It Comes Down to Love

So I know it has been forever since I have posted anything..let's just say it has been a busy couple of months.  I will update on that later, but when I had talked about a paper I was working on for school several people said they wanted to read the final product.  I am thinking that I want to research this further in graduate school.  So below is the paper that I wrote on medical criminality and the interracial marriage laws in the United States.  Oh and I did get an A on it.  :)

 

Medical Criminality, Racism, and Miscegenation Laws in the United States
      Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving met, fell in love, and while in the District of Columbia in June of 1958, married. However, since both were from Virginia they decided to return to their home state. They set up house and settled into married life. Alas, wedded bliss was not in store for the pair, for in October of that year, the couple was charged and indicted for “violating Virginia’s ban on interracial marriages.”[i] The couple decided to agree to a plea deal that forced them to leave their home and move out of state, just to stay out of jail. However, they did not just have to leave but were exiled from their home for “25 years.”[ii] This certainly does not sound like the childhood dream that most kids grow up with, forced from their homes for loving someone that the state deemed to be unacceptable. Because at the root of it this was the problem, Mildred was black and Richard was white, that was it, nothing else, just race. Well it was race and fear, fear of what would happen to American society if this were allowed.

      The couple accepted their punishment and moved back to the District of Columbia but in the end, they decided that they should not have to be separated from their family and friends. Instead of hiding in D.C., they would fight the state and reclaim their home. So they did just that and filed suit. Ultimately, the case made it all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States and was the key case in overturning these laws.

[i] Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967). Supreme Court of United States (June 12, 1967).
[ii] Loving

It seems preposterous coming from a country that was supposedly founded on the ideal of individual freedom by people that fled from a tyrannical government that was regulating how they lived. So the question that must be asked and answered is how did US society get from the childhood ideal of marriage to criminalizing interracial marriage, or creating miscegenation laws, in the United States? Well it starts with a theory, a theory that criminality, along with other defects, can be identified in a person through medical findings. Medical theories of criminality specifically referring to Black Americans lead to the development of miscegenation laws in the United States in the 20th century.

             The simplest place to begin is with answering the obvious questions of, what were miscegenation and miscegenation laws? Peggy Pascoe wrote a book entitled What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America, which delves deeply into the history of the term and the laws surrounding it. According to Pascoe:

            The term “miscegenation” first appeared during the presidential election of 1864,
            in a pamphlet written by two New York politicos who … Insisting that it was important
            to have an independent term, one that referred to the “mixture of two or more races” and
            nothing else, they combined miscere (mix) and genus (race) to form the new, more
            scientific-sounding “miscegenation.”[i]

 Even from the beginning, the idea of racial mixing caused politicians to use “science” to support their stance against interracial sex and marriage. This new term “caught on quickly” and “provid[ed] the rhetorical means of channeling the belief that interracial marriage was unnatural into the foundation of post-Civil War white supremacy.”[ii] It should not be that surprising that the South, rocked from the Civil War and still struggling with integrating freed slaves, would seize upon these new “scientific” ideas that mixing races was wrong. However, these laws did not begin and end in the South but instead spread across the country. There were a few states out there that did not pass these laws and some that repealed them a lot sooner than others but this was not a racism that was limited to the South.

             While these laws may have been applied mostly in relationships involving blacks and whites, most were not written to single out blacks. They were designed to keep non-white races from mixing with whites. To a modern scholar the idea of white purity should sound eerily familiar and bring to mind images of goose-stepping, swastikas, and concentration camps. This may sound like a leap to compare the United States and these miscegenation laws with Nazi Germany but there is a link between the two, and Cesare Lombroso served as the bridge.

             Cesare Lombroso was an Italian doctor and psychiatrist and in his seventy-four years was a prolific writer and researcher. However, it was his work on criminality that was his signature work and lasting legacy. Often referred to as the “father of modern criminology,” it was his life-long research in criminal anthropology that propelled his notoriety.[iii] Lombroso spent his life developing and fine-tuning his theory. Translated into several languages and published in five different editions, Lombroso laid out his vision of how medical and biological factors caused an individual to become inherently criminal.[iv] Lombroso did not set out to write a theory that was racist and easily misinterpreted, but this is what he achieved. Even his own daughter, who took it upon herself to try to clarify or add to her father’s work after his death, took the most simplistic view of his work. This would only add to the blatantly racist applications of Lombroso’s theory.[v] His theory has been linked to racial policies in Nazi Germany and in South Africa. While this may cast a cloud over his work and it is easy to disagree with his findings, Lombroso was not known to be a racist and was Jewish himself.[vi] 

      Lombroso theorized that identifiable biological factors, such as cranial features and a host of others, made people inherently criminal. Through his study of criminals, the mentally ill, and his control groups of “healthy” men, Lombroso came to the following conclusions.[vii] According to him, criminals are “more likely to have crooked noses, sloping foreheads, large ears, protruding jaws, and dark skin, eyes, and hair. They also tend to be physically weak and insensitive to pain. This last trait … constitutes the exterior sign of inward moral obtuseness that explains why criminals rarely exhibit remorse for their crimes. Unable to control their passions, they indulge in drinking and gambling.”[viii] For a person, or politician, looking for a way to scare the public into not mixing races, Lombroso had laid the groundwork. What better way to justify making race-mixing criminal than to imply that Lombroso’s descriptions of criminality point to a specific race and that by mixing “white blood” with this somehow inherently criminal blood would be a detriment to the “white race”?

      In order to understand how lawmakers applied Lombroso’s findings, it is important to
understand his method. According to his own work, he studied over fifty skulls provided to him by several private sources and several museums. He then studied groups of soldiers and groups of criminals, already incarcerated.[i] Lombroso used his findings from studying these two groups to apply to the population as a whole. In discussing Lombroso and his work, Wayne Morrison writes in Theoretical Criminology: from modernity to post-modernism, “Most commentators read Lombroso as applying the biological ideas of the immediate post-Darwin era to the study of the criminal; specifically applying the concept of atavism and the principles of evolution to depict criminals as biological ‘throwbacks’ to a primitive, or ‘atavistic,’ stage of evolution.”[ii] Lombroso himself noted during an autopsy, “At the sight of that skull, I seemed to see … the problem of the nature of the criminal – an atavistic being who reproduces … the ferocious instincts of primitive humanity and the inferior animals.”[iii] This idea of criminals as being throwbacks to a less evolved man will be mirrored in eugenics. Lombroso goes on to note, “Thus were explained anatomically the enormous jaws, high cheek-bones, prominent superciliary arches, solitary lines in the palms, extreme size of the orbits, handles-shaped or sessile ears found in criminals, savages, and apes, insensibility to pain, extremely acute sight, tattooing, excessive idleness, love or orgies, and the irresistible
craving for evil of its own sake, the desire not only to extinguish life in the victim, but to mutilate the corpse, tear its flesh, and drink its blood.”[i] For those that sought evidence for their own preconceived ideas of non-white races, Lombroso’s theories would seem sound and certainly applicable to their personal agenda.

