It's already Monday? Whaaat?

Holy goodness where did time even go? I think this is the first time in a week I've had time to just breath. Breath in. Breath out. Although I had to power through an interest group project, schoolwork had luckily vanished during the weekend which should have translated to blog posts and a mass creation of creative thinking, but alas no such thing happened. (Not sure if this is a common thing outside of America, but interest groups are essentially groups that represent a certain idea or group of people such as civil rights, retired persons, pro-choice/pro-life, etc. that lobby politicians and support legislation that would help the people they represent or support the ideas they have.)

Although we had a pretty cold beginning of the week last week, the weather is currently warm and cozy. I'm in the middle of my ENO with a newly purchased album playing in the background, but we all know you didn't come here to read about the weather. 

I had a pretty shitty week within my life last week, but it's boring personal issues that may or may not translate into a blog post. I've been trying to write more than life updates, but that's about all that seems to be happening around here: life. 

But the weekend is over and I've got to get back to slaving to homework and soccer but hopefully we'll meet again some time midweek. 

Have a fabulous day. 

Liebster Award

Ages ago (or maybe it was a week ago, who really knows), I got nominated for the Liebster Award by Rebecca Maria from Rebecca Maria Photography. I've seen blogger upon blogger write posts about receiving this fairly common award whose name makes me cringe when I pronounce it for some reason (tell me I'm not the only one here).



Without anymore stalling, here we go.

Rebecca under the obligation of the rules that were set up for this award (if you for some reason aren't familiar with them, they're on the blog post I linked under Rebecca's blog), wrote me eleven questions that I indeed must answer or I'm at risk for the blog award mafia tracking me down and killing my family.

1. Why did you start your blog?
It was an extremely at the whim decision that I made a year ago. I was on Thanksgiving break and at the wit's end of boredom so I was kinda like, let's make a blog. And I did. Very anti climatic, but that's how this little thing got started.

2. Favourite nail polish colour?
First of all, I love the fact that color is spelled like colour as my American self just loves this kind of European stuff. To answer the question, I tend to enjoy either a turquoise or a dark purple or even black if I'm feeling risky. The down side with black is that I always have to repaint them when family gatherings come along as I don't want my aunts to think I'm going through some teenage crisis by going goth or something. It's quite the struggle.

3. Country or City?
From a photographer's point of view, I enjoy the country. But I'd rather be in the city if I was going to have to live the rest of my life forever and ever in one.

4. What would be the first thing you'd do if you won the lottery?

Probably something really useful like one of those one way tickets to Mars. Or open up a Swiss Bank account as I always hear those things are just fantastic when you get a large sum of money.

5. Best girl's night treat?

A guy.

Just kidding. Probably reading Tina Fey's Bossy Pants and discussing the fight for women's rights or something empowering like that. I just hope you weren't specifically asking for a food, but in that case I'd go with hard shell tacos.

6.What's your all-time favourite movie?

Juno definitely goes on the top of my list for favorite movies ever. I want to buy a dog when I graduate college and I'm naming that little mutt Juno because of this rad movie. It's hilarious in ways I can't even describe. Continuing on with my top favorite movies National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (along with any movie Emma Watson has ever been in), and probably a lot more that I just can't seem to think of at the moment.

7. Cat or Dog?

Definitely a dog just because I want to spend five years post college backpacking and sleeping in my ENO with a dog that I'll train to do all those super obedient things like how to roll over and walk with me without a leash.

8. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Within the U.S. I'd say California just because I hear they've got some rad state parks along with hipster cities and such. Within the world I'd probably end up somewhere in Europe, because that's basically every teenager's dream in America.

9. Favourite quote?

Be known for what you stand for, not for what you stand against.

10. Favourite Youtube personality?

I'm not really into YouTube and I'm not positive I know what you mean by 'personality', but I'm guessing it means YouTuber in which I'd have to go with Josh Sundquist.

11. What's your favourite thing about blogging?

Writing and taking pictures and reading other people's blogs and meeting other people who like to do all these super awesome things.

Within the rules of this award (who knew awards entitled so many rules?), I've had to nominate 11 other bloggers and give them 11 questions to ponder over.

