Happy Valley and its unhappy visitors.

I live in a little place called Happy Valley. It's a place where we shit sunshine and rainbows and all the majestic ponies come to visit. Yeah, that's basically what happens. Except that for the last year we have been getting hit up by unwanted media action. Yup, that's right, Happy Valley happens to be the place where Penn State University resides. A place I know and love. And since last November a huge scandal came out about a former football coach (that hasn't had a connection to Penn State for over 10 years), Jerry Sandusky. Of course the country  was up in arms about it. Even though this man may have been a former employee at Penn State, that doesn't mean that everyone who still works there should be punished. However, I don't want to talk about Jerry Sandusky. He doesn't deserve my time. To be honest, I really just want to say that Joe Paterno was a wonderful man. The media, Penn State, and anyone else who may have had a problem with him needs to let him rest in peace. For the sake of his family and his friends let him be. He did nothing wrong. If you knew him, not just from the media stand point, but from the stand point of a co-worker, football player, student, family member or friend, then you know that he was a more than just a football coach. He was a mentor and a role model. He didn't ask for fame. The fact that there is Ice Cream named after him or a library... He didn't ask for that kind of honor. He was just a good guy, a good guy, who, in the past year was thrown under the bus. Anyone who has something bad to say about him, disgusts me. He was a huge part of what brought happy valley together. To the media, please leave our strange town in the middle of Amish-ville alone. We don't deserve this anymore. It makes all of us from Happy Valley pretty unhappy. Please leave us all alone now.
God Bless.  

Heavy Drinkers Who Eat a Lot of Fish

According to some study done by some person at some university in England (I know so official sounding, right?).... anyway, according to this study the happiest country in the world is actually Denmark. Which must sound surprising to most of the world, right? Or is it just me? As my English 015 professor puts it, "happiness to us usually looks like beaches and sunny days in a bikini."  She's right. I would have thought maybe it was somewhere tropical, somewhere sunny. Somewhere that people often like to visit when they want to get away. When you are looking to get happy, don't you usually think about the places where it's warm and pleasant all the time. However, instead of happiness thriving in these nations, it appears to thrive in a place where it's kinda chilly, rainy, and yeah not to put it softly, where they drink heavily and eat a whole lot of herring. I'm sure that it must be a pleasant place to live. I never really imagined it to be overly chilly or overly warm....I never really thought much of it until I had to read about dear old Prince Hamlet. This isn't what I found interesting though. It was that when Danish people were asked about it they said that it was not that they were happy, but that they are content. They aim low, set low goals, and when or if they don't succeed they aren't being torn down. On top of that they live in a basically homogeneous society. They don't start up very high so it hard for them to be brought down. They are not always pushing to be more than they have to be. Success just isn't measured the same way to them. One man said, "Success for me is if I am happy and get to spend a lot of time with my family." Isn't it funny how differently Americans define success. We define it as being of a highly ranked job, making a lot of money and being able to say something of our education. Maybe that's why so many Americans are depressed. So please, for the sake of the Danish and the rest of us, just be content with what you have and don't kill yourself trying to become the American version of successful. You may just end up further away from your goal than you planned. Happiness is no right... you must pursue it. Just make sure that you know the definition of the word first.
God Bless.

Llamas in a Hammock?

One of my closest friends has told me that before we were friends she was scared of me. Now while today she likes to say that it wasn't that she was scared of me, just that she didn't know me yet, let's be real, I saw her diary. She was actually afraid of me. I guess I come on a little strong. I am a bit more intense than I intend to be. This can be both bad and good. The funny thing is that this poor girl feared my intense nature and yet she was constantly thrown into situations where she would have to hang out with me. From going to movie nights and poker nights to school events and casual nothing get togethers with our closest friends. Don't get me wrong, she wasn't with me that much, but enough that I am forever in her dairy as that scary chick. What is even weirder is that she started to loathe being around me. She didn't like what I had to say. In fact she found my sarcastic nature cold and mean. Which caused her and I to be less than acquaintances. Now she was just that girl that my best friend happened to also be friends with. Okay, whatever, we don't have to like each other, that is fine. Bad solution. One day my sarcastic comments threw this pour girl into a rage, she even called me a bitch (a word I had never heard her use.). And now I found myself blowing up at her as well. This just wasn't going well at all!  A huge fight that threw our mutual best friend into choosing sides. Just not something that you want to happen. The funny thing is that night she apologized to me. We actually talked. Don't get me wrong, we weren't instant friends, but it gave us a chance to get to know each other. And in the months after she went from being not even an acquaintance, to being one of my best friends. Without whom I would have less random videos, less sleepovers where we sleep by a sword in case a rapist or murder stops by, less awkward moments and less yoga references. And without her I would not have made this blog. For better or for worse I have her back, because one fight can change who you are. See, and you thought this was going to be about llamas in a hammock... silly subscribers.

p.s. Please don't go duke it out with someone and then say "BUT I JUST WANTED TO BE YOUR FRIEND!!!" I am the exception. You are the rule.

God bless.  