     Despite these rather grim and graphic ideas of criminalistics traits, Lombroso was forced later in his research to realize that criminality could not be explained by medical or scientific theories alone.[ii] However, despite his change and clarifications, his theories and ideas were already apart of the public conversation. Lombroso’s theories of genetic or medical differences between the races were not the only ones available. There was a rise in an area of science and medicine, known as eugenics that took the idea of these differences out of the realm of criminals and into the realm of the everyday person. Around the same time, that Lombroso was studying criminal traits, another scientific based movement was gaining attention, eugenics. Eugenics was a study that had been around for quite some time. Much like Lombroso, the ideas that were set forth by the eugenic movement were skewed and biased almost from the start. So what is eugenics? Alexandra Stern states the following about eugenics in her book, Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America, “Sir Galton … cousin of Charles Darwin … wrote that eugenics was ‘the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race’ … then eugenics can simply be defined as better breeding.”[i] With this sort of scientific study being conducted, coupled with Lombroso’s studies of inherent criminality, the applications are endless.

     The idea of creating a “perfect race,” that was free from criminals, disease, and every other sort of defect was the goal for the scientist and ultimately for the politicians that utilized these ideas to create laws that put science into action. Laws concerning sterilization swept through the United States and ultimately almost two-thirds of the states passed laws dealing with sterilization. These sterilization laws were aimed at criminals, mentally ill, and those deemed unfit by the state. However, the application of these laws, more often than not, was applied to poor non-whites whose main crime was that they were not white.

      While there is no way to plot on a time-line the movement of eugenics and the connection to Lombroso’s theory of criminality from their inceptions through the creation of so many miscegenation laws in the United States, it is relatively clear to see the influence. Those with the power in the US sought ways to influence and control the population, both white and non-white. This can be examined in many places but we are only going to look at three specific places and three specific cases, California, Florida, and Virginia. California came to the forefront of the miscegenation debate relatively early. The reason for this can be seen because of the myriad of races that lived in California. Because of increased immigration into the state in this particular context, it is no wonder that miscegenation became such a prominent subject. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia lays out a startling history of institutional racism in her book, States of Delinquency: Race and Science in the Making of California’s Juvenile Justice System. She contends that starting early in the twentieth century, California began to systematically classify minority youths as criminals. These children were then shuffled off to state homes and facilities, many of whom ended up being sterilized so that they would not pass on their criminal genes to future generations.[ii] Chavez-Garcia writes, “Beginning in the early 1900s, when conditions at Whittier State School took a turn for the worse after only twenty
years of operation – with rampant physical and sexual abuse, excessive corporal punishment, meager state funding, and neglect – state and reform school officials employed scientific researchers to develop effective programs aimed at redeeming delinquent, dependent, and otherwise unwanted youth and transforming them into productive male citizens.”[i] The irony in these words that they sought to make these children, “productive male citizens” is that they only deemed some salvageable.[ii] Instead of helping, they sought to “classify, sort, and segregate state wards …. in the process, scientist identified a disproportionate number of Mexican, Mexican American, and African American youths as feebleminded and criminally minded offenders whose genetic or racial stock was the root cause of their deficiencies.”[iii] As I mentioned before, many of these children ended up being forcibly sterilized to keep their bad genes out of society. It is not a surprise or a leap that this sort of systematic application of medical theories of criminality and eugenics played such a large role in the political system.

      The miscegenation laws that were passed in many states sought this same type of purification of races. In California, the laws dealing with race and marriage prohibited whites from marrying “Negro,” “Mulatto,” “Mongolian,” or “Malay.”[iv] These laws were not as concerned with non-white races mixing among themselves, just the mixing of these races with whites. The California courts interpreted the laws by stating, “a race of people whom nature has marked as inferior, and who are incapable of progress or intellectual development beyond a certain point, as their history has shown; differing in language, opinions, color, and physical conformation … For these reasons, therefor, ‘all races other than Caucasian’ were held to be included in a statute referring only to a ‘black or mulatto person, or Indian.”[i] In the court case, Perez v State of California, the State took the following stand, “The amalgamation of the races is not only unnatural, but is always productive of deplorable results. Our daily observation shows us, that the offspring of these unnatural connections are generally sickly and effeminate, and that they are inferior in physical development and strength, to the full blood of either race.”[ii] The stance of the State was typical of the attitudes of many white people and the politicians of the time. However, not all citizens of California or of the United States believed these notions of race.

     The case that was the beginning of change for the miscegenation laws in California started with Andrea Perez and Sylvester Davis. This young couple met at church and fell in love. They decided that they wanted to get married and sought out a marriage license. They were denied this license because Davis was black and Perez, although Hispanic, was classified as white. They filed suit on the basis that the denial of their marriage license was “unconstitutional on the grounds that they prohibit the free exercise of their religion and deny to them the right to participate fully in the sacraments of that religion … since the church has no rule forbidding marriages between Negroes and Caucasians, they are entitled to receive the sacrament of matrimony.”[iii] The interesting part of this case was not that the petitioners contested the validity of the law based on racism but on religious freedom. This provided them and the courts with a loophole to undermine the law and help to undo that law. The California Supreme Court ruled in favor of Perez and Davis and in doing so issued this statement:

            The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects an area of personal liberty
             not yet wholly delimited. “Without doubt, it denotes … the right of the individual … to
             marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates
             of his own conscience, and … to enjoy those privileges long recognized … as essential to
             the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” Marriage is thus something more than a
             civil contract subject to regulation by the state, it is a fundamental right of free men.
             There can be no prohibition of marriage except for an important social objective and by
              reasonable means.[i]

This declaration that marriage was a “fundamental right of free men” would be key and would become a theme in the rest of the cases that began to undue the miscegenation laws in the United States.[ii]

             Perez helped open the discussion of interracial marriage to a whole new debate in 1948 but the uniqueness of the arguments of that case were not translatable to every miscegenation case that was out there. It took many years before these laws were struck down in the United States. Helping the cause was a case in Florida, McLaughlin v. Florida that dealt with the rights of non-married interracial couples to have sex. The Florida statute states, “Any negro man and white woman, or any white man and negro woman, who are not married to each other, who shall habitually live in and occupy in the nighttime the same room shall each be punished.”[iii] As with many of these laws across the South, the issue was not as much about non-whites mixing with whites as it was blacks mixing with whites. The case was argued before the Supreme Court of the United States and the Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. It was Florida’s specific targeting of blacks that led to the loss of the case. The Supreme Court stated, “I cannot conceive of a valid legislative purpose under our Constitution for a state law which makes the color of a person’s skin the test of whether his conduct is a criminal offense. These appellants were convicted, fined, and imprisoned under a statute which made their conduct criminal only because they were of different races. So far as this statute goes, their conduct would not have been illegal had they both been white or both Negroes … I think it is simply not possible for a state law to be valid under our Constitution which makes the criminality of an act depend upon the race of the actor. Discrimination of that kind is invidious per se.”[iv] While this case did not deal specifically with Florida’s miscegenation marriage statute, it helped to undermine the spirit of these laws across the South and it was not long before the Loving case would be the undoing of these laws all together.


