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4962 points
17/F/Good old Ashe County, North Ca
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oompa_loompa
Über-Meister
2374 points | Hello
October 29, 2008 @ 04:43:08 pm | I haven't been here in ages. I'm sure no one remembers me. Hows everyone?
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Forget_About_Me
Victory is mine!
Über-Moderator
67696 points | Creepy
October 16, 2008 @ 09:12:46 pm | I had some Teddy Grahams the other day, and I just looked over and there is a single Teddy Graham head propped up against my perfume bottle. Just a head, nothing more. It looks so creepy. I tried to get a picture, but it didn't turn out very well.
These are Teddy Grahams, in case anyone isn't aware of them.
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Forget_About_Me
Victory is mine!
Über-Moderator
67696 points | It's Almost 5AM
October 15, 2008 @ 08:52:45 am | | I cannot sleep. I've been lying in bed for almost 2 hours, yet have not felt even the slightest bit tired. I've been like that for a while now and it sucks. MUST....SLEEEP..... 5 comments | Reply |
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kebab_boy
Mega Über-Meister
4032 points | The first entry for god knows how long: letter from the pacific
August 07, 2008 @ 09:23:15 pm | Hi everyone.
I was very tempted to give this post the title, 'Letter From America', since this is where I am technically located now, although two thousand miles from the U.S mainland in Hawaii. However, the use of such a phrase would constitute plagerism, simply because the BBC have used it for the last sixty years for one of their famous radio features.
As I have already copied one title, 'Greetings From Shitville', a song by the obscure yet exceptionally talented rock band The Wildhearts, for my bebo profile's headline, I thought better of it, and have hence altered this post's title to the unexciting and still probably unoriginal one which the reader sees. Incidentally, don't you dare explore my Bebo profile, its contents are frankly embarrassing since I created it in a fit of rage which soon later disapated, leaving me to feel that it'd been unwarrented.
Anyway, enough of that meandering bulls**t. I'm on holiday, and have been for the last three weeks. We moved to the island of Hawaii from Seattle, Washington, dad having completed his detention sentence in the offices of one Nokia Seamans Network there.
Seattle is a very pleasant city, thick with greenery and coffee shops, with every other object encountered by the pedestrian being either a tree or a starbucks. It is also the home of many prominent entities--Nirvana and Microsoft, to name a couple, and we looked at the house of the former's frontman, Kert Cobain. It being also the place of his suicide, As I stood near the bench riddled with grafitied homages my mind struggled to comprehend that this building was the place from which the talent behind the albums I had enjoyed had come from, but also where it had expired with his death. I recall now how I used the last words of his suicide note in my fairwell speech at my school's leavers assembly: "It's better to burn out than to fade away".
Having walked around what felt like all of Seattle, which is of a similar size to British towns such as Manchester and Sheffield, I spent my penultimate evening there meeting Dad's colleagues at a Brewery near his offices. I can honestly report that these people, though perfectly amiable, showed bugger-all interest in me, and I was sincerely glad when the three hours of social awkwardness were over. Still, I suppose that on a Friday night after a long week's work they were not in an ideal mood to acquaint themselves with someone of half their years.
When my parents and I got to Hawaii our holiday began in earnest. Although the idea of being in a vibrant American city, rather than in quiet and dull rural Britain, had kept my imagination occupied, I'd visited Seattle before and so was glad to present my creative mind with a new stimulus. This was a group of islands not only far from America's mainland but from anywhere else: it is about a thousand miles from here, so I'm told, to Polynesia, Hawaii's nearest neighbour. Geographically I know not which continent I am writing from, though I suspect that if any it'll be Austrilasia judging by where Polynesia is.
To think that, though the presence of all the conveniences that the western world expects, and of course of American culture, often give the illusion that Hawaii is nearer to other countries than it is, the islanders and their society are the only living things besides water and vegetation in this part of the globe. To think that, if you were to go for a swim in the often tempestuous seas around here, and got swept away from shore by a colossal wave, you would be surrounded by watery nothingness...no T.V, no radio, (even the most obscure short-wave station), no internet, no phone coverage...nothing but the swirling currents...I find all this simply amazing.
Perhaps evoking in me an even greater sense of wonder is the fact that, a five and a half hour flight away from the U.S, this place is still a part of it. To be honest, I couldn't say that I am in favour one way or the other over Hawaiian independence, or even that I know whether many of its people have raised it as an issue: after all, it has been recognised as a U.S state for more than a century.
