pictoral history of thanksgiving 04

we're austrian so we made potica. we let an italian and a finn help too.


which turned into a flour fight.


my sister and i, played martha stewart.


3 exchange students made for a truly diverse thanksgiving.


the fire needed more oxygen.


so my dad, the pyro, grabbed the leaf blower.


and we had a bonfire.


family expert on all things ghetto. he's got bling.


lady margaret thatcher.


saw beautiful lbk kids and were the dorks at the bar with 12 cameras.


tess dressed like batman.


the boys were pimp.


and....the baby again.

sadly, no pictures of teenage dance party 2004 that we happened upon at 2 am friday night.

i saw baby kylie this weekend. i want one.

powerful

In war, as in life, there are plenty of opportunities to see the full spectrum of good and evil that people are capable of. As journalists, it is our job is to report both -- though neither may be fully representative of those people on whom we're reporting. For example, acts of selfless heroism are likely to be as unique to a group as the darker deeds. But our coverage of these unique events, combined with the larger perspective - will allow the truth of that situation, in all of its complexities, to begin to emerge. That doesn't make the decision to report events like this one any easier. It has, for me, led to an agonizing struggle -- the proverbial long, dark night of the soul.

~from the blog of kevin sites

frustration

i want this


but i get this

i've drafted, revised, edited, revised, block-quoted, revised, elaborated and summarized. this paper is at 10.5 pages and needs to be 12-15. now i'll conclude and start the b.s.ing for length. why can't college profs just stick to my old high school rule about the length of an essay: make it like a woman's skirt. long enough to cover the subject but short enough to keep it interesting.

blast you stuart england! and your toleration act too.

less than 2 days till cold weather. snow would make this all worthwhile.

hence the name

why is it that the random blogs become absolutely irrestible when i have a major project AND a research paper due in less than two days? oh, and this one as well.

where do we go from here

as my college career is beginning to wind down, i've found myself weighing all of my options. although i'm not changing my ultimate goals in life, i have been considering various ways to go about it. i've always wanted to have a meaningful career that positively impacts the lives of others. teaching the kids in the worst circumstances is definitely in my near future. my mom tells me i have a gift for listening to people and she's always wanted me to be a couselor. like most things, she'll probably end up being right about that one too.

but right now, i'm one semester away from graduating with a simple bachelor's degree in english and let's face it, that alone is pretty worthless. i've been planning on doing the whole grad school bit to get a master's and my certification at the same time. but the other day, out of nowhere, i started thinking about what i'll do if i don't get in. yeah, yeah, emergency certification is easy in texas. but what if that rejection could really be an opportunity for something bigger, something more meaningful?

my dad's always told me that i really should live abroad while i'm young. broaden my horizons, get some culture. at what point in my life would i be more willing/able to pack up my life and head overseas than now? so fastforward to mike sharing these guys with me. i've always looked at those types of programs as amazing opportunities but as something that just wasn't available to me. i'd want something so specific. a reflection of my faith, but not preachy; meaningful but not self-righteous; a globalizing yet humbling experience. well, it's all there in that one little program. this time next year, i could be living in africa, south america or asia with some of the world's poorest and helping them improve their situation. the jesuit volunteers educate, work with the disabled and AIDS patients, fight for social justice and truly serve the least among us. kinda gets right to the point of that whole bible thing, huh?

so now i'm praying and searching for answers to this new option. mom's worried that it's just not safe, but dad sounded pretty optimistic about it and said he'd sit and discuss it with her. when i think about it i can't help but get excited. if i did it, i'd never be the same person. i think removing myself from american culture and wealth would force me to let go of the crutches that hold me back from growth. seeing the way a large portion of the world lives would be so challenging yet very rewarding. at the same time, how do i know if i'm even strong enough for that kind of test of character? maybe there's a reason i've always felt removed from these movements. they take a very special kind of person. i guess only time and prayer will let me know if i fit that mold.

i suck

i think i broke a heart last night. he's 8 years old and has a cast. probably going to hell now.

we are the aggies, the aggies are we

i remember that morning, waking up to my mother telling me i needed to turn on the news. the images were horrific and surreal. just the week before i'd been in college station, taking pictures with my friend amanda in front of bonfire. our visit had convinced me there was no other school for me and that i was destined to be an aggie. even with that faint knowledge of the school, i still felt like it was my family trapped on stack.

going to school and listening to the tasteless comments from some of the guys about aggie engineering absolutely made my blood boil. how could a person make fun of the tragic deaths of so many young people? screw rivalries, just try being a good human being for a while. at the same time, their comments reinforced my feelings of unity with the aggie family. i just wanted to be at my school as soon as possible.

