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Today has been a blur. There's a lot on my mind and I find it hard to focus on one thing at a time. Nike and I finally hung out and my run helped a little but not as much as usual. Lately I've had this yearning to fight for women. I don't know how I want to do that or why I have this yearning but I do. Its been over a month in my relationship so far and I'm not sure if I'm ready to care for someone the way I'm starting to care for Dave. Right after we decided to be 'exclusive' I wasn't sure if I was ready to let someone into my life and I have. Everything is great but I feel myself holding back. I really need to figure this out I guess. But for now its time to hit the sack.

I know I have not updated for awhile. I have been deciding what I want to do with this blog. I realized that I stopped writting for myself and thats why I became unhappy with it. Originally this was a release for me and a way to try out my ability to write. And that is what it has to become once more.

Grad was interesting. Fun. Exciting. I guess it was wierd because I have been out of school for 5 months already so it felt like a rather late climax.

I thought I would be able to sit down a write a post but I'm having trouble concentrating. Have a good day.

Well at lot has gone on in my life in the past little while...

I won the Captain Alex Blake Memorial Award through the Firefighters Burn Fund. The criteria was: active community and school involvement and participation in fire safety, burn prevention and awareness in the school or community. Oh and you had to be a burn survivor.

Today I got my first 'cause' band (yes I believe I posted on Strider's blog and said I don't wear one, but things change). The band is red and it's for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. This morning (after work I might add) I participated in the Big Bike for Stroke with the Langley Hearts in Motion Walking group. It was an experience! The Hearts in Motion group is a seniors group that walks and volunteers in the community. They raised a lot of money for stroke! One man raising over $2500!!!!!! We rode on a bike for 30 around downtown Langley. It was a riot and an honour for me to be involved.

As always I am very inspired to get more involved.

Today I also had an eye opening experience. A past friend of mine and I talked about our now non existent friendship. We had a falling out of sorts. We both said things that were hurtful and, since we both our stubborn, have let it really get to us. I miss my friend but today our friendship officially came to an end. Out of anger, resentment, shame or truth I do not know, he basically said that I was stuck up and that I thought I was better than others. Its hard to hear someone say those things, especially someone who was once a good friend. I know in my heart that that is not true and if others truly have perceived me like that I'm sorry because that's not how I want to appear. Yes I am different than other people and yes I like that I am my own person but everything I do that is 'different' is not because I just want to stand out and be different/ better. I do everything in my life because that's how I am. It makes me, me. I love wearing crazy clothes and helping people and I love my eyebrow piercing because my family hates it and I like staying home sometimes on the weekends so I will say no to hanging out and I don't like to spend all my time at big drunken parties but that doesn't mean I don't like to spend my time with the people there and yes I don't talk to everyone all the time and yes if someone offends me or hurts me I won't be super nice to them but then again I won't be mean and yes I am honest and truthful all the time when a lot of the time I shouldn't be and yes I don't like or want to be friends with everyone on this planet and I love being me. To the person who is no longer my friend, you know who you are, thank you for what you said today even if it hurt because it made me think about who I am and whether or not I was happy with who I was. Thank you for everything, you were a great friend.

Run for the Cure

If you would like to donate to help me reach my goal please go here:
https://www.cibcrunforthecure.com/html/p.asp?t=1136107&l=1

If you would like to resister to particiapte in the run/ walk yourself or if you would like information about the CIBC Run for the Cure please go here:
https://www.cibcrunforthecure.com/html/login.asp?session=y&teamcandidateid=

Be Aware! Pick a cause!

So today is my birthday. I am all of 18 years old now. Whooo- oohhh (please note there was sarcasm intended with that onomatopoeia). I'm not excited. Maybe its the fact that I feel older and have felt older than 18 for awhile now. Or maybe its because everyone just considers me to be older than that anyways. Or maybe its because I haven't been excited about anything much lately. Or maybe... Who knows..

I've been tagged.... super ;)

I got tagged by Striderhttp://sounddestruction.blogspot.com/ so now its my turn to tag and answer questions. If you came here after because I tagged you please post the answers to these questions and tag five other people. Here are my answers:

1. Number of books I own: Wow, I actually had to do work for this question, lets see...... 63. This is all I could easily see and count, I'm sorry but I'm just too tired to go searching around the house for more.

2. Last book you bought: Well I bought 3 in one day: (1) "Pretty Girl in Crimson Rose" A memoir of love, exile and crosswords- by Sandy Balfour (2) " Missing Sarah" A Vancouver women remembers her vanished sister - by Maggie de Vries (3) "No Uncertain Terms" On Language - by William Safire. As you can probably tell I read a lot of non- fiction. Actually that's all I read.

