They pray at the city council meetings in my city.

You know how I’m the secretary for the Youth Advisory Council for my city? You know how that means I’ve got to type up “minutes” and e-mail them to the head dude in time for the next meeting?

Well, I don’t remember if I blogged about it (I probably didn’t) but the authorities on the YAC had made me two templates for writing minutes before they were satisfied with my work.

I have a meeting tomorrow right after school (not even kidding- school ends at 2:30 and I have to get home, grab my YAC binder + writing utensil and head to the city hall for 3:30) and as usual it’s 10:23 PM the night before and when I’m supposed to be finishing up minutes, I’m blogging.

What really happened was I’d begun minutes and decided to finally get around to Googling what real “minutes” are supposed to look like and found my city’s minutes. I scroll down a bit and the format is obviously different but not by much. (IRRELEVANT.)

Anyway, I come accross a heading that says “opening.” It’s got the expected stuff- O’ Canada, etc. And then all of a sudden it says something “prayer.”

I don’t know what to think of this.

I personally don’t object to it; we pray during ‘opening’ at pathfinder meetings, too. But before we begin that tradition each year, everyone is asked if they’re okay with that, or if they have any religious objections or whatever. So far no one’s objected to going along with the prayer, even though I know one of them doesn’t believe in God.

But I’m not sure your religion should affect your politics so much as to pray for each meeting. I mean, Canada is a place that is absolutely rich with various cultures and religion. (Maybe not SPECIFICALLY my town, but I still think it’s reasonably diverse.)

If your government can only represent those that have someone to pray to, then really, are they representing Canada, or are they representing their religion?

And not to mention what it looks like. Oh, yeah, “Our city’s terrible- even the polititians are praying we’ll get out of this mess.” or, “Our polititians are sinners, begging for forgiveness!” “This person thinks (s)he’ll look important if they ‘find God’.”

On the other hand again, don’t you have every right to pray before one of these meetings if you want to? (“I don’t have to agree with you, I just have to respect you.”) Maybe they give you the option to sit out. I don’t know; I’ve never been to one of these meetings.

I don’t attend church (or other place of worship) on a regular basis and I suppose I’m not really affiliated with any organized religion. I just think a lot and decide what I think I believe or what I think is probable. (I only do this because I wonder about things.)

But I still haven’t figured out how I completely feel about this whole praying-at-city-hall-meetings thing yet.

Or maybe this is one of those things I’ll never be able to figure out how I feel about it. I’m so used to being the type to have strong, definite opinions about something, and then this comes along…

ON A DIFFERENT NOTE: I sort of crashed our family computer so my mom and brother hooked the internet up to my laptop. And mid-terms are coming out soon and this is what I know I’ve got:

Academic English: 75% (Nearly 20% above class average)

Drama: 74% (12% above class average)

Art: 84% (2nd highest mark in the class- the only one higher is 88% by a girl who’s taken gr. 11 art last year and took gr. 10 art this year because it was the only class that wasn’t full)

History: 79% (Also significantly above class average, I’m pretty sure at least 10%. 1% above my best friend in this class who always brags about knowing so much about WWI because she’s “military family”. Also, I need 80% to be exempt from the exam and I have a test tomorrow.)

Alex Violet

All I want is peace.

I’ve been feeling a little emotional over the past couple days. (View my posts from yesterday, part one and part two.)

So I was listening today to How to Save a Life by the Fray (the version with snippets of people’s voices reacting to the 9/11. I decided to watch some videos on YouTube with that song played to scenes and photos from the 9/11. (There are lots.)

Of course, I cried a bit.

Not as bad as yesterday with the lady at the assembly.

But it was still sad.

I looked at some pictures of people protesting against war and things like that over flickr and got a little upset.

It seems the gist of what these people in reaction are saying is that:

“This is the United States, as Americans, we need to be civil. War is never the answer.”

Damn right, war is never the answer. But being American shouldn’t be your excuse to be peaceful to others; you should be peaceful because the people you’re warring against are just like you.

They live, they breathe, they feel, they listen, they see, they cry, they’ve seen the same sun and the same moon and the same stars and sky as you.

They live on this earth, just like you.

They are human, just like you.

They feel pain, just like you.

You should say, rather than “These things just aren’t supposed to happen in America,” you should say, “These things just aren’t supposed to happen on Earth.”

We should be civil and peaceful as representatives of the whole beautiful and trecherous world, not just our race or religion or nation.

When the world trade centre was knocked down, it wasn’t just a knock to the United States, it was a knock to the world.

You shouldn’t do things just because as a person from whatever country (or with whatever race or religion) and say “That’s just what people like me do.”

