Christmas

Well, another Christmas has come and gone and we survived. Well, I did more than just survive, I got engaged. Yeah, Kenny gave me a ring and it's Facebook official and everything, so I am an engaged woman. It's probably been my best Christmas ever, and I utterly despise Christmas.

I know every group of friends has that one "Scrooge" who is always bah-humgubing around at this time of year, and I have happily taken the title of Scrooge among my friends. I wasn't always like this; I used to really love Christmas, One year, when I was about 15, my older sister woke me up at 7 and asked if I wanted to go Black Friday shopping with her. I said no because, tbh, Black Friday crowds give me anxiety. But I did get up, drag all the Christmas decorations out of the attic, and spent the day putting up the tree and listening to music. So that's how I used to be when it came to the holiday.

I'm not entirely sure when or why I went from being an elf to being the embodiment of Burgermiester Miesterburger. ...That's a character from one of the old Christmas claymation movies, so... Anyway, I probably started disliking Christmas a few years after I started working in retail, so probably when I was about 18-19. Part of it was because I had to hear the same music over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and...well, you get the idea. Even if I did like Christmas itself, I will forever despise Christmas music. The only time I like hearing Mariah Carey is when it's being used as a joke. So there's the Christmas music and there's also the fact that I had to work every holiday while people came in and shopped. Since I first got a job, I have worked on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Christmas Eve. Do you know how many times people had said that they're sorry that I had to work on Thanksgiving, and I told them that if they weren't in here shopping, I wouldn't be in here working? Because that's happened more than you think it would, and that's because people are so, so, so, so, so stupid. I also hate the attitude that people have during Christmas. It's supposed to be a time of year when everyone slows down and everyone should be really nice to strangers because of the time of year it is, but no, that's too much to ask of people today. Just this year, I got cussed out by a guy because he needed an order made for him and I told him we couldn't do it because we needed a 24 hour notice, not 2 hours. So yeah, people just get really pissy this time of year and I can't stand it. That's probably the biggest reason I dislike Christmas, people are just always so angry. Like, get in the Christmas spirit and get the hell out of my face.

But this Christmas was surprisingly nice. I spent time with my family and my boyfriend and I got to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special, which was totally amazing by the way. Kenny and I have discussed what we want to do for Christmas next year. If I'm totally honest, I don't really want to "do" Christmas at all next year. I mean, the only Christmas movie I'll even watch at this point is Die Hard. That's totally a Christmas movie, by the way, fight me. So I'm not sure what Christmas next year will look like, but if I have my way, it's probably won't look like Christmas at all.

Early Morning

I got up at 6am the other morning. Or rather, I woke up at 6 and finally got out of bed at 7. It was amazing. Ken was still sleeping, so I did some housework, made coffee, did some knitting, started a new blog, and worked on my Harry Potter research project. Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with Kenny, but he's not a morning person and I love mornings, so I like having a few hours where it's just me, it's really peaceful.

Yeah, new blog. I want a platform where I can start writing more formally. Eventually, I'd like to be a freelance writer, so I started this blog to post about my writing, as well as tips for writers and students. Hopefully it will get some attention and I can use it to showcase my writing abilities.

In other news, I'm on winter break right now, so I'm trying to get myself into a routine so that I have easier mornings next semester. Last semester, I had a really hard time getting up in the mornings because I never got into a schedule, so I'm trying to get my body clock in a schedule now so that the next semester starts more smoothly. I'm actually really excited for next semester, I'm taking some really interesting classes. I'm also going to have an internship with the school's literary journal, which is going to be amazing. Between classes, homework, interning, work, and tutoring, I will have a really heavy schedule, but I feel like I'll be able to handle it. Or I'll just have a breakdown every week and deal with it. Probably the second option, tbh.

I'm also trying to get some things done over break. I've cleaned my car and my desk, but I'm hoping to get a few of my knitting projects done, and I want to get a good chunk of my Potter research complete. Last semester was so crazy and I actually wasn't able to work on it at all, so I'm also trying to work that into my schedule and do a little bit of it each week.

So that's really all that's new with me right now, so I'm going to write on my other blog.

I'm so tired.

Of everything. I'm tired of being angry at people. I'm tired of this country. I'm tired of having to try to explain to people why they should try to be decent human beings. I'm tired of politics. I'm tired of being stressed. I'm tired of my job. I'm tired of school. I'm tired of my body. I'm tired of myself. I'm tired of my future being so uncertain. I'm tired. I'm so so so tired. And I don't know what to do.

Starting Off Strong

Day one and I have about 2500 words. I wrote a lot last night, and now I'm sitting in class writing more because I really don't get anything out of this class. My main concern with NaNo is that I'm going to get too busy and fall really behind, so I'm trying to kick ass and get as much done as I can in my limited free time so that I can actually finish by the end of the year. I might have to start getting up earlier so that I have time for it. It might be hard, but I really want to succeed with this, so I'm gonna work my ass off.

NaNoWriMo 2016

For the first time ever, I'm going to be participating in National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. I've never done it before and Erica managed to talk me into it. Frankly, I'm nervous. With how busy I am between work, school, tutoring, housework, and homework, I really don't have a lot of free time. Plus, since this is the kind of thing where you're trying to reach a goal, it's super possible that if I fall behind, I'll get really mopey and disheartened about it.

But, I do have a cool idea. I'm going to write a bunch of funny anecdotes I have from me working in the customer service industry. Let's just hope I have 50,000 words in me.

Mental Health Day

I had to take a mental health day today. And I do mean *had* to. I've just been so crazy busy since school started and it had really been getting to me over the last week or so. Like, badly. I was having a breakdown almost every day, and I was just too tired and I wasn't in a good mental state.

So last night, I got drunk. Like, three margaritas drunk. I felt great, but according to Kenny, I was crying and having a complete breakdown all night. So early this morning, like 5 am when I was up feeling hungover as fuuuuuuuck, I decided that there was no way in hell that I was dragging my sorry ass to campus today. So I didn't. I stayed home and sat on the couch watching Netflix all day while Kenny took care of me. I felt nauseous most of the day, and he just helped make sure I was okay.

It was amazing getting to just sit around for a day, and I really really think it helped me. But I'm just really glad I have Kenny. He's been amazing all day; cooking dinner, doing anything I need, making sure I actually feel good enough mentally to go to school. I'm really really lucky that I have someone like him in my life.

Routines

So, two weeks into school and I think I can safely say that I'm settling into my routine nicely. It's times like this when I realize, moreso than normal, how lucky I am to have Kenny in my life. Since school's started he's been helping out with cleaning and laundry even more than he already was. I just really appreciate knowing that I can lean on him when I need help. At the moment, he's actually switching over laundry while I take a break from homework to write this.

School's been crazy already. I'm tutoring 16 hours a week, but so far I really like all my students. For the most part, they don't seem like total idiots, which automatically makes them different from most other students I've had to tutor. And my classes are all really interesting, but there's so much work. I had to give a presentation on my second week of classes, which fucked me up mentally. But I survived, so it's all good. It is a lot of work, and between that and tutoring and my job, I'm crazy busy. It can get really stressful, but Kenny's got my back, and that makes things a little easier to handle.

"So here I am, I'm right back at it again..."

