Drinking: The good, the bad, the ugly

As I walked in to the huge party and see my friend “Johnny”, I can once again see what a popular guy he is. Surrounded by people I don’t know, he seemed to have made the party. He didn’t seem to realize I came, so I walked up to him to say hello. “David! Glad you’re here!” He starts to introduce me to those around him, and we exchange hands and waves. It is surprising to see how one person seems to know so many people, and how appealing a person can be. He gestures me to follow, so that we can take shots (Despite the fact that I tell him I can’t drink, he is not fazed and offers nonetheless). I followed him anyway, and as we walk through the party, almost everyone in the party seemed to know who Johnny was. After swimming through the crowd, we arrived at a table, which was already occupied by a few already drunk as well as an empty flask of Crown Royal. Opening another flask of the terrible toxin, Johnny pours me a shot as he introduced me to the group of very tipsy people. There were three people who were present; one guy who had his head down on the table, breathing as if he was snoring, another guy who kept going to the restroom to throw up (who had more shots once he came back), and one other guy who just kept talking as if he hadn’t spoken for years. When I asked the talkative guy how many shots they each had to drink, he replied with a sly, reddened face, “Eight or nine I think. Dude I’m so drunk ha ha ha…” In my opinion, it looked like they had about twenty. Each of these guys were very well-groomed. They all wore nice dress pants and shirts from Banana Republic or something of that nature, but their composure was a mess. They slurred words and their breath stunk of alcohol. And, to my discomfort, my friend Johnny was the same mess after about an hour. The cool, laid back Johnny was no more, and only thing left in his place was a speech slurring throw up mess. On the surface, this scene first seemed to be of great excitement. People laughing, dancing, meeting new people, it appeared like a good social gathering. But, venturing into each individual, alcohol and its consumption seemed to be more of a torment than an enjoyment. Majority of the people were seen losing control and self-image. The faces of those drinking it made it appear that alcohol consumption was more of a torture than anything else, and those who had consumed it looked very ill.

Bad decisions in consuming can have a horrific consequence. In the United States, the legal age to drink is 21. Although the limit seems to set a sense of curiosity and ‘taboo’ which invokes a minor to drink earlier, this age limit I believe, was set at this number for a reason. A person is allowed to drive a vehicle that moves at a high velocity at age 16. A person is allowed to enlist into the army and learn to be a soldier of war at 18. After that, a person is allowed to drink at the late age of 21. We wonder of why responsibility followed in this sequence; a person allowed to learn a skill that can kill is learnt before allowing the person to drink a beverage from barley; the reason I think this is set up this way, is because alcohol IS that dangerous, and it requires a person to be more mature before allowing its consumption.

Not only is drinking harmful to the consumer, it’s just as dangerous for those around the consumer. Studies show that drunk driving is a leading cause of death, binge drinking can lead to liver failure and weakened heart, and that abuse of many sorts often trace back to the substance alcohol. Also, many families are broken up because of wrongful alcohol consumption. Alcohol just seems like a portal for crime and sin for a person to walk through.

The problem is, is that everyone already is aware of the consequences of alcohol. Yet, people continue to drink anyway. At the party, I was able to see a girl, who obviously was not of legal age to drink. I asked if she liked the taste of alcohol, and she gave me a stern ‘no’. I asked her if she enjoyed throwing up, and she looked at as if I was stupid. When I asked her why she drank alcohol, she told me that it allowed her to have fun and to forget her problems in life. People often first taste alcohol with curiosity, but continue to drink it for other reasons than taste. They force their bodies to drink the toxin in order to cover for a different pain or suffering. Some people drink it to have the approval of those around them, some people drink it to use it as an excuse to lose control, and some people drink it to forget terrible pains within them. The TV commercials we see from alcohol companies like Henessy or Bacardi advertise drink-free driving and safety within alcohol consumption. Yet, before that message is delivered, scenes of people at clubs and parties are shown having a good time thanks to the alcohol. This lures many people to think that alcohol can truly bring them happiness and comfort within their distressed lives. In reality however, the emotional pain inside does not go away and people are left lost. To add on to the disappointment, the girls at these types of events are never really hot as they appear on TV, the setting of clubs and parties are not as crisp or friendly, and alcohol sure does not taste as good as it looks.