            The story behind the Loving case was stated earlier and was the basis of the case but it became about much more than just Mildred and Richard. By the time the Loving case made it to the Supreme Court of the United States in April of 1967, the Japanese American Citizens League, the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the State of North Carolina had all joined the fray.[v] North Carolina joined with Virginia, but all of the others joined with the Lovings in hopes of finally overturning these laws. It became obvious by the outside interest this case was the pivotal case and in June of 1967, the Supreme Court struck down the Virginia statute. The Virginia miscegenation code stated, “Marriages void without decree – All marriages between a white person and a color person shall be absolutely void without any decree of divorce or other legal process.”[i] The Virginia code went on to define a white person, “the term ‘white person’ shall apply only to such person as has no trace whatever of any blood other than Caucasian; but persons who have one-sixteenth or less of the blood of the American Indian and have no other non-Caucasic blood shall be deemed to be white persons. All laws heretofore passed and now in effect regarding intermarriage of white and colored persons shall apply to marriages prohibited by this chapter.”[ii] The code goes on to state, “’Colored persons and Indians defined – Every person in whom there is ascertainable any Negro blood shall be deemed and taken to be a colored person, and every person not colored person having one fourth or more of American Indian blood shall be deemed an American Indian; except that members of Indian tribes … having one fourth or more of Indian blood and less than one sixteenth of Negro blood shall be deemed tribal Indians.”[iii] 

      Prior to this case going before the Supreme Court of the United States, it was heard before the Supreme Court of Virginia. That court ruled in favor of the State and reasoned, “the[re] [are] reasons supporting the validity of these laws … the State’s legitimate purposes were ‘to preserve the racial integrity of its citizens,’ and to prevent ‘the corruption of blood,’ ‘a mongrel breed of citizens,’ and ‘the obliteration of racial pride,’ obviously an endorsement of the doctrine of White Supremacy.”[iv] When the Supreme Court considered this case, it was based on the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The State of Virginia in its defense argued, “’Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.’”[v] In the Supreme Court’s ruling on Loving, the opinion of the Court was delivered by the Chief Justice Earl Warren. In his ruling he states, “There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy … There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.”[vi] With these words, Mr. Chief Justice Warren brought an end to miscegenation laws in the United States. While this did not magically wipe all the laws off the books, it gave those that were fighting against them a basis for their fight.

      For so much of this fight, Northerners viewed it as a Southern problem, the propagation of these laws across the country undermines this view, but it was nevertheless the opinion held by so many in this country. Like so many other issues, the 1960s became a time of change for this issue. The Supreme Court had firmly come down on the side of racial inclusion rather than racist exclusion and the opinions of the public were changing as well. There were, and still are, those that viewed racial mixing as a problem but they were becoming a minority instead of the majority. This change can be seen in not just the laws but the popular culture as well. One of the more popular movies of the 1960s was Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner starring Spenser Tracy and Sidney Poitier. Renee Romano writes in her book, Race Mixing: Black-White Marriage in Postwar America, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was both commercially and critically successful, breaking box-office records and garnering ten Academy Award nominations. The film resonated with members of an American public who were themselves worried about how the racial and social changes of the sixties might affect their own families.”[i] Romano goes on to state, “Yet in spite of its limitations, the film represented a very public refutation of the long-accepted white position on interracial marriage. It not only argued that interracial relationships could be healthy, but also suggested that social opprobrium should not prevent couples from marrying and placed whites who opposed interracial relationships in the wrong.”[i] Roman, in her examination of the changing atmosphere of the country, goes on to examine the marriage of Peggy Rusk and Guy Smith. Peggy is the daughter of then Secretary of State, Dean Rusk of Georgia, while Guy was “the light-skinned son of a black Washington, D.C., professional family.”[ii] This very public marriage of the daughter of a man of such political prominence was symbolic of the changes taking place across the country. Romano notes, “Although Rusk’s calm acceptance of his daughter’s marriage angered some of his Georgian relatives … the media praised Rusk for handling the marriage with dignity and grace. To Time magazine, Peggy and Guy’s union was ‘a marriage of enlightenment’ that would be remembered as ‘a benchmark in the troubled history of race relations in the United States.’ Most white readers responding to coverage in Time and Newsweek approved of the marriage.”[iii] The wide acceptance of both the movie and the marriage, more than anything else, signified the dramatic change of the attitude of the country as a whole.

      The shift in race relations in this country was a long and winding road. While we as a country would like to think that we have overcome the bigotry and hatred that stained our past, the election of President Obama highlighted how far we have come as a nation but also how far we still have to go. The relevance of this topic to modern marriage debates should not be lost. How many years will it be before future generations look upon our current debate with horror and disdain? To forget the relevance of past issues would be to diminish the lives of those that fought so hard to change this country. After all, most children still grow up with the expectation that they will meet that special someone, fall in love, get married, have children, and hopefully live their own fairytale ending. Never does the thought enter into the mind of a child, that when they meet the person they want to marry it will not be allowed. This was the issue and still is but we, as a society, can hope that when all is said and done, love will be the ultimate victor.


 Bibliography

 Chavez-Garcia, Miroslava. States of Delinquency: Race and Science in the Making of

 California’s Juvenile Justice System. Berkley: University of California Press, 2012.

 Ladd-Taylor, Molly. “Eugenics, Sterilisation and Modern Marriage in the USA: The Strange

 Career of Paul Popenoe.” Gender & History, Vol. 13, No. 2 (August, 2001). Pgs. 298-327.


Lombroso, Cesare. Criminal Man. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006.

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967). Supreme Court of United States (June 12, 1967).

McLaughlin Et Al v. Florida, 379 U.S. 184 (1964). Supreme Court of United States (December 7, 1964).


Morrison, Wayne. Theoretical Criminology: from modernity to post-modernism. London: Cavendish Publishing Limited, 1995.


Pascoe, Peggy. What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009.

 
Perez v. Sharp, 32 Cal.2d 711 (1948). Supreme Court of California (Oct 1, 1948).


 “Regulating Eugenics.” Harvard Law Review, Vol. 121, No. 6 (Apr., 2008). Pgs. 1578 – 1599.


Romano, Renee C. Race Mixing: Black-White Marriage in Postwar America. Gainesville: UP of Florida, 2003.


Schuler, Ruth Velma. “Some Aspects of Eugenic Marriage Legislation in the United States.” Social Service Review, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Mar., 1940). Pgs. 61-82.


