So, after not posting for a while, I decided to appease my fans and add an entry.

Three Weddings and a Funeral:

In the past few weeks, I've been invited and have been to three weddings, and unfortunately had to also attend a funeral.

The first event I took part in was my second cousin's wedding. She is only two weeks younger than I am, as my mother kept reminding me all throughout the week, and she got married. Not the wedding was nice, the venue was outdoors, aside a pond, and you had to get to the reception by crossing a bridge to the island in the middle of the pond. Very quaint and rural, quiet and romantic. But what's with this new custom that guests now have to stand in line to get their own food?!? More and more weddings nowadays are going towards the buffet-style catering, where the guests line up and serve themselves. This is a new fad, because I remember working as a waiter in a wedding hall, and boy, did I EVER serve the food to the people. The gratuities I received were awful, and the pay wasn't so hot either. I must have needed the money for something, because that was an AWFUL job.

Back on track here... I think that buffet style has many disadvantages that outweigh the advantages. People wait in lines, sometimes long ones, before they can get their dinner, sometimes what you want runs out, and you can't wait for them to get a new platter because you're holding up everyone in line that’s behind you. My mom has a problem with it because she's a vegetarian and some people will use the serving spoon that was previously in the meat in the vegetarian dishes, and that disgusts her. Oh well, people will do anything to save a buck, though I doubt that the price of the reception went down. I think that the only people who are making money off of this are the wedding halls.

I'm also planning on going to another wedding in the near future. A good friend of mine announced nearly a year ago that he was getting married this summer, and I had better be in the country for the wedding. So all's fair, I'm here. But the best thing is that my best friend recently proposed to his girlfriend. Granted, they have been together for six-and-a-half years, and the wedding has been long overdue, but still, they're getting married officially now. The only downside is that I will be missing the wedding.

I am really disappointed by this, as I either have to miss three weeks of school to attend the wedding, or pay about $1500 for a return flight to fly in exclusively for the wedding, or I miss the wedding. Since I can't drop out of school, and missing three weeks will make me miss the entire semester, and probably throw off the entire year, and I really don't have the money for the flight back and forth (unless I win the lottery any time soon, which is not going to happen as I don't even fill out a form), I'm probably going to have to miss the wedding. Both my friend and I talked about this, and he's really disappointed, as am I. There really is nothing he can do, as all the dates are booked, and the first available one he took. And there's nothing I can do but be happy for him and support him, but not be there for the final act.

I'm sad, though I AM happy for my friend, but still sad for me.

And finally, my friend's grandmother passed away last weekend. Though I had never met her grandmother before in my life, I went to the funeral anyway, to be there for my friend. I know she appreciated it, and I'm glad I could be there for her, but it led me to think about funerals in general, especially since we had a long talk about this (along with another couple of friends) at the reception after the funeral. Everyone talked about how they'd like to be buried, and where and I was silently thinking to myself, "I really couldn't care less, I'm going to be DEAD!" After all, the funerals are for the living, not for the dead. The people gather not for the person being buried, but to show their support for the family of the deceased, for the friends of the deceased, or to grieve for themselves. The tombstone that is later erected, the corpse really couldn't care less if it was from granite or from marble, if the letters are in brass or in copper, that's entirely for the benefit of the people who mourn the departed.

So I was thinking to myself, let whoever cares about it decide, and I really don't want to have to choose how and where I'm going to be buried. Because that, after all, would be morbid... ;)