#this is a class assignment

[polyamorouspunk]

Draw a penis with a cowboy hat

I have to turn this in for a grade, sorry

[prettylilprep-blog]

This is Lucky University, coming to you with a quick message about floodwaters. Our region is at risk of flash flooding, especially with the weather that’s being forecast this hurricane season. Although we are not in a coastal area, urban and suburban areas that get hit with a lot of rain in a short period of time may experience this hazard, which includes deep or swiftly-moving waters, especially along roadways and other paved areas where the water is not being absorbed. You may remember the floods in nearby North Potomac during July 2019, which included more than 25 people rescued by Montgomery County crews, mainly from vehicles.

Remember, if you find yourself in front of floodwaters, Turn Around, Don’t Drown! It only takes 6 inches of fast-moving water to knock over an adult, and 12 inches to move most cars. More deaths are attributed to flooding than any other thunderstorm-related hazard. Check our website and social feeds for updates about college closures, and subscribe to regional and school updates at AlertCountyBeeper. If you are on your way to class or a campus event and cannot make it safely, let your teacher know that you won’t be in! Prior to a storm, make sure to stock up on fresh bottled water, non-perishable food, and to keep your electronics charged. The most important thing you can do if there’s a flash flood in your neighborhood is to stay safely inside!

[no-phun-club]

faith 5.30.16

As I sit down on the pew, I automatically run my hands down the back of my leg to prevent my skirt from bunching up beneath me. Sometimes I will even do it outside of the church, only noticing it when there is no flowing material to pull out of the way. When I tell others how much time in the church building every week, it carries some shock value; when I think about that time spent, I can’t picture it to be any other way. My life is built up on a structure of this belief system and moral code and it’s all that I’ve ever known. However, this world constructed around me is not necessarily the place I feel safe or comfortable.

As I sit down on the pew each week, I fidget, adjusting the skirt, a collection of anxiety and discomfort. I eat the bread and water of the sacrament, taking it properly with my right hand, but wonder if it really is the right place for me to be. But the most painful thing in my church experience has been hearing people from the pulpit telling what they “know to be true”. I struggled with this one for a while. If I, a person raised seventeen years in this church, could not know something to be true, how could a five year old, or an adult who just stumbled upon the building one day last summer, or the horny teenage boy who just started attending to stay with his religious girlfriend, or anybody else know anything besides what is visible directly in front of them.

For a faith based church, they lost mine pretty soon. But if there is one thing I know, it’s that my religious experience and what I learned from it have been the largest catalysts for my secular brain and most likely the path of my future. Anything can influence the dreams we hold. I have a dream that someday I will know if there is a higher power, a “Something with a capital S”. I have a dream that my church will be more tolerant and accepting. I even have had a daydream about kissing the cute girl in my band class. I wish I could prioritize dreams more – in an ideal world we could, but that optimism has faded.

More importantly, though, this world I spent my formative years in has led me to my goals, has led me into realizing my individual aspirations, and how they may differ from those I spend so much time around. Although I may dream of a future where I can use the phrase “I know”, I aspire to lose the need to know. As I grew up and my rose-colored glasses faded into a murky salmon and then a dirty blush color, I realized my time spent figuring out if I was in a place that would make me happy was wasting time I could spend actually being happy, and that’s what I aspire to do.

I aspire to shed off the layers of cynical realism that surround my viewpoint and find a balance between seeing what’s happening and what could be happening. This would seem impossible to Old Me, but as I see the world with a new perspective I find more and more people going through life who have found this harmony, and I guess I just aspire to be in that place. I don’t need to be anything out of the ordinary to feel extraordinary, and that’s the one thing I can say I now know.

[occasionalmaven]

Got Any Solutions? - a documentary idea

Let's hate on group projects for a minute. We've all had them and most of us absolutely despise them. Why? It's our group mates, right? We love to blame them for slacking off and carrying their own weight. Some teachers/professors try to safeguard the other members' grades, but that doesn't solve the problem. 

I propose a  documentary should be made that highlights all of the failings in typical group projects. It would follow two groups from beginning to end and see who contributes to the project and who doesn't, how the groups are set up, and note the general thoughts and feelings of students as they attempt to collaborate. There would be surveys and polls from students across multiple schools to better help show how widespread this hatred towards working in group projects is. Just take a look at the "group project" tag on twitter. 

Why is this needed? Read the above. Students need to learn to not be rude and slackers, especially in group work situations because they'll be working with others for the rest of their lives. Therefore, the earlier educators can figure out how to accomplish this, the better. 

I don't want to focus on the teachers being the only ones to create solutions as students themselves need to step up and do the same. This documentary would only offer data for others to interpret and find ways to solve this problem. That's why the title of the documentary would be "Got Any Solutions?" 

Should this documentary ever come to fruition, I'd hope it would ignite some group project revolution. Hopefully. Maybe. Slight chance. 

[thelifeofhenrybemis]

"You owe reality nothing and the truth about your feelings everything." -- Richard Hugo

and

"Let's face it, writing is hell." -- William Styron

Yes. Writing is hell. It's been hell since I discovered it--discovered that I have the power to bleed truth on a piece of paper; to scream lies on a Microsoft Word document and have someone believe it's true, it's true, it's true ...

Writing is bullshit and writing is beautiful and I hate it--and I love it. I can't write as myself all the time, but when I do, you better know I'm saying the truth about myself because my experience--my experience needs to be written down. My experience needs to be told even if it's nothing compared to yours.

Reality sucks monkey balls and if I can't be true to myself, I can't be true to anything. If I continue hiding everything I write on secret blogs and cloud documents, where is the Ayesha whom the world desperately needs?

How am I supposed to stir change when I can't let myself face the world?