Drinking itself is not bad. But, it can lead a person to abuse its substance and create a gateway to lots of pain, physical and emotional. The victims of alcohol, who had lost their health or family due to it are asked upon their decision in drinking, no single person will reply positively on alcohol. The true identity to what alcohol can do is never discovered until it is too late; hopefully people will realize that and alcohol will not be abused once again.

FYI
For treatment of alcohol abuse, please visit the Alcohol Anonymous Website

Ends justify the means? Means justify the ends?

A simple question: "If a loved one is dying from hunger, is it ok to steal food?"

This is a very delicate question. Imagine a person that you love deeply is suffering from hunger. Because you don't have money, you cannot buy food. Now you're in a dilemma; to watch your loved one die, or to commit a crime and steal food. What should you do?

When a large group was asked, many people replied that IT IS OK to steal food. Their justification were something like these: "A life versus food. What is more important? Of course, a life." "If you love someone, you should be able to anything for them, especially to save their life." "Stealing a piece of bread or something like that won't make a difference. It's just food."

I asked myself what the world would be like if everyone lived by this philosophy. A person stealing a piece of bread, when another person steals the bread from that same person who stole the bread just 3 minutes ago... Society would be in a chaos and common order would lose its place. Often people seem to neglect that when they do something like this for their loved one, they are hurting someone else's loved one. What if, the question asked was not regarding food, but regarding a medicine? "If a loved one is dying from hunger, is it ok to steal medicine?" If you steal medicine, the medicine that may be going to another person is not available. Your loved one may have survived, but because you stole that medicine, another person's loved one died.

Within the innocence of the answers to the question, I found purity and greediness at the same time. People are willing to commit crimes for who they love, yet at the same time, harm another that they do not know. It seems like poverty is the real crime, but deep within the honesty of this question, I seem to find the true image of a human being; that humans, who themselves consider to be so high and mighty, are really weak imperfect animals.

When I was asked this question, I for one said "No, I would not steal." I later got into a huge fight with my girlfriend, who happened to be with me at the time. Life is hard...

The blog If:book is an online page with many writers and many topics. From short posts on strange punctuation marks in France to predictions of the future of Times, this blog is free to many opinions and comments. The layout of If:book is simple; On the pages, writings posted by the members are placed on the main page of the blog. Running on the right of those posts are links to other blog users, recent comments and previous posts. As far as form, this site has it laid out almost too simple. You cannot find any eye-catching glamour in this site nor any ads that you might be interested in. As far as appeal, this blog has it horrible. In this rushed society, such a website of words usually only has one shot to grab the audiences’ attention. If they miss it, they usually don’t have another chance. Yet, although this blog does not have any flashy appeal, the website worked. This blog was one of the top blogs for 2006; what makes one wonder is HOW they did it. What made this blog one of the top blogs, I think, is the content of the blog. To the simple eye, the things discussed are somewhat dull. In my opinion, it is boring. The latest posts talk about network labor and copyright issues online to problems with a new service in Yahoo!. This does not concern myself, nor does it affect the way I live life. And speaking for the common public, we can care less to what happens to a multi-billion dollar business (unless you work for Yahoo! I guess…). Looking deeply into the writing however, I realized this blog had a great medium to the news of society. Often when you go into a news media, such as TIME or Yahoo! News, we are able to find the spotlight incidents. Yet, because it’s from NEWS, they are obligated to deliver the unbiased, ‘as is’ news. Sometimes, it is good to hear a voice that expresses an opinion. The writers and bloggers of IF:book does that. They have simple posts of news from different news sources. From that, they talk and debate on the material of that news. Also, on this blog, many writers freely post their opinions that talks from the simple American man’s point of view. News often escalates the material that they talk of on a national level, or a huge corporate level. For example, the incident with Enron and the insider trading. Sure, the cameras focused on the CEOs and FEOs, and what they did as horrible crimes. But, few pictures were taken of the typical family that was devastated by this incident. Sometimes, we need to see news on a smaller scale; If:book allows users to do so. Some posts don’t make sense, and some posts just seem pointless. But, as always, it’s good to find a place to communicate of news on a simple sense. Whether you want to gripe and complain, or just simply see what others have to say.