My nominations (I have seen some rules that claim they must have less than 200 followers while others claiming they must have less than 3,000 with more even claiming there is no follower stipulation, which seems to be the easiest one to go with and the one I'm choosing to follow):

F @ Quirks-and-Irks

Signe @ A Classy State of Grace

Hoda @ Joo Joo Azad ~ Free Bird
Makayla @ Imperfect Fables
Kinga @ Kinga's Photography

I'm extremely short on time and nominations are taking a lot more time than I imagined, so we're going to stick with five and call it a day. Good thing I found my pocket knife the other day in case the blog award mafia comes after me. 

My 11 questions:

1. Favorite author?

2. If you had no clue as to how old you were, how old would you think you are (based on your life, activities, favorite movies, etc.) ?

3. Favorite blog post of your own?

4. Star Wars or Star Trek?

5. Your top pick(s) for the most timeless movie(s) ever?

6. Favorite thing about the country you live in?

7. Best name for a fish?

8. Ellen DeGeneres or Oprah?

9. If you were to write a book, what would it be about?

10. Favorite post from another blogger?

11. Google or Yahoo (or plot twist: the library)?

Also if I nominated you, don't feel like your under the obligation to do this whole shin dig, because being obligated to do something is never any fun. 

Have a fabulous day.

This Post is Literally About Nothing

I cut out blogging/reading blogs last Sunday for the sake of my AP Government and Politics grade. The class involves a lot of reading and note taking and court cases and government, but luckily now that the week has ended I can return to reading posts and writing and such. Unluckily, I found that refraining from Blogger and other internet sites resulted in quicker homework completion, but I might just have to over look that.

Because of my radical idea, I've been reading blog posts that are the equivalent of five day old milk aka posts that were published last Monday (although the metaphor doesn't reflect the quality of the posts, only the timing in which I read them). I'm still trying to comb through all the posts I've missed, but decided to take a break so I could write everything down.

As I mentioned ages ago, we got snow like every state in the US (except for maybe those darn Floridians with their oranges and sandal weather). There's this big "Polar Vortex" that's sweeping our nation in multiple waves, multiple times. Like most southern states, poor little North Carolina can't handle a lot of snow which meant a half inch of flakes translated to an early release, two days off of school, and a three hour delay. And lots of pictures of course.

Same picture except this one doesn't lack color. I couldn't decide which one I liked better, so I included both. A rational decision if you ask me.

In other exciting news, we're expecting even more snow later this week which is making me doubt the 'mild winters' description that tags my area of North Carolina. But it's quite obvious you all don't care about the weather of my region, let's be real here.

It comes with a heavy heart that I really have nothing exciting or meaningful or really cool for you to read about. Which kinda sucks for you all considering I've been gone for seven whole days and have nothing even remotely awesome that would somehow make you forgive me. Sorry dudes. Just pictures.

Although, thanks to Rebecca from Rebecca Maria Photography, I was nominated for the Liebster award which makes me think I might be doing something right. But I'm not going to even tackle that post until tomorrow/Tuesday-ish. I pinky promise I'll try to make it interesting and not super boring and basic and actually be worthy of your precious time to read.

Maybe. Or maybe I should stop making promises.

So go forth and live life and try to make blog posts that are a lot better than this.

Have a fabulous day.

My Overly Thought Out Opinions on the Current News Affairs (Edition 2)

(Read this news story here before continuing on.)

This post is an extension of Tuesday's post which I felt would benefit better being broken up into two opinionated stories, although you don't necessarily have to read Tuesday's for today's to make sense if you're catching my drift here.

Anyways, this news story has been weighing a lot on my mind recently. In summary, Marlise Munoz was found unconscious over eight weeks ago (the article says seven, but it's been a week since then) in her kitchen floor. She was immediately rushed to the hospital and soon after was said to have lost "all activity in her brain stem," all the while, she was 14 weeks pregnant with her and her husband's second child.

