I'd have to say Breaking Dawn. I'm not really a fan of JacobxBella, so I really enjoyed seeing Edward and Bella finally get together ^^
Yeah, lots of people have told me I'm lucky :) I guess it's a double-edged sword; I get to see my great-grandparents, but I also get to be around when they die.
Well I talked to my parents about it a couple months ago, and they took me to see the doctor. The visit really helped. She gave me some advice on how to deal with it and told me not to bottle up my feelings. I was wondering if I needed any sort of medication for it, but both my parents and the doctor hesitate to put me on any sort of medication because they all say that I'm experiencing a normal amount of stress for my situation, and that medication may make it worse. But yes, I have talked to people about it and it's helped immensely.
Oh, man. I really don't know where to begin. I guess I'll just begin where all of this crap started. Note that I had gone through a very difficult move less than a year ago when this began. I had just gotten over it about 5 months beforehand. In October of 2007 (about 16 months ago) my Mom got a phone call from a relative saying that my great-grandfather had a stroke and he was in the hospital. His entire right side was paralyzed, but he was expected to very gradually get better. This shocked me a bit when I heard it, but I was relieved that he was expected to get better over a long period of time. I was initially upset, but thought "He'll get better." and I stopped thinking about it. Fast-forward to next month. We get another phone call saying that my grandpa has terminal brain cancer and is expected to live about 9 months from diagnosis. This really upset me, because there was going to be a death, and it wasn't supposed to be too far off either. Now we're in December. My other great-grandfather is having trouble with his kidneys, but is doing okay overall. However, we're having to keep a close eye on him just in case. I'll get back to him later. For now... remember the great-grandfather with the stroke? Well, we get a call on Christmas saying that he died that morning. I was extremely close to him, and I was very shaken up by his death. Moving right along into February. The great-grandfather with the kidney trouble passes away. Fortunately, I wasn't close to him (I'd seen him maybe twice in my life) but going to the funeral was still upsetting, and I have a tendency to "absorb" the general mood around me. Considering everyone else was torn apart by his death, that didn't make things easier for me. Note that we're almost half-way through grandpa's nine months (I was keeping very close track of this). Okey-dokey, it's April now. My great-grandmother had been in the hospital for a few weeks because the levels of certain medication were too high in her blood. The pill she was taking was twice the size of what it said on the label. While she was in the hospital, she contracted one of those hospital infections you can get when there are just a few germs left over from when they last cleaned it (the hospital, by the way, was horrible. They were feeding her the wrong kinds of food, they didn't change her sheets on a regular basis, they didn't even clean up blood spills). She eventually died from the infection. Let's recap: two great-grandfathers and one great-grandmother, plus a grandfather with a non-curable brain tumor. Lovely. It's been six months. Fast-forward a few months into early August. My grandpa with the tumor is still alive, which is a real blessing. But my great-uncle went into his sister's apartment to see her, and found her dead on the couch with a bottle of Vodka next to her. That marks four deaths in less than a year. My grandpa with the tumor is not doing very well. He's becoming irrational, unable to move easily, basically just experiencing neurological symptoms. And I found out just a couple weeks ago that another great-uncle has skin cancer. The cancer has metastasized to lymphatic system, so it won't be going away easily at all. I really needed to vent this. I also think I'm depressed, because things I used to deeply love and have a wonderful time doing (i.e. soccer) I'm really starting to hate (for instance, we had a tournament this past weekend, and every minute I was in a game, I was wishing I was at home doing something - anything - else. I came close to crying in the middle of one of the games because I was so miserable. I actually had more fun sitting on the bench than playing in a game.) I can't remember the last time I felt really, truly happy. Yeah, I've laughed some and been in a good mood, but I've never really been happy, if that makes sense (probably not, I'm not very good at explaining how I'm feeling :\) And in case you're wondering, I'm not suicidal. I have absolutely no desire to kill myself I do think about suicide (I don't actually think about killing myself, just thinking about the whole idea of suicide, and death in general) and it sends chills down my spine every time I think of it, so I think that's good. I just really needed to rant about this. It's been in my system for a long time, and I needed to get it out.
