I like this...

“The “wives, sisters, daughters” line of argument comes up all the fucking time. President Obama even used it in his State of the Union address this year, saying,

“We know our economy is stronger when our wives, mothers, and daughters can live their lives free from discrimination in the workplace, and free from the fear of domestic violence.”

This device, which Obama has used on more than one occasion, is reductive as hell. It defines women by their relationships to other people, rather than as people themselves. It says that women are only important when they are married to, have given birth to, or have been fathered by other people. It says that women are only important because of who they belong to.

Women are not possessions.

Women are people.

”

—

The Believer Logger: I am not your wife, sister or daughter Things can feel so unequal sometimes in our lives here int he US, but sometimes they don't. When people make profound statements because they aren't afraid to say this, it really helps me feel stronger as a person, a female, and a part of this society. (Found via Tumblr.)

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Is this feeling called...success?

     Do you ever have moments after intense days of stress and nail-biting-level-anxiety and you have consistently reevaluated your purpose or worth in life when things suddenly work out and you are forced to just sit back and go, "huh"? I don't know if that punctuation is correct there, but just bear with me.
     I had one of those moments yesterday. I have turned in maybe 5 applications and I went on one interview AND I GOT IT. They called when I was picking out an outfit to wear to my graduation reception thing (graduation is on Sunday and today I have a wedding. It's weird when you spend three days in formal wear, but we do what we must.) and they called between two outfits to tell me they wanted me to start on this ten-week internship next Thursday. Thursday! Which gives me Monday as official get-the-keys move-in day and Monday-Wednesday to pack! Whoo! And even the "midnight" premiere of Star Trek we're going to is at 8 p.m. Wednesday, which is a bit funny and super awesome for us old working stiffs :D When I hung up I went dancing into the living room in just my underoos and bra and my bf just laughed and laughed and then for course congratulated me. I've had friends go on multiple interviews and phone interviews and still have nothing. I haven't been this lucky in a long while.
     Of course, after these moments of extreme luck and when everything's working out, I just start wondering when the next dip towards bad luck will come. I shouldn't think like that, but it's hard. When I'm too successful, something has always dragged me back down. I win and then I lose. Of course, I know you can't appreciate the wins without the losses, but it's usually detrimental to me (my dignity or my wallet). Like I crash a car or get a ticket or miss a loan payment or a bill or something.
     Either way, I'm not going to dwell on ifs. I'm going to focus on the awesome, here and now. A wedding today, graduation tomorrow and a big dinner with family afterwards, a few days with the Bogey and picking up the keys to our first place Monday, Star Trek on Wednesday, new job Thursday... what could possibly go wrong?
     And even if it did, Silver Linings Playbook, in all it's beauty and wisdom has this line: "You have to do everything you can, you have to work your hardest, and if you do, you have a shot at a silver lining." I just watched it and it was a beautiful, offbeat story. I saw why it got all the awards. And though I don't struggle with mental health, etc. those people were beautiful and relatable and heartbreaking. And they tried to see the best in life. I want to do that too. I think the thing I need to focus on is feeling the success, not worrying when it will go away. I should be proud of myself. I should forget that things could go wrong--I don't so that if things do go wrong, I won't be caught off guard, but I hate being like that. So I'll fold the anxiety away in a little square and hide it in the back of my mind for now. It's time to feel like an adult and I won this round, life. I won.

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People I'd like to meet and befriend in real life....

