Amo!

Today has been a rather long day with classes, walking to class, work, homework, and a bit of social time. One thing that I feel I must state before moving onto my topic for today is that text book prices are outrageous! I spent $448 dollars today for 3 classes and I still have my english class to buy for....and for which I still have $300 dollars worth of books to buy. Needless to say I am not going to buy all of those but nevertheless I will spend over $500 on books alone this semester. I recently found that a typical 3 hour class at KU costs nearly $850 dollars....oh my! No wonder everyone is in major debt when the get out of college! This folks is the only perk of having aged out of the Foster Care system, I don't pay for my schooling. But it still is outrageous and dumbfounds me.

Anyway, moving on, today's topic is amo, amor, or otherwise known as love. I am in an Anthropology class and one of my readings today was on the various ways to love and different ways to show it. For instance as we all are very much aware in the United States roses, diamonds, kisses, and gifts are everyday and average ways to show a person you love them. Whether they are your significant other, your children, sister, brother, grandparents, parents, etc. one will use one of these methods amongst others to show their affection for one another. On average on Valentines Day in the United States 189 million red roses are sold....thats alot of roses. The essay raised the question as to why this is so. Why does the rose or a diamond show love and adoration? Where did that come from and why do we adherer to it today? He says the basic reason for it is because of tradition and it is what we are accustomed too. Little girls see their Daddy's giving their Mommy's roses for Valentines day or an anniversary and because of this they expect it when they get older and men/boys/guys know this is what they want and so they conform to what is expected.

In the indigenous cultures we find that love is shown in acts of strength and loyalty. I think it is very odd how it changes from culture to culture...since the feeling is universal shouldn't the ways it is shown be universal? I know that deep in the jungle roses can not be given and in the US fighting off a lion is not an option either but shouldn't the basic act be similar? I'm not saying that it is bad or wrong but they are different and it just surprises me. Now having said that I'm not going to go wrestle with a boar to show my non-existent boyfriend that I adore him but I feel like maybe I will begin showing my affection in much the same way but maybe trying some different ways.

Happy Valentines Day!

Maybe for Valentines day I'll get everyone a cactus! :)