Adopting

Ever since this http://biancapol.blogspot.com/2010/05/chinese-babies.html I've been thinking about adopting. Not thinking as in considering and want to do it immediately, thinking about the whole thing in general. There are a lot of good blogs about families who have adopted, though the only ones I've found are basically American families who have adopted from China. There is only one I follow, it was just one I randomly found somehow and it charts the entire thing of how this one Jewish family in I think Florida adopted first a girl from China and then a little boy with a few medical problems. They only very recently found out that the girl the adopted has a rare eye condition and eventually she's going to go completely blind. She's 5. Anyway here's the link to their blog, in case yr interested http://stressisthenewblack.blogspot.com/. Basically they just seem like a really really warm loving family, genuinely nice people with normal lives and all that.

At the other end of the spectrum I've came across what I find personally to be some really dark shit. This actually happened ages ago but I can't shake it out of my head, and I really fucking wish I could. I didn't save the link because at the time I didn't think I would think any more about it. Basically it was this American couple, pretty religious, and they got some "sign from god" that he wanted them to adopt. So off they trotted to this orphanage in Russia, to see a girl they were hoping to adopt. In the end it didn't come through with that girl because of weird shoddy Russian laws and all that jazz. But the woman that was writing this blog, was saying how heart breaking it was that all these little tiny innocent kids were living lives they didn't deserve to be living, and how could god allow this to be? When, And I quote "I was gently reminded by a friend that it was our sins that put these children here, not god"

Urgh. What the fuck? The whole what I think about religion thing is opening up a can of worms that I don't really wanna end up going on and on about on here right now. But in my looking through quite a lot of adoption blogs, pretty much all of them have been written by families who have adopted and who are, if I may take an immature detour just temporarily, proper bible bashers.
I'm trying to post my argument in solid and mature way but I'm finding it really hard without having to thoroughly explain myself and rambling even more.
I just think having your life so completely ruled by it, I don't know, it just seems so unnatural to me. And to be honest, I think its more than a little creepy. On the other hand (damn being a Libra!) sometimes I think that if they're not pushing it on me, who am I to say all this, right? Each to their own, its not like they're hurting anyone.

But back to business, I'm not generally shocked by much, but that line shocked me. Sins, its a weird one, and I feel a bit foolish writing all this when I don't have the knowledge even properly back up my argument, but anyway I just wiki'd the term "sin" -

• Sin is often used to mean an action that is prohibited or considered wrong; in some religions (notably in Christianity), sin can refer not only to physical actions taken, but also to thoughts and internalized motivations and feelings. Colloquially, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, shameful, harmful, or alienating might be termed "sinful".
  
• Food, for example, while a necessary good for the (health of the temporal) body, is not of (eternal) transcendental living and therefore its excessive savoring is considered a sin.

So, because I want to bang Rafael Nadal, and because I fucking loved that Sunday roast followed by lemon cheesecake that I ate for dinner and dessert today, I'm putting innocent little children into orphanages. Add to that the countless sins I must be committing each hour, phew, I don't wanna think about how many little babies I'm effectively sending to a life of poverty and shit.

It is not our fault that these kids are in orphanages.

It just makes me feel very frustrated that people who believe such horseshit are adopting these kids. Its like they just don't have a clue about how the real world works and they're just living in some crazy dream world.
Maybe they would argue that someone who swears so much shouldn't bring up kids either.

Anyway like always when I start things like this, I'm running out of momentum to carry it on, so I'll end this part here.

PART 2!

alright moving onto a less ranty side of this.
The more I read about it, the more certain I become that one day I'm going to do it. Each little bit I read, each little piece of information just cements it further. Though I honestly can't pinpoint why, one certain reason. Because its a nice thing to do? Well yeah but that's not the sole reason. Because I can't have my own kids? I'm too young to know that, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to have kids fine. And its irrelevant anyway cause I still want to do it even when I do have my own. So no, that's not it. I guess, what it comes down to is that it feels like a natural thing to do. To me anyway. If I could take and love every oprhaned and abandoned child, I would do it in a heartbeat. As it stands I can probably only take a few. The adoption process is lengthy and heartwrenching and expensive. I really hope one day I'm able to do it.