1. John and Hank Green

Why? BECAUSE! They have helped change the way nerds are viewed and how we view ourselves through vlogging, awesome projects, and their simple philosophies of "Eliminating World Suck" and "DFTBA" and nerdfighters. I wish that I could have heard the beautiful things they talk about when I was in high school, when I was teased and hated on for liking nerdy things, for how I dressed, the music I listened to, the TV shows and movies I watched, meanwhile everyone was negative about helping others. It was cool to cheat on tests in my high school and smoke and drink and get into trouble. So I did those things, instead of what I really wanted to do--the writing and TV shows and movies I had to keep private. Luckily, I grew up and met TONS of people who love the same things I do. Hearing these brothers talk about issues in articulate, meaningful, and relatable ways keeps me coming back to their videos and hoping I can be so good as to pass on some of the values they discuss down to my own children someday. Eliminating Worldsuck is very important and these brothers are the biggest fighters against it, in my own humble opinion. I just wish I could hang out with them. I mean, Hank lives in Montana, but John happens to live in the same city as me. So though I would like to make jokes about stalking them to be friends, the fact that I recognized the dentist that John Green went to in one of his videos makes it way too creepy. Either way, DFTBA my friends!

2. Joss Whedon

Do I even need to explain why? Fine. Here: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Toy Story screenplay, Titan A.E. screenplay, Atlantis: The Lost Empire story, FIREFLY and SERENITY, Angel, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, comic books, Cabin in the Woods and its mind-blowing reality in how it disintegrates every cliche horror movie plot ever, his casting choices, "The Ballad of Serenity," The Avengers, the Dr. Horrible soundtrack, the Once More With Feeling soundtrack, his strong female characters, his humor and his utterly astounding understanding on how plot, characters, emotions, and themes work in a piece. 

There's also this:

 

Suffice it to say I want to be best friends with him, or at the very least, have a beer with him and pick his brain. I hope he never stops.

The next few on the list are just because.

3. Emma Stone

Because she is just so gd cute. And down-to-earth-seeming. And willing to laugh at herself. I laugh at myself tons. It's a healthy practice. I know this is all stupid, but I'm just saying, it would be super fun to hang out with Emma Stone and laugh about things.

4. Jennifer Lawrence

Again, because she just seems awesome, down-to-earth, fun, full of some laughs, and relatable. I just think we'd get along. Creepy yet? Yeah. Let's back off. Either way, I LOVE HER :D lolz.

5. Robert Downey Jr.

Because he's intelligent and been through some rough times and HILARIOUS. I just want to sit and have a beer with RDJ and talk about LIFE. And possibly what it was like working with Joss Whedon.

6. Mumford and Sons

I got to see them at Bonnaroo a few years ago and they were simply charming. I think it'd be killer to just go to the pub and get a drink with them. Hear where their inspiration comes from to create these songs that remind me of the English countryside, dried flowers, and lost love. And I love how they dress. I would probably steel some vests from them.

7. Chloe Grace Moretz

Her acting is phenomenal and at 16, she's one of the most mature young persons ever to be put in front of a camera. I swear, I marvel at her. My little brother is 16, and though he is a boy, there is such a wide gap between them. He acts 12 and she acts 18. It's amazing. I love her fashion sense too. Maybe we could go shopping and she could give me some pointers.

8. J.K. Rowling

The charming, the intelligent, the creative Ms. Rowling. I'd love to pick her brain, ask her all those questions everyone wants to ask about Harry Potter and hopefully she wouldn't run away screaming. I love the heart and hope and love and everything else she created Harry Potter with and I'd want to ask some questions of my own about life and writing and everything else.

9. Emma Watson

Could we please just be friends? Haha. I think she's awesome. That's it. It'd be cool if she could just show me where she shops in London and I'd be happy as a squirrel.

Anyways. This list has gotten really vain since Whedon, so I'm done. I should go running now and stop putting it off.

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What makes a pointless day well-deserved?

Answer: A HANGOVER

I went out with my friend's parents to a wine tasting place and they just loaded up a card with near a 100$ on it and let us have at it. You got 2 oz. at a time and some of the 2 oz. were upwards of 10 dollars!! We felt like we were high-rolling, let me tell you. We sat outside in the downtown of Indy, listening to homeless saxophonists and eating fancy cheese and watching the sunset fade from the sky, reflected in the glassy facades of skyscrapers. And I. Got. Drunk. Lemmetellyouwhat.