3. Last book I read: "More, Now, Again" A book about addiction. I'm currently reading "Revenge" about, you guessed it, revenge. I love books. I think I'm actually in the middle of a few. I also have Stephen King's "On Writing" started. And I'm forever in the middle of Promiscuities, my favourite book. I read and re-read it perpetually.

4. Five books that have meant a lot to me:
1. Promiscuities by Naomi Wolf. I loved this book so much because it reminds girls/ women to be proud of themselves in all aspects of live, including sexual experience. It is written using real experiences, both good and bad, of real women.

2. 1984 by George Orwell. Even though I was forced to read this book by my English teacher I fell in love with it. I really admire the way Orwell uses fiction to express and help us understand the facts of a true event.

3. The Bible. "Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength." (By the way there is no order to this I'm just going by the order in which I the books are lined on the shelf.)

4. Manolo Blahnik Drawings. If you know me you know I am obsessed with shoes and fashion. Enough said.

5. Pink Think - by Lynn Peril. A hilariously entertaining book that breaks down all the lies women were once told about becoming the 'ideal women'.

Enjoy.

So I came across a site that listed the 10 most harmful books of the 19th and 20th century as chosen by "conservative scholars."

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7591

1. The Communist Manifesto
2. Mein Kampf
3. Quotations from Chairman Mao
4. The Kinsey Report
5. Democracy and Education
6. Das Kapital
7. The Feminine Mystique
8. The Course of Positive Philosophy
9. Beyond Good and Evil
10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

I have read a few of the books listed here and I found them quite enlightening. Most of them are quite famous and the appearance of them as literature as helped to shape and challenge our society.

"By now you shoulda somehow realized what you gotta do..."

So I realize its been quite awhile since I posted. I'm trying to decide what I want to do with this. I might erase everything and start from scratch, or I might not. I don't think anyone really reads this so I might just make it private and have it just for myself. Or I might turn it into a way for me to start writing my book. So that until I get a laptop I can write and continue with it from any pc.

Anyways I guess I will talk about the assembly since I promised to on a previous post. Life has just gotten in the way of my writing I guess.

The assembly was a hit. There were mixed reactions from the girls but I think that is good. The ones who were thankful for the assembly saw the need for it and respected what we were doing and the ones that got mad because of it were mad because they felt convicted and I see that as a good thing. At the beginning things were a little crazy, and if you know me you know that I like things organized, but it worked out. I think that the best and most important outcome of the assembly was that the girls realized that they need to be true to themselves.

Last night a friend and I had a girls- in night. After we watched our uber-girly movie we began to just talk about life, school, family and guys. I realized that I can't settle. Not for anything or anyone in my life. I realize that I might sound stuck up by saying that but I don't care.

The assembly was a great success! Highlights will follow.

I am tired. Lets just start with that. I love work and I love my busy life but the two conflict. I am tired, I am always tired.

Anyways the assembly is in 2 days and its not shaping up the way I would have wanted which you know, kind of makes me crazy. I guess I'll have to just wait and see how it goes.

So today I stumbled upon this article: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anti-feminismclub/message/571 and was completely discusted with what I read. I don't even have any words to decribe my thoughts on the subject.

PUBLISHING...

A poem of mine is going to be featured in the book 'A Celebration of Young Poets'. Here's the poem and what it means to me:


A Yearning Soul

Deep inside my hollowed heart
Beneath the walls I've tried to build
There is a soul that is pure
A soul that is real and alive
It yearns to grow and to learn and to reach the farthest corners of the Earth
With every little beat of my pulse
My soul pines to be fed, to be challenged
With all that hurts and demeans on this Earth
You would think that my soul would grow dark and weary
But no
For deep inside my hollowed heart there is a Light like no other
A like that comes from You and You alone
Thank you for always being my encouragement
When that paths darken and I begin to stumble
Deep inside my hollowed heart
Beneath the walls I've tried to build
There is a soul that yearns, lives and breathes
For You, for You


I wouldn't say that I am religious person but I am definitely spiritual and I definitely believe in God. This poem is referring to the struggles in my life. I have experienced many unpretty things and I have questioned the existence of God and whether or not He even cared about me. However, I realize that without His love for me I would not be able to get through those things. I don't see bad things that happen in my life as bad, rather I see them as opportunities to better understand others. I also see the bad things as ways to grow and learn... and to renew hope.