since being here, some of my feelings of pride and loyalty have faded for this school. reality has a way of doing that. i think it's also partly because this is a different school than it was before 11-18-99. from what some former students have told me, there was a spirit about campus that died the day we lost those twelve students. it's sad, but it's gone. however, this one day briefly gives me back that vibrant yet naive sense of school pride.

bonfire will never return to campus and i don't think it should. it would never be the way it was before and would create a split in the university. the administration made the right move by creating such a beautiful tribute in its place. the bonfire memorial is something that is definitely worth seeing if you are in college station. it's simple yet powerful and captures the essence of those who are gone. God bless them and us.

does santa know you're here??

elf came out today. that makes my tuesday wonderful. there haven't been enough movies like it out lately. it's genuine and absolutely hilarious for adults without throwing in anything objectionable for kids. it seems like all movies have at least a little bit of something i wouldn't want my young children to see if i owned any, children that is. even the incredibles (which is still a good movie) is basically based around violence and has a lot of implied killing in it. i guess it's just such a part of our culture now that we have to start desensitizing people at much younger ages.

so all of you should go buy elf and watch it repeatedly. if nothing else, it will make you ready for the holidays. (8 days till thanksgiving.)

some of my favorites:

you sit on a throne of lies!

you're not santa. you smell like beef and cheese.

have you seen these toilets? they're GINORMOUS.

did you hear that?

the yellow ones don't stop.

why am i sitting on paper?

i like to whisper too.

h.o.p.e.

“It’s not so much that we hate Paris Hilton, just the fact she is destroying our culture,” he explains. “But she is symptomatic of a larger problem. It’s not just her.” It’s also Ashton Kutcher, J.Lo, Ben Affleck, P.Diddy and company. “It’s anyone who doesn’t have any real talent or ability who is being mass-marketed and shoved down our throats,” he says. “With Ashton it’s as simple as he is not a talented person. He is not a good actor. I know the producers of Punk’d and they make it look like he writes the show but he doesn’t. And he makes it seem as though the show is his entire brainchild, but if you sat down with him for 10 minutes you’d see that anything funny is not his.”
exactly

tech weekend

david and joel


joel, kevin and tess


the group








before


after

the kids came in friday night and the insanity commenced. no stories are jumping out at me right now, so you just get pictures. more when my brain starts working again. oh, and jen dunked her ring. she rules.

yipee

tess, jakie and joel come in town tomorrow for the tech game. this fact makes for a happy martha and an interesting weekend.

a pro-life feminist is a happy feminist

FFL was here last night. big thanks to fred for going with me. the rest of you can go fjdsanm.

i don't think i've ever fully explained the organization on here. so i'm gonna kind of recap what sally winn said last night. as i'm pretty sure i've said before, the original feminist mothers were all staunchly pro-life. mary wollstonecraft, elizabeth cady stanton and susan b. anthony all referred to abortion in the most critical terms. sarah norton, the first woman to be admitted to cornell (by fighting her way in), said that 'child murderers practice their profession without let or hindrance, and open infant butcheries unquestioned'. so until the 1960s, the women's movement did not embrace abortion rights. the women who were abolitionists and suffragists were also pro-lifers.

hmmmm, so how did abortion rights become the focus of second wave feminism in the 60s? the way all bad things happen: two men. (i'm kidding, we're nice non-man hating feminists.) but two men really did introduce the idea to the leaders of the women's movement, specifically betty friedan. larry lader, who had a fear of overpopulation, and bernard nathanson, who had seen a botched abortion, had been fighting vigorously to repeal anti-abortion laws.

nobody would listen to them in state legislatures, so they started looking for a bigger name to attach themselves to. they told the women that they could achieve equal pay, or even a living wage; job and education opportunities; entrance into the man's world. the catch? you have to be willing and able to forfeit the one thing that really sets you apart from a man: babies. all that pesky asking for time off because of morning sickness or because you need to squeeze one out just holds you back. they told women that they have to change themselves to fit into society. what we really need is to change society to accept us. we're women. we have babies. get over it.

but i got off subject for a second. friedan wasn't convinced by that argument alone. they made up a statistic to sway her. yes, they pulled it out of thin air. they told her that 10,000 women died each year from illegal abortion. so that's how second wave feminism embraced abortion rights.

