I think it is a combination of nature and nurture factors that go into the equation. I have said it before and I will reiterate that I don't think it is a coincidence that the people who grow up to be serial killers exhibit signs of something being wrong early on (torturing animals, for example) or arsonists who usually prove to have some sexual motivation in their crimes. But I don't think that people who are "born bad" are incapable of controlling their impulses. I do believe that with the right attention and diversion tactics taught to them or developed early on can make the difference between thinking something and actually doing it. Thoughts are what they are, we don't choose what to think about. But we can learn to harness aggression or sadness into energy to be put into something non-detrimental. In the best case scenario, something beneficial to ourselves and perhaps others. A lot of these techniques are either observed or taught, and not everyone has the opportunity to learn from a parent or role-model figure. The people who are the most chemically imbalanced who also have the misfortune of being born into lives without people who care enough to mold or help them are the minority. It is very sad though.

Forgive the cliche it has become, but I must say my darling Edward Cullen, because his dreamy stare and the non-judgmental peace I would feel with him not being able to read my mind would just be amazing...well, wait...I guess I am speaking under the assumption I would have the same effect on him as Bella.* As played by Robert Pattinson he really is just precisely my type in a man, however rare the occurrence that I will even look twice at a guy... *=oP

I have to do a ( picspam )

I love his wild hair and slightly sharp but orthodontically straight looking teeth, I want to lick them! Plus, the character of Edward is just so well dressed, kills me in the Ray
Bans...aside from being totally brilliant and devoted and well-mannered and all. *swoon*

People who know me know better than to make those comments around me, because I make it clear that I am the opposite of racist or homophobic. I probably have more friends of races other than my own, and I am bisexual. The former is probably lesser-known but I make it clear that I not only accept but embrace the lifestyle. If I hear some random person making an ignorant remark, I usually just let it go because among adults, ignorance can only be remedied by a personal desire to be educated and change...I don't want to waste my time trying to school the masses of idiots running around.

The short answer is no.

But this wouldn't be a blog if I weren't interested in giving you the longer answer. I don't think anyone should be having biological children given the current state of this world and the suffering the people within it must endure. Aside from the obvious curiosities of seeing the interesting gene combinations that can come about from your DNA and having someone to bond with who may ultimately become a companion life, it is not compelling enough to overcome my moral convictions about creating life when there is already so much life that is unsustained. As a person who believes in nurture versus nature in most instances, I think that people who want and are capable of morally molding and raising a child should adopt.

Well, I think some people randomly encounter opportunities that are more beneficial/lucrative than others but I also believe that most people have an equal amount of opportunities in life and it takes a certain type of person to seize more than they miss.

I think a lot of success that is not inherited has to do with sociability, or the ability to relate to most other people in an outgoing way that makes them feel good to be around you or want to help you. You kind of have to be confident bordering on cocky to make things happen that don't just fall into your lap. I relate to people, but in a more passive way. I don't try to think of ways to climb social ladders or "network." But I also don't piss away opportunities that are handed to me, especially if they enable me to experience something money can't buy. Like peace of mind. I will work to protect the gifts I am given without trying to make more out of them if that makes sense. If life gives me lemons, I will make lemonade, but don't have to sell it to the neighborhood...I am grateful, and work toward being happy and maintaining contentment, and that is enough for me.

I used to. It is too painful, especially to see when they put up pictures of themselves with their new SO...I am pretty far removed from the situation but it still makes my gut wrench just thinking about it. I have trained myself not to look at it...similarly to the way I avoid looking at roadkill...but it's a lot easier to avoid the roadkill if you know what street it's on if you know what I mean. So I just stay away from my exes' internet pages, I just don't want to know.

I personally am not superstitious but intrigued by the origins of superstitions...like how far back they date and why people related those random acts/occurrences to the bad things that happen in their lives. Like, why would it be walking under a ladder and not just propping up the ladder that is the superstitious action? I dunno...And I have encountered several wonderful black cats and would absolutely consider owning one. I think it's asanine that people hurt or even think badly of them.

