Christmas

I’m writing from my new laptop. My boyfriend gave it to me for Christmas. Even though I knew I was getting it, I was still surprised. I wasn’t sure how he’d feel if I opened it in front of my family. Other presents from things like my birthday were like shopping sprees. For my birthday he took my shopping at Victoria’s Secret, with a limit of $150. He works  out of town on pipeline and doesn’t spend a lot on himself. When he does it will be on a new car, probably in about six months. See if he keeps that one clean. J

 

So this new laptop is pretty sweet. My sister actually went half on one for her with my parents earlier this month, but altogether they ended up spending a little over 1000. I thought this was ridiculous. She insisted on getting a Dell Inspiron because she was able to get it in ‘sunshine yellow’. My thoughts on this basically went with the idea that, hold on, she’s paying how much to get a yellow laptop, when you can get any laptop for like 700, equipped with the basic things that a college student needs. Personally, my boyfriend told me that mine is actually a refurbished laptop that he got for less than 500. It has Microsoft office 2007, Limewire, Itunes, and an antivirus program on here. He put the last three on it before he actually gave it to me, so its just about ready to use, with no setup to worry about on my part. It’s a Toshiba and black, although it is a shiny black. When I opened it, he said, ‘It was the shiniest one I could find!’ It was pretty funny.

 

I got a few great things this year, besides my laptop. My parents got me two outfits, and all the clothes actually fits me. I also got a ring from James Avery that is downright beautiful. I also got some Chucks from my sister, and a belt and blouse from my other sister.

Anywho, enough about presents. I hate talking about them because I’m accidentally spoiled. Like when my mom asked for my christmas list, I wrote down things like, sunglasses, jeans, the James Avery ring. I threw in some big stuff, like Lasik surgery. But there was nothing I really wanted besides a little bit of jewelry. Of course, then I was loaded down with stuff from my parents and it turned out really nice. But I didn’t expect to get so much. One thing I was really looking forward to was seeing how everyone liked the presents I got them. For example, we got my mom a Coach purse she’d been eyeing, and she loved it. I also got her a necklace, not very expensive, but she had told us she’d like more of them. Funny thing was that I had already bought it when she told us that. Then one of my sisters is into art, and she loves dangly earrings, so I bought her some pastels and a cute pair of earrings. My other sister has some vans with the Ramones on them, but she never really listened to them, so I bought her a greatest hits cd to upload onto her ipod, and this really cute shirt that I knew she’d like. I got my other sister a hoodie she really wanted from the school bookstore, and I got my dad the new Indiana Jones movie that he’d been wanting to see, and an Academy gift card so he could buy himself a fishing rod. I got my brother a really nice pair of dress pants from Calvin Klein, and Elise got him a belt, so now he can just pick out a shirt and he’s got a full outfit.

Either way, gifts or no gifts, it was an enjoyable couple of days. I love Christmas, and I’m just glad that we weren’t hit so bad as far as the recession goes. We’ll make it…No worries.

  

Christmas Eve

Each year on Christmas Eve, my sisters and I, and sometimes my mom, will buy a bunch of baking stuff and bake sweets. Some we take with us to the Christmas Eve party at my grandmother's house at night, but most we make plates out of and hand out to our neighbors. Seeing as how we've been in this house for 30 years, we know a lot of them and can remember when there have been changes in residence.

The one that I wish were still around was Mr. January. He was like our farmer neighbor. Grew tomatoes in his backyard. I remember him showing us how the vines grew onto other objects like poles or little fences. He had an awesome old barber's chair, with metal detail and a white cushion. It also had the foot pedal that moved it around, although I'm not sure if it worked. He also had an old school icebox that always had the individual vanilla ice creams in it. We got one every time we went by. My mom said that around the time when I was born was when she started getting to know him. He was an elderly widower whose daughter was never around, and he was lonely. So he and my mom grew the kind of bond that he might have had with his daughter. He liked to carve things, like a wooden reindeer to put on the porch, or a penguin that we still have hanging in the kitchen. You set it up on a counter and it peeks down at you while you work. He also made us a squirrel feeder.

He wood carve and paint these things for us, and he was just one of those wonderful people you meet once in your life. Old school, but intelligent. Hard working. Someone who understood what hard work used to mean.

He started moving to smaller towns around Texas, like Vidor, Baytown, Lampasas. We went to see him a few times, but he passed away at least 3 years ago.

My other neighbors across the street are an older couple who have young men living with them, either sons or nephews. Those guys can cause some trouble, but when it comes down to it, they're the same as us and we've known them for years. They always get a plate. They also helped us out before Hurricane Ike hit us, giving us plywood because we waited too late to get some at the store.

