Just some random stuff...

Since Pesach is starting next week, my blogging will be quite curtailed as I attempt to keep up with work and school while having half of my days taken away by Yom Tov. So I just thought I would quickly throw some random thoughts out. I started reading Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America this week for school. It is an extremely well-written book, about an extremely disturbing topic. It absolutely amazes me how hate could have been a platform on which a political candidate campaigned, and won. I know it shouldn't shock me, because it has happened in so many instances throughout history, but it does. But as gruesome and horrible as the topic is, the book is absolutely fascinating. I wrote my counseling paper, which was a big stress lifted off my shoulders (though I still have to figure out my focus for research paper on technology). It still needs a lot of clean-up, but having the basics down makes me able to breath a lot easier. Last night in class, we talked about Reality Therapy. The founder of the theory postulates that mental illness, including psychosis, is a choice that people make for themselves. We had an interesting conversation about how we didn't agree with it. It is interesting to me that the founder of the theory, who supposedly was in the profession of helping people, would come up with such a frustrating view of mental illness. I can't imagine that telling clients who were suffering from psychosis that they were choosing to hear voices. Someone was telling me about Hobbes and how he believed that people are motivated in their actions out of desire to avoid war. Seems to me that if people desired only to avoid war, they would avoid all interaction with others. I hope he is not correct, because I think it would be depressing to think that the only reason people do anything for anyone else is to save themselves. Finally, I want to wish everyone a wonderful Pesach. The holidays are often the hardest time for so many...I know for myself, it is always difficult spending holidays with someone else's family. While I am so incredibly grateful to all those families who open their homes to me, and I personally am so lucky to have a family who just expects me to join them on all holidays, it is still hard. I hope everyone has someone to celebrate with and has an enjoyable Chag.