The three “enlightened despots” of 18^th century Europe were Fredrick II of Prussia, Joseph III of Austria and Catherine II of Russia. They all “aimed to promote Enlightenment ideas without sacrificing their absolutist powers,” yet their degree of dedication and areas of reform varied.

Not all enlightened absolutists achieved their ideal reform. For example, each monarch worked to organize their irregular judicial systems in order to parallel their country’s law codes with those idealized in reformers’ principles. Only Fredrick and Joseph succeeded in doing so. Frederick’s interest in Voltaire’s ideas created Prussian justice, “the envy of Europe.” Joseph similarly arranged a unified law code for Austria. Catherine’s attempts were overambitious: calling together a legislative commission and composing Instruction (modeled after Montesquieu and Beccaria). Her lack of commitment and reluctance soon disbanded her endeavors. The individual effort and willingness to change affected the results of development.

Although many Enlightenment ideas revolved similar concepts, Catherine, Joseph and Frederick pushed reform in different fields of society. One of the few analogous goals of all the monarchs was to promote education beyond the nobility: Joseph’s General School Ordinance provided subsidies for local schools, Frederick’s school code of 1789 required children age 5 to 13 to attend school, Catherine’s engineering schools educated specifically women. In religion, only Joseph extended religious freedom such as the right to own property, build schools, enter professions, and hold political and military positions, to all Protestants, Orthodox Christians and Jews. Frederick and Catherine, like the rest of Europe still limited rights and opportunities from Jews. Additionally, Joseph was also the lone abolitionist of serfdom, eliminating the personal aspects of serfdom and allowing peasants freedom of movement, trade and marriage. He taxed nobility in order to alleviate the burden on serfs whom he gave cash in exchange for labor. In Russia, Catherine supported the power of nobles of serfs; when peasants revolted in the Pugachev rebellion, she reasserted the nobilities’ control over the serfs with harsh punishments. Fredrick did nothing to alter the social system in Prussia, but endorsed agricultural innovations that would support the growing population; he encouraged planting potatoes, breeding cattle, draining swamplands and clearing forests. The three enlightened monarchs focused on separate issues in their respective countries.

two posts in a row.

so today was like the most depressing day ever.and i'm not even sure why i'm so down because i have high A's in all my classes except english. no one is really being rude or mean (except me) and everything seems to be okay. yet i want to cry (but i can't because my eyes get all puffy and i look like a freak which would make me feel even worse). whenever i think about food, i want to vomit which is really odd because i love food and i usually eat away my stress with comfort food. whatever's going on, i hope it all ends soon and i really want to apologize for being such a bitch these days.

i'll be 15 soon; it's a ridiculously stupid age because on paper, it looks so young and immature but it feels so old in real life. my 14th year of life was by far the most challenging. it was the best and worst year. i learned so much but i feel like it came at such a high price. all the things that i thought for sure would go right went wrong. but there were so many moments when i felt so settled. but who said settled is good, right? maybe settling is what made everything worse because i'm supposed to be moving forward. but moving forward brings the unknown and the unknown scares me alot...

and for the first time in a really long time, i felt happier in my house with my family than at school with my friends. i guess family really is the only things that won't ever change. scratch that...everything changes...don't get too settled.

i finally have a few minutes to reflect on the past two months. it's been busy and stressful and its all sorta building up. every day i feel like i'm going to collapse and every day i feel a little bit sadder and more frustrated. maybe its better to get mad daily but i usually bottle it up until i explode (like when you put an alkali metal in water). either way, i don't feel too well. i'm so lazy and i'd much better prefer the life of a sloth. i'm doing good (suprisingly) in most of my classes with the exception of english; the teacher doesn't teach us anything but grades ridiculously hard. i can't wait to leave high school.

apologies for the lack of proper grammar and spelling and sentence structure; this is the only place it really doesn't matter anymore.

so i got this ridiculous haircut. i told the stupid person to "not make it shorter" just trim the split ends. SHE TOOK OFF 6 INCHES.what a listener! so first she made on side like way longer so i'm all like "this side is longer.can you cut it shorter so its even with the other side?" NEVER EVER doing that again. she got really pissed and was like "i cut it for you the way i know most girls like (in broken english) but you want short? okay i cut short!" i'm thinking "fuck i'm screwed" so she like jabs the comb into my head and pulls up my hair so i can see in the mirror and cuts off like 3 inches and she's like "see! i maked it shorter!" so i go "ohh okay thats good, good. yeah okay then thats okay." but NO she's like "well now i have to make it even." fuck you don't touch my hair! then she proceeds to cut off 3 inches from everywhere. i'm like woooww this really sucks. so i wait for my mom to come and pay the woman. my mom gets here and she's like "how much tip should i pay? 2 or 3 $?" i'm like "-glare- 2." so we leave. i go outside and start bawling and crying and i'm like "i look like a fucking guy" and i told my mom waht happened and she's like "we're going back inside!" i'm like "no let's just go." but no my mother runs back inside and screams at the lady in her very loud asian mother voice and everyone is staring at us. the woman comes and keeps spinning me around and explaining what she did and i'm like full on crying and my mom keeps going and is like "where's your manager?! i'll be back." so i just yell "走了" and run out. my nose is running and i'm like hyperventilating and shit so i get home and scream and refuse to go to swim practice but somehow i manage to get myself to go to youth group. then i went home and cried some more when i looked in the mirror. today there's relay for life and i'm screwed. i skipped chinese school and got yelled at by my parents and my dad is like freaking pissed at me because he thinks i'm making too big of a deal out of it. idk but since this hopefully doesn't kill me, it should "make me stronger." wtf yeah right. anyways so as it grows out its gonna look really dumb but i guess its a good lesson right? i think it really shows me how much of an emphasis i put on my hair and stuff...not that it was good in the first place but whatever.

what a day! and on top of that i found out that a certain someone is already "in a relationship." when will this end? 

I don't know whether to be happy, sad, or mad. I guess that's why I'm usually indifferent. So these circumstances...I initially was really really mad, but now I'm in the sad phase. It's really not fair that I have to be treated this way. Rawr. But there's other things that are making me really really happy, but then I think about these sad things. My stomach is turning and my heart is pounding. I don't really have any idea what's going on. But then again, how many times have i said that? I never know what's happening until it passes and I'm left there alone, regretting. Maybe I'm just slow, but slow people never win. That would explain why I've never succeeded or gotten what I want. Or maybe it really isn't about what I want. Sigh, it's really what God wants, right? But lately I wish he would want for me the same things I want for myself. But doesn't everybody want that?

I'm getting so distracted by so many things, good and bad. I hate that I can't understand myself so I turn into an angry, bitter person. Or I use stupidity to cover everything up in humor. I wish I would stop doing those things because people think I'm such a retard, but they don't know...or do they? Well, everything I'm saying is so "cliche" so that means alot of people have experienced this I guess. But everyone I know seems to be so put together and I'm just falling apart. They have a strength and confidence I wish I have. There's not much else to say. Thinking in my head never works but neither does anything else I do so why not keep trying. Maybe I'll get things straight one day. And I hope that day comes before anything else happens...