Get off our ~*interwebz*~!

So, my mother has a Twitter. And a Facebook. And a MySpace. 

As does my stepfather, my aunt, and various other members of my family. 

And recently my old church sent out an e-mail encouraging members to create Facebook accounts in order to "keep in touch" with their children, and to "monitor illicit internet activities". Excellent alliteration aside, I'm having a serious problem with the whole idea of anyone over the age of 30 on any of these sites. Or at least interacting with their children on them.

Facebook in particular is meant to be a social networking site, not the latest in a series of parental spy networks. And while it's perfectly fine for parents to use them as a means for social communication, it's really unacceptable for them to be monitoring their children via Facebook. 

Because everything is centered around the internet nowadays, sites like facebook provide a fairly safe and easy way for us to interact with our friends and to have ~internet time and space~ that is ours and not easily accessible by parental units. 

The reason I'm ranting about this here and not on facebook itself is because (you guessed it) I'm friends with various family members and didn't want to offend any of them. Also my computer is being really annoying and slow so I'm going to end this now and write more on a different subject later. 

Dedicated to my friends whom I love very much

I love my friends!

Seriously, individually and as a group, they love me and I love them for the very fact that they are the people who will laugh themselves hysterical over a youtube video that starts out "DEAR LOSER (CHRIS)". I mean, yeah, they make me laugh and they're trustworthy and amazing people, yadda yadda ya, but the main thing is that they laugh with me over completely stupid things like that. 

Aaaand I love them. They make me happy. 

Okay, and since I basically use this blog as a glorified soapbox wherein I get up and rant about whatever is annoying me lately, I'm going to talk about...sex. 

And no, this is not inspired by the recent Uni opinion thing on sex before marriage. I don't think that the question of whether or not to engage in premarital sex should even be debated because it's really nobody's business but the two people involved. And frankly, when people assume that they have any sort of right to ask that of ANYONE, regardless of their social status or celebrity or what have you, it really pisses me off. You can whine about premarital sex as the denigration of modern society all you want, but the fact of the matter is that people have been having premarital sex for hundreds of years and will continue to do so for hundreds more. In fact, in the English countryside that so many of our nation's Puritanical founders hailed from, it was considered highly stupid to get married if your bride-to-be wasn't pregnant...because why would you get married if you knew your fiance couldn't have children? So dismissing someone as morally bankrupt for their decision as to what to do with their body based on a religious judgement system or a supposedly ~ideal~ societal model is not only stupid, it's dangerous. 

The same argument goes, however, for those who choose to remain virgins until marriage. They should not have their decisions questioned by those around them, because it is their right as citizens of the United States to do whatever the hell they want with their various openings and appendages, so long as it doesn't hurt anyone. So when various people act really high and mighty because a friend or whatever is perhaps not as sexually experienced as they are, it's an act of blatant cowardice that quite frankly speaks only to their own insecurity and shallowness as people. And mocking people for a religious decision that they make adhering to their personal set of values is blatant stupidity. Everyone has the right to do whatever they want without being criticized for it, except when it interferes with others rights. Which is where I tend to get touchy with religious extremists. But that's me. 

All that having been said, I'm going through a pretty confusing time myself right now. Sometimes things don't work out the way you want them to, sometimes you don't know what you want and you wish you did, sometimes you do things that you regret or wish you had done more of when you had the chance...it's all very complicated. Sex is such a loaded issue that it's really hard to even talk about it as it pertains to specific people without feeling extremely exposed. Much better to stick to obscure generalizations. 

In any case, I have to say I'm feeling sextremely....oh god, that was a typo but I'm going to leave it in because it's very appropriate, I'm feeling extremely, there we go, annoyed at people who butt into my business whether or not they're wanted. 

Also, I compiled my playlist of favorite songs. Which I will transcribe here, because I just know that I'm going to lose it on my ipod. Keeping in mind that most of these are vastly different in terms of how much I love them, etc. Some are only the favorites of the moment, some I've loved my entire life. Aaaaand here:

She's Lost Control- Joy Division

Title and Registration- Death Cab

Crazy- Gnarls Barkley 

Return to Cocoon Lagoon- Big Digits

Neon Bible- Arcade Fire

Tiny Vessels- Death Cab

Acidentl Deth- Rilo Kiley

Your Ex-Lover is Dead- Stars

Ageless Beauty- Stars

Red Dirt Girl- Emmylou Harris

Joan of Arc- Jennifer Warnes/Leonard Cohen

Save Me From Myself- Christina Aguilera

Come Together- Beatles

Rehab- Amy Winehouse 

Back to Black- Amy Winehouse

Bird on a Wire- Jennifer Warnes

Blue Eyes- Cary Brothers

Low- R.E.M.

