The State of Being

My new permanent state of being consists of cold and itchy. Spring is suppose to be this great time when everything blossoms, sun comes out, and everyone feels carefree. Instead, I am suffering through tedious finals, ridiculously cold weather, and allergies which may very well kill me. They should invent an IV drip of benadryl. Benadryl is an interesting thing. It creates this haze around everything and makes you feel as though there is a subhuman force pulling down your eyelids. Sleep is the only thing you want to do, and the drug makes you believe that if you just go to sleep, everything will be better later. What a great thing to be on during finals eh? Anyhow, after wednesday winter semester will finally have ended and maybe life can move on to more exciting things...like my second job...and paying for china. Oh wait, that's not exciting. What's exciting is the idea of no homework for four glorious months.

On a completely unrelated topic...I want to talk about a social convention just for a moment. The other day I was talking to a friend and we were discussing how she is often influenced by other people's opinions. Hypothetically speaking, let's say that she puts on an outfit she thinks is cute. She asks me what I think, and I the ever honest friend, tell her I think it looks ugly (in the nice way that girls always use like, "oh maybe not that shirt with those pants"). She then promptly goes back to her closet and spends a good half hour trying to find something else to wear. Why does she listen to me? Because she cares what I think. That's not the issue though,the issue is why does she care what I think? Why does anyone care what I or somebody else thinks? Opinions are subjective and imprecise. No one is right or wrong. So why does our society insist on turning us into insecure and obsessed scrutinizers? Who cares if I think the outfit is ugly, if you think it's cute then wear it! Who cares if someone thinks you are a nerd? SO WHAT! Who cares if they don't like you? IT DOESN'T MATTER. The only thing that matters is what you think of yourself, and if that's not good enough, then something is wrong. So, even though I myself am guilty of this absurd practice, I hope that maybe someday all of us will be able to move beyond worrying what other people think of us.