Well I had a fabulous post but it was deleted which made me mad. I will repost it tomorrow perhaps it was just about me getting published in a book....

ANYWAYS..... I THINK IT'S TIME FOR ANOTHER QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"You live and learn. At any rate, you live. "
-Douglas Adams

These past few days have been really great. It feels like instead of being blah everything is exciting. Since Tuesday I have met really influential women and have decided to join the Soroptimist society, things for the assembly are all falling into place, I've changed jobs to one that is far more interesting and suited to me (plus i make more money and have more hours). Yay. But I'm way to busy to write a long entry today.


If you haven't heard the song Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd, I suggest it.

Video- India Arie

Hmm...hmm...hmm...mmm...Ho...oh...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh...oh...oh...oh...
Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah

Sometimes I shave my legs and sometimes I don’t
Sometimes I comb my hair and sometimes I won’t
Depend on how the wind blows I might even paint my toes
It really just depends on whatever feels good in my soul

I’m not the average girl from your video
And I ain’t built like a supermodel
But I learned to love myself unconditionally
Because I am a queen

I’m not the average girl from your video
My worth is not determined by the price of my clothes
No matter what I’m wearing I will always be
India Arie

When I look in the mirror the only one there is me
Every freckle on my face is where it’s supposed to be
And I know our Creator didn’t make no mistakes on me
My feet, my thighs, my lips, my eyes, I’m lovin’ what I see

I’m not the average girl from your video
And I ain’t built like a supermodel
But I learned to love myself unconditionally
Because I am a queen

I’m not the average girl from your video
My worth is not determined by the price of my clothes
No matter what I’m wearing I will always be
India Arie

Am I less of a lady if I don’t wear pantyhose
My mama said ain’t what she wears but, what she knows
But I’ve drawn a conclusion, it’s all an illusion, confusions the name of the game
A misconception, a vast deception, something’s gotta change

Don’t be offended this is all my opinion
Ain’t nothin’ that I’m sayin’ law
This is a true confession of a life learned lesson
I was sent here to share with y’all

So get in where you fit in go on and shine
Free your mind, now’s the time
Put your salt on the shelf, go ahead and love yourself‘
Cause everything’s gonna be all right

I’m not the average girl from your video
And I ain’t built like a supermodel
But I learned to love myself unconditionally
Because I am a queen

I’m not the average girl from your video
My worth is not determined by the price of my clothes
No matter what I’m wearing I will always be
India Arie

Keep your fancy drinks and your expensive minks
I don’t need that to have a good time
Keep your expensive car and your caviar
All I need is my guitar

Keep your Cristol and your pistol
I’d rather have a pretty piece of crystal
Don’t need your silicone, I prefer my own
What God gave me is just fine

I’m not the average girl from your video
And I ain’t built like a supermodel
But I learned to love myself unconditionally
Because I am a queen

I’m not the average girl from your video
My worth is not determined by the price of my clothes
No matter what I’m wearing I will always be
India Arie

I’m not the average girl from your video
And I ain’t built like a supermodel
But I learned to love myself unconditionally
Because I am a queen

I’m not the average girl from your video
My worth is not determined by the price of my clothes...

Here I sit with my hair a muck, smudged makeup on my fingers and the back of my hands, sweat from my run glistening on my forehead and the strap of my bra falling down my arm. Do I care about any of this? No.

Lately I have been feeling 'blah'. Life hasn't been exciting, work has been dull/ stressed, family has gotten on my nerves, writing has become a chore (as you may or may not have noticed I'm thinking about getting rid of my other blog), and I've grown away from a friend or two. I was really searching for a purpose in the chapter of my life.

Guess what? I realized it. I think in a pervious, very very previous post, I talked about an assembly that I'm creating and organizing for girls grades 8-10 in my highschool, HD Stafford. This assembly is about appearance, self confidence and relationships.

Today while running I began to think about the assembly and what I might say. I also though about next year when me and friend of mine plan to put on this assembly at other highschools and talk to girls all over the lower mainland. From this my focus shifted onto ways to make this one little idea bigger and better.

I know that I have always been a role model but I would like to take that along with my leadership qualities and enventually touch and help change the lives of many young girls.

I suppose something that sparked this may be a comment from a previous post:

strider said…
hey there...just checking in.I used to feel the same way all the time (regarding moving away and helping out)do the best you can where you are and maybe one day you will make a big move...but if you do what you can where you are you will make a difference no matter where in the world you are.think globally, act locally

Tonight I was inspired to write. That dream/ goal has kinda fallen away from me the past little while but tonight it was rightfully fueled.