However, every territory on earth which once counted as a country in its own right but now is anexed or is a protectorate, (or whatever you call it), of a larger country seems to have a movement campaigning for liberation. If Hawaii has such a group, then I see the matter from both sides.
From that of the Hawaiian Independence Party, (HIP), if I may so call them, Hawaii has very definitely has a strong indiginous culture that, until descendants of the missionaries that imigrated there in the 19th century apparently introduced commercialism, had little in common with the U.S. Indeed, some of that culture subsists: there is still a small island off the coast of this one who's residence live the traditional Hawaiian lifestyle, though I'm not sure whether that means palm leaves instead of Pizza, canoes rather than cars, etc. But it is the thought that counts, and I know the native language of Hawaii is spoken there.
In addition, there is still a distinctive unamerican nature to the Hawaiian accent, this being a blend of west-coast American and something decidedly foreign. In fact, I was listening to a radio station claiming to play 'Hawaiian Hits', (mainly low-tempo reggae music seeming more in touch with the caribbean than with America), and the accents of the singers and presenters certainly delivered a stronger taste of pineapples, banana trees, sand and surf, than of SUVs, bars and deserts.
This being said, it could be argued that, because the population of these islands comprises descendants of many nationalities; Japanese, Portuguese, Caribbean, as well as the natives Polynesians who travelled here aboard canoes a thousand years ago, the people are not necessarily, as implied, more Hawaiian than they are American, and so that this is not a valid reason for Hawaiian independence.
The hypothetical Hawaiian Unionist Party, (HUP), may further assert that economically an end to Hawaii's U.S membership would be a mistake. "Think of all those impoverished pacific Islands", they would urge, "Indonesia, Jamaica, Cuba...Hawaii might suffer the same fate as them without America's helping hand.
"But we've got tourism on our side", the HIP representatives might say. "Thousands of people visit Hawaii every year and this has enabled business here to thrive. Thus, we will not fall from prosperity without the United states; in fact, think of all the money we might save with the need to contribute to conflicts abroad as an American state is elliminated?"
At this point, an empassioned debate would probably break out about the merrits of the war in Iraq, since the unionists' only hope of avoiding the embarrassment of not having ready a direct counter-argument to this proposition might be to distract their opponents from the subject being discussed. This is understandable--when politicians include controvercial topics in their case for or against something it seems to me to flummox the opposition, who then can not as easily dismiss them without backing themselves in to a tight corner.
When one of the HUP people does come up with something to confront the other party's ascendency, it could be something like, "well, regardless of our oppinions on the wars question, wouldn't thousands of patriotic Americans here feel aggrieved at losing their citizenship if we became a separate nation?"
At that moment, and conveniently for the HIP, a group of about half a dozen cheerful young adults, popcorn in hand, would burst in to the conference room. They would be followed by the panicked manager of the conference centre who'd bluster that their booked time had elapsed, and were encroaching on that of a film convention scheduled for that afternoon. And so the debate would end in stalemate.
And that, my friends, is basically how I feel towards this question;. I have no idea why I started that imaginary conversation between two entities who are very likely non-existent, a trait they have in common with the readers of this journal. At least, with those on livejournal.com, anyway. Well, I'd better be going; all that fraudulently legalistic sounding writing has tired me out. I'll post again soon.
Bye for now.
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sarahf
Minister
12523 points | AP Math class Ruins lives
February 14, 2008 @ 06:56:50 am | | sitting in math cla** today, after deciding that i would have to switch out because it was too hard and what it meant to my future, i thought to myself ” what if i’m just not cut out for a life of success” with so much focus on succeeding today it is obvious that not all of us will make it, so why not just relax and let the people who deserve it take the lead. i also think that its unfair that my performance as a teenager should affect the outcome of my life. i mean, we are at the peak of confusion here and they expect us to put that aside and think of the futures we probably wont have, strive towards the goal we wont reach. and in the end be let down and be forced to settle into our lives working the desk job in your cubicle with the picture of the window drawn in purple crayon. if your that lucky, see because you dropped out of mixed math in grade 11 means you cant GET that job because you are OBVIOUSLY not able to do math, not that we ever use a parabola again in everyday life or could remember it at that point in our lives, but that doesn’t matter because you needed to know it 12 years ago to be able to pass. anyways, i’m headed for my life of banality. see you there. 1 comments | Reply |
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This beats the last busiest month ever, March 2008, that had over 85,000 posts. Additionally, more than 2/3rds of the busiest days ever were in April. 