A Day To Remember is one of my favorite bands, and I thought this quote from one of their songs was only appropriate for the first day of school. As always, I'm a massive bundle of nerves, but I'll be okay. I have my bag all packed, songs picked out, and I honestly feel better know that I'm going to get to come home to Kenny at the end of the day and talk to him about my first day back.

First days are hard enough, but they're doubly hard for me with my anxiety. I mean, I get really nervous in new classes when I know the teacher and most of the students, but this semester I'm taking some lower level classes, meaning I won't know anyone in the classes, and I'm have classes with some teachers that I've never sat under before, so that makes me really nervous too. However, my classes this semester are really cool. I'm taking a Tudor History class (one of my favorite periods), a Rock and Roll History class (one of my favorite genres), a Shakespeare class (one of my favorite authors), a poetry class (one of my favorite forms of creative writing), and an American Sign Language class (one of my favorite languages). So, I'm pretty well set on classes. I know that I perform better when I'm personally invested/interested in the material, so I feel like I'm going to do really well this semester, Regardless, I'm gonna work my ass off because I really want to make Dean's List. I've made it the last three semesters and I want to keep that up.

Time wise, my schedule is looking really nice too. No classes before 10, and with my tutoring, the earliest I'll have to be on campus is 9, which is just perfect for me. I am gonna be crazy busy though. Between classes, tutoring, work, and trying to keep on top of the house, laundry, etc, I'm going to be going nonstop. It's all worth it though. I really love where my life is at right now and I cannot wait to see what happens this semester.

I did it.

Here I am, at 6:36 am, sitting on my living room floor, half-asleep. But I did it. I woke up at 6. I needed to do something to get me woken up, so I did laundry and cleaned for a bit, then I said fuck that, now I'm just gonna sit and read and try to stay awake. At this point, I'm just trying to get used to the idea of waking up and staying awake at 6am. But, the coffee is ready, so I'm gonna go pour the entire pot over my face.

Resetting my body clock.

Probably one of the hardest things for me to do, to be totally honest. But, school starts in a few weeks and I need to get ready, I'm taking four classes, tutoring, working, and I'll still have to find time for homework, housework, and maintaining my relationship, So, I need to start getting into my new routine.

Starting Sunday, I'm going to try to start getting up at 6. I want to have time to workout, shower, and get ready for the day without having to be too rushed.

In other news, I'm gonna make a glitter tumbler for school. What's a glitter tumbler? This.
It's gonna be awesome and beautiful and almost as fabulous as me.

Baffled

I was browsing around on Goodreads, one of my favorite websites. You rate, review, and shelve books and things like that. Anyway, I was looking at the page for the book Gone Girl and I was surprised to see that it has a great rating and glowing reviews, Personally, it is one of my least favorite books I've ever read, and I've read the entire Twilight series.

Frankly, I just found the entire cast of characters whiny, self-centered, dumb, and uninteresting. Then the end, oh my god don't even get me started. Like, look, life sucks and often the shitty people come out on top. I have to deal with that enough in my day to day life, I shouldn't have to read a book that shoves that reminder in my face in such a terrible way. Amy is the worst character ever written, even worse than Delores Umbridge, in my opinion. I just don't get why people were so enchanted by it. I mean, when I finished reading it, I felt dirty. Like, I felt bad, it was such a dissatisfying ending.

I'm a Chronic Overreacter

But we'll get to that in a moment. First off is the student I'm tutoring this summer. One of the reasons she's so hard to work with is that she doesn't care about it. Like, she's skipped a couple classes, then she's skipped the make-up appointments. Plus she's just unmotivated and, frankly, stupid. She was supposed to be here ten minutes ago, but she probably won't show for another half hour.

But, anyways, I am, in fact, a chronic overreacter. Like, I could find out some tiny, silly detail and it bothers me, then I'll just totally shut down and stop communicating. Like, I overthink everything and take shit way too personally and, frankly, it's a problem for me.

#AshleyWatchesGlee

Yeah, I'm still watching Glee and I hate it. HOWEVER, I've started livetweeting when I watch it and tagging all my tweets with #AshleyWatchesGlee and, frankly, my Twitter is fucking hilarious. Check it out here.

Settling

So, I've been in my new place for about 3-4 weeks now, and I'm really loving it. I mean, we're still settling in and unpacking, but it's definitely feeling like home now. We have routines and habits and I'm constantly yelling at Kenny to turn off the bathroom lights when he's done. Actually, he's probably at home right now working on the honey-do list I left for him. I love the guy, but if I want him to put his clothes away, I think I'm going to have to keep mentioning it.

Anyway, he works tonight, so I'm hoping to really get a lot done. When I'm home alone, I almost always turn on Netflix. I like hearing the noises. Coming from a family of six people, I'm used to hearing shouting and running, even when I'm alone in my room getting something done. So I'll probably turn on some stupid show, probably Glee, since I'm lame and I kinda like that show. I know it's a shit show, but I'm addicted to shitty drama, and Glee is absolutely nothing but shitty drama.

So I'm gonna go home, hang out with Kenny before he goes to work, then watch shitty television and hopefully unpack the rest of my clothes and clean up the bedroom. Damn, I feel like such an adult right now.

Mine

So, as I write this, I'm sitting on my couch, in my living room, in my house. Yeah, Kenny and I are all moved in now. Well, not all, I still have a lot of things at my mom's house, but I'm steadily moving things out. I'm actually heading over there here in a few hours to grab a load of things to bring back to the house.

It just feels so surreal to be able to say that I have my own place. I'm still getting used to it, but so far I'm really really liking the change.

Totally unrelated note, I just found out that Rihanna did a song for the new Star Trek movie and now I'm like yaassss queen slayyy

We live in a society that teaches women that they are not naturally pretty.

And we have normalized this kind of ideology. Case in point, I'm tutoring a student this summer, meeting with her twice a week. She skipped once, so we set her up with a make up appointment with one of the other tutors. Next time the student and I met, she goes on and on and on about how she didn't know that she had previously met the other tutor once because "oh my god, when she actually cares enough to put on makeup she looks so different.".

I just hated hearing that. First of all, girl, you come here everyday wearing outfits that look like pajamas, you don't get to critique other people. Second of all, whether or not people wear makeup says nothing about how much they care. Frankly, there are some days that I couldn't give two fucks about how I look, but I'll still have a facefull of makeup. Why? Mainly because I like doing makeup, also because fuck you. Another point, I just hated the student's tone. The way she spoke implied that the tutor didn't look good without makeup. That's another fuck you, because she's goddamn beautiful and it's taken her years to be comfortable enough to leave her house without makeup and I'll be damned if I let you say anything to her about it

This is what happens when you let a Harry Potter nerd into the workplace.

So, last Saturday, I was sitting in the break room at work, reading that book I had about fantasy cinema music. Speaking of which, it's a fascinating book and I'd love to buy a copy so that I could mark it up an annotate it, I might have to look into that at some point. Anyway, I was reading through that at Jacob, one of the guys I work with, was sitting on the other couch, so we got to talking and he asked why I was reading it. So I started telling him what I was working on over the summer and he asked why I was so interested in Harry Potter.

Long story short, it lead to me defending my hatred of Snape again Jacob and some other guy telling me that he had a reason for his behavior. I've already ranted about Snape multiple times so I won't bore you with that, but by the end of the conversation, they both said that they would never again try to debate about the Potterverse with me.

I would just like to point out that I have never had a debate about Harry Potter that didn't end in the other party conceding that I was more knowledgeable in the subject. I mean, it's useless knowledge but I'm still lowkey proud of it.

