November Blog #16: "I Don't Wanna Grow Up!"

November 16, 2011 Prompt of the Day:  What is the moment that you leave childhood and enter adulthood?

I don’t think I believe there is an exact moment that you leave childhood and enter adulthood.  In normal circumstances, I believe it is more of a process than a definitive moment.  I’m sure that traumatic events such as childhood molestation and/or rape or other living conditions or situations could possibly jump start the psyche into a form of adulthood.  That’s nothing that I can claim to understand from experience and that is not for me to blog about.  I would have to say that the move for me has been more of a process, contrary to popular belief.  

There are a lot of suggestions about maturation out there, but the majority of them lean toward there being a moment when you cross over into adulthood.  There have long been ceremonies that celebrate just that in ancient tribes.  Children partake in a right of passage of sorts and then are viewed as adults.  This may be symbolic and merely serve to represent the transformation, but different traditions put different ages and times to these milestones too.  There is always an age set to everything.  Sweet 16 you can drive.  18 you can vote and die for your country.  21 you can drink legally.  

I just don’t know if I believe there is a line, where you are in childhood on this side, and you are in adulthood on the other.  Even if it is a gradual change, though, there has to be a “moment” when you have crossed completely over into adulthood.  So, if there isn’t an exact moment, what is the moment of progression?  That is, at what moment do we start to become adults and move away from being children?  What STARTS the move?  What is the force?  It poses an interesting question.  

Responsibility.  Isn’t that what drags everyone down in life?  Isn’t that why children are so care free?  Key word: care.  They’re free of it.  They don’t have a care in the world.  They have no responsibility.  We are the ones responsible.  My daughter is pure discovery, pure exploration.  There is no “bad” in her world right now.  She is slowly learning the difference between right and wrong, but right now in her life her spirit is so positive and unmarred.  She is so innocent and unaware.  I watch her all the time and smile.  It’s one of the most precious things in the world.  Her sweetness; complete sweetness.  But, hey, I’d be a lot sweeter too if I had no worries. 

The lack of responsibility as a child is astounding, hell, you aren’t even responsible for wiping your own ass for how long?  This apparently is very freeing!  Imagine having no worries at all.  Your day would be a lot fuller for exploration and play.  You would have no responsibility so you would basically have little to no worry.  No real stress.  The stressful world of adults is created by all of this responsibility.  

So when is the moment when you leave childhood and move into adulthood?  I think that it starts quite simply when you get your first taste of responsibility.  You then enter into a period of transformation where you learn what it means to be an adult through small responsibilities you slowly add to your list.  You leave childhood when you start to take on the responsibility that is expected of you as an adult and, in turn, you enter adulthood, when you are able to accept that responsibility. 

November Blog #15: "This Old House"

November 15, 2011 Prompt of the Day:  Describe a favorite place. Focus on how that place affects your senses.  

A place for every thing, every thing in its right place.  The OCD maxim just makes sense.  What else is there?  Place.  Everyplace.  But, my ultimate favorite place?  I love most places in nature; the forest and the woods in general are wonderful places.  They fill me with a great sense of rejuvenation.  I love to sit and listen to the trees; I think you can feel the energy if you are still enough.  I also love it on the river, riding down the water in a boat, the sun on your back, the wind in your face, and bend after bend of beautiful trees, hillside, and sky.  Those places are really great.  But are they my favorite?  Necessary for sanity, yes, but favorite places?…naa.

My favorite place is an old plank house on a small road in a small town surrounded by open field.  The Old House, as it has locally come to be known, is a place we have been gathering for going on 12 years now.  Friends of mine formed the band Double Negative circa 2000.  The band started with small practice sessions that included the band members and their girlfriends, mainly.  Joe, my boyfriend at the time, and I started going and then next thing I remember…  What is the next thing I remember?  The years have begun to blur together.  Shit, blur together---the years?  We have been together that long.  We have been with this house for so long the blurred years of drinking and merriment are melting together.  Oh, sorry.  I forgot to mention what we did at the house.  We celebrated.  Double Negative always practiced playing at the Old House, and through this, that house gave birth to many things, and most of them were creatures of the night.  It became a studio of sorts for a local eclectically electricy band.  And we were/are the audience.