We also gave one to the man who owns a gas station nearby. He's a young Pakistani man named Sam. He's really nice, and definitely hardworking. I have real respect for him because he is a Pakistani in the gas station business, and its got to be hard. He also speaks at least four languages, which anyone CAN do, but I think it shows dedication to your job. He knows Pakistani (i'm not sure what the language is called) and then English and Spanish, and then a different dialect from his town back home. He was definately touched when we gave him that plate. Made us feel great giving it to him.

A new addition to our list is someone named Junior who lives down the street. We don't know him that well, and didn't really talk to him before last year. But he runs a roofing and construction business, and we've had this old shed in the back yard for years. My parents have always had big plans for it, but have moved slowly when it came down to it. He filled in walls and put in windows and a real roof on it, as compared to the doorways without doors and aluminum roof. And when we were hit by Ike in September and a massive pine branch fell through the roof, he repaired it within days for less then 100 dollars. He also gave us plywood before the hurricane to cover our windows, and helped us put it up.

Anyway, so these are my plans for tomorrow. Get up, WAKE up, start cleaning up, wake up my sisters, and get to baking. Then we'll start walking up and down the street, passing out our trays to our neighbors.

Merry Christmas.

Bad Dreams

I hate when you have dreams and the people who are in it are familiar in the dream, but once you wake up you have no idea who they are. Its like their faces are blurred out or you may have never looked them in the eye throughout the dream so you therefore never saw the face, which means that you can't remember who it was without remembering their voice and mannerisms. This happens fairly often, in my dreams and others.

I can be at a party cuddling with the same person all night but when I wake up and try to think of who it was, I can't remember for the life of me.

My dream last night was sorta cool, to start with. My family and I were at this field that we apparently owned, and in this field was a gorgeous lake where we could vacation and relax and forget about the world. I left the lake to go into the city for the afternoon, which was a cross between California and Venice, and hung out with a man who is a blur and a girl i went to high school with named Katie. The reason I say Venice is because we were sitting on a bridge that served as a walkway over a 'street'.

While I was here talking to my friends, another friend from work came up and acted really concerned and sat next to me, and told me softly that my dad was killed. A stranger had shown up at the lake, they trusted him and let him stay, and he was apparently strapped with bombs, and blew himself up. The only one to die was my dad.

I began to mourn in my dream. I remembered how gruff he is at times, compared to his moments of sweetness and love. Speaking to him on the phone where he addresses me as honey and tells me he loves me. Knowing that I'll never speak to him again at all, and hear him sound like that when he says goodbye, and be careful.

That's when my sister woke me up. I'm pretty sure I was crying when I woke up, but either way, it was the first thing I did when I sat up. I continued to mourn the dream death of my father, and then remember that nothing happened and got ready for the day.

Later I was listening to the radio and a song came on that had no words. The classic rock station is pretty good with playing songs for their amazing ness instead of catchy radio spot-ness. So instead of the usual catchy phrase songs that play on top 40 stations, I got this song that was based on the guitar playing. I've always loved music for music, so I really appreciated it and even thought, Wow, who is this?

Turns out it was Stevie Ray Vaughan, who is one of my father's favorite musicians. We have bonded many a time over music, so to hear this song today really made me misty, so I called my dad to tell him how neat it was to hear that song and think of him.

He naturally said it was cool, then asked me to run to the store for him before it closed. And he didn't forget to say, 'Thanks, honey. I'll see you later. Be careful.'

And that's the Gospel Truth!

So lately the entire country has been bombarded by the issue of gay marriage and equal rights for gay couples. I totally understand the importance of it to most sides involved, but I have to say this somewhere--

The Bible is definately a key factor in historians' assessments of the world and majorly important in determining what sin is and is also a perfectly good way to figure out basic guidelines for life. But when it comes to something as hardhitting and immense as gay marriage, I honestly do not think it should be trusted.

The books in the Bible are always opened with a phrase like, "From a Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians." For one thing, this is not necessarily scholarly work. As stated, it is a letter to a community about something that Paul thought was really important. I don't doubt that it was true and I don't think that Paul had any reason to lie or write stories about Jesus or prophets. I just think that, being a letter, it will almost inevitably be a letter of persuasion or a call to action. I also happen to know that Nero ( I think it was Nero) made a major difference when it came to religion. I haven't read my book on Christianity recently (yes I own one), but I am entirely certain that a Roman emperor took the Bible apart and chose what should be included. This was done to benefit the emperor himself or to benefit his empire. This is one major reason I don't think the Bible should be an authority on something as major as gay marriage.