Ch-ch-ch-changes! (Like, the Bowie song..get it?!)

Big things are happening. Kenny and I are probably going to be getting a place in the next month or so. A friend of his dad’s contacted him and said that his daughter was looking to sell her trailer and he wanted to know if Kenny was interested. He and I talked about it and he told me that he had been in it before and it was really nice and he wanted us to go look at it. Of course, I agreed. I mean, a trailer wasn’t what I pictured as our first place, but it’s nice. Big enough for the two of us, definitely. And she’s wanting to sell it, so Kenny and I would actually own it, which, truth be told, scares the shit out of me.

I love Kenny, utterly. And I want to have a life with him, but it’s terrifying. I’m twenty, I still feel like a child sometimes. I might be going from never having lived anywhere other than my parent’s house to owning my own place and that’s fucking crazy. But, at the same time, it’s really exciting. This has the potential to be a whole new chapter in my life. If I were a cliché sentimentalist (which I am) I would probably say that this is the beginning of the rest of my life. And I’m ready for it.

One of the things that makes me most nervous is the fact that this has the potential to drastically change my relationship with Kenny. What if I have a habit that annoys him so much that he starts avoiding me? What if he starts to get annoyed with me stealing the covers every night? I know this could be a great thing and it could strengthen our relationship and bring us even closer as a couple, but I know that there’s also a lot that could go wrong. I’ve heard from so many people that the romance goes out of a relationship as soon as people start sharing a living space, and I’m petrified that that is going to happen. I love how romantic Kenny’s always been toward me, but what if that slowly just…stops?

I know that I probably don’t have anything to worry about at this point, but I’ve seen what kind of environment a house can have when two people stop putting effort into their relationship and I’m scared of that happening.

How nerdy am I?

So, you know the Potter project I'm working on this summer? Well, I'm doing some really broad research, just trying to see what kinds of papers have been written about the Potterverse. I don't want to put hours of time and effort into this paper just to find out that it's already been written. Thankfully, I haven't found anything close to what I'm doing yet, though I'm sure that at least someone has written about it.

Anyway, I was doing my research and I found an article from a book that was analyzing the score of the films. The entire book had articles like that, analyzing fantasy cinema and scores. So I requested the book through the school library just because it sounded like a really fun read.

That's how nerdy I am.

I'm going to count today as a loss.

I just have a sneaking suspicion that when I get home, I'm going to put a load in the laundry and then sit around doing absolutely nothing. Ever have those days where you just know that nothing is going to be happening for the rest of the day? Because that's what I'm going to have today. I'm going to go home, nap, and watch stupid television for the rest of the day, I'm just tired and I have a headache behind my left eye that I feel isn't going to go away any time soon.

Am I being the 'crazy girlfriend'?

Okay, so, one of my biggest fears is that someday I'm going the stereotypical psycho girlfriend who freaks out about everything her boyfriend does. That being said, I'm minorly freaking out at the moment.

So, my boyfriend is friends with some of the girls he used to date. In all honesty, I don't have a problem with that. I trust him and him having friends isn't a huge deal to me. But, there's one that he's like *really* close to. Like, she has a nickname for him and only she can call him that and he's told me that she knows more about him than anyone else and he almost proposed to her when they were dating. Being the insecure, paranoid bitch that I am, she terrifies me. It's not that I don't trust my boyfriend, but I'm really insecure and she scares the shit out of me.

Having established that, I read something today. It was an offhand Facebook comment. My boyfriend posted a picture and, I don't know if she's vegan or vegetarian or what, but she was bothered by the picture. That's not the big deal, I understand being bothered by something and wanting to say something. But she was like 'You know that I love you, but I don't like this'. And seeing that she's still so comfortable telling him that she loves him made me go into full-blown panic attack mode. And he started apologizing and saying he'll back off of it and I've been freaking out about this for a few hours now.

So, am I being crazy and paranoid, or am I justified in being uncomfortable with this?

Positive Changes

For years, I've been trying to lose weight. When I say "For years" I mean that I was nine the first time I ever called myself 'fat'. That's kinda fucked up, but that's not the important point. What's important is that I'm finally making some positive changes in my life. I just want to get to a place where I like my body and can wear a bikini without feeling like shit. I want to be able to go shopping for a pair of jeans and not end the night depressed and hating my body. So I'm fixing it.

I've started running and working out in the mornings, and I've started to watch what I eat. It's small steps at first, but I feel really good about what I'm doing. I'm the kind of person who will set a plan for herself and then get super discouraged as soon as I don't rigidly adhere to it, so I've had to work on that. If I don't get up one day to go running, I have to realize that it's not the end of the world and I'll go running again tomorrow.

So yeah, that's going on now and I feel really good about it. Hopefully I'm finally able to stick to it, because I can't count the number of times I've tried and failed to start something like this.

Studious Avoidance

I live in an environment where I'm constantly having to avoid people for fear of angering them or just plain not getting along with them, Today, for example, when I got home from my run, my mother was already storming around pissy about something or other, so I showered and ran upstairs, and I've been hiding up here ever since. 

It's sad that I'm constantly having to sneak around my own house. It's not as if I'm afraid of confrontation, but my mother doesn't really handle things like an adult, so she'll just stomp around and be downright vile for hours and no one will have the slightest clue why. So, I'm staying up here for a while. Hopefully I can hide until I have to go to work.

It's funny how much I work on being out of the house or away from my family. It boils down to the fact that I don't really feel safe around them. Not unsafe physically, but emotionally and mentally. When I hang out with my family, there are usually three things that happen to me. My dad will make a joke at my expense, my mom will get angry at me for something, and my older sister will make a demeaning comment about something I like or something about my academic career. So I try to work as much as possible, and have plans to be out of the house or have Kenny over here with me as much as I can. And when I'm here, I'm up in my room or sitting somewhere with my headphones in.

Summer Projects

I don't know if I've mentioned this or not, but this summer I'm pursuing a few personal academic projects. One of these is a research project looking at the portrayal of mental illnesses in the Harry Potter series.

Basically, I'm arguing that a stigma exists around mental illnesses in the Potterverse, and characters who display mental illness symptoms are seen as weak. I'm focusing on Harry and how he displays a lot of symptoms of depression, including self-harm tendencies and suicidal thoughts.

My argument will mainly focus on books 4-7, but books 1-3 may set up why Harry develops these problems. Anyway, my first step is to read through the series and mark it up. I have colored tabs denoting the different aspects of mental illnesses, like depression, suicide, child abuse, etc.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is to say that I've finished the Sorcerer's Stone. I've tabbed and annotated it and taken notes about specific points. I'm relieved that I've finally made progress on it, so now it's just to get through the rest of the books, hopefully by the end of the summer.

Why I don't watch porn anymore.

So, I like porn. I really do. I have a problem with the objectification and subjugation of women, but there is porn that doesn't treat women like that. And that's the kind of porn I watch, when I watch porn. I do have one big issue with porn, and that's how it makes me feel.

As someone who utterly hates her body, I don't like watching women, many of whom have my ideal body type, on camera. It makes me hate my body even more and I can't do it, I can't really bring myself to watch porn anymore. Like, I'm not even cool with watching it with my boyfriend, and it's not because I have a problem with porn itself, but when I watch porn, I compare my body to theirs and it makes me hate myself and it usually makes me end up crying.