No, you should do things because you feel in your heart and mind and soul (if you believe in souls) with everything you know and have experienced as a human being, that what you choose to do is the right thing.

Not just because someone told you that it’s right.

Especially if you’re just picking that choice or candidate (or whatever) because that’s what everyone else is choosing and you’re too lazy to think for yourself.

Now I’m not telling you to not listen to anyone else. I’m not telling you to close your mind.

I’m telling you to open your mind, open your eyes, and open your heart.

I’m not telling you to go against something just to assert your independence, either. I’m just telling you that you should only do something if you in your heart/mind feel/know that what you’re doing is right.

And if you do truly feel/know that it’s right, then you should do something, take action, follow a dream or something.

Make a blog.

I know I’m being awfully contradictory/hypocritical by saying “you should” continuously, but I’m sorry. (I don’t know how else to word what I’m trying to say properly.)

I’m just trying to open some minds.

And maybe I should feel empowered by writing all this, but to be honest with you, I feel miserable. But that may just be since I feel ostrasized.

Somedays it feels like the world is made by Americans, for Americans.

Well, not everyone is American. (And I’m not saying all Americans are selfish and ostrasizing either.)

Minority matters, minorities are worth mentioning. And for crying out loud, other majorities, too.

I’m Canadian. As much as I love being Canadian, (and I truly do) I am also a human being, a citizen of this earth. So I feel in my heart and soul and mind that I should treat everyone I meet as such.

But every time I’m reading a magazine (sold and bought in Canada) and it offers an exciting contest, only to discover it’s only open to American citizens, you’ve got to understand why I can’t help feeling disappointed, left out. If you’re going to exclude me, at least don’t rub it in my face.

I keep coming back to, “We’re all citizens of the Earth.”

But really, the more I consider these words and the more I think about it, the more I realize it’s true.

It shouldn’t matter who you are, all that should matter is that you’ve lived on this earth, and that, at least, we have in common.

Even if you just so happen to be an alien (lol) we’ve all had the experience of being alive, right? And we all have some grasp of how life works, maybe just our version of life, but still.

Knowing only about your life doesn’t give you the right to be selfish to others, does it?

Once you make an effort to understand someone, to walk a while in their shoes, you’ll realize their true intentions aren’t as harsh as they seem.

If everyone made an effort to understand each other, where we’re all coming from, than world peace would be a lot easier to achieve.

Less people would blow things out of proportion if they know the real size of the situation.

At least, that’s the way I see it.

Have a nice day,

Alex Violet

This is when you know what you’re supposed to do.

It seems that almost everyone who feels like they belong somewhere (by that I mean in general, but a certain career in this context) has had a moment of reckoning. They have a epiphany where they realize all at once that this is where they belong. This is what they are meant to do in their life. This moment, this dream, is worth every single effort you have to put into to acheive it. It is for the better of mankind.

I had my reckoning today at pathfinders.

We were working on our citizenship badge, a badge we have been working on for a very long time and in almost every spare five minutes we had at meetings and such.

In this particular challenge, we had to describe our ideal society/community. There were three groups:

1. Tabitha and A.
Their community was environmentally-friendly (no one was allowed cars if you were able to walk somewhere) and loved animals.

2. K. and Lily
I’ve got to be honest, I wasn’t totally listening… But I get the impression that theirs was generally about equality, generally similar to what the average Ontario community is like, or at least looks like.

3. Olivia and Brianna and Alex (Me)
Equality in the EXTREMETIES. No polititians, there’s no need. No one should have to boss you around and tell you their opinion is better; that their way goes, it’s law whether you like it or not. Because people with the it’s-my-way-or-the-highway persona are the epitome of injustice.
No matter who you are, where you come from, how old you are, etc. EVERYONE gets a say. EVERYONE gets a say in the way things are run.
There is a set of laws that need to be there for those who have it in them to abuse the power of being free. (Hitler, for example, abused his power.) When they’ve abused that power, they no longer have equal say because they’ve proven they can’t handle it, or that their say is biased in some way.
If a law-abiding citizen wanted to change a law, they’d be listened to and heard out and I guess we’d have a vote if at first civil compromise or a little talking-it-through-with-all-parties-that-would-be-affected didn’t work out.

Olivia had to leave early so we were all standing in our little groups of two and had to sum up our ideal communities in a word or two. Group 1 said environmentally-friendly; Group 2 said equality; My group, Group 3, said “Anyone who has a voice gets a choice!” I swear it might be my political slogan one day. (Don’t steal it. I’m serious.)