The Old House was the domicile of the bassists’ grandfather; his father grew up there.  His brother became the grounds keeper of sorts in the beginning when he started fixing up the house.  The house was just across the road from where they grew up.  They basically took it over for use, because it was uninhabited while still belonging to the family.  He ended up doing a great deal of work on the structure, which he would proudly walk you through on a good night if he was awake at the time.  This place was basically the biggest play house of all time.  If you have never had yourself your own real life play house, I highly recommend it.  We all started hanging out when we were either in high school or just out of, our group ranges in ages among other things.  I was 19 years old maybe the first time I went to the House.

Upon entering the Old House “parking lot” on a good night, you are usually inundated with sound.  You can actually hear it before you even hit the drive; the House band can get pretty loud.  Most nights would never get underway until at least 10PM, but if you are arriving like me to a shindig night, you are usually getting there after the band has already begun to play.    

Most of the grounds consist of old farming fields, so the wind rolls easily across the property.   There always seems to be a crispness to the air, even on summer nights. When you make your way up the wooden steps and onto the porch, you greet and mingle your way through the door, where you are overtaken by speakers and amps and bodies.  The band has their equipment set up in what was one of the rooms on the downstairs floor.  The kitchen area is now the floor area.  It is funny to think of all of the transformations this place has had.  There are so many changes that have been made over the years.  I can still picture the walls the way they were those first few years, with odd "graffiti" all over it, animal stencils in odd positions in black paint on blue wall.  A Dylan Thomas quote was on one of the main walls of the kitchen that is gone now.

“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

There used to be a tiny entrance room, there used to be a tiny room off the kitchen, and there used to be a hallway of sorts into the room that used to be the band room.  The house used to be filled with some of the remnants of the household that existed there.  I used to love to explore it with my camera, taking pictures of old Mason jars filled with miscellaneous contents in the basement, and old box springs in the attic, remnants of a past life.  There used to be a room entirely filled with books, and aged pages of poetry, written word from another generation.  The room the band plays in today used to be referred to as "The Pinochle Room".  We used to play game after game of Pinochle.  On a carved dying tabletop we cut the deck and dealt the hands.  Used to, used to, used to.  This is what we were used to.  We have been together through all of these changes, stomping and jumping away to the music, yelling excitedly to each other in muffled unheard voices.  We sing the words along with the boys, plunking our beer pong balls, screaming at the appropriate moments.  When isn’t it appropriate to scream?  Woot! 

Good music comes from the speakers, comes from the music makers, comes from the spirit inhabiting that Old House.  It breathes in with the night, exhaling slowly in smoky song.  Feet stomp, floor boards flex and give to the rhythmic pounding of fanatical hooves, galloping their way to excitement.  The room smells of burnt wood, from the wood burner piped into the chimney in the center of the room.  This is our only source of heat, although it truly is not.  Bodies mosh into each other.  We all fall down; we all get up.  The spirit is in the air. 

Song by song we serenade ourselves, the band serenades us, singing us to the place we all are trying to get to.  Together in this house, we are a home.  We are social siblings, kindred spirits, the same being, existing for the same purpose.  The same light shining on the same place. 

I was supposed to focus on how this place affects my senses but the truth is with the Old House all of your senses are affected.  Not to mention that we are usually partaking in some social drinking while enjoying the music at the Old House, partially to keep warm, partially to relax and unwind, partially to come together and meet in the middle of madness once in awhile---our senses are usually pretty affected!  The Old House is simply sensational! 

November Blog #14: "Ey, Missie---Play Us Some Gee 'tar!"

November 14, 2011 Prompt:  “Have you faced fears and overcome them?”

