Josh Duggar

Read here about Josh Duggar.

Recently a lot has surfaced in regards to the Duggar family. Michelle, Jim Bob, and their clan of 19 children have been the faces of one of TLC's most popular TV shows, and I'll admit, I've seen a decent amount of episodes in my time.

courtesy of their Facebook page

I'm a fan of reality TV shows, and something about the Duggars has always fascinated me. Don't ask me what, they just do, alright. With that being said, I've seen many many many episodes.

I always knew one of them would derail their family's conservative, Christian image (God forbid Ginger might wear pants or Josie would decide to use birth control). (Also yes, I know all of their names. In birth order. It's a part of their opening credits, OKAY?)

Anyway.

Josh Duggar. He molested five young girls when he was 14 (I've heard many if not all of these girls were his sisters, but no specific victim names were released, so I can't say this with confidence). 

First off, I understand the need to move past this incident and realize that none of us are perfect. He was 14. A young teenager. Teenagers do things they shouldn't. We're risky and experimental and many times act with clouded judgement. We do wrong. We make right. We move on.

But I recently read an article defending Josh Duggar which quoted a Bible verse from one of my favorite Bible stories found in the Gospel of John. Short story made even shorter, a group of men are about to stone a woman who was caught in the act of adultery. Jesus sees the incident and says, "Let those of you without sin cast the first stone." They all then disperse as they realize that none of them have the right to judge this woman for her sins as sinners themselves. 

I LOVE this story. It shows that Jesus was a changer, a shaker, a person who wouldn't let the social norms continue. 

But back to Josh. The lady who wrote the article said that we should look at this story and not judge Josh because none of us are without sin. I understand this completely, but it still doesn't sit well with me.

It doesn't sit well with me that Michelle Duggar opposed an anti-discrimination law because she did not believe that those who were transgender should be able to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with because they could molest/harm young children, yet her own son molested young females.

source

It doesn't sit well with me that Josh Duggar was the executive director for FRC Action (a conservative lobbyist group) who wanted to ban LGBT couples from adopting/fostering because it would harm the children, yet Josh himself molested young girls (and very well could be seen as a harm to his siblings).

And I could go on and on, yet I don't hold Josh for what he did. I just wish that he could look at his past and realize we are all human. I wish he (and his family) would have taken this as an opportunity to be more open minded about other people's mistakes and differences. I wish they would have taken this as an opportunity to be less hypocritical and more loving towards ALL people no matter their mistakes, life preferences, or past.

But we can only wish and hope for so much. Thanks for reading.

New York City

Over spring break (nearly a month and a half ago but who's counting), I went to New York City on a school trip. It was the first time I had ever been to this beautiful place, and I'm already dying to go back.

I also forewarn that this post will be mostly pictures and few words. New York City tends to speak for itself anyways.

It was raining and she needed something to keep her dry (duh)

On our first day we did SO MUCH (although this seemed to be the general consensus every single day). We went to Ellis Island and saw the Statue of Liberty. It was somewhat disappointing at the Immigration Museum though as a lot of the artifacts had been moved to a safer facility and/or were being restored post Hurricane Sandy (which was over two years ago but I digress).

After almost leaving a kid on Ellis Island, we spent some time walking around NYC. We hit up Chinatown and just breathed everything in. Battery Park was fabulous, and we ate at this neat little sandwich shop.

We also toured Radio City Music Hall which I loved. I'm a bit obsessed with America's Got Talent, and the show takes place there (sans the auditions). On a weird note, Radio City Music Hall had fabulous bathrooms. I'm talking like there was a huge powder room full of mirrors (and you know how we girls love mirrors), and then there was the actual bathroom. Like I said, fabulous.

Once we finally crawled out of the bathroom to end all bathrooms, we made our way to the top of Rockefeller building. The view was cold and beautiful and I loved it.

I loved the whole damn trip to be honest. More on day 2 and 3 next week. (Hope you can wait.)

Have a fabulous day. 

Plan for the Week

I thought that life would be easier post AP exams, but (like most of the times I thought I had life figured out) I was utterly wrong. Don't get me wrong, things are still less busy but busy nonetheless. Take for example the fact that I'm catching up on blog posts written all the way back in April, APRIL I TELL YOU.

I also am scrambling to try and get a halfway decent blog post cranked out because I'm sure you are all wondering where I am and what I'm doing and why I'm not posting anything and OHMYGOD WHERE DID I GO (okay slight exaggeration here).

But I promise (like for real this time) that I will be posting normal posts that normal people read from blogs written by normal people. PROMISE.

In order to keep me more on track with creating a normal week of blogging, I'll be posting a schedule to ensure that you can pencil me in to your busy lives. Without further ado, I present to you the line-up for this week:

Tuesday: New York

I went to New York AGES ago (read: this past spring break) but soccer and homework and laundry and a clean room took precedence over me actual getting around to posting about it. It was a fabulous trip despite the fact that I got the dreaded strep throat whilst being 600 miles away from home.

Thursday: Josh Duggar

Initially I was not going to post on this because I felt like although I do rant on the occasion, this wasn't necessarily the type of rant I usually go about with, but recent comments/life events/Facebook articles (oh the joys) have persuaded me otherwise.

As a warm up to this week, I'm curious on how you all feel about the recent events concerning the Duggars? (Or your lack of feelings as I'm not sure how 'famous' this family is outside of the US/conservative Christian families.)

Friday/Saturday/Sunday (I'm leaving this one with a question mark because my weekend is about to be pretty busy): Young Girls

I had an interesting conversation with an 11/12 year old girl this past week. I was left wondering and questioning a lot of things. I love when something I feel strongly about presents itself randomly in my normal day to day living.

I guess life is funny like that I suppose.

But anyways, I'm looking forward to this upcoming week everyone.

Have a fabulous day.

An End to a Hiatus

Yesterday I took my final AP exam, and as I walked out of the room it was as if one of the proctors had handed me a sock on the way out. I was a free elf (at least in Harry Potter terms).

 

Although my AP classes will still meet until school is finished in June, the classes will be stress-free/low-key/watching a lot of movies. It's a running theme at my school that AP classes challenge other AP classes to dodge ball once AP exams are finished. Up first is AP US History versus AP Euro. 

May the best historians win.

On another note, this will lead to more blog writing as 90% of my homework came from my AP classes. I still have one project due in Calculus and another project due in AP US, but both will be relatively easy and are simply a way to make it look like we aren't just playing dodge ball and watching movies.

Anyway, it's great to be back together my friends.

Have a fabulous day.