Give love

So this week is "Suicide Prevention Week" at UConn and the entire university is committed to this mission. On Tuesday night instead of attending class my cohort and I helped staff the keynote speaker for the week, Ross Szabo

He was such an inspirational speaker, that truly knew his audience. He suffers from Bipolar Disorder and attempted suicide his senior year of HS, despite being one of the most popular kids in his school, star athlete, valedictorian, class president, etc. He's suffered many relapses since then but has since graduated from American University with a degree in psychology and has committed his life to educating youth on mental health. He was funny, honest, real, and provided me with a new perspective on "mental health". Mental health is something we should all have, it's a good thing and we should openly talk about it and do things to maintain it just like we would with our physical health for example by like working out or eating right.

9/11 was today and with all the multicultural education I am getting this semester it's made me view things a bit differently regarding it. Our reaction to 9/11 was completely ethnocentric. Tragedies such as that occur around the world daily and get no attention, it's just commonplace. I'm not trying to downsize the effects of this horrible tragedy, it just really makes you think about American society as a whole and how wrapped up we our in our own worlds, as if we're the only ones with problems. In my Cross-Cultural Counseling class we do alot of roundtable discussions so I get to hear the perspectives of all my peers who come from a wide range of backgrounds and it's truly refreshing and enlightening. Additionally, it's really sad and says alot about what the media has done to us, and how we allow it to happen that we need this day to "Never Forget" but 2 weeks from now Britney Spears will end up back in rehab and 9/11 will be a thing of the past again until next September. In class we discussed Hurricane Katrina and this "forgetting" and how the media dehumanized all the people down their by referring to them as refugees, and portraying the black people as "looting" but the white people as "displaced victims". They put such an incredibly oppressive spin on it, basically blaming the victims for what happened. The media's dehumanization wasn't just bound by race either, they used this opportunity to further push down the poor as well. They twisted the info. we received in a way that made us not feel bad about the gov't not really providing any assistance in New Orleans b/c "why should we? they're all rapists and criminals". This is just a prime example of how the media completely distorts reality and most people accept it as truth and carry on with their lives as birds without wings when there's a cat on the prowl. It's even more disgusting to me that Angelina Jolie has been a present topic on the news consistently for years, but you hear nothing about Katrina and the state of New Orleans. One would assume this means everything is hunky dory and fixed down there right? WRONG. New Orleans is still completely devastated and no one is talking about it, instead our presidential candidates are blowing millions of dollars to fill their ridiculous conventions with an exorbitant amount of balloons and fancy stages. Disgusting.

Okay, enough of that rant, I could keep going but I'll save it for another day as I'm sure many classes will generate my need to express my frustrations further. You would think venting with my peers who share the same concerns and beliefs regarding these matters for 2 1/2 hours would be enough but it's not, and yet I'll continue venting until I'm blue in the face but I see no solution in sight, ESPECIALLY if McCain and his Soccer Mom from hell extremist Disney princess take the win in less than 2 months.

In lighter (literally and figuratively) news, so far my 23rd birthday is going very well. While I was rushing to meet up with Rita today to get the table she left at the apt out of my car and into hers I ran into Kenny, and Kevin in my program. We were chatting about silly school stuff then when I went to rush off Kenny randomly asked if we prefer blueberry or chocolate chip to which I was completely befuddled as to what the fuck he was talking about, like for what? Pancakes? For snack for class? He wouldn't answer and sketchily just said he was doing an assessment so I hurried off and was laughing about Kenny's randomness later with Rita when she made the realization that Kenny was probably going to get/bake me something for my birthday. This realization must have really took alot of brain power b/c she wound up breaking the table top she was balancing on her head into 3 pieces atop her head. Now if you know me at all you know that I cannot help but laugh when people get hurt no matter how serious the injury, but I could tell this REALLY hurt so I stood there tearing up from holding back my laughter until she looked at me and we both just burst out into hysterics in the middle of the parking garage. A few minutes later when we arrived to class I discovered Rita was correct and Kenny got me a chocolate chip muffin from the Union. So adorable and thoughtful!

Tonight Crissy and I prepared my much anticipated lovely b-day dinner. I as usual got very carried away with talking and forgot what I was doing and severely burned the first round of pine nuts for our pesto sauce. Good job, I rock haha. Dan (Crissy's bf) joined us to partake in the festivities. The meal was absolutely phenomenal. Crissy picked fresh basil from one of our coworker's garden, and used a ridiculous amt of garlic for the pesto as well which is a surefire way to my heart. She found a light recipe in which instead of using a shit ton of olive oil, you use tomatoes (which amazingly makes it taste like the tomato basil sauce used at Mills for my Oneonta fans but better and healthier!! Yup, that's right I said it, it was better!). She also prepared a super yummy tomato salad to complement our pasta dish. It was absolutely divine and I can't wait to eat my leftovers at lunch tomorrow. For dessert we had a light pumpkin pudding coolwhip pie with a graham cracker crust and topped with cinnamon chips. I'm not going to say it was amazing or anything, but uhhhhh yea Crissy and I basically housed the whole thing to ourselves in 1 sitting. Glorious and gluttonous. haha.

Okay, off to bed so I will be alive alert awake enthusiastic for my roadtrip to the O tomorrow. CANNOT FREAKING WAIT. I'll be stopping to visit Took and the gang on the way and am pumped for that as well b/c I miss them!

Here's some pics from dinner:


MMMM, it's what's for dinner!




Orgasmic dessert!




Blink 182 says nobody likes you when you're 23. Well they're wrong. These 2 do!
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