Psyche=brilliant (note: sarcastic tone)

Psyche kind of bothered me in this story. She is a complete idiot. Although she is a good person and does not harbor much hate in her heart, I still found myself annoyed by her about ninety percent of the time. First of all, she tries to kill herself several times but absolutely cannot suceed. "Oh shit, I screwed up. Well, better kill myself and my unborn child"; yeah, thats a great idea Psyche- bravo. She can't stem her curiosity no matter what she is threatened with. "Curiosity confounded the Psyche." Sounds pretty accurate doesn't it? I guess I can't blame her for having to see her husband after being beguiled by her evil sisters. The only good thing she did in the story was trick the bitches into killing themselves. The part that really bothered me was that she just couldn't stand it and had to look in the box Venus sent her to get. She knows Cupid thinks she is beautiful, so how can she possibly think it intelligent to disobey Venus when she is finally getting a second chance at love? Wow, Psyche, you stun me with your brilliance.

My rant is over. I have been thoroughly annoyed but now that I have written it down I can forget it :).

A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud.

I have never truly had my heart broken. I have had it maimed a fair amount, but I have never lost my faith in love. This story made me think about what love really is. If I have never truly been hurt, then how can I understand this old man's "science"?

In truth, the beginning of this story made me slightly uneasy. Some random old man telling a young boy he loves him? Seems like its going to go somewhere inappropriate. This is the first thing I thought of:

For those of you who don't know, that is the old man that has a creepy infatuation with Chris who is, in fact, a paper boy.

After reading further, I realized that this essay was actually a moving piece. I thought about how one could possibly love something like a rock or a tree and at first thought I wasn't capable of something so seemingly ridiculous. I then thought about the items I possess that I really do love. I found that I am irrationally attached to many invaluable items, such as my ratty old couch and a few holey shirts. I am not sure if these attachments are due to love or simply a need for familiarity. When I look at something from childhood that I have forgotten about, I feel a flood of feelings that is quite similar to what I know to be love. I am extremely sensitive to change so I think that may definitely have something to do with why I love my current possessions. I am one of the most emotional and over dramatic people I know so it is quite possible that I can fall in love with inanimate objects.

This essay could help me change the way I look at the world. I will make a conscious effort to love whatever I come across and hopefully by the time I am as old as the man in the story, I will have figured it out.

Group Presentations II

After witnessing Monday's presentations, I really didn't think Wednesday's could measure up. I was quite wrong. Group 5's presentation showed us some impressive acting. Chloe actually had my somewhat upset. I don't know how she performed flipping out with a straight face. The two men in the group did an excellent job as Hades and Zeus and Maggie impressed me with her acting as well.

Group 6's presentation was my favorite of all. The whole Ted Hughes/Velociraptor thing was so absurd and hilarious that it had me literally in tears. I really wish I wouldn't have screwed up on getting into a group because I could certainly tell that everyone had a lot of fun with it.

Great job everyone!!

Second day of presentations

I missed the first day of presentations, but luckily I was able to witness the performances for the second day. I greatly enjoyed watching group 3 do their "sparagmos dance" and I also thought their plays were extremely entertaining. I was impressed with everyone's complete participation. It definitely seemed like everyone had a part in group three's presentation.

Group four's presentation was nothing short of hilarious. I was impressed with the technology they used and the time they obviously put into it. Although possibly more entertaining than group 3, group 4 did not seem to utilize the group members as evenly. This may be straying somewhat from the assignment, but it is easier to get into a video if everyone isn't a main character.

Great job everyone! I can't wait for Wednesday.

Presentations

I have now listened to the presentations of every person in Classical Literature. I must say I was thoroughly impressed and intrigued by each one. My favorite presentation from the first day was Katie Potter's. Her story about the men who hang out and Kagy Corner was hilarious. She truly engaged the material from the literature we have read by finding a present-day chorus.
My favorite presentation from the second day was Zach's presentation about remembering his childhood. His presentation got me thinking about my own childhood and it helped me to better understand anamnesis. When I rediscover something from childhood, I get a wonderful feeling and I feel like I am becoming a kid again.
Today we got to see the last of the presentations. I liked a couple of these quite a bit. I thought Deborah's presentation about phallocracy (spelling?) was interesting. She really made good points about her claim and made me agree with her. The other presentation I enjoyed was Nick's. It made me laugh. I don't know if it was because the presentation was so great or just because he is funny, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Death is the mother of beauty

