My Life

...has been totally insane for the past few weeks, so I apologize for disappearing. How has everyone been doing? I feel like I haven't been here in ages. The days and weeks blur by so fast that I'm not even sure where my time is going. There's so much pressure to be with everybody else that I feel like I can't find any time for myself, even though I spend most of my time alone. School is finally winding down, but it seems like there's more work than ever. I just want to slow down for minute and the summer isn't getting here fast enough. 

Lately, I've been trying to slow down a little bit more, and look into where my time has gone. For me, the best way to do this is through music. My tastes have changed and involved so much since I was young, and yeah, there are things that I'd be embarrassed to sing in public, but there's nothing that I'm ashamed of having enjoyed. 

Heart was always a staple, and five year old me's ability to belt out every word in 'What About Love' was a source of much pride to older me. At family functions, I could also be counted on to perform a heart wrenching rendition of almost any John Denver song you could throw at me. 

Boston, however, is my favorite band of all time. I've seen them in concert multiple times, I mourned the death of Brad Delp with a  burning passion, I know every word to almost every song, and this year one of my amazing friends got me a record of their Don't Look Back album.  

Which of course prompted me to nurse a sudden and persistent need to own a pair of sparkly Converse. 

And also prompted me to dig up a record player from my basement, and raid my grandmother's record collection.

Highlights of my search included: 

My favorite musical!  Eliza Doolittle is a flower seller after my own heart, and I love to hate every word that comes out of the professor's mouth. 'On the Street Where You Live' is, in my humble opinion, the most beautiful yet slightly creepy love song I've ever heard.

This beauty, which honestly I didn't even listen to, but grabbed because I instantly fell in love with his pearly whites and provocatively undone shirt, along with the expression that communicates quite clearly his woe at becoming the next Hulk.

This lovely lady. I swear, Nancy Wilson's voice is so smooth, I could listen to her crooning every time I fell asleep and never be bored.

Basically, if I ever achieve my dream of becoming a mysterious cat lady, I want this to be my life soundtrack. A little bit folky, a little teensy bit southern, I think her cover of 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow' is probably the most interesting that I've heard.

And the big find of the day!

It is absolutely, 100%, the beautiful hippie vampire album of your wildest dreams.

I swear, the first song is even called 'God is alive, magic is afoot'.  

Nothing is more perfect than this. The cover is giving off major Morticia Addams/Pocahontas vibes. The back reminds me of that one scene in Forrest Gump. It's just as angsty sounding as I feel. 

Finding and listening to each of these make me feel like I was uncovering hidden treasure. It makes me feel like I'm going back and rediscovering what I love about music and it's diversity, and how it changes over time.

It also makes me realize how much I have changed. I'm no longer happy just listening to the music of my parents, or  the music of my friends. I'm finding more motivation within myself to go out there and discover what I like. There are so many different styles and genres and I've barely scratched the surface.

The whole idea of it makes me feel a little small, aside from the fact that I've been feeling small anyway lately. But it also makes me feel powerful, and I think that is what music is supposed to do. Knowing that I have all this history and passion at my fingertips makes me feel like I can handle anything. 

And it's true, I can handle anything. But it takes a little while to realize that. 

Serious Post: Sluts and You and Me

Hi guys. Sorry I've been away for so long, but let's jump right back into the swing of things.

As you all know, I just turned sixteen last month. This past year has been a really big one for me and I've discovered a lot about myself that's made me more confident and happy as a person. And this past year, I began actually thinking and paying attention to the world around me in a way that I should have been for a long time. It's been difficult for me to verbalize all of my thoughts cohesively, so I'll try the best I can to make them all make sense together. There's something that's really important to me that I'd like to talk about, now that I've finally had the chance to think through everything racing through my head.

Slut shaming, victim blaming, and rape culture.