What is fear when broken down to its basic root but ultimately the fear of eradication?  What else do we have to fear? Fear itself?  I’m afraid of dying, I guess, but we all don’t really like that much.  This is the most basic level of fear, perhaps; I think it is innate in everyone.  With my other fears, I can see logically the reasoning behind them being formed.  I was bitten in the face by a dog when I was around 5 or 6, so I have a fear of being mauled and eaten alive by something.  Before giving birth, there was always the fear of labor.  These aren't fears that consumed me day after day, though.  I still have owned many dogs in my lifetime, and I don't sit up at night fretting over my inevitable death.  I also chose to get pregnant and had a natural child birth.  So is fear itself the real fear?  I think so.  If I had to think of the most consuming fear of my lifetime, I suppose I would have to categorize it as some sort of a social anxiety disorder.  What is it un-categorized?  Maybe, the fear of people in numbers.  Performing, speaking, presenting to a group of people mostly.

I have always been afraid of public speaking or social things or situations, I suppose.  I guess my public speaking class in college was one of my biggest “fears” which in retrospect seems quite silly because, a.) what a small thing to be so afraid of in life and b.) I rocked that shit. Haha.  But I did seriously put it off until my last semester because I didn’t want to deal with it.  I have since then started to play the guitar and after learning to do so, started performing in front of small groups of people.  This has pushed me a long way through this “fear” of public performance.  

I used to be really nervous when the “spot light” was on me, I still have some issues with it.  I enjoy being social and conversing freely; I just have never been one of those people that are super comfortable with all eyes on them.  I am a social moth, I say, and enjoy hanging out with people, but dealing with depression at times for the majority of my life, I don’t know if people ever realized how much of a “performance” it kind of was just to simply interact at times.  I suppose this stems from all of the negative and positive negative attention I got as a young girl.  I had a weight problem pretty much my entire life so of course I became self conscious, it’s kind of hard not to in the world.  This begot nervous conditions, which begot stress, which begot basically a fear I guess.  I’ve also spent my time with disorders.  I have just always seemed to have issues with pent up emotion and a fear of interaction---sounds so lame, but I guess I could have probably been diagnosed with some social anxiety disorder of sorts at a time in my life.  This was all in its height during high school and college; the entire time was a process of me coping and overcoming the things I ended up with on the table.  We all have our different dishes to eat.  I’ve been chewing on mine for awhile now.   I about got ‘er down, though.  

I don’t want to give the impression I’m an easily shaken vulnerable little girl; through my strife I have grown into a strong and determined woman in my own right.  I am merely painting the picture of the past for you, the place I came from.  Life is a process.  I’m working on it.  I don't want to give the impression that I am "tough as nails" either.  I am constantly trying to find a balance between vulnerability and strength. 

Everyone has problems, and I have a slew of emotional issues and memories and hang ups and complexes and blab la bla, but the point is I never received any professional help for my problems.  I feel that, even with my personal problems, I still have been very blessed in life.  Like most people with problems, I never went to therapy.  Hell, I never went to talk to the counselor at the school or anything ever.  I did, however, bond myself to wonderful people when I found them.  I’ve had excellent social help from a good base of great people.  My circle of friends is great, and they’ve accelerated me through my journey more than they will ever know.  

When I started to play the guitar I was excited, because I could just sit around and play for fun.  My buddies would come over and we would drink and hang out and I started playing just for us to have a good time.  This is how I learned to play the guitar.  These were some of the best times of my life.  I was only in my mid twenties, pre marriage pre baby.  Good times.  

My one buddy would always pressure me to play the guitar; he just loved it so much.  Everything about this guy was music and good times.  It was written across his face.  It was caught in the teeth of his smile.  He would get on me so bad to “play some geetar” and when I felt up to it I’d get out my old guitar and mess around with what I could.  He always kind of made me feel funny when he begged me to play.  Sometimes, I would just "not feel like it" and I can't say how much I wish now I would have done it every time he asked me.  What was my problem?  I just didn't understand how he enjoyed it so much.    

I took for granted that someone was actually wholeheartedly enjoying what I was doing too while I was doing it.  My buddy embarrassed me in a way when he would get on me so bad to play.  He thought I was so good, and deep down I felt like a fake.  It was probably just because I knew I was no where as good as his excitement level suggested.  I don't know why I couldn't take as much pride as he did in me and to this day I am thankful I had him to point it out.