I really like the saying "Death is the mother of beauty" and I believe it wholeheartedly. Although it may be difficult to understand, death really is beautiful. I am able to believe this more so because of my belief in God and Heaven. I believe that death is the mother of beauty because it leads to the beauty of the afterlife. This may not be the interpretation many would come up with. I can also interpret this statement differently. Death may also be considered the mother of beauty because without death we would know no true sorrow; and without sorrow we cannot know true joy. You never realize how much you loved someone until that person is gone for good. We were told that it will take twenty years for us to fully understand this statement. As my first interpretation is my favorite, I believe that we cannot fully understand this statement until we die and see the beauty of the afterlife.

My paper- "The Death of Pure Love"

The death of a child is the most heart-wrenching, pain-invoking element of tragedy ever known. The loss of a child is the loss of an innocent soul who has had no time to fully develop his or her own identity. Until recently, I never realized the most basic reason of why this statement is so true, but now I understand. The death of a child is the death of the pure love only a child can possess.

Children are incredibly important to the world. Though it may seem obvious to consider the need for children to be purely to keep the human race going, there is a much deeper need for children in life. People need to be able to recognize the true and unmarred form of love that only children can possess. When children hit puberty, this pure love they possessed when they were younger begins to fade. The discovery of sex turns this love into lust. Teenagers will learn that they cannot trust everyone, but must be careful about who they become close to. As they age, people learn more and more about the vagaries of human nature and how it can harm them. One will become hardened from bad experiences and mistakes made. Many people are incapable of trusting someone who has hurt them. Children are capable of not only trusting someone who has hurt them, but they are also able to love such a person.

In my last blog post, I wrote about a woman from my hometown who murdered her two young children. I have always realized how horrible this occurrence was, but, until know, I have never quite understood the gravity of what this woman did. These two children loved their mother unconditionally. Too young to know any better, they thought that their mother’s unstable behavior and extreme distrust for absolutely everyone was normal. The only person they trusted was their mother, as she had taught them to invest faith in no one but her. The thought I cannot get out of my head is about when they realized what was going to happen to them. She shot one child first. Did the first child to die realize what was happening and immediately lose the love and trust for this woman or did he or she see the mother as a protector until the final moment? Did the second child, seeing his or her sibling die, lose the love for his or her mother in those last painful moments of realization and try to escape? The pure love of a child is nearly untouchable, but how long can a child possess such feelings for someone who is about to commit such an unspeakable crime? No one will ever know what thoughts were flying through those children’s heads in their last moments. Their mother may have known, but she shot herself immediately after murdering her children. I pray that the two children never realized what was coming and felt the pure and unadulterated love they had always felt for their mother until the very end. The little boy was about seven when it happened and the little girl was five. These two children were old enough to realize that they wanted to live, but too young to have done so. Their pure souls had not yet been marred by lust and corruption. When Patty Walling killed her children, she killed one of the only truly pure things that are present in this world.

Maybe Patty saw and recognized the unconditional love her children held for her. Maybe she never wanted to see that love turn into anything less. Patty was schizophrenic so it is not easy for one to understand what she was thinking when she shot her children. Patty probably considered herself unfit to protect her children from the evil of the outside world and thought the best way to protect them was to take that world away from them. The one thing I do know for sure about Patty Walling is that she believed in God. In her eyes, the love that she saw emanating from her children could only be reciprocated by a pure and infallible being like God. It is possible that she wanted to send them to a better place where they could never feel pain or sorrow. One could not possibly commend a woman’s act of killing her children, but those who were around Patty the most could only see her intense adoration for those two kids so it is hard to believe that this crime stemmed from malice.

The killing of the two Walling kids is the most devastating thing that has ever happened to the small town of Winifred, MT. In such a tight-knit community, someone would have taken care of the children if Patty felt unfit to do so. It is impossible to justify Patty’s motives and forgive her completely for what she did. No one could have seen it coming and saved them, and that may be the most tragic element of the whole incident. These children were killed by their mother, the person who was supposed to protect them and preserve that pure and clean love they possessed for as long as possible. I guess she preserved that love for eternity.