When I was young, I asked my father what about me was the thing I was most likely going to be made fun of for, and his answer was my last name because it has the word 'slut' in it. And he was right. Around fourth grade, when kids actually began understanding what bad words actually, really meant, I was teased mercilessly for months, and I think that had a big impact on the way I am today. Just the other day I was laughing with my friend about how they can't even enjoy making fun of my last name anymore because 'everyone that's ever met me knows that that's the complete opposite of what I am.'

I hate the word slut, and I hate the word whore, and I hate when they are thrown about without people understanding the consequences.

A long time ago I caught one of my close friends giggling with someone over a picture on their phone, and it was this one:

Picture by Rosea Lake

You've probably seen it; it's been floating around the internet for a while now. I found a good article about it on Huffington Post Canada. And it may be shocking, but guess what?

I hate this picture. 

I'm really trying to get my point across in the most objective way possible, but I just get so angry every time I see this. What this picture is is a product of a culture that often associates slurs and derogatory terms with women that dress a certain way. The labels 'prudish' and 'old fashioned' imply that the woman should be showing more skin to keep up with the times, and not be called a prude. I was often called this by someone who used to be a close friend of mine whenever I felt uncomfortable changing around her. I was a young girl with developing breasts, and I was being told that I'd better start showing them off to fit in. Yet the labels on the woman's leg quickly become negative again. The skirt hits the 'cheeky' mark and quickly descends into 'asking for it,' the implication being that at a certain point, it becomes the woman's fault if something happens to her; that she's a slut because she choose to dress herself in short skirts. 

I was introduced to the term slut shaming (when women are insulted because the express their sexuality in a way that you don't approve of - definition credit to this video by lacigreen) last year when I read an article on Rookie, an online magazine, about SlutWalk and the writer's experience marching in one. I was immediately interested, and spent the next few hours looking up the origin of SlutWalk, and stories from women who had walked in them all over the world. The exact quote that propelled this march to existence was that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized." And that sounds way too much like the labels above for me to be comfortable with this, especially coming from a police spokesperson. 

The first SlutWalk protest in Toronto, 3 April 2011

Slut shaming becomes victim blaming in situations like this, where an 11 year old girl was gang raped and the blame, according to those quoted in the article, was placed on the child and the mother. While it is unfortunate that a young girl spent large amounts of time in a dangerous place, the fact that "she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s" shouldn't be a central point. This is much better explained in this Salon article and by chescaleigh in this video. When I was younger, I was always told to tell a grown up if I was ever touched in a way I didn't like. I was told that the police, investigators, and authority figures always side with the victim. Why, then, are there so many people that don't report rape for fear of being blamed?

And all of this plays into the rape culture of our society. A recent and very publicized case is the Steubenville Rape case. There's an entire Wikipedia page about it and, like many other people, I was horrified by its news coverage. The constant talk of these bright young men whose futures had been crushed by being on a sex offenders list for the rest of their lives made my stomach turn.  What about the victim? Does anyone care anymore? She was completely unconscious. An absolute inability to say yes is always an absolute no. 

Fighting against slut shaming is something that I've found I'm passionate about. I want to change the way our society sees the sexual expression of women without degrading them. And I feel like one of the first places where learning about all of this should start is in high schools.

In my school, the words slut and whore are thrown around all the time with almost no repercussion to the person saying them. They are the default for any girl that is even slightly sexually active, and anything else about them. Why is not being a slut so important to all of us? Why do we feel the need to put down anyone that doesn't use their body in the same way that we do? Educating high schoolers about slut shaming, victim blaming, and rape culture should be important, what with all of the new anti-bullying laws being put in place. I think learning about this would be a great addition to any comprehensive sexual education class or curriculum. 

Slut shaming is something that many girls will have to deal with. As of now, its a part of our culture. But I really believe that we can do something to change this, and that is a huge goal of mine.

Land of Oz

Hey everyone! I've always been obsessed with dream worlds and alternate dimensions. Books, movies, shows that take place in our world but slightly different. All of this just gets me so interested.