Skinner v. Oklahoma Ex Rel. Williamson, Attorney General, 316 U.S. 535 (1942). Supreme Court of the United States (June 1, 1942).


Stern, Alexandra. Eugenic nation: faults and frontiers of better breeding in modern America. Berkley: University of California Press, 2005.


Stern, Alexandra. “Sterilized in the Name of Public Health: Race, Immigration, and Reproductive Control in Modern California.” American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 95, No. 7 (July, 2005). Pgs. 1128-1138.

[i] Romano, Pg. 204 

[ii] Romano, Pg. 204 

[iii] Romano, Pg. 204 

[i] Romano, Renee C. Race Mixing: Black-White Marriage in Postwar America. Gainesville: UP of Florida, 2003. Pg. 203 

[i] Loving 

[ii] Loving

[iii] Loving 

[iv] Loving 

[v] Loving 

[vi] Loving

[i] Perez 

[ii] Perez

[iii] McLaughlin Et Al v. Florida, 379 U.S. 184 (1964). Supreme Court of United States (December 7, 1964).

[iv] McLaughlin 

[v] Loving 

[i] Perez 

[ii] Perez

[iii] Perez 

[i] Chaves-Garcia, Pg. 4 

[ii] Chavez-Garcia, Pg. 4

[iii] Chavez-Garcia, Pg. 4 

[iv] Perez v. Sharp, 32 Cal.2d 711 (1948). Supreme Court of California (Oct 1, 1948). 

[i] Stern, Alexandra. Eugenic nation: faults and frontiers of better breeding in modern America. Berkley: University of California Press, 2005. Pgs. 10-11 

[ii] Chavez-Garcia, Miroslava. States of Delinquency: Race and Science in the Making of California’s Juvenile Justice System. Berkley: University of California Press, 2012. Pgs. 6-8 

[i] Morrison, Pg. 124 

[ii] Morrison, Pg. 124

[i] Lombroso, Pgs. 45-57

[ii] Morrison, Wayne. Theoretical Criminology: from modernity to post-modernism. London: Cavendish Publishing Limited, 1995. Pg. 124 

[iii] Morrison, Pg. 124 

[i] Pascoe, Peggy. What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Pg. 1 

[ii] Pascoe, Pgs. 1-2 

[iii] Lombroso, Cesare. Criminal Man. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. Pgs. 1-5 

[iv] Lombroso, Pgs. 1-5 

[v] Lombroso, Pgs. 1-10

[vi] Lombroso, Pgs. 1-10

[vii] Lombroso, Pgs. 8-10

[viii] Lombroso, Pg. 9 

Forgive and Forget?

I have had a lot of conversations through the years with friends, family members, and co-workers about forgiveness.  I also recently received the following email from Jim's Daily Awakenings:

Do you know what an Etch-a-Sketch is? Perhaps you had one when you were a child. It is a toy that enables you to draw things on a screen by moving two knobs: One produces a vertical line and the other makes a horizontal line. When you manipulate the handles effectively at the same time, you can create a lovely picture.
The thing I like about an Etch-a-Sketch is if you do not like the picture you make, all you have to do is shake it and then the picture goes away. Every time I see an Etch-a-Sketch I think about how wonderful forgiveness is.
The good news is that the One who made you has a great pardon without parole program. He gave us the chance to start over on the same terms that we had at the beginning.

This really made me think.  I love the idea behind this email and I understand that as a Christian this is the ideal that I should strive for but at my core I am human.  I may forgive but unlike an etch-a-sketch I can't just wipe the slate clean.  Sometimes the deed that needs forgiving is too deeply etched to simply go away.  Does that mean that I hold on to the hurt?  No, I strive for forgiveness, not so much to ease them but to ease myself.  I know that holding onto hate and anger causes me more damage than it does them and besides, I don't want that other person to have that much power over my life.  However, forgiveness can't always equal forgetting.  Simple hurts can be forgiven and forgotten but others just can't.  Does this make me a bad Christian? I certainly hope not but if it does I will just have to live with that.

One Thing Doesn't Mean Another

So here is the situation that I am in currently.  I have a job and I enjoy the job that I have and for the most part I really enjoy the people that I work with at this job.  I am also going to school and I am already making plans to leave my job.  This change won't happen tomorrow but it will happen sooner rather than later.  But all of this doesn't mean that I don't appreciate what I have or the opportunities that it has presented to me.  I think that sometimes people feel like it is showing a lack of gratitude or something of the sort to move on.  For me, the realization that I didn't want to move up into a management position at my current job was what sealed for me that I was at the wrong place.  If I have no desire to advance then perhaps this is not the place I should be long term.  SO this is what prompted me to go back to school.  I long for a job and a career that offer me more flexibility in life.  I want to be able to take a two week vacation, take a mission trip somewhere, to spend holidays with my family without having to worry about if so and so is already off, to take my birthday off, or whatever.  I don't think that these are things that are too crazy to ask for out of life and a job.  I want to have something that gives me the freedom to see beyond a desk and to feel like what I am doing has some sort of greater meaning.  This is in no way a knock to this job or the people that do it.  These are just my feelings on it. 

So in the meantime I work like crazy to get my education and reach my goal and also give 100% to my current job.  I do know that when I leave it will be bittersweet.  I think it would be impossible to walk away from a place you have worked for 17 1/2 years (when I finally do leave my job that will be the #) and not feel sorrow or a sense of loss.  However, that will be replaced with a renewed sense of opportunity for what life will bring.  Is the idea of this scary?  Heck yes it is scary.  Change is scary but worth it.  What is the old cliché? I would rather live with failure than regret?  Anytime you make a change you set yourself up for failure but that is life.  You make the big changes, you leave your comfort zone, you try new things, or you don't but just make sure that whatever you decide you don't do it out of fear.  Fear is no way to lead a life.  So this is me...dealing with the fear and pushing.  Pushing towards something better, pushing towards the unknown, pushing towards a life without regrets, finally.

Life or Death and a Change of Heart

When I started at the criminal justice program at Sam Houston State University in 1996, I was a definite supporter of the death penalty.  Someone close to me had lost two people she loved in a extremely brutal manner and it had solidified my belief that the death penalty was right and it was just.  I also had a rather naive belief that the justice system was fair and just.  Well, what do you expect I was young.  Through my studies my eyes were opened to truths and stories that I had been woefully unaware of for most of my life.  Now don't get me wrong, I know that our system is flawed but I do think that it is better than so many other so called justice systems out there.  I believe that our system works, for the most part and that the vast majority of the time it is guilty people that get convicted.  However, there in lies the problem...the vast majority of the time and not all the time because like it or not there are innocent people that end up in prison.  The fact is that if you are poor and a minority you are far more likely to be convicted of a crime you are charged with, innocent or guilty.  Now when you translate this into deciding death or life, then you have to stop and think for a bit.