Caring is Creepy- The Shins

Carolina- Ben Gibbard/Andrew Kenny

Cannonball- Damien Rice

Photobooth- Death Cab

Cool- Gwen Stefani

Desert Rose- Sting

Does He Love You? - Rilo Kiley

Don't Panic- Coldplay

Fair- Remy Zero

Famous Blue Raincoat- Jennifer Warnes

Happiness is a Warm Gun- Beatles

Hey Jude- Beatles

I Want it All- Queen

Into the Ocean- Blue October 

I Will Follow You Into the Dark- Death Cab

Take Me or Leave Me- RENT

Lady Marmalade- Christina Aguilera/Pink/Maya/Lil' Kim

Let Go- Frou Frou

Let it Die- Feist

When I Was a Young Girl- Feist

Losing My Religion- R.E.M.

My Antonia- Emmylou Harris

My Baby Needs a Shepherd- Emmylou Harris

Paper Planes- M.I.A.

Bucky Done Gun- M.I.A.

Radio Song- R.E.M.

Set the Fire to the Third Bar- Snow Patrol

Secret Heart- Feist

Soul Singer in a Session Band- Bright Eyes

Soul Meets Body- Death Cab

Such Great Heights- The Postal Service

Summertime- Scarlett Johansson

Under Pressure- Queen

Urge for Going- Joni Mitchell

We Looked Like Giants- Death Cab

Goodbye Love- RENT

Wraith Pinned to the Mist- Of Montreal

Disconnect the Dots- Of Montreal

It's a Hit- Rilo Kiley

A Man/Me/Then Jim- Rilo Kiley

Woman Like a Man- Damien Rice

Linger- The Cranberries

Dreams- The Cranberries

Beast- Angus and Julia Stone

Stress- Justice

School annoys me.

First off, I want to give a shout out to Melissa, who is a pretty cool person and keeps bugging me to  update this thing.

Do not want break to be over. I haven't done much but hang out with people and have fun, which was, admittedly, much more fun than studying for AP tests...and you know what, the AP testing system is a stupid crock that should be gotten rid of anyway. 

I read a very well written article recently on Trident Online (it's an online student run newspaper for Corona del Mar) written by an old friend of mine, which discussed the perceived dishonesty with and the ethical problems of changing student's grades after AP tests to reflect their score (if they did well). The writer strongly disagreed with the very idea and thought AP classes should be graded like any other class, with a kind of 'too bad for them' view of students who do well on the AP test yet poorly in the class. Link if anyone wants to read it is here: http://tridentonline.net/c

ontent/view/471/28/

While I agree with her insofar as grades should be based upon overall participation and commitment to the class, I have to disagree with the premise that inflating grades based on AP test scores is unethical, my logic being:

AP classes are at a much higher difficulty level than regular or even Honors level courses; they include intensive amounts of writing and rigorous exams modeled off of the AP test itself. This makes it difficult for the vast majority of AP students to get an A, if only because (for most AP classes I've taken) tests are constructed similar to the AP exam and weighted as such, with an emphasis on extreme difficulty and specificity but with a large curve to ensure that students do not completely fail. 
It can be argued that the students are aware of the difficulty of the courses they are taking and should therefore be prepared to work harder to attain the grades they feel they deserve, but this argument is invalidated by the fact that (unlike most high school level courses), AP classes are not geared to giving the students an overall grounding in the information and teaching them necessary skills. AP classes alone of any high school course are specifically and uniquely geared towards preparing the students to take and pass the AP test. This means that even if a student works incredibly hard in a specific AP class, they might not be able to achieve the level of unified excellence on every test or essay that would be required to obtain an A, simply because the class is not geared to provide general knowledge of the subject (and ability to pass in class tests) but rather has the broader focus of preparing for the AP test. Anyone who's been in an AP class knows that teachers do not structure exams to test a unified body of knowledge, but rather to show students what the AP test graders would be looking for in that particular area (many AP teachers use AP test questions on in class tests to further this goal). 
Because the sole purpose of the class is to ensure that students will be able to take/pass the AP test, it is absolutely reasonable for teachers to evaluate the students based on how well they have internalized the informationgiven to them and been able to use it in the method for which it was intended: the AP test itself. 
If a student in an AP class receives a score of a 3, 4, or 5, they have realized the entire goal, point, and purpose of an AP class- to pass the exam. Whether or not they did well in the class itself is immaterial; by scoring highly on the AP test, they have demonstrated their knowledge of and commitment to the subject and should duly be rewarded by the corresponding grades on their transcript. 
The entire class is based on providing students with the tools to pass the AP exam. Once they have realized that goal, the student in question has proved that they deserve an A or a B in the class because they accomplished what the class was designed to provide. AP classes cannot be evaluated on the same basis as ordinary or honors level classes because they are structured, formatted, and taught completely differently. 

