We're Emo

Guess what I learned today: ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. It’s crazy stuff. ISO is the light sensitivity of the film. So you want a lower ISO for higher light, and vice versa. Lower ISO usually means higher quality. Aperture is the amount of light that is let in, and that has to do with the depth of the field. Shutter speed means how fast light is let in. Faster shutter speeds are used for stand still pictures, and slower shutter speeds are for things you want to capture in motion. It’s a whole lot of stuff that I may never use again, but I’m happy to learn it now. Everything has a purpose, right? I think so. It was lots of new information. As I’ve said before, I enjoy learning all of this stuff. Maybe it’s just because I enjoy learning. So class was all right, and then we had lunch: tortellini. Lunch was delicious today. It’s the only hot meal of the day, which is weird because I come from America where dinner is always the biggest, hottest meal. Here, everything seems to be different. We have big lunches, then small sandwiches for dinner. It takes awhile to get used to, and I think that it might take me a little longer than usual. It’s a strange concept that might not seem totally weird to you, but really try to imagine it. It really makes a difference that you don’t eat the biggest meal at dinner. At first, we were all really disappointed, but most of us have come to accept the fact that that is how things are and will be. I finally got to do something today that I’ve been asking to do for days. That something is help out in the kitchen; doing dishes, sweeping the floor, helping prep, and even just carrying out the food. Today, I got to peel potatoes. I peeled a lot of potatoes in a room while listening to German opera. Herr Balong would be proud. We spent two hours in the kitchen making potato salad (Kartoffelsalat). I told the head of the kitchen that I first had to clean the toilets, then I could help clean the potatoes, but she replied, “No! First, you clean potatoes, and then you clean toilets. Not the other way around.” German mothers are intimidating so I obeyed. In the afternoon, we got to go to our last class, worship. It was the only class I knew anything about. Finally, I was on par with the other students in my group. We all worship, and we all have our own knowledge, but it is good to share that knowledge with others and learn from them. During this class, I came across a new concept. That concept is that my generation is an emo generation. It is emo in the sense that we are very emotional. We are dependent on our emotions. Emotions guide us in our hard times, and they show us the light in our best times. Our feelings are always there, but sometimes they hold us back. Often, we expect to feel something in a certain situation, and when that feeling does not occur, we feel robbed. Kind of like we are expecting to feel something, and we put so much of ourselves into feeling that one emotion that when we don’t feel it, it’s as if the situation must not have been true. I don’t know if this is making sense to you, but I’m trying. I think that what I’m trying to say is this: people are always doubting because they do not feel how they expect to feel when they encounter a certain situation. That means that we decide what is true and what is false based off of our feelings. Isn’t that kind of limiting? I mean, can’t something be true even though we may not feel it is true? Are our feelings always right? The answer there should be obvious if you happen to be somebody who’s ever thought you loved somebody then found out that they are not actually the person you thought they were. The answer should also be obvious if you’ve ever felt really good about a test then received a grade a little lower than you expected. Hopefully neither of those situations has happened in your life, but it is hard to make it through without being disappointed or let down by your expectations. I’m not saying that your feelings are wrong. Many times, your feelings are the only truth available to you but not always. The whole point of this new thought in my head is that there is truth somewhere. In this big world, there is truth. Even in this body, there is truth. There is truth that I may never fully know, and there is some that I may someday understand. Opposite of truth, there are falsehoods. There are many of them. I think they started coming into existence somewhere around the time clothes were invented. So, we have truth, and we have lies. How do we know what is what? We ask. Sometimes, we try to find the truth by ourselves. If that is what you do, good luck. I have tried; it doesn’t work very well for me. I hope that you are able to read the meaning through the craziness of these words. I hope that you never stop feeling your emotions because without them, you are just a robot (I am a robot. I eat chocolate and robot food). At times, we are robots, but we are meant to be much more than that. It would be sad if we were reduced to nothing more than instincts; forgetting all of our emotions and feelings. Feelings are supposed to be liberating, but when we put limits on what we think truth is through feelings, they are nothing more than walls separating us from Truth. Try to think about that today. Tell me what you think. I may be wrong. I think that at least part of it is right. I’d love to hear from you. I’d love for you to really hear from me. I was supposed to leave the girls floor 12 minutes ago, but this ending held me up. Time for bed now. Have a great day today. Smile at somebody.