Oh man, so much time has passed that blogger has updated their site and it is confusing to figure out if my format still holds. I guess we will see when I hit publish...
So I didn't think that I would blog once we moved to the US. I figured that we would be too busy settling into our new lives, looking for jobs, house training a dog, and studying for school. Well, I really was right on that one. This is the first time in 9 months that I feel like I can sit down, breathe, and write a blog post without feeling guilty that I should be writing a paper, playing with the pup, or reading *another* journal article. While it feels good, it also feels eerily unproductive. I am so used to having a 9 to 5 job and then treated school like my 9 to 5 job that now that summer vacation is here, I'm not sure what to do with myself! Luckily, my internship should start in the next few days to a week and then I will be back to a daily schedule, and I suppose Betty will be back to life in the kitchen and/or doggie daycare.
LIfe in the US has not been the easiest transition to make. While I would like to think that it was fun to slip back into the extras of American life, at the same time, I feel like these are the things that bother me and drive me crazy. I love the selection at Kroger (when they have the exotic stuff I am looking for), but I hate having to drive to get there. Sitting in traffic drives me crazy (see what I did there?) and people's inability to drive (no turn signals, breaking short, not staying in their own lanes, running red lights by 10 seconds, etc) does not make life any easier. I feel months falling off my life every time I get in the car as my chest begins to pound because every other driver on the road is too busy texting or talking on the phone to realize that their lane is now a turn lane, but they just keep driving straight anyway.... right into my lane.
The political situation isn't easy to deal with either. While everyone is entitled to their own opinions, I don't appreciate how the political game is played. That candidates are allowed to blatantly lie to voters about their competition. That only creates MORE voter ignorance, which is already a huge problem here. Sometimes I really can't believe my ears when I hear people talking about the healthcare law and spouting out "facts" so confidently when it is obvious that they never read the law themselves, and only listened to tea party propaganda. People are so quick to just spit out and repeat what others have said without looking up the facts. For those of you that may be reading this and would like to do some research yourselves, start with factcheck.org.
In addition to the lying, I can't stand the whole the Christian stance. This country has separation of Church and state, but you would never believe it by watching the news and listening to political speeches. Religion has no place in politics, especially when we live in a country with no official religion, freedom to choose what you believe, meaning that we all have the choice to believe what we want. Last week North Carolina voted for an amendment to the constitution stating that marriage is now only between a man and a woman. No more common law marriages. And obviously no gay marriage (it wasn't even legal to begin with). The biggest groups for the amendment were all religion-based, and while you are entitled to feeling that God thinks it is a sin to be gay, I really don't care what he thinks. It is not fair for you to do the judging and write laws that discriminate against others based on your religious beliefs. Again, religion has no place in politics. And if pastors and preachers want to be able to use their pulpits to spit out political rhetoric, then they should start paying taxes. I just don't understand how no one else sees this but the youth and why no one in Washington doesn't say "enough. no more religion in politics."
Other than that, getting back into "this american life" has been relatively easy. We love our apartment and are looking forward to a summer full of weekend pool time, cookouts, festivals, and mini-vacations around the US. First on the books is New Orleans and we are super psyched about it! We found a walking tour of the French Quarter on the internet that we need to print off, and we need to make reservations for a swamp tour. What tour to LA is complete without an alligator sighting? And I can't wait to eat my weight in po' boys and beignets :)
So let's see how blogging goes from now on and if I can maintain the trend. Fingers crossed!
