Artemis

In reference to emotional/social independence (being alone), I truly believe that no one was made to be completely alone. Man (as in humankind) is a social animal. You're meant to be around other people at times. :D However, having time to yourself is completely necessary to your own well-being. Not being in a romantic relationship is very important (I believe) in high school at least. You've got a lot going on at this time in your life. You miss out on a lot of different people and experiences if you limit yourself (and become too dependent) on any one person. :( As far as independency in taking care of yourself, I'm really excited about getting away and being on my own for college. For years, I've been wanting to get out of the house. (You would too if you had 9 little brothers and sisters!!!) This isn't b/c I hate them or anything. On the contrary, I love them all (and my parents) very much. Somehow, that almost makes it easier to leave for periods of time: I'm really secure in my immediate family relationships. And maybe being the oldest child makes independcy easier as well: I've always been the role model, the first one to do [I]everything![/I] :rolleyes: Does anyone else think that how you fall in the order of siblings (or lack thereof) affects your personality? I know I tend to be a leader on group projects at school. I'm not afraid to be the one to step up and get things done. Hmmm... Maybe I'm just weird... I've had a lot of people tell me that... *goes to corner to ponder life, it's purpose, and it's end* *gets lost in metaphysics*

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by outlawstar69 [/i] [B]I was trying to make the point that most of the rest of the world knows what is happening in the US, such as the name of our president and so forth, yet we americans (for the most part, sadly) would be hard pressed to do the same. How many Joe Schmoes out there could say who the leader of Norway is? Or many other countries for that manner?[/B][/QUOTE] LOL :laugh: Yeah, I went to World Youth Day in Canada two summers ago. It was actually very embarassing talking to people from other countries. A bunch of Canadian guys were rattling off names of our states and their capitals, and most of us couldn't even name their territories, let alone their Prime Minister. I think we have this attitude in the U.S. that were the number 1 country and that everyone else should just look up to us. (Not that I'm unpatriotic. I still get tearied-eyed listenin' to "Proud to Be an American") :bawl: By the way, the book I was referring to is actually written by the guy from CBS who worked in the liberal situations. He's something Goldberg (can't remember the first name). I've never read Ann Coutler's book. The Goldberg guy happens to be a liberal, and it says something that a liberal can flat our say that MOST TV media is liberal-biased. And, when I mentioned that most journalists learn liberal journalism in college, I didn't mean that it's necessarily done intentionally. It's completely natural for your own views to affect the way you teach. (My government teacher thinks that liberalism is going to bring down America...) As much as possible, I try to stay outside of it, but my background and upbringing make me unavoidably conservative. (Here I am, sittin' in the Mid-West.) From eveything I've heard, Fox News is rather conservative, but it only seems so dramatically conservative b/c most of the other stations are liberal. If you don't believe me, try this little test: Watch Primetime, or 20/20 or something like that. When they review anything related to government, count how many people (in Congress or where ever) that they bother to label as "conservative" or "Republican" almost as though you need to be warned or as though they stray from "status quo". Compare that to the number of times they label people as "liberal" or "Democratic". The reason is that they think of most liberals as "middle of the road" b/c that's what they (the reporters) are. I'll try to write more on this later (I need to reread the book.) I'm working on articulating my points better. (I'm not always very clear, am I?) Oh well, time for me to fly the moon across the sky... (giggles) :smooch: ~Night Goddess~

Yeah, it's pretty good. (definite LotR tie-ins!) The thing that annoys me though is the obnoxious voices they have in the English dubbing! By the 2nd or 3rd episode, I wanted to shoot Parn!!! (He sounds SO effeminate!! What a queer!) He'd be SO much better w/ a deeper voice! ("I will defend the peace of Lodoss...with my life." I mean, how cheesy can ya get?!?!) *giggles* But yeah, like "The Last of the Mochicans" the music is really what makes it worth watching. (The art is often pretty good, too. Some of the better stuff I've seen.) :wigout: I have to say that my fave char. was the "berserker" dude. How awesome! (His chick friend was pretty cool, too...) :babble: :wigout: Well, that's enough from me. Any other comments peeps? *flies across night sky* ~Artemis~:smooch:

I think it's completely idiotic the kind of things people will sue for (and the amounts, too!!) We need to have a "stupid case" clause where judges can throw out cases for being stupid. (like those stupid suits against McDonald's for making ppl fat...) then again, corrupt judges could throw out important cases... hmm... there's really got to be a better way. Someone come up w/ something. I'm too tired! ~Night Goddess~