We mostly would have sing alongs.  These sing alongs were the best.  During this time, I was able to teach myself some guitar and overcome some social awkwardness while “performing”.  Eventually, at a wonderful local bar that is no longer open, when my musician friends were performing with their band they had me play a song or two.  It was crazy.  During those drunken jam sessions, I never imagined I would ever be in a bar playing in front of people.  It was fun.  It was one of the smallest one room bars you'd ever seen, but it was still a "live" performance.   

I have since then played a handful of times when "the band" was playing somewhere.  I have been given a set myself to play a time or two which was amazing.  My friends also actually all chipped in to buy me a new guitar in 2009!  I started putting up videos on YouTube which is mildly scary if you think about it, but I was able to say, Oh, what the hell!  Friends of mine this year asked me to perform the music for their wedding ceremony.  I have come a long way from my nervous strumming and chirping in the beginning.

So I have become more comfortable with this performance thing.  I’m at the very least becoming more comfortable with being in front of people, and I think that is all I had to get over.  I am learning to accept and embrace the fact that people want me to play.  It’s the pressure of being in the spot light that unnerves me, but after I get relaxed, I can be myself and enjoy it.  It has been a wonderful way for me to work through my issues with public performance anxiety.  I couldn’t sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl or anything without having my guts in a twist and possibly throwing up beforehand, mind you, but I’m getting more at ease with myself anyway.  

November Blog #13: "I may be Twitter-pated!"

Twitter-pated!

I haven’t written anything all day because I have been all Twitter-pated.  I honestly have not crossed over into the Twitter world this entire time until now.  I actually ended up giving in and creating an account to follow Johnette from Concrete Blonde (therealjohnette).  (I also have been aching to follow Daniel Tosh.) 

Twitter is much different than I expected, but I am not entirely sure what I expected.  I’m very intrigued.  It’s interesting to see the conversations people have on here.  I was just blogging about privacy and it’s interesting that I ended up creating a Twitter account then.  This place is nuts!  I’m loving it so far! Haah.

I have mostly been enjoying adding people that I have been wanting to follow that I know have Twitter.  I added Deepak Chopra and the Dalai Lama.  Mostly entity people and not people I actually know in (real) life…in person.  Wow.  In person.  What has this world become, is there such a thing anymore.  We have such a world on here.  You know I can remember when I was a teenager and the internet was basically just coming out into the main stream.  I can remember having a computer and not even having the interinet but being so excited that I could just use Word and write stories and use Paint and draw stuff.  Things have come so very far. 

In high school I used to use ICQ a lot.  It made tons of sense.  You had a list of people, you talked to them.  It was more private though.  It seems that most things now have things open so conversations can be seen by anyone.  It’s funny how Twitter works and you can see one side of the conversations people are having.  I’m sure I can view the other side somewhere, but I’m still learning this stuff.  It’s kinda complicated, but that’s only because I haven’t played with it.  I’m a newbie.  This is a whole new world.

I set it up to my phone, like Facebook.  I think this will be fun.  I think maybe Twitter would work better for a stream of thought type of thing?  Connected to my blog.  Ideas and thoughts.  And YouTube Posts.  Missie Sue shtuff.

Twitter seems like a Facebook type of feel but not.  It’s way different.  I’m basically looking for people to follow now and setting things up and I will be adding a widget on here I think probably.  I guess if you want to know what trivial shit is running through my head on a live stream, then follow me.  How stalker does that sound? Everything is so voyeuristic now it’s funny.  I guess we just play our role and put our best cyber foot forward. 

I think that Twitter will serve my blog well, and probably my YouTube (TheDriftingSunMaid) channel.  I can update and stay updated with things easier.  I still have a lot of lingo to learn and play with this hashtag thing.  We’ll see if it will be something I get into and then just get bored with.  It’s hard to say with me.  I’m trying my best not to do that with the blogging.  I’m trying my best to stay in this century and update myself.  So here I go; another step into this interweb way of living and sharing to communicate my thoughts.  Hello, Twitter!  I’m Missie Sue.  Pleased to meet you!  Welcome to my life.  

