FOOTBALL

We’re getting close to the end of the year! It’s hard to believe that we only have one more week of classes left. I’m both excited & sad. I miss home & my friends at home & some of the perks that come with living at home. But I’m also going to miss my friends that I have made at college. I definitely won’t miss the work, but unfortunately I’m going to have to take summer classes. And it’s going to be my in my most hated subject – math. For 2 semesters this year I have neglected to take a math class because I hate math so much & I hated the empo even more. But now I’m 2 semesters behind in math so I’m going to catch up over the summer. And the sad part is that I wasn’t taking a hard math, it was just 1016. So anyways, I’m excited for summer!

I’m also running out of topics to blog about. After 2 semesters of this blogging thing, I think I’m done. I don’t know how people do this for a living or all the time. So this week’s blog is going to be about FOOTBALL. This week I went to the spring game & it reminded me of how much I absolutely love football. I want to get married during football season so I can honeymoon at a Dallas Cowboys football game! I’m pretty sure my husband is going to love me. Unless he’s a redskins or eagles fan, but I wouldn’t marry one of those idiots anyways! I’m also excited for Hokie football come August. I have bought season tickets & a bunch of my friends made a group so we’ll all be together! And watching my Hokies win games is the best way to spend a Saturday!

Stumble

Almost done with school!!! As much as I love Blacksburg & Virginia Tech, I can’t wait to be home & go to the beach almost every day. Even though I still need to find a job because I’m pretty sure my parents won’t support me during the summer. I can’t wait for summer & to be home. Also, I can’t wait for football next year! I just bought my tickets which were $85 but well worth it! I’m sure I can see some of them back to freshman & make my money back. Anyways, I’m going to be sitting with my friends & watching my Hokies play football. That sounds like the perfect thing to me! Can’t wait!

So this week’s blog is going to be about all the cool sites I find on stumble. If you have never used this thing then you def should. It finds all these cool & new websites for you based on your interests. I waste SO much time on this thing. I thought I would share some of my procrastination with you J. So go to stumbleupon.com

1. http://www.trevorvanmeter.com/flyguy/flyGuy.swf

a. This is a game where you use your arrow keys to make this man keep flying higher & higher. There are random sky objects out flying around & if you get hit by one you get smacked back down. It was actually super entertaining! Eventually you make it to space & if you can get back that you land on a beach & the game is over.

2. http://healthychild.org/blog/comments/growing_fresh_air_with_8_powerful_plants/

a. I thought this website was kinda cool because I’m an environmentalist & I am all about planting new things & refreshing the air. For the big event this weekend I worked with the Environmental Coalition & got to plant trees. I love planting things even though I’m pretty sure I have a black thumb. Anyways, whenever I get my own apartment I’m pretty sure I’m going to try this.

3. http://zonezero.com/magazine/essays/diegotime/time.html

a. I thought this was a really cool idea! Each year they take a facial photo of themselves (not some corny staged photo) & it was really cool to see how each of them has grown over the years! This is another thing I want to do with my family. It was amazing to look at how each person changed each year. Especially the parents. It’s weird for people our age to think about our parents when they were young. Really, really weird actually.

4. http://topcultured.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/What-Should-I-Eat-Candy.jpg

a. This one tells you which candy you should eat based on your preferences! This is seriously really cool. I used to love these little things when they had them in magazines. Some of the questions are a little weird but I got a crunch bar which is one of my favorite types of candy!

So if you want to waste time or do some distracted homework, use Stumble!!!