I know it's stupid and weird, but that's why I don't watch porn anymore.

Time for me to be super arrogant.

because I'm going to brag for a moment because I'm proud of myself. Long story short, in my Potter class on Tuesday morning, we were discussing want loyalty and all the changing allegiance in the last book, and people were asking why Harry didn't get some one's wand every single time  he disarmed someone.

I thought about this and proposed the idea of intent. As Bellatrix said, you have to mean the unforgivable curses, and I think the same rule applies to every spell. If you disarm with the intent of taking away some one's power, dominating them, and making them vulnerable, then the wand will change allegiance. If, however, you disarm them from an academic standpoint (Dumbledor's Army practiced expelliarmus) or from the desire to protect yourself (The trio stunning Snape in PoA), then I think the wand will likely not change allegiance.

So, take that idea and couple it with the notion of wands being a phallic symbol, a symbol of power, domination, and subjugation of someone because of you. So, making someone vulnerable, taking their wand, their phallic symbol, without their consent, do you see where I'm taking this? I think an interesting analysis can done looking at spells, intent, consent, and the sexual/sexual assault parallels that can be drawn form it.

Anyway, I was torn between writing about that or writing about my self-harm analysis for my second paper, so I emailed my teacher. She said, and I quote, "while I suspect you would write the best paper about mental illnesses, I KNOW you would write the best paper about wands and intent. If you're conflicted, I would go with the wands."

So yeah, I came up with a cool theory and my teacher said I would write the best paper about it and I am happy.

An Editorial: By Me

http://www.infowars.com/7-harsh-realities-of-life-millennials-need-to-understand/

Okay, read this article first.

Then, read this:

1.       It’s not “my feelings” that you would be hurting if you mis-gendered me. Gender pronouns are a very basic thing and you’re literally just being a pile of shit. If I say that I want to be called “him”, fucking call me “him”. It’s not that hard. Respecting someone’s fucking existence and tip-toeing around their feelings are two separate things.

2.       Okay, I actually agree with this one. Mostly. Maybe someone who is “overweight anf unattractive” can be the quarterback’s prom date. That sentence is offensive as fuck. Just, really? However, I don’t actually know of a lot of parents who blindly supported their kids like this. It is correct that you cannot be whatever you want to be, because sometimes you simply lack certain skills. But there’s nothing wrong with having big dreams and working your ass off to achieve it.

3.       Yes, because getting a degree that can help you go into a career in counseling, historical study, or even law is so fucking useless. Also “learning how to be a professional victim”? Literally what the hell? That’s so degrading.

4.       Cool, does this include the 45 million Americans who live in poverty? Or the members of the LGBTQ community who are kicked out of their house and beaten because of their sexuality or gender identity? Thank God I live in America, where old white men are still trying to regulate my fucking vagina.

5.       Okay, true, but then maybe the government could pay people enough to like, buy healthcare and a fucking place to live? I mean, it’s just a thought.

6.       There’s a difference between “accept” and “respect”. True, you do not have to accept that I’m a queer as fuck, punk bitch who loves Bernie Sanders and dirty jokes, but I swear to fuck that you are going to respect my existence. Please, feel free to approach me and we can discuss our differing views, but you better not ever fucking degrade or demean my existence because of it. Freedom of speech does not mean that I can’t call you out for being a disrespectful human being.

7.       “safe space” is simply an area that does not tolerate violence, harassment, or hate speech, particularly towards LGBTQ members, but towards any group of people. By that logic, EVERY PLACE SHOULD BE A SAFE SPACE BECAUSE NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO GO OUT IN PUBLIC FEARING HARASSMENT AND VIOLENCE BECAUSE OF THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATION.

As stated, if you disagree with me, please feel free to approach me and we can discuss it.

Harry and Ginny: The Nopest of Parings

I do not like the Harry/Ginny paring.

Not a bit.

Simply, I think it's too convenient. It's his best friend's sister, which is a terribly overdone trope, but I can let that slide. Or rather, I could, if there was any chemistry between them at all. I mean, the books show them together a lot, but before Half-Blood Prince, there's nothing but Ginny's twelve year-old obsession with him. It just comes out of nowhere. Now, book Ginny is a total bamf, but that doesn't mean she and Harry make a good couple.

And for the love of fuck, do not even get me started on the films. FUUUUUUUUCK. She literally feeds him a pie shit thing, the fuck? And then she bends down to tie his shoe?? What the actual fuck. Like, was that suggestive, since she was then at the perfect height to suck his dick? I don't get it. And then there's the kiss in the Room of Requirement and Harry's god awful horse lips.

Nope.

I'm out.

Separation Anxiety

So I got to spend the weekend with Kenny. His friend was out of town and he was house-sitting, so I stayed over with him. It was absolutely wonderful, getting to fall asleep next to my favorite person on the planet and just getting to be with him all day. But now I'm back home, sitting in my living room, working on homework, and absolutely dreading going to bed tonight.

It started years ago. my best friend at the time, Emily, lived an hour away, so I would go up there for a weekend and stay there for two nights. Then when I would come back home on Sunday nights, I would get absolutely terrified of going to bed for a couple nights. The abrupt shift from sleeping in the same room with someone to being all alone really fucks with my anxiety.

So now, not only am I going to bed alone tonight, but the person I'm missing is also the person I want to fall asleep beside every night for the rest of my life. So tonight's gonna be fun.

My plan is to do homework and watch Netflix until my eyes burn, then try to fall asleep quickly. It also doesn't help that I'm not taking my antidepressants at the moment, so I need to get back on those.

An Editorial, by Me

Okay, this article (http://theodysseyonline.com/wku/it-is-okay-to-not-be-feminist/344023) bothered me for several reasons and I can’t just ignore it, so here we go.

First of all, yes, the current movement is referred to as Fourth Wave Feminism. However, this definition was given mainly because of the interconnectivity of global feminism that has been brought around by social media. It does combine “Politics, psychology, and spirituality in an overarching vision of change.” (Diamond, 4), but overall Kira Cochrane defines it as a movement connected by technology. So, the “things” these feminists are fighting for equal representation in politics, and establishing that women are psychologically equal to men. That’s not to say that our brains work exactly the same, but it is saying that mentally, we are in no way inferior to men. Personally, I don’t understand why Sankey would not want those things, but onward.

The next section deals with the question, “Why are women considered the more domestic and nurturing ones?” And she makes some fair points. Women are the ones who carry children and it does create a bond. And I agree when she says that wanting to care for your family is okay. I however, do not agree when she says that feminists do not want you to believe these things. As a feminist, if you want to be a homemaker, I completely support that. What I do not support is the belief that women are supposed to be the homemaker and any other mold than that is odd. I don’t believe that any woman should be forced into a role she doesn’t want simply because it’s what society says she should be doing, and that is what feminists would have you believe.

Sankey also states that she believes that the only man you submit to should be your husband. I agree with the implication that women should not submit to a boss, brother, etc. But I also do not believe that I must submit to my husband. Will I respect him, both as a human and as a person in my relationship? Yes. Am I going to live my life as if he is someone that I must submit and subjugate myself to? No.  Sankey says that one of the pros of marriage is having a weight lifted off of you and having a husband to lean on so that you are no longer independent. I do not believe that these two are mutually exclusive. I am in a relationship where I do really depend on my significant other for many things, and having him to lean on has made my life so much better, but I still retain my independence. I do not have to run my entire life by him for his approval, and I never will. Even after I’m married, I won’t have to let him be over every part of my life. Am I going to share every part of my life with him and not keep secrets from him? Yes, but I will do it because I respect our partnership and not because the relationship has taken away my independence. You can have openness and respect in a relationship without having to lose your independence.

