I have seen a bunch of crap lately about Twitter. Twitters for authors, twitters for agents, twitters used to avert suicide (ummm... media ploy, anyone?), twitter wars, TWITTER TWITTER TWITTER. My mom knows what Twitter is, so it must be pervasive if the biggest technological retard on the planet knows it (she self-professes this). My lj friends list is littered with twitters, and I decided that I HATE TWITTER.

Why: Twitter is just another way for people to be constantly attached to computers and each other, as if there weren't already enough ways to keep people abreast of what you're doing. Getting an update every hour on facebook wasn't enough? Now you need to know what your friends are doing every five minutes? This is my impression of Twitter:

So and so twittered at:
6:45 AM: Got a cup of coffee... yeah, that's the stuff.
7 AM: Took a piss, now to shower.
8: AM: Drying hair, better get dressed.
10 AM: Bored at work, wasting time updating twitter.
11 AM: @Another twitter user: Lunch time. Should I have roast beef or chicken salad?
11:05 AM: @Another twitter user: Thanks, I had the roast beef!
1 PM: Took a really big crap after lunch.
1:01: PM: Washed my hands
2:30 PM: @Some loser with too much time on their hands: I hate my job, let's join the circus.
2:32 PM: @Some loser with too much time on their hands: LOLZ I AGREE.
4 PM: Skipping out of work early
5 PM: Out for drinks with the girls!!!
6 PM: Shouldn't have had that long island!
7 PM: Going dancing.
7:05 PM: OMG HOTT GUY!!!111
8 PM: Got his number, going to make out now.
11:50 PM: Getting ready for bed
11:51: Laying down
11:55: Falling asle-

And that is pretty much my impression of Twitter. Not only are you spending more time writing your stupid twitters than you are actually doing things, you're updating with things that NOBODY CARES ABOUT. Now I know not everybody twitters like this, but let's be honest. It doesn't matter to me that at 1:50 you were on your way somewhere. If I wanted a play by play of your day I would follow you around or send a PI after you. Since I didn't, you can assume that I just don't care that much. Do I want to know overall if it was a good day or if anything exciting happened? Sure. Why don't you write me a paragraph about it instead of that half-assed twitter shit. One sentence hardly tells me anything important, and it doesn't tell me the most important thing, which is how you're feeling about events. "Got to the airport, leaving soon," doesn't tell me that you're excited about your trip or dreading it. It's sucking all of the emotional connection out of the internet while simultaneously attacking me with useless information, and it drives me crazy.

Now granted, I hate to be attached to technology. It's funny coming from somebody who journals so consistently, but for example on AIM I am almost always invisible. It's not that I don't want to talk, it's that I don't want to talk to EVERYBODY. I hate getting bombarded and having no control over who I talk to. If I want to talk to you, either I tell you that I'm hiding so you can IM me, or I'll IM people I want to talk to. Same goes for the phone. I've been recently getting about 5 billion calls/messages/ims from people trying to get me to go to Luther House. Okay, if I'm not there, you can assume I didn't forget. I'm not an idiot, and I can keep track of a weekly gathering. If I'm not there, I didn't want to be there or I had something more important to do. I turn my cell phone off and ignore calls all the time for this reason: I don't want to be bombarded. Twitter is just another way to bombard your friends (and strangers!) with useless information that nobody cares about or wants to read. Seriously, (lj-)cut that shit out.

Don't internet LITTER, ditch TWITTER!

P.S. If you really want to get in touch with me, there are the following ways: LJ, facebook, myspace, okcupid, xanga, blogspot, e-mail, aim, cell phone, snail mail. Do you really need another way?!