Another idea-
When Scary Palin lady was in the vice presidential debate, she basically said, 'Yes we will make sure legal rights are given, but we don't want to challenge the traditional definition of marriage.'

While this is not a direct quote, I assure you, it is very close. What's unfortunate is that Biden said the same thing.

What gets me here is that they don't want to challenge what they say is 'the traditional definition of marriage.' This bugs me a whole lot because marriage happens to be one of those things that changes from culture to culture and time period to another, and even between present day countries. There has been polygamy, there has been the 2 person couple, there has been the English way of and older gent marrying a preteen. In less advanced times, the point of these marriages was to result in a high number of children, because children died at a very high rate at childbirth, as did women. But to say that they do not desire to challenge a definition is laughable considering the fact that marriages that consist of a man and a woman already tear apart this definition just fine as heterosexuals. They have had affairs, and they have had divorces. There are estrangements, and there is a reversal of roles in the home, such as men playing housekeeper and women playing breadwinner.

I wrote an article about this topic (on the veep debate) for my school paper. It wasn't published, but I will not say that it wasn't published because of my views. I know that other people are taking a class that publishes the paper, and those have to be printed. I am also aware that I am not as experienced a writer as others are. And there is always one or two election pieces that are picked up from other universities, and they might not have wanted a third. Either way, I was upset that it wasn't published because it is an important topic to me. Important in the sense that while I am Catholic and do believe in many things that this religion proclaims, I also try to keep my head and remember that almost everything in my religion was thought up by a man. Jesus happened to break bread and drink wine at his last supper, but he didn't tell us to do the same. He didn't tell us to take the tree idea from the pagans and give gifts on Christmas day. All we do is follow the example of those in the Bible, which I have already stated as being less then the bottom line. I believe what was said to have taken place, such as the Crucifixion and even His rise from the dead, but as I believe, I remember that it was really just Paul, or Mark, or Ruth, or Job, or John, or Luke who was telling someone else what happened. These people never meant for their words to become law.

Except maybe Paul, who became the first Pope.

Hope you found this interesting and enlightening.

this is me, at school, sometime in the past month or so. i really like taking pictures there because around the time that i have nothing to do, the sun is usually at this amazing spot in the sky that gives everything a good glow. i really like this picture because it its just me chillin, and chillin is a very important part of my day. i was also wearing a new shirt.

this is me a couple of minutes later. i figured if i was gonna do a self portrait, it was gonna look good. so i took my haid down and didn't make such a goofy face. this is one of those rare beauties that i catch that i actually get sincere compliments on. which is really pleasant.

these next two are actually very similar. if you look at the one on the left, i'm giving that same goofy smile i'm so guilty of. i'm obviously hard at work at your local starbucks, for one thing. and the fluorescent lighting doesn't really do anyone favors. but with my cap on, i think i survived.

in comparison, i myself really like the one on the right. all i did was tilt my head back and stop smiling. not only do i look a little more hardcore, but you can see my make up which i think was really good that day, and my skin looks really clear and nice. :D

anyway, that's enough of that. i just couldn't think of anything to write about.

night!

past is prologue

so i was watching the vice presidential debate last month, thinking about how stupid sarah palin is, and i heard her tell biden to stop talking about bush because he wasn't running against bush. his quick answer was 'past is prologue.' he then continued to answer his question.

i really like this answer. this short sentence sums up the entirety of my outlook on life and relationships. it may seem incomplete but it is a very short and correct summation of almost everything you attribute it to.
my second cousin's dad died last monday. no one was really shocked, unfortunately, because this man was not the most responsible and was addicted to alcohol and drugs for a long time. but when he died, it reminded me of my own departed family members. so i changed my myspace default picture to a picture of my grandfather's headstone, with his last name in caps, SAENZ.
Then i realized that i had previously changed my myspace name to past is prologue.

this is when i realized that no matter where you look, as obvious as it sounds, there is a past that defined and shaped whatever it is you're looking at or contemplating. in my case, my grandfather and his death alone shaped me because he died while i was still in my mother's womb. i think back to the context and realize that she was in a huge state of mourning for the last 3 months that she was pregnant with me, not to mention having two children already.
poor woman went through a lot.

anyway, reading into things is always something i invite.
and the fact that this is such a snappy and alliterating phrase doesn't hurt either.