To be honest it was probably *NSync @ the New Orleans arena bc @ the time I was no ifs, ands or buts about it head-over-heels in love with Justin Timberlake. I do not regret this teenage crush, he has turned out to be pretty cool IMHO as an adult entertainer as well. I still listen to *NSync, gets me pumped up on the morning drive to work!

Mr. Will Hemmings. He is very eccentric, someone not afraid to share his unpopular (very liberal, and athiest) political and religious beliefs because he believes in them so solemnly. He valued all diversities of people and religious/spiritual philosophies, however, and incorporated the best each into his lessons. He was most recently my World History teacher. Great teaching style; he was the master of little known facts and changed up the teaching syllabus to accommodate different skills and interests students had, for example - had us hand-draw maps of different places, or having us interpret songs as they related to historical events. He was wicked smart, and had some demons he didn't hide from students, like that he suffered from clinical depression and had a serious aversion to most authority...especially that of the Jefferson Parish public school system. But he really cared about people and though he could be waxing poetic in some fancy college decided to teach high school to try and reach students who need it the most. He also taught Economics, quite well. The practical financial know-how that people need to use to get by in life, such as how to establish and use credit properly, for example. He helped me through a period of great sadness, and nurtured my writing ability, despite me pissing it all away during the last year or so of high school. I still kick myself for succumbing to the ever-present methods of treating the symptoms of my depression (see: drugs & alcohol)on my own. But in the end I don't think he was so disappointed in me, or anyone. He helped where he could but was also very much human, very understanding of the struggle. I have never so admired, and loved a teacher. He developed Crohn's disease and went into early retirement, but I am certain that I am not the only one so moved by him as a teacher and a person.

Ok, of John Hughes' "teen movies" my favorite would be Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I wouldn't have expected to be satisfied by a movie set during just one day, but the characters were perfect for that scenario because they were still in highschool with a nothing to lose/may as well take all the chances we can attitude. It didn't hurt that Matthew Broderick is eternally adorable and I want him to be my boyfriend everytime I watch the movie...Cameron was lovable too. FBDO also is cross-generational it seems, cause my dad actually introduced me to the movie after buying it on VHS. I think he liked the rebelliousness of Ferris and likened Ferris' antics to his own teenage tomfoolery. =o$

A story came out at our family's recent 4th of July gathering that my dad and his brothers thought it would be funny to light a cross on fire in a can on someone's front porch and put firecrackers in it to make people think a person was being shot...yeah this is Civil Rights-era Louisiana...apparently the cops came out to investigate and everything while they hid in the bushes after doing that..

Of course, Ferris Bueller's Day Off is just my answer for John Hughes' best teen movie. But it would be just wrong of me to answer this without mentioning that he directed my favorite movie of all time, Home Alone!!!

Which I still quote to this day in random situations, whether it is appropriate or not! Haha.

It looks like two wombats fighting over a moped.

Now don't get me wrong. There are characters that are much more complex and interesting. I usually relate to the tortured souls who have to hide...but when it comes to being "glamoured" and bitten/possibly devoured, I would like the experience to be as sexy as it could be my last. :) Therefore, I choose Stuart Townshend as Lestat in Queen of the Damned and Josie Maran as a bride of Dracula in Van Helsing. Oh, there are others. For those of us who find vampirism itself alluring, the possibilities are endless. Every one of the Cullens has potential to be brooding and sexy if they weren't so damn nice and humane. *sigh* Especially:



Mhmm, in that hoodie please. Now, I will add to this question since it is a topic I so adore. If I got to pick a vampire who would turn me/be my maker/connected with me through eternity it would be one of the following:



Louis because he is a passionate, articulate, old soul. Dr. Cullen because of his compassion and family-oriented nature. Or Selene because she is super hot and also seems like she would be understanding and a cool person to go through the ages with.

