Why I Didn't Tan for Prom

I've got approximately five days of school left, plus two afternoon sessions where I'll be taking my end of the year exams. I'm not nearly as stressed as I thought I would be, which is all good because well, I worry. Deep breaths, deep breaths.

I was one of the many lucky (?) sophomores who attended prom this year thanks to a gracious upperclassman friend who made me his guest. The whole dress shopping thing made me slightly consider renting a tux and calling it a day, but that's a different story I'm not sure I'm ready to tell. For those unfamilar, I'll sum up every prom dress store as smelling like hairspray, desperation, and women who either want to be overly helpful or overly rude. It's not pleasant to say the least.

Nonetheless need I mention nail appointments and dress alterings and hair ideas and make up sessions and the tanning bed. By God you'd think I was preparing for my wedding or funeral, but sadly neither of those were happening. 

I've bought into the consumerism machine that is prom. And it's not fun nor cheap. 

Yet I'm here to preach to you about one little appointment that goes into the ultimate plan of looking your best at only the raddest night of your life (cue eye roll). 

The tanning bed. 

There's always the obvious disapproval of the UV lined bed because it increases your risk for skin cancer and female baldness and breast reduction. Okay maybe not. But I feel those last two warnings would scare away more than the first. And let's not forget the old women who shake their fingers at you as they tell you about all their suspected moles that could have been melanoma even though they never even stepped foot in a tanning bed. 

But alas no female listens. We're risk takers, especially if the outcome is beautifully bronzed skin to the point of what our media fed society deems as beautiful. It's cheap to the price of three sessions for $10, with a punch card predicting a free session when you buy 9.

Now I'm a self proclaimed feminist. I say self proclaimed because I'm sure there's part of me that doesn't fit the exact unstated guidelines on what makes you one, but I call myself one nonetheless.

I'm sure the fact that I'm doing all this nonsense of prom kicks me out of the feminist box, but I'm mostly going for the food so hear me out.

Despite the pressure of friends and girls who were way too tan for it to be only May, I said no to the skin cancer market. I like to tell girls it's a good deal. $10 for 3 sessions and an increased chance of needing your dermatologist appointment for more than your acne. Double win.

Granted, I tan easily and between the 24/7 outdoor soccer practices and games that lead up to prom, I showed up looking fairly dark. I may have had a farmer's tan, but I indeed had some color.

Yet I couldn't grasp my mind around the girls who looked as if they had just come back from a week long cruise around Mexico where they mistook the tanning oil as sun screen the whole trip. Their unnatural tans were, well, unnatural.

I'm a strong believer in the fact that girls only do things because other girls are doing the same. It's not a new concept. And when one girl gets a nice tan because of $5 and four minutes in a warm bed, all the other girls want in. If no one put themselves through the few minutes of UV sleep once a week, no other girls would feel pressured to do the same. If you want girls to stop tanning, you have to stop tanning.

Granted, some girls are already tan, some girls tan easily, and some girls look like they naturally belong with the Jersey Shore crew after being outside for a few hours, but it's a shame we've gone to such bigger measures.

Maybe I want to make a bigger point of why can't we just accept our natural skin colors. If we all just showed up with our normal skin tones, I feel there'd be a lot less of that judge-y stuff that goes on. This goes much farther than putting on make-up to make yourself look good. This goes to the point of drastically increasing your chances of getting cancer to look a few shades darker in a handful of photos we won't even like in five years.

Have a fabulous day.

That One Time I Was Called a Feminist

Let me set the scene for you.

I'm sitting in my fourth period classroom where I'm cornered by three boys on every side of me except one. It's like the Iberian Peninsula except less ocean, more testosterone.

All three of the boys have conservative values that are typical of my area. Pro-life. Republican. Their moms stay at home. Their dads make the money. Their favorite part of the constitution is the 2nd amendment. You get the picture.

And not that there's anything wrong with their views, it's just not my cup of tea. I drink a pretty different cup of tea in fact, but I'm not going to tell them their life is wrong because it's not—at least for them.

But alas, there's a different story I'm telling today.

I'm not sure what brought up the comment. It might have been because the young boy who sits to my right had used the phrase "hey woman" to get my attention for the twenty second time that day. Or maybe it had been spurred by the boy behind me who made the comment that it wasn't the guys fault for having an affair with his co-worker it was "his boss' fault for hiring an attractive woman and her fault for dressing in a provocative way". (YES those words really did come out of his mouth. I may have to do a separate post on that later.)

But something very woman-y and great may have come out of my mouth about how I really don't appreciate my name being substituted with my gender. Or it might have been "your comment is one of the reasons why rape victims think it's their fault," but I take none of those words back.

