Tragedy is personal. Nine years ago, the nation faced September 11 and a week later that paled in comparison to a car accident at my high school. A year ago, my godfather was killed in a traffic accident; he left behind a wonderful, loving wife and two sons who have since become fathers without their father in their life. It is horrifying what these families have gone through. To anyone who has lost someone completely, who has had someone suddenly ripped from their life, my sadness may seem selfish. I make no apologies for my egocentricity. I acknowledge that each individual disaster is its own experience. All I can do is live in this moment. I am heartbroken. I am helpless.

So I continue to stalk Facebook for news and ask friends for prayers. I carry on spreading the word about this horrible accident, his condition, his prognosis to those who care to listen. I keep talking about him with a stiff lip and no tears because I am resolute in my strength. I wait for news; all sources report slightly different descriptions, but it’s all I have to go on at this time. I fear actually seeing the damage, because I know my strength will leave me and I will have to face the magnitude of what happened. In text it is just a story, a bad dream. The change has not yet been realized in this house, though the emptiness is starting to show itself.

Now that I know how quickly things can change, I try to stay optimistic, but I fear bad news. The helplessness mixes with hope, but nothing is finite. I must subsist on the love and prayers of friends and family and maintain my own good thoughts. I must remember that many people feel this tragic heartbreak, because many people love this man. My biggest hope is that he knows how much we all care.

Other times, it feels like my life is rushed and filled to the point of bursting. I feel like I’m barely clinging on to my sanity. I see people living happy, carefree lives and I envy them.

Perhaps the real situation is that everyone is somewhere between these two places. No one is completely carefree. We all have bills and deadlines to meet. Marriage, children, jobs, houses–they just compound the stress of life itself. In some ways I’m lucky that I do not have those things to worry about. My employment situation is glorified hobo and the white picket fence is a long way off. I won’t have to worry about a mortgage or diapers or contracts for a couple of years. Still, I have to keep telling myself that I’m working toward something or the day to day breathing becomes too much.

My dear friend and “little brother” wrote on my Facebook today that I have to be passionate about teaching. I think I am, but am I passionate enough? I really look forward to working with a classroom of my own, but I’m nervous. I’m more nervous about completing the process and jumping through the hoops of student teaching and Praxis testing, but it’s still just another stressful element in this path I have chosen for myself. And I’m always questioning if it’s the right path. I’ve had a good break from subbing due to PSSA testing and conflicting schedules, and I can honestly say that I don’t miss it all that much. I’ve already entered the mindset for my summer job, which might just be a necessary coping mechanism.

I wonder if I’ve missed my calling. I wonder if this is what I’m supposed to do. Friends–well, more likely friends of friends–would turn to religion here and pray for answers or something. I could consult my tarot cards. I could put my faith in what my friends tell me. I could believe in myself for once.

I’ve kind of hit a wall. I guess that’s what April is, and possibly always has been, for me. I think I was usually fairly frustrated by this time of year in undergrad, and most certainly in 2008 and 2009, I was slowly going crazy by this time of year. I want to be passionate about my classes, about subbing, about life–but right now I just keep asking myself two questions:

Is this real life? and

Can we go to the beach yet?

I need this.

]]> http://silverfire.net/life-in-cepa/is-this-real-life/feed 0 http://silverfire.net/entertainment/music/is-keha-turning-me-into-a-prude http://silverfire.net/entertainment/music/is-keha-turning-me-into-a-prude#comments Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:36:26 +0000 Lindsay http://silverfire.net/?p=378

I will admit that I haven’t really given Ke$ha’s Animal a fair listen. I’ve been known to pause for her songs on the radio, or request her singles when Dan’s DJing car rides with his iPod. They’re fun, poppy dance tunes–or are they?

