Flappers and all that jazz

I wish I was born in another time period...don't get me wrong, I actually like the 2000s with all the great music (i mean we have more than just pretty boy bands, we DO have some real music out there), the great technology (as much as I hate hashtags, I think twitter's pretty cool) and

some cool things going on (the church is starting to accept gay people, and I'm expecting our current pope to actually let women be priests)- 

yes that about sums up the 2000s for me- 

                                                        music, social justice (almost there), technology (only partially). 

Hell.. that about sums up everything I care about in my life- 

    (you can now see why this site is titled 'Yeah I'm A Teenage Blogger' now haha)

Well IF I was born in any other time period, I'd probably choose (because this is my world, and here we have a free choice of which era to be born in) the 1920's, the roaring 20's yeah.

Everyone  knows about how the 20's was a time when there was much illegal drinking because alcohol was prohibited (I know most people's reaction to this law was something like "wait...wah..bu..wat?!" but I think I understand why they did it).

                       But the 20's was so much more than speak-easies (illegal bars with actual passwords :)

and dancing women and jazz music. It was something else, it was the AGE of progress (even more so than the progressive era!). 

                       Women TOTALLY rose up. These 1920's ladies laid the foundation for what we are today. They started going to college and getting a job (or at least going to high school and getting a job), they started fashion, they started make-up, they started flirting- in other words, they started the woman race as it is today. 

                         Without the 1920s women would have been like: 

From this 

To this

that girl at whose birth everyone flinched because she was a girl. That girl who stayed at home all day and did house work for her mother.
That girl who compliantly married the man of her parents' choice.
That girl who now stayed at home all day and did house work for her husband.

That girl who enjoyed her sad little life because it was all she knew.

Now that the 20s came around, the women had more to do. I admit that it wasn't like all the women just suddenly woke up one day and went, "Oh my God! my life is going to ruins! I must totally leave the house and get out there! I need to see the world!". And that's partially because we don't usually say stuff the moment when we wake up (it's more like uhuuuhh.....hucbdsb which is sleep code for "I want to be asleep right now!!") and also because nobody actually says things like that.
                      It was just the circumstances, women had just gotten the right to vote. They thought they were on top of things. They'd been working through the war to keep up the economy and were feeling pretty accomplished. So they got out of the house, they got jobs, they got themselves some money.
              That's when it started, the nations first generation of shoppers! These ladies were great! Skirts became littler, co-eds became commoner (more common?) - you were finally allowed to spend the rest of your life with someone you actually knew and liked!! and make-up started to exist :)

I may not be the biggest fan of slutty dresses and make up, but...I guess these guys are an exception. I mean, the life of a woman in the 1900's was probably torture- I'd take slutty dresses and make up over forced child birth and spousal rape any day.

                 But as usual, the "elders" had a problem with the girls. Don't they always? They called these women "flappers"- I suppose that this was their idea of a 'bad word' haha. Obviously it didn't work. We all love 'em now...I mean I think I saw 6-7 "flapper" costumes this halloween and what it did was make me smile.

The flappers were the best thing that happened to the women of the world- they finally made the girls "one of the boys".

How this connects to the world today is the Miley Cyrus talk and all the twerking and *other things* going on there...
                  Is Miley Cyrus the flapper of our generation? Is what we call too much going to be not that much in the future? Are people in the 2100's going to be smiling at all the controvery around the 2013 VMAs?

When are we going to stop? How much progress is too much progress?

I think that the "progress" we are seeing here with Miley Cyrus and all her little follower twerkers is not progress at all...
I mean I don't really have a problem with Miley Cyrus or her amazing nerve (honestly, I admire her for everything) It's just that we're going back to the same old days, the woman entertains the man.

It's okay, women can do whatever they want. That's the idea. I hope this thought doesn't get woozy, I hope no one runs away with the idea that women's progress is twerking heaven--because it isn't.
Women can entertain men, I'm not saying it's wrong or anything...But it's just as long as there're men to entertain women too...That's real gender balance.

