Presidential Inauguration

I feel that this is a great moment in our country's history in terms of race relations. It symbolizes racism's decline in our society, and although we have not yet fully overcome racism yet, the fact that an African-American was elected president shows we are headed in the right direction.

As for the actual inauguration celebration, I would like to note that while this is a great moment in our country's history and certainly warrants celebration, we've probably gone a little over the top with the festivities. Are four days of celebration really necessary? More importantly, with the country in the recession that it is in, why are we spending $150 million on this? That's just about triple the cost of any previous inauguration.

I really don't want to make too big of a deal out of it, because it honestly shouldn't warrant too much attention, but just an observation.

Keeping Secrets

One time, someone confided in me, telling me something important about an ongoing event in their personal life. Initially, this felt good, in the sense that it made me feel more important and I knew this meant that my friendship with this person was strong. They clearly had a great deal of trust in me to have told me this secret; thus, I now felt like I had someone I could trust, too.

When the initial excitement wore off, though, I started becoming anxious. I am a person who, when told a secret, feels great pressure to want to tell someone else. This is very common, but when push came to shove, I never told anybody, because I knew that if the roles were reversed, they would never do that to me. Eventually, the issue abated, and there was no longer any anxiety. Looking back, I am certainly proud of myself for having kept the secret, as this person had requested. From that point on, when I have been told a secret, I have always kept it that way, and plan to do so in the future.

The Scarlet Letter: Through Chapter 13

First of all, I do not think that Dimmesdale is being a coward by hiding from the public that he is an adulterer. The public doesn't have the right to know all of his personal business and he does not have to go around telling people if he doesn't want to. Just because all of the fanatical Puritans in the novel are so dedicated to their religious beliefs (patching the 'A' on Hester's garment, mounting the scaffold to repay God for their sins, etc.) doesn't mean that Dimmesdale should have to take part if he does not want to. Clearly, these were just the means of punishment in that era, so what I am, in essence, saying is that I just do not agree with them. They are basically mixing church and state, combining crime punishment with religion, as adultery in that era was a crime.

Overall, the book is...okay. I find it fascinating how the Puritans were so dedicated to their religion, and from a historical fiction point of view, it isn't too bad. In fact, I even find myself getting mad at these characters, at times, for their crazy religious practices. I'm not condemning them for their faith in religion; it's really just that they impose them onto everyone that gets me. The language that Hawthorne uses really makes the book worse, in my opinion. It makes the book too much work to read and really takes away from the experience. As a person who doesn't love reading to begin with, and someone who would rather just read a book without "fluff", that just tells me exactly what's going on, The Scarlet Letter is really not an ideal read for me.

New Year's Resolution

Normally, I have a specific New Year's Resolution that I make come the start of January. For example, last year, I pledged to stop biting my fingernails, and I followed through with that. This year, though, I do not have a specific New Year's Resolution other than to, overall, become a better person in terms of treating others with respect, becoming less annoying in the presence of others, etc. I feel that while having a specific New Year's Resolution is not a bad thing at all, they do not necessarily improve the kind of person you are. Often, people make ones such as "lose weight" and "stop procrastinating," but these do not affect anybody but themselves. While there's nothing wrong with that, I would just like to try something different this year. Thus, I am foregoing making a specific New Year's Resolution such as breaking a bad habit this year, and instead, I will leave it at a general resolution to make myself a better person and try to improve upon this when opportunities to do so may arise.