Recent events

I've been back from Korea for about two and a half months now. And what a busy two months it has been! It seems more like about six months than two. Here are some things that have happened in the past two months:

-My friend Kayla had a beautiful baby girl, but she had to have open heart surgery at Doernbecher Children's Hospital at two weeks old. Fortunately I live right next door to the hospital so was able to visit quite a bit! Ila Rae is happy and healthy now and recovered very quickly, praise the Lord!
-Ben's friend Jon got married, and he was in the wedding. It was a really beautiful wedding and was lots of fun!
-I started work again after a week of being back and school again after a month.
-We found out my sissy is having a baby boy in February! So excited for a nephew!
-Ben and I celebrated 7 months of being in loooove! :)
-I turned 27. In the words of a 4-year-old girl at work the other day: "SOOOOOO old." Thanks.
-I spent almost a week in Sunriver with Ben for my birthday, so nice! We mostly ate a lot of good food, watched a lot of Dexter, and played a lot of Star Fluxx (our favorite of the Fluxx games so far...we still have a few more versions to try though!).

A lot has happened since I last blogged! But mostly I want to talk about something that's really annoying me. I am not a political person. I hate politics in fact. I avoid talking about them and learning about them at all costs. But when they are forced upon you, you can't really help but form an opinion or take a side.

Take the Occupy Portland movement, for example. It started out annoying enough. Honestly, I didn't even know what it was all about at first. I was just annoyed. This is what I found today while researching it a little (I still don't really know what they are trying to accomplish. I don't think most of the protesters know either): Occupy Wall Street is "fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future."

Okay. Yes, there are rich people in the world. Yes they are in power. No there aren't as many jobs available right now as there have been in the past. And yes people are losing their homes. Okay, maybe some of those things suck. But really, people? Is camping out in parks and protesting outside of banks going to do anything? First of all, what do you actually want to do? Make the rich people give all the poor people money? Tell people that they don't need to make their mortgage payments and they can keep their homes? Tell everyone that they don't need a job because the rich people should just take care of everyone? Second of all, this is not the way to accomplish anything. Except for piss people off. Well, if that's your intent, you've succeeded.

I met Ben for lunch today at his work. (He works for a BANK, people! The devil himself as far as these protesters are concerned.) I got there to find cops all over in riot gear. Every bank I passed today had security guards stationed outside. After we had lunch, I headed back to campus. I tried to get on the Max, and after pushing the "door open" button repeatedly, some guy finally told me that the Max wasn't running. Everyone had just been kicked off. The protesters were "on the move" and so the Max couldn't run. Okay, whatever. I just started walking. But then I stumbled upon the protesters. They were standing outside of the Wells Fargo tower and Bank of America building. I was already annoyed that I had to walk because of them (I'm not lazy at all!). Then I couldnt even walk down that street because they were EVERYWHERE. I'm sure if anyone saw me, they would think I was sick. I was so disgusted. I kept rolling my eyes and sighing loudly. And actually I think someone maybe did see me. I was walking along, texting Ben about how annoyed I was (actually, my exact words were "I want to murder them all.") and someone kind of grabbed my elbow. I didn't even look, just kept walking. So if that was you, I'm terribly sorry. I wasn't trying to be rude. I was just afraid that if someone else tried to hand my a flyer, or talk to me, or if I had to see another stupid protester, I would become violent. So I chose to just keep my head down and keep walking.

This is what I found on the Occupy Portland website about the events today: "Two specific demands uniting the N17 organizing groups are that banks stop foreclosing on people’s homes and that the city of Portland and Multnomah County immediately cease enforcing foreclosures. These demands embody the larger goal of reclaiming democracy by putting people and the environment before profit and greed." Really? So if someone doesn't make their mortgage payments, they banks and the government should just go ahead and turn a blind eye? I understand that some of these foreclosures are due to people losing jobs because of the bad economy. And home prices sinking. If you can't pay rent, should your landlord just go ahead and keep letting you live there too? If you can't make your payments, you find something you can afford. That's all there is to it. It sucks. Horribly. But you can't get something for nothing in this world. Unless you find one of the 1% to pay for everything with you. Come on Occupiers, when are you going to make that happen for us???