31 Day Blog Challenge List

Here are the rules:
- I have 28 blog topics that I will blog about.
- One topic/day
- I must blog everyday in May (2015)
- In addition to the post I must post 2 photos: one of myself and one of something else (something I did, ate, something memorable, etc). The photo aspect will be more of just a journalling aspect to the blog challenge.
- I have left 3 posts open so if I feel like blogging about something I didn't write about in the moment I can choose to do so.
- The list is not in order, I will pick whichever I wish doing each day.

For the 3 posts left open, I will also take suggestions for blog posts. If there is a topic you want my opinion on or something creative you want me to write, I'll probably do it. If there are no suggestions or no suggestions I feel like writing about, I will leave them open to however I feel.

If a post is linked below, it has been done and you can click to read it :)

1. A Short Story
2. Things I love and hate about running
3. A Picture I've drawn/created
4. Talk about something on this wikipedia list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_philosophy
5. 20 Things to do before I turn 20
6. What I like and dislike about my City
7. An Obit to my Father 
8. Should there be limits to freedom of expression?
9. How I feel about Hedonism
10. Writing Advice
11. Letters to my future self
12. A Picture of my life every hour (Set a timer on my phone and take a picture every hour of what I am doing, on the hour from wake until sleep)
13. The Advantages and Disadvantages of being a philosophy major
14. Something funny
15. Describe something (My day? My job? I'll decide later) in 5, 50 and 500 words (We'll see how this works out)
16. Things that make me happy
17. Why monogamy and marriage are dead and I am still getting married
18. Why sex is natural
19. Thoughts on Minimalism
20. A response to something ridiculous, whether an article or event, something
21. Map Test: I will try to label 3 maps Canada (where I live), the US (where most of my readers are from) and a world Map. All in order to embarrass myself. 
22. My 5 favourites: TV shows, books, celebrities, comedians, music, food, movies, stores, makeup, clothing styles, drinks
23. A recipe
24. Why I love Nick (a list)
25. My Life (so my followers who don't know me in RL can get a feel of what I do outside of my blog)
26. A thought experiment (What if...?)
27. Why I haven't been caring for the environment AKA Why I am selfish
28. ?
29. ?
30. ?
31. What I learned from this blog challenge

See you May 1st!

Analyzing a quote of mine

I was glancing through my blog and I came across the sentence "Life is just depressing me, but in a good way" in my blog post "Even I don't know what I'm talking about here" in the first paragraph. I've decided to try to pick that sentence apart, because not only is it good practice for me, as I am an English minor but I am crazy. 

So, let's get started. 

Am I happy that life is depressing me? Do I like the drama of a depressing life? I think many people do. A lot of people on tumblr are obsessed with looking out of bay windows on rainy days with coffee and cats and are contempt with this utter sadness. This isn't depression, but I am just saying that depression has been somewhat romanticized by the over-dramatic.  What do I mean by this? I think that many young adults feel like depression is a good thing. Arguably, I may have been in this position at one time or another. Why is it a good thing? It gives you a different perspective on life. Since I am more of a realist than an optimist, depression seems pretty damned amazing to help me achieve my realistic point of view. Although depression and being a realist are not causal of each other or required for one another at all. 

So am I involved in this dramatic romanticization of depression? I don't think so. Now follow me. I don't think I am because I think I am. Here is my argument: people often say that you don't have to worry about being a psychopath if you yourself can ask yourself that question and think you might be, because a psychopath will never think they are a psychopath. It is sort of the same as saying that a hipster can only be a hipster if they say they are not a hipster. Weird? It's a very flawed argument, but I think to a degree I am able to romanticize depression and someone follow this doctrine, but then again, since I think I do, I probably am not.

So what do I mean by "Life is just depressing me, but in a good way". Maybe it has to do with working hard and getting payed off? School makes me sad, but going through this sadness can result in happiness. This could be it... but I don't think I would think like that except in cases like right now, because I am analyzing it.

What was the context? In my blog post I almost seem like I am 'giving up on life'. So maybe I am simply just enjoying this depressing aspect of life? 

I guess nobody knows. Hell, the blog post that I am quoting from is titled "Even I don't know what I'm talking about here", here being in reference to my blog. So I guess even I don't know. Maybe I was just trying to reflect upon the post title by concluding the first paragraph.

