dream on, dream until your dream come true

So, today I heard from one of my neices, who apparently is moving in with her boyfriend and not finishing high school. I personally find this ridiculous. I mean, on one hand, I admire the courage it takes to not take the expected path, to forgoe the traditional to follow a dream. BUT, she is not giving up on high school to go after her passion, she's giving up on it so she can sit at home with her high school flunkie. Having a high school degree is practically a base requirement for getting any job in the future, and why should anyone give up their future for some fellow dropout who will most likely just break your heart in the end. It's wreckless, and it's a decision that will follow a person for the rest of their lives. I realize she is not the first person to ever drop out of high school to move in with her boyfriend, I mean I knew at least 5 people in my high school class who did the same thing, but it's just sad to me. There are people out there so desperate for love that once someone offers them the chance for companionship they'll skip out on their plans in hopes of feeling whole. The one goal I am making to myself is that I never let myself do that. I never want to give up my dreams/goals for a guy who doesn't want to support me in following them. Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage but simply because they have never organized their energies around a goal. If my neice had a half-decent boyfriend, he would be encouraging her to focus her energy on a goal -- graduating or finding a good job. But he's not, and sadly, life can't be as carefree as we wish it were. Everyone has to grow up eventually.

all you need is love. bom badada bom.

im feeling oddly agitated today. ive actually felt oddly agitated for the past few days, for some reason i cant quite figure out. all i know is that the tension in my house is not making it any better. ive just been listening to my dad rant for the last hour about how people should either come to our house after my sister's wedding or that her and her friends should just stay at the hotel bar for the night, and that taking a bus around to bar-hop is ridiculous. and it just frustrates me because im trying to stick up for her and make him realize that its not HIS WEDDING. she wants to be with her family AND friends, but pleasing both crowds can be complicated. he doesn't see any point but his own. i dont know, im just hoping it turns out to be the day she dreams, as corny as that is. these days it seems weddings get far too out of control, theres so much stress and anxiety for the poor brides that i can clearly understand now why some run off and elope. every bride ends up trying to please each guest, at the expense of their sanity. in the words of those clever beatles: all you need is love. a wedding is supposed to be about the declaration of love, forget the details, forget the anxiety. despite it all, i think mandy is working through this whole process ten times better than i ever could. id probably be rocking in the fetal position on the floor by now. i envy her strength. and im so glad she found that one guy for her, he fits in better than most would with our crazy family.

"The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on." - Chuck Palahnuik

it's the end of the world as we know it, and i feel fine

i had such a nice friday so far, getting off work early, relaxing by the pool with britt, and eating a snowball. now i'm at home relaxing with the parents, and we just watched a movie called "chaos", which was probably one of the stupidest movies ive ever seen. it's a movie about an experiment which shows what will happen when global warming occurs. they trapped 5 people in a steam room, turned the temperature up to 130 degrees, and watched what happened. two people murdered 2 others, one got a nail gun to the head by a stranger outside of the room, another committed suicide, and two survived. and in the end there is some twist about the guy that created the experiment is in a mental hospital, and the two that survived work in the mental hospital. i honestly still have no idea what the point was of that movie. if it was trying to scare people into being worried about the effects of global warming, it was unsuccessful. the inconvenient truth already did that to me. haha. i mean, i guess on a basic level, the movie made sense because it was showing how, in a time of chaos, different types of people will cope in different ways (by breaking under the pressure - hurting others or yourself to deal with the lack of control and reason, or not). i dont even know why i watch these end-of-the-world movies anymore because they just freak me out and leave me feeling helpless knowing that there isn't much that can be done to prevent any of it. the caps melt, sea levels rise, hello biggest wave ever OR gaseous build-up leads to such sweltering temperatures that your lungs melt and you suffocate. these are things that are out of my control, therefore, i dont feel the need to hear anything more about it. que sera, sera. if the world comes to an end, so it does, you cant fight fate. let it be.