I actually think Miley Cyrus has got the right idea, she did seem a bit offended-  talking about how nobody gossips about the guy behind the booty who seems to be enjoying himself, but about the booty itself. (Hey I think that's a quote!! I see a future here :)

So lets just hope all the other trend-setters have they're sights set for the right kind of progress.

(Note: this is NOT a Miley Cyrus post, it's a progress post, it's 1920's salute post---I'm still trying to convince ,myself haha)

Lets give Nuclear Power a chance...can we please?

I know its scary but I really think that's its time for the big Change (its big enough to be capitalized!)
(PS this is a nuclear power plant in the far islands of Germany)

So they're closing another Nuclear Power Plant. Another one. 
                         That's definitely the last straw (though technically for me, it would be the first one. I really haven't really been in the closing nuclear power plants and other groovy news items loop :p ). I seriously think that if things keep going this way, we won't have any (nuclear) power plants left. Imagine that!
                         Most people have an incredibly bad opinion about nuclear power plants, calling it "dangerous" and "unnecessary". It seems like a lot of drama over something that's a good thing :/ 
                            
                        First of all, nuclear power plants aren't dangerous! I don't know what put that notion into people's heads (actually I do, if you're remembering all those explosions. Take note that there has been only one actual dangerous nuclear disaster in history and that was at Chernobyl. Want to know how many people died of it? 56). I'm not saying that it's okay for 56 people to die, if it's just 56 people. 
            I'm saying that nuclear disasters, which people think would happen everyday, almost never happen! We've had only one dangerous one so far, and it was 27 years ago! Technology has improved, we're only getting better at making energy. It's a lot safer now, we haven't had an accident in a looong time (I choose to ignore Fukushima- no I haven't been living under a rock, I know that it happened- because the death toll isn't in. So far they have just one man who died within a 20-mile radius due to anything that remotely resembles over-exposure to high radiation levels). 
                         And also, its not like Nuclear Power Plants are the only ones that have accidents...(because I'm not here to cover up the mistakes made in the past, they're here and there's nothing we can do about it-except for learn from them, which we do- I'm here to point fingers!) Other sources of energy are equally dangerous, sometimes- and by that I mean most of the time- these other sources are a LOT more dangerous. My obvious example would be oil!

That would be uncomfortable on my roof too

Yes i have resorted to cute animal pictures
But hey! they work :)

• First they build they're huge drilling machines over the pretty (dangerous and slippery) Arctic landscape.
• They they take it out. But what good is oil if its all stuck in the Arctic right? So now they take their humongous oil tankers up there to get all the oil back. They aren't even CAREFUL with it. Oils spills are soo common nowadays...(seriously, you can go Google "oil spill in the news" right now and you would probably get news about an oil spill that occurred yesterday or maybe last week?)There have been more than 150 dangerous oil spills recorded in history. The Exxon Valdez and BP oil spills are some of the worst. Just because the ones affected aren't people (in this case, adorable sea otters and other amazing creatures of the sea) doesn't mean that we shouldn't care!

Oil refinery in the UAE

• Then this oil (if it survives an oil spill that is) is taken to a refinery to be well, refined. That's where the people dying part comes in. Do you know how much an oil refinery pollutes the environment in a year? I don't know and I don't want to. Polluted air sucks, it kills people...more than 56 people (I don't mean to offend the 56 who died but I really need them for my comparisons. I'm not evil! Don't judge me!!). THIS is what most environmentalists are always talking about. The ozone layer, polluted air...it all seems so repetitive...but hey! I guess that's the price you pay right?
• Then this refined oil is put into cars, airplanes and all the other ego-rising vessels for transportation and what do we get? More pollution!! yay! (plush interiors and all that jazz to death right?) 
• OR that refined oil is burned to give us "energy" (so what do we have now? A lot of pollution and maybe, just maybe a little titchy bit of energy which isn't enough. Who would've thought?)