[ Follow me on Twitter @MusingThrough ]

Me To You,

Missie Sue

November Blog #12: "3….2….1….Contacts!"

3….2….1….Contacts!:  14 Straight Days of Seeing Clearly

I have worn contacts since I was in high school.  I would get up every morning and put in my eyeballs and miraculously I could see!  If you don’t wear contacts, then it’s hard to explain the world of eye ball play.  It’s a routine you get used to, but is pretty odd to the untrained eye.  Really easy to maintain, but weird if you think about it; there is a foreign object sitting on your eye all day long. 

A buddy of mine once told me that he swore the guy at the optometrists office told him to just continue to wear his normal weekly disposable contacts over night for two weeks straight.  He pretty much wore his contacts all of the time, and only his glasses when he was letting his eyes breathe for a day or was out of contacts.  He ended up stretching it out farther and got at least a month or more out of his contacts, I believe.

I had only ever had the yearly ones or whatever you call them; the extended wear, I guess, not the daily/weekly disposables.  I always had to take my contacts out over night every night and soaked them weekly in the enzyme solution stuff.  It was more  of a pain, but at least they were soft contacts and not hard lenses, which are pretty much unheard of now.  After I got out of wearing my contacts, I started to rely on my glasses pretty much constantly for quite a few years.  I had an old pair of glasses that I had forever because I didn't go to the optometrist for so long (money).  I just got used to always wearing them because it was more of a pain than anything to take them out put them in take them out.  A year or so ago I got a new type of weekly disposable contacts when I got a new pair of glasses and an eye appointment.  I always just wore them daily like my old contacts, but instead of throwing them away, just saved them and reused them.  I was able to make my entire prescription of them last probably 2 or 3 years that way while still wearing my glasses most of the time.  I opened the last pair and put them in at the end of October.  I decided to try it out wearing them how my buddy suggested.  I have left them in for a few days before, but decided, since they were a fresh new pair, to see how long I could get before they started to bother me. 

The contacts I am wearing are Acuvue Advance with Hydraclear.  It is November 12.  I have a pair of contacts in this morning that were a fresh pair I opened and put in on October 29.  I have had these in day and night, and been sleeping with them in for over 2 weeks now.  I have been wetting my eyes with saline solution before bed and then in the morning, but I can’t get over how comfortable they still are and easy this is.  I can see!  Given, I don’t think I have had eye make up on in the two weeks (wow) that I have had them in, which can make contacts more of a pain.  But overall, I am pretty satisfied with these contacts.  My eyes don’t really hurt and I don’t get that crazy white haze you would always get from the other contacts that reminds you of the chlorine fog you get after swimming with your eyes open in the pool all day.  None of that. 

I do have some slight residue on the lenses in the morning that either just works its way off or out with the saline or sometimes I use a Q-tip to swipe my eyes out clean, but nothing close to what you would get with the old contacts we wore in high school.  I think that it is the Hydraclear that is so awesome about these things.  They definitely make them different now I think.   I remember seeing a 20/20 way back when that was pointing out that the extended wear contacts and the disposables were actually the same thing.  These ones are supposed to be worn weekly I think and then thrown away.  The optometrist told my buddy to just wear them for a month constantly without taking them out.  My friend would then even leave his in longer usually up to a month or so, just taking them out for a day or two to air his eyes and let them soak.  He found he could get a long time out of them.  [This way of wearing your lenses, however, is not recommended by your optometrist or on the box.]

