Sunday Wordle: Marriage

Blog Activity

Now Playing: State of Grace by Taylor Swift (these are the hands of fate, you're my Achilles heel, this is the golden age of something good and right and real)

Music Mondays/Wordless Wednesdays/Video Fridays/Sunday Wordles are uploaded at 6am, local time. Including these I average about 24 blog posts a month.  

I brain fart..eh, not often. But it is my most updated page so check it out. The new brain farts are at the top. My 'About Me' page will be updated at the beginning of every month, so that will always be changing. I write a commentary for every poem I write and there's always a link to that page at the end of every poem, but if that poem is old you'll have to scroll down a bit. I upload quotes whenever I come across something I like. 

In response to some feedback I've gotten from friends with dodgy technology (i.e. anyone who lives in Australia and/or is stupid enough to try and use the wifi in the Perth Cultural Centre) my blog will only show ten posts at a time, and so if you don't check frequently or if I've gone on a blogging spree make sure you click the 'older posts' at the end of the page to see if there's something you've missed. 

Laci Green has a new video up every fortnight or so and is UH-MAY-ZING, I have literally watched her whole channel. Her tumblr page is also worth a big look, she uploads pretty much every day. 

Some might consider this 'age inappropriate' (the legal age of consent is 16 and genitalia are present since birth, so I don't entirely understand this argument) but it is definitely 'sex positive'...Dan Savage's column Savage Love. Kind of gross, very alternative and hilariously funny. Definitely NSFW, though. Or prudish parents/spouses/siblings/people who forget you have nerve endings.

I have on more than one occasion made my nerd friends cringe by saying things like 'I don't watch video games' (sorry!), but I looooove Zero Punctuation, which is something you get introduced to when you hang out with nerdy people (ILY, 오빠!).

I've stopped putting acknowledgements at the end of my Wordless Wednesdays because I upload three months worth at a time and it's very fiddly and time consuming. Basically I get them all off Facebook and Tumblr and they're almost always about gay rights or feminism.  

when I was seven.

Now Playing: Moon River by Audrey Hepburn (oh dream maker, you heart breaker, wherever you're going I'm going your way)

I'm becoming the woman I swore I would never be.

I was a wise kid, at seven. You don't believe me, but I was. I was a philosophical, precocious little polymath. And seven year old me would be horrified at what I've become - a horny, hormonal teenager.

Of course, I know a lot more now than I did then. I didn't know what sex was, back then. Now I don't understand how anyone could possibly live in ignorance of that. I didn't know what a period was. Both things were introduced to me at eight when I was innocent and curious and had provoked highly embarrassed female relatives into giving me a half shouted, largely inaccurate answer. But c'est la vie, I got there eventually with a bit of Dolly Doctor and Laci Green.

When I was seven I swore I wouldn't become emotionally dependent on anyone or anything. I clearly underestimated what teenage boys do to you. I'm not going to blame all my attachment issues on oxytocin and testosterone, though - people these days have funny ideas of what being 'clingy' is - basically anything that deviates from being a heartless detached selfish asshole. Everyone I know, and like, is or has been accused of being 'clingy'; I would only accuse them of being 'human'.

When I was seven I was alone. I still remember it, nearly ten years on. I ate lunch in the toilets and wandered around staring at my shoelaces. Nothing I did was right, or good enough. I was bullied, a lot, for absolutely nothing in particular, and isolated because I was in a split-grade class but I was the only year two to basically become a year three. I talked to myself and lived in my own little world - and that did not help the bullying at all. I was having a teenage hissy fit at my parents a good six years too early. I was angry and frustrated and, being seven and deprived of internet access and the sufficient motor skills to pen a diary, no outlet. I got out of that period almost like a hardened veteran - I had no-one to depend on, so I decided that depending on anyone was weak. I didn't have anyone to cry on or scream at, no shoulders to slump into or arms around me. I tried to tell myself I could live without that.

I couldn't hide my eccentricity when I was seven - I just didn't have the capacity. When I finally grew up enough to conform I did, but I got no happiness out of pretending. I don't get a buzz out of being a 24/7 liar. The reason why I am such a good white liar now is that I taught myself to lie when the truth wasn't good enough for people.

