Topic #7: Press Your Luck

This was a heavy week, this last week. With midterms, and grades, and the military's invasion of SHHS, I think there's been enough deep thinking and ponderous, somber hearts.  And yet, it is still the Most Evil Time Of The Year, so we can't just start talking about kittens and rainbows.

So let's go with luck.  And superstitions.

(Big bucks, no whammies, no whammies, no whammies . . . STOP!)

Many people say they don't believe in superstitions; they scoff at the idea that rubbing a potato on your warts and then burying the potato in a graveyard at midnight will make the warts disappear.  Or the one about black cats crossing your path, or saying "Bread and butter" whenever you and a friend walk on opposite sides of something.

But those same people will be the most assiduous in avoiding the Jinx, the modern version of the Evil Eye or the Devil himself.

We all know the Jinx -- it is the reason that the superstition that has lasted from older times to now is knocking on wood, originally intended to startle the evil spirits that lived inside wood (trees are bad -- the forest is the Devil's place; just read The Wizard of Oz, or "Hansel and Gretel") and now seen as a valid protection against saying something foolish like "I've never broken a bone."  Heaven forbid you add something like, "And I never will."  That's just asking for trouble.  But if you knock on wood, you might be safe.  Of course, Murphy's Law, which we also believe in with great regularity and fervor, also convinces us that you are likely going to break a bone no matter what you do, and that it will most likely be the night before your wedding when you do it.  Because anything bad that can happen, will happen.  Right?  (By the way: if you don't believe in luck as an actual force, then Murphy's Law, or the opposite -- the idea that you're "due for a win" after some large number of losses in a row -- are both logically false. Every time you take a chance of something happening, the chances are not changed by past results, only by current circumstances. I'm just sayin'.)

So the names have changed a little bit -- we don't talk about drawing the eye of Satan any more -- but we still have all the superstitions we once did, it seems to me.  Now we just talk about luck.  And the power of positive thinking.

So my question is, what do you believe about luck?  Do you have good luck or bad luck?  Do you do anything to preserve or change your luck?  What superstitious habits, if any, do you have?  Can you think of any other superstitions that people seem to follow?


A response by Saturday, November 14, please.

Ahhh scary stuff!

I'll start off by saying that your right these are the two most evil weeks in the whole year. The only thing that I can find good about them is that we got Friday off.
Anyway I get scared by all the "normal" things that scare most people like bugs and stuff. But j reality these don't really scare me. They kind of do but not like my phobia dose. When I'm home alone I just start to think that someone is watching me and is going to break into my house and kill me... Crazy I know but I sometimes get cought up in it and turn the tv up loud and stuff. For some reason I'm really scared of someone breaking into my house. I think it could have something to do with when I was a little kid, like someone came in and scared my and so now I'm terrorized for the rest of my lie... Thanks

Question for Mr. Humphrey

For our poem/song thing that we have to remember: can we take lines from different songs and put them together? Or does it have to be from the same song?

Fear

Where do I start... I'm scared of birds, lakes, rivers, and telephones to start out. Birds are just scary. All of them. Especially ducks and chickens. I'm afraid of drowning in lakes and rivers, but not in the ocean... I wonder why? But that fear is strange, because the only origin I can think of (which has nothing to do with me, by the way) is that my sister's friend drowned in a river when she was like 15. And then telephones. I have no idea why they scare me so much, but they do. I'm always scared to call people I don't know, and I CANNOT answer the phone!!!! It's like the scariest thing ever. Everyone in my family yells at me, but I just can't do it. It's so horribly scary!! I like to call it phone-phobia.

I'm afraid of roller coasters. I don't like the adrenaline rush at all. I'm scared of hospitals, and doctor's offices. And wounds. They make me cringe. I hate it when people talk about anything first aid related. I'm scared all the time that I'm gonna get kidnapped. Don't ask why, it just sorta happened when I was younger. All of a sudden I thought I was gonna get kidnapped like constantly. I'm afraid of walking places by myself. Even just down my road. That connects to the kidnapping fear, I guess.

Aliens!! There's nothing scarier than aliens. And I freaked myself out really bad in third grade when I was positive that Vera (the "ghost" who lives in the auditorium) was real. Old people scare me sometimes. Like retired old people. I can't really explain that one. I'm just so scared when they try to talk to me, because I have no idea what to say, and they try to touch you a whole bunch. Ahhh!!!

Surprisingly enough, I'm not afraid of spiders at all. In fact, whenever I go camping with the girls from my church, I have to kill the spiders because none of them will go near them. And I'm not afraid of heights. I love heights. They are pretty amazing. So yeah, there's my fears, and lack of.

CLOWNS!!!!!

My biggest fear is freaking clowns! I can't stand them they scare me so bad, It's hard for me to look at them. I have never gone to a circus or anything like that and I never will because i'm scared i'm going to see one of those freaks and their ganna EAT ME! I've had some pretty horrible dreams about being eaten by a clown and I think that it would be one of the worst ways to go. Obviously I fear my family dying, but not as bad as clowns..... I hate clowns.

AHH!!! Fears.

Fears. I have a LOT of fears! Some would be failure, being alone, how I die, and to go with halloweeny things, zombies.
I am afraid of failing in life. Ending up with nothing. No job, home, family, friends, and no where to go. Because of this I'm a big bundle of stress. Always worried about what I do and how it will effect me later.
Alone. I hate feeling alone, and I can be in a room full of people and be alone. In fact when there is a lot of people around me is when I am most alone. Odd right. I am afraid that later in life when I move out I'll live the rest of my life with no ffriends or anything. Then eventually I'll become a nutcase because I will have no human contact and start talking to objects.... maybe my flute.
I don't really mind the thought of dying. I am not afraid of it, people die and the circle of life continues. I am afraid though of how I die. I want to believe that I will die in my sleep in my home but there are so many ways people die. I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY DON'T WANT TO BURN TO DEATH!!! That scares the crap out of me. To be stuck in a building with no way out and have a fire inching toward you until you're surrounded and all that's left to do is feed the flames.
Onto the next part of the blog, Halloween. I'm not afraid of witches, vampires (my mom is though and its really funny to scare her), ghosts, or any stuff like that... mostly. I don't believe in those kind of things so I really am not afraid. Its the same with paranormal stuff, I don't believe in aliens (but the show x-files scared me so much when I was a little kid because of the theme song) or big foot. The one hallowenish thing that really gets to me is zombies. I hate zombies and they scare the crap out of me! My brother can prove this, one time we were watching a zombie movie and I flipped. Also it is possible to have zombies, they can exsist! I just... AHH!!!
Finally scary movies, haunted houses, and deathtrap rides. I myself do like scary movies, the other two though I am not a fan of. I think that people like these kinds of things because there isn't really a chance of something happening to you in these situations. Its a fun fear not a scary fear. In haunted houses when something jumps out at you its not actually going to hurt you.

fear

i dont think that there's anything that im really afraid of. sure i would be of poisonous snakes or stuff like that, but that is more of having an awareness of the danger and being cautious of it. But i guess i was wrong about the not really being scared thing because i thought about it and there is one thing. and that is my family dying.They are the only thing that really means anything to me especially my niece Emily whom i live with. im going to leave it at that because thinking about it doesn't make me feel the best. adios