My Brownie troop is made up of seven- and eight-year-old girls. I’d say a handful of them have fairly involved parents who actively monitor what’s going on in their daughters’ lives and the rest have parents who are trying their best but virtually clueless. One of the girls was singing “TiK ToK” at our meeting this past week, confusing some of the girls who don’t know what a Ke$ha is. Two tables of girls were arguing back and forth as to whether it’s “key-sha” or “keh-sha.” I was already at my wit’s end because they were sewing bean bags to earn a Try-It.

I bought myself a huge Shamrock Shake as a reward for surviving that night, but since then I’ve also been fuming over the very fact that I had to stop an eight-year-old from yelling/singing about brushing her teeth with a bottle of Jack.

While I realize that such a conservative stance goes against my very nature and all I’ve aspired to be myself, I can’t help but be upset by Ke$ha’s lyrical content. In a time where we’re trying to push girls to respect themselves, songs like Ke$ha’s undermine efforts to promote healthy decisions and self-respect–even if her lyrics are meant to mock or be sarcastic.

In an interview with Digital Spy, Ke$ha states says about her latest single, “Blah Blah Blah”:

“It’s a cool song about a woman talking to a man the way men always speak to women. If you listen to any rap or pop station, the way men talk to women is just so cheeky and a little bit degrading. I’m not offended by it though – I just think it’s funny. This track is meant sarcastically. It’s me throwing it back.”

However, when trying to explain to my Mom why I was so upset about the Girl Scouts incident, I found myself unable to read the lyrics aloud to her. Now, considering I regularly use profanity around my mother AND discuss my personal life with her, I would say I’m not a complete puritan. And I’m really not sure if my inability to read “Just turn around, boy, let me hit that / Don’t be a little bitch with your chit chat / Just show me where your dick’s at” to my Mom would truly classify me as a prude. Maybe it does.

My friend and fellow blogger AJ Star, of Stalking with the Stars, recently posted “On Radio Edits” after watching Ke$ha’s American Idol performance where the lines that gave me so much trouble were changed to “Just turn around, boy, let me get that / Don’t be a little chick with your chit chat / Just show me who you are.” AJ’s premise is not about how the integrity of songs is compromised by “radio-friendly editing/censorship” but rather that it’s pointless to choose songs “as singles and then butched for radio play and live performances.” I agree with her point even though my blog comments contained a condensed and angsty version of my Girl Scout rant (i.e., I missed her point on there because I was still really pissed off). If Ke$ha truly wants “Blah Blah Blah” to “throw it back” to men who objectify women in their music, why choose a single–or, dare I say, pen a song–where the lyrics will have to be altered so much for mainstream play that it will completely undermine her point? After all, how is “don’t be a little chick” conveying a feminist message at all? He’s whining, so he’s a girl? What happened to Ke$ha’s girl power?

It’s not fair to pin extra responsibility on female artists, but such is the plight of women in general. Yes, it sucks that men constantly objectify women in pop/hip-hop songs. But how is writing a song mocking that an effective way to take a stance against such objectification?

Maybe it’s the responsibility of the parents to keep their eight-year-olds from singing about excessive partying, Jack Daniels and boys trying to touch their junk, but a pop artist makes a song with the intention of it reaching #1 on the charts and gaining huge exposure through mainstream radio play, so isn’t it partially up to them to have some couth? Some subtlety? Some understanding that their song has the potential to make an impression on young minds?

Then again, maybe it’s me. Perhaps I’m just getting old; maybe I’m turning into a prude. I managed to harness the girls’ energy into a rousing round of “Make New Friends” and then had them sing songs they learned in their elementary school music classes. Still, knowing some of them–and their parents–makes me worry about what they’re learning from mainstream popular culture that inundates their little lives. And I truly wish their parents would tell Ke$ha to get off their lawns, as I would be apt to do if she ever showed up at my house with a bottle of Jack.

