Scribbles in the Dark

[Error: unknown template qotd] There were a lot of "yes" answers to this prompt (and one spam ad - LJ, can we fix this?) so I felt I should step in to say, NO, I don't believe in love at first sight.

But I really think that's because of how I define "love". I do think it's possible to meet someone and instantly like them - or find them physically attractive - but I wouldn't call that "love", I'd call it a crush or an attraction or even just plain old charisma. Friendship and love, I believe, come with time spent together. So while someone you meet and instantly like can become someone you love, with time, I wouldn't say it was "love at first sight".

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Love Actually, of course!!! Although there are a lot of family classics for me, this is hands-down my first choice. :D

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Consequence, by The Notwist

Not because it's my favorite song - it's not, although I love it - but because it has a good beat, simple lyrics, and it blends into itself - it's great background music for almost any mood.

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My favorite English word is awkward, because it sounds like what it is and I just think the way my mouth is shaped to make it is hilarious.

My favorite German word is tötetet, because it sounds awesome, the slight variation of vowels between the t's popping off the tongue. :D It's a conjugation of the verb "to kill".

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THUNDERSTORMS.

I really, really love a good blustery day, as Pooh would say. :D I love the cloudy-gray overcast sky, the brisk wind and the cool crisp clean air, the sound of rain coming down, the tension of electricity in the air before the lightning starts and the crack and grumble as it goes.

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Ooooh, um. I think I would have to say "Under Pressure", but I'm also very partial to "Hammer To Fall" and "Don't Stop Me Now".

So much love for Queen.

<3

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Hell no! I would not ever set a zoo animal free. Because they most likely have been bred in captivity and wouldn't know what to do with a wide open field if they found themselves in one.

Seriously, you (yes, YOU!) have been protected from the elements and strangers who want to hurt you, you have been fed and watered and cared for all your life - how would you fare if someone decided you should be FREE! and they dumped you in your "natural habitat" without any of those support structures in place - no house, no kitchen knives, no refrigerator, no means of protecting yourself. Wouldn't that suck?

(To anyone who has not led a life of full safety and healthy well-being, I apologise for the above statement. My intention is to promote empathy and understanding, not to offend.)

[Error: unknown template qotd]Talented, strange, catchy.

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If I found a magical stone that could keep one person young forever, I wouldn't give it to anyone OR keep it for myself. I would hide it away where no one could ever find it or use it.

Think about it - being young forever, in our society? Not all it's cracked up to be, especially if you're the only one. If you were young forever, you could never fall in love, have a family, have a career, anything. No life insurance, that would be interesting.

Just think: you have a magical stone that keeps you young forever and, I presume, keeps you from dying from various diseases, accidents or attacks, fatal wounds, etc. But in our society you had better keep such a thing a secret, or it wouldn't be yours for long. And I'd assume that if you lose the magical stone after, say, a thousand years - you would just turn to dust, as you should have been all along. So you'd better not lose it unless you plan on dying.

And you can't do any of the things that make living worth-while. Fall in love? Even if you tell your beloved about the magic stone, and they're okay with that, they will grow old and die while you stay forever young. Your children will look older than you, die before you. Your grandchildren? Also going to grow old and die and leave you behind to mourn. You can't have a career - because eventually people start to notice when you've been with the company for thirty years and you don't look a day over twenty-five, or whatever. People will eventually start to ask questions, and that brings you right back to losing your magical stone to someone else. Even if you hop from one place to another, the government (and your life insurance company) will eventually figure out that you've been a citizen for over a hundred years, got your centennial birthday letter from the president, and you're still going mountain-climbing or whatever. Kinda weird.

You would have to constantly be changing your name, changing where you live, creating a new identity and a new life for yourself every few years, or hiding out, either somewhere that doesn't ask any questions about weird stuff like immortal youth, or somewhere that has a transient population that wouldn't notice.

So all the cool things about being young? In a society where one person being young forever is NOT the accepted norm, you wouldn't be able to enjoy it. For a while, maybe, but after a few decades it would only be torture. I wouldn't wish such a thing on my worst enemy, let alone my dearest friend or myself.

~

For fictitious reference, see Jack Harkness from Torchwood or, as anhtho has reminded me, the Tuck family from Tuck Everlasting.

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Ooh, that's a tough question. I feel really strongly both yes and no. (For reference, I am a believer in abstinence and always have been, but also a believer in informed consent and people being able to make their own decisions for themselves.)

The part of me that feels "yes" remembers how awkward it was to have "The Talk" with my parents. It's a very personal subject and I realise, in retrospect, that my parents were pretty biased about what they told me. (I say 'parents'; really it was just my mom.) In a similar vein, I would guess that some parents either don't care about educating their children, or they do a poor job of it for whatever reason, and then their children might make uninformed judgments and decisions about sex. I remember one girl I knew in high school who had already had one baby, and after taking the school's sex ed program she said she would be living a completely different life if she had known even half of that information before. I think schools should definitely provide sex education because: a) parents may for whatever reason give an incomplete or biased picture, b) the awkwardness of a parental "Talk" is mostly avoided, and c) school-sponsored sex education has the weight of an institution behind it, which to impressionable children might be more socially driving.

On the flip side, school-mandated sex education has a lot of deficiencies, so a part of me really wants to say "no" to it as well. One of my main reasons is that I really don't think it's the place of the school to be the primary material resource on something so important to a person's future life choices. Parents should be taking an active role in the lives of their kids, not depending on the school to take care of and nurture them. Another thing: it's just as possible to have bias in a school program, except that's worse because then it's affecting every kid in the class, not just one or two. Another plague of the school-run program is giving too much or too little information, regardless of what the kids involved are ready for. I personally feel that my school-run sex ed program came about six years too late - I was a precocious kid - but my younger sister's program was a bit earlier and a LOT more graphic. Basically, the reasons here are the opposite of the reasons I gave above. Schools shouldn't be the sole provider of sex education because: a) a school program can't personalize the information it gives to each student's level, b) the school program is often impersonal and scary, and c)institutions shouldn't be responsible for the social well-being of someone's children.

My opinion: there should be both.