^This is completely disregarding my current Psych class, which is absolutely not geared towards preparing us for the AP test (so far, he's mentioned the test twice, and the bulk of our preparation has been him telling us to buy X prep book), but most AP classes in general. And I'm slightly biased in this issue, being someone who doesn't like to work in class, doesn't like to do assignments, but does well on final evaluations in general because I'm able to bullshit like a pro. But still, if a student does well on the AP test, then the student deserves an A in the class, or at least a B. If anything, I think it's more impressive, not less, that they manage to pull a 5 or a 4 out of the bag after not having given a damn all year. That shows talent, rather than rote memorization, which god knows is 90% of what most AP students rely on anyways. 

There is also the fact that AP tests are so strictly graded based on a specific rubric that if a teacher did not spend a significant amount of in class time talking about the various methods and requirements (particularly for writing sections) then the students would fail. 

And pretentious students like (pardon me) the writer of the original article, who take a high moral ground because they themselves are unaffected, annoy me. There's a good deal too much competition at Uni and in high school in general; there are a lot of students, particularly in the top tier, who are more than happy to see others fail because it makes them look better in comparison. We need to take a step back and realize that we're all being judged- on what?  A list of skills and accomplishments that (quite honestly) have absolutely no value in real life; rather than competing with one another and tearing one another down, we should be angry at the system that reduces us to merely a list of grades, extracurriculars, a carefully written and well formatted essay...it's stupid, and it's wrong. And it is utterly devaluing of any real talent or extraordinary quality possessed by any of us, since there is no way our full potential can be realized if we constantly have one eye on our college application...it makes us safe, it makes us boring, it makes us tame. And that's stupid. And I am honestly sick and tired of students who act as though they have some sort of God given talent because they have a perfect GPA, because, really, nobody gives a fuck. And they just perpetuate this whole system of backstabbing and arrogance, and it's quite rude.

Of course, you could just say I'm bitter, since I don't have a perfect GPA, but I am taking a lot of AP courses and it brings me into contact with these people on almost a daily basis, and I'm completely taken aback by this attitude that "I will win, fuck everyone else" in a competition that is ultimately useless anyway. On the other end of the spectrum is those people who I am disdainful towards...which I suppose just makes me part of the whole thing whether I want to be or not. But I'm not disdainful towards them because they're not intelligent, I'm disdainful towards those who assume they are much smarter than they actually are and treat other people like shit because of it...there's a certain person who's in several of my classes who's been rubbing me the wrong way all year, and I'm really looking forward to the day when I can finally bitch her out and inform her that she is actually not as smart as she thinks she is. All she is is disrespectful and rude, and that schtick gets old fast. 

Oh, and by the way, I would like to clarify that the writer of the original article only comes off as pretentious in that particular piece, and that she is a very warmhearted and down to earth person. My diatribe was directed not at her specifically but at unjustified arrogance in general. 

Apologies to anyone who was offended, it was not intentional. 

Ranting, etc.

I was talking to Vanessa yesterday, and she was telling me about a conversation she had with someone about Prop 8 and how they believe that gay people should have the right to marry, just not a legalized institution known as marriage. Which seems pretty contradictory, but apparently it made sense to them...anyways, so I was laughing about it with her and I referred to the gay community as 'we'. 

And she asked me, does the whole Prop 8/gay rights thing bother me more now that I've come out?

It was a weird feeling. Because I mean, of course it's just as outrageous to many straight people when gay couples are discriminated against, and of course you don't have to be a member of the gay community to sympathize with gay rights. In fact, given that gay people make up a relatively small percentage of the overall American population, it's a really really good thing that there are many straight allies willing to stand up and fight for our rights. 

But then at the same time, it kind of hit me how intensely personal all this is. They're trying to take rights away from me. They're trying to keep me from seeing my wife in the hospital, they're trying to prevent me from being legally recognized as someone in a long term, societally acceptable romantic partnership. My state, my community, my neighbors don't consider me to be an equal citizen. It was something I'd never really considered; I've been involved with gay rights activism for so long but I'd gotten used to referring to the gay community as 'they'. And now I'm referring to it as 'we'. And therefore I have to take on all the negative repercussions of that, all of the prejudice, all of the hate, all of the people who look at me differently or consider me to be a lost cause. It sort of knocked the wind out of me for a bit. 