After that explaination, our main pathfinder leader, Tigger (we had 2 there, one of them was the founder of our pathfinder unit who also used to be my next-door-neighbour for all years until second grade and the other is the main one that organizes events and calls people up on the phone) told us to walk over to which community we’d rather live in. (As in where that group was standing previous.) We weren’t allowed to pick our own.

So do you want to know the final verdict?

Everyone chose my group.

‘cept for me and Brianna (we weren’t allowed) as well as Tigger. We all were standing in Group 2′s community.

The founder of our pathfinder unit (we call her Mrs. P) was sitting down in a chair on the other side of the room, not wanting to vote.

Tigger asked why and Mrs. P said she was waiting to choose my group (“Alex’s group” she said) since I’d mentioned about equality for all ages. But then instead of saying the whole “if-they-break-the-law-they’re-not-allowed-the-same-say” thing, I said “extensive phsyco-analysis,” (sp?) since I tend to view people with the lack of moral capacity as truly insane.

I tried to explain further but then we went into our closing ceremony (singing Taps) and I didn’t get enough chance.
Once mostly everyone was gone or at least left the room, it was just Mrs. P and I packing up our stuff.

I then explained further what I meant and then she said about how she knows what I meant now and that it’s all in good fun. She said she truly thinks I have many great ideas and that she can really see the gears in my head turning.

“I think you’ll really go far in life.”

And those are the words I think have changed my life.

I told her “Thank you, that really means something to me.” And I gave her a hug and she said she was glad it meant something to me.

And she told me she hopes to be able to see me do great in the world. She said that Tigger and her really do see us pathfinders as if we were their own daughters without getting too mother-like because some things mothers are there for. (I hope that makes sense when I say it.)

I’m glad, and I left pathfinders with a happy feeling inside. As soon as I got home I sat down to write this entry because I want to look back on it years from now and remember this.

I’m going to go far in life.

Alex Violet

“We are all citizens of this Earth.”

I owe you a thought-provoking post after the other one a couple hours ago.

So here you are.

A while back (a month, tops) I was watching the news. (I don’t normally watch the news, but my brother likes to so he seems civilized, and I was walking by.) There was a small segment where people on the streets were interviewed on their opinions towards immigration.

Several of these people shocked me with their territorial words, something like “You have your land, we have ours.” People with thoughts like that make me very upset.

But what moved me was a man that said, “We are all citizens of the Earth.”

As soon as he said that, I thought, Yeah! That’s true! We all have to share the world, it’s only proper.

The world is everyone’s home, and their country is merely their own little room. To not be allowed to leave is to be a prisoner in your own home. (I hope that was as clear as I meant it to be…)

Like, imagine you have this giant pie. Or turkey. Or something. Everyone sitting around the dinner table represents a demographic or country. The turkey or pie or whatever is the land and various resources on Earth.
Overall, the pie/turkey is wicked good, but there are small parts that aren’t as delicious as they could be. A couple people get massive, scrumptious parts of the pie/turkey, but most of them get what’s left over.
Some of them fight over the icky parts because the people who have the yummy parts are like the woman who’d said, “You have your land, we have ours.” (NOTE: I’m not saying non-developing countries are greedy! I’m just saying some people are, enough to stop us from helping as much as we could possibly.)
And they have a stronger (as in bigger and/or with more resources like ammo and/or money) demographic/country, so it’s difficult to stand up to them. Or if they do, they either fail, or they’re not standing up for themselves the right way.
As in they might resort to terrorism because the big countries aren’t listening. No one’s given them any better reason or way to get us to listen otherwise. Sometimes it’s difficult to realize how many people are truly innocent.

Anyway, I’m trying to get at the point that the key to peace on Earth is listening, understanding. Unless somebody is truly mentally unstable, (in which case they shouldn’t even be involved in politics) if you listen and try your best to understand where everybody’s coming from, you shouldn’t still feel ill will towards them.

We are really all the same. We all belong to the Earth. We are all human beings. (As far as I know…) We all look up at the same moon, even if it’s upside-down in your half of the planet. We were all just born and raised differently. But we’re all alive, we all have thoughts.

“We are all citizens of this Earth.” It’s ours to share. We may as well be pleasant about it.

Just because a couple of polititians don’t get along doesn’t mean we can’t, you know?

Alex Violet.

PS Damn right, this fifteen-year-old’s got a head on her shoulders and an opinion for every controversy.
I want to leave ya with another quote.

“The ‘Third World’ is a term I don’t like very much, because we’re all one world. I want people to know that the largest part of humanity is suffering.”
-Audrey Hepburn