proud child of the third millennium

so, i have a lot of "older" friends on Facebook. i grew up around people who are middle aged, plus the daughter of one of the couples. all this to say, my feed gets clogged with some interesting "forwards" or "shares" or whatever you want to call them. 2 of the trending ones have caught my attention. one is about how spanking is fine, doesn't hurt the kid, how people who learn the "switch dance" are better for it. fine. that's cool. you are ok with spanking. i'm not going to look down on you for it (although the budding psychologist in me wants to cite some research...).i wasn't spanked as a child, although most of my friends question that decision on my parents' part. i turned out fine... well, interesting... however you want to take that. i'm not dead, diseased, or incarcerated, so i guess i don't completely fail. the other is about the street light being your curfew and a bunch of other sentimental stuff. and of course we have the self-righteous 90's kids... FYI, i remember enough of the 90's to miss them, so i'm not completely in the dark. great, you have pride in your generation. i applaud you for your self-confidence. but don't project your self-confidence onto me in the form of constantly telling me how sucky my music is or how disney channel stars don't have talent. mind you, i am not defending miley cyrus or one direction or anything, just making a point.
here's the deal: i'm happy i grew up watching rugrats all grown up and zoey 101. i'm happy that i went to a few jump5 concerts when i was a pre-teen, as well as a hilary duff one. i still sing jesse mccartney when i have self-esteem issues (i AM a beautiful soul, darnit!). i had a crush on phil of the future, and cried at the end of the lizzie mcguire movie. (confession, i had a bit of a girl-crush on hilary duff)
i must reming 90's kids of a few things, though: backstreet boys, new kids on the block, n'sync, spice girls... you get where i'm going with this, i hope. (and why in the world did you kill off kurt cobain?) and to the older ones: men without hats, abba (debatable), men at work, village people.... (i'm only citing music because i know a small amount about music, as opposed to movies, TV, or random trends, of which i know close to nothing)
back to the first 2 trends: times change. that's the bottom line, i guess. in 1 AD, kids could go in a caravan to go live with relatives for a few years. whatever. women got married of by their fathers for political reasons. cool. people also got sliced down the middle and dropped through trap doors, their innards falling on people far below. (it's really cool to look through those trapdoors, though.) culture CHANGES. not always for the better, not always for the worse (probably improper grammar, sorry mommy). and we have to accept that. i'm probably going to hate the music my kids listen to, as well as the shows they watch and the toys they play with (once they exercise their free-will. till then it's organic fairy dolls, disney movies, avatar (last airbender and legend of korea, not that pocahontas junk), and the fray). but i'm going to suffer through it with a smile on my face, because what some people don't understand about culture, especially in kids, is that we begin to identify with it so deeply, that bits of it get stuck to our DNA (not really, just an illustration). when you insult anberlin, i hurt a little bit. and when i make cracks about the beatles, my mom looks a little mopey (nothing against the beatles, sometimes i just have to retaliate against the snide comments about my katy perry CD).
bottom line: my name is abbey, i was born in 1995, and i may or may not have a camp rock poster above my bed. so deal with it and shut your face.

I believe

i believe
in faeries
in love
in me
i believe
that sparkles can make anyone happy
and that stars are wishes
on their way to God
i believe that
teddy bears fight the monsters under the bed
that every sweatshirt should be made of french terry
and moonlight is for walking in

i believe
in life
in super heroes
and
most of all
that all dogs go to heaven

have a merry merry un-birthday!

not my unbirthday, but my rebirth-day. well, technically it's tomorrow, June 19. but w/e. i'll have been a Christian for 4 years as of tomorrow around 8 or 9 PM. pretty sweet, huh? some crazy stuff has gone down since then. i finished my list of stupidity (otherwise known as all the things i thought teenagers do, which it turns out we do), realized how much i hated finishing the list of stupidity, did more stupid things, did smart things, traversed parts of a more civilized place called Europe (where i also did stupid things), became lovable in a cute and cuddly way, and hopefully passed my SAT's. and what have i learned? lots of things. one, hannibal was fricking sweet. not the serial killer, but the big black guy who almost took over italy. he was pretty cool for a general dude. two, hair dye is your best friend as a pseudo-rebel. lolz. also, do not pierce your own ears, mostly because the aim will most likely be off. i know, i've tried. but on a more serious, obnoxiously religious note, i've learned that God has mercy. sometimes it doesn't feel like it, i've been through enough to know that sometimes He feels distant and spiteful. i mean, my life systematically falls apart, even when i DON'T help it along. and it sucks. but all the times i've screwed up, i've been picked back up. i mean, I'M STILL ALIVE. i didn't really expect that, to be honest. for pete's sake, my own head works against me half the time. but i'm still here. and thats something to celebrate. i'm not trying to sound completely self-absorbed, i' just trying to use myself as an example. i've literally had people tell me they're surprised i've survived this long. what i'm trying to say? God forgives and forgets, even when our bodies and minds don't. i'm living proof of God's mercy, because they're no way in hell i could have survived without someone watching over me. P.S., check out joshua james, he's my current obsession. folk music at it's finest! link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ihisZL3X9o

The trouble with gossip

I am witnessing a phenomena I don't know how to classify. It is something I have definitely fallen prey to, perhaps more than I even realize. It's not gossip, although I do that sometimes. It's modeling myself after gossip. I have found that over time we develop such a hunger for attention that we sacrifice our own image for this attention. I really do think negative attention is a problem. I have listened countless times to people gossiping about the new teen pregnancy or drug addict. People always seem so concerned about those people. Is it a side effect to become that new piece of gossip for the attention? I think it is. I think we as humans crave attention so much that we follow in the footsteps of those who are discussed. I mean, if all you hear about as a kid is how good certain people are, doesn't that make you want to be like them? Does it work the same way in the other direction? Obviously, this is not universal. If your self worth is properly developed, you probably won't have that attention seeking desire. But what about kids who never developed a self worth properly? I don't think the problem with today's teens is necessarily an immaturity from being spoiled, although that is definitely one of the elements. I think maybe the obsession with success is undermining the next generation, causing us to look for emotional fulfillment wherever we can. Maybe I'm just restating what hundreds of developmental psychologists have already studied, but I don't know those psychologists, and I honestly think no one would listen to someone with a degree. They were obviously brainwashed..... *facepalm* I need to sleep. This much philosophizing is making me exhausted... :)