Mallowball

Mallowball, maybe you have heard of it. If you have, you are among the lucky few. I like to talk about my friends a lot, they are pretty incredible after all, and today is no exception. I have one particular friend that I think I need to focus on today, and for the sake of this post let's call him Spider man. He's a pretty great guy, I must admit. Either way, he's really easy to talk to and I have to say that I must have my most random moments with him because there has never been a time where he told me that I needed to change or be anything that I wasn't. He embraces my random nature more than most, which I must say, comes in handy. However this post isn't about how Spider man excepts my odd nature, it is about MALLOWBALL! See, because Spider man doesn't care what I say, I end up saying really random and sometimes ridiculous things. One day as we were walking together from one class we couldn't come up with anything to talk about so I just blurted out, "I wonder if marshmallows would bounce better off of each other?" Yeah, see, I told you I was odd. BUT even weirder we tested it out. We made it a game. An AWESOME game. So you reading this are getting a treat (ha it's like a pun.). So for your enjoyment here are the rules.
 Rules:

1) A match is called a Xdragonq (pronounced dragon)  

2) Each Xdragonq lasts 13 minutes 

3) There are 3 Xdragonqs 

4) If you reach 20 rainbows (or penalties) you automatically lose the game

5) The beginning of the Xdragonq you must mallow it up

See now I bet you are wondering the objective of this game....because I know I would be. The goal is to get the "mallow" into the hands of the other person by bouncing the mallow off of a field of mallows. It might now sound like much, but let me tell you, it could be an Olympic Sport one day. Watch out for it.

God Bless.

Bunny Companion

Yesterday as my boyfriend and I were driving back to his house we passed a bunny on the side of the road. It was outside of his house. This bunny seemed a little odd, it was walking around in circles in a very tiny area on the road. I let it be, but my boyfriend felt drawn to it through his vast curiosity. He walked over to it to see why it was acting in such an odd manner. He came to me and his mother and let us know that the bunny had been hit by a car. Well now I cared about the bunny. In fact now I felt drawn to the bunny. It was still alive. In fact, its whole body was in tact. However, it had been hit partially in the face and had one of it's legs run over. At most angles the bunny just looked like a bunny, but then there was that one angle, the angle where you could see the blood drip down, the angle where you could see it pain. I found out that day that you can't call the humane society for a hurt, "wild" bunny. They won't do anything for an animal that isn't endangered or really something they'll care about, like a deer. Nope, it was just a bunny. JUST a bunny. That word rings in my head. It was a living creature. It was in pain. All I wanted was to help it, but there was nothing I could do. It had obvious internal bleeding and it's time was slowly approaching. We stood on the side of the road as its breathing slowed and it rolled over on its side. Its body had given up and he was slowly faded. A police officer came and scooped him into a bag to dispose of him. He wasn't even dead. I asked them not to. Just to let him stay where he was, let me sit a little longer. But instead, he was prematurely put into his body bag and carted about. His time had come and I was crying. All for a bunny I had just met. All for a bunny I hadn't even named. It was in that moment that I named his Frank. I curled up in a ball and cried about Frank, my bunny companion, who I had only just met. He was my Frank, and he deserved more than to be carted away in a plastic garbage bag. He was more special than any endangered bald eagle and should have been treated as such. I am sorry Frank. I wish I could have done more.
God Bless.

Air Force Lullaby

I think I have been afraid. I wrote before about my boyfriend going into the Air Force. I wrote it, I was proud of it, but I was afraid of being judged for what I wrote and I deleted it out of that fear. So today I write again about the one thing that I can't get off my mind. My boyfriend decided to join the Air Force. It is a decision that haunts me. My dreams reflect it. I have gotten a lot of advice on the matter in the past couple of months. I'm not quite sure that anyone around me understands what it is that I am going through. I realize that sounds overly high school and dramatic, but in this case it really isn't. I would tell anyone before this date that I would never be with anyone in the military. It just doesn't look like an option to me. Your life is lonely. Very lonely. I would have said that I could never put up with that life. But now, hearing most of my friends and family telling me that it isn't worth it, telling me that I won't be happy, telling me that I should let him go before I get hurt, I find myself doubting decisions that I made years ago. If I leave him and this relationship that means that even when he is back for visits or making calls to friends and relatives, I won't be there and a part of it. I want to be there. I want to be part of it. Which means I have to stay with him. That means that I will be spending my Thursday nights at my church praying for him, my Friday nights with my church youth group so I can get other people to pray for him, and my Sundays as I already do, praying for him. I will spend my time thinking about him and praying for him because he won't be here. I will do all this because I wouldn't want to lose someone as smart, funny, strong, kind, handsome, silly and loving as he is. I will miss his smile and his fake Irish accent. But mostly I am going to miss the way that he squeezes my hand three times when he wants to tell me he loves me without interrupting the silence. I don't think that I write this for the world to see, but for those people in my life who want me to give up before I start spending my Thursday nights praying for him. He isn't perfect. He makes mistakes all the time, but that won't stop me from from changing my Thursday night ritual for him. God Bless.

A lie...

Places like facebook are a little bit odd. On facebook you can be anyone you want to be. You could male or female or neither . You're name could magically be Edward Cullen and your interests could include that of chasing around mystical creatures in order to turn them into you magical slaves. You could like apples and hate bananas. The world inside of the computer would never know if you were lying. You could change everything about yourself. You relationship status may say single when in reality you have a girlfriend who just happens to not have a facebook. You could make up every detail, and who would be there to stop you from saying that you religion in Pastafarian and you worship the flying spaghetti monster? No one. That is who. You could say absolutely anything. Doesn't it scare you to think that the person on the other end of the screen could be one big lie?