It is unclear what happened to her, but it was her wishes to not have her life sustained by medical interventions, yet despite her husband's plea to allow her to "move on", the hospital refused with a peculiar piece of Texas legislation backing them up. Now as a recent graduate of my tenth grade civics and economics class, I know a thing or two about Texas and their standings on abortion (see Roe vs Wade), but this law was quite shocking to me. They abide by the law stating "you cannot withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment for a pregnant patient," which I believe the first part is somewhat reasonable as we don't want a pregnant woman being denied health care (although, let's be real, who would actually do that?), but the second part is outright unbelievable.

There are multiple points that should be looked at within this case, but let's start with Mrs. Munoz's wishes. Sadly, her wish to not have her life extended by life support was never written down (although even if she had, Texas law would override her wishes), but both her husband and parents were knowingly aware of what she wanted and they consistently relayed this to her medical team. According to her husband, the doctors refused to answer his questions as to whether she was "brain dead", even though they had told him when she was first admitted that she had lost all activity in her brain stem and he even looked through one of her charts which stated she was indeed brain dead, making everything look all the more sketchy. The true underlying problem of this point is the fact that a person's very FINAL wish of her entire life, can't be carried out simply because she's carrying another human being. The law claims to "protect the fetus", but whose protecting the female?

Now another prospective to be looked at is how the family felt through this situation. It's obvious through their pleas that they wanted nothing more than to have her wishes respected and allow them to bury her and be able to grieve properly. Need I even mention they had to suffer through the holidays seeing their dead loved one being kept alive against every one's wishes. Through the multiple news articles I've combed through regarding her case, her parents and husband seem to express consistently about the extra grief they've had to endure because of the fact that they have to continuously fight for their daughter's rights to her body and her mom even described the time as "a living hell". The husband describes how his wife no longer looks like his wife, that her eyes are soulless, her bones crack when you move them, even her usual scent has been replaced by the "smell of death". Can you imagine going in to see your significant other like this every day for over two months?

Through the whirl wind of trying to fight for Mrs. Munoz's rights, it would make sense to contemplate how the baby is doing during this time, as it is the fundamental reasoning for keeping her "alive". Mrs. Munoz was discovered at 2 am on November 26 and was unconscious for an indeterminable amount of time, resulting in the fetus being deprived of oxygen for who knows how long, and it's basic biology to know that babies cannot successfully thrive in oxygen depleted environments. While at first, because the fetus was so young, there wasn't much they could do to determine the status of the baby, but as her case progressed, they received some news, that I'm sure we all knew was coming. The child was (as one article claims) 'distinctly abnormal' and had many medical issues. Its lower extremities were completely malformed to such an extent that they couldn't determine the gender, and the child suffered from hydrocephalus, along with numerous other issues including a possible heart problem that can't be confirmed because of Mrs. Munoz's state of her body. (All of this information can be found here.)

One of the biggest reasons that got me extremely annoyed over this case, is the fact that this woman's body has been downgraded and seen only as an incubator to keep her child alive, throwing her life and final wishes to the way side. I think people who believe that Mrs. Munoz and her family should put their feelings and wants away until she can lay in a hospital on a ventilator for months upon months until her due date arrives, should realize that her child dying along with her is the natural order of things. To go along with many conservative, pro-lifer's train of thoughts, how do you not know that the child dying along with her is God's will? God didn't tell you via the Bible that in all cases similar to this, that the woman's body should be kept artificially functioning to save the babies life. Allowing her (and her fetus) to die, doesn't make you a murder. The woman's body (in terms of pregnancy), is intended to keep the baby alive, not machines, not ventilators, her. A woman's wishes shouldn't be disregarded because she's pregnant.

In a happy turn of events, with the help of lawyers and judges and courts, the hospital was ordered to take her off the ventilator, ending this horrendous strain of events.

This article doesn't necessarily relate to my feelings in terms of abortion (I've got one big complicated story in terms of that), but I think this is downright outrageous. I don't even think your opinion on abortion should influence your opinion on this case in a way. By taking her off life support, the doctors aren't committing an abortion, they're simply allowing "nature to take its course" if you will. Pregnant women die in car crashes every day, and with that their fetus dies too. It's how it works, it's how God intended this to work.

End rant. Have a fabulous day.