I honestly do wish there was a fool proof way to know that the person convicted is actually guilty but there isn't and since that is the case then I had to rethink my support of the death penalty.  When I was a blind believer in the death penalty I was also a believer that the death penalty was a deterrent and I labored under the delusion that it was cheaper.  HOWEVER, these two justifications for the death penalty are far from being true.  The death penalty is not a deterrent for crime and there have been times when it has actually made the chain of events worse.  Also the cheaper part is total bs.  It is far more expensive to execute someone that it is to put them in prison for life. There were a couple of other events that happened while I was in college that helped to change my mind.  While I was at Sam, Karla Faye Tucker was scheduled for execution.  Now, I had read the book that detailed her crime and let me tell you, if there was ever a poster child for someone that "deserved" the death penalty then she was the girl.  Her crimes were horrific.  Seriously, I am not overstating this, it was horrific.  There was much debate about why she should or shouldn't be executed and I was firmly of the mind that she should be executed.  I knew that she was now clean and that she had been saved and I didn't doubt and still don't that this was genuine.  I hope for her sake that she had found salvation.  So, like so many other CJ students when the day came for her execution I went to the prison and joined the gathering outside.  Let me tell you something, what I saw that day disturbed me to my core.  I understand that she had committed horrific murders and I felt that the death penalty was the just punishment for her crime but I don't think any one's death is a reason to celebrate.  I don't think that death is a reason to throw a kegger and that is what I saw that day.  People laughing, cheering, and drinking like it was a frat party.  It was a disgusting display of humanity, or lack there of.  I walked away from that experience changed. 

The event that really sealed the deal for me was stepping foot in the death chamber.  As part of my criminal justice fraternity we were able to tour several prisons in and around Huntsville.  Well I happened to go on the tour for the Walls Unit.  This is the unit that is right down the street from campus and while the actual prison isn't high security it does house the death chamber.  About a week before the prisoner is to be executed they are transported to this unit and housed in a cell about (I suck as distances) 100 feet from the actual death chamber.  So as part of our tour we saw all of the different parts of the prison and learned the history.  The very last stop was this last stop death row and the death chamber.  Before entering the death chamber, the guard told us that some of us may not be able to stay in there and that was not uncommon.  He told us to leave and just wait outside for them and then he lead us in.  Now many in my group were excited to see it and most were not bothered by being in the room.  However, as soon as we were lead in it was like a weight settled around me.  I stood as far back from the bed they strap the inmate to as I could and listened to the guard explain the process.  Standing there and thinking about all of the people that had died in that room was just a lot to take in.  Death and evil were as physical of a presence in that room as the students standing there.  It didn't take long before I was overwhelmed and knew that I couldn't stay.  There were three of us I think that had to leave and all of us had felt the same way.  I can still remember the feeling that there were evil souls in that room with us.  It may sound crazy to some but until you stand there you just can't understand.  Leaving the prison that day, I began to rethink more than ever my belief in the death penalty.

My change of opinion and heart had been a gradual thing and it really was the culmination of learning and events that changed my mind but it did.  I stop and think now and I don't feel like I was put on this earth to judge who should live and who should die.  I also feel like those that support the death penalty should admit that it is retribution that they are seeking.  The problem with this is that retribution is not supposed to be a part of our justice system.  Fact is our justice system is flawed.  I don't think it is hopelessly flawed but it is flawed enough that I could not send a person to death row.  There are far too many factors that skew the system and justice along the way that I think it is far better to house someone for life than to administer our personal retribution. 

I Can't Deny I AM a Southern Girl

I know I am a Southern girl.  I find more peace with trees and lakes than in tall buildings and busy sidewalks.  Now don't get me wrong, I like the city.  I was born in Houston and I was raised in Houston and I do love everything that the city has to offer BUT when I am seeking peace and tranquility it isn't the city that provides it for me.  I think like most Southerners I also have this deep seeded love of home.  When I was starting my undergrad, way back when I was 19 (I took a year off), I went to many college campuses and for the most part as soon as I stepped on campus and walked a bit I would get a feeling as to whether I belonged there or not.  Seriously, I got a gut feeling and I went with it.  My Dad took me to a bunch of different campuses, I think he was living out his college dreams, that he wanted me to think about going to and among them were some great schools.  However, the moment I stepped foot on the campus at Sam Houston State University I KNEW deep down in my soul that I was home.  I knew that was the campus, the school that I should go to and I did.  It was the only one I applied to and when I got in I was so happy.  The trees, the size, the small town surrounding it, just everything about it invited me in and showed me that this was the place for me.  I never for one moment of my three years on Sam's campus regretted it.  I made wonderful life-long friendships there.  I got a top-notch education and in general had a fabulous time at school.

So fast forward 8 years (after graduation) and I was again contemplating schools.  Now I had enjoyed my time so much at Sam that I didn't exactly graduate with a stellar gpa and I was clueless what to do when I graduated so I just got a job.  So here I was, about 8 years later at a cross road in my life.  I knew in my heart that the job I had was not where I wanted to be in twenty years, I had passed up an opportunity to move up at work because I knew that I didn't want to stay....BUT what did I want to do?  Well, I went back to school.  I knew I couldn't get into grad school because that gpa just wasn't great.  So I decided to get another undergrad degree.  I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do and I bounced around some with the degrees but took classes online.  After a few years I finally decided to get on with things and I had settled on a degree (English) so I was once again contemplating colleges.  This is a much different concept when you are 35 than when you are 20.  I thought about going back to Sam and I even applied and was accepted but I knew that I would never be able to recapture what I had there when I was 21.  So instead, I applied to the University of Houston and have spent the last three years taking classes online. 

Now I have been on campus a time or two but I never really had the opportunity to get a feel for the campus.  Those visits were mainly hurried and done with a specific purpose and then I left.  However (and I swear I am getting to the whole I am a Southern girl thing), last fall I was at a point that I could no longer take classes online, I HAD to go to campus.  So with the support of my awesome bosses, I signed up for classes on T/TH mornings.  Last fall, I finally did get more of an appreciation for the campus.  I had some quiet mornings, sipping coffee and listening to the water in the fountains but the weather wasn't always welcoming and I spent more time inside than outside.  There were other factors that played into my state of mind last fall that also effected how I felt.  So now I have reached the point.  This spring semester is my last at UofH, I graduate in May.  A multitude of things have changed for me in the last few months and I am in a better frame of mind mentally.  So finally I can look at the campus with new eyes.  Throw into the mix that the weather has been getting steadily better around here and well it allowed me for the first time to see and feel my campus.  It inspired me to write what follows.  This was written Thursday morning, 3/20 at about 10 am.

