The world today

Someone suggested to me that I write down how things are now, because in two years, things can, and probably will be, very different.  A friend of mine came home from serving in Bulgaria, and could not believe that everyone has an iphone now, or some kind of touch screen phone.  I wonder what will be different when I come back to the real world?
Although, I'll be serving in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, so I will still be slightly more exposed to the world of technology than my friend was in Bulgaria, but I probably won't be aware of what's going on till I get back.  So the things that I find important:
Coldplay came out with a new CD, Mylo Xyloto
Adele won like a million grammy's and is huge! She only has the two CD's
Jason Mraz is just coming out with another CD and going on a world tour
iPhone's are pretty darn popular, so are iPad's and Kindle's, Nooks are there, but I don't think as popular
my university uses Canvas instead of Blackboard for their online classes
iPod touch is pretty much like an iPhone, right?  except without the phone plan
TV shows: How I Met your mother: still haven't met the mother, but is a friend of Barney's future wife
Bones: they just had a baby
House is ending
my phone is still pretty up to date, only like two years old, a LG envy, flip style... I wonder if everyone will have a touch phone when I resurface?
Facebook is still pretty big, but I've heard that people want to stay away from that
Health Care, aka Obama Care, is still hugely controversial, and in deliberation of the Supreme Court, so who knows how it could affect me when I start caring about health care again
The newly elected president will have been in office for a year when I return
Economy still sucks, and jobs aren't all that easy to come by if you're in the wrong profession, while my career path should be okay to get jobs in right now at least
Gas is like $3.75
guess this'll be a running list, and I'll add things when I notice them more...

April 12 - One addition: J.K.Rowling is coming out with a new novel: "The Casual Vacancy" which comes out in Sept.  guess I'll be reading that when I get hom

Midnight Rantings

Sometimes I wish that I could disassociate myself with this world. I want to walk away from it and live in a world that I create, with rules that I set. There are so many things that are just messed up and screwed up that I am not sure that anything will be able to fix it, except for the Second coming of Christ. Only Divine intervention can fix what we have messed up, and I mean that in the most literal sense.
There are so many people in this world that I love and hold dear to my heart, and it breaks my heart to see them in pain and to see them suffer. And it breaks my heart to see people, whom I will never meet and whom I can not fully identify with, but I love them, and I see injustice done and I cry for their hardships.
I feel that people have turned their backs on each other and live their lives with blinders on, and refuse to understand what is going on. How discrimination continues, how racism is prevalent today in so many societies. But we refuse to see, and refuse to acknowledge and refuse to do anything to help out our brothers and sisters. We look at each other as strangers, instead of seeing them as our fellow man and our friends, our brothers, our sisters. Everyone is related and connected, but through walls that society encourages, our cell phones, iPods, headphones, computers, things that encourage the isolation, we convince ourselves that everyone that we do not know are strangers.
I wish I could walk away from this. But since I can't, I wish that I could change this mentality, that we are all on our own, that no one understands and that no one is there to listen. I am here. I will listen. I will be present, if only for a little while, in this world, and I hope that as I go along with my life, that I will be able to lighten someone's burden by being there for them, by listening, anything that I can do to help.
But things just keep getting worse and with everything that Apple puts out, we bring ourselves closer and closer to being islands, with no one to talk to and no one to listen. We suffocate ourselves. And yet we wonder why suicide, divorce, are so present in our society. Brokenness. We are a broken society but no one is willing to get out the super glue and put us all back together. I think that we are frightened of the intimacy that that would entail. We are scared of putting ourselves out there for people to judge and to reject. But at least one person won't judge and reject. There is always that one person who reaches out their hand and accepts you as you are.
I read a quote the other day which said: if you want to have a friend, be one. I strongly believe that, because the only way anyone is going to care about you is if you care in return.
I get labeled as a hippie because I want everyone to love each other. I get criticized because I am optimistic instead of being realistic and harsh. But I think that it is possible for people to put their selfish needs aside and work for the community. I also get labeled as a communist or a socialist. But what I want is for people to work together. Think of all the things that could be possible if we worked together instead of working alone. It would not be a perfect world either, but I believe that it could be a better world. We are often afraid of things that we do not fully understand and know. The only way to dispel that fear is by getting to know what you fear, and to understand what you don't and are too afraid of crossing an invisible line that we have set up for ourselves.
I am guilty of these things as well, which is why I feel comfortable to point them out. I fear things, I put up walls. But I strive to break those walls down and to overcome my fears. No one is perfect.