Confederate History Month

As you may or may not know, our idiot of a governor has declared April Confederate History Month. When he originally issued the proclamation he left out any mention of slavery because he didn’t feel that it was significant enough to mention. If you know me or are my facebook friend, you know this pissed me off! I already have a DEEP disliking for this governor. I really don’t trust this man & the fact that so many people voted for him makes my stomach churn. Everything that he has done in office is atrocious. But back to the subject at hand, as a black citizen of Virginia, this is so offensive! I’m having trouble finding words to express my anger. First of all, the world confederate is offensive. I’m not going to lie, if I see a confederate flag outside of somebody’s house, I’m not going in! I assume that they are racist and probably wouldn’t want me in their house anyways. So to celebrate that blows my mind. The other side says the confederacy is part of Virginia’s heritage. Yes, but it’s an ugly part of our heritage that should not be celebrate. It’s purely ridiculous. People say that the south went to war save their economy, that’s true. But do you know what their economy is based on? SLAVES. People say that they went to war to save their lifestyle. You know what a major part of their lifestyle was? SLAVES. These people went to war (against their own country, which I will get to later), to fight for the right to OWN other people. This is what we should celebrate? And then the governor said he did this to celebrate our “shared” history. No, no, no, his history and my history are completely different. My ancestors were owned and degraded by his ancestors. That is not a shared history. And for him to even hint at that notion is extremely hurtful. Another thing, these people were terrorists. Some of their arguments that they used are the same arguments that terrorists in other countries use. Don’t get me wrong, I am all about honoring the soldiers that gave their lives but in that case, why not call it “Civil War History Month.” As I said before, the term confederate is something that sparks a lot of emotion & fear in any African American person. And I have a hard time imagining that a man as educated as the governor could not find another word to use. It makes no sense to me! This seriously pissed me off for a couple days. This also sparked a debate on my facebook, but it was a debate that was divided along racial lines. For example, my white friend said “Recognition of history is good, without it, it is doomed to repeat itself.” Another white friend said “Why does it have a negative connotation? That was the name of the seceding group. Just because it something is affiliated with the confederacy doesn't mean it is the KKK or black-person-hating.” Neither of these are valid points. One of my black friends said “Netime i see a confederate flag i assume dat craker is racist, fuck condfederate month day week watver hell he wants to do i swear i hate white people with power.” This is not well written but I tend to agree. Another argument was one comparing it to Black History Month. THAT ARGUMENT IS BULLSHIT. The reason for black history month is because it wasn’t taught in school before the month was created. Living, 5 minutes away from Jefferson Davis Middle, I’m going to tell you that we get plenty of confederate history in school. We don’t need to celebrate treason & racist practices anymore then we do. We are constantly bombarded in our history books & schools with them trying to gloss over the civil war. It’s pure crap & I wish somebody would call these out on it. Don’t pretend that the civil war was not fought over slavery, because it was. These people wanted to continue their lifestyle, which would not have been possible without exploiting another group of people. This is just unfortunate to me because the governor hasn’t done anything for Virginia except be divisive. First he took away protection for homosexuals and now he is celebrating Virginia’s racist past. It makes me cringe to think of what he’s going to do next. Shame on anyone who voted for this guy. You know what, that’s gotta go in caps. SHAME ON ANYONE WHO VOTED FOR THIS IDIOT. And the fact that people agree with his racist, sexist, classist, discriminating policies makes me beyond angry. He has made Virginia the laughingstock of the nation. I turned on my TV and commentators on MSNBC, ABC, CNN, even Fox news were making fun of this guy. It’s just ridiculous. I truly, truly dread the next 3.5 years of living under this guy. I detest any man who wants to discriminate against any race, gender, sexuality, disability, or anything else. It is repulsive & this guy should be ashamed of himself. I don’t know how he sleeps at night. CREIGH DEEDS, I WISH YOU WERE MY GOVERNOR. The fact that this man has power sickens me. Sorry that this is so long guys but this is just a hot button issue & it really pissed me off. I haven’t been this mad in a long time.

PS-Sorry that I'm not done yet but living in a state that celebrates this kind of scares me. Read the comic in the pic, it expresses my sentiments exactly

Easter Break

So the thing I am most excited about this week is SODA. I did this thing called the 40 days of where I only drank water for 40 days to raise awareness about the global water crisis. This was incredibly hard for me because I drink 2-3 cans of soda a day plus at least one cup of juice. It was so hard for me to stick to this but I did it! And I’m proud of me for that. I’ve learned that I definitely need to cut back on the amount of soda I drink because I think that borders on unhealthy. So from now on I will commit to at least try to drink less soda. But I don’t know how that’s going to work out because at exactly midnight today I grabbed a 24 fl oz bottle of ginger ale & downed it in like 15 minutes. It has 264 grams of sugar in it but I don’t know if that’s a lot?

Anywhos, I had a really good weekend because I went home! I had so much fun at home plus it was a nice weekend so everything was just perfect. I got home Friday night at 8 & got to hang out with one of my best friends from high school. We went to Plaza Azteca (best Mexican restaurant EVER!), and then just hung out for a little while afterwards. Now Saturday was the fun day, besides having an allergy attack. I woke up & went to the new Peninsula Town Center, which is now the big thing to do in Hampton. It’s a new outdoor mall that just opened while we were on spring break. It’s really nice & fancy, plus it was a good weekend to walk around. Then I went to one of the beaches in Hampton. It was such a good day for that! I had fun just laying out on a towel by myself & relaxing. It was fun for me to do these things by myself because most of the time I’m doing stuff with other people so I definitely enjoyed my Lauren time. I got to sit out at the beach on my towel, read my women’s studies book, and people watch. Sounds like the perfect afternoon to me! After I left the beach I went back home & had my family birthday party (I’ve been celebrating for like 5 days). My mom got me a delicious red velevet & cake batter ice cream cake. It was sooooo good. I wanted to bring it back but I don’t think it’d survive the almost 6 freaking hour bus ride! Uh, but it was fun seeing my family! Then Sunday was Easter Sunday & that was fun because I got to go to my church back home. I try to go to church here but white people just worship differently then black people. It felt good to be back in a lively atmosphere to praise God, not just some sermon with Christian Rock. And after an Easter dinner at Wendy’s (my family didn’t want to cook & an 8 piece at KFC is $20, outrageous!), I hopped on the bus & rode the bus 5.5 hours back to tech & to the real world. BUT, on the bright side, there’s only like 5 weeks left!