It is perfecting okay to “be a mom who takes care of her children and doesn’t miss out on their lives”, as Sankey says, but that is not what you, as a woman, must do with your life. Yes, it is okay to believe in God, but God taught us that we are all precious children to him, do you really think a loving creator like that would want women to think themselves inferior? And if the answer to that question is yes, then should we really continue to refer to him as a loving god?

References:

Original article: http://theodysseyonline.com/wku/it-is-okay-to-not-be-feminist/344023

Cochrane, Kira. The Fourth Wave of Feminism: Meet the Rebel Women. Published in The Guardian, 10 December, 2013

Diamonds, Diana. The Fourth Wave of Feminism: Psychoanalytic Perspectives. Studies in Gender and Sexuality 10. 213-223. Print

"Deep down, you know you deserve it, don't you?": A Brief Alanysis of Self-Harm Issues in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"

(Wow, two posts in one day. Clearly I'm really procrastinating)

It's been a while since I've read OotP (Order of the Phoenix) and as such, I've noticed a lot of new things as I've read it this time around. One of the new insights I've gained concern "Emo Harry" as he's commonly referred to in this book.

The main point is that Harry, especially in the beginning of this book, is severely depressed. First of all, he went through an incredibly traumatic experience, seeing Voldemort rise, and he is then almost completely cut off from his support group. Ron and Hermione do write to him, but there letters are very shallow and carry no information. The exclusion from the only society that made him feel safe and then he is shunted into a place were he is emotionally and verbally abused.

Another thing laying the foundation was the Dememtor attacks. We know that those creatures are a parallel for depression and we also know that they affect Harry on a more extreme level than most other people. So you have those aspects when he is attacked, and you also have the fact that he has no chocolate afterword aka he's not given proper treatment for a person coming out of a heavy depressive episode

Then, we see all the signs of depression. Harry goes through moments of anxious activity, pacing and constantly writing letters and hoping for information; he also has spells of heavy lethargy, lying on his bed all day, unable to even get up to turn the light on as the day becomes the evening. Then we have his moods. When he first arrives in Grimmaud and during his stay there, we often see him swing from unenthused indifference to extreme aggression within a paragraph or two. However, all this is simply laying the groundwork for the self-harm to come later.

When Umbridge gives Harry detention, she makes him carve words into his skin as he writes lines. Allow me to repeat myself. Umbridge causes Harry to cut into his own skin. That is more or less the definition of self-harm. Of course, there are other methods of self-mutilation, but cutting one's skin is the most common method. So we have Harry sitting there repeatedly slicing into his own skin. Yes, he is in detention and being forced to do it, but this is a parallel, not a part of the plot...if that makes sense.

One of the strongest pieces of evidence that this is supposed to relate to self-harm are Umbridge's remarks to Harry and his reaction to the punishment. After his first session, she says, "Deep down, you know you deserve this, don't you, Mr. Potter". Or it's incredibly close to that. I don't have the book on hand, but I'm willing to bet that, if anything, I'm less than two words off on that quote.

Anyway, that's something that can be seen as very indicative of self-harm. People who harm often feel, on some level, that the reason they hurt themselves is because they have done something in their life to deserve this punishment. We also see Harry continue to go back and subject himself to this pain, again like people who harm.

The other big thing that proves this parallel is his reaction to the punishment. His first instinct is to hide what is really going on from Ron and Hermione. The reason for this, he says, is because he is ashamed and he does not want to see the worry and concern in them. Again, relative to people who harm. They often hide their addiction because they are ashamed of what they are doing to themselves and they do not want the people they care about to know of this perceived "weakness".

The final proof I have his Harry's continued denial of his problem. When Ron calls him out and asks what's wrong with his hand, Harry continues to claim "Nothing - It's a scratch", which are quite literally words that I have heard from people who self-harm. The continued shame and denial of his problem, even when his best friend is confronting him face to face is incredibly similar to 'interventions' those who self harm. It's also important to note that once he does tell Ron and eventually Hermione, he feels incredibly relieved and they not only do not abandon him, but they help him to find remedies for his injuries.

Depression is a big theme in the Potter series and especially in this book, and it is my belief that Rowling is using this to make a comment on the stigmas we, as a society, still hold in regards to mental illness and self-mutilation.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I might believe in God.

Not really, but it made for a snappy title. I am, however, very happy right now. I was supposed to have a paper due in my History class tomorrow. It wasn't a big paper, only 2 pages, but I still had to do all the reading. But my teacher, bless her adorable little heart, decided to change the due date to next Wednesday instead, so now I have a whole week to get it done and I can spend tonight focusing on writing my paper that I have due on Friday.

So, I gave my English teacher a new Harry Potter theory.

As we all know, I am full-frontal Harry Potter trash. And, we all may all know that I have been hardcore stressing out about this paper I'm writing for the Harry Potter class I'm taking this semester.

Anyway, here's the big news:

I had a theory. I emailed my teacher about said theory. She replied and told me that she had never heard this theory.

I repeat:

I PRESENTED A TOPIC TO A HARRY POTTER SCHOLAR THAT SHE HAD NOT PREVIOUSLY HEARD

I am actually so fucking happy about this right now. Also, I just learned that I have to write two papers for this class instead of just the one. So, I can look at my topic exploring the Hogwarts houses and also give her this amazing new topic.

I'm very happy right now.

I'm Fuckin Tired

It's one of those days where I don't want to be here.

Getting out of bed was incredibly hard this morning. I wanted to curl up and spend the day hiding in bed. But I'm not a weak bitch (jk, I am), so I got up and got dressed.

That was a huge ass fuckin mistake.

So now I'm sitting in the cafeteria with terrible coffee, wishing I was in bed, warm, happy(er), and alone.

How's your Monday?

Apparently I don't like hockey.

So, everyone went to church this morning and I, since I'm a heathen who's going to hell, stayed home. So I did my normal Sunday thing. I showered, got dressed, made coffee, and settled in the living room with the tv on and a stack of homework on my lap. It was really nice. The house was quiet, I was reading a cool article for school, and there was a hockey game on.

I'm not, like, a huge sports fan, but I enjoy hockey well enough. I understand it and it's cool seeing people play it. So I was chilling, doing homework, and watching hockey. and enter sister.

She had just gotten home and she and her guy wanted to watch basketball, I guess. so she comes into the living room, and we had an exchange something like this:

Ariel: Hey, are you actually into this?
Me: Yeah, kinda..
A: Well, there's a basketball game on that Luke and I want to watch.
Me: Okay, that's cool..
A: So, I'm gonna change this then, since you're not really into it anyway.
Me:......

So, yeah, that happened. I'm so tired of her constantly thinking that I give a solitary fuck about what comes out of her mouth and I'm really fucking sick of her thinking that what she wants trumps what anyone else wants.

I'm just tired.

Social Justice

So, I'm sitting here, helping with this voter registration thing, and I'm stuck sitting next to a social justice warrior. Ugh.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for social justice, equality, everything. I'm possibly the most liberal person I know.