I never write proper paragraphs in my blogs. I always just begin a new line when I have a different point or when I pause my thinking. It's an informal blog, not an essay.

Anyways. I guess that's it for now. I am off to read a section of Martha C. Nussbaum's Other Times, Other Places: Homosexuality in Ancient Greece for my 3rd year Philosophy of Sex and Love class. 

I will post again someday. 

So, I don't have a learning disability.

Last year I noticed something different a few months after I started my first year of university. I was having trouble concentrating on material, in lectures and while studying and writing assignments. I was pretty sure I had ADD. Most others around me also thought I had ADD when I described my symptoms to them. Thus, the journey began.

I approached my family doctor about my concerns and she referred me to my school to be tested for learning disabilities because she wouldn't prescribe me anything without a diagnosis. So I went to my school. They did some preliminary testing and told me that I am above average in my intellectual ability but I might be on the borderline of ADD. This was all found out around November, 3 months after I started university.

Today I finally had my appointment with the testing centre. My results? I don't have ADD. I don't have any learning disabilities. Again: I am above average in my intellectual ability.

I literally stumped the psychologist. My grades have dropped 20% since high school. Something is different, something has had to have changed.

Inevitably, grades do drop in university from high school but things just feel harder here. Or easier. I am bored. The material I am learning is not what I want to be learning. I find it boring. I love my majors (psychology and philosophy) but my profs are not doing it justice.

I explained all of this to the psychologist and he has decided to try to piece things together. Essentially, he thinks my inability to focus on my work has to do with my motivation, despite me having very high goals in my future. I have amazing goals it is just the tasks I have to accomplish to get to my goal (school) is not my cup of tea. I am stressed all of the time. I am bored. I am unengaged. I do not care about what I am learning. Even if I transferred schools it would still be the same format of learning.

So what do I do? The psychologist I saw informed me he was going to dwell on me a little longer and then contact the learning strategist I have been working with at my school and the three of us will work together. 

I wish I had a learning disability. I wish my problems could be solved with strategies or medication. But my problems are bigger than this because they cannot be fixed. My problems are my choices to face because of the goals I want to accomplish. 

This is the biggest rut of my life. I am sad. I am depressed. School depresses me. But I want to attain my BA in Psych and BA in Philosophy and then my Bachelor of Education, perhaps my masters in Education. Why? Well, I want to teach high school. I was fed up with the high school educational system and I wanted to help fix it from within but also teach high school as well to fulfill my passion for educating and being a leader. I am now leaning towards wanting to work in university education just because of how much it takes out of me. 

The system does not work for me. It does not work for most people. Human purpose is to live. A part of living is sleeping. University students do not get enough sleep. People should be able to live the life they choose but instead we pick the unhappy route so we can conform to society. This has been troubling me for a couple of years now and I still am conforming to all of this bullshit and it is maddening me. It is depressing me. It is pushing me deeper and deeper down into my own despair.

I shouldn't care this much about the university and education system in general but I am the type of person that likes to take charge and fix things and that is what I have been inspired to do. 

But for now, I am going to keep conforming to depression. Also, I can't do anything without a degree because of credentialism. I also cannot do anything because ageism (I am 18). 

Although, I did just get a good job (FINALLY). Readers may remember getting a job was one of my goals for this year. I am a Blog Editor and Marketing coordinator, it is an executive position with my university. I don't know too much about it because I was just hired and I have not started yet, but I find out tomorrow. I am looking forward to it. I am fairly lucky, job wise, compared to other people my age. I am not working a part-time shitty stressed job with some fast food or chain store. Someday I will probably have to again, before I have my degree, but for now, I look forward to having a job that I can actually do something effectively in. I am not putting down workers of chain stores or fast food stores, I am just judging the work of those places to have higher stress than my job and I am just thankful that I will (hopefully) not have to deal with it.

So at least that is good.

But I don't have a learning disability. I probably just have the psychological disorder called "conformity".

Updates & Where is my blog going?

I used to be able to think in a certain pattern and usually that would be the way my blogs were written but I cannot think in those patterns anymore.