I’m not going to lie; sometimes, seeing all these happy couples pushing strollers and planning parties makes me feel like a failure. A ton of my boyfriend’s friends are getting hitched within the next 18 months, and half my high school acquaintances have different last names on Facebook these days. I always thought that I would be like my Mom; she was married in her early 20s and had me when she was 26. Well, I turn 26 this year, and I have no plans to have a baby any time soon. I also thought I’d have a career and–at the very least–an apartment by now.

So what gives? I guess I’ve always been kind of a late bloomer. I’ve done things at my own pace all my life. Graduating from a liberal arts college with America’s impending financial crisis just over the horizon didn’t help me, either. I worked where I could and I don’t have a lot to show for it aside from anecdotes and a strong dislike for Republicans. I wasted my talent and my intelligence before deciding to start taking online graduate courses and substitute teaching, and now I’m working for the career path I should have taken all along. Am I upset that I made the choices I did? No. I loved working on campus publications. Even if print media is, essentially, dead, I still love designing and I’ve made some life long friends through my experiences with The Collegian and The Medium. Could I have stayed in the basement of Reid Hall until 4 in the morning if I was doing ed block at WAC? Probably not. As far as not having the career I thought I’d have at 25? I guess I’m at least working toward something now.

Living at home isn’t so bad, either. My boyfriend lives at home, too. The majority of my (unmarried) friends who don’t live at home live in shared houses with friends. If I had friends in this state and spare money, I’d consider such an arrangement. The economy is different than it used to be, and that is something we’ve all had to accept. The housing market is still shaky, and renting seems like throwing money away when the alternative is sharing space with someone who knows when to give me my space. You see, my relationship with my Mom isn’t always Gilmore perfect, but I have an entire floor of a house to myself when I need it. Some folks like Dan aren’t as lucky and don’t have as much personal space or as casual of a relationship with their parents. I guess I have to consider myself lucky, and remind myself that it could be so much worse before I let myself spiral out of cognitive control over housing and career situations when I see a wedding invitation.

There are just so many wedding invitations these days. If it isn’t wedding invitations, it’s pictures from the reception in the Facebook stalker feed, or–worse yet–drooling, seemingly alien lifeforms and people I never expected to breed holding them up for the camera with big smiles on their faces. This is the mess that sets me off, and makes me wonder where I went wrong. Why is my life not redefined by a permanent addition and a different tax filing status? Am I damaged goods after my craptastical 2006-2007 failed relationship? Should I be worried that Dan hasn’t asked me my ring size? How can those folks from high school still like each other enough to be married? One Facebook status, one text message, one piece of juicy gossip if and when I do actually have a night out with friends… That’s all it takes to set off these neuroses. It doesn’t help that sometimes people ask why Dan and I aren’t making more plans.

The fact of the matter is that I’m perfectly normal. Some of my favorite people from college aren’t married, and they don’t plan to be married any time soon. Dan and I have an excellent relationship that doesn’t need to move at anyone’s speed but ours. Quite simply, we’re not ready. We are both Virgos and we like plans and assurance, and we would like to take this whole thing slowly, thank you very much. I’m taking classes, working toward a career I will enjoy, and he might have a job with a salary, but he’s not exactly sure it’s where he wants to stay if the recession ever ends. I think that in the long run, he and I are more likely to be happy than some of my friends who rushed into things and made rash decisions. And although it sometimes sends me into an emotional tailspin, I’m really happy for those friends who made it work and are living happily ever after. More power to you; it’s just not for me–yet.

What’s lucky for me is that I never tainted my opinions of the series; in addition to avoiding the books, I’ve never seen any of the movies. I have kept myself fairly isolated from all things Potter, which means that I can still make my own mental images of the characters and I have no idea how the plot will twist and turn. I find myself making predictions, but I do not voice these to my friends because most of them are familiar with the books. I’m having a lot of fun being immersed in this world, and even though I thought the books would be childish and silly, I find myself admiring the prose and the language employed to convey stories that are not boring in the least. In fact, in Chamber of Secrets, Rowling used the word “tenterhooks,” which made me really, really happy. Perhaps I’ve been living in this county for too long if proper usage of words makes me giddy.

