The Rather Preachy Heavy Friday (sorry)

1) Just when you thought the dogs-diving-for-stuff photo trend was milked to death, they just had to do it with puppies.

Swoon.

Double Swoon.

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2) Google Hires 12 year old As Programmer. How awesome must this kid be, remember Google’s crazy banned interview questions from sometime back?

Adam Nikos

Another article says he presented on cyber attacks among others, and has never actually been taught the computer science subject – he was just reading avidly.

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3) Is It A Crime To Raise A Killer? When one child commits a heinous crime towards another child, can you send the criminal’s parents to prison?

Parent of murdered 12-year old Autumn Pasquale (15 year old Justin Robinson, who also has some special needs, appeared to have strangled her for her bicycle) pushes for controversial “Autumn’s Law” in New Jersey. Autumn’s father puts it, “Parenting comes with responsibilities, and one of those is to raise your kids right, to pay attention and know when they’re a danger to someone else. That’s a parent’s job.” An excerpt from his petition reads, “If the minor who murdered my daughter was properly treated, parented, disciplined and supervised my daughter would probably be alive today.”

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4) How Consensual Sex Got A Freshman Kicked Out. This is here because….. I started reading – skimming – thinking it was some latest talking point about awareness and what young people are campaigning about, that kind of stuff. But as I read the accounts of what happened that night, it starts to get quite disturbing in how easily something like this can happen. (It’s like when everyone freaks out about mad cow but don’t see the raw food bacteria in their own kitchens that can also produce devastating effects and which is more likely as well…..?)

So this doesn’t take place in a shady bar, date rape drugs are not involved, there is no violence and it appears to be exactly what both parties want at the time. If you scroll down and keep reading, it appears they do put effort in avoiding some safeties put in place in the dorm and during orientation, that are meant to keep them from committing exactly this kind of mistake. For the girl in this link, it is also her first time.

Now, I was an advocate for abstinence long before I even became Christian. I was fairly popular, won some little freshman pageant title (which I maintain has more to do with witty comeback in the Q&A than looks :D) had maybe 9 boyfriends before my husband, and no one made me do anything I wasn’t ready for, bless them. It wasn’t that I didn’t have raging hormones or wasn’t dying of curiosity or felt no peer pressure. There were times when it was very, very hard to say no. If you wonder how I managed to do it, it was because it boiled down to uh, cost-benefit analysis 😀

My original post (before more people who knew me knew I blogged) brought me in touch with some younger people who reached out across cyberspace when I wrote it (but I’m still a little shy to repost <sheepish>) My argument for saving something important for marriage in summary is this:

If you want to be married someday, which essentially means having the same sexual partner for the rest of your life, then forever and ever is a long time to stay turned on by one person. I wanted to make sure who I was with for the rest of my life was the Best I Ever Had. I didn’t want to risk Best I Ever Had being Mr Jerk-But-Good-In-Bed and then my always knowing at the back of my mind that Mr Worth Having His Babies was slightly shy of that.

But back to cost-benefit: Whenever it was hard to say no (and it was really, really hard – I did wonder if it would get me dumped – let’s just say then there are other things you can  and should do as a girlfriend to make yourself more “worth waiting for” – aren’t we meant to give our other halves our best to the glory of God anyway?) I would ask myself if I could accept the possible cost.

(It’s a rule I applied to investment products too <sheepish> I would tell my Sales to start with the worst thing that can happen to their client when they invest in a certain derivative product and if their client cannot accept that then we need to look for something else. Ironically I often handled the products with the highest risk classification, go figure…)

At the end of the day what I had wanted was to be like Phoebe’s Lobsters on Friends. (According to her, they hold claws around the tank in their old age). The risk of not being able to enjoy sex as much as I wanted and thought I should after I was married, was a cost I considered too high. It trumped peer pressure (yes for the record I was pretty much Last Virgin Standing among my old friends and I know how that can look kinda sad but anyway… <shrugs>)

(So anyway then I became Christian, and eventually came across what the Bible says about abstinence before marriage, and I remember going Oh Ri-ight… Well Then That’s Just Excellent It All Makes Perfect Sense :D)

But back to the original link. The other big problem was – yes alcohol. From the person who kept Wild Turkey in her dorm room fridge and a collection of flavored Absoluts post graduation but has never been drunk – FOR GOODNESS’ SAKES DON’T GET DRUNK. I don’t think serious drunk even feels good. You throw up. You feel awful. You look awful. In the digital age there are going to be possibly pictures of you looking, feeling and acting awful that could be on someone’s Facebook forever and ever to be found by future HR and bosses and boyfriends/girlfriends so WHY would you ever do it?

Ok, actually Serious Drunk was always a pet peeve/worry; when I started working, a then-boyfriend and I headed over to Boat Quay and Clarke Quay where we “practiced” drinking various strong alcoholic cocktails. Well there was also the Vodka et al at home. I wanted to know my drinking limit and how I would handle the various popular concoctions back in our day before company functions et al. It was expensive for us to order cocktails (even just) the couple times we did, I started off at entry level pretty broke, but again the alternative was whether I would otherwise make a fool of myself at a coveted workplace someday… (That actually worked out, because I really did find myself in that kind of situation a few times later on…)

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5) Let’s break up the words with more eye candy. (But apparently I’m still on my preachy kick – imagine nasal, whiney self righteous voice as I mention 11 “Best” Outlaw Instagrammers In New York City.)

Rotan him.

Yes the pictures are breathtaking. Yes they are creative. I don’t even care that much about the (harmlessly) being in restricted places just for a photo op. If however they are done with real risk then this is basically someone’s 17 year old climbing stuff he could plummet to his death off of, helped along by the internet’s ability to find countless strangers to encourage them to do these things. 53,000 people goading your teenager to find some other way to risk life and limb. Like parenting teenagers isn’t hard enough already. I’m just saying…

(WHY did I not think that the first time I mentioned some of these kids and their daredevil pictures).

At this stage we don’t have to worry about our older one (touch wood), but the younger one is going to have to be locked up when she comes of age – especially if you tell her this is illegal, carries great risk of bodily harm and – most attractive to her – that you don’t want her to do it. 

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6) Speaking of which, Rockstar Skit this week is Guess Who’s Reading.

Because only one of ’em is.

Can you guess which one?

(Can you see the older one’s barely-masked irritation?)

Sigh. Sometimes I do feel for the older one. Even then it’s hard not to laugh (which irritates him even more) because the younger one can swing a seriously deadly brazen-sweet smile as she tries to get away with her latest infraction.

Good weekend, dears…