My Overly Thought Out Opinions on the Current News Affairs

I've been finding that reading the news every morning is the best thing I've ever done with my life because I feel super informed upon the world and what people are doing and what people aren't doing and whose mad at who and what scandal is resonating within our culture and tons of other things that make me feel fantastically lucky that I am to be living in such a time.

Anyways, to start us off I hope you will read these two articles here and here so you too can become culturalized.

First I'm going to tackle good ole Juan Pablo. To start off I guess it isn't good that I dislike the Bachelor as it'll make it super hard to be objective in this situation, but I'll try. For those who are unfamiliar with the reality TV phenomenon that is known as the Bachelor, let me help you out. It's essentially a feminist's worst nightmare: 27 or so girls vie for one man's hand in marriage as they duke it out on "group dates" and "one on one dates" and so on and so forth, while the Bachelor holds the ultimate decision of each woman's fate via the Rose Ceremony where he gives the women he likes a rose while the rest are left to weep and go home "rose-less" until he narrows it down to one special woman. There's also its counterpart, The Bachelorette, which is the exact same thing but with reversed roles; one women watches as 25ish men fight for her hand in marriage. Everything is so Hollywood and not my thing, and although I've enjoyed an episode or two in my time, it's just not my show.

This season's lucky man is a guy by the name of Juan Pablo who from what I can tell is an ex-soccer player who is from another country with English as his second language (yes, that is actually an integral part of this story). I'd rather not summarize the whole news article for you (as I'm assuming  finger crossing you read the article), but in short, Juan Pablo was asked for his thoughts on the idea of having a gay/bisexual bachelor on the show and his comments were quite candid and disappointing.

Although as I previously stated, I'm not emotionally invested into this series of roses and group dates and luckily I was able to look past the attractiveness of Mr. Juan Pablo that many of the bachelor watchers posses for this man, and see the comment(s) for what it was: outrageous disappointing. He claimed that gay parents/gay persons are too confusing for the kids (because numerous six year olds can't wait to watch a reality dating show every week) not to mention he has a very young daughter who might find it confusing to see that her daddy is making out with different women each week on reality TV. Need I even mention that he claims gay relationships are too "perverted" which would essentially be too much for the American person to watch on television. Bless.

picture compliments of his Twitter account

His comments spread quickly through the internet like any anti-gay words that slip from a star's mouth would, while the fire was unsuccessfully extinguished via Juan Pablo's public apology where he consistently brought up that he had numerous homosexual friends, therefore he couldn't possibly be homophobic, and his "English as a second language" status was also used to cover the blame for his words. "The word pervert was not what I meant to say and I am very sorry about it. Everyone knows English is my second language and my vocabulary is not as broad as it is in Spanish and, because of this, sometimes I use the wrong words to express myself," was his excuse, which to me seems just a tad far fetched. To an extent I can understand, but not long after this comment he explains that he meant to say that a gay relationship would be too "racy", and yet from the things I hear that take place upon the show, there's no way a show with "hot tub dates" and extensive making out could by any means be classified as racy. (Take the numerous italicized words as sarcasm in case any of you aren't catching my drift.)

What he freely said hurts my feelings in a way. I thought we could maybe get somewhere in this crazy ass world by achieving more rights for homosexuals, but comments like this that are so immensely ignorant and degrading make me a little less confident in the world we live in. I think it's time we get off our high horses and quit attacking the minority that loves people just a bit differently than we do. These are changing times.

Also, one more bone to pick, a lot of the people in my area who indulge themselves by watching this show, also love their republican and "preserve the sanctity of marriage" bumper stickers. They're very conservative to say the least. (Important note: I'm not speaking for every watcher of the show. I live in the south where a majority of people can be described as the above, so it doesn't come as a surprise that 90% of people I know who watch the Bachelor are also very conservative.) Therefore, I find it odd that they consider homosexuality to be destroying the biblical sense of marriage and yet, 25 or so women basically duking it out for one guy so she can lock him in with a wedding of their dreams is somehow NOT destroying the sanctity of marriage.

So after ranting typing for almost half an hour, I'm going to come back to the second news story in a separate blog post as I feel this one is already overflowing with words. I'm hoping to get it up Thursday, as I already have a different post in mind for tomorrow.