In fact, I'll own them like Hilary Duff singing a song with herself in the classic movie of my childhood.

(Thanks for humoring me right there.)

But I digress.

One of the three boys turned my way with a face scrunched in anger and manly-ness and hurled the four words I've longed to hear.

"You're such a feminist."

(Which were all spat with the intentions of being an insult.)

*Rolls eyes. Sighs. Rolls eyes again.*

The boy behind me laughs. The boy to my left laughs. The boy to my right laughs. It's the joke of the year for them, yet an annoyance to me.

I try to regain myself from the "masculine" disrespect I just faced. They impatiently wait (as all boys do) for me to shrink back into my uncomfortable desk as if I had just had the most offensive insult of our time hurled at my face.

"Contrary to your beliefs, I don't find the term feminist to be offensive."

Their faces turn confused and I wonder if they've been told their whole life that the world feminist is a word that situates itself with damn and democrats. Aka, offensive and never to be used. Bless. So, finally they hush and go back to thinking about what's for dinner which will surely  be made by their mothers once they return home this evening from half assing their way through high school.

I think I'll need some extra patience to finish out the semester.

Have a fabulous day.

News and Greatness

So I was recently approached by F (side note: do I still refer to you as F or nah? haha) at The Fence of Stars about using one of my recent posts on her other side blog Teenage Blogger Central. Which on another side note, you should all go register at. I've gotten a good bit of feed (okay let's be real, most of my feed) from that fancy place by just giving them my blog information.

Continuing on, my post was published here for all who want to check it out, although you've probably already read it, but I say you go for another whirl anyways. Also ignore my outdated bio I have on there. I'm a tad embarrassed by it so if anyone whose familar with the site knows how I could possibly change it, that'd be great.

a lil throw back to my post

Have a fabulous day.

*P.S. my post title may have been a little misleading*

Why Aren't Men Criticized for not Staying Home with the Kids?

I'm prematurely writing this post. I feel as if I should actually have kids and actually have a career in order to have an opinion on this topic, but I'm taking that risk.

I follow a little instagram account called Humans of NY. I use the term little lightly. They also have a tumblr and facebook page, but I've somewhat dropped both those things so instagram is the way I primarily keep up with their posts.

This post ran not too long ago, and I particularly enjoyed it as I applaud any woman who doesn't let having kids stop her from having a career. It's not that I look down upon women who choose to be stay at home moms, but I do look down upon those who shame women who try to juggle the career/kid lifestyle.

I think that if stay at home moms really do enjoy staying home with their kids and cleaning/teaching/loving/cooking and all that jazz, then it's the same as women who continue to pursue their career whilst raising kids. It's when women quit their job that they love and try to make themselves love staying home with kids 24/7 when things get questionable in my eyes. I think that if you're doing what you love, it quantifies as being a career, whether you're a surgeon or a stay at home mom.

But back to the picture.

I did what no (wo)man ever should: read the comments.

Now, the Instagram account has hundreds of thousands of followers. 742 thousand to be exact. That's 742,000 people's ideas and beliefs and thoughts that could potentially be read through the comments of a simple picture.

"You're really going to miss out on a lot of your little girls life."
"You should be at home taking care of her."
"You'll regret that decision."
"She's going to wish you were at home with her."
"That seems like a selfish thing for you to do. Stay home with your girl, believe me you'll regret it."

Those are snippets of comments I read during a thirty second scan through.

And I wasn't sure if I was more angry at the fact that people disapproved of a woman following her dreams or that people still assume a woman's place is in the home. Or maybe that people think this little girl is going to regret her mom working, but not her (presumed) dad. No one ever says "you'll miss seeing your kids grow up because you work" to a dad with a normal 9-5 job trying to provide for his family, yet women have a different story. Granted, I've heard the phrase thrown around to men who work 24/7, but never to a man who works normal hours. The dad's contribution of being home between dinner and breakfast the next morning seems enough to society, yet if a woman doesn't spend every waking moment tending to her kids, some people see that as her being a bad mother?

I don't understand why some people continually push the wagon of "a woman's place is in the home" in this age. I don't understand why people assume that working moms are letting day cares and public schools "raise their kids" (that comment really makes me want to strangle someone).  I don't understand why when something goes wrong—in society, in the workplace, in this generation of kids, etc.—the blame is often placed on working moms. (Don't believe me? Look here or here or here for starters.) I don't understand why people say things like "I don't know why a woman wouldn't want to stay home and raise her babies" as if that is all we were made to do—carry and raise babies.

