One of the most common arguments for religion is that those with religion are happier but

CORRELATION =/= CAUSATION.

I know a million people have probably realized this before but I just thought of it okay and I'm on a roll.

Basically it means that religion doesn't necessarily make people happier. It could also mean that happy people tend to get religion easier.

It makes sense. I mean the cynical, depressed person isn't exactly open to the idea of some way to control her/his fate and bring herself/himself fulfillment and happiness. If that were true s/he wouldn't be depressed, duh.

So what does this mean?

It means we have one less possible benefit of religion. If it doesn't explicitly make us happier, what good is it?

I watched a news clip recently on ABC where a soldier said it gave her hope when she was captured. Opiate to the masses comes to mind. But hope. A nice, healthy drug. Is it really as bad as Marx or whoever makes it sound?

Maybe I'd become an advocate of self-delusion if the difference between deluded and clear-eyed is hope.

I mean, we all agree that sometimes a white lie is necessary.

Well no, we don't all agree on anything.

The truth doesn't necessarily set us free. And when we don't know for sure what the truth is, if we'll never be sure what the truth is in our lifetimes, what's wrong with picking the happier-sounding truth?

If some Christian will explain to me how a kind God can sentence Old Testament homosexuals to death, I might be able to answer,

"Nothing."

Though I'm sure there's more to it too. 

1. Juno
2. Ghost World
3. Kids
4. Midnght Cowboys
5. The Swimmer
6. Citizen Kane
7. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
8. The Outsiders
9. Vampire Hunter D (well that's an anime) Tried to watch but the animation was too ugly.
10. Harold and Maude Done! See My Review.
11. Three Colors Trilogy
12. Memento
13. Blowup
14. GATTICA
15. Of course all the Harry Potter movies, preferably all at once
16. This is Spinal Tap
17. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
18. Capturing the Friedmans
19. Elephant
20. Idioterne (The Idiots)
21. Man on Wire
22. Sex, Lies, and Videotape
23. Performance
24. Fantasia
25. The Decline of Western Civilization
26. Donnie Darko
27. Edward Scissorhands
28. All The Muppet Movies Ever Made
29. The Producers
30. Mystery Men
31. The Monster Squad
32. Election (with Reese Witherspoon)
33. Best In Show
34. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
35. Arsenic and Old Lace
36. Withnail and I
37. A Christmas Story
38. It's A Wonderful Life
39. Dr. Strangelove
40. Bubba Ho-Tep
41. The Big Lebowski
42. The Nightmare Before Christmas
43. The Lost Boys
44. The Grudge
45. The Ring
46. Ginger Snaps
47. Goodfellas
48. The godfather
49. Brick
50. Dog Day Afternoon
51. Blue Velvet
52. Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
53. The First Star Wars Movie
54. Godzilla
55. Fahrenheit 451
56. Akira (anime)
57. Planet of the Apes
58. A Scanner Darkly
59. Infernal Affairs
60. Pan's Labyrinth
61. The Host
62. Sid and Nancy
63. Rushmore
64. Forrest Gump
65. Don't Look Now
66. The Boys in the Band
67. The Beguiled
68. All the Lord of the Rings Movies

This is going to take a long time...

1. Bleach
2. D. Gray-Man
3. HunterXHunter
4. Everything by Satoshi Kon, esp. Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers
5. Everything by Hayao Miyazaki
6. Barefoot Gen
7. Death Note
8. Fullmetal Alchemist
9. Ghost in the Shell
10. Jin-Roh
11. Grave of the Fireflies
12. Code Geass
13. Gundam.
14. Mind Game directed by Masaaki Yuasa
15. Serial Experiments Lain
16. 5 Centimeters Per Second
17. Inuyasha
18. Akira
19. Only Yesterday by Isao Takahata
20. Neon Genesis Evangelion
21. Wings of Honneamise
22. Angel's Egg
23. Yu-Gi-Oh! (Major nostalgia.)
24. Le Chevalier D'Eon
25. Rose of Versailles
26. Human Crossing
27. The Secret of Blue Water
28. Traveler in Darkness with Hat and Books
29. Otaku no Video
30. We're Manga Artists: Tokiroa Villa
31. Maison Ikkoku
32. 24 Eyes
33. Sazae-san
34. Escaflowne
35. Darker Than Black
36. Nabari no Ou
37. Gravitation
38. Baka to Test
39. Kamisama no Memo-chou
40. Eden of the East
41. Puella Magi Madoka Magica

I wonder why? (Not now, that's a whole nother can of worms.) ("Nother" should be a word.)

The Moral of the Post:
You guessed it: Manga and anime are awesome. <3

Are kind of good.
Kind of.
God.
Good, I mean.
Except they get stuck to your teeth, which is gross.

Debatable Rule # 1 of Life:
Never admit that you're afraid.

I follow it! Some people say though that it's really brave to admit fear, but geez mostly it's girls who say they're scared of things and they seem to be weirdly proud of it like it's a marker or their feminineness or something (wow that's a real word). So. Why bother?