I think that after I finish the third book, I may take a brief break. Perhaps I will read something else, or dedicate myself solidly to working ahead on my classwork. Regardless, I think that three books in a little over a week will be a sufficient start to meeting this 2010 goal. Dan also pointed out that if I read all seven books in less than a month, I may start thinking that I am Harry Potter.

He’s totally wrong, though. I’d be Hermione. Duh.

In January, at my first InnerPartySystem concert

For me, 2009 was a transitional year. In 2008, I was treading water, working nearly the entire year at a job I grew to hate and searching for the motivation to aspire to something greater. In 2009, I worked through numerous obstacles to find a foundation for successful living. Part of my ability to have a good year was courtesy of resolutions I made last year. Honestly, I don’t remember them exactly because I recorded them in my now defunct BlackBerry, but they improved my diet until about mid-summer, when I gave up and started eating poorly again. Another key factor in how I lived in 2009 was the spontaneous departure from my job. If I hadn’t done that, there’s a slight chance I would still be living miserably, making barely enough to get by.

In December, at my sixth InnerPartySystem concert (with Patrick!)

It’s funny how things work. In January, I quit my job without any sort of back up plan. It was necessary, but scary at the same time. About a week later, I met Dan for the first time. The end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 were fueled mainly by Patrón, but by March and my “official” start of a relationship with Dan. I spent the beginning of the year unemployed and going insane, but able to work on myself through Wii Fit and hiking, so it wasn’t a total loss (but it was some weight loss!). I finally found myself working at a convenience store for some funds, which provided a crash course in how I do not want to spend the rest of my life. By June, I knew that I needed to take steps to get away from a survival job, so I took guest teacher training to obtain emergency substitute teaching certification for fall. My luck improved even more when I randomly saw a position in Hershey’s Central Reservations posted online in June and I switched to a cushier, more fulfilling “summer” job with higher pay and more hours.

Basically, as soon as that job ended, I was subbing. And that brings me to where I am now, staring at a calendar wondering how 2009 flew by and pondering possible resolutions.

At the beach in May, before our "fancy" date.

To be fair, there was a lot of fun moments and filled weekends with my year. I was always on the go, every weekend since February with the exception of perhaps four have involved something exciting with Dan and our friends; weekends before that were full too. I took my LSATs in February (157), went to Shamrock Fest in March, Alkaline Trio and 3OH!3 in one weekend in April, the beach in May, etc. I’ve had some of the most amazing vacations and concert experiences this year that it is almost impossible to name a favorite. I went to my first Warped Tour in July. We did several weekends at Longwood Gardens with different groups of friends. We had a beach vacation by ourselves for Dan’s birthday. We stayed at a bed and breakfast in Rock Hall for my birthday. I went to Celtic Fling and the Renaissance Faire (Pyrate Invasion weekend). So it’s easy to see why it seems like time flew by; I wasn’t bored with life like I was in 2008. My friends, family and Dan kept me busy! The end of the year was filled too. Graduate school applications and pro/con lists led to my enrollment at Saint Joseph’s University with their online accelerated teaching certification program. This decision, of course, came from my earlier decision to pursue subbing and avoid spending my life working at a convenience store.

Resolutions

Having a fantastic 2009 doesn’t mean I don’t want to make some changes for 2010. I know that there are a few changes I will have to make for this coming year to rival 2009 in successfulness, especially as I take on more responsibilities, and–dare I say–grow up a little more. The fad this year seems to be to shy away from making “resolutions” because studies show that a high percentage of people tend to break their resolutions, which sets self-esteem back extra steps. Whatever. I’m resolving to do these things in the New Year, and I will accomplish them in baby steps, to the best of my ability. I know that it’s impossible to quit fast food cold turkey (because sometimes you want a hot burger?), and that is how I was successful last year–I eased into each resolution gradually.