I'm a product of two working parents and I've never regretted my mom or dad working. I've never met a kid who told me they wished their working mom had stayed home with them. I'm not going to be a drug dealer or a serial killer because my mom didn't stay home with me all day and make me organic baby food and handmade clothes. Even if I do become a drug dealer, it'll probably be because college is as expensive as hell and it's either that or selling my left kidney.

But it's just another argument into the pot of the way our society sees women.

*sighs*

Have fabulous day.

"I Will Sell Women"

Many of you have probably heard about the mass killing and kidnapping of villagers and young girls in Nigeria by a terrorist group against western education. You can read an article about it here.

Today in my third period class we began discussing the tragedy, linking it to our reading of foreign policy as the United States just sent help to the Nigerian government not too long ago. A young boy asked what they planned to do with the teenage girls they kidnapped and my teacher told him that they intended on selling them into slavery. The kid's face turned confused.

"They still have slavery?"

*rolls eyes*

Yes, there's still slavery. Sex slaves. Working slaves. Slaves of both men and women. Slaves of kids and adults.

It still exists.

The ignorance and disbelief of the public that we still have things like slavery happening in our society is one of the biggest contributing factors as to why it still exists. We don't try to get rid of things we don't know are happening. We think we live in a society that is far too advanced to go back to something we thought was abolished in the 1800s.

The biggest hurdle to ending social injustice is getting people to become aware of the injustice.

If you want to read more on modern day slavery you can take a blast from the past and revisit a blog post I did a few months ago here.

Let's all band together to bring back our girls.

Have a fabulous day.

Awards and Such

A while back I was nominated for the Liebster Award and about two weeks ago I was nominated again by Tara at Tara Therese. I am embarrassingly finally getting around to doing this award that has an awful lot of stipulations that one must follow, but I'm okay with that because, hey, easy blog post idea.

Because every post needs pictures.

11 Facts:

1. For the past year I've been longing to switch to being called by my middle name. I have an average first name that I share with about 100 other people in my tiny school. Okay maybe not that many, but a lot more than I'd like. There's absolutely no other person with my middle name within a 100 mile radius from my house, or at least I estimate. But alas, at 16 the whole name changing thing would be quite the lost cause. A dreamer can dream though.

2. I can't choose a practical occupation for the life of me. I simply tell people I want to be a nurse (and hopefully/eventually a nurse practitioner), because at the moment it's the one that I would enjoy the most that wouldn't spur a dozen questions about job outlook or wages or what the hell is that even questions. Secretly I'd love to be a political scientist or a coroner/medical examiner or a journalist or a published author or all of the above, but school isn't cheap I hear.

3. I have this strange obsession with what my twenties will be like. I often get asked why I choose to be a nurse and not a doctor because I generally do well and enjoy school, but it's simply because I have this grand scheme of adventures and plans and fantasticness that I'm positive will take place in my twenties that do not involve medical school, a stressful no down time job as a resident, and a mountain of student loans that's in six digits. (Holy run on sentence. Please excuse that as I have no motivation to fix it. Hope you'll understand). I want to travel and eat strange shit and make friends and move cities and see Broadway shows and stuff.

4. I'm very afraid someone from my school will find this blog and put two and two together and realize it's me. Like very very very afraid.

5. I have this strange thing where I have strange dreams about doing strange things with celebrities. I've had frozen yogurt with Jenna Marbles (the Youtuber). I've opened a Mexican restaurant that only sold tacos with Ellen. I once went to Kylie Jenner's house and made sandwiches. I also played Candy Crush with Kim Kardashian in her limo. I even performed open heart surgery on Kim Kardashian and Buddy from the Cake Boss made a cake for the occasion (and this was all separate from the previously mentioned candy crush/Kim Kardashian dream). It's strange, I'm tellin' ya.

6. I've recently had this out of nowhere aspiration to be president. Like, a legit, for real, wanting to become president. I've thought about what policies I'd implement and what I'd do and say, but the odds of it happening are slimmer than a model's thighs. Also, I hear there aren't a lot of job openings.

7. I'm currently working to bring tie dye back into fashion. It's quite a shame it ever went out.

8. I'm an only child and I used to hate hate hate it so much. I have a good friend who was five siblings and I used to pray every night that I could be her (seriously, true story here people). It's an odd thing being an only child and not many people can understand what it's like. I guess what always got to me was the assumption that I was spoiled and had my parents never ending devoted attention all to myself. Or when people would say "wow you must be so lucky, I wish I was you." The grass is always greener.

9. I follow an embarrassingly high amount of "mommy bloggers". I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before, but I'm running out of things to talk about on here. Not sure why I have such a compelling feeling to follow them, but hey, the kids are pretty cute.

10. I've been reading one week old blog posts for a solid three weeks now. I just can't seem to catch up. So if I comment on a post you wrote a week and a half ago, don't be surprised as I'm probably just now getting to it.