NOW currently tells me that abortion is 'the most fundamental right of women, without which all other rights are meaningless'. that's funny. i didn't know i had to have access to abortion in order to maintain my rights to vote, own property, be protected from marital rape, or be able to maintain custody of my children in a divorce. i guess all those women who were smart enough to know that i deserved those rights were actually had no clue what true equality is about.

thanfully, the new feminist leaders are smart enough to make sure i have a free choice. like at yale, where they provide 3 free abortions to students but no prenatal care in their medical coverage. nice free choice.

i know most of you quit reading 3 paragraphs ago, so i'll cut my ramblings short. if you want more info about the injustices of abortion, visit www.feministsforlife.org

michael moore is insane

i've heard, seen and read some pretty upsetting stuff the past week. i understand that a lot of people were extremely emotionally invested in the election, and that's fine. there's nothing wrong with being passionate.

however, a lot of the passion has morphed into a disturbing level of irrationality. if you've been crying yourself to sleep every night because bush is our president, then you really need to wake up. that or grow up. sometimes things do go our way in this world. it's a lesson we should have all learned back in kindergarten. in case you need a refresher, when you lose you do not just pack up your stuff, refuse to play the game and call the other side stupid. yes, there are dumb people who supported both of the candidates this election. but it doesn't mean either side is entirely misguided.

also, stuff can change in 4 years. that's the beauty of our system. besides that, how many presidents have actually irreversibly screwed up our country? apparently none, since we're still here. i'm not saying you have to love, or even like the guy. but you do have to live with him unless.....

you're talking about moving to america junior or some other foreign country, and then please go ahead. cause i know i don't want to hear you bitch about how terrible this country is in comparison to everyone else anymore.

but for the love of all that is holy, do not do something horribly tragic like kill yourself.

oh, and don't rely on michael moore for your news. (balance your sources of information to make sure you get the whole picture.) he's a charlatan and does this entire country a great disservice by running his mouth off. to borrow from jon stewart, he's hurting america.

75 and still counting

grandma and grandpa mahan

the mahan crew

aunt brenda and kat hiking at the lake

daddio and me

oh yes, we trespassed.

the younger mahans

kat, pat and......mat. yes, that was my pitiful attempt to belong as a child. worst. nickname. ever.

ambience

open sky, one of the things i miss most about home.

this weekend i returned to my roots and traveled to oklahoma for my grandpa's 75th birthday. the fun began on the trip up there. somewhere between fort worth and wichita falls, i ran into two cars of obnoxious girls from baylor (my dad told me that's being redundant) who must have been heading to the tech game. they decided to be really cute, and let me just say that i personally found it adorable. they were doing the whole speed up/slow down/annoy the crap out of martha thing until they found some guys they felt the need to hit on. so they blocked both lanes of the highway while holding up a sign with their phone number to the window. real safe.

thankfully, the weekend in altus turned out much better than the trip up there. even though it is oklahoma, they've really been making some improvements lately. as you can see from my previous post, they now have computers AND the internet there. so the state whose brilliant marketing scheme used to be to embrace mediocrity isn't all that bad. that reminds me of a joke. why doesn't texas fall into the gulf? anyone? anyone? because oklahoma sucks. (my apologies to any of my okie relatives who read this.)

so we had all kinds of familial bonding and it was aboslutely wonderful to see all the cousins. i learned about one cousin's mechanical abilities, another's affinity for blow pops and was enlightened by a 10 year olds view of politics. oh yeah, and we watched the A&M game. my dad told my little cousin he'd pay her $50 if she could find me in the stands. she thought she'd be clever and told him she'd give him all the money she has if he could find president bush. she regretted that statement right about half time.

the other big development, i've been officially moved into the adult category for christmas. this is both good and bad. i get better presents, but i now have a personal responsibility to contribute. this year we're each bringing 7 bottles of wine, 6 to exchange and 1 to drink there. hopefully i'll be in possession of some walmart wine or two buck chuck. God bless white trash from oklahoma. :)

as always, we reaped the benefits of having a priest in the family and had church at my grandparents' house. it's so nice to sit around on couches with the people you love most and celebrate the sabbath. grandpa's sermon reminded us to avoid the path of the wicked, but more importantly the seat of the scornful.

i'm such a sap, but everytime i leave my family i get teary-eyed. it's getting even more emotional with granparents because of their age. as i was driving out of town this morning, my heart was happy knowing that i have all i need in the people who love me.

best oklahoma story so far......

we're eating dinner with my grandparents friday night. they're your typical grandparents, very conservative and very reserved. my grandma is talking to my little brother about basketball and asks what position he plays. my little brother tells her 'post' and my dad responds 'as in dumbass'. everybody froze and you could literally hear crickets chirping in the backgroud. nobody could figure out why on earth my dad would call my brother a dumbass, especially in front of the grandparents. when he saw the confused looks, he further explained himself: 'you know, as in dumb as a post'.

election day humor

john kerry walks into a bar.....

bartender asks 'why the long face?'

i couldn't find a short and sweet bush joke to put here too. anybody know one?