Has anyone else here read the book [U]Bias[/U]? (I can't remember the author's name. It's sitting in my locker at school.) Anyway, the book is all about a guy who used to work for CBS. He realized that there's an overwhelming liberal bias in TV and newspaper media. He tried to expose it, and got ostracized. This is b/c it's not some highly organized conspiracy: it's simply b/c most journalists are liberals. They're taught by liberal teachers in college. (Much radio news is conservative bias, but it's not nearly so widespread.) Anyway, I'll elaborate on this more later. I'm too tired right now. ~Night Goddess~

Hillary simply isn't the kind of person I'd trust, even w/o Drix's dirt on her. The values and ideals she stands for do not in any way coincide with my own. Like others have said, I believe she's dangerous in her intelligence, and it scares me when people idolize her. I suppose most of my distaste of her (and her husband) come from my being a pro-life Catholic (Yeah, a REAL Catholic!). What's surprised me is the number of Democrats who are distrustful of her as well. There's just something not right about her....

I think that honor and integrity aren't valued as high as they should be, especially in popular culture. I mean, look at "Survivor" and all the other "reality" TV shows..."Let's see, who's the least useful to us? Let's get rid of them!" and then there's all the completely stupid, immoral situations people put themselves into on "The Bachelor" shows. It's like people don't have enough self-respect to be decent. What scares me is the amount of people who actually WATCH crap like that!! Our TV shows and movies reflect the values we hold. From the the values I've seen, I don't have a very positive outlook on our society. As to materialism and greed, I think it came as a manipulation of the American Dream: we keep trying so hard to be get further and further. Each generation wants to provide for their own children what they missed out on. Instead of focusing on the good ole home values, we've gotten pulled into a downward spiral of replacing quality family time and integrity with material goods. As pessimistic as I am, I do believe that there are honorable people out there. Like Molleta, I believe the media's just making things worse (we'll save that for another thread...) I think the dishonorable people often simply overshadow the honorable people. The honorable people don't get the recognition they deserve and are often ridiculed instead. That's enough from me... ~artie out

Spaceballs cracked me up! It's an awesome movie! :laugh: I found it quite funny when the princess was listening to her walkman and you think her headphones are her hair (Princess Leah's cinnanmon roll buns) :D As far as other Brooks films go, I've only seen Blazing Saddles and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Both were great, but I'm partial to RH. (*pant* Cary Elwes *pant* "Oh, my sweet Westley!") I think it's awesome the way Brooks is capable of making such awesome parodies. I've really never seen any live action parodies to compare him to. (You've got to admit, Shrek was hilarious for those of us who grew up watching all of those Disney movies!)

Hmm... It doesn't seem like ppl often have good reasons backing up their choices (not pointing at anyone in particular). I just skimmed through 6 pages of this stuff. I can see how this could become a moderator's nightmare. Then, again, I'm quite drawn to the topic... :laugh: I haven't seen that much anime, but I mostly watch it for the romance *sighs*. I'm a big VashXMeryl fan. I guess I like watching her struggle with her feelings for him. It's a sort of love/hate deal. He drives her crazy, but she can't help but admire and love him at the same time. Near the end of the series, it seems like he cares about her, too. (I mean, he shot Legato for her! That took a great deal out of him!) Let's see...other than them, I like Van and Hitomi in Escaflowne. He's so protective of her. It's really cute to see how he's so tough on the battle field, but he can't admit his feelings to her. I was so thrilled when they ended up together. Allen started to get on my nerves. :rolleyes: Anyway, enough outa me...

It's been pointed out that a bunch of people don't have the same access to certain anime series. I feel like I'm at a huge disadvantage. I didn't get into anime until duorocks17 introduced me to Gundam Wing last spring. Up until then, I just thought of it as Pokemon, Digimon, and Yu Gi Oh. We don't have cable so I couldn't even really see all the Cartoon Network anime. So, as long as you're all talking about "non-mainstream" anime, could just suggest some to me and tell me how to get a hold of it? Currently, I've been exposed to (meaning, I've seen almost every if not every episode of the following) Gundam Wing, Trigun, Evangelion (gag!), and Escaflowne. Thanks, diehard fans.