The other day I came across this website, adoption.com. I only stayed on it a little while, partly due to my restless nature that day and partly because it was just so achingly sad. Its a bit of a shit website, not a proper agency one or anything. I clicked into the browse section, and found this little boy -

Isn't he just the most gorgeous little thing you've ever seen? I just think his face is SO sweet, and his messy curly hair just springing out of the top of his lovely head.
He's 4, and I don't know where exactly he's from other than Europe (shit website)
But his name is Ruslan, and he has Cerebrospinal partial Aplasia of the lower part of the spine, partial hypoplasia of pelvis bones.
I have no idea what this means. I sat for what felt like ages but was only really a minute or so, just staring at his picture and wondering about him. I just wanted to hold him cuddle him and make him feel that someone loved him, and somehow just make him healthy and not riddled with that horrible condition.http://photolisting.adoption.com/international/children/ruslan-20692 Here's his link, you can see for yourself how random and crap that website is.
I wanted to know more about him but there really is fuck all. I guess I just needed to know that someone wanted him or had already adopted him, that he hadn't been left somewhere while all the healthy kids get picked around him. I hope so.

After all that, I thought back to something I'm pretty sure I've yet to write on this blog, because it happened before it was created. But four years ago I did a college course whereby they took us to Romania. I stayed there with a group of people my age, for three weeks, to renovate the P.E hall in a special needs school. I won't write too much about it cause I'll save that for another post, but in conclusion it was fucking amazing, I had such a great time. So while we were there, I didn't see any kids like Ruslan in the special needs school. There was one or two who were quite clearly special needs but mostly I think they were just learning difficulties and nothing so serious. The school wasn't properly top notch but it wasn't bad at all.
We visited an orphanage one time. It was where two of our guides lived, they were lads of about 16. I wish I remembered more and took more notice, but the orphanage had a good atmosphere and as far as I could tell this one was definitely one for older kids.
Anyway, where am I going with this, I don't know.

But finding Ruslan on that website, and remembering the pictures from the woman mentioned above's blog, and things I've seen on TV, just made me seriously start to think maybe I should do something like that again. Go to an orphanage, help out, give some kids a friendly face and some goddamn love.

Right, that's it for now. More later probably.

Sky, funfair, kaleidoscope, and other things

I'll kick this off with something cool and amusing (to me anyway) that I found and or did today.
I have one of those crystal heart things, won from a 2p machine. I always put it up to my eye and look at stuff and experience how a fly must see. Today it occurred to me that I could just shove it in front of my camera lens and probably do the same thing. Kept me amused for a while. Here are the results.

Anyway other than that, I can't say I have much else to report. Went to Yarm fair last week with mon mam and auntie. Its a weird little tradition we've somehow adopted. We go every year, walk up and down a couple of times, laugh at people on rides, and then go home again without even going on anything. I don't mind though, not going on anything. Its nice to walk around and stuff. Not as nice as it used to be though, I remember once a few years ago when they were allowed to have little bonfires, the travellers with their old fashioned caravans and there would be the odd horse there too. I don't think they are allowed either now. But I'm not sure, maybe they are but just don't any more. Either way its a shame, cause that really distinct smell of their little bonfires and the smoke in the air, really was the essence of the fair to me. And it seems lacking something big without it. Also whenever we've been, I always really really want to go to one of the fortune tellers, on the whole I guess I don't really believe them, they're most probably just out to rip you off, but I'm still really interested in what they'd say to me, if it would make sense, if it came true one day! I still would love to though, and I still don't know why I never do see one when it comes down to it. Maybe next year. Anyway these aren't very good but here's a couple of pictures.

So that just about covers it for pictures. I was going to take one of my street, it was so full of leaves, but the other day I said to my mam as we were going in the house "there doesn't look as many leaves today" and she said "yeah two workmen came and cleared them all up". I was pretty gutted, the street looked so lovely, just so many leaves. The tree to leaves ratio seemed a lot off, in the way that there seemed to be more leaves than was possible considering there isn't that many trees. It was probably right really, I guess leaves isn't something I think about a whole lot. Also it seemed like a pointless thing to do, not just cause its pretty much an impossible task trying to clear them all away, but its unnecessary as well, I mean nature sorts its self out, on the whole. I'll take a picture when the street is re-filled.

Well I'm running out of things to say in this post, so I'll leaf it here (geddit?!)

I just remembered

I was just having a bit of a slow Smashing Pumpkins song fest thanks to spotify, scrolling through the list, when suddenly I noticed a song called "This Time", I haven't listened to it in a long long time, it truly was wedged deep in the back of my memory, but the instant I saw the name it it came right back at me.
I thought "woahhh I remember that! Its a mint song!". And it really really is, ace intro, everything about it, its just so good, and kind of (totally) heartbreaking. There was a time in my life when it really spoke to me. But I really did (and still do) absoloutely love that song. Ahhh. So good. Really gutted that it just totally slipped my mind for so long. It wont again.
Here it is-