Wow.

"Beautiful girls have the power of promise. They have the power of giving guys hope even when every single thing that goes wrong does go wrong. It's all there: their eyes, their smile, their hair, their hair, their pose, and everything that makes them who they are. They are there to make guys feel good about the everyday-hand-me-down problems that just seem to flow from one generation to another."

-Beautiful Girls

Just...wow. No words can really describe it, but that's the closest I can get. Wow.

US History CAN Be Fun!

From my US History textbook, page 333:

"Among the longest-lived sects were the Shakers. Led by Mother Ann Lee, they began in the 1770s to set up the first of a score or so of relgious communities. The Shakers attained a membership of about six thousand in 1840, but since their monastic customs prohibited both marriage and sexual relations, they were virtually extinct by 1940."

Oh, sweet irony.

School Answering Machine Message

I got this via email. It's hilarious; no wonder some people were offended:

This is the message that the Pacific Palisades High School (California)
Staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering
machine. This came about because they implemented a policy requiring
students and parents to be responsible for their children's absences and
missing homework.

The school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their
children's failing grades changed to passing grades even though those
children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not
complete enough school work to pass their classes.

This is the actual answering machine message for the school:
"Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your
school. In order
to assist you in connecting the right staff member, please listen to
all your options before making a selection:

"To lie about why your child is absent - Press 1

"To make excuses for why your child did not do his work- Press 2

"To complain about what we do - Press 3

"To swear at staff members - Press 4

"To ask why you didn't get information that was already enclosed in
your newsletter and several flyers mailed to you - Press 5

"If you want us to raise your child - Press 6

"If you want to reach out and touch, slap or hit someone - Press 7

"To request another teacher for the third time this year- Press 8

"To complain about bus transportation - Press 9

"To complain about school lunches - Press 0

"If you realize this is the real world and your child must be
accountable and responsible for his/her own behavior, class work,
homework, and that it's not the teachers' fault for your child's lack of
effort: Hang up and have a nice day!"

Why?

Why do bad things always happen to good people?

One of my best friends in the whole world just had her heart stepped on, and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. She is, without a doubt, the nicest person I know, and the nicest person I have ever known. The guy who she loves doesn't know how lucky he is, and he's just being stupid about it, too. I mean, if there is such a thing as two people being made for each other, they're it. And it's just horrible to see my friend say that she wants to crawl into a hole forever and die, and meanwhile this guy...I don't know.

Why can't he see how much she loves him?

I'm relatively happy right now, but I almost feel like it came at the expense of everyone else's happiness. I know that's ridiculous, but it seems like all of my friends' lives have gone down the drain while mine's finally getting better. And I know that everyone has good days and bad days, but why can't we all have our good days on the same day?

Why not have our good weeks together, or months, or years?

How does it work that while the shallowest and stupidest people at my school move in and out of relationships (if they can even be called that), one of my other friends, an awesome person who wants and deserves someone great, keeps on getting burned? She's happy for a while, and then something has to happen, and it's not her fault at all; her heart just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Why does she always get hurt?

Maybe it's not that they're "good" people; maybe it's just that they expect some sort of decency and fairness out of life. Maybe that's too much to ask. Is it? Should we always expect the worse, so we don't get our hopes dashed and our dreams shattered? Is cynicism the way to go? I read somewhere that if you set your sights low, then all you get is pleasantly surprised. But in this case, it seems like you can't put your expectations low enough for them to be under what's going to happen.

Why do bad things always happen to good people?