The Best and Worst Things of 2008

These are things I value finding, enjoying and being around in the last year

1. Ryan
2. My really awesome promotion at a much needed time
3. Paying off the Laptop
4. Realizing we will graduate in a YEAR!
5. Mary getting married
6. Jon getting married
7. Trying Sushi for the first time ever and becoming an immediate fan
8. Taking Childrens Lit, British Lit (emphasizing on Austen) and Adolescent Lit
9. Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog
10. The writer's strike, it was much needed and forced networks to give writers more on items they got paid less than 50 cents on...
11. Wii Fit-you can all laugh at me, but its nice to have something that forces me to exercise correctly thats available all hours of the day
12. Rayman Rabid Bunnies
13. Trax
14. Commuter Rail
15. Scarves
16. Skinny Jeans
17. Short Hair
18. The Book Thief
19. StruwwelPeter
20. Going to Wisconsin
21. Cardmaking
22. the Cricut
23. The Cuttlebug
24. Pushing Daisies
25. Chuck
26. Heroes
27. The IT Crowd
28. The Big Bang Theory (its a Saturnalia Miracle)
29. How I Met Your Mother (I'm a Neil Patrick Harris fan)
30. All the awesome festivals downtown
31. The U being undefeated in Football, it takes bragging rights away from those who are poor losers
32. Wall-E
33. The Lecture by Ed Catmull, head of Pixar at the U
34. Obama winning the election
35. Gas under $2.00 a gallon again
36. Akasaka Sushi
37. Dolcetti Gelatto
38. Trying Culver's for the first time and having to admit that the midwest has way way better dairy products than the west can ever hope for....

The Worst Things

1. The end of Capitalism as we know it
2. Huntsman cutting funding on snowplowing and thus making driving in the snow a very hazardous occurance
3. Increasing the cost of tuition
4. The crazy cold hand rash development
5. The continuing popularity of Reality TV
6. Breaking Dawn...I couldn't finish it because it was so badly written.
7. Twilight (the movie) 30 seconds of an intro for a Collective Soul song that does absolutely nothing for the movie, it just felt sloppily put together
8. The Economy, this includes and does not limit to people applying for mortgages and getting them too easily, people withdrawing money from stocks and going back to the mattress mentality and the stimulus checks that only delay the inevitable.

Thats my list for the year, and as the worst is only 8 items comparable to 38 of the best, I feel I have done the year justice.

Perfection-ism, Cataloging and my Disdain for it

Nothing in life is perfect. No one on the planet is perfect. People are not all the same, one should not ever be compared to another.

I was in an anthropology class once and the professor said something that stung me like a thorn, that people have to be judgmental, that it is something we have to do to survive and that the evolution of the world is based on it.

Maybe to a degree but not as intensely as people do.

Thus here I am, and I defy anyone to every want or tell me I am perfect, because that is perfectly ludicrous. Amidst the irony of putting up decorations with Ryan, I told him if this was anyone else it wouldn't be the same. My brain encourages all to think duh after that statement. But I love what I have, and I would not change one iota about it.

I love the crazy busy school/work life because this is the only time it will be exactly the way it is and I'm not ready to really be ahead of where I am now. Now is good. I'm flashing back to Pres Uchtdorf's talk at the Women's Conference, he said a lot of things that I needed to hear and was the right thing for most to hear.

He focused a lot on being Perfect and how that ruins our day to day lives. Women more than men actually compare themselves and its not always (I would say more often than not) a good thing.

I remember after that Conference talking to Ryan and saying, I never want to be perfect, and he kissed my head and told me he never wanted me to be. After all what is this perfect? I think I am perfect at being Angie, but I never want to be the perfect woman, mother, or wife, there is nothing about the idea that is healthy.

I love surprising people as they think they know just who and what I am and I do and the say "I never thought you were this type of person" or "I never thought you liked this"; truth be told I dare someone to categorize me as a type that fits, because the only one that fits is Angie Meeks, spaz extrordinaire. And why do I have to not do something if "I'm not the type". Well why not? and what in your life made you believe people have to be one way or the other? You want me to be less of who I am?

I like a lot of things about life, but my favorite thing is authenticity. Authentic food, friends, life, living, enjoyment, and my authentic Ryan. Others would need other things which is fine. but I hate with every fiber of my being people who do things because others want them too, people changing who they are around other people, it would both tire and annoy me keeping up with all of the facades, so here I am authentically me.

A lover of the fantastic and fantasy and sci-fi, rpg's, magic, holistic eastern thinking ( I HATE DR.S), other cultures and a little dabbling in card making(one day cricut thou wilt have thy own room, it shall be called a Craft Room), Sushi, music, writing, critiquing, living, loving and hating vampires without fangs, critiquing movies and plays and music as to wether it was worth the time spent, and not feeling invalidated by others who profess I don't seem the type, well then change the type, and I probably don't want to be it anyway.

