Who are you?

I just thought I'd direct your eyes and thoughts to something that I think is pretty great. It's a little story I found over on Tumblr about gender issues and children. 

 I am pretty jealous of these kids, because never in the time that I have been in school have any of my teachers touched upon the subject of gender boundaries. This is so unbelievably stupid that I can't really wrap my brain around how this is even possible. This teacher has the right idea, by teaching children from a young age that they can't have these 1950's idea of genders, it saves these kids a lot of self hatred and hatred from other people. 

 I personally spent most of elementary school feeling ostracized  for dressing and acting like a boy, even from my best friend. Actually I still feel that from him and it's kind of frustrating, but that is neither here nor there. It wasn't until third grade that I started to feel like I wasn't the weirdest kid in the whole school. That's when I met my friend T. She, like me, identified herself with the male gender and faced the same relentless teasing and got into twice as many fights over it. T and I spent most of our childhoods taking care of each other and making a little family for ourselves, and even today I tend to call her "Dad" and she calls me "son". Having T as a role model helped me get through things that tore other kids up inside, pretty easily. Realizing that I liked girls, for example, I didn't have any kind of huge life changing realization or anything, it just kind of clicked because my first crush was The Little Mermaid and I happened to really want to kiss this girl in my class.

 It was not as easy for other kids in this big, bad world. You always hear about kids being bullied into depression and suicide because they are homosexual, or transgendered. Even if a kid isn't pushed that far, being bullied can really harden a kid's heart, but it can also make them push overs, vulnerable kids that will do anything if they think someone will hurt them if they don't. If teachers and parents would just touch on this subject, and make it clear that there does not have to be a huge wall between the genders, it would be one less thing that kids get bullied over and one less thing that kids will beat themselves up over.

A Causus-Race and a Long Tale

So, I've been thinking about making an interactive comic or written story. I've noticed quite a few popping us such as anything on MSPaintAdventures and The Phone Company. I have to say that I'm quite taken with them. If you don't know what they are, they are stories that the readers can contribute to. There are a two different ways to do this, one gives more power to the readers, while the other acts more like a dating simulation game. In the reader power version, after each page readers comment on what the characters should do and the writer will pick one based on where they want things to go, how many people say the same thing or what is the most humorous. In the dating sim way, after each page there are a few different choices the readers can make. These all lead onto different paths that have been somewhat pre-thought through by the writer.

I have a basic idea of what I'm going to base it around and who the main character is, but without readers the whole thing is pretty much nothing. So I ask you, my blog reader(s?) if you would like to participate in my little interactive thing. And if you would like to, would you rather see a comic or a written story. Please get back to me as soon as you can, thanks.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Damn it Ray, every time I try and write a comment on your blog it leads to a post on my blog. So this is in relation to his latest post, so if I do have more readers than him, go read his blog for reference. That's pretty much where all my research into time travel/alternate universes took me. I guess that just reenforced my idea that if some form of higher power (say God) exists, it isn't omniscient. I look at this higher power as a scientist. This scientist was bored, so he started a new experiment which accidentally created a universe, which then multiplied itself an innumerable amount of times due to all the different paths people/animals/what have you take. The scientist does not decide what happens in any universe, he can merely stay in his lab and observe what happens.

When I was in middle school and first starting to break away from my parents religions, I came to Ray's "There is no freewill" conclusion. This pissed me off, pretty much because I believe in freewill. I think that every animal EVER makes decisions and is solely responsible for them. I took that, and an act of defiance (because that's pretty much my thing) and became a huge dick (also my thing) when it came to religion. I was taking those classes you have to take to become a member of the Catholic church at the time, so I alternated between questioning my teachers and classmates every chance I could and outright insulting their intelligence. As you can imagine, I was a pretty mean kid. These classes continued until I was in high school, and the only teacher who weren't Bible Nazis or people who had never challenged anything in their lives, were a couple of college kids. They saw that it was "go practice my religion" or death with my mother. So I pretty much just came to class and politely questioned their faith. They actually had opinions, so they explained that they pretty much saw the religion as a moral code and were pretty respectful of other religions. They felt bad for me also, so that pretty much wrote them into my good book. Most of the time I just sat in class and talked to an ex-friend of mine who was subjected to the same torture, but, surprisingly, was more insulting to the religion than I. She had a whole faux-satanic thing going during classes. At the time, it was pretty amusing, but now I wish I'd told her to tone it down because these people were cool and she actually liked them.

