What little I know...

I just spent two and a half hours writing an opinion paper on my proposals for welfare reform. This of course, is a useless paper because, as anyone who has ever studied social welfare for more than 10 minutes knows, barring a miracle, effective social welfare reform will never happen. Ever. What it boils down to is there are lots of poor people (for various reasons, various places of blame) and just not enough money. Nevermind that Americans spent a collective $8 billion + at retail stores on the day after Thanksgiving. So I take the money comment back. There is actually plenty of money. It's just a matter of what we do with it. The New Testament church had the right idea. They shared everything. People with more gave to the people with less and nobody lacked. Don't confuse this with socialism. In a socialist society, the government takes and distributes the money. In this NT community, the goverment didn't have to take, because people gave of their resources freely. If our entire country followed suit, we could have a utopic society, economically speaking. But is not going to happen, because we are selfish. I am selfish. I spend about $50 a month on coffee; enough to heat an elderly person's house for all of December. No matter how passionately I argue, the fact of the matter is that I don't require coffee for survival. Heat, on the other hand, is fairly important. And there are plenty of people who can't afford any this time of year. Anyhow, I have to get to class. The moral of this story is not to make you feel guilty about spending money on things you don't need (but if you do, that's your own issue, with your own conscience...haha) but just to say that when I'm a sociology professor, I won't force my students to write about "solutions" that they know aren't going to work anyway. I'll let them write about the depressiveness of hopeless situations, if they want. Haha.

Why psychologists are crazy people...

The more you learn about explaining behavior in other people, the more you use your self as your own personal case study, the more you can view your own neurosis objectively, the more you can know what you should do to fix or even just improve the situation, the more chances you have NOT to do what you know you should do, the more self-conflicted you become, the more crazy you get...it's a vicious cycle.

Right on schedule with the procrastination...

This semester is really catching up to me. Not that I didn't expect it to, it's always just a matter of "how close am I going to cut it this time?" Pretty close apparently. I just realized tonight that I haven't written a single paper yet this semester. I've taken a few tests, given one presentation, but not handed in a single paper. That's about to change. I think I have 8 due before finals week, which is quickly approaching. Awww...I'll make it. I always do...

Well, would you look at that. I'm feeling like a genious for figuring out this whole picture posting deal. Yes, I know my 12 year old sister could do it. Quit bursting my bubbles. By the way...from left to right: Myself, my narcoleptic little bro, Jamin, my mom, my other little brother, Aaron, my little sis, Sarah Jill, my big brother Jared, and his beautiful bride, Jess.

The "Marci Chronicles" get a makeover...

It's not that I didn't love my old, sloppy, HTML journal. It's not that it didn't have it's merits, it's own kind of beauty. It's just that...well, people change. People grow. People move on. People want colored text and links (http://www.randomshirts.com) and pictures (okay. still working on that.) And you know, "we can still be friends." I'll still keep all my old entries in the archive in that same, old, trusty format that you faithful readers of 5 years have come to know and love. (Those of you who are newbies will find my homepage and those archives at http://www.geocities.com/marciebens) Oh, don't cry. You'll get used to this shiny new blog. What's that? Okay. Fine. I won't call it a blog. I know, I know...far too trendy. But I do think that you'll learn to like this one just as well. I promise.
~Marci