The concept of the site is a bit too big for me to incorporate into. However, the content reaches out to me. What I want to post on my blog is not of something that I'm mandated to do, such as an English assignment. Whatever I write about, the writing goal I am aiming for is writing that speaks out to the reader as just another person with something to say.

Aware VS Aurori Police Department

A person was taken into custody by the Aurori Police today as a witness as well as a suspect of murder. The photo above was found on a homepage of Joshua Aware; a photo of what seems to be a gruesome headless body. Local authorities noticing the photo as a snapshot from a camera, found it as a probable cause to place Mr. Aware under arrest with suspicion until this case is solved. Tracing to the time registered on the photo (2003/08/20), authorities found no reports of death in their records. After further research, this photo was claimed false to a picture of a murder; the photo was simply within an illusion. The head actually did not belong to the body, but was a head of another person. On the seat were two people, and one of them had laid their head back to the seat and was not visible from the camera’s angle. The other person had laid their head on the legs as a pillow, thus creating an illusion of a headless body. For being placed under custody “without probable cause”, Mr. Joshua Aware is suing the Aurori Police Department for parking ticket-exemption for life. The court is under arbitration and the judgment is yet to be made.

A Metal Concert

A metal concert is not something easily described; the air is thick with heat and full with the smell of people. To the right, a person was being carried by others to who knows where. All around people were pushing and shoving, looking as if they are in dire need of shelter. It was a dog eat dog world, and at this time and place, it seemed as if common order was gone. High intensity filled up, and people were lost with no sense of time; adrenaline was running through everyone as far as eyes can see. As a roaring sound and a loud screech filled the ears, everyone threw themselves up. In front of the concert was where all this took place; what the people called a ‘mosh’ pit. The sound of electric guitar screeching, the bass and drums thumping, and a synthesizer ringing through all the power other instruments combined to play, the metal concert by ‘Slayers’ was not a place to simply mess with.

At the Fillmore, many gathered from all around to see the band ‘Slayers’ perform. An old bearded guy with a big belly was seen talking to a bald guy with tattoos everywhere and earrings the size of a golf ball. Behind them was a dorky looking man who’s name I later found out was Stan. “I got so much crap to do at work tomorrow” said Stan, a banker. “But shit, when am I going to see this band perform here again you know? I just left everything at the office. I’m gonna be busy tomorrow ha ha ha.” As Stan talked to me, I couldn’t help but notice his apparel. Beige khakis, a red polo shirt, with a nameless baseball cap; the word ‘banker’ couldn’t be spelled any other way. I began to wonder and worry a little bit for Stan. He was a tall lanky man who seemed a little far from fighting; and unfortunately, his dressing style seemed to call out for a beating from the angry looking tattooed guy four feet away. Noticing the tattooed guy, I tried to make my way towards him to start a conversation. As I squeezed myself toward him shouts went out into the air and it stopped me in my tracks. The main band ‘Slayers’ had come one to perform. This relieved me a little, because the man I wanted to talk to was very intimidating. He did have some scars on his body and hands; who is to say he doesn’t like Asian kids asking about his music?