Anyway, when I was finally able to stop taking those awful classes and was, unfortunately, a member of the church on paper, I stopped be so damn angry. Most of the reason I had been a huge douche at that time was because I was being forced to do something I hated. I had already decided I didn't like the religion and for literally no reason except "because" I was forced to waste two hours of my Sundays going to church and class, for three years, for a religion I had no interest in. The reason I hated, yes, ladies and gentleman, hated, my mother was that I have issues with authority figures, and she was telling me to do something. That's it. Since then, we mostly get along. Unless all her answers are "because", of course. I even still see one of those teachers regularly. She works at a Starbucks my friends and I frequent and we can have nice conversations that don't include me being an ass. 

Which leads back to all the fun time/universe stuff. I have always had a thing for time. I can't properly perceive it, so I have a bit of an obsession. And what I mean by that is, say I see my friend A on Tuesday, it is now Saturday. I will know I have recently seen A, but I don't know when it was. It feels like it was a few weeks ago, but in reality it was only a few days. So I usually have something that tells time on me. (Currently my phone because my pocket-watch needs a new battery.) This pretty much lead to my interest in time travel, and I've seen quite a few movies on it, and read some articles and such on it. My interest was piqued again because of a webcomic called Homestuck. It's a pretty amusing way to inadvertently learn about timetravel and alternate universes. Also, it makes you look really smart when you explain what just happened after watching Donnie Darko with your friends. Anyway, looking at things from the alternate universe/time stuff point of view, I came to my scientist idea, because come on guys, think about being created by a giant scientist that checks in on our universe every now and again, is that not super cool and remind you a bit of that one episode of Dexter's Lab? 

So if you can manage to follow my thought process, I was angry at religion and my mom, so I became an ass. Then I became a happy ass, then my obsession with time stuff lead me to be slightly scientific, which then lead me to be a happy ass who believes in a giant scientist in the sky. Sure when I put it that way I sound a little nuts, buuut that's pretty much it. This is how religions are made. If you're a legitimate nutter, I grant you the rights to make a giant scientist in the sky religion, and then to come see me when I become a Psychiatrist, because your brain is probably fascinating.

Alas, poor Alice has nothing to say part one

Mostly I'm writing this entry because I feel obligated to put things up on this blog since I went through the trouble of making it. That being said, I've really no idea what to write about. So I'll just tell my one reader some random fun facts you'll probably never use.

Did you know they have cat prosthetics? They are pretty cool. They are shaped like the prosthetics that people use for running because they are build to absorb impacts. And that's pretty much all cats do. They are actually connected to the cat's bones and the skin and muscles and such grow around the new limb, they cannot be taken out and are designed to take in the same amount of impact as the cat's other legs. They helped his adorable little farm cat be able to run around and play again after having his legs crushed by some farm equipment. So yeah, those are pretty cool, but I'm sure that they're ridiculously expensive.We also ave pretty cool human prosthetics. We build a robotic arm prothetic that can exert up to 200 pounds in force, which is ridiculous, but something I would make if I were a scientist. Because, shit, I could be Luke Skywalker. So when I think about the boring kind of prosthetic limbs everyday people have to wear, I get a bit disappointed. But, people would be chopping off limbs left and right for a badass prosthetic like that, so it's probably for the best. Anyway, do you know of any cool things about prosthetics or robotics?

Alice's Adventures in Religionland: And Who She Found There

The Answer is Herself

Since religion seems to be a topic that my prodding friend has recently been looking into, I figure I'll offend some people with my views, just as theirs will surely offend me, and tell the internet what I think about religion. I explored quite a few regions back when I first realized what utter bullshit the Catholics around me were spewing, (Not to say all Catholics do, just ones I know personally.) and I found that they were all very interesting, but that I could never be part of one.