I realize how insane that sounds but I just don't feel like myself anymore. I find it hard to think, not in general, but just about the things I used to think about. Do you ever look back on photos or videos of yourself and feel different about yourself there? I feel like that with a lot of my blog posts.

I think it's just because I've stopped trying to figure things out. I have things mostly figured out, or at least I haven't started re-questioning them yet. My blog posts were trying to figure things out. They were opinion pieces about philosophy and psychology.

But I've lost that sense of my person. I feel so differently now. I have changed so much since I've started university.

So now I am not sure what direction to take this blog in. I was thinking of taking it on a route to focus on ideas in education because that is what I am mainly passionate about but I also want to talk a lot more about psychological disorders and whatnot. A lot of things that I want to write about I don't want people in my life to find online, so I find it hard to put what is actually in my thoughts out there to the world.

In a way I want a teen-directed blog about body image and depression but I also feel like that is too mainstream. Although I have gone through that and I realize it is mainstream so I feel like I could put a different spin on it.

Maybe my blog will just be life anecdotes.

I don't know. But I have decided to do some goals. I am going to work on writing up some new years goals and I will put that up on the 31st or 1st.

Now, I will provide some people with a few updates on my life in general.

I am in my first year of university now, I keep switching my major but what I am currently hoping to do is a double major in psych and english with a minor in philosophy.

I have a boyfriend now. We have been dating for close to 4 months and we are very happy.

I am going to be getting tested for learning disabilities soon. I'm not having any major issues, it's just I think I may have ADHD or some other learning disability that medication could help and I need a diagnosis.

I signed up for a marathon which I will be running in May next year!

I am just going to come up with a public list of blog ideas for me to write in the future, just so you can see potential things I will be writing about:

- Things I miss about high school
- A post about my view on art
- Bullshit, money & university
- Differences between high school and university
- Things that bug me
- How I view my body
- Idolization and celebrities
- Money making the world go around

If any of those topics appeal to you, please tell me in the comments because I will be sure to write about something that interests readers.

For now, I wish you a Merry Christmas. It is Christmas eve, after all.

Anger, yelling, teaching.

I feel like something a lot of people don't know about me is my anger.

I generally feel like I give off a off-putting vibe when I am upset about something, but I generally don't yell at people.

At home, when I get mad with my mom, I always yell and get quite angry. Usually anger and a loss of patience goes hand in hand. In peer tutoring today I was so tempted to yell at a few different students. There was a supply teacher who wasn't controlling the class, and at one point when she was talking, literally every single student was whispering/talking/on their phone. I was about ready to stand up and tell them to cut it out, but I didn't want to override the supply teacher, so I didn't.

I can get quite angry at times. It is scary when I am. I feel like I lose my temper when I am really pissed off or passionate about something.

I also have a feeling I am probably going to lose my temper in residence at university. If I have a fucking stupid roommate, I am going to probably yell at them.

I don't have the best techniques. I feel like some people just should never be yelled at- ever, they just can't handle it. But other people can handle it. Sometimes yelling is the option.

In law we also talked about how teachers can still technically, legally use corporal punishment. I couldn't imagine ever, as a teacher, hitting a student. But today, I wished I could've smacked this one kid. I feel like a little smack could get them to shut the fuck up and listen to me.

When I'm a teacher I'm probably going to be really weird- as I have discussed before, that I am weird, and will probably use really weird teaching techniques. But I will not tolerate people not paying attention to me teaching. I will yell at them and embarrass them. Talking it out may work with most people, but haven't you seen at least one student who is always "talked to" and suspended, but never changes? I feel like if somebody really tried to yell at them that they would listen. It's all about discipline and controlling the room.

I've only really had one teacher that enforces this a lot. I read a book where this whole school was under very strict discipline and they all acted so calm and collected, which I thought was weird and unethical. After today I think it is perfectly fine.

I have only really had two teachers full out YELL at the class. I didn't care for one of them, and the other was okay. I have had many teachers get disappointed and strict with us. I had this one teacher that always gave us these huge lectures with a domineering tone. They were good and people shut up and listened to her, but nothing really changed, and she gave these lectures way too frequently.

I don't know.

I personally hate being yelled at. Depending who is yelling at me, I will just yell back, some people I might just take it from, but most I will yell back.