So I am writing this entry on Phoenix, which is the lj client on Mac OSX. Yes, I got a new aluminum Macbook. It's amazing! Best birthday present ever! I'm currently trying to get it set up how I like it. I have firefox downloaded and I'm working on getting Open Office. I set up Mail, and obviously downloaded this here lj client. It's so pretty! I am having so much fun messing around with it! Even though I'm sick and this day has been kind of boring, this is the best birthday ever!

http://hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/suckitudinous.html

I have to say, this site is extremely helpful! Also, I have some ideas for the novel I want to write post-trilogy. Some of the basic ideas: a world of people with hypermetabolic brains that can do amazing things. This requires strict governance because of the danger, and so there is an oppressive communist-esque regime that promotes group mentality and cooperation in order to head off disagreements. But there are rebels. I don't know why this particular rebel is rebeling yet. He's incredibly selfish, yet somehow endearing. You love to hate him. He's the bad guy, and the story is going to be told entirely from his perspective, and those around him. The protagonists will be there, but we'll never get into their heads. It's all rather vague, why he is rebeling, what kinds of things he does, but he's slowly forming in my head. I think he'll prove to be a fascinating fellow.

My advice of the day is: STOP THINKING ABOUT YOURSELF SO MUCH! Seriously. This is directed at no one in particular, but I've been reading a lot of lj posts lately by people who are complaining about things in their lives that are totally fixable, totally within their control, and really aren't even an issue if only they'd stop thinking about it. Yes, I know, I know everybody thinks about their own life, and YES it's healthy to reflect on your own life now and then. God knows I complain about my life enough. But if you spend so much time thinking about yourself, picking yourself apart, and trying to figure yourself out that you stop doing the things that MAKE YOU YOURSELF, you have a problem. Think about other people, think about how many people starve to death each year or die of AIDS in Africa, think about how many animals are killed each year in shelters, or about poor people right in your neighborhood, and then do something to make it better.

This is the fundamental problem with this country. It's become okay to be all about me, to think about yourself constantly, so much that you forget there are even other people in the world around you. It's been shown that people who are focused outwardly tend to be happier, and you know why that is? They're not thinking about themselves all the time! Did you eat breakfast this morning? Then stop complaining because you are better fed than at least 852 MILLION people in the world that didn't get dinner, or breakfast, and they won't get dinner today. Those people are starving to death, but if you ate yesterday, you are more fortunate than them. Are you well? Really, are you physically able to function? If so, pat yourself on the back, you are healthier than the estimated 33 million people in the world who are dying of HIV/AIDS. If you are reading this, you have electricity, you have shelter, you probably have a job. You have more than 3.5 million people who will sleep outside tonight in the U.S. because they have no home, no electricity, and nobody to care for them.

The bottom line is focus. If you are always thinking about your life, you're going to find things wrong with it. I'm too fat, I'm too skinny, I'm too short, I'm too this or that. My job sucks, my friends don't like me, work is hard, school is hard, blah blah blah blah. Those things have the potential to cause misery, that's for sure, and I'm not saying your suffering isn't real. What I'm saying is to those of you who can't find it in yourselves to look away for one minute, to spare that moment of self-reflection for someone else, you are looking so hard that you're MAKING yourself miserable. So what are you going to do about it? Join a cause, write a book, draw a picture. Millions of people were denied the right to marry last week. DOESN'T THAT ANGER YOU?! DO SOMETHING! Millions of people in the world suffer homelessness, starvation, and disease, DO SOMETHING. An estimated 7 million dogs and cats are euthanized in shelters EVERY YEAR. DO SOMETHING! If you always think and never do, you're wasting your life. I'm not saying you need to go to school, get a fancy degree, and I'm not saying you even need to go out there and get down and dirty feeding the starving, helping the poor, what I'm saying is for once, think about these things. Yes, they hurt, but maybe that pain is what you need to inspire ACTION. If you can think about these things for just five minutes, maybe your life won't seem so bad anymore, maybe it will inspire you to get up and move. Maybe you won't be so damn miserable. You're here, you're reading this, you have many talents and gifts, you're smart, you're blessed to have everything you have, so put it to work, use those gifts, and break the cycle of self-involvement in our country!

Edit: It should be noted, I am not telling you to "get the hell over your problems" thinking you can easily fix things. I understand psychiatric problems (I'm studying to be a psychologist!), but I also know if you spend all your time thinking about yourself you miss out on a lot of stuff going on OUTSIDE of you, and a lot of times those things can make you happy. Doing something for somebody else has been proven to lift mood. Again, I don't think 'just stop it' is good psychiatric advice and I would never say that. What I'm saying is 'try thinking about others for a change' and it might actually help you, because obviously what you're doing now isn't working very well.

