My Good Friend, Mr. Robo

     I would like to begin this post by saying that I am sorry for not checking in until now. It's been a few days, and I am trying to make at least one post per day for the first year of my joining this wonderful site. My excuse for my absence is that I have been miserably ill for past week or so, and have had no energy whatsoever to devote to my blog. However, with this sickness has come some interesting material to share with all of you.

     I spent the first day and a half of my sick-leave in a dazed and confused state, doing nothing more than staring at my TV and dragging myself to class in a zombie like stupor with no medication in my systemic circuit to curb the raging fever and uncontrollable cough that has been plaguing me. After my chest was sore and my head was in a vice from all the coughing, I finally broke down and asked a friend to take me to the store so that I could obtain some of what my dear mother used to refer to as "magic juice". She agreed and off we went.

     I went to the grocery section and began to fill my shopping cart with various soups, crackers, and vitamin-enhanced waters and then made my way to the pharmacy department. I picked up my usual remedy including a few different types of vitamins, some ibuprofen, 12 hour nasal spray, and an industrial sized bottle of my mother's magic juice cough syrup.

     I went back to my room and ingested the usual dosage of everything except the "magic juice" (aka. Mr. Robo, aka. the cough syrup). This I took a big gulp of for good measure and placed myself in bed. I then, or so I thought, passed out.

     I woke up coughing the next morning and grabbed the bottle of "magic juice" beside my bed and took another big gulp of the stuff. The next order of business was to right myself into a sitting position and take a look at my emails on my laptop. To my surprise, there was  a web site already pulled up on my screen that read "Irish Pen Pals". My foggy brain began to turn in on itself when I realized that I had magically acquired and account on this social networking site, complete with a profile to boot. There was only one explanation. The so-called "magic juice" had not allowed me to sleep after taking it. It had, on the other hand, gotten me so drunk that I could not remember doing this terrible thing to myself. I say terrible only because I am a mostly private person with no real interest in developing a relationship of any kind with someone across The Pond.

    Despite my initial shock and mortification of this recent development in my social networking life, I was sure that I could still undo the damage and simply delete the profile. After all, it had been less than 24 hours since I had created this profile. How many people could have seen it? So I went to the user account settings link and was relieved to find the "delete account" option. I was not, however, relieved to find what my profile actually consisted of. A picture of me from five years ago was there along with a paragraph about myself with I don't know how many lies involved and my personal email address. I could delete my profile if I wanted, but if even one person had already sent me something the damage would be irreversible. I flew through cyber space to my inbox.

     Empty. *sigh of relief*. Then a sneaky suspicion hit me. I clicked on the "sent mail" link.

     There they were. Two outgoing emails addressed to two men I had never met from a country I had never been to. The damage was done. I gave up. After all, if my subconscious wanted me to have a pen pal in Ireland, then who was I to say no? I let it go and thought I would be lucky if no one responded to this mess, and if they did, I would just have to tell them what happened and send them on their way. I closed my laptop. I rolled over and tried to watch TV.

     Then it hit. The second swig of "magic juice" I had administered to myself had kicked in, and this time I was AWAKE for it. I found myself laughing uncontrollably at.........you guessed it.........NOTHING!

     I resisted the urge to grab my laptop. I resisted the urge to go find company for my delirium. I resisted the urge to go to the bathroom. If I left this bed then the rest of my dorm hall was sure to see me in this state and never respect me again.

    I was wrong. Two of the girls here, including the one who had taken me to buy the "magic juice", found me in a giggling state of hysterics about two hours later. They took pity on me and led me outside for a smoke. One of them brought bagels and cream cheese. The other brought her bowl. I politely waved off the later due to my already shaky state of being, but nevertheless, we had a grand time of it just sitting on our fire escape high as kites on one thing or another, eating bagels and soaking up the sunshine on an unusually warm day in February.

     So went my weekend. And if you were curious as to whether or not I had received a response to my emails to the nice Irishmen, the answer is yes. His name is James and he is very nice.

     Looks like Mr. Robo was a friend to me after all and he brought a good-mannered Irishman along for the ride. I hope to feel better soon.

    
  

Dreaming About Food and the Noise Violation

     I have been asked about my newest humanitarian policy, so I will share. I strongly suggest that if this new thought seems to be a good idea to any of you as well and it is within your power to start a similar program, it would be put into production as soon as possible. There are far too many people out there going hungry.

