just don't do it, and if you do, wrap before you tap

Within the past week, I learned that three of my friends and/or my younger sister's friends have become pregnant in the past 6 months. One is ending in her being basically disowned by her family and rushing into marriage, one resulted in an abortion, and the third is keeping her from her senior soccer season, which most likely would have resulted in a significant athletic scholarship. Hanford High has never really had a reputation for underage pregnancies, and actually I've never known anyone under the age of 20 who found themselves pregnant unexpectedly. (For some reason, there were a handful of college-age girls at my church that got pregnant and then quickly married, but that's about as much scandal as I've ever been exposed to.)
My beef is not with the sex itself; I believe in abstinence until marriage, but I realize that for most people that's not a goal or realistic expectation. And I'm ok with that. My problem comes when the sex is just used as a way to keep a relationship in tact, as if by giving into something you don't necessarily want to do will be pleasing enough to the other person to keep them around. It breaks my heart. Women need to learn that if a man says he'll only "love" you if you sleep with him, he's bad news. A lot of times, this isn't even a spoken expectation, and I would imagine that often the guy isn't thinking that at all. But what is it about women that creates this drive and false understanding that we have to please all the time in order to be respected and loved?

I'll never take my mouth for granted again

I got my wisdom teeth out Tuesday, and I pretty much never want to have surgery again, like ever. I realize this might seem a little over dramatic, after all I only had four teeth pulled, there was no swelling, I'm a seemingly easy patient. However, it's all the other side effects that are killing me. For example, I came home Tuesday around 10:30 a.m., and spent the rest of the day sleeping, save for every hour when my mom would wake me up, shove some sort of dairy product in front of me and hand me one of three pills. I then would go to sleep, wake up an hour later, and puke up the last hour's consumptions. Yeah, I don't think we'll have to worry about me becoming addicted to oxycodone anytime soon, I have absolutely no desire to ever touch the stuff again. I also never realized how much I would crave having a clean mouth. Sure, you can "brush" your teeth. But that mainly consists of doing small circles on your front four teeth, because I still can't open my mouth all the way without wincing. Granted, I've never been a hygiene freak or anything, I didn't think it would be that big of deal. But the day that I have free range of my mouth and all it's functions again cannot come to soon.