But this girl is the kind of person who got mad at me for calling myself gay because that, in her view, "Opresses the LGBTIQQ culture". Excuse me, tho, I'm like 12% sure that you, as a straight person, or as someone who is not me, are not allowed to tell me what I can and cannot call myself.

Fight Me

Okay. When it comes to Harry Potter, I get hella defensive. Like, if some bitch tries to act like she knows more than me, I'm willing to smack a bitch down both verbally and physically, if need be.

Which ties nicely into my story. So, there's this girl in my Potter class that is absolutely pissing me the fuck off. I can't tell if she's read the books before or not, but I don't think so. She asks the dumbest questions, but that's not why I'm pissed.

So, here's what happened. In short, I made a comment about how a scene with the Veela promoted a heteronormative culture because only men were affected by these creatures. This girl got so defensive and interrupted me and said "Well, we were only seeing the people Harry was around, so maybe we just didn't see it." Which would have been fine, but I went on to talk about how we never see any women affected by these creatures and

This bitch

Scoffed at me.

I just kind of looked at her for a moment.

Then, and this is the good part, a few moments later she said two of the dumbest things. A) She forgot who Dean Thomas was and called him the "Black minor character". Bitch! He's a secondary character. Minor my ass. B) She didn't know how the Riddles were killed or who killed them. So the whole class, including Dr. Beth, said that Tom killed them with magic...cause he's a fucking wizard. And she, get this, she said that she didn't think that's what happened.

I actually laughed. I know I'm being petty about this, but this motherfucker is trying to step to me while being so unbelievably thick, I just can't deal.

Harry Potter and The Poorly Argumented Article

As you might know, I'm taking a Harry Potter class this semester. Over the weekend, we had to read a paper titled "Harry Potter and The Magical World of Patriarchy". Basically, Christine Schoefer, the author, promotes the idea that the Potter series is anti-woman. I'm not going to go into a tom of detail about her arguments, but I'll attach the article. It's a bit over two pages long, so definitely give it a read if you have just a few moments.

I was really curious to know whether or not her point of view changed, so I did a search (Google, of course) and I actually found her blog. I wrote her an e-mail asking her what evidence she had to back her claim and if her opinion ever changed. I'm really excited to see if she e-mails me back and what she says. If she does, I'll totally post her reply.


Addemdum: I realized I cannot upload a file, so I'm going to cite and past the article below.

Harry Potter and the magical world of patriarchy. By: Schoefer, Christine, New Moon Network, 10835970, Mar/Apr2000, Vol. 7, Issue 4

Believe me, I tried as hard as I could to ignore the sexism. I really wanted to love Harry Potter. But I couldn't.

FOUR FACTORS MADE ME GO OUT and buy the Harry Potter books: their impressive lead on the bestseller lists, parents' raves about Harry Potter's magical ability to lure kids into marathon reading sessions, my daughters' clamoring, and the mile-long waiting lists at the public library. Once I opened The Scorcher's Stone, I was hooked. Glittering mystery and nail-biting suspense, compelling language and colorful imagery, magical feats juxtaposed with real-life concerns all contributed to making this book a page-turner. Of course, Diagon Alley haunted me, the Sorting Hat dazzled me, Quidditch intrigued me. Believe me, I tried as hard as I could to ignore the sexism. I really wanted to love Harry Potter. But I couldn't. At the risk of being labeled a heavy-handed feminist with no sense of humor, I feel compelled to issue a warning: reading Harry Potter may be detrimental to your child's conception of women and girls.

Harry's fictional realm of magic and wizardry perfectly mirrors our patriarchal world in terms of power structures, relationship dynamics, and behavior cliches. From the beginning, it is boys and men, wizards and sorcerers who catch our attention by dominating the scenes and determining the action. Harry, of course, plays the lead. In his epic struggle with the forces of darkness--the evil wizard Voldemort and his male henchmen--Harry is supported by the venerable good wizard Dumbledore and a colorful cast of male characters. Girls, when not downright silly or dislikable, are helpers, enablers, and instruments. No girl is heroic the way Harry is, no female figure is permitted to play on the side of evil. But, you interject, what about Harry's good friend Hermione--isn't she a main character? After a long struggle for his acceptance, Hermione becomes Harry's sidekick. Their relationship reminds me of Dennis the Menace and Margaret's: Hermione is a smart goody-goody who annoys the boys by constantly reminding them of school rules. Early on, she is described as "a bossy know-it-all," hissing at the boys "like an angry goose" Halfway through the first book, when Harry rescues her with Ron's assistance (she freezes, "her mouth open with terror" before she "sinks to the floor in fright"), the hierarchy of power is established. Hermione repays the boys with her complicity--she lies to cover up for them.

True, Hermione is the smartest student at Hogwarts, but there is something pathetic about her. Maybe it's the way she works so hard to get Harry and Ron's approval and respect, in spite of the boys' constant teasing and rejection. Maybe it's the fact that she has no girlfriends, but then, there don't seem to be any girls at Hogwart's School of Magic worth her attention. (A good affirmative action program would do wonders for the school--and the book.) Maybe it's the fact that, again and again, her emotions interfere with her intelligence. When it comes to applying her knowledge, she loses her head. Although Hermione casts successful spells for the boys, she messes up her own and consequently hides in the bathroom with cat fur on her face. Maybe it's because in the end, her knowledge and her effort can never hold a candle to Harry's glorious, rule-defying courage.

Even though Hermione eventually earns the boys' begrudging respect and friendship, her thirst for knowledge remains a constant source of irritation for them. And who can blame them? Hermione, whose nose seems stuck in books, is no fun. She may not be hung up on her looks, but her relentless studying has the all characteristics of a disorder: it makes her ill-humored, threatens her health, and renders her oblivious to her surroundings.

Ron's younger sister, Ginny, who can't help blushing and stammering around Harry, fares even worse than Hermione. "Stupid little Ginny" unwittingly becomes the tool of evil, when she writes into a magical diary. For months and months, Voldemort's agent tells us, "the foolish little brat" confides "all her pitiful worries and woes--how her brothers tease her... how she didn't think famous good great Harry Potter would ever like her..." to these pages. We are told that "it's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year old girl." (my italics).

The male characters join the all-important struggle between good and evil. Women as well as the girls seem so distracted by the small matters at hand and so caught up in their emotions that they lose sight of the bigger picture. Without exception, the girls shriek, scream, gasp, and giggle (in the presence of boys) in situations where boys retain their composure.

This description of guests in the Leaky Cauldron pub sums up the author's valuing of male and female: there are "funny little witches," "venerable looking wizards" who argue philosophy, "wild looking warlocks," "raucous dwarfs," and a "hag" ordering a plate of raw liver. Where would you like to fit in? rest my case.

But I remain perplexed that a woman, the mother of a daughter, could, at the turn of the 20th century, write a book so full of subtle and bold misogyny. And I am troubled by my daughters' willingness to ignore these stereotypes. Surely, it is girls' ability to mentally morph into boy's characters that enables them to enjoy the story. True, this practice conditions our mental dexterity, perhaps even our empathic ability. But boys, who are never expected to read "girls' books" (meaning books that feature a female protagonist) don't seem to require this kind of training.

I remember well my own realization, as a teenager, that the characters with whom I had identified were all male. Literary female role models were few and far between. I have no doubt that slipping into the role of the male hero, which required that I both abdicate and trivialize female life experience, interfered with my ability to shape a strong identity as a girl and a woman.