Either way, I woke up today with a hangover that morphed into a migraine that wouldn't go away until about 7 pm tonight. Waking up was nice though, lying in the sunlight in just a tank top and undies, listening to my cat purr, wrapped in my blue-green-and-turquoise sheets knowing I have very few mornings left like this--because I'm moving in with the bf and because I hopefully will have a job soon.

Not soon enough though. Today I was also waiting around for the call from the place I interviews at on Monday. No call. So I read Divergent. Like the entire book. There are few things I'm good at and here they are (some, at least):

1. Reading fast. Today I read 487 pages in a day and a half. I bought the book (by one Veronica Roth) yesterday at about 3 pm. and didn't get to read it until I got home at 11:30 pm. Being smashed, not much reading occurred. This might be a new record. Previous records are Harry Potter 4 in 4 days, Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare in 3 days (that's two full study and work days too, and spending time with Bogey), and Harry Potter 7 in less than 12 hours, spread over 2 days. So I read fast.
2. I also have an insanely accurate memory for dates, names, characters, book and film plot lines, historical facts, quotes, and basically what happened at any one time. I remember my life well. How to do math... no so much.
3. Being clumsy--not to the point where I break bones, but bad enough that I ruin shirts, carpets, other people's clothing, dishes, my ankles or knees... Safe to say I both bruise easily in the sense that my skin bruises easily and I run into a lot of things. Easily. My friends called me Rube for awhile. After Rube Goldberg. The dude who invented contraptions like the one you find in the game Mouse Trap. Or the OK GO music video. Something happens to make something happen to make something happen over there. When I run into a table on one side of the room, I make things fall on the other side. Maybe I'm just telekinetic and don't know it.
4. Typing. I type pretty fast.
5. Creating stories. Finishing them is something I am attempting to learn how to do. But I write all the time, and I might've mentioned it before, so if I have, ignore this I guess, but I fill up notebooks with writing my own stuff, not notes in class. the back of the notebook fills up and meets with the notes sections, so that I run out of paper fast. I have crates of notebooks and in this upcoming year, my homework is to type up the important parts of those notebooks. I also have a weird process, maybe because I learned how to write stories on my own, just like how I pronounced integral wrong most of my life because I read alone. But when I have an idea, I start a story and I'll write on it when I have ideas, but if I'm feeling the other stories more, I'll write on those and so I jump around, never really finishing anything. Luckily, many of my stories have more ideas attached to them now as I've grown up--meaning endings. I just have to write the in-between stuff and focus on just one story, not 30.
6. Talking. I tell stories because I want people to laugh at what I laughed at, even if they're laughing at me. I like sharing my life story. I talk and talk and talk and because of this, I'm personable, but I'm also incredibly rude sometimes and interrupt constantly. I'm trying to work on it. It's hard.

So there's a bit of me, in a nutshell. Things influencing me currently:

• Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, The Heist (currently listening to)
• Divergent by Veronica Roth
• book stores
• picking up my cap and gown
• graduation plans
• hangovers
• wines
• fancy wines
• hangovers
• hot apartments
• mac and cheese
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 5
• Doctor Who, season 3
• Needing a shower
• Shopping
• Forever 21, Target, Kohl's, Charlotte Russe
• jewelry
• fluffy kitties
• needing to pack
• bike riding
• beautiful days
• Nylon magazine
• Tangled
• Feeling like Ron Weasley and his dress robes when I got the wrong grad robes at first (joke courtesy of my friend Kelli)
• Ender's Game trailer!!
• This is the End trailer
• Did I mention Divergent? IT'S SO GOOD!
• Heels
• Interviews
• Sarah Dessen novels
• Sleepiness

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GO GO POWER RANGERS!