The most exciting part about these posts are that I like hearing from you. Do you watch the bachelor (I won't judge, promise)? Do you find this all completely weird and strange and disappointing or do you back up Juan Pablo and his good looks?

Have a fabulous day.

(Side note: I'm not feeling the whole re-reading/proof reading thing as I want to keep this all as real as possible. Just a helpful note for any mistakes that could have slipped in somewhere.)

Stuff

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and the first thing that came into my head was that I'd been out of school for a week yet hadn't written a single blog post and it all seems funny now, but at 4 in the morning I became totally worried and freaked out that I had done nothing in the essentially 8 school free days that I just experienced. Yeah sorry, whatever, I'll try to maybe work on it, but I'm finding that opening my blog posts with "sorry I haven't written anything in a while" paragraphs are kinda my thing.

Somehow Tuesday morning at one a.m. I found myself watching American Horror Story and I watched five straight episodes until going to bed at nearly five thirty in the morning, scared out of my mind at every flash of light. It was the best worst thing I've ever started and I finished season one in an entire day, which is an accomplishment I'm totally proud of. It's a fantastically rad show though if anyone is looking for something to waste their time on (but in an extremely good way).

Also, I started reading The Fault in Our Stars over the weekend which is quite possibly the best book I've ever devoted my time to. I was a little slow in actually getting around to reading it, but I'm kinda glad the flame of the book is slightly dying down so I don't seem like one of those band wagoners who reads a book just because everyone is talking about it. I'm only halfway through, but John Green is the raddest author ever.

At the moment I'm currently fuming over a couple of things in the news which has now spurred this idea of mine that I hope to make happen this week. I'm going to take a handful of news stories and rant about them for a blog post or two. I have a lot of rage over the world to say the least. You can read the two I plan to conquer here & here. Read up and do your homework and what not.

Try not to enjoy your Monday too much & I hope your day has been fabulous.

Not Really Sure What This Post is About, Therefore Any Title Would Be Misleading

I finally finished my first semester yesterday with my *insert snobby voice* North Carolina Final Exam in Civics and Economics. In all honesty, I spent half the time taking the exam and the other half trying to figure out the best way to construct my strongly worded letter towards the NC General Assembly, but that's a different story for a different blog post.

A huge heads up that this is most likely going to be a bunch random pieces of whatever comes to mind. The pictures are just things that have been sitting on my phone for a good seven months. Enjoy.

These kinds of posts are starting to get on my nerves as they have no real meaning whatsoever except boring you with the little tiny bit of my life that I'm desperately trying to cling onto. I can easily describe my week in the three words studying and pizza rolls. Not to mention some kid at my school convinced me to download Clash of Clans after one of my exams and dammit I'm addicted. It's some testosterone-y game that includes training an army and killing other clans and yeah, I'm ashamed to be admitting all of this. Although I'm guaranteed the company is making big bucks as you can buy "gems" which allow certain tasks to be completed faster and considering how impatient the male population is, I'm sure they're making bank.

On a slightly fascinating note I taught/googled myself how to hot wire a car and break into combination locks. I don't know if this indicates I'm a future felon or that I'm going to have some pretty good party tricks in the near future, but either way I'm sure it'll entitle me to some new friends with tattoos and criminal records.

I'm completely off of school next week thanks to a national holiday (holla to my man MLK), an exam I don't have to take, and some oddly placed teacher work days, so I'm trying to fill my time with learning useful skills. On Monday I'm hoping to teach myself how to play the Ukulele and on Tuesday I'm going to learn how to break into house locks (you know for when you forget your key and stuff). I haven't decided on what to do for the other three days, but it'll probably be somewhere along the lines of finding new music and writing chapters in the sort of book that I'm trying to write that's beginning to consume my life (but in a totally fantastic way).

This coming week should be completely fantastic nonetheless.

I know, how much more basic can I get. Ignore the shittiness and soak up that sun set.

So enjoy your weekend and maybe teach yourself the Ukulele too or how to make a bracelet out of a spoon or learn sign language or find a documentary about the origin of species or something.

Hope your day has been fabulous.