Recently, I've encountered an entirely new dream world inside our own. At school, we started learning about the light spectrum and wavelengths and I was... I can't even say how much I loved the whole thing.

My teacher gave us these spectrum glasses that look like the old paper 3D glasses and I stepped into my own little land of Oz.

And I adored every minute of it.

Big Break

Hey everybody! I'm baaaaack. I'm in the musical at my school, and rehearsal gets super intense around February so I've had literally no time to do anything. I promise that I'll keep it up starting now.

Anyway, yesterday was my birthday. I'm sixteen!! And I am so grateful for my entire family and all my friends and how great they all make my life. I'm in a bit of a rush, so here are some pictures I'm ucuurently obsessed with:

Princesses in historically accurate costume by Claire Hummel

My personal favorite, Einstein wearing fuzzy slippers:

And my new desktop wallpaper, The Giant Rubber Duck in the Sydney Harbor:

Groundhog Day

Wow, you guys. This is kind of embarrassing. I've been totally offline for weeks and I'm super duper sorry. Now it's time for a catch up.

I've been watching a ton of movies lately on my laptop. That's probably what kept me away from my little corner of the internet here, I always got distracted before I could start to type. Yesterday I watched Shaun of the Dead (hilarious, I'm apparently still in love with British humor) and Orgazmo (also funny, but definitely rated NC-17 or something. The whole thing is about porn).

Recently, I've also seen The Men Who Stare at Goats, Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail, Red (Bruce Willis is totally a dream boat, I don't care what anyone says), and Django Unchained, but I saw that one in theaters.  There might be a few more but I cant remember.

I love watching movies. It's not only fun, but it really helped me relax after a long period of stressing over school work and midterms. And it's nice when you can appreciate how beautiful the movies themselves are. When I saw Skyfall, I realized for the first time how freaking gorgeous it was. I mean, look at it. LOOK AT IT

There are a lot of shots where I was just in awe, for the first time, of how the camera moved. I know you can't tell from these pictures, but the light in this movie and the way it was used was phe. nom. in. al. Like, seriously guys. You have to see this movie.

Secondly, Saturday, February 2nd was Groundhog Day in America. Our silly little tradition of turning to a small rodent to predict the next two months of weather. Here's the little guy now, Punxsutawney Phil: 

Well, I was there. My family, another family, and one of my friends drove overnight in a rented, fifteen seat van, to be in Punxsutawney for the unveiling of the groundhog.

And it was COLD.

This is how it all went down: We arrive in the town a little bit after three in the morning, electric signs everywhere screaming at us that it was below ten degrees outside. Around 3:30 we park at the Walmart where you can buy tickets for a shuttle bus that will drive you up the hill to Gobbler's Knob, a little clearing where the actual ceremony takes place. Right before 4 a.m., we all take the bus up to get to the bonfire and hopefully warm up a little, only to find that the bonfire was not just small, but sending up a ton of sparks that burnt holes in a few of our coats.

There were these guys dancing around on stage the entire time, along with a huuuuge crowd of people, and then we found the "Family Section" and found a spot closer to the stage.

To cut a long story short, my group and I spent about four hours standing in 4 degree weather. I couldn't feel my toes, and there was much speculation and joking that my friend would probably never speak to me again.

Thanks to an aggravating trip to the porta-potties, I got separated from my group and spent the last hour of the ordeal in the student section, surrounded by people getting drunk off of alcohol they smuggled in. Well, most of them were already drunk and chanting I'm drunk and I wanna see Phil. One guy demanded to warmers in exchange for letting a group pass to get a better spot to see, and that was pretty hilarious

And to top it off, I never even saw the groundhog because I was stuck behind a tree.

Words cannot express....

I truly apologize if this sound whiny. In all honesty, the experience will seem fun in hindsight. Maybe in twenty years I'll look back on that day with fondness and humor. But for now, I look back on that day and just feel like shaking my fist at the sky.

Well, it's been fun catching up. I prooomise to keep on top of this! Love y'all!