Violence Against Women

I literally have nothing to talk about this week. This has been a particularly uneventful week for me. Not much got me riled up this week nor did anything remotely exciting happen. Oh wait, what am I talking about. MY BIRTHDAY IS ON WEDNESDAY. MY BIRTHDAY IS ON WEDNESDAY. MY BIRTHDAY IS ON WEDNESDAY. If you can’t tell, I’m super excited about it. I love holidays & birthdays. I can’t wait until I’m older to wear those “tacky” Christmas sweaters. I actually think they’re really cool but because I’m in college, I’ll at least wait until I’m a mom to start wearing them. Anyways, I love to celebrate everything! Life is just so short & full of bad things that I like to celebrate the good, such as the day that I was born.
So I don’t have any plans for my actual birthday except maybe going out to eat. So the actual birthday may not be that special. But that weekend I’m going home to Hampton & spending Easter weekend with my friends & family there. On Saturday, one of my friends is planning me a party! It won’t be that big of a celebration because my very best friends are away at school but it’ll still be fun! Eek! I can’t wait! So you guy’s, don’t forget, Wednesday March 31st is my birthday! I expect posts on my facebook wall & happy birthday’s in class. Okay, so that only took up 250 words, 250 more to go.
Something that touched my heart this week was the “Take Back the Night Rally.” It was incredibly sad but uplifting at the same time. This was all about stopping violence against women. The first part was the sit down portion where there were different women speaking about how to get involved and then there were personal stories. It was hard to imagine that these women had been through these things. I would consider these things to be tragedies but most people don’t even know that they’re going on. Now, I’m not much of a crying person but these women’s stories got to me. They were just so incredibly brave to come up & speak in front of a room packed with people. One of the most touching was when Morgan Harrington’s mother came up to talk about the loss of her daughter. This was the saddest part of the whole night. I cannot even imagine how hard it must be to lose a child to violence. She talked about how some people had tried to blame Morgan for her abduction and later death because of what she was wearing. Her message was that it doesn’t matter what she was wearing or what she was doing. Her mom even said that she helped pick her outfit out before the concert. There is no justification for inflicting pain on a woman simply because of their gender. She finished up by reading a poem that she had written or her daughter. The next part of involved lighting candles and walking around campus shouting chants. This part made me feel powerful! Like because of what I was doing, something was going to change. This just makes me want to continue being active in my community. I want change.