     So I have an interview tomorrow. Fun, right?
     WRONG.
     I'm terrified! I always go in thinking I'm going to be cool and smooth, but then I babble or my cheeks flame up and I get embarrassed over something or other...
     But all I need to do is breathe and be my beautiful charming self... minus my habit of telling stories constantly and interrupting people to do so. (It's terrible, really. Luckily, my friends and bf love me enough to overlook such bad etiquette).
     I'm not sure what to wear either. Skirt and heels? Skirt and flats? Skinny jeans and heels? I don't want to look like I'm going to church! But I don't want to look like I'm just going out for a night at the bars either. Dressy-professional-casual. That's what I want my outfit to say. Also classy. And awesome. And creative.
     And HIRE ME.
     But here goes nothing, right?

    Things I've done with my insane amounts of free-time so far since my last class:

• Watched 8 or 9 hours of Buffy season 4 and Angel season 1 (they parallel each other)
• Drank margaritas and played Euchre
• Helped my mother pack--but did not pack myself
• Did laundry at my moms--but only half of it because the rest didn't fit in my hamper
• Drove to my grandmother's in Hartford City, IN. (One of those towns that used to have industry and be nice, but is now falling into disrepair. Luckily, the gma lives out in the lovely countryside).
• Movie marathon of Clue, The Movie and Scott Pilgrim, plus pizza and cheesecake and cookies and Shocktop Honeycrisp Apple Wheat beer (awesome). Later that night, I ate Taco Bell. My body hates me.
• Almost got pulled over by a Sherriff for speeding (close call)
• Played with industrial-sized saran wrap while wrapping framed photos up for mi madre
• Slept on a love seat couch with my feet on a kitchen chair (did wonders for my already aching, screwed up back yay!)
• Played Wii--found I suck at frisbee golf on games as well as in real life
• Updated my Facebook status
• Read Catching Fire again
• Watched shit tons of Youtube
• Eaten candy and popcorn and Dr. Pepper all in one sitting
• Missed my boyfriend who I'm not seeing this weekend
• Tried to answer questions about graduation--(I don't know family members, I'm as lost as you are!)
• Stubbed my toe twice
• Hairdryered my hair straight and tore out half of it because the ends are awful and need cut off. Should have just let it air dry like usual.
• Renewed a textbook I rented out from the library in like February again because I've been too lazy to return it.
• Is this real life?
• Wrote out the Power Rangers theme song on my brother's status. He approved.

All in all a good start to being gradumacated. That's what it's called, right?

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Is this real life?!!?

I'm not sure how I feel yet, but I, as of five minutes ago, just turned in MY FINAL 8-PAGE LITERARY RESEARCH PAPER. I mean, I got to write it on films, so it was both fun and challenge--but I'm pretty sure most for the challenge was my procrastination, magical mind-block issues.

It certainly hasn't hit me yet. I'm not sure if it's going to tonight. Most likely not. Or tomorrow. When I graduated from high school it was the most anti-climactic day in my entire high school career. Maybe because it's supposed to be super climactic. But jsut to give you a picture of me in high school, picture forcibly straightened hair (because everyone straightened their hair back then) old jeans, chucks, and t-shirts I probably got at PacSun, sullen and lonely. Most of my "friends" graduated in January and I'd sorta started not hanging out with them as much. My actual friend, Amanders, who I met in 9th grade and is still my best friend, had half-days the last semester of our high school career. We met in honors English and biology and over the course of our four years at Shitty High School Midwest, USA we cultivated a friendship based on alternative bands (Taking Back Sunday was our favorite), chucks, cheating on honors tests, Tostitos chips, sleeping in class, paper airplane notes, drumstick wars, mutual love or hatred for teachers/preppy kids/anyone else, swim team, lip rings, aimless drives in my car, working at Mancino's and eating ourselves into cheesy garlic bread comas, awful fathers, and so much more. I was there where she had her baby March 7. It was amazing and gross and beautiful and glorious and I saw the whole thing. Her, her fiance, and I were crying as soon as brand new baby Kai hit her chest. Beautiful.