There is absolutely nothing more heartbreaking than the death of a child. It may be painful to watch children grow up to lose the pure love they hold, but there is nothing worse than that experience being taken away from them. At such a young age, children have yet to make their imprint on the world. They have not yet felt true pain so they have yet to find out about true joy. They have not yet been able to experience loss so they cannot wholly appreciate what they have. We have not yet seen them grow and acquire an identity that will be theirs for adulthood. These children have only been able to show us what we wish we still were capable of as adults: pure and untainted love.

The Death of Children

I was reviewing my posts, and I realized I never wrote about my experience of the death of a child. Here goes.

Patty Walling was a crazy person...or at least that was what all of we bratty elementary kids said. I remember the rumors that went around about her mental state. She was a single mother with two small children. The older one, Rikki, was one of the cutest kids I have ever seen. He was inordinately small, most likely from malnourishment, and wore ratty secondhand clothing. I could see his inner yearning to be normal in his big, brown, eyes. In the household he grew up in, however, normality was near impossible. Rikki's sister Charice, younger by two years, was no different. She was the epitome of cute. She had blue eyes and white-blond hair, but, like Rikki, was extremely small and far from normal. The main problem these children faced was their mom's overprotective nature. Even though they lived about two blocks away from the elementary, she would bring Rikki to school and pick him up directly after, never talking to anyone. Rikki and Charice were not seen outside of their house unless accompanied by their mother.We all knew Patty was weird, but we could have never foreseen the tragedy that was to come.

It was my first day of sixth grade. I lived 30 miles out of town, so I had to ride the bus every day. I remember when we pulled into town and passed the post office. I saw Patty's old suburban sitting out front with Charice and Rikki looking out the back window. I waved at them, thinking of how excited Charice must have been, as it was her first day of kindergarten. Rikki was just starting first grade. He had been unable to get through kindergarten on the first attempt and had to repeat it so he was almost just as excited as his sister, considering he had accomplished such a feat. The beginning of school would have been a huge relief to the two of them, considering they were never able to interact with other children otherwise. The strange thing was, neither of the children were smiling. I thought nothing of it and forgot about the sighting until later that day.

My friend Randi and I made a point to play with Rikki at recess because his classmates thought he was weird and would oftentimes make fun of him. We waited but he never came and we realized he was not at school at all. I couldn't possibly guess what had happened, so I thought nothing of this occurrence either. I just assumed the children must have been sick. The rest of the day went as planned; kids getting settled into new classrooms and becoming acquainted with new teachers. The bus ride home was fun, talking with friends I hadn't gotten a chance to see much over the summer. When I got to the bus stop and jumped into my mom's car (the bus stop was 6 miles away from our house), I could sense something wrong. Her face was tight and her jaw was clenched. I thought I was in trouble, and immediately started wracking my brain for any punishable acts I had committed in the past week. We drove along in silence for a while, and Mom stopped the car and started crying.

"Patty Walling killed her kids." That was the phrase that brought my Easter-bunny world crashing down. Parents are supposed to protect their children, not cause them harm. She had driven them out of town to her parents' ranch and, in one of the abandoned buildings on the property, shot Rikki and Charice and then shot herself. After breaking the news to us, through her tears, Mom told my sister and I that she would never hurt us and would always protect us for our entire lives. The fact that my mom felt like she had to reassure us makes me resent Patty Walling even more for what she did.

We picked up the mail on the way home and realized what Patty had been doing at the post office that morning. She had sent my mom an unexplainable check for five-hundred dollars, around which there was strange and barely-decipherable writing. The only words I made out were "kneel", "God", and "judge". I will never know what she was trying to tell us, but it obviously wasn't a cry for help, considering she killed her kids long before the mail was delivered. The woman who delivered mail to the Walling ranch was actually the one who found the bodies.

Why did Patty Walling do this? She was obviously mentally unstable, but did she justify her actions to herself in her sick, twisted, mind? Maybe she thought she was protecting Rikki and Charice from something. She had led a tumultuous life, to say the least, in and out of abusive relationships and dealing with family issues. Maybe she didn't want her children to experience what she had experienced and wanted to send them to Heaven as soon as possible. If she believed in God, she must have known she would go to Hell for what she had done, so maybe it is possible that she was willing to undergo eternal damnation to give her children eternal bliss. Did she view her crime as not the ultimate betrayal of mother to child but the ultimate sacrifice? Maybe Patty Walling wasn't a horrible person. Maybe in her mind she did the most generous thing possible.