In all my time of strolling the pathways of the campus I had never heard the tolling of the bells on the clock tower.  The seclusion and serenity of the inner campus is remarkable when you think it is surrounded by the fourth largest city in the country.  As the clock began to play and then the bells began to relay the hour the sound seemed to seep into my mind.  Glancing around at the grandeur and grace of the old trees I began to have images of a small Southern town, oaks as old as the South draped in Spanish moss, women in rocking chairs sipping sweet tea from a mason jar from their front porch, children running barefoot trying to catch lighten bugs, and it suddenly felt as if for the first time the campus was showing me this is home.  This was the choice that I was supposed to make for this part of my story.  Funny that it took this long for her to welcome me but she did it in such a spectacular way today.

Those images of Southern life my sound like clichés but they really aren't.  These are images I remember from my childhood.  These are images that are still played out in small towns all through the south all the time.  These are the images and all of the smells and sounds that go with them, that speak to my soul in a way that few other things can and ever will.  I know that no matter where life may take me, this place, these images, these people will always be home.

My Opinion - Bella, Katniss, & Role Models

I read a lot and along those lines I read a lot of young adult fantasy type books.  I enjoy reading all types of books.  I first read the Twilight books because I saw the ads for the movie and thought it look interesting.  I went to see it and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Since I understand that the book is pretty much always better than the movie, I immediately went out and bought the books.  I read all four of them in a week.  I seriously got little sleep and just read them and when I was finished I read them again.  I know there are some that are throwing up right now because I just admitted how much I love the Twilight books.  Yeah I can see how easy it is to judge them from an adult perspective but I think that too many people forget what it was like to be a teen girl.  Seriously, most teen girls are (or think they are) awkward and don't feel pretty.  They usually have a crush on a guy that they see as somehow unattainable.  So what happens when this guy suddenly is interested in them?  What happens when he suddenly thinks they are beautiful?  They don't believe it, they often fall into the realm of self doubt.  Hell there are a whole lot of adult women that react the same way.  I don't think that this makes Bella a weak person, it just makes her a normal teenage girl. 

I have heard a lot of criticism of Edward being an "abusive" personality and character but I just call bullshit on that as well.  Seriously have these people actually read the books?  He isn't abusive, he simply wants to protect her from everything that could harm her.  Isn't that what we do with people we love?  And let's face it, in his world there are lots of things that could harm her.  I don't know, I just don't see how people can be so critical of these characters and of Stephenie Meyer for writing them.  In the end, Bella proves just how strong she really is.  She does everything that she can to protect her family and her child.  She has grown up and is no longer that self-doubting teenager.  She learns that there are more important things in life than her love for Edward, it is her love for her child.  Isn't that something that we hear mothers say all the time?  Isn't that something that we would expect a strong person to think? Isn't this something that we admire Katniss for?  I mean Katniss is Prime's mother, for the most part, and she does whatever she has to do to keep her safe.  So why is Katniss considered such a hero and Bella is considered a weak, abused, horrible role model?

Honestly, I don't think fictional people should be our daughters or sons heroes.  These people are not real.  It is vastly more important for us to expose kids to real life heroes, people whose stories are real and not the figment of some one's imagination.  People should read and they should read a lot but we should not look to these characters to be our heroes or our inspirations.  To do that demeans in some way the real heroes that surround us every single day.  Take the time to find out the stories of those around you and it will surprise you how heroic everyday people can be.  I wouldn't want my daughter to be Bella, Katniss, or Tris when she grew up.  I would want her to be herself, to find her own path and her own inspirations along the way.  Books are wonderful and the foster imagination and offer an escape but they should never replace real people in our lives.

What is Love

So I am writing a paper for my history class on the link between "the inherent criminality of blacks" and miscegenation laws in the United States.  To say that researching this topic is both depressing and heartbreaking is an understatement.  To review medical journals and see terms like mongrel and hybrid thrown about in reference to children makes me sick to my core.  However, there is a very important reason to learn about the past.  We must understand where we came from in order to keep from going there again.  It is rather disturbing to see the government regulate who a person can marry but well that is still going on.  Which begs the question, how far have we come as a society?  Have we really become the progressive society that we pretend to be?  Or are we simply a bunch of fakes that pay really good lip service to ideals that we claim to have?  The way I view it people should only be judged by their character and actions and nothing else.  Who a person loves is their business and no matter what religion I am, it is ultimately NOT my place to judge.  My faith taught me to love my fellow man and that whatever actions they take will be between them and God, not me.  Call me crazy but I thought that this is what Christianity was all about.  So I think the question isn't really what is love but perhaps a better question is why not love?

Below is a snippet of my introduction for my history paper.  All comments are welcome.

Boy meets girl.  They fall in love.  They get married.  They have kids.  They live happily ever after.  This is the formula for every story that we were told as children.  This is what we were supposed to strive for in our lives.  This idea of love and a happily ever after.  So what happens if one of the people in this equation is black?  Does this make a difference?  For the vast majority of people the answer is a resounding no.  The only thing that matters in this equation is the love, not who we love.  However, this was not the case for so many.  Those that felt that race was an important part of the equation set out to make it impossible aka illegal and they succeeded in many places.  This notion that the government can regulate who we can and can't love is not one that has died out today but I get ahead of myself.

Rose Petals on the Floor

So as I said before I was going to be flexing my creative muscles on here and well a friend of mine had a really really shitty day.  For some unknown reason she likes when I write so I am writing this little snippet for her in hopes that it helps her end her day on a better note than she started it.

So the writing prompt that I picked was "Write about rose petals strewn on the floor."  Instead of taking that to the obvious, overly done and overly sentimental romantic scene, this is what I came up with instead.  Enjoy!

     Detective Chris Robinson made his way towards Katy's apartment.  Stopping short of the door way, he noticed that the door was slightly ajar.  Chris unholstered his Beretta and approached with caution.  He knew there was no way that Katy would leave her door open on purpose, she was way to cautious of a girl to do that.  Bracing himself for what was to come, he pushed open the door and announced his presence, "HPD!  Katy are you ok?"  The stillness of the apartment coupled with the scene that lay before him chilled him and filled his soul with dread.  His feet crunched the glass as he made his way into the room.  Bright red rose petals, glass, water, and blood were strewn across the floor.  Stepping carefully, he continued to check the apartment.  Empty, completely empty.  Grabbing his radio to call in the report and request CSI, Chris turned back and saw what he had missed as he came in, a bloody hand print on the door frame as if someone was trying to keep from being dragged out the door.  His hope now was that he would find Katy in time.

Flexing My Creativity

     So I have this board on Pinterest that is called "I like to think I am a writer" and on it I pin a variety of writing generated pins.  Well, during the course of developing this board I found a fellow pinner that pins writing prompts to help writers flex their creativity.  So this is my first attempt at one of these prompts.  I am going to post some of these from time to time (maybe more than just time to time) and I am going to use them to flesh out characters for my novel.  So, if you have read the beginnings of my novel you will recognize some of the characters that may appear in these from time to time.  I doubt these scenes will make it into the novel, so you can view it as a personal inside into a character.

