Halloween

So I actually had a pretty good week.

I got all my projects done, didn't work too much, and had a free weekend. I helped to organize a Halloween party for work, and that was a lot of fun. Though I didn't study as much as I should have because of it, since I had two tests on Friday. But Friday night I went to a friend's for a party, and it was nice to hang out with them because I don't get to see them very often anymore. Then last night I went to a co-worker's party, and heard about all the shenanigans that I had missed since I went to a friend's instead of my boss' party. And here's when I start in on Halloween.

My friends, people I don't know, even movies like Mean Girls say that Halloween is the only holiday a girl can dress like a slut and no one can say anything about it. Well, here's my thing: If you look like a slut, I'm gonna say something. I might not say it to your face, but believe me, I am judging your slutty ass in that skimpy costume. I don't care how "hot" you are, you still look like a whore.

And that's the thing I really don't like about this holiday. I don't like dressing like a slut, and my version of tarty clothing is different than a lot of peoples'. But trying to find a costume that's not ho-tastic is incredibly frustrating. What makes it worse is that I have these things called curves, which makes the skirts shorter in the back and the tops tighter. Of course, a good 90% of all womens' costumes have skirts (big surprise there). Unless you make your costume, you're in danger of having some part of your costume show more skin than necessary, and for me comfortable.

But when did this holiday become this way? I don't remember skanky costumes when I was younger being advertised in the Halloween stores. The kids' costumes are having less material as well. I don't understand why this holiday means we put our bodies on display for drunken guys to ogle at. Quite frankly, I'd rather have attention from a sober guy in my regular clothes than the drunken guy who likes me because I'm a "princess" or a "superhero" whose costume is nowhere near conducive to fighting crime (or covering up).

My Halloween costumes are tasteful, I believe. I've been a spy for a few years, I was a fairy once (with a cami to cover my cleavage), I was a pirate freshman year with the rest of my friends, I was Catwoman last year and the only skin you could see was from the neck up, and this year I was a few things. I was the "Walk of Shame" for work (which was a lot of fun), I was a ringleader at the smaller party, and I was Little Red/Dead Riding Hood for the co-worker's party.

I wore the same black tights to all the parties. I had shorts on for each costume. And my top was covered as well. Sure, the dress was shorter than anything I wear, but my costume choices were rather conservative compared to other peoples'. And to be honest, though I was wearing shorts I didn't feel completely comfortable in it. And I got "cute costume" the whole night. Let's be honest, I wanted more than cute costume. I guess since for me it was "sexier" than what I'm used to, it was just normal for everyone else.

I had fun in my costume. I liked my costume a lot. I did think it was cute. I wasn't going for sexy. Which is why I'm confused as to why I'm annoyed I didn't get anything more than cute. Maybe it's because of the reputation Halloween has. Though I don't want to look like a slut, it does get you down after awhile of being ignored when the friends you came with keep getting hit on. Especially when you think and have been told that you're more attractive than them, even if it is just by friends who are female.

I want to take back Halloween. I want to have a fun costume, be it funny or homemade or sexy, whatever I feel like being that day/year. I want to go trick-or-treating, because free candy is amazing. I want to talk to people because they have a pretty sweet costume, and I want people to talk to me because of the same reason. I want to spend weeks getting excited about it, and maybe going to a haunted house or watching scary movies.

Seems to me I want to go back to being a kid.

Fight For All the Wrong Reasons

Thankfully I've had a slightly less stressful week. I'm home now, going to a concert in a few hours.

Since I've actually almost had some time to myself, I've been watching a little more TV than I usually get to, or a movie here and there. And I started watching Save the Last Dance, and I had been watching another TV show earlier this week, and it got me thinking about something that seems really prevalent in these types of things.

Whenever there's a fight scene and the antagonist decides he (or she) has to send a message to the protagonist through a physical means, usually the antagonist isn't alone. Usually, when the protagonist needs to be roughed up, the antagonist has a few of his (or her) friends come with and hold the protagonist back. While they're doing this, they're also usually yelling at the protagonist for being a coward or something like that.

