LUV, LUV & MOAR LUV

I haven't posted in a while. Ever since I said I'd do more focus on personal things (since I'm barely motivated to do research on mandatory things, why do them on voluntary ones) I haven't done very much to actually put anything out there.

So I believe that it's necessary for me to do a post, since I've been thinking about it for a while. A long while. And by that I mean a few days.

So what happened to me today? While I was at church (hurray for Good Friday; let's celebrate Jesus' death!) I believe that I was close to fainting. It's bad enough that St. Andrew is a small church, but there was a large number of people in attendance...AND they had to close the side doors. I'm pretty sure I was at a loss for oxygen. At one point I couldn't even see straight...and then I could barely speak. It was a bit like the episode of House where Mos Def's character had locked-in syndrome from the liver complications. Except I wasn't really dying, I think.

Other than that, I believe there isn't much to say. I've got nothing interesting to talk about at this point. Besides the fact that it's good to get out of the house once in a while. Which is why that I'm happy to be going to a friend's house tomorrow. Hurray!

EDIT: I forgot! I'm writing again! I've been working on two new scripts. Summer of '09 and Unknown Name, Unknown Number. The first being about a summer vacation where a family has a visitor who stirs up a bit of trouble, and the latter being about a girl who finds her real father through a simple prank call. Alright? Maybe more on it if I ever get back to this blog. Bye!

p.s. I like girls? Huh?

This is annoying. Very annoying.

I started out having a wonderful day today. It was cold, but I was in a good mood at the thought that I was going to have my very first "real" gym class of the semester. And someone else I know was extremely happy so I got even happier. And then everything was great until I went to Wendy's after school with Carrie and Jorge.*

Jorge: So...is Andrew* still avoiding you?
Me: I don't think he's really avoiding me really.
Jorge: That comment. At lunch. "You're lucky you don't have classes with her"?
Me: Uhh...
Carrie: (while listening to music) He told me that he doesn't like you as a friend anymore.
Me: I knew that.
Carrie: As a friend.
Me: Oh god.

So there it is. The thing that ruined my day: the reality that not only is my ex a whiner, he also has no respect for me. Carrie told me that I should not care and delete/block him, but I have no idea what I'm gonna do. Firstly, he doesn't talk to me online. What's the point? Should I still make the effort to pull this together or just give up and pretend like he doesn't exist for 4/5 periods? Nah. I'm a talker, it'll never work. This'll just have to work itself out, I guess.

Anyway, re-reporting the irony of yesterday's post Carrie informed me that basically everyone got their periods either monday or yesterday. I'm not alone, lol.


Sorry for the pissy post, guys. I needed to vent.


*Names were changed for protection. Not the sexual kind, the emotional kind. And the fact that I change people's names sometimes. Deal.

It's YOUR Turn, Ladies!

Hurray for sexual revolutions!

If you read An Immodest Proposal by Heather Corinna on Scarleteen, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. I love this article. It's a declaration, a proposal, a poem--all at once.
And I'm very serious about the poetic part. It's very, very beautiful.

It's time to change our ideas about sexual initiation.



SRSLY.

TwiBashing and TwiHarding? Oh dear god...

Okay, people.
It's time for me, Brianne, to tackle probably the most buzzingest novel series in the world right now, my chickies.

Twilight.

OH NO. I SAID THE T-WORD.
What shall I do? Rant about it aimlessly?
No! Because that would be insulting the opinions of those who think that the series has something to it.

Shall I defend it without backup?
No! Because that would be just plain wrong, and I'd still be not making a point.

I will, in fact, try to list the good, bad, and ugly about this series.
And if I have time, the people who TwiBash or TwiHard it.
Now on to the list!

I'm going to start by saying that the purpose of a book isn't always necessarily to educate the reader and be completely innovative. This is an argument on the the book is shit and Stephanie does not know how to write if her life depended on it point. Obviously this book is poorly written. And it also has a story line that so many people despise greatly. But the last time I checked, waving the red flag in front of the bull makes it angrier. Honestly, if I didn't like a book (unless it was content that was blatantly offensive and was worth a great protest) I would just put it down because I don't like reading things that I don't like.

Then there's the whole zOMG Bella has no life! Look at her! She's given up everything for just one guy and that's totally abuse. Yep. It's abuse if he's hurting her physically and mentally or brainwashing her into doing things. But we must remember that no matter what, this is still a book and it's impossible to twist the words of a book once they're "immortalized" (for lack of a better word). Edward, honestly, is not the kind of guy I'd like. He's controlling. You can actually see that quite a bit in him that he wants to have Bella on a leash so he doesn't lose her. But Bella actually makes the choice to stay in the vampire world, and that's something she did, not him.