After wondering for a while how to cushion the impact of Harry Potter's messages for my daughters, who are happily devouring the books as I write, I decided to take the risk of spoiling their fun by telling them the story of this "book review." They listened intently but I could sense their resistance. Of course, they agreed with me that Harry (and even Ron) was much more exciting than Hermione, but it had not occurred to them that they could be bothered by that fact. Without my years of study and experience to school their critical perception, they simply took the book for what it was--an exciting story that existed without a larger social and cultural context. They slipped into the characters and situations they liked best, never stopping to consider how much smoother the fit might be if they got to love the female characters.

Certainly, my comments didn't stop them from reading the books, or mitigate their appreciation of them. "Sometimes," my 10-year-old explained to me, "I think about what you said. But mostly, I just enjoy the story." My 12-year-old nodded her agreement and wondered why a mother of a daughter would choose to write so positively about a Harry instead of a Peggy. But I'm left wondering.

On the one hand, I'm glad that their ability to appreciate stories is not so easily spoiled. For what would there be left to read if they avoided all literature with gendered stereotypes? But on the other hand, I do hope that I have planted a seed--a seed of awareness and critical ability that will blossom into a search for images (and realities) of strong, creative, and vital girls and women, and of boys and men who are not threatened by them.

Book guides for girls

Try one of these guides if you're looking for books featuring strong girls and women.

The Mother-Daughter Book Club: How Ten Busy Mothers and Daughters Came Together to Talk, Laugh, and Learn Through Their Love of Reading, by Shireen Dodson, HarperCollins, 1997

Once Upon A Heroine: 450 Books for Girls to Love, by Alison Cooper-Mullin and Jennifer Marmaduke Coye, Contemporary Books, 1998

Great Books for Girls: More Than 600 Books To Inspire Today's Girls and Tomorrow's Women, by Kathleen Odean, Ballantine, 1997

A few good books for girls

Climb or Die, by Edward Myers, Hyperion, 1994 (adventure, ages 10-13)

Rachel Chance, by Jean Thesman, Houghton, 1990 (adventure, ages 11-14)

The Shimmershine Queens, by Camille Yarbrough, Random House (contemporary, ages 9-12)

Toning the Sweep, by Angela Johnson, Orchard, 1993 (contemporary, ages 11-14).

Who Let Girls in the Boys' Locker Room? by Elaine Moore, Troll, 1994 (sports, ages 10-13)

Run For Your Life, by Marilyn Levy, Houghton, 1996 (sports, ages 13-14)

Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry, Houghton, 1989 (historical fiction, ages 9-12)

The Ballad of Lucy Whipple, by Karen Cushman, Houghton, 1996 (historical fiction, ages 8-11)

The Midwife's Apprentice, by Karen Cushman, Clarion, 1995 (historical fiction, ages 11-14)

Catherine, Called Birdy, by Karen Cushman, Clarion, 1994 (historical fiction, ages 8-11)

Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine, HarperCollins, 1997 (fantasy/science fiction, ages 8-11)