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So I went to the pet store with the intention of getting a goldfish of some kind, but I ended up getting two more bettas. I saw them both and couldn't decide between the beautiful, red, fiesty fish, and the sweet turquoise one. So I got both. I got a new, big tank for Gregory (1 gallon) and another small tank for one of the bettas. Gregory is enjoying his new, lighted fish tank, and the newbies are very excited to be in their tanks. They've been showing off their beautiful fins non-stop. So I was going to stick on the House theme, because the red one is definitely Chase-ish, so his name is Robert, but the only other boy on House that doesn't already have a fish named after him is Foreman, and he just doesn't fit the blue fish. Foreman is a jerk and he's really aggressive and know-it-all-y, but this fish is sweet and quirky. He keeps swimming halfway upside down and then flaring at me, so he has his aggressiveness, but he's kind of impassive and is just like 'yeah, I'm pretty.' So that fish is going to be named Nicholas. This is a play off Nakago's reincarnation in Alcestis' Fushigi Yuugi fanfiction. I didn't want to name him Nakago, but Nicholas is a normal name, and he kind of reminds me of the character, and looks like one. So those are my new fish. I will take pictures, of course, once my camera is fixed.

Kodi and Jazmyn are here for the night because my mom takes them to church on Sundays, and they're really getting a kick out of the fish. They keep making me pick them up to see, but dang, they're too heavy to keep lifting. My arms are tired.

I got to drive around the city a little today. Me = retarded at this, but I'm getting better. I'm probably not as bad as I think I am, I just feel retarded. At least there are some things I have some skill at! I started on a DBZ fanfic last night. We'll see how it goes... I don't have a very good feel for DBZ characters yet, because I haven't written them in so long, but they'll probably come back to me. I'm kind of inspired to work on my FY fic now too, so maybe I'll write a chapter of each.

First, talking with Nelson is like having therapy. It's so refreshing. He asked me if I'd ever felt displaced at church and I said yes and he asked me to expound, and I pretty much word vomited what happened at OSL to him and then I felt so much better! I don't know what he did or said that did it, but whatever it was, I just felt... I don't know, renewed.

Also, I like having class in the computer lab. It makes for really easy distraction.

( My idea husband... )

Haha, yay.

I've had all my classes now. Will lj about them later. Work now. Miserable schedule. :X

I GOT INTO COMPASS POINTE!!!

It has been four years since the morning we all woke up to a different world. It has been four years since everything changed. Four years and one day before, we all went to sleep in our beds knowing that our world, that our country, was a safe place. We always knew there were problems, and we knew it wasn't perfect, but we always had the notion that on our own soil, we would be safe; we were untouchable. We awoke the next day to find that reality shattered. The world was not as it had been. Suddenly, we were suspicious of the people who were our neighbors. Suddenly, we knew that we were not invincible, and suddenly we were afraid.

Four years ago, four planes were highjacked. Two planes hit New York and killed thousands. One hit the pentagon and killed hundreds. A little more than a dozen people overtook the last plane, bravely losing their lives to prevent more senseless deaths. The world had become a dangerous place to all of us.

Four years after that event, we all try to understand why it had to happen. We still ponder it, we still remember this day. We still mourn. We will always mourn. Just as those who remember Pearl Harbor will always mourn it, so will those of us who went to bed in one world and woke up the next day in another. We will remember because it made us different. We will remember because of the loved ones lost. We will remember because of the sacrafices made.

I will remember because God was in it. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it is easy to blame God, or worse, to deny God at all. When we see such destruction, it is so easy to say that there was only evil in this. I see a different story. The morning of September 11, 2001, hundreds of commuter trains were running late. Thousands of people were stuck in traffic in NYC and D.C. Hundreds, for some reason, abandoned their usual commutes and slept in a few more minutes. Some people experienced mix ups and were, for some divine reason, not on those planes.

