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Good news, everyone!

Borrowing the catch- phrase of Professor Farnsworth from Futurama, I have some good news. I went to hospital to have a check up for my BIH at the neurology department. They looked at history of intercranial pressure taken at each lumbar puncture/ spinal tap I have had and saw that it has slowly been decreasing over the last 2 and a half years. I also have not been getting many headaches lately and they say the headaches I have been getting are tension headaches. Based on my history and how I have been doing the last six months, they believe the BIH has resolved itself and that I am well enough to go off my medication. This is VERY good news because the medication I was on for BIH had some horrible side effects and I was pretty sure it was interacting with my antidepressants. The only way to see if the BIH is gone is to take me off the meds. SO no more painful pins and needles in my hands and feet, no more fatigue, no more nausea and no more having to  pee 75 times a day!. Yipeee!!! Let's just hold thumbs and hope that it is gone.

And my second bit of good news is that I have a job interview on Friday for a PA/ Junior Journalist position at a Christian magazine. I didn't deliberately apply for a job at a Christian magazine, it just came up. I had to send in samples of my writing. One of the samples was "10 Unusual degrees" from this blog. Obviously I changed it and spruced it up a little.I had to do the Myers- Briggs Personality test and answer all these questions about my commitment to Christianity etc before even getting invited to the interview. I have studied the Myer- Briggs closely during the course of my degree so I know how it works and could easily have cheated on it. But since I want to work for a company that I actually fit into, I didn't. I was a surprised and a little offended with the questions about Christianity since I see that as very personal but answered them as honestly as I could ( I didn't go as far as to tell them I was an atheist for several years). Because of the answers I gave, I really didn't expect a call back.

As I haven't gotten the job yet and I will have to answer some tough questions in the interview (I don't have a SA drivers license/ what exactly have I being doing the last four years) I not exactly celebrating. But I got an interview so at least that is some achievement for now. I will be nervous on Friday, it's the first job interview I have had since living in America and I am facing a lot of competition. I need to convince them that I can both study and work full time. I am also dreading any personal questions they may ask. I have had to borrow money from my sister to buy clothes as I just don't have anything that is suitable. I feel a lot of pressure to succeed for my family.

Please pray for me if that is your inclination, otherwise you can just wish me luck!!.

Hereafter- my thoughts and opinions

I am meant to be doing my university assignment...which is due tomorrow, but every time I look at that thing I get a headache out of pure boredom. Who cares about the four methods of managing integrated communication and the dimensions of integrated communication evaluation. They sound like the same thing!. My professor on this course also happens to be one the authors of the textbook that is used and she actually penalized me 5 marks in my last assignment for not putting her name first in my references!. A professor with an ego problem...that's all I need.

So this is actually part 2 to a post I wrote about a month ago. Basically in the last post I asked for every one's thoughts and opinions on life after death. I really appreciated all of your comments. I planned on writing a follow up post about my own thoughts and opinions and this is it. Please take note: like I said these are my opinions and interpretations, this is not a sermon or a statement- you are free to agree or disagree. No one has to read this, these are just my own narcissistic thoughts:)

*Contains biblical material so if it that makes you feel uncomfortable better not read this.

Life after death: Death can be an unnerving topic to talk about but I think it is a shame for someone to live their lives being so afraid of death since it forms a big part of life. It's not something you should focus on but it is something you should prepare for. No one is guaranteed to live to old age and death can come like thief in the night.

My belief at it's very basic- with everything else stripped away-is that it is possible for a person's consciousness to exist separate their body and to possibly go on after the body has died.

Even when I was an atheist, after I had let every thing else go, the one thing I struggled with was believing that when we died that was it. And believe me, at that time it was not because I secretly wanted to go on for ever- I actually liked the idea of ceasing to exist after death.

*Vuvuzela

My thoughts on heaven: If there is life after death we have to go somewhere. Everyone has their own interpretation of heaven. I just can't get an idea of heaven in my head and I am not sure I like the popular Christian idea of heaven. I don't know if it's because my Mom once told me I'd probably land up sitting by the gate for all eternity. For some reason I have more of a problem believing in heaven then I do in life after death. I could happily settle for our souls just becoming loose energy after we die if I didn't have the a strong feeling that there is a bigger picture- something that is so big we do not have the ability to compute it.