Disdaining Perfectionism as the root downfall of all happy lives and the catologing that goes with it.

Concentration

Guess who has a paper due? I do, but I just have to outline, add quotes, fluff and then voila it’ll be done. Ok so that’s the whole paper, but its silly really, I am beyond the ability to focus, I have to nip all distractions in the bud but I just don’t have the motivation. It’s silly really, I’ve been doing school for years now, but fall semester is just harder.
I blame my beloved Thanksgiving, as visions of mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce dance through my head. And so it begins, the festivities that I love, but are distracting me from currently more life alternating responsibilities.

But in other news, I am utterly and completely content. My brain feels overstimulated and I predict all responsibility will shrink up in a corner after tonight, and thus making next week even more filled than this one….

Well my brain might turn off sooner than tonight, mayhaps its already been done, alas we go forth blindly ah yes, but I will over come this inability to concentrate, where is a can of orange juice when I need it…

Bailout Blues

The automotive industry has received a bailout, now it is not just banks, but now companies receiving bailouts.

I am frustrated and I don't understand how a country already so in debt is able to use money it doesn't have to save companies. The system seems flawed and utterly in turmoil. I see the end to capitalism and the beginning of socialism, and I don't like it. The problem is, it can't stop now, we are in the midst of a cycle that cannot end happily, for the government is in debt and they are borrowing money from someone else. So who is this someone else and when are they going to come claim their justice?

Stimulus Checks don't work, and why? Because the people who would most profit from it do not get as much as everyone else. The system is flawed and I call for change.

"Remember Remember the 5th of November."

Random Skin Antics

So for the past little while my skin has been freaking me out. It started one lovely Wednesday night while we went out to eat with some close friends. After dinner we walked around Trolley Square for a bit but I began to feel very uncomfortable in the skin I am in, I looked at my hands and my knees and feet and my skin was both swollen and hot but itching like mad and red blotches began to appear.
We quickly went home and I took a quick bath thinking it was something on my clothes, and changed to a different outfit. The next day at work my hands were itching something awful and my hands were ugly swollen balloons. I put lotion on thinking it was from the drastic change in weather.
We attempted dancing, Ryan had to hold my wrists and the dancing was nothing less than ungraceful.
A whole week went by with this discomfort until I finally caved and called the doctor. At first I called the Dermatology unit, the soonest date they had available wasn’t until December and if I drove a half hour then possibly November. Keep in mind this was a week and a half before Halloween. So I called my family doctor and went to show them my bizarre alien skin, of course knowing doctors and my lovely situation with them and how absolutely bizarre my medical issues are, they told me close to nothing but prescribed an allergy medicine and gave me a stronger cream to use on it. It is now November 13 and though the allergy medicine is making everything bearable, my strong tendency to not taking medicine unless I absolutely have to snuck in.
Within 3 hours of being off the medicine, the red spots appeared all over and began to burn me.
So consensus, I have some awful allergic reaction. To what? Who knows I’m still trying to keep my skin unexposed to the air, and that seemed to help as well, but I’d like a real diagnosis and not just something to cure the symptoms. I’d like to circumvent the whole thing altogether. Does anyone have any ideas?

A Few Things

I am a bona fide Libertarian and all people who react calling all Libertarians crazy, well here I am.
They use examples of people who are running on the Libertarian ballot that they claim to be nut cases, but I think all parties have rotten nuts among them, and it should not stop a person from researching a party out.

But to all those who see the world as black and white donkey and elephant why not change that view. There is so much out there available to us other than Republican and Democrat, but if it fits what you think the world should be then great for you. I am speaking out to people who pick from both sides, moderates, and why can't their be a mainstream media known 3rd party, why should the country demand a person choose between a ham sandwich or a cheese sandwich, why cannot the sandwich be put together and become a ham and cheese sandwich, delicious delectable mesh of the flavors complimenting the other as the original could not.

So hoping, nay demanding another choice is our god given right, mine which I defend and all people calling that crazy to you I say good day and enjoy your bland sandwich. Viva La Flavor!

News

I don't know why Ryan insists on watching the news, I just can't watch anymore.
There are too many things going on that rile me up and make me unbearable with my many soapboxes for days on end.

And then there is the inevitable "I told you so" thats been on the tip of my tongue for years, and its getting harder and harder to not scream at this point.

I'm just wondering why people are so greedy and why we all have to suffer because of it.
Why doesn't anyone trust candidates and why do they all have to be so greasy and slimy.
Why can't that change?