I say these things in her defense, but I have a hard time not hating her for what she did. She shot those kids one at a time. Which one had to watch the other die? How soon did they figure out what she was going to do to them? Were they thinking she was taking them to school until she didn't turn into the parking lot? What did she say to them before she did it? God only knows and He is the only one who can punish her for what she has done.

An Imaginary Life

We have read several poems that tell of metamorphoses of some being. These poems are written by the poet Ovid. An Imaginary Life is written by David Malouf. I believe the main theme of this story is the metamorphosis of the master of metamorphosis, Ovid. He begins the story as a begrudging prisoner of this desolate village, unable to understand the language or customs. Ovid has been exiled and is unable to return to his normal life. Instead, he has been unwillingly integrated into this life that could not be more different from the one he is accustomed to. He finally finds solace in his obsession with a feral child he spots during a hunting excursion. He is brought back to his childhood by this sighting of what he believes to be no ordinary child, but The Child. Eventually, the child is captured and is put under Ovid's supervision and care. After an excruciating couple of weeks, Ovid begins to become close to the Child. He then begins to teach the Child normal human behavior. At first glance, this bout of knowledge gain and development seems to show us the apparent metamorphosis of the Child, but in truth we are seeing the metamorphosis of the Child’s teacher, Ovid. Ovid has now accepted his fate and concerns himself solely with the development and protection of the Child. Further into the relationship, Ovid and the Child must face the trials and tribulations that come with the Child’s instinctual animal-like characteristics and the village’s lack of acceptance of such a strange creature. After a taxing sequence of sicknesses and an old woman’s acute paranoia, the Child and Ovid must leave the village. This journey of two separate beings becomes the journey of one entity. Ovid morphs from the teacher into the pupil. He is now in the Child’s world, and what he knows from his past life will do little to help him survive. In the end, the Child must take care of Ovid, who has become an old man. We have seen the metamorphosis of a man into a child, a teacher into a pupil. A beautifully written, profoundly intriguing story, An Imaginary Life is a trip for the imagination. In this story, Ovid is not viewed as a creator of amazing yet horrifying works of metamorphosis, he is himself morphed into a humble student. He manages to find an ability of great compassion for another being that, if he were not exiled, would never have come to fruition.

Arachne

I found the story of Arachne quite boring after hearing the colorful depictions of the other poems in Ovid Metamorphoses. There is a lack of juiciness, so to speak, that is undeniable. There is no incest, rape, murder, or cannibalism to be found. Suicide is an interesting topic, I suppose, but we are left with attempted suicide. I am not sure how to make this one exciting but I certainly will try.

I think my main problem is my inexplicable need to relate these stories to my life. I want to find a moral. The morals I came up with upon hearing these stories seem a little....well, ridiculous. "Don't eat your children", "Don't sleep with your father", "Don't talk shit to someone who could potentially turn you into a spider", etc. I don't think someone with even the most tumultuous life could make sense of such ridiculous morals. This is not saying anything unfavorable about the text. In fact, there are few texts as colorful and as interesting as these. I am merely relaying my mindset whilst reading said text. Truthfully, I don't even think what I just wrote makes much sense, once I actually read through it. So be it.

Flyting

My sister and I have had a few insult-flinging matches, and I am happy to say I usually win. The most recent one was because I asked her if she got the mail because I had asked her to earlier that day. She flipped out because she apparently thought I was asking so much of her. She called me a lazy bitch because I hadn't been cleaning the house enough. I told her it was because I was dealing with 19 credits, a part-time job, and being sick. She then proceeded to scream at me because I "am always sick" and she even said "why the fuck do you always get sick, we have pretty much the same immune system." I then called her a stupid whore and explained to her that I don't like being sick. She then informed me that I was a lazy piece of shit and I left because I couldn't stand the stupid insults anymore. Luckily, we reconciled and everything is okay now.