                      Now why did I even go into oil and how much it sucks to be a part of a wrld that uses it? Oh yeah...Nuclear Power Plants :)

Thermal power plant in India

                           As I was saying, nuclear power plants are NOT "dangerous" or "expensive". They are, truth be told, a lot cheaper than natural gas/ oil power plants. Its really surprising, really really surprising considering that nuclear power plants make about 73 thousand times more energy than any old natural gas power plant. (73199.998536 to be exact). According to MIT's estimation, natural gas power plants cost about 5.1 ¢/kWhr (cents per kilo-watts hour) while a nuclear power plant costs about 3.5 ¢/kWhr. Lets not forget that natural gas also costs a lot to manufacture, and is also super polluting. Now we know that nuclear power plants are cheaper, we know that they're a lot less work (just one power plant and we're good for the next ten years...no messy refining or drilling). Why not give it a shot? Think of the baby otters!!

Nuclear power plants are green, they're cheap and they aren't what you think they are. Lets give them a chance, because if we do wanna keep riding our cars and flying our planes we should stop using oil to power our lights and computers too!

My source for ALL of this information is http://www.eia.gov/ which is actually a government website and is ALL credible- so this is more than just one delusional girl's thoughts, their real. (I can't believe that I just called myself delusional).

Life's an empty canvas...you've got the brush; so what're you waiting for? It's time to paint :)

I'm lying flat on my back, on a yoga mat. My mother snoozes next to me, her occasional, interrupted snoring blends in with the background. I'm staring at the ceiling, thinking "What if  I stop waiting for things to happen? What if I stop saying 'what if'?"

              I haven't been writing in a while, and I think I finally know why. I talked a lot about "finding"" myself, trying to find out what I'm supposed to do with my life. I really thought that I couldnt live until I had some sort of connection with myself. What I didnt realize was that I was-AM-me. I don't need a connection with myself,I'm already me! How could I have wanted to find myself when I was-am-here all along (writing about yourself in a past tense is not a good idea haha).

                            That bring me back to lying on a yoga mat and thinking -that's all I've been doing the past months, trying to do what every other great philosopher did (okay okay, what every great philosopher did), "figure out the meaning of life". Heres what I think :

Can you believe this quote!!!? Its just what I needed, its just what everyone needs! No, its not time to sit around and think about what life has in store for us. Its time to get out there and make a life for ourselves, its time to create! Life is totally like an empty canvas, its time to paint :)

                           So I don't say What If anymore, and I also don't lie on yoga mats anymore(that's only because my mother has finally stopped catching up on her sleep during her exercise time and has actually begun lifting her arms and stuff....this stuff is actually pretty hard). I'm not even going to stop and think about what color I'm going to paint...I'm going to just do it (I thought that the best way to end the post would be to use another overly used, trademarked phrase)

I'm looking for me

My poor little blog! Its exactly like one of those houses in the middle of nowhere, so empty, so abandoned.(well at least those houses are occasionally haunted with the most interesting ghosts)

I wish this would stop moving!!

                      My page view trend looks a lot like my grade trend now (in other words, up..up...up..down.....down...umm help?....okay stop....nonono.....STAHP!.....uh-oh rock bottom..."do these go in negative?") This also represents my zen level.

                                                 
                       They all go together, my blog, my grades and my zen, (is that even a thing?) that's what I noticed. I don't really think of myself as a real person anymore, I'm more like that poor waiter trying to balance 3 full plates of sushi and an umbrella while he's on roller-skates in the rain, in the middle of a crowded street AND he has to smile the whole time! 

                          I need to keep my zen levels up and I really don't know how.

Google is no use as usual....here are my search results :-

• Drink green tea (do they even know how horrible that tastes)
• Do yoga (that involves waking up early...not good for my stress levels)
• Smile (Really? i wouldn't have guessed)

Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure all these things work...in some cases; but that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for myself, I'm looking to get to know the inner me again because it feels like I've lost her in all the chaos of the outside world.

