I think blogging is like some sort of addiction. Once I start, I keep thinking of amazingly brilliant things to tell everyone. Or maybe I just like the feeling on my thoughts being in a computer and not all crammed in my head. I read in a book last week that journaling for a few minutes before you go to bed will help you sleep better. I have no doubt that it will, but I always just want to go to sleep so my thoughts are all stuck in my brain.
I just finished reading a Jodi Picoult book. She likes to write books about controversial things. They usually flash back and forth so you don't even really know what's going until a ways into it and she uses a lot of different people's points of view so it's even more confusing. There's also usually a court case of some sort and s dramatic revelation at the eleventh hour. I like her books; they're entertaining and easy to read. They're usually a good escape from having to think too much. But I did not like the one I just finished. I was really depressed after it. It was a story about a guy who was accused of raping a student at the school he used to teach at. After 8 months in jail, he moved somewhere new, started dating a girl, and then a girl in the new town accuses him of rape. Addie, the girl he starts dating, had been raped at the end of high school by 3 guys, 2 of whom still live in her small town. The accused rapist/teacher, Jack, stood by in college when his friends from the soccer team regularly gang raped girls. Since he was often the top scorer, he got to go first and just pretended the rest didn't happen. Then, very dramatically (to completely ruin the ending), after Jack wins the case, the author reveals that Gillian, the accuser, is regularly sexually abused by her dad, who also by the way was the leader of the group that raped Addie back in high school, along with the police chief. After I finished the last page, I wanted to cry.
I've joked before that authors have higher expectations or opinions of people that movie producers. Books are way more likely to end unhappily and the endings get changed when they're made into movies, like in Dear John and My Sister's Keeper. But sometimes, I just like happy endings. It's probably part of the reason I like Harry Potter so much. I always knew the ending was going to be basically happy, that Voldemort would die and all would be well. The books and authors I've been finding and reading more lately do not seem to like happy endings very much. I know that life isn't made up of happy endings and I don't like cheesiness, but I read to have a break from normal life. I think it's silly that a lot of Christian authors don't seem to think that Christians can live past the pioneer era, but I like those books. There's twists and conflict, but you know it's all going to be okay. You know it's not going to just end after a court trial with a father making out with his daughter.
I've been thinking about racism more too, because I'm in a Peoples of Ethnic America class, so we've been talking and reading about it. Sometimes I think that I like to pretend that racism doesn't really exist. That it's exaggerated and people are just lazy and...whatever else. We were talking about 'white privilege' in class today, about the idea or reality that white people have an advantage over people of other races, that merely by being white we don't suffer as much and aren't discriminated against. The author of the essay was female so she also talked about male privilege, that generally guys are privileged and have an advantage, just because they're male. They don't have to worry about the same sexism-related issues or wonder if the reason that someone talks like you're an idiot or doesn't acknowledge your contribution to a Bible discussion is because you're female. My opinions on women and our role must be selfishly rooted and emotionally driven. Why is t that even I am more impressed by a male writer who's more egalitarian than I am by a woman?
Life is too complicated. I wish I was at Hogwarts.
Vaya con Dios.
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