As the music started playing, I realized what I had worried about for Stan, and what I thought of on the guy with tattoos was meaningless. Everyone in the audience came together as one. As the lead singer yelled out something (something I couldn’t make out), Stan, as well as the scary tattoo guy, yelled some lyric in unison; as one. No matter what song was played, no matter what drinks they have had, no matter what the guy next to me smelled like, it just didn’t seem matter. I began to move away from the front to avoid the moshing. Something that I wanted to avoid for that night, a mosh pit is not a place for the weak hearted. As the intensity of the music grew, audience members in the front began to truly feel the music. They were feeling not only with their ears and senses, but expressing it with their body. As they began to run around in a circle, each of them threw themselves unto another, smacking and ramming and beating each other to the beat of the music. In one incident, I saw a bleach blonde girl, probably no more than 5’ 2” get knocked to the floor by another scary looking man, whom what I thought was a giant. She flew to the floor, and disappeared in the pack of people stampeding by the stage. Luckily she wasn’t hurt, because as soon as she was knocked down, she was seen right back up to do the same thing that got her almost killed. The music itself had little musical melody. The lead vocal basically yelled throughout the whole three-four songs that they sang. The drummer seemed like he was hitting whatever was in front of him (sometimes himself as well, it looked like), and the guitarist did more head-banging than looking at his guitar. The music bumped very loud and my heart seemed to have paused beating. The combination of the music, the yelling of the crowd, and the running of the mosh pit deafened ears and stopped time. There was no beginning or was there an ending; everything was always at a climax, and the music seemed to go on. Words were futile; only by movements was someone able to have any form of communication. Once again, I have to emphasize; a metal concert was not something to simply mess with.

At the end of the night, I met up with my friend Tyler, who had also been moshing up in front. He is another big guy, with tattoos on his body and a piercing on his bottom lip. For that reason, I wasn’t worried, but more amused when he told me what had happened to him. “Yea, I got bit in the back of the head and punched in the jaw, but that’s moshing you know? It was good. The band kicked ass and the cats by me were hardcore.” By the way, I happened to see the person that bit him in the head; he got pushed and ran his open mouth to Tyler’s unfortunate head. It was Stan.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF SLAYER

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Love from Russia

I have always been a church goer. Since birth, my mother took me to a church every Sunday. Yet, I always questioned the authencity of what a Christian is. Why they live in that fashion, and why they move the way they do; I decided for my observational essay to inquire about Christianity. At my church, we have an assistant pastor, Rev. Huh. Every Sunday, he comes to church, leads the beginning portion of our service, and sits down and listens to the sermon like everyone else in the congregation. After service, he would drink coffee and eat with us, and afterwards, he would go home. Yet, within what I knew from him, he had a strange aura about him; he seemed different. Naturally I picked Rev. Huh; he made it easy for me to choose my subject. I found out first that he had experience as a missionary in Russia, and he told us a story about what made him who he is now. The story started off in the summer of ’96, in a small town near the capital Moscow. Reverend Huh has been the preacher of a small church and was doing what he had to do, when shocking news came to him. Four of his church members, all teenagers, had been killed. A single mother family, with four boys was a member of his church. The mother had met a man out of town, and fell in love. Believing in love, she gave the man one of the two keys to their house and invited him to come anytime. Two weeks later, this man came to her house when she had gone to work; not for love, but to rob their house. The man was a scam artist and used the name of love to make a way for crime. Coming to their house, he found the four boys passed out after they had drunk lots of alcohol. Not concerned, the man continued to steal items out of the house, when one of the boys had woken up. Still drunk and dazed, the boy did have enough common sense to realize what this man had been doing. Afraid that these boys would break his cover, the man killed each boy, one by one. Afterwards, he had taken the stuff out of the house (which officials later found being one TV, a necklace and a bit of cash), and had run away to the airport. Upon hearing of this disaster, my pastor had cried and cried and hated himself for not being able to talk to them more regarding God and salvation. During this interview, as I saw my pastor tell me this story and of how he felt, I saw in his eyes a passion and love for the work he does at church. Although I myself have a lot of questions and curiosity regarding God, seeing someone so pained over a group of boys that he barely knew, and seeing the passion for God, I started to ask myself what God was all about. What is God, that made Rev. Huh go out to Russia and live there as a missionary for six years? He spoke no Russian, he had no benefit from going, and yet, he went because “God told him to go". His years there had been rough. Each little thing he had to do, from going to the restroom or taking a shower, or sleeping in a warm room, each little thing was always uncomfortable to do and inconvenient to him. Yet, he was there for six years to live as a missionary. I wasn’t able to find the answer through the short time we had for the observational essay, but somewhere in his being, I saw a love for the love he does. It amazed me.

Following links for info on: Christian Mission Movements, Christianity in Russia, History of Christianity