                       Essentially, I'm looking for the deep part of me (example here)- the part of me that actually thinks for myself, acts for herself and lives for herself. Because, really, I don't think that I-the glassy, person typing away right now-live for myself or think for myself. I live that cliche life, wanting things that everyone seems to want and doing things that everyone seems to be doing.

I want to think what I want to think, I want to know what I want to know, I want to feel what I want to feel.

           I want to be the me I want to me.

That is, in reality, the problem with school. There is such an overwhelmingly large number of people, such an overwhelmingly large number of views and opinions; I really can't hold my own, I can't be anything, I'm just weirdly misshaped mixture of everyone else. I'm a globby mess (thats the word! even if it isn't a real word. That's how I feel).
                             Unlike what I make it sound like, this happens pretty often, I get detached pretty often but I always had a little "me-day" planned out which helped me out

• Listen to Dig-a-Little deeper from The Princess and The Frog (don't you dare underestimate the feel-good power of a Disney song!)

• Watch a hopeful chick-flick like Ferris Bueller's Day Off or Karate Kid (the original).
• A good old fashioned make-over (sometimes it helps to be shallow when you're trying to be deep)
• An hour-and-a-half chat with my besties (well a phone call will have to do now)

 What's weird is that I did all of that today, its just that I didn't find anyone today. Am I lost forever?

Living as a shadow-that's what I'm scared of

I've never actually seen my monster, but I have heard it. It’s always been that shadowy figure in my dreams or walking a step or two behind me when I’m alone. It’s that voice that tries to bring me down, telling me that I’m not good enough, that I don’t matter. I’m always going to have to walk fast and keep my head high because, if I don’t, Shadow would swallow me and nothing would ever be the same for me ever again. The scary thing about this is, nobody would know- my body, my mind, my brain- they’ll all still be right here; but I would never be the same person ever again. I wouldn't be me anymore- I’d be that person my Shadow makes me think I am. I would be my shadow.

              It’s not easy to keep running from your monster when he’s at your heels. They say that facing your demons is what life’s all about. Maybe that’s what I’m meant to do- turn around when I hear those voices and tell them to shut up. Tell my Shadow that it’s wrong- because I AM good enough, I totally deserve happiness.

Going down with the ship...thats what a good captain does right?

So apparently a new controversy is lurking behind the shadows, and no I'm not talking about the Syrian War (which would be a nice thing to talk about but no...I literally have no problem with America ending that tiring civil war for the Syrians-because well, they have the best military in the world for a reason...they HAVE to help out)
                   this new thing isn't even an actual thing yet, and to be honest, most people think it won't happen...but I know it is. ITS THE END OF THE WORLD! okay maybe I'm just kidding, but it might be the end of the world as we know it..
                    Okay I'm giving it to you straight. The American economy is going down! (if you're like "no wayy"- i feel you, because that was my reaction when I first heard about it and if you're like "so what? its not like its gonna affect me in any way"- it is! it totally is! *and now I'm going to start freaking out*) Okay this is how it would affect us if the American economy didn't hold up:-

Imagine a world where the language to speak is Chinese or Japanese or Cantonese or Mandarin or any other language whi
ch you've never even heard spoken before. Trust me, you don't even want to try learning one of my aforementioned languages after knowing English (Do you ever get confused about how some stuff just sounds wrong? Like why its hair and sometimes hairs in the plural but sometimes just hair? Or why its fox and foxes but ox and oxen? English is pretty messed up...but why don't we times THAT by a hundred? And viola! we get ALL the other languages in the world!)