Platonic Love

At the end of Wednesday's class, the subject of platonic love came up briefly. One person voiced her opinion that platonic love does not exist, and this comment caused quite a stir. My first instinct was to disagree with her. Men and women can have relationships with each other sans sexual tension....right? Upon further consideration I have decided that I agree with this person-there is no such thing as platonic love. I thought back to every male I have ever had any sort of a relationship with and I thought about the entirety of said relationship. I have never had a relationship with a male that was completely devoid of sexual tension of any kind. I don't think this says anything about my personality or natural sexual identity. If everyone thought about as in depth as I did, I think they would agree. I do believe there are exceptions. I lived with a homosexual guy. We never had any kind of sexual tension between us whatsoever. There are other exceptions, of course, but what we are referring to is people of the same age group who could potentially be attracted to each other. In that case, I believe there is no exception. When someone claims to have had a relationship with someone of the opposite sex that was completely platonic, he or she is not thinking of the other person's feelings. I have had relationships with males in which I was not attracted to them in any way, but this does not mean they have never thought of me sexually. If you want to test an apparent platonic relationship, get drunk with someone. People may act differently when enebriated, but they are not different people. They may do things they regret, but some part of their mind was in on it.

Intoxication

Intoxication can a good thing and a bad thing. One can become more social and "come out of their shell", or one can become too social and piss everyone off. This topic interests me because I was just discussing what goes through ones head when her or she is nearly black-out drunk (completely wasted, but still conscious of action). My theory is that one reverts back to the way he or she thought as a child. Think about what was going through your head when you did some idiotic thing children are prone to do. I can remember one in particular. I was 5 years old. I had a golf ball and a spoon. I put the golf ball in said spoon. I then proceeded to hit the end of the spoon, causing the golf ball to fly up and hit me in the eye, blackening it. For some reason, this memory is extremely vivid to me. What was I thinking? It seemed like a good idea at the time. The previous phrase is a classic motto for a then-drunk-now-hungover person. "I really wanted to tackle my roommate down the stairs. It seemed like a good idea at the time." That is actually a direct quote from yours truly. When people are drunk, they turn into the stupid little kids they once were. Personally, I become far more dramatic (as if I am not dramatic enough in real life) and I tend to perform absolutely outlandish acts. For instance, as mentioned in a previous post, I physically assaulted my boyfriend's roommate last week. I had been drinking and he pushed me to the brink of insanity, and I completely snapped. I fell upon him in blind rage, kicking, punching and screaming unidentifiable obscenities. Luckily for the victim, my boyfriend is a trained bouncer, and was able to pull me off of him (no easy feat), before I could do much damage. I guess if you learn anything from this post, learn that it is unwise to harass a heavily intoxicated person to the breaking point, because said person, in his or her drunken state, may forget completely how to use discretion.

Love

There is no set definition for love, but this is mine. Love is when you can be profoundly irritated by someone but still want to spend every minute with them. It is when you can feel comfortable talking about past relationships and current relationship problems. Love is also when you can wake up hungover looking like absolute shit and not feel self-conscious in front of your partner. There is my definition of love. Not too exciting.

Argument With My Boyfriend; kind of funny

I realized that I am a little short on posts and I thought this would be an interesting one, since I just had and interesting argument with my boyfriend.

(last night I had a slight altercation with my boyfriend's roommate, which involved my boyfriend dragging me downstairs because I was trying to beat his roommate up)

Matt: How are you today? (alluding to the previous night as I was seething with rage)
Me: I'm okay, I have calmed down a lot, but I'm still pretty pissed at Hill (the roommate)
Matt: You need to talk to him and say you're sorry.
Me: F*** Hill, I don't want to talk to him.
Matt: I can't have you throwing haymakers at my roommates.
Me: I lost my temper but it was his fault, he was picking on me.
Matt: Hill always picks on you, you just have to deal with it. He was just messing with you.
Me: I don't give a sh**, I told him to stop and he wouldn't.
Matt: At least talk to him, you are over at my house all the time and you need to get along with my roommates.
Me: Okay, I will talk to him.
Matt: Try to add something in there about being sorry for the physical assault...and mean it.
Me: I am not sorry, he needed to know how mad I was.
Matt: At least say you're sorry for trying to kick him in the balls.
Me: Okay, fine, I'll say it but I still think he deserved it.
(then we went to class, and in the middle of class he texted me)
Matt: How many women blind with rage does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
(when I got out of class, I asked him what the punchline was)
Matt: 300. One to screw the lightbulb in and 299 to assault the entire staff of the electrical company

Obviously, considering he was making jokes about it, we resolved the problem. I have not yet talked to his roommate about last night, but I am hoping it won't end in any more violence.

