the little things that are just part of who I am.

What do you tell yourself when things get hard?
That it will get better soon and has to end eventually

If you ever met a unicorn, what would you ask it?
You didn't die in the flood? Also, can I keep you?

Do you know who Stewie is?
Oh God, don't get me started on Family Guy. All those adult cartoons are obnoxious and I will rant about them at any given opportunity.

Ever been addicted to a video game?
I don't like video games. I used to play Roller Coaster Tycoon, Sims, and Pokemon a lot.

Ever wish you were born the opposite sex?
When I was little, yeah. I always thought boys had more fun and I used to prefer to play with them than girls a lot of the time. Now I know that's not true. I would never want to be a guy.

Favorite talk show?
The Ellen Degeneres Show. So funny. My second favorite is The Today Show with Hoda and Kathy Lee.

I guess this is the end.

Love,
Juliana

When your friends can do no wrong...

I think everyone gets in the habit of judging people based on who they are rather than what they do. Pretty people get special treatment, kids who look like trouble are automatically predisposed to harrassment by authorities even if they haven't broken a rule in their life, people from your own clique, ethnic background, school, hometown, etc. (in psychology, it's called your "in-group") are given special treatment in your mind. You're more likely to make excuses for the things they do because of who they are.

I thought of this because I noticed a friend of mine exhibiting what I see as annoying Facebook behavior, giving an account of all her evening's events in terms of inside jokes and posting vague indirect statuses directed at a certain unnamed person (like "You're ruining my life. I hope you realize how annoying you are.") I usually hide these people from my wall, but until tonight, I realized how often she posts these kinds of statuses. I hadn't noticed. If it was someone else that I liked less, I would have noticed a long time ago. With her I just say "well she doesn't go out that much, so I'm glad she's having fun" or "I know who that status is directed to and he deserves to be told off." Why do I make excuses for her and no one else?

This is just a superficial example of making excuses for your in-group. It's silly, but it brings up a bigger issue. How far will it go? When you focus more on who someone is than what that someone does, you're blinded to the truth of their actions. How much is excusable and how much are you just choosing to ignore?

Bullying, drugs, cheating, stealing...things people go along with because their friends are doing them. Things they would find deplorable in another circumstance, but excusable when that circumstance involves their own friends.Lip rings look stupid, even on your best friend. Picking on the weird kid iis mean, even if your boyfriend does it.

Your friends could be bad people and you never realize because you're too busy trying to justify their actions. In reality though, their actions aren't defined by who they are. Who they are is defined by their actions, and even more important, their intentions. I think once you know someone's intentions, you know all you need to know about them.

I think people need to stick to their principles no matter who they're dealing with.

Love,
Juliana

Hey, virtual school. Bite me.

So I found out tonight that the AP European History class I decided to take as an elective next year is going to be a combination of classroom and virtual teaching. They're calling it "blended learning."

That made me think of smoothies, which made me think of those smoothie places attached to gyms that make people think they're all cool and cosmo because they're at the gym drinking a smoothie, but really they're just dorks who burn off the calories on a thigh master then slurp them back up again in liquid form. This is kinda what I think about this blended learning idea. We think we're so cool because our school has "virtual learning labs" and video conferencing rooms, but in reality, what good does that really do for anything?

If I have to get up early to come to school every day and sit in a classroom in order to learn, I want a teacher in the room who loves what they do and wants us to love it too. That's why I want to be a teacher. I don't want to sit at a computer and IM Mr. Remote Teacher Dude about his online assignments while some "permanent substitute" sits in the room with us.

While our principal, our virtual teacher, and some lady from the virtual school-loving sector of the school district gushed about what an amazing opportunity this "blended learning" is, it reminded me of an article I wrote for the school paper at the end of sophomore year.

It was supposed to be about the only Chinese teacher leaving the school. When I interviewed the principal, all she could do was tell me how wonderful it is that our Chinese program was going virtual and would be taught by a teacher over video chat. All I could think about was my Chinese teacher, a wonderful woman who taught me so much more than just Chinese. The way she ran her class was awesome, and everything I learned from her I wasn't buying the principal's amazing virtual program, no matter how hard she tried to sell it.

