The semester's almost over

In 2 weeks, I will be at home for Christmas break. I am so ready. As much as I love all my friends here, it will be nice to have some time off without worrying about having homework to do.

I've been working in the dining hall, Lottie Nelson, for the last 3 weeks. It's really not very fun, to be honest. It's hot, and slightly stressful. But hey, I'm making money. It's better than any job I'd probably be able to find in Wayneboro.

This economic crisis/recession is really starting to become more apparent. Black Friday this year actually resulted in death. One Walmart worker got trampled in a mob, and 2 men shot each other at a Toys R Us. The materialism in our culture has made it so necessary to have all the things we want that we are able to justify running people over at a Walmart? Even when they tried to close the Walmart because of the man being killed, the people wouldn't leave because they wanted to keep shopping. Why is that more important than the fact that they had just broken down a door and killed a man? And why did those guys think it was ok to bring guns to Toys R Us? I just don't understand. I know that the economy is not good, but I just can't see any rationality behind being so determined to get what you want that you just disregard everyone around you.

For my one class, History of the Middle East, we had to read the published blog of "Riverbend", and anonymous Iraqi woman who started blogging about life during the war in Iraq back in 2003. (www.riverbendblog.blogspot.com) They published most of her blog into books. We read the first year of her blog and wrote a paper on it. It was really striking to see how different our perspectives are on all of this. I know that we get biased news here, but I had no idea how much I was unaware of until I read this. She definitely had a lot of anger towards American governmetn, but that is understandable when your country is being occupied by another country whose excuse for getting into your life is the accusation that your people were harboring weapons of mass destruction that ended up being nonexistent. I've been totally unaware of quite a lot regarding our relations with Iraq in the last few years. I wish I had been paying more attention.

Right now, I'm listening to NSYNC Home for Christmas. Remember that? haha it really brings back the memories. Wow.