I made a joke the other day about going through a quarter-life crisis but apparently this is actually a recognized phenomenon which some people think is becoming more and more prevalent. Traditional American society is unraveling completely to reveal an entirely new group of totally dumbfounded 20 somethings who, not being bound by convention, have no idea what to do with their lives. That, or they have end-goals but not a clear idea of how to achieve them.

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I gave my mother-in-law a knitten and she sent me these adorable photos today. Now all they need is snarky captions. Snarky captions, anyone? I’m out of creative juices for the day.

My friend Katharine wrote about an article in the New York Times which covered an interesting pamphlet directed at heroin users. I believe my first response to the excerpt of the pamphlet was “seriously?” And yes, seriously.

Drug policy in the US is such an overwhelming failure it’s hard for me to wrap my brain around it. Most voters seem to have a “lock them up and throw away the key” mentality, but they usually also have no idea what it’s like to watch a loved one suffer from addiction. The only way I can think to describe it is like this: watching a loved one slowly kill themselves with drugs is something like that moment in a zombie movie when your favorite character gets bitten. Only it’s not a movie.

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Yay done! Huzzah!

Yes, I know you didn’t realize I had my capstone.That’s because I didn’t really tell anyone. Well here are my slides + video for the people I either didn’t tell or waited till the very last minute to tell so they couldn’t possibly come.

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About a week ago I was watching this documentary called Forgiving Dr. Mengele which, to be perfectly honest, was rather forgettably presented but a fascinating subject nonetheless. The basic story revolved around a woman who, having survived torture at the hands of Dr. Josef Mengele and other officers of the Nazi party, had decided to forgive the Nazis for everything they had done to her.

The most incredible part of the documentary was watching other concentration camp survivors bitterly and vehemently argue with the woman over her choice to forgive. But it soon became clear that the entire concept of forgiveness is just so bizarre and foreign to people that they don’t even know what it means, especially people who have survived unspeakable traumas.

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