     My thought came to me when dreaming about eating at one of my university's cafeterias. As I was sitting in the booth, a man came in. He was obviously homeless and in need of a good meal and some true kindness. I offered to share my student account so that he could get some food in his stomach. He responded that he appreciated the offer, but that it wouldn't be necessary. He told me that there was a new program at my college that used all the left-over food from the day for a meal for the homeless. At 9:30pm every night, the doors would open up and the still piping hot food from the day would be given to whoever showed up. Women and children were put through the line first, then the men would eat. He also told me that local restaurants were participating as well. They would either bring in some food to my cafeteria, or had their own similar program.

     When I awoke, I was saddened to realize that it had all been a dream. Sure there would be a few minor kinks to work out, but so many people could be fed with a program like this. And with the work shortage in my country right now, the extra hours available to workers would open up even more opportunities for the same people being fed to work behind the counters and get off the streets. It just seems to be something worth looking into.

     In other news, I received my very first write-up of the year this very night. My crime? I have no bloody idea. I was standing in front of my mirror in my own room taking makeup off and quietly conversing with one of my friends, who was playing on my computer, when my RA stepped in my door, shut it, and demanded my Student ID card. She told us both that she was writing us all up for a noise violation. It was after quiet hours, but my TV was on mute (Animal Planet of course). My computer had no noise coming from it at all and we were more in our own worlds than we were even talking amongst ourselves. However, there were several girls out in the hall making all kinds of loud, obscene noises. Only a few of them were given punishment. I plan on having a LONG conversation with my RD tomorrow morning. If my RA wants to play hard ball then she had better be good at it, because I invented that game.

     Just a side note: RA is a Residential Assistant and lives in the building to help the residents with everyday problems. A RD is a Residential Director and lives in the building to handle much bigger issues as well as to keep the RAs in line. My RD will be doing the second tomorrow. This means WAR.

  

Saturday Evening Muse

     I've been watching too much Animal Planet and A&E again. This seems to be developing into a rather unhealthy habit of mine, but I just can't stop. It appears that this will be the story of my life. One addiction after another is not exactly what my parents had hoped for me, but at least I'm moving from drugs and alcohol to a much more mind-numbing activity of mainstream television. The most harm I could do to someone while on a bad TV binge is accidentally tell one of my dorm-mates to sit and be a good girl. (Too late for avoiding this catastrophe.) I do, however, dread the day I am trying to catch up with a friend and demand in an authoritative voice that they "get on the ground" and interlock their fingers behind their head. That may lead to a few eyebrows being raised around campus.

     I'm considering today a personal success. I was motivated enough to go on a cleaning spree and deep clean my entire dorm room. I was brave enough to call for police backup when a fellow resident's ex-boyfriend became a security threat. I was controlled enough not to swallow a "friend's" soul whole when she continued to behave shifty as hell around me. Unfortunately there are no secrets with me. I wish I could be an open book, but instead I have the irritating ability to sniff out even the slightest of changes in personality and social behavior patterns. Trust me, ignorance is bliss indeed. Success I say. Success.

     As for this evening, I'm allowing myself to watch a few more episodes of Dogs 101 before I fall into a infomercial induced coma for the night. I'll sip my Earl Grey. I'll smoke my lucky cigarette. I'll dream up some new humanitarian policy that would exist only in an alternate universe. I'll sleep until my alarm rudely reminds me of my obligations in the reality we call home.

Just to Explain the Title

     I ask this question of so may people on a daily basis. So when did class die? I get all sorts of answers, but the general consensus is that it has been dead for some time now. I would love to hear some of your answers to this question, but let me be clear about what I'm asking. Let me define this lost art of a moral code in society.
    
     The sort of class I am talking about is when doors are opened by complete strangers, when hats are tipped to women, and thank you's are said in kindness to men. It's when we DO help the elderly cross the street and they accept the gesture with a smile. It's when we check up on a neighbor because they seem a bit down as of late. It's when even a gangster offers lets the woman with an infant in her arms take the taxi that has stopped for him. It's when we take care of our parents after they have cared for us our entire lives and still respect them far beyond any peer we will ever encounter. It's when we look in a mirror before going out into public and can say to ourselves, "This is how my mother would have liked for me to represent our family". Class, in my opinion, is what is instilled from birth by your upbringing and strong parents reinforcing good behaviors and punishing the bad. Class that no matter the circumstances is still apparent in our actions.

     I ask when this went out of style. I ask when did it die. When did we become so obsessed with our material possessions and loose sight of the priceless wisdom we could obtain without spending a dime? This is my question to all of you. What caused this shift moral behavior?

     I would love any and all answers/input on this topic, but as with all of my posts, I ask that they be respectful of other's ideas, morals, beliefs, and values. There is a nice way to say just about anything. In short, I request that this blog's comments to simply stay classy.