My interpretation of the Bible's "eternity":  I don't know if this will surprise you but I do read the bible rather a lot. As a historical document it is fascinating. I had been hearing about God my whole life from other people and had them telling me what I should believe in. I decided that I wanted to get to know God by myself and decide what I believe, I figured the best way to do that was read the bible. I actually love it.

In Revelations...(my least favorite part of the bible) 21 Paul talks about a " New Earth". My interpretation of the Bible's heaven/ eternity therefore is the earth made new and whole again. It will be just like the earth is today except absolutely perfect without any evil or pain. I have to say I like this idea better then the pearly gates stuff and there will be lots of places to hide from those...ahem...irritating fanatical Christians I spoke about in my previous post.

There seems to be a growing idea amongst Christians that when you die you go to a place of waiting... in other words not the real heaven. I think that this could be possible since in Revelations it says that God's kingdom will only be revealed on Christ's return. This belief mostly comes from Luke 23:43: When Jesus was on the cross the thief that was next to him asked His forgiveness and that Jesus would remember him. Jesus said to him, "Today you shall be with me in Paradise". People argue that because he didn't say "heaven" or "house of my Father" people go elsewhere when they die and we all go to heaven together.

A large part of my family is Seventh- Day Adventist, they believe that your soul "goes to sleep" and only awakens once Christ returns. I don't believe this.

But then....if you believe in heaven there's got to be the darker side....you know what I am talking about...The Eternal Barbecue, The Lake of Fire, HELL. I haven't thought much about hell in my life, for obvious reasons. I have been condemned to it more times than I can count, mostly by some very well meaning Christians. Because I haven't thought much about hell I don't have any definite thoughts. My Mom has an interesting belief, she does believe there is a hell now but she believes God will destroy it and that there will be a spiritual death of everyone that isn't saved (my mother is a born again Christian). She believes this because the she God she loves and has a personal relationship with is not capable of letting people suffer in agony for all eternity. I would love to believe this but I just know.

My hope is that one day I can resolve all my confusion and jumbled up ideas and have a belief and a faith that is strong an unwavering. I don't like the spiritual state I am in at the moment. I feel I either need to be for or against something...being in between is no good.

What I want heaven/ eternity to be: This is very simple and personal thing but bear with me...my idea of heaven is South Africa, the house we live in now. I would have my Mom young, carefree and playful again. My Dad before life did things to him, a dashing young man with great charm and the ability to make every one
roll around with laughter. My sister would never have had her heart broken and her and I would have a second chance at becoming best friends before our childhood tore us apart.

All our beloved pets that have passed on would be with us: Muffin, our Maltese "lady", "Cat" our first cat, Jock- not sure what he was!, the sheepdogs, Tosca and Sheba and of course my precious bunnies, Basil and Buttercup and my baby kitty, Milo.

Our house would be in the most peaceful, green valley. All our loved ones that had passed on would be with us, my best friend Karen would live down the road, not across the globe. And there would be perfect peace...no more death, no more sickness, no more fear, anger, war. And of course the would be loads of chocolate :)

Helix Nebula

Sometimes when I am really confused and I just can't seem to figure all this stuff out, I have to remember that the human brain, as incredible and advanced as it may seem,  has a limit to it's understanding. We cannot compute the infinite or how enormous something can really be because we just don't have that ability. Apparently the universe with it's stars, galaxies, nebulae, supernova's etc is never ending...it goes on forever. This is hard for even the best minds to imagine because we are sitting on a little planet that wouldn't even feature as a grain of sand if the universe was a beach.  What I have decided is to accept that there is a lot I can't know because I do not possess the ability to understand it. Somehow I just know- some would say against my better judgement that things do not end when we die.

Hereafter

A few weeks ago after yet another visit to the doctor, I saw Clint Eastwood's latest movie ( at least his latest movie in South Africa ) Hereafter, pretty self- explanatory- it's all about kicking the eternal bucket. I was nervous about seeing this film, I guess it would be normal for any person to have reservations about seeing a movie which will remind them about their own mortality. But I have had some horrible experiences with death or  more specifically with the idea of death. I have mentioned before that I lost a good friend to cancer when I was 10 years old. I had the typical childish fear of death back then. After she died though I was no longer afraid, why I am not entirely sure. It was first time someone close to me had died and  it was almost as though once someone had taken the plunge first it wasn't so bad any more. Once the initial shock and grief of her death had waned I remember thinking how dying seemed like such a grown up thing for such a little girl to do.