I have half a month already in these without even taking them out.  I was in desperate need for new glasses, mine are annoyingly falling off of my face every time I bend my head down and at this point so scratched and ill positioned from broken nose guards that I feel like I have blurry vision all of the time.  Quite an annoying phase of the frames.  So I threw these in.  I was thinking of ordering more of them off of the internet, because my prescription seems alright.  Then maybe  I could just wear contacts for awhile and put off getting new glasses.  Although, glasses are me and I would like to find a 2 frame deal somewhere because it would be worth it for me.  I love my glasses, I’m so used to me with them, but I really am enjoying the simplicity of being able to wake up in the morning and pretty much see!  It’s amazing.  In high school I remember my eyes were just so messed up if I slept with my contacts in.  I did it once in awhile and if you wet them the white fog would eventually go away, but it didn’t feel anywhere near as comfortable as these are.  I believe the Hydraclear definitely allows your eyes to stay moister and breathe better.  I like it.  I think that today I may end up letting them sit air.  They are still okay, but getting perhaps a little blurred.  2 weeks, though, is a good amount of time, I think.  14 days is over twice as long as they are intended for, so that would cut the price in half for you at least.  I’m sure some could go even longer.  I think they are actually suggested for weekly disposable use, so keeping that in mind, I think two weeks is awesome!  I'm sure I could even get more out of them if I really wanted to wet my eyes aggressively.  When they are fresh, they seem fine overnight.  I think maybe I will let these soak tonight and then try to see if I could get two more weeks out of them.  Even if I can't comfortably get a month out of them, I can easily get twice as long as they are intended. I'm sure a lot of people do this and I think that is something to think about and could potentially save you a lot of money. 

Well, all in all, the Acuvue Advance with Hydraclear contact lenses…thumbs up! 

More than a few words on the scandal from a Pennsylvania local and PSU alumna...

The Penn State University scandal has had the Happy Valley in an uproar more than possibly anything I have ever seen locally as a Pennsylvanian…and it very well should.  The firing of Graham Spanier and Joe Paterno literally started riots in the streets in downtown State College.  (Lets face it, people were rioting because of Joe Paterno; no one seemed to care about Spanier, and I think that says a lot.)   Maybe, though, Penn State students and alumni should have been gathering and passionate enough to riot, but not because we are in an uproar that they ousted our dear old JoePA, but because this scandal points out how the politics within our dear alma mater are so incredibly horrible and lacking in integrity that they allowed the 15 year cover up of a child molestation scandal!  I would like to just say for the record I think that the board did the right thing by firing Graham Spanier and Joe Paterno and I for one, as a Penn State alumna support this decision.  It was a good first step; it was their/our only choice. 

This situation has marred this institution and is, needless to say, disgusting and appalling!  This matter should be handled with serious reprimands.  I don’t care if JoePA didn’t do it himself; he let it happen if he didn’t report it to the authorities.  Anyone connected to a cover up of this magnitude should be removed from the Penn State payroll and that is really getting off easy if you ask me.  I can understand the love that we have for JoePA as Penn Staters.  He is a local icon!  But Penn State needs to “hang them in the town square” in a manner of speaking to make an example of them in order to save some of its horribly mutilated face at this point!  This was wrong!  Not because JoePA can’t finish his last season, but because he aided in the cover up of a child abuse scandal.  By not firing Joe Paterno, Penn State would be telling the world that their football program is more important to them than protecting children from sexual predators or remaining a serious academic entity by maintaining a sense of integrity within the institution!  Our children are our future and in turn will become the future of Penn State!! 

I may not be a huge football fan, but I am a proud Pennsylvania born and raised Penn State University alumna.  I grew up within 40 minutes of the Happy Valley, and like so many, I am, for the first time, embarrassed for us.  I am also embarrassed by how student rioters knocked over the WTAJ 10 News van and caused problems for locals and local businesses, protesting the firing of Joe Paterno!  Students need to remember to not get caught up in rioting merely for the sake of rioting.  Remember, this isn’t about football; it’s about morality.  Do you really want to be the school that values football over protecting children?  Let JoePA go.  Let him “take one for the team” this time.  He needs to be “sacrificed” in this way in order to make an example of this horrible situation and show the world that We are STILL Penn State!  We aren’t just football.  We are a group of people filled with purpose and united with pride.  Penn State has brought this area so much, providing tons of people with jobs and opportunities and instilling an incredible sense of local pride.  It has enriched the area and given it a long lasting identity to be proud of!  Let’s continue to support our state college by cleaning house!  This has been a long time coming and there is more to be exposed with this investigation.  Let’s support our alma mater in striving to become an institution we can be proud of once again by letting this happen!  