Here's what I don't understand about these people: If you're calling them a coward or weak or something, then why are you the one that has to have back up so you all can effectively beat them up? One on three really isn't courageous, and it's definitely not honorable. If you're fighting for honor or something, then take them on one on one. If you can't take them alone, then why are you making them such a target?

Another thing that doesn't make any sense to me is this standard of preferring men over women. I just finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, and the husband is so preoccupied with having a son. He completely ignores his daughter, and then the Taliban takes over and prohibits women of pretty much anything. I don't understand why you would disown a girl, abuse her, kill her, or starve her to death.

First off, she's still a human. That's the main reason why you shouldn't do that. But what I don't understand is, what if everyone in that society decided to do that? Kill off all the newborn girls, and keep the newborn boys only. What happens when they grow up? Men can't really procreate by themselves, so isn't that effectively killing your society? Yes, there may be a few older women still around, but there's a good chance they can't have any more children by the time this happens.

I don't know if I'm a feminist, per se. I mean, I'm perfectly OK if a draft comes along and I'm exempt because I'm a woman. I do not like being seen as only something for sex (which seems to be becoming extremely common now, for some reason). I can handle being paid a few cents less here and there. At my old job, I was actually paid more than the guys I worked with. I haven't really encountered anything that makes me feel like I should have to fight for more rights for women, except for rape laws.

But that's not the point of this. The point is that there are things that seem to occur frequently that I have no clue how it makes sense. Killing all the women is silly. Wanting to have a baby boy makes sense, but a child's still a child, and they're still your child. And fighting for honor is not honorable when you don't even have the balls to fight one on one.

Sometimes, I really don't understand people.

Breakin' At the Cracks

This past week wasn't too busy for me, actually.

But I haven't had much to write about, blogging-wise. I've wanted to write for the past week, I just haven't really had a chance to. I really can't write if there are others around, and Tif's been in the room this whole week. I really don't think I've got anything new on my mind that I haven't already written about.

The cycle of thoughts since I last wrote have been: Death, being lonely, being sick of sickeningly sweet coupling (mainly from TV/movies), wanting to write some stories, work, and Halloween. I've wanted to fence in the mornings, but by the time practice rolls around I don't do anything. I've been forgetting about a lot of homework, and I'm almost apathetic to my Spanish class right now. I kind of just don't care about this thing called school lately.

I think I'm starting to burn out. This semester I've only had time for school and sleep, and no social life outside of work. Pretty sure that's taking its toll on me now. But it's not really like anyone else wants to help with this social life aspect that I haven't met at the wall, besides for Tif. I love talking to people. I like doing things that don't involve speaking Spanish or learning history. I like being with people.

I just feel like I'm complaining right now, so I'm going to go find something to do. There may be another mini-post this week to make up for this.

Dead and Gone

It's been a rough week.

My uncle died Sunday night (10/3). I've been so busy with work and school that I haven't really had a chance to process it, and I won't even be able to go to the funeral because I can't afford to miss any of my classes. I feel bad that I won't be able to go, but I only recently reconnected with him, so we weren't that close. I feel bad that I'm making school my priority, and not my family. I know my mom could use me right now.

I'm going to admit something here that I've only admitted to one other person: I think I don't deal with death very well. This is now the fourth family member whose died in recent years: My grandpa in 8th grade, my uncle on my dad's side a few weeks later, my grandma senior year, and my uncle this week. I haven't really cried for any of them, save my grandma. I think it might be because I didn't really know them too well, but I still feel like I should have stronger reactions.

I sat at the funeral of my grandpa silently, with maybe a few tears coming out. I'm not sure if I cried for my Uncle Robert a few weeks after. And I cried for my grandma, who I knew the best out of all of them. I think a part of that, though, was because of my mother's reaction. It was horrible and I'm tearing up right now just thinking about it.

These people are family, and I can't muster up any tears for them. Yes, I feel sad, but the feeling passes fairly quickly. I was more upset over Dave dumping me than I've been for any of them dying combined. Hell, I think I've cried over movie characters more than I have over any family members, and I feel like that's just not right.