Spring turned Healthcare

This week in Blacksburg was absolutely gorgeous! I literally did no work Thursday through Saturday and I spent most of my time lying out in the quad. Almost as soon as the sun went up, my friends & I were doing something outside. And we didn’t go in until the sun went down. One day there was even a DJ out there. There was a little drama because some loser complained about the noise. LAME. It happened on a Friday afternoon at like 4 so nobody had any right to complain about noise. Plus, we’re in college so get over it. But besides that, it was amazing! Luckily, I didn’t have that much work to do so I could afford to give up the time. But even if I didn’t, I would’ve done it anyways! These days really make me crave for summer days on the beach. I live really close to a lot of beaches so that’s most of what I do all summer. Beach + friends – work = perfect summer! One thing that I have noticed about the slightest hint of warm weather is that white people go crazy! No offense to y’all but it was not warm enough for bikinis or shorts. It is still mid-march.
Okay, I just read on CNN that the healthcare bill passed. I am legit excited! This is absolutely wonderful! Like, this is a great day for our country. I can’t even put together a coherent sentence. Obama has CHANGED the health care system. He’s made even more history. I AM SO PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN RIGHT NOW. (This was a big controversy when Michelle Obama said it but I completely understood what she meant. Being an African American woman, you’re not often considered being part of mainstream America. You’re more proud to be black then you are to be an American. Partly because you haven’t been respected in your country for hundreds of years).
Now I’m reading all these facebook statuses about it. It’s so polarized right now. Some of my friends are for it, and some against it. One even joined a group called “I hate it when I wake up in the morning and Barack Obama is president.” Between reading this and people’s statuses I’m really starting to get upset. I’m going to type in all caps because I’m that angry. And yes, I’m actually yelling at my computer screen right now.
PEOPLE WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE NATIONAL DEBT BUT OBAMA DID NOT CREATE THE NATIONAL DEBT. BUSH WAS HANDED A SURPLUS A MERE 9 YEARS AGO! AND NOW WE’RE TRILLIONS IN DEBT. BUT THESE IDIOTS ARE QUICK TO FORGIVE BUSH FOR SPENDING ON BILLIONS ON HELPING OTHER COUNTRIES (NOT BECAUSE HE LEGIT CARED ABOUT THE WELFARE OF THE PEOPLE IN THE COUNTRY, BUT BECAUSE THEY HAD OIL MONEY)! AS SOON AS OBAMA DOES SOMETHING TO HELP STRUGGLING AMERICANS, HES THE DEVIL! I SIMPLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS LOGIC! PEOPLE ARE DYING BECAUSE THEY CANT GET THE COVERAGE THEY NEED. WE ARE THE ONLY DEVELOPED COUNTRY TO NOT HAVE A NATIONAL HEALTH CARE SYSTEM! YET WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE A LEADER. WE CANNOT KEEP UP WITH OTHER NATIONS WHO ARE CHANGING IF WE DON’T CHANGE! WHAT IS SO WRONG WITH COVERING PEOPLE WHO CANNOT AFFORD IT? WHAT IS WRONG MAKING SURE THAT INSURANCE COMPANIES DON’T CHEAT YOU OUT OF MONEY?
NOW PEOPLE ARE SAYING THIS IS SOCIALISM. WHETHER IT IS OR NOT, SOCIALISM IS NOT SO BAD. I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE ARE SO UPSET ABOUT IT. THE RIGHT WING MAKES IT SEEM LIKE A DISEASE. WHERE IN ACTUALITY, SOCIALIST COUNTRIES LIKE SWEDEN ARE A LOT BETTER OFF THAN AMERICA IS. I’M NOT A FAN OF IT BUT IT’S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD.
I’m not done venting but I figured you guys probably quit reading midway through the caps. Point being, I’m so glad health care passed. This is what change looks like. I’m just so excited right now! I’m glad when I wake up every morning and Barack Obama is president.

RIP Spring Break 2010

I WANT TO BE BACK ON SPRING BREAK! I WANT TO BE BACK ON SPRING BREAK! I WANT TO BE BACK ON SPRING BREAK. But unfortunately, on Sunday night I had to come back to Blacksburg & the real world. There’s no more waking up at 3 in the afternoon because you didn’t go to bed until 5 in the morning (I’m pretty sure my sleep schedule is pretty crazy right about now). Now I’m back to a world filled with tests & quizzes & gross stuff like that. So I’ll use this blog to remember my Spring Break. RIP Spring Break 2010.
So I get back to Hampton & there is the most wonderful weather ever. There is no snow on the ground or anything that even reminds you that it’s still winter. I was debating on whether or not to bring home a heavy jacket or not, I definitely did not need it. I even saw people walking around in shorts; it felt so great to be home. I was so excited to be able to wear a cute outfit and not have it ruined by some huge winter jacket.
The most exciting part of my break was having a new mall open up in my city. It is literally 5 minutes away & has the cutest stores ever! It makes you forget that you’re in Hampton when you’re there. It so beautiful! It’s a fake short pump. Anyways, my friends & I woke up at 5 am on Thursday (the grand opening) to stand in line at H&M to receive a free gift card. They were the little scratch off ones that are totally randomized. We were the first people in line! I ended up winning a $200 gift card to the new H&M. I got so many new summer clothes; I cannot wait to be able to wear them. Then on Friday, we did the same thing for Forever 21, but I only got a $20 gift card. It definitely wasn’t worth it that time. But it was $20 that I didn’t have before so it’s ok. I love free clothes & I got a lot of them this break!
Something I learned over break is about something called “lean” that my friends were doing. It’s where you mix Robetussin (not a store brand), Sprite (not Sierra Mist), & Jolly Ranchers together. Supposedly it gets you just as messed up as alcohol but it’s completely legal! I didn’t try it because I don’t even like to take medicine when I’m sick so this was definitely not the thing for me. And you have to mix exactly the right proportions or else it’s going to be gross. But my friends were acting crazy after they drank it so I’m just going to assume it works. The Jolly Ranchers are just for flavor because otherwise it’s carbonated medicine.
I had a great spring break & I can’t wait to go home for the summertime. It was so cool seeing my friends again and just doing crazy, off the wall stuff with them. Going to clubs & parties, hanging out until late in the morning, and learning about lean - makes for a good break!