February 14th

Being single on Valentines Day has been socially dubbed as "pathetic". Another year, and yes, I'm single on Valentines Day. Now, your picturing me home alone in my apartment, in sweats, eating cookie dough straight up with my tub of ice cream, box of chocolates I bought myself, watching chick flicks and quietly crying to myself in my humiliation. false.

I'm more than happy to be single on Valentines day. I've actually never felt happier. Even without a boyfriend, it still looks like cupid threw up in my bedroom; balloons, flowers, chocolates, candies, stuffed animals, cards, not much room for anything else with all that love in there. But even besides all the people that bought into the Hallmark Valentines day, I am proud to be single. Being single doesn't make me feel incomplete or inadequate. Instead, I am single because I stood up for myself when I wasn't treated right. I am strong and independent (as cheesy as that sounds right now). I value myself to not settle for anything less than what I deserve; I believe I do deserve more than that how I've been treated in the past. and that's something to celebrate too.

Valentines Day is really just about love. Love from a significant other, love from family, love from friends, love from roommates, love from yourself. So buy candies, cards, and flowers and tell all those people in your life how much you love them, just don't forget to say "I love you" on the other 364 days.

Motives.

I'm a nerd. Which you can't tell by looking at my transcripts, because straight B's does not equal nerd, and you don't have to be a math major to figure that one out. I'm a nerd because I laugh while reading my text books, I get ahead of my homework when I see a major test in the near future, I get excited when I learn how to send print jobs from my personal computer because it makes me feel tech-savvy, I joyfully check things off my to-do list, and discuss the most recent response paper I wrote as I jog home from the gym. Yep, I have nerd written all over me. I even blog in the evenings- and if that doesn't say nerd, I don't know what does. just kidding. I love to learn, and I love that everything I learn makes me a better person, and who would have thought? Who would have thought that I would find the answer to my life problems and perhaps an answer to my prayers in my Political Science class! Of the many Poli Sci classes I am in, I love my U.S. Foreign Policy. This is what I learned this week:

We are in the middle of studying morality, yes in terms of war. Can war ever be moral? Can it be justified? We learned a lot of different theories about morality, from realism, skepticism and state moralism, to idealism, pacifism and just war theory. We then began to analyze the first Persian Gulf War. Without getting into too much of a controversial debate here or taking sides, the professor posed the question, was the war just? Did the U.S. government justify their motives for going into the war? Yes, the United States believed, more or less, according to Just War Theory, it was justified in fighting in Iraq, that it had a moral cause. It was then pointed out that the U.S. was also very economically interested in the area, as Kuwait is a major oil producer, and the U.S. was motived by that too. True. But does that negate the moral justification for entering the war? Could the U.S. be motived by both moral and personal reasons? Exactly, sometimes it's impossible to separate motives. It wasn't until two hours after class that it hit me how powerful this realization was. Let's step away from the Iraq war controversy and learn that mixed motives are still moral. So that means, maybe we have more than one reason for doing something, one is selfless and one is personally beneficial; perhaps there's even more than two. What do you do in that situation? You do it. It's not wrong to have more than one motive. Maybe having one sometimes just isn't enough. Now, stop questioning yourself; you'll know if you're doing it for the wrong reasons.

Midnight Rambles

They say you learn something new everyday. Well...I don't know about everyday single day, but I've been learning a lot of things lately.

I learned that my blood type is O+ which makes me a "universal donor". Why? Because there are 4 types of blood. A, B, AB, and O. Type A blood contains anti-bodies to type B. Type B blood contains anti-bodies to type A. Type O blood has antibodies for both A and B. AB doesn't have anti-bodies for type A or type B, making people with type AB blood, "universal recipients. Interesting huh? Although I have no idea what the positive and negative sign means.

I also learned that the security document which implemented U.S. military build up during the Cold War, which lead to the militarization of the Cold War was entitled NSC-68, not 86. And simultaneously learned that I might be slightly dyslexic.

I learned that pasts are inescapable. We may move on from them, learn from them, grow from them, heal from them, even go as far as almost forgetting them. Your past will never let you completely forget it. But, they will always be there. They will always have an effect on you- for better or for worse. Maybe that's all a lesson I've learned in acceptance. Things are the way they are, so I need to learn to appreciate the growth and healing and no longer be afraid.

I learned that there is opposition in all things. Whether it be cars broken down on the side of the road, miscommunications, pains, cancellations, lost mail, or just uncertainty. The things that are the most important and that mean the most are the hardest sometimes to obtain. But if you can smile through the opposition, if you can jump through the extra hoops, even if a little less gracefully, ultimately nothing can stop you.

I learned from my political philosophy class that, ‎"Everything can't submit to reason, not everything has to. Sometimes just being right is reason enough" and I totally agree. Some people call me illogical. They tell me that my reasoning doesn't make sense. Well, sometimes I don't need to follow reason, because I follow my heart.

I learned that my body actually does need sleep, and that it takes over a week to recover from staying up until 4:30 in the morning.

I learned that people come and go all the time. Their significance in your story may not depend on the amount of time they spend with you. Everyone comes in to your life for a reason, and sometimes once they've made their impact, once they've taught you what you needed to know, changed you into what you needed to be, they leave. I still struggle with understanding why they always have to leave, but I am forever grateful for them having been there.

I also learned that we all really just need to say how we feel and what we're thinking. If you keep it all in, no one is ever going to know. Communication is everything. Honestly and honesty.

I learned that sometimes we have to take the first step before we'll find out if we're stepping in the right direction.