I dreamed that my mother and I were somehow walking by EJHS, except instead of being in its normal state was enclosed in trees. I was very adamant about going inside, and once there encountered Emily Harrison as a swim coach at the indoor pool, and my former neighbor Nicky Taylor the catcher for EJ's baseball team. I also recall getting in the pool being fully dressed, but not being the only one...and coming outside to see my mom swimming in that pool beside the baseball field. When the game started we walked right out across the field to approach Nicky on the sidelines because she wanted to see if it was really him, all grown up. He said he didn't remember us, but that his mother was a lesbian so he was living in an apartment with his dad and Brandon was working for a hotel.

Second dream: my dad decided that I should get wooden veneers on my teeth because Uncle Wynn had told him that as a family, we have bad teeth. So the strangest part of this is that we were in an apt and he somehow had the anesthetic drugs to administer to me himself, and I was completely calm in his doing so even though I could barely see on the ride to have the surgery (which the route ironically was from West Metairie to West Napoleon, same as I would take after school) - anyway. Along the way one of my teeth had fallen out but my speech was slurring so I couldn't clearly tell him that and just spit it out. And then we were in this random, big room with couches (not a medical facility) and lots of families. Katie had shown up somehow too. And there was a family with an infant and also a dog who put their baby to sleep on the dog's back.

And then I dreamed about a group of breakdancers (17 to be exact) who talked about how much $ they made as a group each night and we had all gone up to a room to watch them, and the main guy's family came in who I recognized from an article in People magazine about how they had been abandoned for his career and the challenges they faced. And I expressed sympathy for them. And I don't remember the specifics about my last dream segment before waking other than to say I was traveling at a high rate of speed in a scary subway vessel of sorts, that I was somehow responsible of steering (and still couldn't see very well)and met my Aunt Lori in what can be best described as an airport.

Kristin Anderson was also in my dream at some point, we were in my parents' old bathroom in our house in Metairie and I was asking her what it was like to have 3 kids. She never really answered. I also dreamed around that same time that I was trying to make an outfit out of overalls, first with nothing underneath, then with a wifebeater and then with a sweater stuffed underneath. Yeah, I have been remembering my dreams with increased frequency and vividness lately. I think I like it. Because though I don't believe every event in a dream means something, I do believe that the emotions and feelings experienced toward the people in them does mean something. And I plan to write out the contents of my dreams for whatever duration I am able to remember them to try and decipher those inner thoughts and how I should process them. :) I know that it is a rare ability to remember dreams every night and I don't know why it is happening but I feel kind of like Val Kilmer in At First Sight, which is based on a true medical phenomenon, copied and pasted as follows:

The tale of a man who was blind from early childhood, but was able to recover some of his sight after surgery. This is one of an extremely small number of cases where an individual regained sight lost at such a young age, and as with many of the other cases, the patient found the experience to be deeply disturbing.

Other essays by neurologist Oliver Sacks (An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales) seem interesting enough for me to want to read:

"The Case of the Colorblind Painter" discusses an accomplished artist who is suddenly struck by cerebral achromatopsia or the inability to perceive color due to brain damage.
"The Last Hippie" describes the case of a man suffering from the effects of a massive brain tumor, including anterograde amnesia, which prevents him from remembering anything that has happened since the late 1960's.
"A Surgeon's Life" describes Sacks's interactions with a surgeon and amateur pilot with Tourette syndrome. The surgeon is often beset by tics, but these tics vanish when he is operating.
"The Landscape of His Dreams" discusses Sacks's interactions with Franco Magnani, an artist obsessed with his home village of Pontito in Tuscany. Although Magnani has not seen his village in many years, he has constructed a detailed, highly-accurate, three-dimensional model of Pontito in his head.
"Prodigies" describes Sacks's relationship with Stephen Wiltshire, a young autistic savant described by Hugh Casson as "possibly the best child artist in Britain"
"An Anthropologist on Mars" describes Sacks's meeting with Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who is a world-renowned designer of humane livestock facilities and a professor at Colorado State University. The title of this essay comes from a phrase Grandin uses to describe how she often feels in social interactions.