     Here is my writing prompt:  Your protagonist (the original prompt was for antagonist but I am doing protagonist first) is alone.  A favorite piece of music plays in the background.  What is it?  Why is it so special?..... here goes nothing....


     Katy sits, legs folded under her, snuggled into her sofa.  Her mug of tea growing cold in her hand as she watches the light spring rain slowly soak the city.  Lost in her inner dialogue she knows what she needs to do.  Her gut is telling her the direction to go but her head doesn't want to follow.  Sighing, she sits her now cold mug of tea on the table and continues to contemplate.  Suddenly the music that has filled her background but not her mind registers.  The familiar strains of "The Chair" fill her mind and flood her with memories.  Getting up and walking over to the radio, Katy picks up her parents wedding picture and turns up the song.  How many times did she watch as her Mom's hand disappeared into her Dad's as they headed to a dance floor?  It didn't matter where they were, if this song came on her Dad would pull her Mom close and dance with her.  More often than not he would sing the words to her softly in her ear.  Katy smiled as she recalled watching her Dad going up to request this song at a family wedding and then pulling her Mom to the dance floor.  It was always so obvious the love they had for each other, whenever they danced together.  She knew her Mom loved George Strait but she never knew the special connection that they had to this song in particular.  Guess I will never know now, she thought to herself.  As the song ended, Katy looked back down and the picture and realized that her head had finally got on board with her gut.  She knew what she had to do.

     Writing prompt #2 --- Your antagonist is alone.  A significant (yeah I know I changed it again) piece of music plays in the background.  What is it?  Why is it so special?

     Sitting in his car outside of Katy's apartment, he watched the rain and wondered how much she had figured out.  He knew she was getting close but how much had the bitch figured out?  Looking up, he wondered if she would be coming out anytime soon.  Not sure how much longer I can sit here without being noticed.  Suddenly "The Chair" fills his car and his anger fills him.  He despised this song so much.  How many times did he watch their sickening displays of love?  Oh sure they loved each other but they sure didn't give a shit about him.  That was something that had proven time and time again.  Gripping the steering wheel, he barely contained the rage that engulfed him as he remembered that last night.  They had been so smug but he had shown them.  The surprise and terror in their eyes as he snuffed out their life was like a balm to his soul.  Reaching over he turned off the radio and got out of his car.  Enough of this sitting and waiting, if she won't come to me I will go to her.

Oh No....It's The "R" Word

That's right, I am going to talk about that dirty R word....Religion.  Now before you just click off of this hear me out.  I am not going to try to convert you or unconvert you (whichever the case might be for you). BUT I do want to write about something that irks me.  So here it goes.  I am a Christian.  I have very strong faith and some rather traditional views on things.  This may surprise some people but that is the truth.  I don't normally discuss religion because I understand that everyone has their own opinion and often their view doesn't match mine.  I equate religion with politics in that way.  With that being said, I also think that everyone is free to believe or worship in their own way.  I am not a regular church goer.  I could lie and say that I am at church every weekend but I am not.  I am not even a CEO (Christmas Easter Only).  I go when I can and I usually enjoy it when I go. 

So here is the issue.  I started practicing/participating Lent in college.  If you had read my previous blog, then you know that I started as a result of conversations with Kelly.  Every year I give something up.  I do this because it helps me connect with my faith.  I personally don't feel like you have to be any particular religion to do this, you just have to have the desire.  What bothers me is how incredulous people become when they find out that I do Lent and I am not Catholic.  Ummmm, why is this so incredible to you and more importantly why is this so important to you?  I have been questioned about this endlessly and it seems like no matter what I say, people just form their own opinion about my motives.  I don't feel like I have to explain and justify my practices but people seem to feel like it is their business.  Why is this?  Why do people feel like they need to be involved in another person's faith or spirituality?  Faith and spirituality are something that is usually deeply personal to a person but for some reason people seem to think it is open season to question and judge.

Now I could understand better if I was using my faith, religion, or spirituality to judge others but I don't.  I actually don't usually discuss it with people.  It isn't because I am ashamed to be a Christian but because I just don't feel the need to wave it around like it makes me better.  I don't know.  Maybe nothing I am typing here makes sense but I just don't get it.  Why is it so hard to live and let live?  Why is it so hard to believe that not everything about a person is your business?  Maybe that sounds harsh but it is true.  So I don't know, I guess I will just continue to do what I do and try and ignore everything else.  It just amazes me how people will judge you for having faith or not having faith.  They will judge you for practicing or not practicing.  They will just judge you and in the end that is their problem and not yours.

For Kelly

     I am not sure exactly why but Kelly has been on my mind so much lately.  Perhaps it is Valentine's Day or Lent or her upcoming birthday but I just keep thinking of all of the memories I have of her.  I met Kelly in 1997 at Gibbs House at Sam Houston.  She was my suitemate and before long became my friend.  We were both CJ majors, she was a grad student and I was an undergrad, and we used that to form a bond.  Kelly was that friend, you know, the one that was a little more socially conscious, a little more politically conscious, and compared to the rest of us, a lot more responsible.  We met after her, as she called it, wild days.  The Kelly I knew was a loving, smart, funny, supportive, dedicated, and loyal friend.  If you were lucky enough to be allowed to get to know the real Kelly then you had the privilege of getting a genuine friend.  I said that Valentine's Day reminds me of Kelly and it does.  I remember having conversations with her about Valentine's Day and consumerism.  I had never seen it that way.  Kelly's philosophy was we should let those we know what they mean to us everyday and not just because it was some preset, pre-programmed consumer holiday.  And you know what, she was right.  However, she followed this up by giving us all "non-Valentine's Day gifts" on Valentine's Day.  Kelly was funny like that. 

     Lent reminds me of Kelly because she was the first non-Catholic person I have ever met that participated in Lent.  When we talked about it, she told me that with everything that Jesus had done to redeem her soul, the least she could do was give up something (usually bread) for Lent.  Ahhh, bread, it is strange how something like that can remind you of a person but bread certainly reminds me of Kelly.  Well, bread and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray butter.  I have never met a person that loved bread as much as Kelly.  It was comical to see her make her run to Wally World (Walmart for those that don't know) at just the right time to get that hot, fresh French bread.  And yes, she knew just when they put out the fresh baked bread.  With her ever ready bottle of spray butter, she was a happy girl.

     As I write this, I am flooded with other memories and images of Kelly.  Shopping with her at the Salvation Army as she prepared for prison guard boot camp, sitting next to her at church on Easter Sunday, laughing with her at my sister's apartment, going with her to pick up her first new car, dragging her to a Garth Brooks concert with me, hugging her as we both cried for a beloved professor that had lost his son, sitting next to her on the front steps of Gibbs House and making fun of the sorority girls, going with her to donate her old car to the local homeless shelter, laughing as she organized the Sonic happy hour run, talking to her late into the night about life and family.  I really could just go on and on.  Because of Kelly I did learn to look at life differently.  I learned to have a little more faith in myself.  I learned to love those around me more (or maybe to just show it more).  I learned to be more socially conscious.  I think I learned to be a better person because of Kelly. 
    