Fake it until you make it, is my motto. *twirls mustache* *even though I don't have a mustache* *if I had one I would twirl it right now*

So never admit that you're sad, or angry or confused. Just fake it until you make it.

As a result, you will be a Domeki clone. And not very personable. No friends, probably, because they can tell you're a liar and/or a robot.

Actually "Fake it until you make it" is not really my motto. I don't have mottos.

Oh wait, I do: Che sara, sara.
Shigure from Fruits Basket said that and he's my sensei.

Jennifer hates that phrase, but it's true, to a point. Everything is true, to a point. There are no whole truths that I know of, which is why trying to figure out your life is pointless. Generalizations are broken, mostly, so how am I supposed to get anywhere in my philosophizing? God knows I have no patience with the details. It's good enough to be happy without trying to figure happiness out...

But here I am typing these generalizations and assumptions anyway.

I'm watching Penn's Alcohol thinger, the thing froshies have to watch to educate themselves about alcohol and drugs and what not and I'm appreciating the cheesy humor. It's a lot better than NYU's alcohol test, that's for sure.

"Pot" it says. "Is hard to stop."

Jesus let me tell you that's probably true. I mean my neighbor is always smoking pot. It smells awful. I wonder if it makes him happy? I just know there's a little girl in that house too, barely a toddler, but I mean, pot isn't the worst drug for a kid to be around.

The worst drug is...

Caffeine.

Gosh a kid on caffeine is just. Just. Jesus H. Christ.

(Are you trying to be funny?)

I'm going to start another post now, with a more focused topic.

My sister's iPod is full of terribly scary music. Disturbed, for example, and Drowning Pool. Well there's Hollywood Undead, but I don't find them terribly scary. They're super catchy, but they could work on their lyrics. I liked (guilty pleasure, yeah whatever) No. 5, because The Producer or Deux or whatever his name is has an really unique voice. It's kinda sick in a good way. It's perfect for the song.

(I want to be perfect for a song.)

Anyway, after a bit, I get used to everything. I used to think MCR was scary. Now they're like one of my favoritest bands ever. So I'll keep listening to Drowning Pool and Disturbed a bit more.

My mom gave me her old iPod. I named him Tobari after the dude in Nabari no Ou. Because I like him. He's nice. Also, fun fact, of all the animes I've watched, Tobari and Aunt Hanabusa have the sweetest relationship even if she's like ten years older than him. It's so completely functional. I'm in awe. Maybe it's what I'm aiming for, if I cared at all about (ick) love.

(I'm very old and tired! I don't want needless drama!)

I found a song I really liked, amidst the rubble: Remembering Sunday by All Time Low ft. Juliet Simms. Her voice is so raw, next to his really calm, quieter voice, it's a real shock, just like the rain they sing about. I'm like whoa.

It's All Time Low's best song.

I just got back from Maryland where I met a boy who was wandering around shirtless. He said to my sister and me, "Hey ladies, if I was a wishing well, would you spare some change?"

Because I am easily charmed, I started fiddling with my wallet and I noticed my mother's back had gone all stiff and she looked obstinately away in that funny stubborn Asian lady way.

Then he said something about it being totally lame but he had to say it anyway and if we were Chinese and he said something in Chinese that I couldn't decipher at all (well I suck at listening to Chinese as much as he sucked at speaking so it's not surprising) and then the crosswalk lights changed and we walked away.

My mother kept looking over her shoulder, wondering if he was stalking us.

I'm like, dude.

Hi Maryland dude! You're kind of hot.

I'm going to take a risk for once and assume he was a good person. That done, now I can say that the world would be so much awesomer if there were more people willing to go out of the way and talk to people just for happiness. If we didn't keep to ourselves all the time for fear.

Now I know I'm one to talk.

I'm a hypocrite.

Stone me.

I don't even believe myself completely. Gosh, after a while, the pleasantness always ends. People fight and get sick of each other. It hurts, it hurts, when someone who seemed to like you doesn't anymore, and it's inevitable and it's almost enough to put you off people forever.

Except that they will like you again too. It's always ups and downs.

Perspective and shit.

Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies...

Two options:

Gather up and remember so you have maximum perspective.

or

Forget immediately so there is no painful past ever for you.

What's better? I have no idea. Gosh it's just like picking banks and credit cards and insurance. Gosh, which is better?

Geico. Because the Gecko is cute. Obviously.

If you have or will have children, you better not pressure them into any major or career or I'll--I'll frown at you. And telepathically kick you in the shin. You should just tell them their options; let them see what each job is like and let them choose themselves. Because it's evil evil evil to make your kids choose between themselves and you. Because you don't always know best. Because they have a right to be free as much as you do!

Jesus.

The awful things stupid people do in the name of love.

I am not ready for college.

I am not ready to make decisions that could effect my...my...FUTURE. (eep!)

Like, what's my major? I have no idea. It changes every second.

It should be my passion, right, but what's my passion? It should be related to my career right, but what do I want to do for a living?

(The respective answers to both questions are: lazing around, writing, making up stories, traveling, ART, starting revolutions, helping people, entertaining people.)