Support the Penn State team, because the players are the ones that get out on that field and play, not Joe Paterno.  They are the ones that have won those games and earned those titles.  Joe Paterno simply served as their coach and icon.  We need to learn to truly feel and understand our motto.  We are…Penn State.   WE….are Penn State.  We need to learn that WE ARE Penn State…NOT the icons we came to be represented by.  We create our success in life, not the people we hold up on pedestals.  Support the team as you would support the troops in war even if you don’t happen to agree with the choices of the government.  Stay Penn State proud, but let’s take it back!  Let this show that people who make bad choices, even if they are generally loved and admired, have to suffer the consequences for their actions, or inaction.  Don’t we, as parents, strive to teach this to our children with every single lesson?  Isn’t pretty much every lesson you teach a child based on consequence?  Every choice has a consequence.  What we need to think about is the fact that JoePA is not just a local icon, but a nationally famous symbol for our team and school just like the Nittany Lion.  People, who are idolized by so many, children included, should do something if they know a child is being raped or hurt in any way!  Morally, they have an obligation to.  JoePA did indeed do his part as a coach and reported it to his higher ups, but he didn’t do his part morally as a citizen, as a Penn Stater, to protect those children by reporting it to the authorities.  

As usual, the most overlooked aspect of this situation is the victims.   This is a shameful story to surface, but it is good that it did!  I hope now that all of the victims are able to come forward and possibly find some solace and I hope that Penn State will step up and help to provide this for them in any way they are able to.  It is well within their means.  Students, like it or not, our tuition partially pays/paid for the salaries of the people that were covering up this child molestation scandal.  Hell, some of it possibly even went toward hush money and business meetings and lunches that were held in order to discuss how best to cover up and hide this scandal.  This is serious.  There are over 40 counts against Sandusky and there are 8 known victims thus far.  I too love my school, but if you are rioting in the streets and flipping over vans in anger protesting the reprimand of the people involved in this cover up, you are making it difficult if not impossible for these victims to feel safe enough to come out in order to shed some light on this criminal investigation and receive the proper treatment and help that they need!

Remember that you represent Penn State to the world and you should do so with pride.  By rioting in the streets of your college town, you are also telling the world that you value our football program more than protecting children from sexual predators and exposing the truth!  Football…over integrity.  I know that we are known for our football, but to me, that is not what Penn State is about!  We are a strong institution with many valuable members and programs and we will come back from this by handling the situation how it should have been handled in the first place, with a sense of dignity by doing the honorable and proper thing. 

Jerry Sandusky is the sole person truly “responsible” for this.  No one else should be to “blame” for the acts done to these children, but those who remained silent should be held accountable for not doing something to stop it.  JoePA is not “responsible” for this; he just has to pay for making the choice to do nothing.  Support your team.  Still support Joe Paterno if you want.  He still has made a name for Penn State with the football program.  I do sympathize with Paterno to an extent, but he could have been a hero and instead did only what was required by his position, not what was his moral obligation to do as a citizen and icon.  He had his 46 years and will still go down in history.  The fans had highlights, moments, memories, and he had his games and his wins and his seasons; this will all go down in history.  Those kids, however, are going to have emotional scars for the rest of their lives and you, Mr. Paterno, with all of your iconic power, could have possibly done something to stop it.  That is why you were fired.  You did a good job, but because of your silence, I think you should sit this one out, JoePa.   

I, on the other hand, have no sympathy for Graham Spanier et al, and feel that he deserves most of the wrath from Penn State as well as the others that knew and did nothing.  Sandusky deserves the wrath of the law and hopefully will be convicted and punished for all of his crimes.  In order for this to happen, though, we, as PENN STATERS need to act civilly and let this happen.  I urge you, as a fellow PSU graduate, as a fellow former student, as a fellow Pennsylvania local, as a fellow human being, do not protest or riot or get in the way of this investigation in any way!  Let this criminal investigation take place!  Let the victims come forward and receive help.  Let Sandusky pay for his horrible actions.  Respect the decisions the college board of trustees is making and let Penn State pride continue by “cleaning house” as they suggest.  Joe Paterno still had 31 great years coaching PSU football that did not overlap with this cover up!  Think of it as a loved one who is consumed by cancer later in life; you try to remember them how they were before the illness overtook them.  Think of JoePA as the icon you love, and see his termination as a sacrifice to what is right in this horrible situation for everyone involved, including the college that he loved and represented for so many years.

