Thanksgiving

This years thanksgiving started as all great days do.

I was able to sleep in until 10 and then wander into the living room to have a little breakfast.

Biscuits and gravy. Heck ya.

Then the lovely lady I share my days with went to work to walk the dogs who were left at the doggy daycare/boarding kennel for the thanksgiving holiday.

Since she does not read these, I must confess, I then crawled back into the bed with my dogs and took a little nap.

After my fantastic nap, I got up, put on my happy pants, the pants that make me happy and happen to be extra stretchy for any unexpected holiday belly growth, and cleaned the house a little bit just in case anyone was to come over at any point in the day.

Once Tynia got off work we began the real day. We jumped in her little blue car and started on our way to her Aunts house. We simply could not find our way there since I had never been there and she had not been in years, only because we never do holidays there.

Once we got there, and said hello to everyone there, we got to eat. Turkey, ham, enchiladas, stuffing, beans. All the yummies on one plate. Then another. But not another since we still had an entire other thanksgiving feast to attend.

After chit chat with her family ended, we jumped back into the car, with full bellies, and drove to my grandparents house.

My grandparents don't cook much anymore. Rather they buy foods, then reheat them. Like this year, how the purchased a thanksgiving feast from Rudy's in El Paso the day before and then reheated the food in/on the oven.

Either way, the food was pretty damn delicious. And and and they always have all the pies. After a few plates and a couple slices of pie, Tynia declared that she wished to part-take in the black friday festivities.

Not my cup of tea, but I agreed anyway. We went to the mall and to the clothing stores that she simply had to get clothes from.

All in all, the shopping was not terrible, in no way was it anything as terrible as in large cities.

Once we got home, Tynia requested that we put up the christmas tree and lights.

Like any sucker, I agreed.

The night ended in a twinkling glow from the christmas tree.

Who Voted?

I know that there has been plenty of talk about the current election. It seems as though every 4 years this country sees itself split down the middle.At first, they bicker back and forth and it seems that whoever bickers the loudest makes an impact on the rest of the people who are yelling about the same stuff. Then everyone decides that the person who is yelling the loudest should go yell for them in the race to becoming the next president. At this early stage of the process, it is decided as to whom will represent either side of many controversial issues. Once it comes time to have the nation vote on who these two candidates, chosen by an elite few in much earlier months, millions go out to the polls and cast their votes.

This year, we had particularly loud yellers. Both of whom were very much disliked by the opposing party of yellers. It seems as though the reality tv trend finally hit the main stage. This election seemed to play out much like a tv series will its very publicized dramatic events. Every week turned up something new for voters to watch and talk about. Just like a weekly episode on their favorite tv show.

It came down to two rather decisively different choices, both having some major drawbacks. 

But still, millions got out of their homes and voted so that they could voice their opinion on the matter.

As the nation voted on the future of their beloved country, they looked out onto those who were not casting their votes nor utilizing their voices at the polls and felt a need to educate and shame them. 

I understand that some times a single vote matters, especially when it's combined with thousands of others who felt as though their vote would not radically change the results. Nearly half the nation did not vote and the winning candidate won with only 25% of the nation's votes.

For many of the people complaining about those who did not vote, also feel as though voting for someone other than the 2 major candidates is similar to not voting since it takes away votes from the others. Something I do not comprehend since quite often people are going out of their way to voice their beliefs, even if they aren't popular beliefs.

As for me, here in little ol NM, I did not vote. 

And it didn't change anything. Like at all.

This stare control 5 of the 538 electoral votes that a candidate only needs 270 of to win.

That's less than 1%.

Neither candid ate had a tough fight to lay claim to my vote.

The candidates who were truly popular in these areas, we're either left out of the race in favor for others in their party who yelled louder and had more money or were not in either major party. 

I did not vote because in this election my vote was insignificant and not important. 

Even if every single eligeblet voter in New Mexico went out and voted, the results of how the nation feels would not have drastically changed and let's say that they may have, and NM's electoral votes went to the other candidate, the outcome would have been the same. 

I do not live in a swing state that hold a significant portion of the votes nor in a state that flops back and forth on which party they support. 

I live in a state that has 1% of the votes and traditionally supports the same political party. 

Makes my vote feel sad and worthless. 

I understand that all the votes kind of matter but with the system we have set up, some votes and worth more than others. And it sucks. 

I hope to live in another state someday and maybe if it's a state where votes count, I will vote, but until then I abstain from the political battle known as voting.

Twitter competition

I have never really been competitive but there is a certain satisfaction you gain when you put your everything into something in an attempt to be the best.

This week I get NO so such satisfaction.

I made a quite sad attempt at winning this competition.

I've never been one who has used social media to actually communicate and socialize with others. I've never really posted anything on facebook or twitter unless it has been a request, either by family or for a class.

It's just not my thing.

That does not make my attempt any less sad.

I was to put aside my personal beliefs and rituals in order to branch out and learn new things, such as online rhetoric. Not only to learn about it but to utilize everything I learn to achieve a decent grade in my classes.

I don't believe that I've done this to the best of my abilities.

I only made 2 tweets during the week of the competition. Both of which, we're cheesy Halloween jokes. I hoped that these tweets would make people retweet the post and hopefully follow for future jokes.

This did not work out the way I intended it to. Nobody seemed to notice that I had tweeted. It is challenging to get others to acknowledge what you've done, let alone to share you work.

I've never really spent time on twitter looking at how people rise to twitter fame. I haven't ever really spent any time on twitter period. But my brief amount of time has been used to look up new music that I may enjoy.

So to try and use twitter to gain followers by tweeting short messages, was just a little too much for me. I was unable to really comprehend how the "twittershpere" operates.

It seems to be a sort of chaotic yet ritualistic ecosystem that I cannot seem to find a hole into which I can integrate myself. I looked up a few hash tags while I was in this competition and found that many people retweeted things I simply did not understand, such as people just talking about going to a Halloween costume party.

I do not understand how such a tweet merits sharing.

People share and retweet for themselves, this I understand. But the sharing of others tweets does not quite make as much sense to me.

Maybe I will never understand the exact purpose of social media but I have faith that eventually, I will be able to use them to my advantage.

Obviously it will take more time and effort than I devoted to this competition.

I know that I had the potential to do better but I believe that my own personal al quirks an anxieties kept me from putting my everything onto the competition and assignment.