Wow. The first African-American President was elected on November 4, 2008. I am so proud to be apart of this point in history. So proud.
Ten Thoughts on the Debate (The 4th & Last Part) October 16, 2008
10. Why did it have to be Joe the plumber? Why couldn’t it be Jenny the accountant? Or Jill the architect? (Joe was mentioned 26 times!)
9. I wish I could give Obama a hug for saying that abortion rights should not be subject to “popular referendum any more than any other Constitutional right”.
8. Sarah Palin in NOT my role model.
7. Was John McCain implying that women’s health is a joke by making quotation marks with his fingers when he said the “health” of the mother?
6. This was the first time I heard that Obama was for charter schools and merit pay for teachers. I’m going to have to look into this.
5. By saying that he wanted to help women to have the courage to have the baby, was McCain calling women who have abortions cowards?
4. The term in pro-choice, not pro-abortion. Asshole.
3. I’m truly afraid that if McCain is elected, he WILL overturn Roe v. Wade.
2. Sarah Palin’s son has Down’s Syndrome, not Autism.
1. There were at least three times throughout the debate when I had no idea what McCain was trying to say.
Ten Thoughts on the Debate (Part 3) October 8, 2008
10. Obama is somehow responsible for the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac crisis.
9. I’m apparently John McCain’s “friend”. Um…yay?
8. “We’re not rifle shots here…we’re Americans!” Really? I had no idea.
7. How bad would a spending freeze be for the teachers of the world (well, America)?
6. Yay for doubling the Peace Corps!
5. Poor Tom.
4. I really wish I was old enough to vote in this election.
3. How’s McCain going to get anything done if he’s not popular with either party in Washington?
2. Nuclear power is safe and clean? Where does he live? Under a rock?
1. “That one.” Ouch.
Ten Thoughts on the Debate (Part 2) October 3, 2008
10. Did Sarah Palin really say “Joe 6-pack”?
9. Sarah Palin used the term “maverick” 2-3 times. Ugh.
8. Sarah Palin couldn’t get 15 minutes into the debate without mentioning hockey moms.
7. Sarah Palin says “darn right” too much.
6. “Patriotic is saying that the private sector needs to grow.” What????????????
5. I love how Palin has to keep looking at her notes and Joe Biden doesn’t.
4. “We’re going to fix the problem by putting politics aside.” Uh…
3. Just because energy and economy start with the same letter doesn’t mean they’re the same thing (focus, Sarah, focus!).
2. I really wish Obama/Biden would fully commit to civil gay marriage. 😦
1. Sarah Palin likes answering tough questions…
Ten Thoughts on The Debate September 27, 2008
10. Jim Lehrer sounded like a marriage counselor (“Don’t tell me, tell him.”).
9. Nonetheless, Jim Lehrer is still amazing (he even made the Senators answer the questions!).
8. McCain looked terrified.
7. Obama did not.
6. McCain is going to veto every single spending bill? Really?
5. McCain wants us to have health care options. I think this is pretty funny, considering his stance on abortion/birth control.
4. For no apparent reason, McCain kept laughing when Obama was talking.
3. I hope McCain doesn’t plan on “freezing” spending on education.
2. McCain wasn’t voted Miss Congeniality.
1. McCain exaggerated/outright lied a lot. Hence the fact that Obama kept having to say, “That’s not true.”
Deliberate Ambiguity September 7, 2008
AP Lang essay number three. Enjoy.
Her hair was not a color that one would typically find in nature and she had more metal pierced through her skin than the Daytona Speedway during the 500. Her tattoos were not of cute little fairies or beautiful angels. She didn’t own any “stylish” clothing. She never wore a lick of make-up. And she didn’t care that her eyes were too close together.
She couldn’t make small talk to save her life. She laughed at her own bad jokes. She had no idea how to flirt. She never raised her hand in class, even if she knew the answer. She liked spending time alone.
Nirvana was on her iPod, as were the Backstreet Boys. If you asked her, she wouldn’t be able to tell you who Tiger Woods was. She hated “Future Mrs. [Celebrity]” t-shirts. Pink was not her color of choice. American Idol wasn’t her favorite TV show.
At first glance, she might seem unique. She wouldn’t disagree.
There are carbon copies of her in every town, in every city. She is the little girl in front of you in line at the grocery store waiting to buy a candy bar. The teenager sitting in the back of your class. The woman changing her tire on the side of the road. The one that gets overlooked because she cannot be placed.
But “she” is okay with who she is. She isn’t going to change to suit anyone’s fancy. She isn’t going to try and follow anyone’s model. She is who she is.
And she likes it that way.
It’s so short!
What I Believe But Cannot Prove September 1, 2008
Another essay for my AP Lang class.
Being raised in a Christian home, I believed for a good fifteen years that “good” people went to heaven and “bad” people went to hell. I believed that homosexuality was a sin. That abortion was anti-life. That’s just how it works, ya know? You believe what your parents teach you to believe. Or at least I did.
And then, I’m not sure what happened, but I started to believe the opposite of what I was taught.
Some may say it’s just teenage rebellion. I’d like to think it’s not.
The first thing my friend, who spent the summer in Bangladesh on a missions trip, said to me when I first told her that I was pro-choice was that abortion was murder. And of course, murder is one of the “Thou Shall Nots” (Exodus 20:13).
Because everyone has the right to their own opinion, I didn’t argue. I wanted to, though. I did. I even know what I would have said.
I would have said that I believe it is a Constitutional and moral right to be able to control your own reproduction. That I don’t believe that a woman should be forced to maintain another life at the expense of her own. That pregnancy shouldn’t be a “consequence”, as pro-lifers would say, of sex.