Now I come to the wonderful part of my post where I say: Jesus Christ! I don't like the way Stephanie Meyer writes. Because it's true. She takes way too long to make a point and a lot of her writing is really drawn out, making the series WAY too big for me to fit in my backpack--something I find of convenience, with me being a high school student and all.

Space issues and all other issues aside, this is a book. And no, I'm not saying this because I'm hetero or because I'm a fangirl (because I'm not one at all) or even because I'm a teenage girl. Because saying that all of those characteristics make me unsuitable for the job of writing about Twilight would be desrciminating against my sexual orientation, sexist, and ageist rolled into one. Books, as I said, are not always for the purpose of enlightenment or even for being completely revolutionary. Just remember; if you're looking for an absolutely spectacular book just don't read the Twilight series.

Double Standards?

I haven't done a post in a loooooong while...
I've been doing a lot of thinking.

About the whole thing about being too skinny and thin being in and how real women should be more embraced in society today is bothering me. While it's wonderful that people are cluing in to the fact that not everyone is the same, we're seeing lots of people not putting pity on larger women, but the smaller ones.

Not everyone in the world is the same, as previously stated, and that means that there are going to be some people that are just naturally skinny. Real women look skinny, they look fat, they look tall or short, and everything in between. So next time there's a skinny girl in an ad, it's not right to just assume that the girl is at fault, it's the advertiser. The issue, as shown here, is not the body type of the person featured, but why they were featured and what the advertiser wants to do.

On another note...
I've been thinking about feminism and how there are also standards there. As a young feminist I feel that not only am I prone to a bit more sexism for being open about it (I once talked about it in a gifted class and later that evening a classmate sent me a facebook invitation to a group called "Feminism belongs in the kitchen") but also ageism. I haven't really done research on feminist icons and when I start a discussion on a forum in places like Gaia Online I'm told that I'm not a real feminist and that I'm just looking for somewhere to belong. That's a nice example of ageism, I believe and I'm not liking it.

Another standard that I believe is lingering a bit (but usually stems from the outside world's misconceptions) is that a feminist must be queer/straight and single-not-looking and not Christian. I'm the opposite of those things. I have a boyfriend who I love very much, and I consider myself to be Catholic--just not terribly religious. And yet, I feel as if people are staring me down for being something common, something that "can't understand" and something that knows nothing about what they're saying. Last time I checked, feminism was supposed to be about making choices, right? So if one chooses to take their husband's last name, should they get married, it's their choice, right?

/rant. :)

I'ma SHOOT you people.

Today's post, boys and girls, is about pro-anorexia and pro-bulimia videos, also known as pro-ana and pro-mia.

This is absolutely disgusting. Anorexia is a serious problem (well, duh, you people know that) and there are people out there who actually want to look like they'd break with the slightest touch. I found out about these horrible pro-starvation videos on Yahoo! Answers. After watching about 10 of the videos i saw a few that actually had girls that looked about 12 years old in them.

12 year olds!

What the hell? I mean I understand that people that actually have anorexia, not by choice, are suffering and have a completely different view than the general public about everything HOWEVER, there's a whole new generation of people who are insulting people who are trying to get better by showing this off as a trend.

Opinions?

Playing word toss sucks.

"Oh my god, that was so racist!"

"Well, how come you didn't pick girls this time? That's sexist!"

These are just some of the few word-slinging sentences that I've heard being used by younger children in my school. And I don't like it. In my gifted class is where I've seen it most, surprisingly. If I say that Andrew, a Vietnamese guy, is Asian, then Leena or some other junior-division student in the class will say "that's racist!" when it isn't. Here's the definition of racism.

/rā'sĭz'əm/

1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

Hmm...I don't think that I said that Andrew could do certain things because he was Asian, nor did I say that Blacks were superior to Asians. Racist? No. Observant? Yes! These days children like to repeat words they hear all over. And this isn't doing us any good. Just because I recognize that certain people come from certain backgrounds doesn't make me racist. Many people put forth their identity using their culture. The problem lies in training children to be tolerant and politically correct. Political correctness does two things to a child. One, it makes them over-aware of what they say and in result comes the "I Don't Mean To Be Racist, But..." phenomenon. I've heard that phrase too many times in my short, 14-year life.

" I don't mean to be racist, but last night, there was this episode of Family Guy where Cleveland was a taxi driver and he saw Brian and offered him a ride, but Brian used an excuse and said that he had to pick up milk for Lois. Isn't that funny?"

No, it's not.

So as a last statement I will say this:

If there is no intention behind your action, the action is at its worst, un-intentional.

That All [Canadian] Girl

The link in the title is scary.

Very, very, VERY, scary. If you have ever read Miss Nomered's "And a big hearty 'fuck you' goes to..." then you'll know why.