I go to a realitively tough Catholic high school. I'm not worried about college being hard b/c everyone I've talked to has said that it's easier than our high school. However, even here I sometimes don't feel challenged enough. Anything math related comes incredibly easy to me. (I'm wishing I could've gotten started on the classes sooner and be taking Calc 2 this year.) Physics is boring for me b/c we have to go so stinkin' slow for the stupid jocks who decided to take it. :rollseyes: I suppose I've had to work for some of my grades, but after the fact it always feels like I could have put more into it. I know that sophomore year English was way below my level. (As much as I love Mrs. Fox, there's something wrong when you take your English syllabus home and your mother brings out a red pen to correct the grammar.) That class didn't require any effort from me. She just "loved" anything I wrote. As far as the potential thing goes, I guess I kinda feel guilty when I'm not at least reaching towards it. I want to see what I can do and keep going deeper. Perhaps the more we strive towards our potentials the higher they become... just a thought.

I think what started stressing me out the most is that I hang out w/ a lot of the super-overachievers at my school. (We've got a three way tie for valedictorian this year.) I was working on an English project with two of them and several other way up there people, and they spent most of the time going on and on about scholarships and how the counselors were screwing them over rather than helping me do the stupid English project. (that's what you get when you work with smart ppl...) :D

Wow, I remember being that new... Anyway, as you can see, I'm a big Trigun fan as well. I don't have cable and haven't seen a lot of animé myself, but Trigun just kinda picked me up really quickly. The funny thing was, I didn't think I was going to like it at first. Perhaps I don't mind having characters who are little more black and white. (I didn't really like Evangelion. That whole series was just screwed up.) I liked the idea of Vash being a different species who wanted so badly to just mix with humankind. I agree with the religious thing, he's sort of like Jesus (for all the Christians out there). He consents to live like the humans and live among them (Okay, so by Catholic doctrine Jesus truly became human, but that's beside the point.) Knives (like Lucifer) saw in humankind corruption and imperfection. Instead of choosing to help them and find the good in them, he chose to kill them. I know a lot of ppl have said that Meryl and some of the other characters don't have much depth and are really just supporting characters, but I like them anyways. I think it's really cute the way she goes through most of the series pissed off at Vash and ends up loving him in the end. (I'm a sucker for the love-hate relationships.) Duorocks17 is also a big fan of Knives. We've spent a lot of time discussing his character and motivations. Some of the animation weirds me out (like when they make weird faces) but I really like the music. I like the sort of neo-western feel it has. (Sometimes like John Wayne meets hard rock) I don't know if I'm even making sense anymore. I think i've been writing for too long. ~Goddess of the Night~

This past weekend, my darling friend Erin held me hostage for my birthday. We went over to her grandparents house where she had cooked dinner for me, and we watched [I]Don Juan de Marco[/I] (Johnny Depp flick from 1995) Has anyone else seen it? I thought it was pretty good (a little bit racy...but considering it's based on "Don Juan"--the world's greatest lover--you kinda have to be ready for it.) At any rate, I've got the Bryan Adams song "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman" stuck in my head b/c of that movie....sigh... c'est la vie.

any fellow seniors here? or maybe some college students who can relate to me... This whole business of applications and scholarships is utter crap!! :cross: Whoever said senior year was supposed to be the most fun must not have really cared about college. You know, I suppose it would help if I knew what I wanted to do with my stupid life. Does anybody else as split as I am on a career? I mean, right now, I'm torn b/t architecture and teaching English or history. I also love writing, but I'm not sure I could make a living off of it. Am I just sounding like a huge nerd? *sighs* That's okay. I'll just go to my corner to cry for a bit before I slit my wrists. (not serious) ~Night Goddess~

Sure, I like animé "quizes". You might try quizilla.com They've got some good stuff there. lots of great QUIZZES. :P

Wow, it's been AGES since I saw Dark Crystal. My dad rented it for us insisting it was a great movie. We all kinda looked at him funny, but I ended up liking it. I'm not sure if I fully understood it at the time, but I thought it was pretty cool for an old movie. Yeah, I grew up lovin' the muppets! What was the other one? The Fraggles? The Frazzles? something like that. I don't know. I really liked Muppet Treasure Island and A Muppet Christmas Carol. They made the original stories much more fun.

