Not just penciled in

"Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning."
- Bill Gates

When I saw this quote, several things crossed my mind. The first was that I have to agree with the fact that yes, there is a lot more that you can do with your time instead of go to church on a Sunday morning. You can walk your dog, check your email, read the paper or just sleep in. However, none of those things will serve you very well after you die. It's pretty important that you have a relationship with God...you know, there's this whole thing where if you're saved, you go to Heaven and if you don't, you don't. I think that receiving eternal salvation is more important than walking your dog, and that developing a relationship with the God who loves you is a bit more pressing than figuring out what 37 down is in the crossword puzzle.

The second thing that crossed my mind was the fact that God isn't supposed to be efficient. He was not trying to fit into our schedules, and he doesn't really care if he messes up your plans. He doesn't exist to fit into your plans, but rather, you exist to fit into his.

I'm not saying that I am always in church when I should be, or that there haven't been many Sundays when I've wished the entire time that I was in church that I was somewhere else. Because I haven't, and there have been. Nevertheless, I realize that on a Sunday morning, there is nowhere I should be but in church with other Christians, allowing God to see that he is more important than efficiency.

Not knowing the context of this quote, I'm going to have to say that it features a pretty bleak outlook on life in general. After all, when all you have to live for is keeping up with your schedule and crossing things off of your list, when your life goal is efficiency, your life, well, sucks.

I may not have a massive fortune, and people all over the world may not respect and revere me, but at least my life isn't so full of other things and times, meetings to attend and contracts to sign that I feel the need to always be efficient, even on a Sunday morning, even to the extent of blocking God out of my life because he didn't call my secretary for an appointment.

Should kids be allowed to watch TV?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/76823/page/1

The above link is a story by Karen Springen in the August 21 issue of Newsweek. I came upon it while reading another article, and found it really very interesting. The issue at hand, for those of you who would rather not read the article is the author's decision to not allow her children to watch television.

My first reaction to this was one of utter disbelief. As a girl who fully remembers watching Sesame Street, The Muppet Show and, yes, Barney as a child, I remember many good times spent before the television, times that were downright fun. Apparently, I didn't suffer any ill side-effects from the hours I sat glued to the screen, because here I am, happy, healthy, well adjusted and quite normal, thank you very much.

Upon further consideration, however, I realized that, as the author says in her piece, there is more to life than images coming out of the TV screen. Springen notes that her daughters spend quite a bit of time reading, playing outside and enjoying museums. Wait right there.

Come to think of it, none of my favorite childhood memories feature television shows. Instead, the good times I had with my family, reading a good book or playing outside in the backyard alone are the times that I recall when I think back to the happiest times in my childhood.

I used to watch a large number of educational shows on TV. By used to, I mean as recently as last summer. Once I came to college, though, I made the transition to almost no TV time. The only TV show I regularly watch now is Lost, once a week for an hour. I've found that the vast majority of things on TV just don't interest me. Granted, there is still a lot that does, but these days, turning on the TV for entertainment just doesn't really occur to me.

Now, I don't have children at the moment, nor do I want them any time soon. Despite this fact, however, I have to consider the fact that kids don't need TV to be happy. I'm thinking that when I have kids, I'll probably want to limit the hours they spend watching TV, but not ban them all together. after all, as long as parents know what their kids are watching, TV isn't bad.

OMG...Look at me!! The story of the modern American teenager

This post is about the like, totally cool new thing where really awesome people do really awesome things and then post the really awesome pictures on their Facebook profiles and Myspace pages.
See, the idea is pretty much like this: we go out, drink (while underage!!!!!), mess around, whatever, who cares, and then post alllll of our sweet pictures online for everyone to see. Dude, trust me, it's awesome. Everyone will love looking at the endless supply of us both holding like five different kinds of alcohol while smoking.

Yeah, the boring lame types will be all like "Don't do that, blah blah blah...." They totally think that having those pictures up on the internet "will ruin your future forever." Whatever. Like, everyone does it anyways. And really, what kind of employers actually take time out to look at that stuff? Duh, none. Anyway, it's not like they don't want to be doing the same thing. Hellloooo...everyone wants a killer social life. Don't hate.


OK, so here's the plan. You grab the hookah and I'll take the picture and flip off the camera. Deal?

Where I Want To Be

The winner of the what should Katie write about contest is Mark. Sure, he was the only entrant and quite possibly the only reader of my post, therefore making him the only one who cares...(jk, if anyone else reads this!), but I really liked his suggestion.

If I could go anywhere, specifically, on vacation, I would chose China. Now I am aware that China is quite large, and most people would probably narrow it down to a specific city or place, however I would like to see quite a bit of it, so I won't get that specific.

Why China, you may ask? Well, for one I really want to teach English there at some point. I think that it would be absolutely incredible to do so, and would love to be able to live in China for a year or two and do just that. But since I am talking about taking a vacation, I would probably start out in Hong Kong, just to get my bearings (English is probably a little more common there). From there, I would work my way up, stopping at Guangzhou, Shanghai, Xi'an and the Great Wall before ending up in Beijing.

I think that being immersed in China for a week or two or fifty two would be incredible. I'm not gonna lie, I think China is a pretty sweet place. It's no America, but it's awesome.

Nope...not happening.

It is definitely time to write a new post. There is however, a slight problem.

I have no idea what to write about. A million thoughts crossed my mind as I pondered this dilemma, however, none were good enough to make the cut. I will now take suggestions.