Imagine a world where every single new trend doesn't seem familiar (some of may be relieved and i totally understand...after the VMAs I think I have totally had enough of twerking) Can you do it? A world where music is given over to k-pop? (No offense to K-POP or anything but I just can't picture it being mainstream)
what will happen to the good music? Axwell and Avicii? David Guetta and Tiesto? (I would say the Armin guys name but its too much trouble to actually spell that out and I'd rather not waste my time googling him to just to paste his name on here so...Sorry Armin :p)

Imagine a world where you didn't feel like you actually belonged. Mainstream or not, American culture defines the worlds culture...if we go down, the whole worlds going down with us...
so yes THERE IS A REASON TO FREAK OUT RIGHT NOW!!
            I know its coming, its coming at us hard and we have to stop it. I have no clue (well actually maybe a little clue) as to how this stuff works. Its still got to do with spending your money and helping the economy again. Well it can't be thaat hard can it? Just spend away *to save the world*
                      I just realised that I didn't actually say anything right here but then again its super important-we've gotta save America

I burn myself....with my hair straightener (emo memes haha)

I just realised that I don't even know what "emo" is, I don't know whether its the particular fashion statement or it is a particular clique in high school or its a way of life..

                          So I did what I always do, I googled it..
Heres what I've heard about "emos" (Im not even sure I should be calling them emos, maybe I should be calling them emo people-you know like it would be offensive if we referred to gay people as "gays". Okay its official, they are people who have an "emo" outlook on life?-well i tried)

"A person, usually teenage, that has trouble handling his/her own emotions, and/or is emotionally unstable. Can have multiple means of releasing or inducing emotions, such as talking, mutilation(usually of self or inanimate objects), or even listening to music. Can be considered a mental disorder.
Usage: I wrote this definition out for you people because I am an emo and want you to see life the way we do."

Emo is not really a choice you can make, it is a form of life that chooses you.. Bad things happen to people and depending on what and how effects what way you go. Many people become Emo, which do not always cut themselves. generally wear black, write stories, interested in Macabre and dark things, and we are generally interested in Art..

Emo is a style of music originating a few decades ago in the DC area. For people who claim it is a life choice, or even not a choice but something that "chooses you", its not. It is first and foremost a genre of music and secondarily defined as a style of clothing.

My credentials? I was one of these so called goth cutters, and am proud to say that I look back on that and shake my head with a smile. Everyone has problems growing up; quit slapping a label on it to justify it.

Well there are many conflicting opinions, but most of us say (and probably think we know...especially me) that Emo people are a bunch of anti-social, gothic, teenagers who cut themselves and are overly emotional.

              I have a feeling that anyone who looks a bit depressed and is wearing black would be considered emo. Well it isn't a feeling, its just my experience and here it goes..
             "It was your average Monday morning, cloudy and positively gloomy and like every other Monday, I was cranky and coffee was doing nothing to help. They all gave me encouraging smiles as I walked into the classroom which was highly unusual...who smiles before 8 in the morning anyway? I was already super duper suspicious but then I didn't care. I just don't work on monday morning (there should be a word for that...the Monday morning disease-how about INeedSleepius or STFUmorphus)
It was only when I was leaving class did one of those weird gothic girls (with so many piercings on her face that I couldn't actually concentrate on any one) came up to me and just stared, she didnt even say hi or anything, just looked at me. I gave her an little wave and asked her what class she had next but apparently my social awkwardness didn't repel her at all because she just kept staring. Then I did one of the most awkward things in the world, I ran away. (I wish I could say that I'd asked her what the fuck her problem was and then laughed in her face..but no I literally ran away, mumbling something about being late for class) What I actually did after that is go to the bathroom, to check myself out...I think I knew what the problem was.
       I had yesterday nights mascara running off my face which was not too visible from behind my bed hair My new raccoon look didn't make monday morning any better-I had to actually wash my face in a germ-infested public school bathroom. Before long (actually at lunch on the very same day) I heard it, the rumor that i was now emo and was thinkig of suicide. It took all of the next two days (on which I wore my two most mainstream outfits-those disgustingly Forever 21 outfits-) to convince people that I did not cut and that I wasn't planning to kill myself live on Facebook

People these days :p