“I bet he’s/she’s gay.” You have no idea how many times I’ve heard my mother say this. At the dentist. At the grocery store. Driving down the road. Watching TV.
Usually, I just ignore her. On one occasion, though, I asked her what she had against homosexuality.
“The Bible say it’s wrong,” she said.
Well, okay. This is not untrue (Leviticus 18:22). But the Bible also says that if a man dies childless, his widow is to have sex with each of his brothers until she bears her deceased husband a male heir (Mark 12:18-27). Good stuff.
I didn’t argued about this either, of course.
And the biggest thing about Christianity that bothers me is the concept of hell. I refuse to believe that even mass murderers deserve to spend all of eternity being punished for something they did in a lifetime that likely lasted less than 100 years.
Plus, if God is truly as loving as Christians believe He is, shouldn’t He give everyone a second chance in the kingdom of heaven?
Teenage rebellion or not, my beliefs, however “strange” they may be, are still my beliefs. I can’t prove them any more than Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, et cetera can prove theirs. And I think that that’s okay.
In the end, I doubt it matters what we believe so much as it matters that we believe.
Amen.
It didn’t turn out as well as I would have liked it to, but I guess it could be worse.
How School “Works” August 24, 2008
I wrote this for my AP Lang class and I thought that someone out there might enjoy it.
Imagine, for the sake of this essay, that you are not a clever high school teacher, but an average high school student. You’re not what most people would consider “smart”, but you don’t belong in a Best Buddies program, either. You’re just an ordinary dude who doesn’t really like or dislike high school.
This is how a typical school day might “work” for you:
You get up around 7:30. You let the dog out, change into your school clothes, eat some breakfast, brush your teeth, then head out for the bus. It’s supposed to pick you up at 8:10, but 80% of the time, it’s about ten minutes late. “Traffic’s terrible,” the bus driver always says.
Because of this, you have less time in homeroom to do your Trig homework, which is really quite unfortunate because you have no idea how to solve logarithmic equations. And because Trig’s your first period class, it’s unlikely that you’ll have time to copy off of anyone before the assignment gets collected.
Yet another 0% in the gradebook.
Next stop is World History, where you have a test on events that occurred between 558 and 258 years ago, which you “forgot” to study for. It’s worth 30% of your final grade. But it’s no big deal; you already have a high-ish grade in the class and you did well on the other two tests, so how hard could this one be, right?
Wrong.
You ask to go to the bathroom so that you can panic in private over the fact that you don’t know a single answer, but are told that no, you cannot. Why? Because you haven’t finished your test. Perfect.
Luckily for you, your next class is English, which you happen to enjoy. And to make up for the test you just failed, you get an essay you did back with a 95% in the corner and only one or two negative comments scribbled along the edges.
At lunch, you have mac-n-cheese and those little shrimp things that you can never remember the name of. Neither are any good, of course: it’s school food.
Your fourth and last class of the day is band. Unfortunately, this is not your choice. Your parents make you do it because apparently a 3.2 GPA and a short stint in the FBLA won’t get you into a good college. But band will.
Well, you think, define “good”.
And did I mention that you are terrible at band?
On the bus ride home, you rest your head against the window, replaying the day in your head. Replaying everyday, really.
And you wonder: Is the school “system” right in making us take four math classes when we realized after one that we were going into a career that is as ‘unmath’ related as possible? Does being able to do well on a test really make us smart? Is it okay to try our hardest and still not succeed? Are we really being made into the adults that we’re expected to become?
All these things are still running through your head as you open your front door, as your mom asks you how your day was. As you eat dinner.
Don’t know the answer?
Me either.
Barack Obama’s running mate is… August 23, 2008
That guy (on the left). Joe Biden. I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, he says he supports Roe v. Wade, which I’m a HUGE supporter of, but is not really interested in expanding access to low-income women. One the other hand, he voted to expand contraception access.
There are about a billion others examples I could put, but I just don’t have the time.
I will never understand why people think this is okay. August 21, 2008
Up to this point, I have not posted anything that was about me, personally. It’s not something I like to do and I’m sure it will be a long time before I do it again. But I think I have to. Just because it really upset me.
…
Okay. So. I’m a junior in high school and I’ve been in the school’s marching band since my freshman year. I was in my middle school’s marching band (for those of you who don’t know, middle school marching band is VERY different from high school marching band) for 7th and 8th grade. And before that, I was in a majorette group. You’d think, by now, I’d have some idea how to march in time. But I don’t. I know I should. But I don’t.
Earlier today, toward the end of a four hour practice, I was having a great deal of trouble (more than usual) staying in step. I think it may have had something to do with the fact that the sets had been changed a bit, but in the long run, that isn’t a very good excuse for someone who has been marching for quite a while.
Anyway, I guess I was shuffling my feet to try to get back in step. And while I’m sure it did look quite silly, I don’t think it gave anyone the right to make fun of me for it while I was STANDING RIGHT BESIDE THEM as if I wasn’t there.
I won’t give any names. That would be fatuous. But I would like to say to all of you people reading this who have ever made fun of someone while there was a chance that the person could hear you, IT’S NOT FUNNY. Okay, so it’s never funny, but still. It doesn’t matter whether you think they’re smart enough to understand that you’re making fun of them or not. You might be wrong. And even if they aren’t…well, that still doesn’t make it okay.
EVERYONE has feelings. Even people who happen to be really bad at things.
The Ramblings of a Teenage Feminist 