Ramblin' On and on and on and on... and on...

This weekend I spent a lot of time thinking about life. How things change. How people hardly know the real me, even my close friends. How the government is messed up. How spoiled rotten people in the United States are. And how much I absolutely love my family.

A lot of the time I feel like I'm holding in my self from others. I know I'm personable and friendly. Sometimes I'm a little shy, but sometimes I'm extremely outgoing. I know I tend to hold my feelings in and just deal with all the flack people seem to give me. I've got one deep soul, and million dreams I'd love to accomplish. Thousands of places I'd like to see and a trillion people I'd love to make happy.

Sometimes I get on this thing just wanting to type something, let people know what's going on in my head. But then I just bottle up the feelings again and keep them to myself. It's one pretty big problem. I just need to let them out.

I wish people knew me. I wish I had people I could share everything with. I miss the good old days when my friends and I were extremely tight, but who knows where they went. It seems like school is taking over our lives and keeping us from being who we truly are. I know for certain that studying is keeping us apart, and somewhat keeping me back from the things I'd love to do right now. If I could, I'd fly to India, live there for a couple months, connect with myself for a while, meet new people, and experience something new. I've been thinking a lot about what I'd love to do when I'm done here at Utah State. I know I'm gonna take a few years off before I hit up a grad school. I know this might sound unoriginal because I've heard a lot of people talk about doing this, but I'd totally hitting up the Peace Corps. I want to help, it's all I want to do. People all over the world could use my help. I feel so guilty spending time here in America trying to better myself and educate myself so I can live a better life when my life is already a million times more advanced than the lives of many people around the world. I want to dedicate myself to them 100%. They deserve it. I want to offer them all I can.

I seriously can't live with the fact that I have a nice apartment, with a carpeted floor covered in clothing I cannot wear. For my sociology class, I'm doing a service project, but it's also for the people of Indonesia. I'm collecting school supplies for the children, clothing for everybody, and any cash donations. If you would chip in that would be amazing! I know a lady who travels to Indonesia about 3 times a year for a month of so, and offered to personally take them to the people. A couple summers ago, I traveled to Bali expecting a nice vacation in paradise--don't get me wrong, it totally was-- but I also noticed the quality of life and the lack of necessities the people had. They had hardly any clothing or food. Most lived in shacks and burned their garbage in the street. Many did not have shoes and slept on the ground. But, the most remarkable thing I could not overcome was how incredibly happy they all were. They loved life and saw the beauty in everything. They are the most humble people I've ever known. When I was there, I took over a bunch of old clothing. It was amazing to see how excited everybody was to be getting one of my old shirts, even it it was the wrong size and completely out of fashion. It feels so good to know that I made a difference in some peoples' lives.

The Extent of Poverty

"Poverty in poor countries is more widespread than it is in rich nations such as the United States. The U.S. government officially classifies almost 13 percent of the population as poor. In low-income countries, however, most people live no better than the poor in the United States, and many are far worse 0ff. Death rates are the highest among the children in Africa, indicating that absolute poverty is the greatest there, where half the population is malnourished. In the world as a whole, at any given time, 15 percent of people--about 1 billion--suffer from chronic hunger, which leaves them less able to work and puts them at high risk of disease.
The typical adult in a rich nation such as the United States consumes about 3,500 calories a day, which is actually too much and leads to obesity and related health problems. The typical adult in a low-income country not only does more physical labor but consumes just 2,000 calories a day. the result is undernourishment: too little food or not enough of the right kinds of food.
In the ten minutes it takes you to read through this, about 300 people in the world who are sick and weakened from hunger will die. This amounts to about 40,000 people a day, or 15 million people each year. Clearly, easing world hunger is one of the most serious challenges facing humanity today." (Society: The Basics by John Macionis)

I read this the other day in my sociology 1010 textbook. How does it make you feel? It made my friend Arevik burst out in tears and her body shake. How about this next part?

"Death comes early in poor societies, where families lack adequate food, safe drinking water, secure housing, and access to medical care. Organizations fighting child poverty estimate that at least 100 million city children in poor countries beg, steal, sell sex, or work for drug gangs to provide income for their families. Such a life almost always means dropping out of school and puts children at high risk of disease and violence. Many girls, with little or no access to medical assistance, become pregnant, a case of children who cannot support themselves having children of their own.
Analysts estimate that another 100 million of the world's children leave their families altogether, sleeping and living on the streets as best they can or perhaps trying to migrate to the United States. Roughly half of all street children are found in Latin American cities sich as Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro, where half of all children grow up in poverty. Many people in the United States know these cities as exotic destinations, but they are also home to thousands of children living in makeshift huts, under bridges, or in alleyways (United Nations Development Programme, 2000; Collymore, 2002)."

I wish...

Everybody could just get along. Despite all their differences, I truly believe that people should accept other people for who they are. You can't dislike a person for a quality you do not have, whether that quality is good or bad. They are still a person and you should not label them deviant or whatever without getting to know who that person truly is. So, please, think next time you decided to automatically hate somebody, they could end up being your best friend and the one who cares the most for you.

My Hero.

Arevik Vardanyan. She is one hella amazing gal. Get to know her. :)

what's on maki's mind today

• Repetition and Conformity among peers. Drives me crazy. I cannot tell anybody apart. They dress the same, the act the same. What makes them unique? Nothing. They just conform to the standards set by their religion, which they occasionally break, and create hypocrites of themselves. Maybe they should take a chance, drink some coffee, not wear makeup or do their hair. Maybe they should swear, pierce their eyebrows, and become walking artwork. Oh, and show some cleavage for once ;) it'll do ya some good.
• NO! Because then we wouldn't be unique.
• Pure opposites, no?