hannahm

January 2008 - Posts

• 2 + 2 = ...5?

  So, Sam's blog got me to thinking... She said, "...we are born into our religions, we only believe what we believe through way of teaching." I agree with her 100%. My parents have different religions and they chose to bring up their children without shoving any religion down their throat. My sister and I both do not believe in God, nor do we affiliate ourselves with any religion. To summarize our beliefs, it would have to be that we hope for something beyond what we have. I think it was yesterday actually, I was waiting for Sarah to finish pit orchestra rehearsal, I was sitting alone listening to my ipod in a practice room and I don't quite remember how I got to it, but I started thinking about death. When I die, what will happen with my mind? All I could think of was oblivion. I was thinking about the non-existance of heaven, if there is no heaven, my soul, my mind, will just, go out. No thoughts, ultimately, nothing. I started to feel very uncomfortable, I was even getting a little hot. I didnt want to think about it anymore, but then, lol, "Higher" by Creed started playing on my ipod. Ironic, if anything. :p But anyways, I guess that is why Sarah and I choose to hope instead of believe.

   

   Now here is the part where I start to get shuuuuunned.

  Another thought, in form of a question: Do you believe that if a person is left to themself in the real world, they may willing believe in the Bible?

   

  I ask this because, while I have never read the Bible, all it's teachings and beliefs that are preached just seem the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. Like, no normal person living in the real world today would pick up the Bible and call it nothing other than fiction. And the people that take the Bible literally, that is just sad. But then again, the Bible was written to be taken literally, as an honest truth, so if you are not going to believe it literally, then why are you believing it at all? There is just so much hard fact and evidence that alternate things came into being and created our world. People believe both. They have to. It reminds me a lot of 1984 and "doublethink". To hold two simultaneos beliefs that contradict each other, yet believe both. In 1984, 2 + 2 = 5. In the Bible, God created the world in 6 days and on the 6th day he created humans.

   

  I guess that is as far as I will go into it...

   

  In other news, Sarah and I gave that presentation I was talking about on Brave New World. It went really well. And when we were finished, I was surprised at what people were saying about our website. Our teacher, Ms. Shmidt, said something alongs the lines of, "Omigod! I am SO impressed! What talent you have! I MUST get a copy of this website so I can use it as an example in later years"... or something, lol. And then a classmate of mine asked me what I used to create it and I told her I dont use programs, I hand-code everything. Well, apparently like 6 other people were listening to our conversation and when I said that they were all like " WOW!!!! You coded it?! Using html, right?! MAN! How did you learn it!?", they went on and on. Lol, alright, done bragging. xD

   

  Sarah goes to Spain in less than a month! Crazy o.o

  Posted Jan 16 2008, 10:05 PM by hannahm with no comments

• "...And we're only several miles from the sun!"

   By the way...

   

  FREAKIN GLOBAL WARMING!

   

  It was like 65 degrees here today!!!!!

   

  ITS JANUARY 7th AND WE ARE HAVING A WINTER THAW?

   

  i dont think so.... *smolder*

   

  (Title lyrics by Maroon 5, "The Sun")

  Posted Jan 07 2008, 09:29 PM by hannahm with 1 comment(s)

• Oh Brave New World that has such people in it!

  Today in AP Language Arts we were doing a discussion on the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The other day we were all given this sheet of paper that had 21 topics in BNW on it and we went through the entire class and each picked one topic to discuss (no person could have the same one). We started discussing yesterday, and we finished up today. One of the topics today was cloning. We were talking about it, blah, blah, blah, and in BNW, if you are familiar with it, it is the women who either are genetically sterile (which most of the people in the book are) or you arent, which is rare, usually for the upper castes.

  Well, I raised my hand and asked the question why it is the women who are made to be sterile and not the men, considering it is much easier to make a man sterile than a women. Well, the class was silent for a few seconds, and then EVERYONE erupted into conversation. It honestly took 5 minutes for our teacher to quiet the class down because everyone thought it was such a great question and it was really something to think about. Some people were thinking Huxley was sexist, others were saying it was just the time and women were not thought of so highly when the book was written, or whatever the reason, I just thought it was an interesting topic.

   

  I also brought up this question which NO ONE every thought of and which no one seemingly knows the answer to, maybe someone here who has read it can help me out: Why, if Lenina is a Beta-minus caste member, is she written wearing ALL green, which is a symbol of the lower Gamma caste group? Through the use of Hypnopaedia upper caste members are taught to dislike anything that has to do with lower caste members, so why is she wearing green? It just doesnt make sense to me. Maybe one of you can shed some light on it for me.

   

  Anyways, sorry for the BNW spout today. I dont particularly like the book that much, but it when I really start to think about it's themes I get all these questions about life, society, and human nature. Like, in the book they talk about completely getting rid of family instinks. Family no longer exists, passion/love no longer exists, and people are descensitized to death. Well I believe that no matter what, you cannot stop people from feeling close to one another. Even in the book where they say they have ridden the world of family and feelings for other people, there are still subtle hints of it. For example, they talk about cloning and there is an instance that has to do with a set of 8 identical twins. In the book these 8 twins are a thought of as a group, there is no individual. They are going to be kept their whole life close together. Well no matter what, the longer you spend time with someone the more you feel towards them. It's undeniable. And later on in the book Lenina starts to get uncontrollable passion for the savage. This is proof that you cannot suppress human feelings. You cannot. So when we were talking in class today and the discussion of family was brought up, I couldnt help asking how it is possible that they believe what the book says about family and passion and love. I wasnt able to talk much though, and I was sort of shot down because I didnt have enough time to explain my thoughts. Tomorrow though, tomorrow.

   

  Sarah and I are working on a project together for BNW. We are creating a website that is supposed to act like a cyber magazine for the year the book is set in. When we are finished I'll see if I cant post a screenshot or two of what we came up with. :)

   

  ok, /end rant. :P

  Posted Jan 07 2008, 08:54 PM by hannahm with no comments