It always cut deep when people - teachers, students, anyone - accused me of being arrogant and too up myself. I have hated what I look like ever since I was six years old. I've spent countless nights crying myself to sleep, inconsolable in the fact that I was utterly inadequate. I had my brief, fleeting moments of glory, but the things I remember the most about primary school was being forced to sit through countless award ceremonies and sports carnivals for the kind of people I couldn't be doing things I couldn't do, and then being bullied for being good at whatever I was good at. I've always been a silly lovesick kid and people have been telling me to my face that I'm not good enough, never good enough, and laughed at the dreamer with the nerve to adore them ever since I first caught someone's eye and thought that they were the best thing that could have ever existed - a small wound for a teenager, maybe, but totally crushing when one is ten and optimistic. I still can't believe how I have spent my whole life cut down, and then people turn around and say that I am arrogant.

When I was seven anything I wanted, I got. My mother raised me with the working class dream that you can get anything if you work hard enough. Yeah, anything except for friends, boyfriends, social acceptance - people laugh off these troubles later, but it is cruel to forget how important these things are not only to children, but to all people, to all of humanity.

When I was seven I was punished constantly for being human. For having an emotional spectrum, for wanting what other people had. I remember it as a very lonely, isolated, confusing time. I remember not fitting in and wanting more than anything a friend. When I was seven I tried to protect myself by swearing I would be what I thought of 'strong' - but it was really just trying to conform to society and ignore who I was.

Now I have people to scream at and cry on. I have people who don't knock me down for being human. I have people I love dearly who are proud to be my friends. But I wish I could somehow convey to people that I'm not made of stone like everyone else pretends to be. If I'm going to be fearless I can't pretend to not be vulnerable. Because at heart I'm still a little seven year old with scabby knees, crying in the toilets over one childish hurt or another. And that's the person people hurt when they hurt me.

Things I Loved in October

Now Playing: The Last Time by Taylor Swift ft. Gary Lightbody (this is the last time I'm asking you why you break my heart in the blink of an eye)

1. Graduating! I am technically an ex-high school inmate! That is very exciting. I feel like a year one who's had a '2' accidentally added to the end of her grade level. But never mind.

2. I have discovered oil cleansing and I love it. I was having a fight with my Coconut Soap - which I still use as a kind of feminine wash - because it was making my skin dry and flaky. Oil cleansing is basically when you clean your face with a wash cloth and oil - I use EVOO and I love it. In the morning I wipe off the excess oil so I can put makeup on but at night I leave it all and it absorbs into the skin as moisturizer. I also use EVOO as lip gloss which is working super well - although it is messy and not very portable. This is really helping with my exam stress breakouts.

3. TAYLOR SWIFT'S NEW ALBUM RED IS AMAZING OMG! My favourite tracks are Begin Again, The Last Time, Treacherous, State of Grace and All Too Well.

4. 오빠 being a sweetie

5. Spaghetti sandwiches. Heaven.

6. Egg in a basket. Also heaven.

7. I watched American Beauty. Finally. And I loved it. And I also loved tearing it to pieces.

8. Dan Savage is my new hero.

9. I've been wearing lots of sundresses. I feel at home. I hate school uniform.

10. Muck up days were so much fun. I was a fairy, an indie, and a hippy writer. I still have my purple sparkly gauze wings.

Video Friday: Islam is a religion of peace.

ha. ha. ha.

Now Playing: Long Live by Taylor Swift (and the cynics were outraged, screaming 'this is absurd', because for a moment a band of thieves in ripped up jeans got to rule the world)

So in the background whilst I'm tearing apart American Beauty (don't hate on me, I do actually like it...but English students do what English students do) I'm listening to a debate between Dan Savage and Brian Brown. Oh, wait...actually, I'm listening to this super awesome, intelligent, witty, crass, somewhat-reminding-me-of-my-best-friend guy totally kick this bigoted douchebag's ass on the topic of marriage equality.

Brian Brown's entire argument was that gay marriage is a threat to 'traditional marriage' because proponents of 'traditional marriage' - bigots - will be actively picked on for being...bigots. It was actually Dan Savage - the son of conservative Catholics who has read the Bible cover to cover and considers himself culturally Catholic (and has admitted to fucking someone in the Vatican, but that's another story) was the one who had the rock solid argument based on Scripture, the law...and fucking human decency.

