Before anything, I wanted to say thanks for the comments. It's always nice to be acknowledged.

To sal: I have a lot of trouble being optimistic. When I'm optimistic, I get fairly dissappointed when it doesn't come true. Being "defeatist" kinda helps me prepare for the worse I guess. I think your point is to not worry about things you don't know about. I like that concept, but my brain likes to keep bringing it up anyway. I've always had a hard time with having faith in anything. You could blame my volitile past for that one. Though I sometimes think diaries have a way of making things seems more dramatic than the person is actually taking it. At this point, I worry more about getting caught on the train without a ticket than my health.

As for my friend Ray, I wouldn't be that surprised if he's looking for a mother-figure to connect with. Him and his mom are REALLY distant emotionally. Though I'm more thinking that he wants to be apart of a family unit than anything else. It's like he's finally trying to connect to someone.

To kaliko: The research classes are necessary in that what the colleges seem to really want is a researcher that discovers all sorts of crap so they could brag about it and sell the college. I personally want to just counsel people but the path to a prestigous doctoral degree is all about doing research and publishing papers. Only towards the tail end do they teach you how to actually counsel people; that is unless you only want a M.A and want to become a marriage and family counselor. It's ok, but doesn't give you the options to become a professor, director of a facility or prestige. *and ofcourse, more money*

Thanks on the congrats. I wish the marriage was actually preformed in a church instead of city hall, but being that I don't think anyone would've came anyway didn't help.

Anyways, I'll stay in touch more being that you guys actually wanna read me more. Though I'm still trying not to be too close cuz you know, I don't wanna disillusion myself again.

To honey: Hey, nice pics. I never seen the whole family before. You look great in the pic. I had forgotten what you looked like.

I wish I could be my own psychologist, but its like a surgeon operating on themself, it just is more difficult that way. I dunno, sayings and words don't mean much when they come from myself. I mean, I know when I'm thinking irrationally and I could tell myself stop, but it doesn't go away because I feel like I'm lying to myself. I also don't want to go to a real psychologist because I know what they'd say. I think I did that analysis in a past entry before. Basically, I have to have faith that I have enough control to stop the negative things from happening while also having faith that God will catch me. Being that I'm kinda pessimistic that God actually catchs people, it doesn't help. I mean, why would God catch me from my petty little problems when he doesn't catch a bunch of the dying starving kids around the country. Therefore, God may exsist, but he plays an inactive role in our lives. It's up to us to decide what happens.

As for being a good person, its not that I think I'm not a good person in that I know I'm not. Good people do good things for others *family and friends don't count* By no means am I bad in that I don't do too much harm to others. I just think by our very nature, nearly all humans are inherantly not good. I think that's why God says our good deeds are like dirty rags. He says all our ulterior motives. He sees how damn limited we are even when helping is not even much extra effort. Look, if we're going under the assumption that God created us, then we're all family. Period. Everyone is my brother and sister, literally. Thus, we should treat them as such. Yet, there are things that we do for others ONLY because they are "our family". From simple things, like constantly calling *and visiting* family members when they're in the hospital to more difficult things like donating an organ *or money*

Its not that altrusitic things don't happen, but its rare. Really rare. Now, if you are not a believer in God and believe in survival of the fitess, then it is only logical to look out for your family and close ones in that they are most likely to respond equally when you're in the given situation. *They have this nifty lil alogrithm in science that is fairly accurate in predicting when an animal is likely to help based on genetic similarity*

So I base my level of goodness on this altrustic standard. Thus, I am almost never altrusitic. *or good* I'm just decent. Its why people make a big fuss when there are people like Mother Teresa because its so rare to see someone have an altruistic personality.