The Changing Face of Marriage

My experience with the church in my home, or the 'domestic church' has come from my parents and my grandparents. Ever since I can remember my family would say prays before eating dinner even if it was just some food we threw together or if one family member was missing a prayer would still be said; we still do this today. Another way I experienced domestic church was from my parents teaching my brother and I to be nice to everyone no matter how much they may bother you, good manors, to share things, and never lie. I knew that my parents wanted to embed God's love into our lives when they sent us to a catholic grade school and then continued our catholic education with high school. When my grandparents and extended family would come over to celebrate when I received a sacrament, that also let me know that our religion is really important to me and my family.Most of all my parents just make it a point to tell both me and my brother that they love us everyday. I don't think that the changing structure of marriage and family should change the domestic church that drastically. Some pros of these new lifestyles would be that possible the religious part of the family would be stressed in order to keep the family close or maybe new ways of practicing there religion could be incorporated in the family. Some cons are definitely that if the family is split up in some way or if too different religions are being practiced it might become confusing or hard to handle for the children or even the parents. However, no matter what the marriage and family composition is, I think everyone will be fine as long as there is love within the family relationship. For those with a college degree, good for them, and I guess good for me too in the future. I guess it does make sense that someone who is more educated would have a better long lasting relationship because they would be able to make good decisions within a relationship. At the same time though, I don't think that people without a college degree should have any less of a chance for a good marriage. You don't need to be a brain surgeon to know if you love someone or not and if the relationship you are in is going to work. From what I have learned growing up from my college educated mother an not college educated father the church is a big part of family life. Yes I feel compelled to establish the 'domestic church' in my home. I think it would be good for everyone to constantly know that they are loved by there parents.

Dating and Marriage

My intentions in a relationship is to be with someone who I share common interests in and the relationship would make us both happy because we care for each other. I don't think I will know at the beginning of a relationship if that is the person who I am going to spend the rest of my life with and at this point in my life I am probably only thinking of it unconsciously. I don't know who I look for, desire, or hope for. I guess I just want to be with a person who likes me for who I am and I like him in the same way. I have these intentions because it makes sense to me to like a person or some special characteristics about that person before I love someone. I think my intentions some what reflect modern society for, most people my age a probably only beginning to think about their future. There are also some Christian values in my intentions too because I am looking for someone who I can love and be happy together, I guess until we die.

Dating: What's the Point

From reading the text book I learned about two different views on dating. There are those known as anti-daters and others who think that dating is not a bad thing. Although both don't necessarily condemn dating, the anti-daters believe that dating multiple people before marriage is setting you up for divorce in the future. There point does make sense to me because if relationships continually end at some point there is a probability that your marriage will end as well, but how else are you going to get to know someone. I think dating is necessary because you need to experience a loving relationship with someone who cares for you and then from there decide if you can love, care, and be devoted to that one person for the rest of your life.Also, I believe that most of my peers would agree with a same or similar opinion to mine.On the other hand "hooking up" I think is something totally different than dating. I don't think that you should kiss or do anything else with a person that you met five minutes ago that you barely know anything about them if anything at all. I guess it might be okay if you did it with someone you know and are comfortable with and can have a real conversation with but not with just some random person. In my opinion:dating-good and hooking up-bad.