Dealing With Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede, Harcourt Brace 1990 (fantasy/ science fiction, ages 8-11, the first in a series of four books called The Enchanted Forest Chronicles)

~~~~~~~~

By Christine Schoefer

Christine Schoefer is a Berkeley, California, writer with two daughters. She has written for Mothering, The Nation, The Los Angeles Times, and many other publications.

Don't Drop That Thun Thun Thun

I didn't drop that thun thun thun (Is that even how it's spelled??) but I did drop my Stats class. I feel kind of weak for having to drop it, but I think it'll be good for me in the long run.

See, even without Stats, I'm taking five classes and they all have papers and oresentation and research projects and so so so so so much reading. There's usually at least two nights a week where I'll have 200+ pages of reading to do in a night. Now, add in Stats. I was probably putting in 4ish hours of homework just for that class every week. And I still wasn't doing well.

If I had kept it, I probably would have (A) killed my GPA at the end of the semester and (B) really stressed myself out. My goal for this semester is to not get so stressed out over school that I start crying, so I made the decision to drop Stats to protect my mental health.

I'm the kind of person who gets easily overwhelmed, so I probably would not have handled the class very well. Kenny pointed that out and told me that he completely supported my decision to drop Stats and that he thought it was a really good idea. I love that he always has my back, because I know that if he told me that dropping the class was a good idea, then he really believed that, because he doesn't bullshit with me.

So yeah, I still have a crazy bust schedule, but at least now I'll probably retain my mental sanity for the whole semester.

Probably.

Late Night Thoughts

Let's talk about the phrase "No one's gonna love you until you love yourself". Specifically, I wanna talk about why it's total bullshit. Basically, it's saying that until we're happy with ourselves, we're not going to find people to care about us. So, since I have body issues, I can't expect to have people in my life that love me? Until I get to a place where I can genuinely say I love myself, I'm never going to find people to love me? No. Fuck no.

You want to know something? The guy I've been with for the last ten months has loved me more than I ever thought I deserved. He's loved me at times when I absolutely despised myself. During those times, he never stopped telling me that he loved me and that I was cared for. He's helped me to find some things about myself that I like, and maybe even love.

Don't ever let someone tell you that you don't deserve someone's love just because you have issues with yourself. Sometimes, it's those people who are going to help you find some things to like about yourself in those times when you're disgusted just by being you. Let people in, let them help you learn to love yourself. Don't cut yourself off just because you don't think you deserve love. Because you do. You so fucking do.

LIES!!

Lies as in the show "Lie to Me". I may have talked about it already, but I don't think so. Long story short, Kenny and I went and saw "The Hateful 8", the new Tarantino movie. There was a British guy, so I looked at Kenny and said, "That British guy is really fucking hot. Which probably means he's a bad guy." Because I have this weird gift where I always subconsciously find the bad guy in films and I think he or she is sexy as fuck.

So, hot British guy. You follow?

Kenny later told me that that guy was Tim Roth and he played the lead in a show called "Lie to Me". So, naturally, I started binge watching it on Netflix. I've gotten through the first season already.

I was watching it and texting Kenny last night and he asked me how far into it I was. So, I looked. I told him that I had just started season two. And then I also found out that this show only had three season. So I texted him. The conversation looked something like this:

Me: OH MY GOD THERE'S ONLY THREE SEASONS
Kenny: Yeah, I should have warned you about that.
Me: OH MY GOD YOU KNEW?!?!?!
Kenny: I forgot!
Me: I cannot

I was lowkey distraught. I'm so bummed about it, the show is fucking incredible. You should watch it if you haven't already.

So yeah, that was my night last night.

It's week 3 for Christssake!!!

So, tomorrow in my history class, I have to turn in my research proposal topic for my semester project. I need to give my professor my broad topic and a specific question that my research is going  to answer. My topic is witches, for my question, I want to answer why women were more often considered witches and what it meant when a man was considered a witch.

But here's the thing. It's literally the third week of classes. I'm still trying to get the feel of what this semester is going to be like. God above, I can't be thinking about huge research projects yet!

Though, I really love this class and I think I will like the project, but it's going to be a lot of work. Last semester, I also had a research project, but I was lazy, so I didn't work hard on it and I ended up with a half assed project. So this semester, I'm going to start early and actually do this shit right this time.

An Interesting Obsevation On The Paenting Skills of Lucius Malfoy

So, in my Potter class today, Ashlyn brought up a super interesting point.

We were discussing the scene in CoS where Draco called Hermione a Mudblood. The class was talking about how it's a racial slur and how that's a big theme in the whole book. Okay, actually I have two things to talk about.

First. There was a guy in the classroom who was like, "Well, Hermione was touching a nerve and he just lashed out the only way he knew how.". Like okay, he lashed out. But he lashed out with a fucking racial slur That is not okay. No matter what someone says to 'hit a nerve' you can't throw a racial slur at someone. And I'm sick of people trying to excuse Draco so that they can justify liking him as a character. Like, I like the character of Draco Malfoy, but he's kinda a douche and calling Hermione a mudblood is really fucking shitty.

Also, Ashlyn brought up the fact that these kids are 12 fucking years old at this point. This kid is throwing sound racial slurs at 12. That's fucking ridiculous! What kind of fucking father is Lucius that Draco had learned these insult's before he's even hit puberty! When reading these books, I tend to forget just how young these characters are at the start of the series, and it makes it kind of worse.

So, that's my Harry Potter commentary for today.

When Angry Girlfriends Attack

Ok, I didn't attack. And I wasn't angry, per se.

Here's the lowdown. Kenny and  I were sitting in my car after work last night talking. Somehow, we got on the subject of Harry Potter. While we were talking, I realized that the battle of Hogwarts was almost twenty years in the past. He didn't understand that I was talking about the narrative timeline and he got confused because "that book only came out ten years ago". So I agreed and told him that we knew what year it was placed in in the book universe because we knew Harry's birth year. He said that we couldn't know it "for sure". so, I explained to him how Harry's birth year can be found because of the Deathday party that Nearly-Headless Nick has. If you're not familiar with that scene in the books,check out this and this.

Basically, the book tells us that it's Nick's 200-whatever deathday. I can't remember what the number is. But, Nick also mentions that he was killed in a certain year. So, add the two together and you get the current year (1992). We know that Harry is currently 12, so subtract and you get his birth year (1980). Also, Jo confirmed this.

So, I explained this to him and I got really animated because I love telling people about this Easter egg. I also ended the explanation with, "And that's what the fuck is up!". When I was done, he just kind of looked at me. Then he said, "But they're just books. Sometimes I think you need to be more grounded in reality."

I more or less kicked him out of my car two minutes after that.

Here's the thing. I wasn't mad, I was upset and hurt and kind of offended. Here's the thing, "They're just books" is the same thing that I've been hearing my whole life, and I never thought that Kenny would throw that in my face. I know I'm very intense when it comes to Harry Potter and I know that I can seem like I'm too obsessed with it, but genuinely I'm not.

Harry Potter has literally been something I've grown up with. Since first grade, I've been reading about and watching these characters. Personally, I'm proud of my extensive knowledge about it. I feel like it's something that is very much my own, no one else I know is into it at this level. It's something that I excel at and I never feel like I'm good enough at anything, so I kind of cling to this one facet of my life that I'm good at.

But that doesn't mean that I'm not grounded in reality. When he told me I needed to get more down to earth is the point where I did actually get kind of mad. I get up at 6 am everyday, work my ass off in all my classes, work my ass off at my job, work my ass off at home. and he say's I'm not grounded enough. And as someone who has to deal with anxiety and depression like I do, I need to be really connected to the world around me, because if I get too in my head, I start getting low.

The thing is, he knows what I deal with and he knows how hard I work in every single thing I do and he still felt it necessary to say those things to me. The worst part is, he sounded just like my mom, because she's said those exact words to me about Harry Potter.

The only other time Kenny ever sounded like my mom was after my haircut a few months ago. He told me it looked butch, which is the same adjective my mom uses when she's insulting me. And it really got to me when Kenny said that. It got to me so much that I genuinely really dislike my hair and I'm really insecure about it now. And I used to love it and think it was one of my best features. I know he didn't mean to hurt me and he's apologized and I totally forgive him, but I still have this massive insecurity about it that stems from what he told me.

And now he's sounding like my mom again and I'm terrified. I'm terrified that he just thinks that I'm some immature kid who doesn't know how the real world works. I'm terrified that he's starting to get sick of me. More than anything, though, I'm terrified that every time I start to talk about Harry Potter or read it or watch it, that I'll remember what he said and I'll start to push it away and develop an aversion to it in the same way that I began to hate my hair. I know that wasn't his intention, and that's why I'm not mad, but the fact is that every time the subject of Harry Potter comes up between us, I'm going to change the subject as fast as possible because I don't want to annoy him.

I'm still actually really upset about all this. I'm trying not to let it affect me, but I feel like it is. Right after it happened last night, I actually had some reading I had to do for the Potter class and I almost couldn't bring myself to do it because I just felt sick looking at it. I know I'm probably being over dramatic and taking this too far, I get that. But I already have this really deep fear that everyone, even Kenny, finds me annoying and hearing him say things like that seems to only confirm my suspicions and it scares the shit out of me.

So, that was my Monday night.

How to Tutor When You're Going Blind

Actually a genuine concern for me right now. I have an eye condition where, basically, I have blood vessels behind my eyes that press on my retinas and make everything look distorted. It used to just be my left eye but it's starting to happen in my right eye. Reading has become really difficult, which sucks, because I have to do a ton of reading. But, I have an appointment next Wednesday, so I'll get shots in my eyes and it'll get better.

So yeah, reading has become genuinely difficult, but I refuse to let this stop me in any way. I want this degree too much to quit. I don't care how hard I have to try, I'll do all the damn reading I have to.

Anyways. So, as you know, I have a job tutoring as OSU Lima, where I go to school. There are some students that are required to come in for tutoring twice a week. When they do, we, the tutors, fill out a report so that the teachers and administration know that the students are coming in and meeting the requirements to pass the course. They need 22 appointments, so there's a tally by each students name in the database. It's the first week of the semester and I was putting in a report for one of my students. I noticed that they had two appointments already and I felt proud. Proud that my student already had more appointments than anyone else's. That made me realize two things. 1) I like knowing that I'm helping someone achieve their goals. Because even though some of these kids don't really want to be here, I'm helping them pass their class and improve their writing skills. I also realized that 2) I'm a cocky bastard and I love knowing that I'm 'beating' the other tutors.

But, I have homework and another student should be showing up for their appointment soon.

Duces

Spring Semester

Spring semester and it's a fucking 9 degrees out. I protest!

But, all joking aside, today's the first day of classes, and I'm actually really excited. Aside from Stats, I'm really excited for all of my classes. I'm taking a Criminology, Thematic Elements in Harry Potter, Poetry I, Rebellious Women in 19th Century Literature, and Women in Modern European History. So, a bunch of bomb ass classes. I just hate Math and I'm terrible at it, so Stats is the one class I'm taking that I'm not really stoked about,

I also have a job tutoring on campus. I'm an English tutor, so I sit around and help people who need more support when they write papers. It's awesome because if I have no appointments and there are no walk-ins, then I get paid to sit around, do homework, and talk to the other tutors, all of whom are extremely cool. So yeah, it's not a bad job and it's going to look awesome on a resume someday.

I'm actually tutoring now. Well, I'm on the clock. I have no appointments, so I'm just blogging. Though, I do have class in 15 minutes, so I'm out.