The Long Overdue Post

Greetings! I regret that I haven't posted anything in over a week, but I've been pretty busy. Last week, even though it was only a four-day week, was still pretty rough. I think I'm finally back in the mindset of school, although I'm anxiously waiting for those two or three hell weeks when all my teachers coincidentally decide to assign papers or administer tests within the same 3-day time span. My sleeping schedule is far from perfect, and I definitely need to work on improving it.I ended having to buy more books after the initial $460 splurge, pushing the total bill up by another $60 or so. But I'm happy--no more worrying about rushing to get books at the last minute.

I ended up dropping my evening class, History 240 (didn't I say earlier that it would perhaps happen?), simply because it was extremely incovenient and a little annoying. By the time I drove to to the parking garage, found a parking spot in a fit of rage (anyone from UK can sympathize), walked to class, sat through class, left, and got home, it took up about two hours of my time, which was something I really couldn't afford given all the other things I have to do on a daily basis. Well, here are some other really random things that have been going on in school and otherwise:

Did anyone else hear about Pamela Anderson's request to have the bust of KFC founder Harland Sanders removed from the state capitol in Frankfort? Does anyone else think it's absolutely ridiculous? Apparently, with some "help" (durrrrr) from PETA (People for the Eating of Tasty Animals), Anderson drafted a letter to Gov. Ernie Fletcher calling for him to remove the statue of Sanders because it "stands as monument to cruelty and has no place in the Kentucky state capitol." The cruelty, by the way, is a reference to alleged animal cruelty on the part of suppliers of the KFC chain. Wow. What actually struck me first when I read about this on CNN was not so much anger at the sheer suggestion of having the bust removed, but rather the complete uselessness of it. So what if the statue is removed? Pamela Anderson and PETA would have made a point, but I'm guessing that it would also offend a hell of a lot of Kentuckians. Removing the statue isn't going to affect how much business KFC receives or how chickens are supposedly being treated. This is just stupid. It's just another example of a B-list (or C-list) celebrity such as shitty movie star Ben Affleck (who's touring the country with John Kerry, pfttt) trying to get publicity. Or maybe PETA has to have a celebrity spokesperson in order to be taken seriously nowadays? Hey, maybe it could work--"Hey Ed, we better stop spray painting those chickens for fun or PETA might send nasty letters to our families.... wait." I think the bottom line is this--if an organization such as PETA is trying to make its voice heard and take a stand for animals or whatever it's advocating, its spokespeople should think of an action plan which could bring about a result that would actually be in accordance with the whole purpose of the organization. In this particular case, PETA should have done something which would have brought an end to the mistreatment of chickens (assuming it was actually going on) instead of doing something that just infuriated many people in Kentucky and elsewhere. Idiots.

With a little influence from my roommate, I decided to get my ears pierced yesterday! I had them pierced at one time but... I don't even want to discuss what happened; it was pretty gross. I can only hope that this time it's permanent, and that in six weeks I'll be showing off some nice earrings.

In my Honors class, we read some different excerpts from the Old Testament and New Testament. My instructor made the comment that we needed to try to treat them as objectively as possible, setting aside all the different interpretations we had accumulated previously from Sunday school teachers, priests, and everyone else. Being pretty deficient myself in terms of Bible knowledge, I had a pretty objective view while reading the excerpts. Although some of them made absolutely no sense to me (I suppose this was due to the fact that they were all pretty much out of context), one element of the writings really stood out to me--the situations or incidents that had modern day parallels. Even if a person gave absolutely zero validity to any of the stories, their moral lessons could still be utilized. In a broad sense, this is an aspect of many religions (not just Christianity) that I really respect. They can certainly offer different ways of looking at the world and dealing with situations, regardless of whether or not a person really believes in the validity of the written word itself.