From what I've heard, Sophocles is generally considered the best, but Euripides was the most modern for their time. I just finished writing a 6 page paper on Euripides last night *cries to self* so I'm a bit sick of him at the moment. *giggles* But, yeah, I'd have to say that Sophocles definitely comes second as far as my favorites go. (We talked about doing Antigone when I was in 8th grade, and I was going to play the lead, so I definitely appreciate that play.) ~Art~

"When I had blood drawn for a blood test, I actually watched them put in the needle and draw the blood--I was interested in how they did it. The pain wasn't the worst part (though they did lie about how much it would hurt), it was the bit about getting lightheaded and almost passing out. And the pain was [i]not[/i] bad enough to do that to me, so I have no idea why that happened. Kind of pisses me off, actually, since I can't figure it out :twitch:" You may have given blood too quickly. That happened to a guy at my school. He kept pumping his hand at the blood came out too fast. He started rambling in German (he doesn't remember it) before he passed out. I didn't think it really hurt when they stuck the needle in. I was a bit worried that they wouldn't get it in properly b/c I'm petite and they had trouble finding my vein. So, I guess that's what I fear, having to put myself in someone else's hands. Even when it's just a project for school or something like that. I need to be in control of what happens to me in almost all cases. I guess I also sort of fear rejection. I got a lot of it in junior high, and it makes me sort of bitter and wary with "popular" people. Other than that, I fear being raped. I'm not completely sure why, but the idea of someone coming in and taking advantage of me terrifies me.

I think it'd be great to be in two places at once. (anybody see Josie and the Pussycats? The blonde runs around saying how great it would be to be able to do that--she's a complete ditz.) As far as the elements go, a friend of mine gave me a little quiz and told me I'm a water element. But, I don't really get into all that New Age/Wicca stuff. (I'm Catholic.) Like most people here, I'd like to be able to have all the "tele" powers: telekinesis, teleportation, telepathy (If you've read Anne McCaffrey's Pern books, you'll see how she connects them.)

I have to write an analysis paper in my English class based on "Antigone", "Oedipus Rex", "Medea", or a combo of them. I've decided the Sophocles (author of the first two) is too stuffy, so I'm gonna write something on Euripides. So, my question for everyone is, of the main four Greek playwrights, who's your fave and why? Or, if you don't really care about the playwrights, what your fave play and why? (By the way, the main four are Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes.) The first three wrote tragedies. Aristophanes wrote comedies. Peace out!

I love to sing! I come from a very musically-based family. I sing lots of different things in the shower. today, I was singin' "Proud to Be an American". Yesterday it was "God Help the Outcasts". Often times it's "Uninvited" (Alanis Morisette) Pretty much...whatever I feel like. I really can't go through life w/o music.

I'm sorry to have given you a headache, animangademon. I guess that proves my point, though. I like GW b/c the characters ARE complex. :) I can see where you'd say Quatre, erinzyger. (Though, for me the battle was Zechs and Trowa.) It's just plain fanscinating how each character has so much going on in his/her life! This is really what made me like animé in the first place. (It's the first show I watched w/ devotion.) ;)

I'm so jealous!! I wish we had archery/fencing opportunities in our area. I wish I had the time/money to participate. The most I've gotten to do is a bit of archery at Girl Scout camp. I absolutely LOVED it. I was pretty good, too, for a first-timer. If anyone knows of a good archery place in Kansas PM me!! (Preferably in the Southeastern portion of the state.)

I've been going to Catholic/private schools since kindergarten. Yes, we have to wear uniforms. No, they're not that bad. It takes all the stress away from figuring out what you'll wear the next day. Yes, there are some downfalls to Catholic school. No, I don't hate it. I'd have to say that the worst part was in my grade school: For a while we only had 15 kids in our class (we were the smallest in the school) and only 5 of us were girls. It's kinda weird only having that many ppl in your grade. Now that I'm in high school (with duorocks17), my grade is as large as my entire grade school/junior high. There are an awful lot of cliques, but my guess is that you'll find them anywhere. Jr high was the worst. I'l admit I hated it. (Somehow, the caucasians were a minority, and all the hispanic girls and several white ones picked on me constantly b/c my IQ was twice all of theirs put together. --okay, so I'm a little bitter.) High school's a lot better b/c the cliques aren't as exclusive and all the girls who thought they were high and mighty at my feeder school got a reality freshman year. I've made a lot of great friends, and I appreciate the freedom we have at our Catholic school that public schools don't have. We have freedom of prayer and freedom from political correctness. I'm proud to say that I go to a conservative school (meaning, my gov't teacher can teach us conservative politics rather than liberal.) I also love taking my religion classes. You learn NOTHING in PSR from what I've heard. (PSR is "Public School Religion". It's held in the evenings for kids in each Catholic parish who attend public schools. it's a joke from what my public school friends tell me.) To point another thing out, academically, our Catholic high schools are the best in our district. We leave most of the public schools in our dusk. **cough**cough**NORTH HIGH**cough** To simplify all this, I love going to Catholic schools. I believe I'm a better person for going to them.