I feel like a horrible person for not mourning for many of my family members, and mourning over fictionalized events instead. And even worse because my Uncle Bryant was 47, and died of a stroke. After about an hour I started to worry about my mother, who is older than him, but still from the same side of the family. She's already had an unexplained heart attack, so something like this could potentially happen to her too.

I don't want to think about it. I don't want to imagine how I'd feel if my mother died. I'm scared that I'll have the same reaction to her death, or my father's, or my brother's, as I did with my grandma. I'm scared that I could have a stronger reaction to one of my friends' deaths than theirs. That's not supposed to happen.

The thought also came up that maybe I'm just good at dealing with death. I don't let it consume me or my mind. I don't wallow, I don't wonder what if. Maybe I'm not afraid of death, and that's why I don't get so choked up over it. Maybe I've taken Dumbledore's (and J.K. Rowling's) words to heart: To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.

Or maybe I just can't spare any emotions for people who have gone on.

All I Can Do is Write About It

It's Saturday night, I'm sitting in pajamas with SNL on, trying to figure out what homework I want to do next. I've been alone all weekend again. Such is life I guess.

I don't really have a lot of time to think about a lot of things during my week anymore. This past one was so tolling on me that I almost had a few break downs because of my Spanish class and my iPod getting stolen. I didn't realize how attached I was to that thing until it went missing. But that's not what I want to write about tonight, though I'm not sure what it is I want to write about.

I've noticed a lot lately that people get incredibly interested when I tell them I'm a journalism major. Usually it's a good kind of interested, which I haven't really expected because so many people don't hold journalists in high regard. But people who I talk to start to ask me a lot of questions about what I want to do after I graduate, why I went into journalism, and who I hope to eventually interview.

Like today. I went to the mall and an older gentleman was waiting for his daughter to meet up with him so they could go do something else. He asked what my major was, and what I want to do with my life as a journalist. This is almost always the first question that I get when I tell people my major, especially if I throw magazine in there. They usually get surprised when I tell them my answer of write for Time down the line.

But they do have a good point. What am I doing after I get out of here? I don't even know where I'm going to intern this summer, though that's not for a lack of trying to find somewhere. For now, though, I'm not really too worried about that. But I digress. This man was very interested in my passion for writing, and proceeded to tell me about how Taylor University has an incredible writing program that I now want to check out.

Later today, I was doing my homework for my photo class. The assignment was to take a close-up of 20 strangers and get basic info about them. Everyone I asked was very helpful, and some of them were really interested in why I had to take pictures. I had a family come in and talk to me about why I chose Time over all the other magazines, and we started talking about the other magazines I'd like to write for. We also talked about the fact that they're teaching us everything we could be asked to do, and how Ball State is doing a good job of making us really marketable.

I wish I could've taken some of these classes for longer than five weeks. I feel like there's so much more I could learn that I want to learn, but there's just not enough time. I'm glad I got the chance to take a lot of these, but I want more. Like photo. I kind of wish I had double majored in magazine and photo, but I think it's probably too late to try and do that.

I realized that again tonight, when I was taking the pictures. I've written before about wanting to learn this profession, but having no way of learning. Tonight I also got to do mini-interviews, so now I want to go out and interview people again. Which is good, because I'm taking an interview class, and that's something I've missed lately. And writing. I just don't have any time. Or place to publish.

I know I want to get out there and be able to do interview of famous people. There's one that I aspire to get, and that's J.K. Rowling (of course). I even have an idea of how I can pitch that story idea, though I'm going to keep that to myself. I don't even really want to go out there and interview a lot of famous people. I just want to interview people who are passionate about something. I want to write stories that interest me. I kind of want to be known for stories about body image issues, I think.

So basically, I'm pretty sure I picked the right major for me. Go me. I'm just going to end this post, because I'm thoroughly distracted and I don't think this makes much sense at all. But I hope you enjoyed my rambles about people being interested in journalists.