     I wish that we had stayed in better contact after I graduated but as so often happens with college friends, time and distance separated us and life happened.  One of the last times I saw her was the day she graduated with her Masters degree.  We kept in sporadic touch and we had even talked about trying to see each other this summer when I made a trip to the east coast but now that won't happen.  I am left with my memories of Kelly and that will have to do for now.  I know that I will see her again but for now I will keep her memory alive in my own way.  I will continue my Lent tradition (which I started in college because of her).  I will add bread to what I give up every year in her honor.  I will tell those I love that I love them and not just because it is Valentine's Day.  I will make a wish and say a prayer for her on her birthday (which happens to be the day before mine).  I will follow my dreams and do my best to be a better person because I know that she would want that for me.

     So to any of Kelly's family or friends that may read this, I extend my love and sympathy.  Her life and her memory mean something still.  Kelly, you made a difference in this world and in my life, more than I think you will every know.  My only regret is that I didn't get to tell you that.  I love you and I miss you my sweet friend. 

Until we meet again~
Lisa

Ever Have One of THOSE Days?

You know the days where you don't want to be bothered with anyone or anything?  Seriously, Thursday was that day.  I woke up and I didn't want to get up.  I didn't want to go to work and I CERTAINLY DID NOT WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL.  I didn't want to see anyone and I didn't want to talk to anyone.  I wanted to stay in my bed and do absolutely nothing.  And before any smartass asks, there was no depression, pms, bad weather, or anything involved.  I just wanted to opt out of the day.  I didn't of course, I got up and got ready and went to school.

Now these feelings were intensified because I wasn't prepared for the day.  I had fallen asleep the night before and hadn't finished my homework.  So after I got to school I spent my free moments before my first class finishing an assignment that was due that day and trying to read some of what I had neglected the night before but my heart was not in it.  I finished the assignment but I am sure I could have done it better.  My first class is relatively "easy" when compared with the other two classes I am taking so it wasn't so bad.  However, my second class and especially my third class, I spent a good portion of it staring at the professor like a stupid person because my brain was not computing what was coming out of his mouth.  I could hear and see what was going on but I was not understanding a damn thing and I most certainly was not retaining anything that was being said.  I kept looking around the class and thinking am I the only one that is hopelessly confused.  It appeared that I was and that didn't help my mood.  *sigh*  I sucked it up and made it through all three classes and then headed to work but I swear I am not sure that I got anything done while I was there either.  It was bad.  Maybe waking up feeling that way is God's way of saying keep your butt in bed.  I wish I was still the irresponsible girl from college all those years ago that would have just chunked Thursday the finger and gone back to sleep but I'm not. 

SO what did I do?  I made it through with minimal damage.  I came home (and by this time the weather sucked balls) and I had hot chocolate and got in my bed.  Friday was a good day.  I guess we have to just make it through those days and count our blessings (well I do) that those days are few and far between because frankly my gpa can not take many days like that this semester.

See this is why we don't call them resolutions!

Yup so if anyone is actually keeping track of what I said in my last blog then you realize that I have already "broken" one of my goals for this year...well actually two.  But you know that is how life works.  This is why I don't call these things resolutions.  I know many people make resolutions and then beat themselves up or get completely derailed when they don't stick with it.  However, in all of the infinite wisdom that I have gained in the last couple of years I have realized that in order to succeed I can't beat myself up for every little thing that doesn't go as planned.  So yup I confess I didn't blog last week and I didn't get an hour of exercise in either.  I could pile up the excuses about why I didn't do those things but they would be just that excuses.  What I have done is put it behind me and moved on.  I started logging my food again this week and it feels good to do that....almost like I am getting my life back in order.  I started school this week too and man oh man it is going to be a doozy of a semester.  So I am pretty sure that you guys (well if there are any "you guys" reading this) will probably get a blog or two or twenty dealing with school problems and also ideas that carry over from school onto this blog.  I will spend the next three and a half months with my nose stuck in a book and more than likely my butt parked in a library chair.  I have two research classes and with those two classes come two very long papers that I have to write...in addition to required blogging, papers, tests, and well all the super fun reading that goes with being an English and History major at a four year university.  I will also sometime in the very very near future be applying to grad school and then sweating out the answer on that one.  So needless to say it will be a long but hopefully interesting spring.

SO back to the whole resolutions thing, since I have clearly wandered....I think the most important thing for success is to never lose sight of the end goal.  That is what I am applying to school and this semester and that is what I am applying to several of my year long goals.  I have an end in sight for them and even if I misstep along the way I can still get to where I want and need to be.  I just have to be kind to myself (after all who else will do it?) and remember the ultimate goal.  These aren't things that are whim decisions these are goals that will help me be a better me.  So on that note I will bid y'all adieu and hit the books.  I mean hell in three and a half months I will have TWO diplomas in my hand and I want a kick ass gpa to go right along with them!

New Year blah blah blah

No this isn't one of those YAY! new year new me blogs.  This isn't to bash people that do the new year new me thing but I have found that making the stereotypical resolutions just doesn't work for me.  I do have some things that I want to work on this year but I don't consider them resolutions...instead they are goals for the year.  This may just be splitting hairs but I think resolutions are usually open-ended and don't give true and believable time frames for these achievement.  So in the end they don't really work....well not for me anyway. So here it goes....in no particular order....these are some of the goals that I have for myself for this year.  I am offering them up to the internet gods and whoever happens to read them.  I will blog (probably not frequently enough) on my success or failures regarding these goals.

1.  Lose 100 lbs by 12/31/2014 - I know this is a completely achievable goal but I will probably break it down into smaller shorter goals that will help keep me motivated.

2.  Attend church at least once a month.  I know I know I should go every Sunday but I think this is a more reasonable and achievable goal for me.  So baby steps towards salvation.

3.  Make and keep one girl's night a month.  I have a tendency to ignore my friends during school and I need these nights out to decompress and just feel normal.

4.  Exercise for at least one hour a week.  Considering that I have not been exercising at all this won't be the easiest to keep but it is important to achieving #1.

5.  Go to Memphis and visit my Dad and bonus Mom once before June and one more time before December 31st.

6.  Plan and take a vacation.  The plan is for a road trip in May or June and hopefully that will work out.

7.  Get at least a 3.5 GPA for my final semester of undergrad studies at UofH.

8.  Family date/game night once a month.  Just like my friends, my family usually get the shaft during school...sooooo they should get equal billing.

9.  Blog at least once a week.

10.  Finish my book by September 1, 2014.

There are a couple of others but these are the main goals for me.  Like I said I will set mini goals within some of these larger goals but this is it.  So they are out there and I can't take them back.  Now I just have to get on the ball and start working towards them.  So if you are reading this...what are your goals for 2014?