I think classroom interaction is the most important part of school. This is how teachers change lives, not by IMs and video conferences, but by actual in-person interaction. I've had so many teachers change my life, and everything I remember loving about them, their passion for their subject, their way of making it interesting, their encouraging words...they didn't do it from their home office in Boynton Beach.

This virtual program is supposed to be the way of the future. Sure, in college, where students have numbers instead of names or faces, that's expected, but I don't think this virtual learning should infiltrate high school. They say it's the way of the future, but I think it's the way compensating for lack of money in the budget.

Love,
Juliana

Technology Prison

When I wake up in the morning, I check Facebook. Then I check both my e-mails. I check Google Buzz, AIM's lifestream, and my phone for missed texts and calls. I check Facebook again. Then my blog for comments, hoping for that really good feeling I get when someone acknowledges me. I check other people's blogs for updates or responses to my comments. On Sunday, I check Post Secret. If I have any time left over, I start browsing stumbleupon.com, my new obsession.

WHY DO I DO THIS? WHY?

Ridiculous. Totally ridiculous. And you know what? All this stuff makes me sad. I hate talking to people on AIM. It wastes so much time. I hate checking Facebook and reading status updates from people I don't like talking about things I don't care about. My e-mails almost all junk. The blogs I check are rarely updated. I only follow six people on Google Buzz and they are my sister and her friends.

I don't know why I don't just get up and find something worthwhile to do. I'm actually getting more annoyed as I write this, annoyed with the clicking sound of the keys on the keyboard and the fact that it's 12:40 and I have to get up tomorrow. But I can't sleep. I'm too annoyed with people and their status updates that don't matter, their stupid profile picture changes, and constant IMs from people asking me why I wasn't online all day, where I've been, and what I was doing.

Stupid technology prison. Worst part is that it's psychological.

Can you be addicted to something you hate?

Love,
Juliana

I'm an agnostic believer

I like to believe in things that are impossible to prove. I believe that Horton Hears a Who was right about people living on a tiny speck on a flower. On the little J key on my keyboard, I think it’s possible for a really tiny civilization like us to be living.

You think I’m crazy? Prove me wrong. Show me proof that ultra-mega-nano-microscopic people don’t exist. You can’t. There’s no way to know if they exist, but there’s also no way to know that they don’t exist either. You have the choice to believe it or not to believe it. How do you make your decision?

I was hit with the truth about Santa in Kindergarten. I went to a Catholic school, our religion teacher was a 70-year-old nun who actually wore the nun outfit, and she bluntly murdered part of our childhood with “You know Santa is just your mommy and daddy, right?”

I looked for a good opportunity to bring it up to my dad because I knew from movies that parents react funny when kids ask if Santa is real. I popped the question one school morning as I ate my cereal. He said “Of course Santa’s real. Why would she tell you that?” I knew he was lying, and I could tell by the look on his face that the question made him uncomfortable, but if my dad wanted me to believe in Santa, then I would.

I had no real proof of Santa, but I also had no proof that he wasn’t real either. The choice was up to me, and I chose to believe it for years after. I held out until 5th grade when my friends stopped believing and decided that it was time to let go of that part of my childhood. I never saw Santa as something that was definitely real or definitely not real. I saw him as something to believe or not to believe. This is also how I see God.

I believe in God. I believe that there is someone or something that watches over everyone and controls fate. I don’t believe this because I have proof of it. I believe it because I want to believe that everything happens for a reason. I believe it because, like I said about Santa, if there is no way to know the truth, you can choose to believe anything you want. You can make your own truth.

I didn’t think there was a word for the way I think. Last night, I found it. I’m an agnostic theist, someone who doesn’t know if God exists, thinks there is no way to know if God exists, but believes it anyway. That’s the definition of me. I know skeptics who refuse to believe in anything that can’t be proven, but what’s the point? In the end, we will all die, some of us believing that our lives were planned, intentional, and meaningful, and that our souls live on forever, and others that their lives were short blips in time, purposeless, meaningless, and forgettable.

When I decided on the title of this post, I googled "agnostic believer" to see if it was a real thing and I found this. http://skepticalcosmologist.blogspot.com/2007/08/agnostic-believer.html This guy said exactly what I was trying to say, he just did it much better.

Love,
Juliana