You are a bigot if you are so devoted to your own beliefs that you incite fear and hatred against a social or ethnic group. That is the definition of bigotry. The only thing you have the right to do if you still buy into that 'traditional marriage' crap is to not marry someone gay. You can't tell other people what to do. And when the time comes - and it will come - that the law recognises the real rights of gay people over the fake rights of bigots, then yeah, you will get picked on for being a bigot. To say that we have to deny people their human rights to protect bigots from being called out as bigots is beyond absurd, and it's really quite sad that that is all you can come up with. If I started saying that Hitler was a fabulous guy with a wonderful world view I'd get picked on too. You fucking deserve it.

A lot of people tell me, when I'm supporting marriage equality and attacking certain confused, misinformed, ignorant perspectives on marriage equality, that I'm being disrespectful towards religion or religious freedom or blah blah. I am not religious. This is a right that has been infringed many times when I have been forced to pray, called derogatory things like 'unsaved' and 'immoral', and constantly had religion shoved in my face when I'm really quite happy being a heathen. I am a gnostic atheist because to the best of my knowledge there is no God and no point in being God-fearing. But I have never every infringed on other peoples rights to think otherwise. I support religious freedom in all places where one particular faith, or type of faith, is imposed. The only time people have been offended by me and accused me of infringing on their right to religious freedom is because my beliefs are incongruous to their own. Differences in opinion does not constitute a violation of religious freedom. Imposing your opinions on others is a violation of religious freedom. I don't really care what religion you are. My rights as a gnostic atheist is not impacted whether you're a gnostic atheist, or a Bible-believing Christian, or a faithful Muslim, Jew, Hindu.

What I do object to is the sex negativity of many of the major religions. Many people ask me why I'm not Buddhist - because somehow 'being Asian' and 'not being Christian' automatically equals Buddhism. I'm not a Buddhist because I reject Buddhist teachings as being incompatible with human nature and incompatible with who I am as a person. Because real people feel anger, and rage, but this can be used proactively. A state of peace achieves next to nothing. But that's another can of worms. One of my primary objections to Buddhism is, behind a facade of tolerance and peace to the extent that Buddhism is referred to by Adam Hills as 'the only religion you can mock without the risk of a bomb exploding' is extreme sex negativity. Celibacy is the ultimate goal and people are considered less worthy if they are unable or unwilling to suppress their sexuality. Homosexuality is condemned in Buddhist texts, something I have a problem with. The Dalai Lama himself has even spoken out against homosexuality, in which he contradicts his stance to prevent discrimination against homosexuality by condemning 'sexual misconduct' - basically any variation from the standard penis-in-vagina thing. People don't realize this whenever Buddhism is trendy. It does have some serious flaws.

Many religions are sex negative - based on the premise that sexuality is sinful, that it is a sin to indulge one's sexual desires and only certain sexual practices between certain people in certain circumstances are 'okay'. I dislike the concept that theology can dictate what goes on behind closed doors. I dislike the slut shaming, the veneration of female virginity, the taboo of female sexuality, the demonization of homosexuality and alternate sexual orientations and gender expressions and the violence against people who fail to conform to hypocritical and oppressive sexual standards that is often part and parcel with the major religions. I reject religion in my life because it ignores the facts - masturbation, for example, is safe, healthy, and pretty much everyone does it, and yet it is shamed and stigmatized by most major religions. So my problem isn't just religious views on homosexuality - my problem is religious views on sexuality in general. I don't pretend to be the most virginal person out there. I'm a teenager. If I were a boy people would have no problem accepting that I'm horny as fuck. And yet I am held to these hypocritical and oppressive standards created out of the premise that sex is sinful, and I reject that. I shouldn't be held to these standards that I don't believe in and didn't create for myself. I shouldn't be a victim of slut shaming when I don't really see anything wrong with, you know, being myself.

