Back, for a little while

Goodness! It's been a little while now, hasn't it? I thought I was going to be able to sit around in my free time and blog, but senior year has turned out to be much busier than I thought! The first week was quite fun. My school has a system of Old Girl/New Girl. One of my new girls is great: she's from Germany, and is just the sweetest girl. The other one is very shy, and rarely speaks, which is very frustrating for me since I talk a lot. But I am doing my best to make them feel comfortable among all the chaos I have to work through. College applications, rewriting my college essay (I didn't like my original topic...) and of course schoolwork. Phew!
Wish I could write more, but unfortunately my Mussolini and Italy textbook is calling to me, as well as my math homework and script for the play (which is about mothers and daughters -- I can relate so much to it).
Til my next free moment, unless I find myself dozing (not in class, I swear!)
Cat

2 Days with Bated Breath

This isn't so much a real post like the ones I've written before, but more of an update. I go back to the States in 2 days and I'm afraid that for a week or so I won't have a computer (cries). So this is just a message to convey my excitement at going back to what I truly consider to be home, and also to note that I may not update for a week or so. That, and I've been super duper busy getting ready to leave: packing, unpacking, repacking, giving away clothes, stealing mom's belts (hey, what can I say, she had some style back in the day). Dentist, computer store, eye doctor... it's absolutely hectic! But soon I will be back with a vengeance reporting on my daily life in school and the usual things I've blogged about. So until then, TTFN and thank you to everyone who's given me support on this blog! I truly appreciate it!

Catherine

(image by: http://flickr.com/photos/fbarrientos/)

5 Days and a New Laptop (Maybe)

In 5 days, I head back to the US. Truth be told, I couldn't be happier in some ways, and I couldn't be more apprehensive in others. Happy to get out of the rain, to get back to the place I consider home, to see my friends, to go back to "normal" (whatever that is). Apprehensive to dive headfirst into my senior year, to apply to colleges, to decide what to do with the rest of my life.

I have some time to figure that out though. Right now what is troubling me is the fact that my laptop has practically fallen apart. It has served me well for more than four years, but I think it's time to let go. It's sort of a token to the past, this old laptop of mine. Stickers on the cover, stories I wrote when we first moved to Panama. It holds a lot of memories (not to mention a lot of things I need for school and work -- yikes!)

So, now not only do I have to repay my parents for that atrocious phone bill, but I also have to pay for a new laptop. Thankfully it's not actually new, but refurbished and from eBay, so that's not too bad. But losing my old laptop, though it was giving me a hard time (to the point of pulling out my hair as it froze in 5-minute intervals) will be difficult.

So I guess it's back to work for me. I guess that I am going to have to seriously work on managing my time better once I get back in school, because it's going to be a hectic time already, without the added pressure of needing to work to repay my parents about $700. Guess I really am growing up and learning to fend for my own. Exhilirating and frightening, but on the whole, I'd have to say pleasing. It's nice to know that even at 17 years old I have some talents that can be used to rake in a little dough.

P.S. What do you think of the new look?

My General View on Politics

Before getting to the actual post, I want to respond to several emails that I've received that I am not worried about having posted my age up on my blog. I have had a few people tell me that perhaps I will not attract the readers I want, or that my views will not be respected regardless of the quality of my writing because of it. Thank you for this concern, as the point is quite legitimate, but so far I have not had any trouble and am actually quite pleased with the traffic that has generated for this blog.

Also, I am going to change the design of the blog (again, I know), so if things start looking funky, that's probably what I'm in the middle of doing. Why am I changing it again? I was not satisfied with the "blah-ness" of the first design, nor am I pleased with the second (especially since I did not spend half the time I should have creating it). Therefore, it will change again.

Now, lately I have been reading a lot about the presidential elections: the fraud about Obama's birth certificate, the speech he gave in Berlin, and many people's opinions that McCain is sure to lose.

Normally I despise politics. Actually, I still do. However, I think my disgust with the whole political world has crossed over into some sort of hatred. The fact that presidential nominees spend billions of dollars on their campaigns (taxpayers money, mind you), all the while complaining of recession and the poor state of the American economy makes me realize just what scumbags politicians are. Not only this, it pains me to see how many people are willing to buy into the junk that they throw around as facts, and how unwilling they are to see what's right in front of their eyes.

For one thing, I hate when candidates talk about their vision of the world or the change they know is so important to our society. Well, can you please tell me how you're going to fulfill this vision, and accomplish this change? No? Well, never mind then. Guess it was sort of unreasonable for me to ask, huh.

Not only that, it worries me that one of these candidates (I'll leave it to you to figure out who -- not that it's difficult) is already acting like he's president, has a friend who was an ex-terrorist (part of the Weathermen in the 60's and 70's), and has world politicians like Chavez, current president of Venezuela and socialist anti-American, avidly supporting him.

Well, never mind that. In general, as a person of integrity and honesty, I don't like the world of politics, public relations, or biased journalism and/or other forms of media. I don't like manipulating words to convey something as the truth when it is not. Where did the integrity of these organizations go?

It seems I'm in a negative mood, but there's one more thing I really don't like: political correctness. Sorry, but I'm of the opinion that it is not racist to call a black hole a black hole instead of a vortex or a vacuum. And what is the world coming to when it is considered racist for a toddler to say "yuck" when eating a foreign food?

I'm afraid the modern world is changing beyond repair, and that thought truly scares me. Though the environmentalists talk about alternate energy sources, they block every attempt to utilize nuclear power to its full capacity (which these days, though complicated, is totally safe). They delay drilling for oil in our own soil (Alaska, the Gulf), which would allow for 4% of oil spills to be eliminated (since these 4% occur during transportation) and also for the US to become less dependant on, for example, Middle Eastern oil.

I am one of the people of my generation truly wondering what to do about the future. Just to remind people, one day we will be the leaders of the world, and we have to fix things up so that we even live that long. And it truly disappoints me how little my generation thinks about that. I worry about what kind of difference I will ever be able to make, while tons of girls my age are only thinking about partying and hooking up with guys.

And unfortunately, I just don't see this election, no matter how it turns out, to be a step in the right direction.