Reader discretion is advised.
First off, fuck apartment hunting and fuck the university bookstore. I have never been so stressed out in my life. This stress not only stems from having a lot less money than I need to have, but also comes from this overwhelming feeling of frustration due to just not knowing how things are going to turn out. Yeah, I have to pay a lot for text books, but my life would be triple less stressful (ignore my grammar choices - they are faulty) if I EVEN KNEW WHICH BOOKS I NEEDED. Shitsakes.
Secondly, I recently discovered that I suffer from something called "tryphobia" which means I have a terrible fear of holes in things. Shout out to Liz for helping me figure that one out and being my comrade! Nasty stuff.
Thirdly, I'd like to talk about political leadership. I hope it isn't hard for people to take me seriously after I talk about such trivial things in my introductions. If it is, whoops.
Recently, I made a Facebook status regarding environmental issues in Canada. Not even necessarily environmental issues, but Obama's views on our response to environmental crisis. I know that people have different views on how damaged the environment is and whether or not it is actually something that needs to be discussed, but that's not what I'm talking about here either. The article discussing this stuff was in the Edmonton Sun, which I hate with a fiery passion that consumes every muscle tissue in my deepest heart of hearts. I could almost probably definitely write a whole damn blog post on how much I despise the Edmonton Sun, but I digress. The article was written about a speech that Obama gave discussing Canada's response to it's environmental impact. Obama briefly discussed the possibility of the US cutting off trade with Canada until Canada cleans up it's act. This is a completely reasonable thing to say on Obama's part. He would have said the same thing to any other country that pumped out as many million tons of toxins as we do. The dude knows that the United States isn't doing much better, but he also knows that we produce a lot more toxic emissions than the US does and he recognizes that this makes us responsible for the outcome of these actions. I think Obama's dope, and I definitely agree with him. The article in the Sun was written in a really rude way. Basically, they were telling us, as Canadians, to be angry with Obama. "Obama says we don't know how to take care of our country? Man, we might even lose trading rights with the United States? We should definitely ignore every point this guy makes and just turn the whole country against him, because THAT will secure our trading rights. We're brilliant! Who needs to negotiate?" Guys. Whhaaaaaaaat makes sense about that? Sure, we, as countries, probably disagree on this and sure, it's okay to get a little bit offended when others criticize our actions, but the least we can do is listen and try to compromise, right? Fighting with our only real ally is probably the worst idea ever, so, logic says, WE SHOULD PROBABLY NOT DO THAT.
After reading this article, a few other things came to my attention. Most people are aware of the detainment of openly homosexual citizens in Russia recently, yes? What is the deal with that? I'm not really educated on the subject (quick little side note: I'm not sure if this is irresponsible of me or whatever, but I don't usually use citations or anything like that because a) my blog posts are mostly all opinion-based and b) I write because I have thoughts about things and I like to write, not to educate people on current events. Whenever I choose to write about something, I have a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about and I just go with that. I hope that doesn't offend people.), but I know enough to think that this is crazy. It also has recently come to my attention that Costa Rica has no standing military, and I think that's great, so I'm looking at two ends of the spectrum here. Here's what I'm trying to get at with this whole spiel, basically: where is the communication between political leaders and why is it so damn hard for people to listen to each other? I know that there's the G8 and G20 and people have meetings all the time, but I just can't understand why these things don't help anyone. Oh, sorry, correction: why these things don't help anything besides the economy. Conversation and interaction between human beings may be the single most powerful form of action there is, so where are the results? Why do we, as a species, always feel the need to immediately cause violence to people who offend us? If you think about it in more minimal terms, it seems really, really silly. For example, if you own a book store and a customer approaches you and says, "This book is stupid and I despise this cover art" and then lights the book on fire in your face, welcome to the American way, you know? I don't understand why violence is always the more appropriate and accepted solution when it is the most inappropriate solution. Why can't Laura Chinchilla and Dmitry Medvedev talk? They might have in the past, I'm not sure, but it wouldn't hurt to try again. A lot of people will read that and think, "But they don't have the same opinion on things! That won't do any good!" That doesn't matter - the least they can do is share some thoughts. I recently came to a conclusion: the definition of an argument is not necessarily persuasion. The reason that people argue is to make the other person think about their point of view - persuasion, if it occurs, is simply the icing on the cake. Agreeing or disagreeing is not the point; the point is thinking about the topic. I could argue for hours with a person who is pro-life about why I'm pro-choice, but I'm not trying to convince them that they're wrong, I just want them to think about it. Arguments are merely suggestions.
Basically, the point I'm trying to get at here is that things never have to be so "us vs. them". Especially in terms of political leadership. All that leads to is hate, frustration, and war. The more calm we are with our leadership tactics, the safer everything will be for everyone, really. Talking isn't difficult.
I hope everyone reading this has nice apartments and textbooks for dayzzz. Thanks!
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