The very first page is comprised of not one, but two hauntingly serene pictures of Holly Jones, a Torontonian youngster that was abducted in 2003. Nothing really makes Miss N's opinion more validated than that. According to everyone that knew Holly, she was the best, the greatest, and everyone's angel. And she has a parkette named after her. But if she so deserves a parkette, why doesn't everyone else who has been killed or abducted?

Because then the world would be made of parkettes.

Imagine that. Unfair? Yes. Descriminatory? Yes. Shameful? Yes. What did Holly do that was so important? Making people happy. I understand that if this was, oh say, my friend Raquel, I would be on the other side of the fence. But I still wouldn't want a parkette named after her. Cassandra Do, the sex worker mentioned in the same entry linked above, never got a parkette. Because that would mean that people would have to talk about something they find very uncomfortable. Not only was Cassandra a sex worker, but she was also transsexual. Those are two characteristics of Cassandra that wouldn't have "appealed to the demographic" so to speak.

But put a young, pretty, middle class, white girl in the news and everyone's rushing to name stuff after her.

These people disgust me.

So today, while I was looking back on some posts in the Body Politics category of the Shameless Blog, I stumbled upon one post that I had read but not commented on. It was about Thomas Beatie, a trans man from Oregon who was carrying his child for his wife. However there was a quote from the couple about how badly they had been treated. People like doctors, receptionists and the likes. These people disgust me. These are the people who we are supposed to trust our lives with. The same people who smile at a child for comfort when the child is going through hell. And just because they don't agree with what Mr. Beatie and his wife are doing they basically make a mockery of the both of them.

Ah, this reminds me of a previous post. In the same class yesterday, this issue came up and being the right-winger that she is, she said:

"That is absolutely disgusting."

After which I wanted to punch her in the face. Or slap her. Something to get it inside her head that she is a hypocrite. Catholicism in itself is contradictory. Hell, all denominations are contradictory. This whole love everyone as you would love yourself thing is getting to me because of a lot of things. If we are to practice the golden rule then we mustn't call people who are in unfamiliar situations "disgusting" because that is disrespect for human life. Saying that people who under the umbrella term of queer (thanks, Miss Nomered) are disgusting is disgusting in itself.

The strange thing was, in all the topics that we argued on, no one wanted to argue that Mr. Beatie and his wife's situation was not disgusting at all.

But I feel like a bit of a hypocrite for not speaking up, myself. Okay, so I'm one person, but maybe I would have been able to change someone's mind?

Look before you leap.

So today I got in a serious three-hour Guitar Hero III session and my mind was trying to not explode in the midst of all the fast-paced high-octane mini-mines that were the screen frets. Then again, I was trying Hard for the first time.

My brother can be a bit of a touchy kid and possibly accidentally touched my uncle's crotch area.

My uncle also happens to be quite a complainer, so he told my grandmother to get him to stop.

My grandmother happens to be quite the yeller, so she consequentially and aggressively said "What is WRONG with you? Do you think he is a faggot?"

Ugh.
Ugh, ugh, ugh. Nothing in my life (in terms of put downs and other -ist terms) has ever bothered as much as that did. And I don't know why. I know that my grandma has a tendency to be a bit...how should I put it...discriminatory. And it comes off as offensive, but honestly she doesn't know better. But this just struck something that I never knew could be hit.

This reminds me of something else. My uncle, the complainer. He's probably the most homophobic and stereotypical of all in the family and it makes me mad. Of all the things in the world he is trying to do, it's teaching my brother to be "manly".

I want my uncle out of my house.

Well, God Said I Could!

Today was interesting.
Yet another in-class debate at Catechesis classes.

Basically it was about sex, gender roles, stereotypes, and generalizations. I do actually enjoy the conversations that we get into without even realizing it, but one thing bothered me.

We're Catholic and we're supposed to wait until we're married, right? So then there's no need for contraceptives!

Ugh. What my teacher, Maureen, didn't know was that despite what she said before about "at least four of the students in the room getting someone pregnant or becoming pregnant before high school" and what she had said before, there is a need for contraceptives. She basically proved herself wrong within a span of half an hour. You see, these hypothetical unwanted pregnancies wouldn't exist if people just thought about it.

Well, you know, we're having sex. But we're not married. I guess if we don't use contraception, we'll just be sinning less than we "already are"!

That's how the catholic church is training the teens to think. And that's where they're wrong. Maybe they just need something to blame. But thank god that my teacher, Mrs. Donoghue-Stanford, knows how NOT to force her ideals on such an impressionable group of people. Mrs. Donoghue says:

You MUST make an informed decision...take the information that you get from everyone: parents, teachers, friends, and other people that you look up to. The rest is between you and God.

Maybe other people may not agree with this, but I personally find this as some form of salvation after four years of no sex-ed at a time when everyone needs it most.

Refresh

This isn't my first post.

I know it says that it is, but that is a lie.

I recently decided to restart my blog with a completely new attitude.

Please enjoy the future.

For my sake.