President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama

The first time I saw this name was on a friend's t shirt on high school. I didn't know who Obama was, and I first thought it was a nasty reference to Osama bin Laden, since this was in 2006 and I wasn't that up to date with the country's affairs. It was only later when he explained himself to my government class that semester that I realized that this was an entirely different man who wanted to be President. It wasn't until very later that I cared enough to find out more about him, and it actually, unbelievably, took me a while to see what he looked like.

But now I am able to say that no matter how much I agree or disagree with his policies, I feel like a lucky observer. Someone who happened to be alive and able to understand the enormous change that just took place in this country.

I have never been able to say that I feel racism or prejudice, even as a Hispanic female. But everytime I see and hear those older than me discuss the Civil Rights Movement or Martin Luther King, Jr. I feel so small compared to the things that they have seen, lived through and achieved. I am so lucky to be in a place where such an historical occurence can happen.

My only fear?
The presidency is one of the toughest jobs to have in the world. At least, from what I've heard. My only words of doubt this morning were, 'I just hope we didn't make a mistake.'
Because to make a mistake of such magnitude would be horrible.
Luckily, I believe in Barack Obama. And I believe that Joe Biden was a great choice as Vice President.

When Obama came to Houston a while back to speak at the Toyota Center, my sister and I found out and tried to get tickets. Outside our school, (which is University of Houston-Downtown) there were Obama volunteers who directed us to his new office nearby. So my sister and I took a trip down Travis st. and found the office full of people with news vans and a line out of the door. We stood in line to hopefully get tickets, but before we got to the front, we were ushered inside by more aides who assured us that we could get back in line in just a minute.
Little did we know that this was actually the office OPENING and that a ceremony was taking place right then. So of course, to accidentally open up Obama's Houston office was ridiculously amazing. There were city representatives and endorsers speaking, and camera crews. There was one Hispanic woman representative who addressed the fact that Latino votes either leaned towards Clinton or Republican. But her point was 'We are here!'

And of course, right then, a news camera found me and my sister, the only two young Hispanic females in the room.

It was pretty weird. :D

Either way, I'm happy with the choice that we have made tonight, and can only hope that Obama does the best he can, as I'm sure he will. Let's pray for a safe 4 years.

math musings

Sitting here in math class, learning about complex numbers and i, it is easy to fool yourself into thinking that i is an actual number, like 2 or 9 or 76. But when you stop and take your head and mind out of this context, it is easy to realize how unreal it all is. You back up and look at the board covered in i's and you wonder what child is tall enough to write on that board.
This just happened to me, and as it happened, I really felt like the dry ice fog was clearing and the gray gloom surrounding us was replaced by sunlight. Then I became increasingly aware of how important this chickenscratch is to my college education.*



*I have to pass this one math course in order to declare my major.

the fetal position

i went out last night, didn't get home till 430.
it was pretty fun, but then i woke up to go to church at 830. got dressed, put on my new shoes, went to church.
on the way, i hit a nasty rut in the road that is supposed to be fixed. there had been a few that i knew about because i take the same road to school, but the others had been fixed. this is the last one and i didn't see it around the curve, and i blew my front tire. the rim is bent, the stupid hubcap is chipped.
so i didn't go to church. since i can't change a tire (much less in heels or dress clothes) we called the assistance people at tmobile and they sent someone out to fix it. didn't take too long. either way, its messed up and on a donut now.

so then we came home, hung out, my dad and sisters went to the texans game and me, my mom and my youngest sisters were hanging out at the house when cameron and his mom came over. this is the first time she'd met my mom and been to our house. it was cool.
then they left, we hung out a little bit, watched some tv, and i laid down for a nap. i slept through dinner, and didn't wake up till about 930. which was booboo because i was hoping to see cameron again tonight. but i guess its ok, no rush today. just being chill and sleeping and relaxing. and at least he's in town for another week for sure.

i really don't know how it happened but i ended up with the most wonderful man.

i've been reading bizarro comics lately, because i saw his blog address advertised in one of his daily comics, so i've been reading it and its pretty interesting. makes me feel slightly silly because he has things that he rambles about that may or may not have anything to do with his comics, but they are things that he is passionate about or that he made up but you're not sure if he made them up or not. he has a point to his blog, and i don't. i'm not sure how i could go about fixing it. i think i might write out a list of things that are important to me and then things that i think the world could do without. maybe i can make one post for one topic. have a schedule of sorts.

although that may be more structure than i'm looking for.

i'm pretty excited because another issued of the dateline paper at school is supposed to come out tomorrow, and i turned in an article last week. its possible that it could be published. one downside to this is that after i turned it in i let this lady look at it who is an english professor at school, and she kind of tore it to shreds. made me feel silly cuz i thought it was pretty good. but i think its for the better, because a lot of what she revised had to do with thought organization and word association in the article. like having the word homosexual and polygamy close together, although meant to show a difference. the sentence went like this...

