The worst thing to ever happen to me and my family

          Have you ever felt wrong just by laughing? I wasn't going to tell anybody about any of this until I laughed at a video just now and felt so guilty, like I'd betrayed everyone. My sister was singing in the shower, and I was almost mad at her. How could she be singing at a time like this?

          Nothing is definite, basically. But just the possibility... It's enough to make me wish it was all a dream. I'd give up everything I own if it would guarantee that everything will be ok.

          My dad told us that he has had a stomach condition for a while, and he's been going to a clinic for a while now. He then said the doctor told him there was a chance of cancer. The day after tomorrow, he will be going to the hospital to get himself tested.

          Obviously he did the dadly thing and said "I'll be fine, I don't think it's actually anything serious, don't worry." But he went on to say he'll need to get his affairs sorted out, and he'll instruct my brother and I on what to do about his land, his money... Etc.

          My mum, who, truth be told, rather selfishly told my sister and I that "it's pretty serious. It doesn't look good." Why mum. Why would you say that.

          My sister, eldest brother and I will probably be fine. I'm going to be 19 in a month, my brother's turning 18, and my sister is turning 14. But my baby brother... My poor poor baby brother... He's only 7. I can't imagine... growing up without a dad.

          My dad is my rock. I would be nothing without him, absolutely nothing. I've had nightmares about him dying, because he is the pillar that hold the family up. Without him, we're just scattered, fallen, bruised individuals.

          It's getting harder to type through my tears, but I need to get things off my chest. I can't talk to my siblings about this, I don't want to freak them out.

          What will we do? My mother is not a capable single parent, not by a long shot. She is mentally ill, and though she is recovering, I doubt she'll be better if left with 4 children.

          I'm praying to all the Gods right now. This isn't right. It's not time yet. We're all still in school. Kiddo needs more time to be with him. The Gods know it isn't right. Daddy will be fine. He needs to see everyone graduate. He needs to walk me down the aisle. He needs to hold his grandchildren.

          He will be all right.

Tianjin Explosion

          I believe by now everyone's heard about the Tianjin explosions... Well. I honestly did not expect it to hit me as hard as it did. The first I'd seen of it was a video filmed by some foreigners (Americans I'd guess) and I felt rage. Some girl in the background was giggling about it and I just thought... What the hell. People are dying. Families. Children. And you stand there looking at it like it's some sort of light show made just for you?

          A bit after this I went on reddit to see what other news there was, and I saw the same video so I went to read the comments, expecting people to complain about that giggling girl too. Nope. Joke upon joke upon joke about bootleg fireworks and Chinese stereotypes. I sat there, watching the video, and I cried. I wasn't there, I was nowhere close to there. I was watching a video, 30 hours later, and I cried. Yet that girl was just a few blocks away and she was laughing about it? How? Are Chinese people not people then? Does it all of a sudden become an ok thing to joke about JUST because it was China?

          Some people have said the laughing was a panic response. I'm sorry, but I have a hard time believing that. She was laughing from the very beginning of the video, when there was just a small fire. When there was absolutely no cause for panic. So why was she laughing?

          Absolutely sickening. Up until now I didn't believe the American stereotypes about how they think America is the whole world and nothing outside of it matters. Obviously, it's true enough for the most part. Then they defended themselves by saying 'We're not trying to laugh at the incident, but hey, what's life if you can't laugh about it ROFL'.

          NO. Do you think a joke 1 day after the Boston Bombing or 9/11 would be received with thousands of upvotes? I don't think so. It certainly wouldn't have been the top comment.

         I'm capping today off with my respect for Reddit significantly diminished. What used to be my favourite community now just seems like a bunch of callous, insensitive pricks.

Compliments and Gratitude

          I don't think this will come as a surprise to anybody who knows me: I don't handle compliments and showing my gratitude very well. In fact, I'd say I'm terrible at it.

          Something that I do very often is 'fake bragging', a term I just created because I'm super smart like that (this is an example). Or maybe something like 'oh, you finished that essay super quick, I took forever to finish mine' to which I will reply 'yeah of course I did, I'm Jo, duh.' I didn't feel like I needed to say I'M JOKING because I just assumed it was fairly obvious. This is only something I do with closer friends, casual friends/ acquaintances? I would never.

          So if a friend of a friend would come up to me and say hey, nice painting. I'd freeze. Sometimes I'd go oh... No, I'm actually not really happy about this I think it looks pretty bad. Sometimes I'll go oh... Ok. In other words, I'm terrible. In hindsight (of course) a simple 'oh, thank you' would suffice but ohhhh noooooo that's waaaaaaayy too simple.

          That first response, if said to me, would make me think 'wow, is she trying to say I have bad taste because I like her painting?' but then again I'm not exactly regular so.

          Other than that, I'm also seriously seriously bad at thanking people. I don't know why. I've never done it, ever, since I was really small. Never done it. That makes gift giving reaaalllyyy terrible for my friends, because I'd go like oooohh wooowww thanks. As if I was being sarcastic. I wasn't of course, I really really appreciate it, and I'm always blown away that people would take the time to think about me and give me gifts!

          What I've deduced is this all boils down to self esteem issues. I have the worst self esteem out of anyone I know. This would shock plenty of people, because my persona is that of an over confident person, but honestly... I look at myself and sometimes I just feel terrible. That's why I can't accept compliments, because I don't believe they are sincere compliments. That's why I can't show my gratitude because I feel like I don't deserve these presents, I don't deserve this surprise birthday party. This is also (on another topic) why I never EVER believe someone when they say 'namey mcnamey name has a crush on you'. I just can't believe it, ever.

          In fact, this is also why I hate having pictures taken of me. I always look at them and go ugh. I always look terrible in pictures. I always say I look terrible, and I do honestly believe it. I'm not delusional (I don't think), I'm good at a lot of things, looking good just isn't one of them.

          Anyway, no real point here, super sorry for wasting your time.

Bye bye,