I remember in the Freedom Writers' Diary movie, Ms. Gruwell yelling at this one student who said he deserved a failing grade, because she felt like it was a huge "fuck you" to her and him. I think this is the type of thing that should actually be practiced.

There is no need to yell when you are working one-on-one with a student, because you can easily just talk to them. But if you have a class of 20+ students, yelling is the one thing to get them to all simultaneously shut the hell up.

Whatever. I think it's fine for teachers to yell at students, I will probably do it, and that is all I have to say.

Why I am a Nihilist

I am a nihilist. This means I believe life has no actual purpose. I don't think there is a reason humans are on this earth. I think we have about as much purpose on this life as any other living organism does, even non-living things.

I don't think we were placed here by some god. I do not think that we have some moral purpose or afterlife to attend to. I think we just evolved. I guess I believe in evolution. I am not committing to that belief though. But it's the closest thing I believe.

I think we are just here.

There is no natural purpose for humans to be here.

I think that many people will argue that there is a purpose to life, not just religious or moral people, but even people with similar religious beliefs to me. It is a social purpose.

They will say things like:

• We have to get a job to contribute to society, economically and socially
• We work together within families
• We have friends, we live for people
• Life has a purpose, it is to live with other people alongside each other and help each other

Therefore even though life has no natural purpose, life has a social purpose.

We have a social duty to each other. Great! So I guess that means I'm not a nihilist, right? Wrong.

I am also an individualist. I serve myself before the society. I do not like things within this society. Therefore I don't want to live out societies' social purposes. 

So living out society's purpose, doesn't appeal to me, therefore even though I believe there is a social purpose to life, I don't want to commit to it.

So there brings up the argument "Well why don't you just kill yourself?". That is the first thing people say to nihilists. For example, this post which pissed me off earlier. Well why don't I? Honestly. Why don't I kill myself?

I honestly have no idea. If I don't live for other people, I don't live for this society, and I don't think we have a natural purpose, why don't I just kill myself?

I want to say things like "I want to change society to my ideal, so I live for that" or "I don't want to hurt my family", but they aren't even 100% true. 

If I wanted to fully support the argument I am trying to make, I should just kill myself.

But I haven't. Some parts of me do want to have kids and become a teacher, but other parts of me just see no purpose to anything, and I just either want to die or become a hermit. 

Honestly I can make the argument that I can't stomach the thought of killing myself, let alone another person. I can't even stomach dissections. If I were to kill myself, it couldn't be painful. It would be a poison, or injection of some kind. 

But I think I like myself too much to kill myself. I hate everyone, I hate everything, but I like myself. I am pretty fine with the way I am, so I don't really see a requirement to kill myself, even though I think life is purposeless.

I am not sure if there is an afterlife. I don't think if there is an afterlife, we serve some form of divine purpose to act a certain way on earth, to get there. I think you just go there no matter what. Like different dimensions, or something. But I think it is more logical to say that nothing happens when you die, and you just sort of rot. There are a lot of things in this world we don't know of. Maybe the soul travels on. Maybe the soul has a purpose to keep travelling on. Now, I don't believe if the soul exists, and if the soul has a purpose, that it is moral, but maybe it does live on, and take other forms. Who knows. I don't know. You don't know. We don't know.

These are the mysteries of the world.

But for now I am alive. I don't plan on killing myself. 

Plus I need to stay alive to teach other people their life has no purpose, right? 

I'm Not Perfect

Perfection. Having everything just completely right, the way you want.

I don't think I am a perfectionist.

I try really hard at what I do in school, work and my hobbies, but I don't expect to come out perfect. I usually expect to come out better than most people, but not the best. Is this perfectionism? No. Maybe I have high expectations, but I am not a perfectionist. But is that really better to have high expectations? I get let down easily.

A lot of people think I am a perfectionist. I find myself trying to convince people I am not a perfectionist. Especially to people at school. I just got perfect attendance. Do you know how hard is to convince people you are not perfect, right after you get that?

I don't think people expect me to do well all of the time. I hope not, at least. I think people just sort of assume I try hard at everything.

But I find myself purposely exploiting my weaknesses, in person to some people, and mostly on twitter, just to bring myself down in the eyes of others.