Some Say Love

As someone who has not dated/had a committed relationship yet, I guess I could say I don't really know what I am looking for. When I think of having a relationship the first characteristic that comes to mind is friendship. I see friendship as a form of love because a friend is someone who cares for you, laughs with you, and has a special bond through everything that you do together. This special bond may be heard in Taylor Swifts song "You belong with me" because in the lyrics the listener sees that she is the life long friend that cares for him and shares common interests with him while he is with a girl who is not treating him like a friend should. A guy who I love will probably be the same person who is my best friend that makes be smile and laugh. This quality is seen a lot in music and coincidentally in some of my favorite songs."Your my Best Friend" by Queen exemplifies my feelings exactly by stating all the good parts of their friendship. Other songs that show this quality are "I'm Just Waiting on a Friend" by the Rolling Stones and "Your still the one" by Orleans. In both songs love is seen in either seen in someone who is looking for a friend or someone who has been friends for a while and still shares the same love that they had from the beginning of their relationship. I don't believe in the quest for a soul mate. I don't think you should go out in the world and analyze every boy you meet to see if they have everything on your list to be your soul mate. I do believe that people have soul mates but if it is a relationship that was really meant to be than it will come together in a natural way and you probably wont even know its happening. Maybe my best friend/ soul mate could hop and bop to the crocodile rock together one day and then I would know he is the one.

"Little Women"

When I was younger life was awesome and I did not have a care in the world. I played with toys such as Barbies or dress up in outfits and pretend to be a princess but I quickly grew out of that and looked to my backyard and imagination for fun. That was my life when I was younger but I don't really think I actually knew the meaning behind any of the things I was playing with. I once smeared all the makeup in a kit all over the carpet in my room because I was trying to make my carpet tye dye. My parents didn't really want to stop me from playing with those toys either. I was a little bit of a tom boy and all my mom wanted was to dress me up in pink but instead I would go to my dad and play with the worms in the mud while he cut the lawn. However, I did see all my friends and cousins playing with playing with dolls and dressing more girly than me and that made me think that maybe I should be more like them. In this case I questioned myself and the things that I liked to do. Even in eighth grade at recess time I want to jump rope or play kickball while the other girls just sat on the pavement and talked about TV shows or gossiped about something pointless. Now at an all girls school I feel like we are all affected by the media an then we bring it into school with us because it becomes part of our mindset. But I don't think it affects us as much because when we come to school no one really cares about how they look, they are more preoccupied with the homework due or the test that they have next block. I think the media can affect young people but with the help of family and friends kids are able to become who they want to be and not be pressured to grow old to soon.

Identity

My real name that my parents gave me is Kathleen. I never really liked the name Kathleen because it is exactly the same as my mom's name. It's not because I don't like my mom (I love my mom), it's just because I thought that I didn't have my own identity if we had the same name. That is why I am glad that a nickname for Kathleen is Katie. I feel like over the years as my personality has developed people have gotten to know the Katie that I real am and not just another Katie that you see on the street. I know there are a lot of Katies in the world and even in this school, I guess that is why people started calling be Katie O. I have responded to many different names over the years and from that I have realized that that the name doesn't characterize you, it's the person who owns the name that makes you you.
I have also found my identity through what I love most in life, water. I love swimming in it I love rowing on top, and I guess everyone loves drinking it. Since I was a youngster every summer my cousins and I would go down the sure and spend hours on end swimming in the ocean and doing all kinds of aquatic activities. I have also been on a swim team since I was eight years old. As you may have noticed swimming has been a big part of my life for a long time. Whenever I jump into a pool I feel so free as I move through the flow of the water. Swim practices have always been my time to relax and not worry about all the hubbub that may be happening around me. Although I am done swimming on a competitive level I don't think I will ever stop swimming for fun because that would be like loosing part of who I am. Another part of me that occurs around water is crew. There is nothing better than coming off the water after a good practice or race a feeling like you can do anything because you can move a boat a high speeds through the water while becoming one with eight other girls. Rowing has helped me to discover the important things in life and just let the little stresses float on by.
I think the best part about my identity is that I am always discovering more about me. Next year I will be going to Northeastern University and I am most likely going to start out with an undeclared major. At this time there are many thoughts going through my head.I'm not sure if I want to be a marine biologist, zookeeper, teacher, nutritionist, pilot, or some other interesting occupation that I just have not yet discovered. As I embark on my journey to college I can't wait to discover more about my identity. Of coarse I know who I am but it would be nice to figure out the part of me that will lead me to figure out a future that will make what I do in life fun and therefore make me the best that I can be.