So I should be a muppet-master.

As you can see I am very good at decision-making. Just today I made a decision about college.

I was really, really stuck about my frosh schedule.

Should I go hardcore premed and take Chem, Calc, Writing, and some Lit class (all four fulfill premed requirements)? Or should I be even more hardcore and take Chem, Calc, Writing, and advanced Italian (to get out of my language requirement; Italian's harder than Lit)? Or should I be less hardcore and take Chem, Calc, Writing, and Chinese? Or scratch the Chinese, take Japanese? Or scratch the Japanese, take a truly useful language, Spanish (because UCLA Med School strongly recommends it)? Or scratch Spanish (I flunked it repeatedly throughout middle school), French? (It's a beautiful language, at least on paper.)

Or, should I take Chem, Writing, and Intensive Chinese? Or Chem, Writing, and Intensive Japanese? Because it's frosh year and I don't want my ill-adjusted frosh-ness to show by screwing up my precious PRE-MED CLASSES!!!

If you read that and are not crazy yet.

You.

Are.

Superman.

So I sat there and let my fingers take over. They automatically dropped Calc and Lit for Intensive Japanese and all of a sudden I was overwhelmed by this deep feeling of contentment I hadn't felt when I first looked at my Chem, Calc, Writing, Lit schedule.

That's how I decided that I had made the right decisions.

It really is very simple. 

All the time I was asking my sister over and over again, "Should I take Chinese or Japanese?" even though she kept insisting "Chinese"--I can't believe I didn't realize it was because I wanted to take Japanese.

Find what you want and give in to it.

That's how to make decisions.

Not necessarily good decisions, per se, but certainly ones you will feel good about. Isn't that good enough?

Does it really exist? I thought I made it up in 9th grade as a funny pseudo-organization to write prank letters to people from because of the initials. They're funny.

Geddit?

Wishy-washy is my middle name. Also cynicism is too. A middle name. Mine. I mean.

Re-reading old journals: my favorite method of procrastination. One of the funniest moments was in Bio when we made ecosystems in a bottle and the teacher said, "What do you see in your bottle biology?" (That's what they were called.)

"Death!" this kid said.

"What died?" asked the teacher.

"Everything!"

Oh those. Freshman year is always the bestest isn't it? So I should look forward to next year?

I mean, I'm so much better prepared for college than I was for high school. I mean, I actually know how to talk like someone from the 21st century now. I know all the memes. Well. I listen to pop music. My Flesch-Kinkaid score thingy for conversations (if such things exist) is practically preschool.

I have dumbed down, chilled out, and become relate-able. I think.

Oh if only you could see me now!

I'm not convinced. Just watch. The instant I've stopped using SAT words in conversation, everyone else will have started and they'll look at me like "who is the drunk who stumbled into the Ivy League?" I'M SORRY I'M STUPID! I KNOW MY COLLEGE ADMISSION WAS JUST A FLUKE!

Yes, all I know for certain is I will be late to class more than once, I will most definitely get lost, more than once, I will cry, I will embarrass myself, I will mess up, I will make friends, I will survive. Isn't that life?

Speaking of.

I'm still working on my general life survey actually--a bunch of questions I've always been curious about and so want as many answers from as many different people as possible. So far I have:

1. Does listening to Takuya's voice consistently blow your mind?

I add to it:

2. Do you ever feel consistently misunderstood? Do you question the motives behind friendships and cynically believe that no friendship is created without ulterior, selfish motives? Do you wonder if we should kill the idealistic concept of honor?

DO YOU FEEL THE EMO?

Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the moon. Goodnight life. Goodnight brain that hasn't done anything productive for the past month.

I have no expectations. Buddha would be proud. I am well on my way to being happy.

So there.

I just realized its August 2nd so summer vacation is halfway over and I have at least two ginormous placement tests exactly a month away and I have studied...

Well I've studied how to round numbers.

Jesus.

So I announced at 9:30 in the morning (when I woke up) "I'm gonna belt myself to the chair and study!!!!" except then my mother asked me if I had finished packing for college yet (she's even more eager than I am; I think I'm kind of offended) and I said no, I couldn't find the comforter I was allowed to bring and she found it and the duvet and then

she ripped out a button on the duvet.

"Pah! Machine-sewn stuff is stupid! You should rip out all the buttons and sew them back in by hand! If a button falls out in college you know you won't have the time to do it!"

So. I sewed all morning.

And I got tired from sewing on my nice squishy bed, so I took a nap.

I did make progress: I did four questions while re-listening to Utada Hikaru's "This is The One" album.

(Jesus, did she really voluntarily want to sing "Dirty desire...dirty desire..."? Because I honestly would rather eat my own foot. )

(I really really really want to write funny, cynical songs that mean something. Stuff like...I don't know. Maybe stuff like Fiona Apple's song titles suggest they are (I haven't listened to it yet). Like Fall Out Boy without the riddles...)

But anyway. The fact is, I do the stupidest things.

gtg my mom's yelling in the driveway. I can hear her from the second floor...