The Death of a Pet

Today in class, Mr. Sexson assigned that we write about an experience with the death of a pet.
When I was 8 years old, I got a horse for Christmas from my parents. I had been riding him since my mom broke him when he was two, but my parents decided to make him officially mine. His name was George and he was one of the gentlest horses we had at the time, despite the fact he was only four years old. One day the following summer, we were riding out to move cattle, when he stumbled under me. I thought it was nothing, as horses will often lazily not pick their feet up and stumble. He then started to slow down until he was creeping along. Finally, he stopped and started swaying. I leapt off as he was falling down and I watched him die. It turned out his heart had exploded. I was told it was not my fault, as I was not riding him strenuously, but he was bound to die eventually. Such an event is fairly traumatizing for any child or even for a young adult.

Songs of Childhood

I enjoyed the conversation in last class about the songs we used to sing as children. My personal favorite was "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." I made the mistake of introducing this song to my little sister and I can't believe my parents let me live through it. She would walk around the house singing it in monotone, messing up the lyrics (they ARE pretty challenging). She and I used to share a room in our old house and she would sing it incessantly until she fell asleep every night for a good couple of months. I am scared to let my future children listen to easily-mimicked music because of that ordeal.

This talk of childhood makes me extremely nostalgic, so I am going to head off on a tangent. I love thinking of the movies I watched as a child. I brought this thought up to my boyfriend and we started brainstorming. Here are some movies we came up with: Felix the Cat, Secrets of Nimh, The Brave Little Toaster, Rescuers Down Under ("these are not Joanna eggs", still hilarious), Once Upon a Forest, and several more I cannot remember off the top of my head. I was disappointed to find that Felix the Cat, one of the strangest and trippiest (So I made this word up, what of it?) cartoons I have ever seen, is almost impossible to find. Here is a link to a Youtube page that has the movie in segments, if you feel inclined to walk down memory lane with me.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=felix+the+cat+the+movie&aq=f
Have a wonderful day everyone!!

The Lottery

I just looked up "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. It is quite possibly one of the most disturbing things I have read. This is the linkI found....enjoy.

www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html

In class on Monday, we were assigned to imagine being present at a moment in musical history. My first instinct was to talk about being at Woodstack, because everyone knows it was a profound historical moment. I, however, don't think that Woodstock was really about the music as much as it was about the crazy hippies that were disregarding authority therein. The historical moment in musical history I choose to talk about is the emergence of grunge music and how Kurt Cobain made it so widely known. There really is not a specific moment I can think of that is primarily about the music. Kurt Cobain's suicide, although more about his twisted mind than his music, DID make Nirvana more prevalent and broadened the fan base substantially. This event turned Nirvana into a household name. It would have been difficult to find someone in the 90's who had never heard of Nirvana, and it would still be a daunting task to this day. Now, I will get back to what Nirvana was really about- the grunge movement. At a time when everyone was listening to carbon-copy pop crap, Kurt Cobain decided to do something different. Nirvana may have not been the first grunge band, but they are the ones who exposed the public to a much-needed change of popular musical genre.

I have never written in a blog. I guess I have never assumed that people would care about what happens to me on a daily basis. For a class, however, I will make an exception.

My first profound and erudite observation has to do with the 5 classic causes of drama. Of course I don't have them handy, as a I am SO organized, but I think I can remember them.

Men and Women
Old and Young
Mortal and Immortal
Living and Dead
Individual and State

Okay, in truth, I had to look up the last two, but I did legitimately remember the first three, but I digress. The thought I want to relay is that there should be one more conflict. This should be between Brother and Sister (or sister and sister, as is in my case). I recently moved into a tiny one-bedroom apartment with my sister, and I would say she causes the second most drama in my life (not even close to the boyfriend drama, but still quite notable). Siblings have a very unique situation, as we are expected to love each other and get along, regardless of how we think (I am talking about my situation, as I am sure others have different experience in family life). Yes, it may be easier to get along with a sibling as you are forced to coexist with him or her for a time and are raised the same way, but there are many challenges associated with this assumed inherent friendship, which is especially present in siblings close in age, like my sister and I. Luckily we do sincerely like each other, but sometimes we have to force ourselves to get along, and I am willing to say a lot meaner things to her than I am to stranger, or even a close acquaintance. I don't feel the need to continue reinforcing my topic, so there you go.....post number one and a great one at that.