I have a moral set that is a mix of things society hates, and things it accepts and religion concentrates on what is accepted as "good" behaviors. This does not describe all of my personality, I personally see my flaws and outright admit that I am a bit of an asshole. And yes, I know that most people who are religious don't necessarily follow the moral code that their religion dictates, but do I really want to be a hypocrite? No, not more than I already am, thanks. As I was exploring these religions I found that I didn't really want to be part of one anyway. It seems like people "find" religion because they need something to believe in, or because something good happened so it must have been a deity saying "Join my religion today and get a free toaster!" Looking at different religions taught me that I don't need a magical, invisible man in the sky to believe in so he can judge me.

But, that's not to say that I didn't find myself very interested in a couple. The first being Wicca. I actually practice some of the nicer things about it now and again. Such as lighting white candles for purity and gathering flowers and plants to ward off vindictive spirits and ill will against me, but that last part is more psychological than anything else. Anyway, what drew me to Wicca was that I had a few friends that were Wicca at the time, and I had actually read a few books by a Wiccan author before all this. It was all rather fascinating, but, religion likes nice people, Wicca especially, and because I have quite a lot of respect for that particular religion, I decided not to get too into it. Unfortunately, one of my mother's friends found out that I was interested and lectured me about how Wicca was a branch of Satanism and how there are horrible, horrible things that can happen to practices of Wicca. Whether or not the Satanism part is true or not, I know that consequences with Wicca depend on what you use it for. People who play with demons and pissed off spirits end up like my friend M. She mad herself miserable because she was doing things Wicca teaches you not to do. While my friend J became very close to nature and is very much happy and didn't do anything stupid.

The other was Islam. This was before I was introduced to all the hate that Mulims were being subjected to, and after I was, I couldn't understand it. It was like everyone suddenly hating Christians because a Christian guy blew up a couple buildings full of people. It made no fucking sense at all. That aside, what drew me to the religion was how they lived. I had read a book in which the main character was Muslim, Hindu and Christian at the same time. (If you like to read it's a pretty good one, it's called Life of Pi.) Although I found this to be ridiculous, the description of how he lead his life as a Muslim was very interesting. I actually liked that they faced Mecca and prayed to their God five times a day. I thought it was beautiful, but I wasn't as very serious about it, mostly I just wanted to learn about it, and I got the chance when I had to write a report on it in High School. 

I'm not saying, "Don't join a religion, don't look into them, they're stupid and they suck." Breaking away from Catholicism and exploring other religions I liked more, helped me become who I am. In fact, I insist that if you have no religion, or you only know about the one you're in, look at other ones, it could change your view on them and help you appreciate other people's cultures. If you're monotheistic, start with polytheistic religions and vice versa. I personally love polytheistic religions, their Gods are usually cooler, sorry monotheism. I recommend Hindu.

Again, I'm not to saying that there definitely isn't some greater force making the atom stay together despite it's flagrant disregard for Physics, I just don't think it's any God that is recognized by religions today. Hell, for all I know it's the gorilla from George of the Jungle thinking that humans are all rather quaint in his British accent while making tea and having a biscuit. Anyone up for making a new religion based on that? Because people will probably join it and Christians will tell us to stop worshiping golden bulls. It'll be lots of fun. But seriously, I don't mean to insult people's religions, just the people in them.

Begin at the begining

Ahh, yes, the customary first post. What is there to say...?

Truth be told, I was nudged and prodded into this. Thanks, Ray, now I have more things on the internet to waste my time with. Basically, it will become my mental dumping ground. I'd like to say I'll keep personal life stuff to a minimum, but things I post here will probably stem from things that I experience and feel the need to let the internet know how much it irks me. That or it will be for things I learn about such as: anything pertaining to mental health, stuff about insects, cool things we can do with science, and random useless facts and information about insignificant things. If anyone becomes interested in all this nonsense, feel free to comment, argue with me and stroke my ego. Now I'll cut this baby short and post something that vaguely resembles something interesting later when I think about it.