Stuff

Confession: I sort of like Valentine's Day. It is totally a "greeting card," materialstic- bullshit holiday, but I don't care. I like that everything's my favorite color. I like the candy and the cheesy/funny greeting cards and the flowers everywhere the ridiculous stuffed animals. I don't like how someone, inevitably, always makes me feel bad for being single, but I can deal with that. Today I even got free king cake out of the deal. I mean, don't get me wrong: there are much, much more important things in life, but that's ok. The only thing that truly bothers me about the holiday is imagining small children somewhere slaving away to create all the hearts and stuffed animals everywhere. But nearly everything these days utilises child labor, and I can't let that get me down. As cruel as that sounds.

I've applied to teach English to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. I don't know if it will help. It sounds like children frequently enter and leave large classrooms and that everything is essentially chaos. I don't know if I will be a good enough teacher (or they good enough students) to actually get any of them to the point where they can pass the english entrance exam for high school. And if they do make it to high school, I don't know that it will actually improve their lives at all. But I want to try anyway.

I'm not sure how I'll afford it either. They don't pay. I'm running out of money. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to help my mother with her medical bills either. Even now, my parents make me so angry. Their numerous phone calls and voice messages and e-mails only serve to make it worse. I find myself having pathetic daydreams about having other parents. I am 23. This is ridiculous. I need to grow up.