"On September 11, 2001 [Seth MacFarlane] was scheduled to return to Los Angeles on American Airlines Flight 11 after being a keynote speaker at his alma-mater in Rhode Island. Due to a mix-up by his travel agent he was told that his flight was scheduled to depart at 8:15am but it really departed at 7:45am and he had arrived at Boston Logan Airport a few minutes after boarding was stopped on his flight and he was told he would have to wait for the next flight. At 8:45am one hour after the departure of American Airlines Flight 11 it was hijacked by terrorists and crashed into One World Trade Center (North Tower) in New York City killing all onboard." -IMDB

That morning, my dad's cousin walked out onto the lawn of the Pentagon to have a snack and get some air. He saw the third plane streak through the sky and hit his end of the building.

That morning, seemingly random events such as this occurred enough times to empty those planes from their usual multiple hundred capacities to fewer than two or three dozen on each. Those buildings were empty in comparison to how they could have been. That day, ten thousands of people could have died. We lost 2,000. It is tragic that people died. It is always tragic when people die, but look what it has done. Instead of a nation carefree, we became aware. Instead of a nation under self, we became a nation under God. Relief efforts poured in. More volunteers than the authorities could handle went to NYC to help search the rubble. Millions of people poured into churches to hold prayer vigils for those lost or the families of the missing. Love and kindness poured out of humanity for the first time in years. Some say the attacks brought out the worst in some people, and that may be true, but when you look at the good it brought out in others, you can't tell me that this was for nothing. People died, which is horrible, but even in the darkest times, when it seems that Satan has the upper hand, God is there.

I will remember September 11th for as long as I live. I will remember waking up to my crying mother watching the towers burn and collapse. I will remember running to the internet to make sure my friends and their families are safe. I will remember crying, wondering if my brother would be drafted for the war that was sure to come. But most of all, I remember church, I remember the full service of people weeping and praying and singing together, praising God through the tragedy. God is always with us, and I think that He is never more visible than in the wake of a deadly disaster.

This journal is (still) friends-only, aside from a few random posts I wanted people to see. If you want to be added, read my Bio and see if you're really up for it, and then leave a comment if you so dare.

I figured you would come here, so here's my message to you:

I don't need you. I have never needed you.

Maybe someday you'll learn to look past your own nose. Maybe someday you'll realize that you're not God's greatest gift to mankind. Maybe someday you'll stop acting like you're better than everybody else.

But probably, you won't. I would approve if the following people killed themselves: you. Generally, I'm against suicide, but in your case, I'll make an exception.

Have a nice life; may it be filled with exactly as much joy as you've brought me.

If you went to freeipods.com for me and signed up, I need you to complete an offer. Here's what you do: go there and click on the third one down, the video professor. You need a credit card to do it, but it gives you immediate credit and you can return the cds free of charge within ten days. My brother did this and it was totally safe. His card was refunded and everything, so if you signed up, or even if you didn't, PLEASE, go here: http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=13524424 and complete an offer!

If you want a free iPod, go here: http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=13524424

I'm making a public post so that the people who have been deleted can be told why.

If you have been deleted from my friends list, there are a few reasons.

You never update.
You bore me.
I don't know why you're on my friends list to begin with.

If I find myself skipping your posts consistently, you've been deleted. If you update once a year, you've been deleted. If I just don't like you anymore, you've been deleted. Anybody who wants to know specifically why they have been unfriended can do so. I'm sorry to have to do this, but the list was full of dead weight and somebody had to be thrown overboard.

As I already told mrbuu, three years ago today, I was waking up and finding out I was late for class. I went to the livingroom and saw my mother watcht tv. She told me there had been an attack, that we might be going to war. I watched CNN, I got online, tv on next to me, and immediately got on aim, trying to find out if all of my friends and friends' family were okay. I know people that live in NYC or have family in NYC and I was scared. I was scared for my brother who ad only recently turned 18; would he be drafed if there was a war? But most of all I was scared for my country. Never before had I thought something like this could happen; never had I expected this, and never again would things be the same.

AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, oh my GOD. I just typed up a three page entry and livejournal ate it! I'm seriously going to cry now. Screw this, I'm not typing it again.

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." -Jeremiah 29:11-13

What an awesome verse, just wow. If that isn't inspiration and promise, I don't know what is.