1. Read Harry Potter

Previously, I was completely opposed to reading or watching anything regarding Harry Potter. I swore it off because it was popular, and that is apparently a level of stubbornness that outlasted my teenage years. Then, I witnessed Twilight become popular, and realized maybe Harry wasn’t such a bad guy. The main reason, however, is that I’m going back to school for secondary education. I will need to have a more complete background in books teenagers will have read or have had read to them so that they can compare and contrast classics with them. I will need to be prepared.

2. Eat Healthier; Exercise More

This resolution has multiple steps to it. Last year, my biggest problem was fast food. This year, it’s dining out in general. Because Dan and I both live at home, it’s sometimes difficult to spontaneously cook our own meal. If we continue to use dining out as an opportunity to get out of the house, we will need to start making healthier decisions such as no appetizers, choosing a healthier meal option or having half the meal boxed for carry out immediately, no desserts, etc. Cutting out french fries, while difficult, is something I will have to work toward. Really, though, a big part of our problem is portion control; ignoring the ingrained lesson to “clean your plate” is a huge challenge, and something I will strive to overcome this year.

As for exercise, I will need to break out the Wii Fit again. I think that keeping track of my weight and enjoying the activities provided me with motivation to keep at it, especially while I was unemployed. I also used unemployment to go hiking and get outside more often. As spring approaches, I will try to use afternoons to get outside and be active (since teaching days end at 3:30 and substitutes don’t have to take the job home with them). The next resolution will be something that helps me in achieving this goal.

3. Establish a Schedule; Stick to It

With online courses, time management will be a huge issue for me. I am firmly deciding that I will make schedules and stick to them. There will be a schedule for on-call days when I get a job subbing, and schedules for days off. They will have periods of time where I can supplement activities unique to the time period (a Girl Scout project, freelance work), but for the most part, they will follow the same pattern. Monotonous sounds boring, but it will be a blessing to wake up and know what I am going to do. Exercise will be scheduled into my life, while sitting in front of the television watching Wife Swap will not. I will make time for schoolwork, because my education is incredibly important to me and my future. Moreover, I will make time to do the mundane tasks of running a house so that my Mom can accomplish some of her own HGTV-esque projects, and because someday these mundane tasks will be mine all the time.

4. Cut Out Ridiculous Television

As I write this, Maury Povich is on in the background. Resolutions 2 and 3 will help eliminate this crap from my life, but it’s worth noting it here so I can hold myself to it. Dan bought me some great headphones for Christmas, so if I truly need “background noise” (my excuse for television since college started—Law & Order or Gilmore Girls especially), I will use my iPod and the insane amounts of music I have. Television needs to be something enjoyable, and it needs to be limited to the shows that have actual entertainment value. I need to stop watching trash.

5. Posi Posi Posi

And 5a. eliminate “posi” and start saying “positive.”

This is the same resolution I made last year, and little did I know how important it would prove to be. I’ve had my slip ups and my down days—who doesn’t? But this is an important resolution to have every year, because there is always more room to improve attitudes. I will try my hardest to focus on how lucky I am, on all the good things and good people in my life, and be grateful for everything every day. I know that I’m truly blessed, and I need to remember it.

I think stopping at five resolutions is probably a good idea, because it’s manageable. These things I’m resolving to do are important to how I live my daily life (well, not so much the first one), and by holding myself to these standards that I am setting forth in this entry, I can only improve my quality of being. Even if I “break” some of these resolutions, the very fact that I’m going to try to do all these things, and that I will continue to try them even after slip ups, is what will make me grow as a person in 2010. I know that the upcoming year holds great adventures, and I hope that I will continue my transformation into a self-sufficient, well-adjusted adult as the new decade begins. I am grateful for 2009, and I will always remember it—maybe even miss it—because it’s a year that has changed my life for the better. I rose up from the ashes this year, and I never imagined that I could accomplish so much. Hopefully in 2010, I will continue to exceed my own expectations. Whatever happens, I know I will try my best.