Pretty much any Disney song (especially the villain songs like "Be Prepared" and "Oogie Boogie's Song") and Japanese music. My friends think I'm nuts for listening to Japanese.
I generally just read them for fun. They really can be quite amusing sometimes. But I sure don't take them seriously or anything.
Um... so the fact that they're atheists automatically makes them intelligent? Maybe I misunderstood what you said, but that sure seems to be what you're saying. Atheists are not intelligent because they're atheists, just as Christians are not intelligent because they're Christians. A person from either belief system can be intelligent (or they could be a complete idiot). What your religion or belief happens to be is rather irrelevant to how brilliant you are. (If I did misunderstand your comment, then you have my apologies, and you can just ignore this whole paragraph :P) And as many people have already said, quite a few of the atheists Cin listed are, in fact, not atheists. Not necessarily Christians, but still theists. The ones on there who actually are atheist have not lost my respect, as Cin seemed to think they would (again, correct me if I'm mistaken, but that's what it seemed like in his first post). It would be silly to not hold them in as high regard for what they have done simply because they don't believe the same thing I do. I don't think any less of them for being atheists.
Are you asking why I think they're wrong? Because I have had several life experiences that have inclined me to believe that God exists. I have thought it through many times, I've questioned God (Christians do that too, not just atheist) and I still firmly believe in His existence. That's not to say I have anything against atheists. I am close to a family of atheists, and there is no tension between us because of belief. The only problem I have is when atheists dismiss all Christians as idiots (sadly, some Christians do this to atheists) or when they act like they truly understand Christianity when they really don't understand the religion (interestingly, this is why I don't mock atheism. Not only because it's rude and disrespectful, but because I realize there may be some aspects to it I don't fully understand and can't fully understand unless I am atheist myself.) But I really have no problem with atheists, I just think they're mistaken because of some personal experiences I've had.
Good for you ^^
I actually thought about that too when I first started playing. But I don't think it would go very well with the game if every time the trio went to a new world, everyone there was like "WTF a dog and a duck?!" But that's just what I think.
KH Final Mix is better than KH, in my opinion. The addition of Xemnas and the new Heartless makes it more entertaining. The only potential problem might be that everything except voice acting is on Japanese, and if you can't read it or don't remember what it's saying from the English game, you might get stick. But other than that, it's better than KH because of the added content.
I think KH was harder than either KH2 or CoM. Right now, I'm playing through KH on Expert for the first time (lol) and it's the only game so far that's provided some real, true challenge, compared to CoM and KH2 on Proud Mode. I don't really know why it's harder, perhaps the reaction commands in the later games make the battle much easier. The camera is also a little closer to Sora in KH than KH2, and it's a little harder to control, so that might be it.
This, among several other things, is why I chose homeschooling, and do not regret the choice in the slightest. Things like sex and drugs are taken so lightly, and the teachers don't do anything about it (some even encourage it). I have a friend who, with some of her friends at school, crushed a bunch of Smarties and pretended it was crack. You don't make jokes about things like that. Sure, it was a little funny, but also quite immature. And I've heard plenty of stories from my friends about how so-and-so were making out in the halls, and how these two people "whomped" each other (that's their little code for the f-word) and were bragging about it. I have also heard a couple times from friends that girls have had their bikini top untied by a group of boys, against her wish (that actually happened to one of my friends, it was at an after-school program and there was a swimming pool there) Where in heck are the teachers in these situations? Alcohol is not quite as big an issue as sex/drugs, but it should still not be taken lightly. It's quite dangerous if it's misused, which is more likely to happen when jokes are made about it and it's not taken seriously. One person I know passed out at a party because he drank way too much. My great-aunt died of liver disease because of over-drinking. All of these things need to be taken seriously, and too many kids today take all of them too lightly.