We still are…Penn State! 

November Blog #11: " World Peace, the Preservation of Life, and a Concert"

November 11, 2011 Prompt:  It’s 11/11/11, make 3 wishes! 

Wow!  A genie all for me!  This would be the craziest thing to ever happen, so I have never actually thought about what “wishes” I would make.  Of course, this is always a hypothetical, because let’s face it, no one gets 3 wishes!  Lol!

1.)        I hate to sound like a beauty pageant contestant, but who wouldn’t want to wish for world peace?  It would encompass so many things, wouldn’t it?  Maybe I mean mostly more of a balance in the world.  It would help me, it would help you, and it would help our brothers and sisters…  Maybe I would wish for a form of world government that harmoniously worked for every nation, let us all express our differences openly, but held us all together in the same cause (life).  Maybe a little too hippie dippie but hey, it’s my wish!  A Utopian world, sort of like Atlantis.  Not so cheesy perfect it’s unheard of, pure fantasy like and could never happen, but a system that meets everyone’s needs liberally and flows naturally.  There would be a smooth system for working with any catastrophes or situations or criminal activity that would arise.  Everyone would be playing their role in the machine.  A well oiled machine of peaceful living on Earth.

2.)      Well, if I had wish #1…what would I need then?  Theoretically, I wouldn’t be wanting for as much, so these wishes would be more materialistic, right? Or personal. Because technically, world peace would help end hunger and decrease the size of the gap in the classes, etc.  I think, then, I would wish for the power of resurrection.  (Not a “I want to resurrect everyone I love that is dead” or “I want to make no one ever die again” wish.  In a Utopian society, we may have eradicated a lot of disease and death from the world, but death is still an inevitable part of life, although the life expectancy I’m sure will be a lot higher ;P)  In all half serious seriousness, though, with my second wish…I want to resurrect the Forever 27!  I would like to bring back my buddy that died at 27 and the rest of the Forever 27 Club!…in this Utopia I have just wished us into.  Because there would be a lot of drink and a lot of song in said Utopia…and it would be a much better place with this friend indeed as well as all of the other musicians, etc.  The power of resurrection would also resurrect all of the other members of the Forever 27 Club.  So Utopia would then be filled with the sounds of (again) Robert Johnson, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Mama Cass, Kurt Cobain, to name a few.  We would be entertained by Belushi and Farley.  I’m sure you can add to this list, but they’ll all be there.   It just seems like a crazy age that grabs so many people; it’s like the Bermuda triangle of years.  I would do this one mass resurrection, but I hope that it wouldn’t upset the balance or anything. But think of the horrorshow concert and time we could have.  Utopia Stock.  Lol!

3.)      If everything is going my way, I don’t know what more I would want.  Everything at this point should be going well for the world.  We should have a good balance of good and bad.  I could wish for “Lucid Living”.  The power of creation…but we already have that, don’t we?  I could wish now for a happy and long life for us.  Not a “perfect” life but a happy balance of Yin and Yang for our Utopia…for the world.  I think I would wish for life to continue on.  For it to never end.  For “Life”…whatever it really is…to continue going well after we are done representing it.  Long after this world is gone and we are dead…I wish for life, in the form of something, to still be out there, for the game to continue.  To see how long these particles can go.  To see if there is an end. 

I guess that’s kind of a lame list of wishes.  I don’t know what I would wish for honestly.  What are the typical answers?  $1,000,000!  A bottomless bank account/credit card!  A mansion!  Breast augmentation!  A nose job.  Hmm…well, a big ass house would be pretty sweet.  Maybe I really should have wished for a bigger house?  Now I just got this world peace shit and a tiny home and a long happy life with family and friends.  Damn it.