See, I am pretty comfortable with who I am, to myself. I act differently and change who I am a little, just to change the perspective other people have of me--- even if that is not the right opinion they should have. People always freak out at this too. Changing yourself for other people. But that is how I get ahead in life.

I am technically not changing myself, I'm just changing what people think of me.

This can get complicated, actually. If I show one person more aspects of one side of me, and another different aspects, so I appeal to them more, or possible even appeal to them less.

My point with this is that
- I am not perfect
- Some people tend to think I am perfect, so I exploit myself to change their mind

I think all people understand what I am trying to say about changing yourself. I think I just look at my personality in a lot of different ways. If I were to describe myself, to myself I would say I am quiet, analytical and weird. If I were to describe myself to a teacher I might call myself quiet, determined and dedicated.

My mom keeps telling me not to be hard on myself. People tell me to stop being hard on myself. They tell me to stop being a perfectionist.

But I am not perfect. I may have perfect attendance, try to look my best (on most days), practice really hard at running, lift weights and go to the gym, get good grades, etc.

But I also am not perfect at any of those things. I have only ever gotten top mark in ONE of my classes. I get good grades, but not the best.
I don't always look my best, I can't help that sometimes.
I injure myself while running, and have never gotten first in any running event, but I have always placed in the top 50% of my division.
I lift weights, more than the average woman, but I am still not the best.

Well my attendance may be "perfect" but that didn't count snow days. That technically didn't count the enormous amounts of time in english last semester we had supply teachers, and I would ask to go to the library and then just walk around the school.

Also, I completely forgot to do an entire half of a law assignment, that was worth a LOT. Luckily my teacher let me finish it lsat night to hand in today.

I am not perfect.

Homophobia or Opinion

First of all, allow me to clarify myself. I am not homophobic. I am not a gay rights activist. I believe that gay marriage should be legal, and members of the LGBTQ society should have as many full and equal rights as others who are not.

Homophobia, to my understanding and by my definition is the hatred of and/or fear of homosexual individuals.

Opinions, to my understanding and by my definition is the belief by an individual or group that can be based off of fact or can be based off of no fact.

Why am I defining all of these things? Because I think there are two types of people who don't believe in the legality of gay marriage.
1. Those who are homophobic.
2. Those who do not believe in "homosexuals".

Just because someone has the belief that all people should naturally be paired guy-to-girl, and that two members of the same sex cannot have a natural/normal relationship, does not make them homophobic. That is their belief, that is their opinion. Some religions do not believe in homosexuality, some people do not believe in homosexuality.

They have a right to their opinion and belief, just as I have a right to my belief that homosexuality is a natural/normal relationship.

But people can be homophobic and have their opinion/belief. For example, let's say Bobby-Jane believes homosexuality is a sin, okay, that's fine, that is their opinion, but if that person goes out of their way to spread hate, for example, spitting on homosexuals, or giving them dirty looks, that is homophobia.

Although a person can also be homophobic and not really have the belief/opinion. These are the people I am most worried about, because they are the people that will do the things like spit at homosexuals, or give them dirty looks, but they don't have a motive behind it, they just do it, just because. Kind of like how some people are just mean to other people, but don't have a reason behind it.

My point here, and the reason of my blog post, is because I was reading some comments/blogs by some members of the LGBTQ society and they were calling everybody who doesn't believe in homosexuality, homophobic. This is not true. Many are, not all are.

Some people simply believe it is wrong, and I don't blame them, since scientifically the purpose of life is to reproduce, yet some humans (and even some non-humans) have relations between the same sex, people just see the relationship as perhaps unnecessary or just "wrong" because that is their belief.

I personally believe society has over-romantisized everything and society itself is the purpose of life.

In my belief system, life has no meaning, I believe naturally, humans have no purpose of being on earth, but I think throughout our development and time on earth, we have created societies, and within these societies, is filled with a whole lot of... allow me to call it "bullshit" like love, affection, emotions, etc. I'm not saying emotions aren't natural, I just think that they have progressed so much with the creation of languages, and pop culture. Everything is about emotion. On twitter people are "sad", people state their emotion like a thing "I am happy" "I am excited" "I am feeling creative". In the past you didn't really do that. Now it's a thing.

