Pondering

Wow...it's been a long time since my last posting. Much stuff has occured lately that I could just spill out into a giant vat of nothingness and it would fill to the rim. To start off...a few Saturdays before christmas (specifically, December 11th) I went to take my permit test...and failed. Much to my surprise, that is. I was told by several friends that no one makes it on the first try. And, I said, "Well, I will" and so on and so forth. I guess I really just needed to put my ass where my face is and fess up that no one really does make it on the first try, except those who take that f'd up "similar" quiz on the internet (i.e. cheating). Anyway, I went back the next possible day (the 14th - Tuesday) because they weren't open on Sunday or Monday and passed with a 100%! I would have passed the first time probably if I had remembered that the 'skip' button had existed, but that doesn't matter now. As soon as this was over, I was so relaxed...if only school would get out soon! I had a major test that I knew I wouldn't be passing very nicely in Algebra II because the teacher took a personal day on, as it just so happens, the day that she really did need to be there, obviously...I got a %68, which was actually higher than my expected %34. Don't get me wrong, i'm an A and B student, and anything less than an %83 pisses me off. Once this test was out of the way, the next thing on my mind was to finish Christmas shopping (or, rather, in my circumstance, START Christmas shopping). This task was undertaken by myself over a period of the next week, leading up until the day before Christmas Eve, and I was even wrapping a last present for my Grandmother on my bed a few hours before midnight on the eve during our party. I found out that I extremely love all of the people in the mall during the Christmas season...makes it feel like the city, which the livelyness is a sense I crave. Also, watching the movie "Elf" a few times also helps to set the mood, lol. I was finally able to put my camcorder to good use and taped all of Christmas morning...roughly from 7am - 9am so I can enjoy it a couple hundred times in the near future. The most prominant of gifts received by myself was a 4x6 color HP Photosmart 375 photo printer. Also, two rosewood Foo dogs now grace either side of my serene Buddha given to me by my grammy and poppy. I got a "gyro" clock from my parents, which has movable parts similar to those of the machine used in the movie "Contact"--very awesome. As far as the recent tsunami goes...I feel very much for those affected and for all who will later be affected from whatever yieldings this disaster will net. It's amazing that so many can just be literally "wiped" from the face of the earth being swept into the ocean, only showing exactly how small and helpless we are as a species where knowledge doesn't help you when a 60 foot wave is wavering over your head about to immerse you into a suffocation/drowning death-trap. Even though I am not the biggest supporter of our President, I think it is totally ascinine to criticize him for waiting so long to send his sympathies...it's bogus even. Perhaps if he made a HABIT out of it!...not just for "forgetting" once, or however it went down. I was surfing Flickr.com earlier today and ran across a foto on the Flickr blog that featured a picture of two hands clasping a small tea light candle. The caption read roughly, "Those in Asia are now taking pictures of their hands, symbolically sending their prayers and wishes to those in desparate need as a result of the tsunami and earthquake." This, I find, is a very...for lack of better damned English words...sweet/thoughtful/almost breathtaking act of kindness and humanity. It's a very beautiful way of expressing onself -- genuine and sincere. Perhaps we should stop being a-holes and pitch in with the healing effort in a better way than sending money and hoping for the best...