And it made me sad. And it makes me sad. Because I realized that by coming out, I put myself within the confines of a group that will always be on the fringes of society. I labeled myself with something that is incredibly controversial, I put myself out there as a member of a community that is hated by millions of Americans. The idea of being hated, by people who don't know me, who have never met me, who don't know anything about me other than my sexuality- it's mind boggling. And I don't even know how to deal with it. And I don't want to deal with it. I want to live in a place where that is not an issue. I mean, for god's sake, I live in California, historically one of the most gay-friendly places in the nation, and even here in Irvine, where we have literally hundreds of different nationalities and races and a very mixed school population- even here there's a ton of discrimination. And I'm proud of who I am. I'm proud to say that I have a girlfriend, and she's amazing, and I'm attracted to women, and yes, I've dated guys but I have to say there's no comparison. I don't want to come off as whining about all the difficulties of being gay, because at least for me the positives far outweigh the negatives.

I just want to live somewhere where I don't have to wear my pride as a shield. I want to be someplace where being gay really is just a facet of personality, like eye color or hair color, not something that garners more attention simply by way of being controversial- even if all the attention is positive. My point is that being gay should not have to be such a big deal for anyone. I think it's great that a lot of members of the gay community are really out and open about their sexuality, and I think it's great that a lot of members prefer to keep it relatively quiet. It's their choice. But it shouldn't. have. to. matter. Gay people shouldn't have to be so flamboyantly gay that they force others into accepting them by forcing them to deal with it on an everyday basis, and they shouldn't be ashamed of it because of how they know they'd be perceived. 

I don't know how all of this is going to turn out, I don't know what the world will be like 30 years from  now. And this is just my take on things. Because right now I do believe that everyone who is gay has a responsibility to be as active and as open as they can be, if only because I think it's the only way to show everyone that gay people are functioning perfectly well in every level of society. But I also believe that every person's sexuality is their business and theirs alone, and nobody has the right to even ask them to clarify, let alone label themselves. It's a huge mess of contradictions, and I hope that by being open and active now we can eventually retire to the point where it really will not matter.  

Lesbian Essay Yay!

Soo...I was bored in fourth period the other day and instead of putting my time to efficient use by doing my math homework, I found a much better alternative: angrily ranting about idiotic conservatives! The origin of this was a neighbor of mine who recently stopped me and lectured me about my rainbow ribbon/vagina buttons, informing me that not only was homosexuality a crime, but it was also destroying society and the youth of this generation. So this is for you, stupid neighbor with bad breath and the worst haircut I've ever seen. You earned it. 

To the Religious Republican Right:

What with all the uproar recently surrounding the gay community and the issue of our rights to marry, adopt children, and so forth, you have consistently informed us of your arguments with such reasoned clarity and beautiful phrasing (my personal favorite was the eloquent "Them gays just ain't right!") that we see no other option but to come clean. We must drop the ridiculous pretense that we of the gay community are citizens like any other, deserving of equal rights and privileges, since you have unequivocally proven this to be false. You have produced a source of such unquestioned legitimacy and historical accuracy that to argue with it seems futile, especially when it's condemnations of homosexual behavior are so universally applicable and so clearly damning of any variant or deviant sexual behavior. We must seek instead to impregnate our daughters in law as Judah did, marry our siblings like Abraham and Sarah, sleep with our father like Lot's daughters did, or have sex with sheep and goats like Laban. Only in this adherence to acceptable values will we be embraced as full citizens, worthy of the Christian tradition of love, sex, and marriage. 

We also concede that you are correct in your accusations of us brainwashing the young. The pinnacle of our ambitions would be to have each and every student in primary school stand up and recite a poem every single morning emphasizing a belief in homosexual behavior as the savior of this country. We have not yet been successful, our efforts being impeded by the existence of a certain poem already serving a similar function, especially since that poem is universally acknowledged as a perfect representation of every American's religious beliefs. We have also sought to vigorously recruit every young child or adolescent with the promise of complete acceptance, universal praise, and the overwhelming joy of each family member upon a declaration of homosexuality. We have beguiled them with stories of professional promotion and social approbation if they publicly declare themselves to be gay. Such a picture of complete harmony and happiness has doubtless led many young people to fake homosexual feelings they do not possess in the search for inclusion and acceptance among society in general. We apologize for the manner in which this has doubtless affected you, who can offer them nothing but the social ridicule and unreasoning hatred of many, with no reward but the knowledge that they are being true to themselves when they claim to be straight. 

