Benefits of the Extra X

Girls like to complain about the struggle of their gender. I would be a hypocrite if I said that I don't often participate in these pity parties. However there are many benefits of femininity that tends to be over shadowed by period pain and the amount of time it takes to just wash our hair. One of the true blessings of being a girl is often disguised as a burden; makeup. We tend to take for granted just how helpful make up is. Sure it can take a while to apply but no one is forcing you to wear it and that magical mixture of powders and gels can change everything. If a guy has a flaw there is no way of hiding it. That chin zit has to be worn loud and proud. With the right mixture of foundation, concealer, and skill, pimples can be covered and blackheads erased. If you think you have small eyes, add mascara. Winter suck out the California tan you worked so for over the summer? Bronzer is now your best friend. We might say we hate it but honestly I don't know what I would do without it. The next benefit comes in really handy especially if you're like me and tend to overthink everything. When it comes to dating the truth of the matter is girls aren't expected to ask the guy out. I can't even ask the waitress for an extra napkin so how could I ask out the person I like.  I would like to give a big round of applause for the guys who like a girl and actually have the courage to ask her out because I would be way too afraid of rejection. While there are many more blessings in disguise I could talk about, but the last one I want to address is crying. I like to think that I'm a strong, independent person but the minute someone my favorite characters dies in a book, I melt into a puddle. The thing is I'm allowed to be like this because I'm just fitting into the female stereotype yet it is still considered socially unacceptable to cry. "Men don't cry", "Just man up", "Be a man". I'm fine with being able to hug my tissue box and wipe away the smudged mascara. I think that a lot of the times the small things get overlooked in life and we tend to focus on the negatives rather than the positive. I myself am fluent in English, sarcasm, and negativity but we need to stop focusing on the things that make our lives more difficult. It is important that we also see the silver lining and that we reap all the bonuses that come along with having that extra X chromosome.

Is Our Generation really Post Racial?

Recently I had to give a speech for my gifted and talented class. My question to address was "Is our generation really post racial?" based on an article by the New York Times. I feel really strongly about this topic and I feel like I should share my opinion. I feel like we as a society have come a long way since the 60’s. We have passed the days of segregation and race specific laws, however, I don’t think we can go as far as to say that our generation is post-racial. Post-racial is defined a society or time period in which discussions around race and racism have been deemed no longer relevant to current social dynamics. I’m not saying that we are still racist and stuck in the ways of pre-civil rights movement, but race still plays a part in our lives. To be post-racial we would have to live in a color blind society where the color of a persons skin is barely acknowledged let alone plays a role in our decisions. Individually, we may not take race into consideration. I don’t think any of us say, “ew, I can’t talk to him, he’s Asian”. But if you look around at the different “groups” at school, you can often see an unintentional separation of races. On a grander scale, there is the University of Michigan. The population of students attending the University of Michigan are primarily White and Asian causing some of the African Americans to feel isolated. African American enrollment in the University of Michigan dropped from 6.2% to 4.6%. This is nobody’s fault but it goes to show that racial separation is still present and still has an effect. On the other hand, there is Howard University with a 64-82% of the student body being comprised of African Americans and only 5% of the student body being White. So this goes to prove that the separation goes both ways. I don’t think that our generation as a whole is actively racist but race remains as an underlying factor in part of our lives. We aren’t racist but we’re not post racial either.

Older not wiser

      I never understood why people were afraid of growing up. What is so scary about being able to do more of the things you want to do. Even though there would be more responsibility surely it can't be that bad. How could something so exciting be "scary". Now I'm not a little kid who looks at a high school student like an alien creature. I realize now that its not the fear of getting older, its the fear of being older.
       When you're younger nobody expects much from you. You're expected to be your age and that's all. When your parents leave you with a baby sitter you expect the sitter to be able to handle anything. Whatever emergency that could possibly happen would be easily taken care of. However now I'm the babysitter and I realize I have no idea I'm doing. If someone gets hurt the best I can do is apply a Band-Aid and hope the parents get home fast. When you're younger you assume that you'll figure it all out when you get older but the scary part is when you realize you're older and you're still waiting to figure it out. When you reach a certain age you're supposed to have a plan. When you're six you don't see any issue because you'll have time before you have to figure everything out. The scary part is when you're sixteen and you still don't know what you're doing yet everybody still thinks its their job to remind you to figure it out.  The scary part isn't getting another year older, its realizing that you're not any wiser.

Stream of Consciousness

Tomorrow will be six months since the last time I've blogged. Every single time a write a new blog post I end it by saying something like "I'm going to try and blog more" but since its been six months since my last post its pretty obvious its all just empty words. I've decided to give up on promises like that. I feel like every time I tell myself I will do something I just feel to pressured to actually do it and I panic and get nowhere. I've struggled a lot with choosing a path. I'm a very indecisive person. I like to think about all the options and consider what I'm missing out on and that's just when I'm trying to find something to eat after school. I hate being stuck in one topic, one category. I tried making this lovely internet footprint into something like a diary; I was never good at keeping a diary. In one of my school classes, we do something every Monday called a Stream of Consciousness where you write whatever is going on in your head. Its my first period class so the only thing I'm thinking about is usually how much happier I'd be laying in bad watching movies in my sweatpants. However the idea behind a Stream of Consciousness isn't a bad idea. There is no set direction, no parameters to follow, you can't get stuck in one topic when all you want to do is write about something else. That's really all I want this blog to be. I want to write about whatever I feel like writing. Its not a fashion blog. I'm not going to write a response about every political issue on the news. Its a blog where I can do something new and write about it. If I'm going on vacation, it can go on the blog. Maybe I want to write a short story, that's fine. If I want to have a nerd spasm and write about the book that I'm currently in love with, I'm going to write about that to. It's the glory of a Stream of Consciousness. Maybe I'll keep updating this blog every couple days. Maybe it'll be another six months until there are any signs of life on here. I don't even know whats going to happen and I must say, I think that's the most interesting part.