Wow, those are all pretty silly, except for maybe the living together before marriage. That's never a good idea (but not necessarily for the reasons given). But, everything else is ridiculous. I don't support gay marriage, but if that's what a gay couple wants to do, then let them. It doesn't really bother me, since it has no impact on my life. And you don't get married just because you want children, you get married because you love that person. I don't really see how contraceptives are wrong in any case, even if you are sexually active. If anything, they're a good idea to use if you do decide to have premarital sex. And as far as I can tell, the Catholic Church isn't picked on any more than most churches (for that matter, Christianity is not picked on any more than most beliefs).
I don't particularly like either of them. Neither of them have any extraordinary talent in music. Sure, they can produce some pretty decent stuff, but it's not great. But if I have to choose... I'd say Rihanna.
It really depends. You might think that reading is better than the other two options, but not necessarily. There are lots of great TV shows and channels that are educational, like Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel. There are also some books that are not the best thing in the world to feed your brain (I mean, seriously, "The Clique"? What kind of crap is that?) Some video games are also designed to help your brain, like Brain Age and Big Brain Academy. Granted, I don't know how well either of them work, but they're definitely better than World of War or Halo.
I completely agree. You can hear Him, and He does guide you in everything you do. You just have to be willing to accept that, that's all. If you keep your mind open, then you'll be able to see things from a completely different perspective and maybe learn a few things. If not... well, I think we can see the result :\ And that's a pretty neat story about your friend :) Nope, most of us don't convince others by brainwashing. We can't force people to believe in something that they don't want to believe in. We can only tell others about God and if they believe us, great. If not, oh well. There's really not much point in worrying about it, since you can't do anything to change it.
That does make a little more sense. But I still think that if his friend succeeds at something, he should focus more on being happy for them than on whatever of him "died", simply for the friend's sake because generally people can tell when you feel like that even if you try to hide it. But yes, I see what you are saying. It's alright :) I meant that I have a lot. friends who do that. As in, almost all of them. I can think of exactly four who don't. The reasons I put quotation marks around "friends" is because most of them have turned on me more than once, and that's not what friends do to each other.
I'm using Kana-a-day practice pads right now for Japanese, and it's been very helpful as well as fun. Rosetta Stone is also amazing. I recommend those, and maybe just some flash cards. Other than that, I don't really know what to tell you except that Japanese isn't easy to learn, but it's very satisfying when you can look at Japanese dialogue and say "Hey! I know some of those words!" ^^
No, I don't. You should be happy for your friend's success, not jealous and bitter. It makes your friend feel really lousy when they should feel proud of whatever they've accomplished, and that's not fair. I don't know how many "friends" I've had who have been horrible to me because they realized I could do something better than they could. Personally, I'm impressed with people who are good at something, like I have one friend who was doing calculus when he was 10. I was never jealous of him, just very impressed and if anything it motivated me to work harder on my math. Another friend of mine can run a five minute mile, and when I heard I congratulated her on her accomplishment, because I knew it was something she'd been working towards for a while. Your friend should also feel safe coming to you and saying that they accomplished something without being torn down. If they don't, then you're not a very good friend. For instance, I received an 1190 out of 1600 on the SAT when I was 12 (that was quite a while back, I think the standard score now is 2400) but there was only one friend that I could tell that about and celebrate with. If I'd told any other "friend", they would've gotten angry and been vicious to me. Try putting yourself in your friend's shoes. If you just did something great, possibly better than one of your friends, how would you feel if you told a friend and they were nasty about it? Or even if they didn't make it that obvious, but you could tell they were bothered by it? Would you feel as good as you should about whatever you did? I'm not saying that you're a horrible person if you're ever jealous of somebody, or that you shouldn't wish you had whatever they had or could do what they can. Everyone, including myself, gets jealous sometimes. And there is a difference between wishing you could do what your friend can, and being jealous. It's especially hard not to do if the person keeps bringing it up and rubs whatever they did in your face. Just don't make a habit of being jealous, that's all.
