It felt back then like any other day.

But now you’re here, and the end is near

And soon another year will be no more.

The memories begot are etched in my thoughts

As you brought me through mountains and valleys.

New dreams to hold dear are not without new fears,

As a new year beckons round the corner.

The start of a new race brings new challenges to face

But I will embrace whatever lies ahead.

At times I might falter but grace brings me closer

To a better Me than twenty ten will ever see.

Pure Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one of your cows and gives it to your neighbor. You’re both forced to join a cooperative where you have to teach your neighbor how to take care of his cow.

Bureaucratic Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and as many eggs as its regulations say you should need.

Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

Pure Communism: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

Russian Communism: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

Communism: You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for you share of the milk, but it’s so long that the milk is sour by the time you get it.

Dictatorship: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

Militarism: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

Pure Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

American Democracy: The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair “Cowgate.” The cows are set free.

Democracy, Democrat-style: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being so successful. You vote politicians into office who tax your cows, which forces you to sell one to pay the tax. The politicians use the tax money to buy a cow for your neighbor. You feel good. Barbra Streisand sings for you.

Democracy, Republican-style: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You move to a better neighborhood.

Indian Democracy: You have two cows. You worship them.

British Democracy: You have two cows. You feed them sheep brains and they go mad. The government gives you compensation for your diseased cows, compensation for your lost income, and a grant not to use your fields for anything else. And tells the public not to worry.

Bureaucracy: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

Anarchy: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to kill you and take the cows.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You lay one off, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when she drops dead.

Singaporean Democracy: You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed farm animals in an apartment.

Hong Kong Capitalism (alias Enron Capitalism):
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly-listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute an debt/equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows.
The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Isands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows’ milk back to the listed company.
The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the Feng Shui is bad.

Environmentalism: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.

Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

Foreign Policy, American-Style: You have two cows. The government taxes them and uses the money to buy a cow for a poor farmer a country ruled by a dictator. The farmer has no hay to feed the cow and his religion forbids him from eating it. The cow dies. The man dies. The dictator confiscates the dead man’s farm and sells it, using the money to purchase US military equipment. The President declares the program a success and announces closer ties with our new ally.

Bureaucracy, American-Style: You have two cows but you have to kill one of them because the government will only give you a license for one of them. The license requires you to sell all your milk to the government, which uses it to make cheese. The government pays lots of money to store the cheese in refrigerated warehouses. When the cheese spoils, the government distributes it to the poor. The poor get sick from the cheese, go to the emergency room, and are turned away because they have no health insurance. The President declares the program a success and reminds us that we have the finest health care system in the world.

American Corporation: You have two cows. You sell one to a subsidiary company and lease it back to yourself so you can declare it as a tax loss. Your bosses give you a huge bonus. You inject the cows with drugs and they produce four times the normal amount of milk. Your bosses give you a huge bonus. When the drugs cause one of the cows to drop dead you announce to the press that you have down-sized, reducing expenses by 50 percent. The company stock goes up and your bosses give you a huge bonus. You lay off all your workers and move your production facilities to Mexico. You get a huge bonus. You contribute some of your profit to the President’s re-election campaign. The President announces tax cuts for corporations in order to stimulate the economy.

Japanese Corporation: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You teach the cows to travel on unbelievably crowded trains. Your cows always get higher test scores than cows in the U.S. or Europe, but they drink a lot of sake.

German Corporation: You have two cows. You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year and are very expensive to repair.

Russian Corporation: You have two cows. You have some vodka. You count your cows and discover you really have five cows! You have more vodka. You count them again and discover you have 42 cows! You stop counting cows and have some more vodka. The Russian Mafia arrives and takes over all your cows. You have more vodka.

Italian Corporation: You have two cows but you can’t find them. While searching for them you meet a beautiful woman, take her out to lunch and then make love to her. Life is good.

French Corporation: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want another cow, more vacation and shorter work weeks. The French government announces that it will never agree to your demands. You go to lunch and eat fabulous food and drink wonderful wine. While you are at lunch, the airline pilots and flight controllers join your strike, shutting down all air traffic. The truckers block all the roads and the dock workers block all the ports. By dinner time the French government announces it agrees with all your demands. Life is good.

Political Correctness: You are associated with (the concept of “ownership” is an outdated symbol of your decadent, warmongering, intolerant past) two differently-aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender. They get married and adopt a calf.

Counterculturalism: Wow, dude, there’s like . . . these two cows, man. You have got to have some of this milk.

Surrealism: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

Now if only politics were this simple…

Source: Extremely Smart Humor

Okay I lied, I’ve had a couple of epiphanies lately and am toying with the idea of putting them all down here but on second thoughts that might not be such a good idea. So if you’re interested to know just ask me when you see me.

Instead I shall list all the things I need to do over the next 4 months now so come August I can look back at this post and see how many I ACTUALLY completed.

1. I was thinking of getting an internship and it was all going well till my silly school messed things up. Long story here, I think some might know it already. So internship is out of the question (it wasn’t really the first option anyway).
2. Find some volunteer work for a charity or NPO that interests me. You see, I have to clear 30 more hours of community service in order to graduate. Yes I feel like I’ve earned CWO for coming to Uni. Well I shant complain since I do want to do some good somewhere at least so this volunteer thing would really be more for me and clearing the 30 hrs is just a bonus.
3. LEARN TO DRIVE. YES! Finally this summer I shall get off this lazy ass and find an instructor and get my dam license. It’s such a pain to have a car and no license. Ironic isn’t it.
4. I should really try and clear up my room too. I did accomplish some of that the other day by emptying one full shelf and some clothes. I get the snide feeling there’s still more to be done. But In my defense there’s a whole cupboard (or more) that is NOT my stuff.
5. Catch some of the interesting shows at Arts Fest. This years line up ain’t that great actually but there’s CHICAGO, which I’ll be catching on Thursday! Yay!
6. Work on my Jazz Piano! Okay that’s really an ongoing thing. It started because I wanted to go to Berklee this summer (I still do, just maybe not their summer programme – maybe for their music therapy course instead).
7. Go to London and see Les Miserables on West End at the Queens Theater BEFORE they close for good (again). Well “go to West End” also would incidentally include catching other musicals like Spring Awakening and WICKED!

Alright so much for an internship to keep me occupied. I think I’ll be busy enough this vacation.

Why is it seemingly easier to fool yourself into liking someone you barely know and so hard to allow yourself to love the someone you actually do know?

See the actual 3D version on the website here.

We all know it to mean something along the lines of having a revelation or inspiration – but here is the first definition of the word according to dictionary.com:

A Christian festival, observed on January 6, commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi

So what’s the point you may ask. Well actually I don’t really have a point per se. I just thought it was interesting that such a poetic word to describe a revelation and an inspired thought actually really does refer to “divine inspiration”  and literally a manifestation of Christ.

Mercy is not getting what you deserve.

Grace is getting what you absolutely don’t deserve.