11. I really have been wanting to expand my blog for a while now but lack of time or energy or means to do so or all of the above have been keeping me from doing so. Hopefully I'll get around to it. Hopefully.

Questions from Tara:

1. Do you like to take distorted pictures of yourself?

Can't say I ever really have. But I'm sure it'll happen sometime in my strange life.

2. How would you describe yourself?

A stressed self conscious rad teenager who just wants to drop out of school and write shit and learn cool stuff all day.

3. What’s your best joke?

Why did the worker get fired from the calendar factory?

He wanted to take a day off.

4. If you had to change your name, what name would you pick?

I already unknowingly answered this in my 11 facts, but I would definitely make it my middle name. Or I would name myself Luna from the Harry Potter movies. I have a slight addiction to that girl.

5. Do you collect clothes tags?

YES. Unknowingly, but yes, especially if they look super cool and awesome. I always throw them on my dresser and think to myself "wow these look fan-freaking-tastic I can't just throw them away" and then five months later I begin to resemble a house from "Hoarders: Buried Alive".

6. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Probably hard shell tacos or homemade pub chips (or does pub chips imply homemade?).

7. Choose one: Famous, rich, or attractive

I wish I could choose one that wasn't connotationally self absorbed, but I can't. Most likely rich. Money gets you places. Sadly. 

8. Do you have a favorite letter?

Probably Z, because I love writing it in cursive. Or X because in kindergarten it never had a word that started with its poor self. It was always stuck with fox or ox, that poor thing.

9. Chocolate or peanut butter?

Hands down (or spoons down) peanut butter. Not really a huge fan of chocolate, but I could eat peanut butter out of the jar all day long. Believe me, it's happened.

10. Would you be chosen to act as Snow White or the wicked step mother?

(So I totally read this as "Who would you be, Snow White or the wicked step mother?" and because I don't want to re-answer this question, I'm going to keep my original one. Ooops.) 

My inclination to be different wants me to go with the wicked step mother because, hello, everyone else would choose Snow White. Like come on, the wicked step mother totally ran shit herself and didn't rely on the dad to do things unlike Snow White who couldn't even wake herself up. She relied on a prince to awaken her with most likely the worst kiss anyone could ever receive. But the wicked step mother no matter the story is totally independent and cynical and fantastic. AKA me. 

11. Which is your favorite hair color: pink, blue, or green?

Probably pink, but I'm not one to die my whole hair a non-natural color. Although I do have this thing for dying a strip of my hair different colors. My current favorite is red, which is basically pink, right?

My 11 Questions:

1. Favorite conspiracy theory?

2. Least believable conspiracy theory that you cling to as still being possible?

3. What piece of legislation would you enact to the world if we lived in a twisted society where the entire globe was governed by one person (aka you)?

4. Saddest moment of your life (let's get personal people)?

5. If you could give one piece of advice to a room of crowded people that were actually listening to you and not playing candy crush on their phone, what words would you utter out of your mouth?

6. Favorite TV show that would make you skip your cousins wedding so you could catch the season finale?

7. The oddest unknown fact you've every stumbled across?

8. Your biggest fear about your future?

9. The worst book you've ever read that you're still embarrassed you ever even gave it a try?

10. What is important enough to go to war over?

11. Favorite post(s) of yours?

Nominations:

Basically nominating the same people I did last time because I suck at that part. I'm also not nominating 11 people because I also suck at that part. 

F @ The Fence of Stars

Makayla @ Imperfect Fables

Purple Mist @ Insomnia Strikes

Kanra Khan @ The Emo Wolverine

The Reason Behind Why Everything Always Works Out in the End

I'm a worrier. I worry about everything from chemistry tests to prom shoes to things that aren't happening for another year. As a worrier, the phrase that gets tossed into my face like a bandaid all too often is "everything will work out in the end," and I can truly say, everything always has.

But I've gotten to thinking about all these things. Is it really that everything always works out in the end, or that in the end we simply learn to accept what happened, therefore it works out? Is it really that everything will be alright or that we make do with happened and naturally make it alright?

For example, the situations you're handed and the cards you're dealt aren't ever always what you'd like them to be. But you make it work. You make do. You make things happen with what you have. In the end, everything works out because you made it work out.

Things don't simply become okay because it's the rule of life and they absolutely have to. Human nature and your own will and actions makes things work out in the end. You're own worrier self who put yourself in this situation will eventually solve it.

And I know this sounds like some self help speech that I'm about to give to a group of recovering addicts, but just thought I'd open my mouth and speak.

But better things to come my friends, better things to come.

Just a little thought for the day. And with that, have a fabulous one.