Escalators, they just make people lazy. I mean, elevators are necessary for people confined to wheelchairs, etc. But the majority of people can walk and don't get enough exercise, and escalators contribute to that statistic. Not to mention how scary it is to be on a steep one or the possibility of getting your shoelace trapped.

How to Break a Habit

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Learn to train yourself to break any annoying habit. Do you bite your nails? Chew on your hair? Suck your thumb? Pick your lips? Don't worry, there is a way to break all of these bad habits. You just have to encourage and motivate yourself.

Steps

1. Understand and admit to yourself that you have a bad habit. You won't get anywhere unless you can admit this fact. Ask yourself:
   
   • What is my bad habit?
     
   • Why can't I get rid of it?
     
   • What things stop me from getting rid of it?
     
   
   
2. Decide how you will break your habit. Here's a good method: Every time you catch yourself preparing to bite your nails, suck your thumb, or whatever else you do, stop yourself and make a mark on a calendar. If you really stick to your goal, you will see the number of marks steadily decrease over time.
   
3. Build your own "NO SMOKING" zone: Find someone you like who disapproves of your habit. Tell yourself you will not indulge in the act whenever you are around that person. If you like the person enough, you will find yourself having less desire to go back to the habit. Use the person as an anchor. Just be around this person whenever you feel like controlling the urge. (This doesn't necessarily mean you can't be around this person when indulging in the undesired habit, just try to use their dislike of the habit to fuel your own will to quit.)
   
4. Capitalize on other negatives: Use any other clashing habit or negative about yourself to combat the habit. For instance, if you're lazy, be lazy about your habit. Think of it as too much effort. If you're a smoker, keep your pack locked up in your car down the street. Then you'll find it easy to be too lazy to go get one.
   
5. Try to replace your habit with something new and positive in your life. The key is not to focus on the "not doing", but to think instead about "doing". Instead of thinking about missing that piece of chocolate cake after dinner, think about how good it is going to feel to take a long walk without all that sugar in your system.
   
6. Reward yourself. Once you have gone a week or so with no marks on the calendar, buy yourself a sundae, go shopping, eat at a fancy restaurant, or whatever makes you happy.
   
7. Forgive yourself when you slip: Don't beat yourself up if you end up falling into the habit again. Pick yourself up and try again. Your efforts have not been wasted and you have not lost any ground. With every attempt you make yourself stronger.
   
8. Open your eyes: Life shows you the way if you just listen. You always "know" when you're crossing a line. Go by your gut and avoid it when you "know" you should.
   
9. Visualize the new you, without the habit: See it, feel it, hear the sounds of success. Hear the compliments. Hear your new thoughts of how great it feels to have made this change.
   

Tips

• If you are trying to break a habit in a sport (eg. for cricket, throwing a ball instead of bowling it), then try doing 20 bowls concentrating on keeping your arm straight. Then sit in the quietly for 20 minutes and "Meditate" about what it felt like, the pros, and how much better cricketer you could be if you could bowl properly. Then go back to bowling again and this time do 40 bowls. Then return to the quiet place and do exactly the same meditation, but this time for 5 minutes.This should break the habit very quickly. This is because it makes a connection stronger between the stored memory and the neurones that tell you what to do. In this way, you can use existing habits to your advantage.
  
• Prepare the mind before you do anything else.
  
• Pay attention to rhythms: All habits are about rhythm, following a pattern of stimulus and response. The trigger could be an event, an emotion or the passing of time. Break the rhythm and you'll break the habit. Vary the rhythm by doing the act at different times or for different reasons. Try watching too much TV when you don't feel like it, or try not leaving dirty laundry on the bathroom floor when you do feel like it. This way you can remove the mental correlation of the act with the stimulus, and begin to do the act only as a matter of choice, not a matter of habit.
  
• Some people say that it takes 30 days to form a pattern and 90 days to form a habit, so plan on giving this a good chance.
  
• See wikiHow links below for specific tips on specific habits.
  
• Sometimes you will start your bad habit again after stopping. Maybe your mind hasn't quite stuck to the idea yet. Just break the habit as many times as it takes.
  
• Rewards may keep you motivated and may lead to a new and positive habit in your life.
  
• Get a friend to help you break a habit; someone you can trust in and rely upon.
  
• Carry a rock for every time you do your bad habit; or create a 'habit jar'. Every time you give in to your habit, put in a dollar or pull out a slip of paper that tells you to do something you don't want to do, like cleaning the toilet.
  
• Believe in yourself
  
• You'll need the support of your friends and family. If they're constantly telling you you won't succeed, you'll have trouble. Bad habits are often caused by stress, so tell them you're trying very hard, and ask for their support.
  
• An alternative to the calendar is a "Days Since" calendar for your computer. These can be found on widget websites, and they tell you how many days it has been since you've done a certain thing. Pick a set start date to break this habit and use your calendar to keep track of it. However this won't really work if you're not on your computer a lot
  
• Love why you're doing it.
  

Warnings

• There is a big difference between an addiction and a habit! Addictions often have biological causes, like substance abuse or smoking. These are more serious than other habits and require professional help. (Smoking might not, but substance abuse certainly does.)
  
• Try to stay away from cheating on these things, because you are not cheating anyone else, only yourself.
  
• Be careful and decide ahead of time if you are going to punish yourself when you do your habit. Although self-punishment could work, it still has a negative effect on you, so rewarding yourself for not giving in could work better.
  

Things You'll Need

• A calendar
  
• A pen
  
• Confidence!
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Leave All Bad Habits
  
• How to Stop Biting Your Nails
  
• How to Stop Picking Your Lips
  
• How to Evaluate Your Eating Habits
  
• How to Create Good Study Habits for Exams
  
• How to Let Go of Painful Memories
  
• How to Say No to Drugs and Alcohol
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Break a Habit. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

I don't think fashion basics will change all that much in just 20 years. I think that people will be wearing the protective gear we currently use more often, like sunglasses, hats, long-sleeved shirts in the summer and if there is a Day After Tommorow-like freeze over, maybe goggles in the winter and spacey ski-suits.

The best thing that happened to me this past week, considering the week starts with Sunday (today!), the best thing that has happened to me would have to be the emergence of wellness after being sick on the first airplane en route to Oregon (my current location: )

I felt super-fluish on the way, all the way through the connecting flight in Missouri - hottest airport everrrrr. But fortunatelt due to some serious hydration and ibuprofen, I was better by the time we reached our destination, yay!

The cartoon characters I find most disturbing seem to possess the qualities that disturb me most about real-life people.

There's the erratic, short-fused characters that could go off at any second without provocation(future spree killers, anyone?)like:

Ren from Ren and Stimpy or
Mr. DeMartino from Daria

Then there's the she-bully that everyone mistakes as innocent but is really EVIL such as:

Angelica from Rugrats and
Vicky from Fairly Oddparents and

It was especially disturbing to me that these people characters were put in charge of kids. Made me perpetually afraid of babysitters.

Which leads to my next category: Creepy old man characters that appear in otherwise adorable children's cartoons:

Gargamel from the Smurfs or Purple Pieman from Strawberry Shortcake

Yep. That concludes my creepy cartoon character assessment.

Hansel and Gretel. I liked the whole food aspect of it. It was very alluring, the bread crumbs left to find their way and the sweet scent coming from the old lady's kitchen. Of course, the true events are horrifying but the illustrations in childrens' books always seemed to attract me until the story unfolded. I also liked to wear overalls, so the depiction of Hansel wearing them always seemed really cool to me.