'this has been challenged before, and not just by homosexuals. Polygamy has to do with marriage in this form...'

so the mere fact that the first sentence ends with homosexual and the next begins with polygamy could accidentally imply that homosexuals are also polygamists.
i know i didn't mean that, and most intelligent people should not think i meant that, but her point was that you cannot overestimate the reader because then an unknown number of people will get the wrong impression and information, and go forth and spew this misinformation.
so the point is that i wrote a decent article and had it revised rather harshly. i think it had a lot to do with her language. she kept saying, hmm, i have a problem with this, or this doesn't work here, or this isn't right here....its like jeez i know its not perfect but try to be a little nicer about it. or be quiet and explain after you mark it up.
whatever, i'm just a sissy. that's really all it is. :D

if i claim to be a wise man

it surely means that i don't know

haha hello? cameron is back in town. this is awesome. i think that next time he goes out of town it will be to a place that will allowe him to come back on weekends. at least every other weekend.
i really missed him. we'll see how much time i get with him this week. shouldn't be bad.

right now i'm at school, i just took a quiz and got a 60 but apparently i'm not the only one who failed, we'll see what happens. in the meantime i'm ready to go back to bed because i'm rather tired. and i just agreed to work 2 hours in the monring on thursday which means that i'm gonng abe really tired next class but i'll have 2 more hours under my belt at work, which can really only help me.

and i did hear from my brother, or rather, my mother did. he called to tell her that he was staying at a friend's house. i'm not sure why he thinks its ok to take off for what, 4 days? and just not call. and lord knows how long he'll be able to stay with this friend. but technically the only thing he did wrong was not call. i think we'll have to let him back if nothing else goes wrong. we'll see what goes down.

carry on wayward son

sooo... my brother has not been home in about 2 days. he had to work on tuesday and me and elise saw him at lunch, but then he didn't come home. and now here it is, thursday, and he's not home. i called his work and they said he hadn't been there but they weren't too specific.

well, i can't do anything but think and ponder about this song i like called 'carry on wayward son'
which is an old song from the 70s that is by a band called Kansas. when i asked my dad if he knew who the band was (before i figured it out), he thought maybe it was Boston. i guess the names of cities and states were popular band names in that decade.

either way i love this song because the part that everyone knows (carry on my wayward son/there'll be peace when you are done/lay your weary head to rest/don't you cry no more)
is accompanied by a lesser known jam session in between verses. it really is awesome. i never listened to classic rock by choice until about last year maybe the year before but i hadn't heard the full song before. now i've heard it like 10 times and each time i hear it i try to tell my passenger or friend about the pure awesome ness, but they don't seem to get it.

oh well. i shall enjoy it on my own.

the view from uhd

these pictures was taken at the same place, same time, and with the same camera phone. the awesome thing is that i just changed the setting from sunny (above) to night time (below).

makes for quite the beautiful scene, either way.

halloween

i'm the one on the right with too much make up on. this was last halloween at the flying saucer and it was AWESOME.

only problem? i have no idea what to go as this year. same holiday, but with a different costume and at a different bar. don't know what i'm supposed to do.

i was thinking pirate, but a pirate can go in too many directions. like from slutty to too masculine.

other than that i unfortunately don't have many ideas, besides the fact that i want to incorporate my new robe into the mix. its really cool. :D

although, wearing a robe to a bar is like throwing a white trash-themed party like silly and tasteless ashlee simpson. i like to think i would avoid throwing a party whose theme even involved the word trash.

hot fuzz

the movie hot fuzz is probably one of the best things that's ever happened to me. i would say that it falls into the same category as super troopers, but its a little more intelligent, i think.

speaking of best things that ever happened to me, lio definitely falls into that category. i mean check this comic out. there are 4 words written in this comic and its still obvious that lio has conquered death. how simple and how weighted this image is.

Deflation

Have you ever been in a situation where you're happy, the adrenaline is moving, you're making great conversation with multiple people, and then-
someone signs off without a goodbye?
it seems so trivial, actually, that writing about it now seems silly. But tears fell.
It had lots to do with the person in question, but they didn't mean any harm, no harm was really caused. just some bruised feelings.

luckily it will be better. when i get some sleep.

one of my favorite things is to ask simple questions.
like, are you happy?
are you smiling?
why not?
its a great conversation opener.