But I'm getting sidetracked. (He's just so goddamn cute!) Where was I? Oh yes. High school. Anti-climactic. Like a lot of things in high school.

(Was that too far?) Anyways. I was alone, I was the only person I liked still going to school all day everyday because I had to retake junior year math, my parents had been going through an awful, awful divorce for two years by that point, and I spent most of my days skipping classes to go hang out with my mom who substituted at my school three or four days out of the week. I hated Fort Wayne (sorry, Ft. Wayners), I hated my school, I hated everything. My last day of school I left halfway through the day because we were doing nothing in pre-calc, took my mom's car (with her permission), filled out some job applications at the mall, came back and got her for lunch (my mother, being a sub at school more often than not, took me off-campus to get lunch ALL the time. This was a strictly prohibited thing. My mom's so cool.) and then returned at the end of the day to get her. I waited in the hallway where Amanders and I had a locker, not really feeling nostalgic, and mom and I went home. The next day, because we'd had so many snow days, Amanders and I almost arrived late to line up for graduation. I might have felt a little nostalgic seeing classmates I'd known since kindergarten in our shit-brown gowns, but it quickly deteriorated because in a class of 470-something, my last name starts with R. So. Let's home that college graduation is a little more fun.

Enough of that crappy memory lane crap. How about some future stuff that includes good news!
I GOT A JOB INTERVIEW ON MONDAY! Yippee! Yes, world, I have a job interview. At a marketing agency. It's technically an internship, but a paid internship that can be full-time if they so choose. Problem is it's like a 30-minute drive from downtown, so I'll have to use the boyfriend's car. Luckily he can walk to the hospital to do his rotations this year. He told me it will all work out. Isn't it funny that when he says it, I can believe him? :)

And guess what's hi-larious. My grandparents are driving me to the interview. Yep. You heard right. MY grandparents are driving me to my first post-college interview. At age 24. God I'm so stellar.

So... I'm done? This is it? I had class tonight until 8 p.m., then had to come back and finish writing the paper which was due at midnight. Maybe it won't hit me tonight, and maybe not tomorrow, but life is certainly going to shift and I'm going to feel it. I've been in college for 5 years and it's been 6 since I graduates high school in 2007.

Whoa. That. Date. Looks. So. Old...

I took a year off after the first two years and so yeah, I've had the non-school life, but I think because the fact that I hadn't finished hung over my head for a solid 12 months or so, I never once felt a sense of peace or achievement. All my friends had been carrying on without me and I was busy looking for my lost sense of self-respect and, well, my brain.

But I did it. I'm done. I know there's Grad school possibilities and yada yada, but I've told myself to take a year off. I've been in school for three years straight, every summer, and full loads in the school year. And now, I'm only graduating....two? year later than I should be? (Fun/Sad Fact: I was the class of 2011 at Indiana University. Now I'm class of 2013 at IUPUI.) But you know what, I'll take it. no pity parties here today, no sirree. I WIN.

And that's all I want anyone to take away from this. Winning.

Things I want to talk more about in these posts soon:

• films
• books
• food
• summer
• fun
• why leafy trees make me so damn happy
• how my bike punched me in the face the other day
• tv shows
• bad habits
• places i want to go
• why laziness=no capitals right now
• that's a stupid topic
• pets
• moving
• why i don't have a car
• how i figured out my AC does work, when i thought it didn't all year
• luckily indiana has a shitty climate and i would have never needed it
• shoes
• writing
• my favorite places to go
• ireland trip may 25-june 4
• living with a guy for the first time
• how said guy and i have been saying "when we live together next year" up until last week. until we realized it's like "when we live together in two weeks" lolz
• why i hate cleaning
• dream homes
• dusty old antique apartments
• living downtown
• dating a medical student
• bad relationships
• going to bed early is nothing to be ashamed of

So, until next time!

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