We acknowledge that in seeking to gain equal marriage rights with every other citizen and participate in local government, we are obviously intent upon overthrowing the very fabric of society itself. Trying to gain representation through legal means is obviously our clever method of showing utter contempt for all legality. We have shamelessly courted public opinion by appealing to public fear and irrationality, by blaming straight people for ruining the family, and by using a crusade against heterosexuality as a platform for all of our devious political means. 

The obvious conclusion of this, an open letter to all, is a complete concession to everything we have been accused of. Despite the time that all of us must devote to running households, managing careers, and raising children, we have somehow found endless hours to devote to the creation of a nationwide organization bent on destroying all heterosexual couples. The dedication of individual gay couples to subverting the heterosexual family is truly amazing, especially because we do it so well as to leave no evidence at all that we even dislike heterosexual families. Some of us even claim to like them, or to see them as no more and no less than people like any other! Such is the power of illusion and deception, for you have known the truth all along, and were quite right in disbelieving everything that we said or did that contradicted your predetermined view of us, no matter how ordinary we might have seemed. For of course, therein lies the danger! If everyday Americans could see us as ordinary human beings picking up the groceries or baking cookies for the school bake sale, they might forget that we are a blight on society, and instead focus on less important problems like poverty, starvation, or terminal illness relief. They might forget the horrible people we are, when we teach their children how to read or raise money for the blood drive. They might look at a gay person and see simply a person, their son or daughter, cousin, mother, sister, brother, friend, neighbor. They might actually learn tolerance. You have made clear the dangers of tolerance.

So we end this letter with a plea for you to forgive us. Forgive us for trying to gain acceptance for something that is so clearly unacceptable. Forgive us for loving someone we are not supposed to love. Forgive us for being ourselves, the embodiment of what you insist is an abomination. Forgive us, for we are doing our damndest to forgive you.

Sincerely,

The Gay Community

Je Suis Mocha

Soooo, intro post!

Just as a warning for anyone thinking that they want to actually read these, I tend to get very wrapped up in random thoughts, and can go on extreme tangents. I'm also somewhat addicted to writing things down (I've kept a journal for most of my life, on volume 7 right now) and will probably be quite weird/oddly intense about certain things.

Now that I've included that flag, time to get down to the good stuff: me! And my day today, which was pretty sweet. 

Grandma is here! I always love it when she deigns to saunter on over to Irvine, mainly because she is the coolest person ever but also because there are certain gustatory benefits. And by that I mean the amazing food that our refrigerator is permanently stocked with while she's here. I think it's driving my dad crazy, actually, since for the most part our fridge is usually bare. As in empty. As in the only thing in it is (I'm not kidding) a potted plant and some peanut butter. And occasionally beer. But that usually doesn't last long. So coming home and opening the fridge to have it overflowing with food is pretty much the best feeling ever. Love my grandma. 

Realized today that I lie a lot. Not like, bad lies necessarily, but lies that I tell to make conversation easier when standing in line with random strangers...maybe my life isn't interesting enough to provide me with legit references/anecdotes? Anyway I wonder how much other people lie to me. For all I know, the lady next to me could be completely talking out of her ass when she details her ex-husband's job selling real estate to the Russian mob, or the fact that her son works for NASA. I met the coolest person ever on a plane flight once, who talked about how his job actually entailed having shootouts with pirates who were trying to steal oil from the oil wells in Saudi Arabia (I was somewhat distracted during his monologue by the fact that he had red hair and was wearing a green shirt and I kept on hearing the Lucky Charms leprechaun guy in my head going "They're always after me lucky charms!" when he talked about how the pirates would come up with these elaborate schemes to get to the oil). What's the name of the Lucky Charms guy anyway? Magically Delicious? Or maybe Lucky? Oh god this is going to bug me.

I'm excited to see a movie with Nick tomorrow. Very happy about the number of new/awesome friends I've acquired in the last year or so, and how much closer I've gotten to a lot of people. It's made this whole coming out business much easier...and I think it's really important to have people I can talk to about stuff without any reservations. Everybody needs that in their life. As far as the whole gay thing goes, I was so happy when Nick said he could tell from the way I talked sometimes that I was a lesbian. Yayyy!! It makes me sad that I don't come off that way in general, because I think it would  make a lot of things a lot easier. Not as much shock when people find out, for one thing. And it would mean that people who have a problem with it wouldn't be  friends with me in the first place, which would be a definite plus. Losing friends over this is hard. Especially when, say, someone I've known for several years won't hug me anymore. That's just stupid. If I were honestly going to go find someone, the last place I'd look would be among my conservative straight friends. They're so....boring. Sorry guys. And intolerance (or as Nick pointed out- lack of acceptance) is soooo unsexy. 

And with that, I will end my first entry.