In 2007 when I was very emotionally ill before my breakdown, one of the strange psychiatric developments that came about was the strong illusion that I was going to die. I had the absolute conviction that, say, this time next week I would no longer be alive and that I was definitely going to die by Tuesday or Wednesday. Once Tuesday and Wednesday had rolled round, it didn't make a difference....I was definitely going to die by Thursday or Friday. I will not ever be able to properly express how massively terrifying this was. I was living in the US....away from my family, I had no friends yet and I was to ashamed to tell the people I was living with. How exactly do you tell someone that?. I started packing my things away. I made a list of my things saying who was to get what once I was gone. I pleaded with God to save me, getting just silence in return. Once I had my breakdown however to me there was no God. In one single night all the faith that I had in my whole life, everything I believed in disappeared. It shattered me, broke my heart beyond repair and I don't think I will ever be the same.

Those where hard times but I have come a LONG way and I have faced what happened. If I look back with the knowledge that I have now and with most of my sanity once again intact, I can now see why my breakdown happened and how it happened. Why I developed that sudden obsession with death before my breakdown, I'll never know.

So you can understand why I was a little apprehensive about seeing this movie. Apprehensiveness for me normally goes hand in hand with curiosity...so if I am apprehensive about seeing a movie, it will most likely be the first movie I see- the same thing happened with Black Swan.

I was actually really surprised despite the fact that there are parts of this movie that are incredibly sad, the best way I can describe the mood is soothing and mellow. Really weird if you consider it's content. And there was no creepiness which was refreshing. I spoke with a friend who also saw this movie and we agreed that we both came away feeling like we had found solace. For me personally it made me feel better about death- whether that's for the short or long term I'm not exactly sure.

Afterwards, I started thinking about death practically for the first time, without the fear factor involved. Yes, I am a mortal, one day I will draw my last breath just like everybody else that is reading this (unless you have found the eternal fountain of youth ) and whether it's fair or not none of us are guaranteed to live to old age.

Probably the most difficult thing about facing my fear of death is what will happen to me after I die. I was raised in a Christan household. I actually became a born- again christian when I was 12. I was taught that if I asked Jesus for forgiveness of my sins and dedicated my life to him that I would live with him in heaven for all eternity. Then I became an unbeliever for several years and I believed that when I died the lights would go out and I would cease to exist but then to many things happened (which I won't go into right now) to once again make me believe otherwise- call me a flake.

Now my relationship with God is on the mend- that will probably take the rest of my life. But I can't say my belief in the afterlife has been strengthened. If I am going to be honest...not only do I find the  most popular Christian belief of the afterlife hard to believe.....I er, don't find it all that appealing either. Streets of gold and gems just don't do it for me and - I think I may really offend some people here- most Christians...the evangelical kind drive me nuts and the thought of spending eternity with all of them is a hugely unpleasant thought.

I am very aware ( and respectful ) that most of my readership are actually non- believers (mental illness + God = doesn't seem to go) but I am still really interested in what you believe happens to you when you die: do you believe you will go to heaven to be with God?, do you believe that "the lights will go out" and that will be it? or do you believe that something happens but you are not sure what?. I once came across I a guy that believed in God 100% but didn't believe in an afterlife. I also knew a girl who believed our energy was absorbed by the universe and we became part of the stars. I have come across so many people, of no religion that believe in reincarnation. I realise this discussion has been done a million times but I would like to have it here.

PLEASE NOTE: If someone says something you don't agree with  DO NOT go into the attack mode. That won't be allowed and I will delete your comment. Just had to mention that because I know these things can get people pretty passionate about this subject :) .

Later on I will write a post about what I think the afterlife may be, my own interpretation of what the bible says about it ( there's much more to it than freaking clouds and pearly gates ) and what I want the afterlife to be. Three very different things.

Below is the trailer to Hereafter: