Europeans.

I have no idea what I was thinking this afternoon as I left for Brewed Awakenings with no umbrella. Thank you, weather man, for the foretelling of the rain, but I am too stubborn to listen. I raced inside as the sky cried through my wool coat, and made it just in time before the rain really hit.

I walked inside, and got a regular sized coffee with room for cream, and added sugar. I was shivering cold when my friend Victor walked in. We had planned to meet to study for our zoology exam tomorrow. The two of us got some strage looks as we walked into the local coffe shop that we usually always meet at to study. We soon realized there were fifteen ladies dressed all nice that were sitting at a table talking in a circle. I swear, the feminist group of Deer Park was there having a meeting. There was one other guy in the place with his European style hat and a laptop on the table.

I want to focus on this guy. Victor and I were having a somewhat intellectual conversation about frog parts, and he was listening in. I noticed, and it looked like he was typing notes about the topics we were disscussing. I was so confused. He went out on the porch for a cigarette, and so I followed, pretending to do the same. I made small talk with this guy of about 45 years. Ends up, he is from Norway, and had not fired a gun until the age of 38. We talked for a little bit about European culture versus American, and we were both on the same page.

This was the hilight of my day. I love meeting Europeans. I believe that I am not American at heart, but German. Atleast, some sort of European country at heart!

Best Friends and Betrayal.

I am really just using this to vent. I'm sorry.

I have a friend, let's call him Trey. He was my best friend. I don't know how to explain it, because we've never physically met. We talk and webcams and all, he's not a creeper. For almost two years, it's been great. No fights, no anything except love between friends. A few weeks ago, it all went wrong. Trey told me that I need to stop doing certain things that didn't concern him. He in a roundabout way told me that we should only be "good time" friends. He didn't want our friendship to be anything but good times.

I believe a friend should be there for you through thick and thin, bad and good, better or worse, or is that just me? He was like that up until this point! So, long story short, he blocked me on facebook, myspace, msn, and skype. He said to e-mail him when I changed those few things and we would talk again. Easier said then done, I can't change who I am. This is what makes me mad: He KNOWS I have a hard time letting people in, and he pushed me for months and months until I finally *almost* completely let him in, and he said he would never hurt me. He told me that he was doing this to "help" me. Forget that, all it's done is hurt me!

Anyway, things almost, but not quite, got back to normal. He unblocked me, we've been talking. Tonight, he starts ignoring me again! He hasn't blocked me, but he straight up said that he doesn't want to talk to me, and it's for my own good. I wish he would just talk to me. It's not helping, it's hurting! I care about him more than most friends care about each other. I can't explain why. It's not like I'm in love with him. It's literally killing me from the inside because I can't figure out why he's doing this. I can't count the tears shed over this shit. Excuse my language. He's being immature though. I'm worried about him acting like this, and the worry and the hurt is just extra baggage I don't need.

Censorship

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there of; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of people to peacefully assemble, and to petetion the government for a redress of grievances."

First Amendment to the United States of America Constitution.

If this is all true, why is it that censorship is such a big issue? Libraries all over, in public school, cities, and everywhere else are taking books off of their shelves because people complain about the contreversial topics or writing. Is this right? In my opinion, no. My arguement is that books like these raise awareness on certain situations and how to handle them. When I was young, I read many books that had to do with drugs, abuse, violence, and sex. It has not corrupted me, but I now feel I have the knowledge to handle these situations as they come up.

For instance, reading Ellen Hopkins book Crank helped me to understand the effects of cocaine and how it changes people and their life. Honestly, if I had not read that book, I think the curiosity of what cocaine does would have taken over me, and I would have tried it and possibly become addicted. Maybe it's just me, but I think that keeping books like this on the shelf keep people more open minded, as well as giving people general knowledge about situations.

Religion in school is also something that catches my interest. the apathy of certain religions in text books, school studies, and television have created resistance to religious tolerance and created unnecessary prejudice of religions as well. When I was studying world geography in 9th grade, our text left out Christianity, Atheism and Satanism. Studies show that people in general are more resistant to these religions. If we taught them in school, would people still be resistant? I don't think so, considering teaching them would make them even with the other religions taught. With this comes the fact that people have to be mature enough not to judge people on their religious beliefs.

Art is something else that is often censored in today's society. Many masterpieces are of nude bodies. Some people consider this pornography. I consider it purely art. There is a difference. Each person has a right to decide the line between art and porn, and can choose not to look at certain things. Grafitti as a political statement has recently been censored as well. Some artist grafitti their own private property and still get hashed for it. It is simply a statement, and art. True, society today has changed graffitti to trash and not art, but the originality of voicing a statement is supposed to be protected under the first amendment.

Little situations like these remind me of the Red Scare. Everyone could just point a finger and blame someone for being a communist, and out they went. No job, no money, no life. People also tried to blame Roosevelt for making pro-soviet moves. This is what could happen again if we let censorship get out of hand.

To believe in something, you have to know why you don't believe in the opposition as well. If everyone was closed minded and censored all their options, how would someone truly know what they believe?