What does this have to do with my blog post? I think that homosexuality has been romanticized. Sure, I believe that individuals can have physical/sexual and/or emotional connections to people of the same sex, I believe this can come naturally, yet as I stated earlier, it is also natural to reproduce. I think this is where the belief that homosexuality is a psychological disorder stemmed from. Which honestly, I think is a completely valid opinion/belief/argument. Where I believe this belief reaches homophobia, is when in the 1950's those ads about "stay away from homosexuals" came from.

Like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmqNiFJyI28

Overall, I'm just saying that even though a person doesn't necessarily believe in gay rights, doesn't make them homophobic. If that was true, then the fact that I am not jewish and don't believe in judaism would make me a nazi.

Blogging about Blogging

This is a blog about my blog. 
Hooray!  

So I was creeping through my blogger stats, and I found something I had never yet seen until today. I thought it was pretty hilarious. 

They are the top key words searched to find my blog.  

So here we go.  

10. I can't copy down the full search, but it was really random it was "site:blogspot.com intext:toning inte" 
9. "ralph waldo emerson tattoo" I had a blog post about Emerson and tattoos, so this makes sense. 
8. "nastyfuckingporn" I can't even. I don't even know what this has to do with my blog and why when  it was searched, some people found my blog. 
7. "is early but" I have no idea what this has to do with anything, either. 
6. "I am a anticonformist" ignoring the bad grammar, this makes sense because I have talked about  anti-conformity before.       
5. "existentialists contradict themselves" if I think back far enough, I know I have talked about existentialism. But I feel like this was probably back in one of my earlier blog posts. 
4. "and feel like I know" I'm not even sure what this means.  
3. It won't let me copy this link down, but it was a youtube link. I probably linked a youtube video to one of my blogs, so if somebody googled that youtube link, it led to my blog. I'd really like to know what video, but it won't let me click it.  
2. ""god" "fate" "what"" this was an actual search that found my blog. The second most. What? I understand I have probably said those, I just think that is a weird search.  
1. The most common thing was variations of "dadcanihavesomecrackerjacks" which makes sense. But the rest don't.  Oh well.

To those who found my blog by these searches, I am glad! I'm not sure how I feel about "nastyfuckingporn" because you know, my blog is so sexual (obviously using sarcasm here).  

Another thing I thought was interesting I thought I would share with my blog readers is this:   

I think this is pretty self-explanitory, but it is a map depicting where my blog viewers are. 

The darker the green, the more views from that country. It makes sense Canada is the darkest because my friends are all in Canada.   

I don't know anybody in any other country, pretty much. So I think it's interesting. 

My top 5 countries for views are:  
5. United Kingdom 
4. Germany 
3. Russia 
2. United States 
1. Canada  

I also have quite a few views from Ukraine, which I think is interesting. Hello Ukrainians :)   

My blog posts have individual view counts, and my top three most viewed posts are:  

3. "FITNESS :)" http://dadcanihavesomecrackerjacks.blogspot.ca/2012/01/fitness.html  

2. "I am an anticonformist about the social norms of raising children" http://dadcanihavesomecrackerjacks.blogspot.ca/2011/12/i-am-anticonformist-about-social-norms.html  

1. "The Gym" http://dadcanihavesomecrackerjacks.blogspot.ca/2012/04/gym.html  

I think it's interesting how my Gym/fitness posts were pretty popular. I do have a fitness blog, which is on the side bar on the right of this blog, for people interested in those posts!  

I am happy for this blog, and I hope to keep it running for a long time. I am going to be evolving it into something larger, towards the end of this year, which I am super excited for!  But it's a surprise. So. Yeah.  

I have a bunch of "non-responsive" viewers on my blogs (considering I rarely get comments). I'd really like to get to know you guys, feel free to comment away on my blogs!  

If you are quiet, and you have a question for me, no problem. I have an ask.fm, which means you can submit questions anonymously. If you want them answered in my blog, just mention it in your question, because I only just post my answers on ask.fm and twitter, usually. 

 Here's my ask.fm: http://ask.fm/SarahFloria  

The reason why I made this post is because I just surpassed a landmark # of views. I don't want to share actual view counts with my readers, but let's just say I passed a view count # in the thousands, and I am pretty excited/reminiscent about it. 

 Thank you for reading my blog! Be sure to subscribe to me if you want to read more!