Another problem I have is that religious arguments against gay marriage hold no water. Marriage is a legal institution. Marriage was initially an institution in which men paid - through money or monogamy or providing house and home or whatever - for exclusive sexual access to a woman to provide assurance of paternity. Marriage then became a business contract in which a man took possession of another man's daughter. Then marriage became a union between two families. Religion...entered rather late onto the scene, and the Biblical version of marriage only reflects societal attitudes of the time in which the Bible was written - and it's got some pretty fucked up stuff in it, including polygamy, marriages between masters and slaves, a husband's sexual access to a wife's slaves and marriages between a rapist and his victim. To say that the Bible says that marriage is 'only between a man and a woman' is like saying that the Kinsey Report believes that heterosexuality is the only genuine sexual orientation and everyone else is just making shit up. It's a fallacy.

To say that marriage is solely a religious institution, and to hold people to standards set by religion, is a violation of religious freedom. Not adhering to religious standards that you believe in and others don't is not a violation of religious freedom. I eat pork and I love it. I'm a hardcore carnivore. I am not infringing the religious freedom of any Jewish person out there because I eat a bit of dead pig. What would be a violation of religious freedom is if I somehow tricked, coerced or forced a Jew to eat pork if he wasn't inclined to do so. It's really that simple. I have said very clearly that I am going to have a civil marriage, and it'll probably be an interracial marriage - which used to be illegal - given my racist hormones. Someone said that this is only valid because it coincidentally conforms with what the Church currently believes in (and yes, the Church used to be against interracial marriage) and that was frankly insulting. I am not an accidental, coincidental Christian. I am a deliberate atheist. I have the right to marry who I want how I want. By luck I am straight and I have that right. If I were gay I demand those same rights, because either way I'm still a human being.

It blows my mind that people still don't believe that civil marriage is a thing, and scream blasphemy whenever I try to tell them the simple fact that civil marriage existed long before God got involved - before God was even a thing. Gay people aren't trying to get the Pope's blessing - frankly, who would, because he's covering up for pedophiles and preventing the distribution of condoms and thus allowing the spread of AIDS in Africa - they're just trying to get the legal rights that everyone else deserves. Anyone is allowed to get married. Black, white, religious, non religious. Why are gays excluded from something that has nothing to do with you, or me, or religion?

At any rate, believe what you believe. Confine yourself with sex negativity, and force yourself to believe that marriage is only between a man and a woman for the sole purpose of making babies. That is not what the Bible says, at all, but to each his own. You have no right to impose this definition onto other people. At all. I have no right to stop you from marrying whoever you want, and whoever you marry doesn't concern me. So you have no right to stop a gay person from marrying someone of the same sex, and whoever they marry doesn't concern you. Why is this so hard to wrap your head around?

Abraham's Daughter

He wrote in his schoolbooks
With his sister's blood
Under his eyes
Were the bruises of Abraham's daughter

And the money his parents spent
Were made of childhood play
And broken dreams

The clothes on his back
Were ripped off hers
He built a house
On a river of tears
And a shredded wedding dress

Abraham's daughter
Raised for the slaughter
A rich man with another's wife
Lives in her charity

And forfeits his life

Abraham's daughter
Raised for the slaughter
Buried him with his father's innocence
And her own blood.

Inspired by Abraham's Daughter by Arcade Fire
Click here for a discussion of Abraham's Daughter

Stats!

Now Playing: All Too Well by Taylor Swift (maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much, but maybe this thing was a masterpiece until you tore it all up)

I blog about 24 times a month. So if you visit two out of three days chances are I'll have something new up. I also schedule visual posts on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

Most of my readers come from Australia, followed by the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Canada, Germany, France, Singapore, Malaysia and then the Philippines. Interesting.

27% of you are Firefox users. I used to use Firefox. It kept crashing. 25% of you use Chrome, which is what I use now. 23% are using good old ie. 15% use Safari, 4% use Mobile Safari and 1% use Opera.

69% use Windows! 11% are Macs. 5% are Android, 4% on Linux, 3% on iPod, 3% on iPhone, and 1% on iPad (hi sis). I've had the most page views in September 2012, which may have something to do with the EIGHTY-TWO POSTS I POSTED THAT MONTH. OMFG.

some stuff to think about for halloween

the most stressful.

Now Playing: The Lucky One by Taylor Swift (they tell you that you're lucky but you're so confused because you don't feel pretty, you just feel used)

Easily, the hardest exam I'm preparing for is English.

Which, ya know, might sound funny considering I have subjects where I'm on a 65 average but I'm on a 90 average for English and topping the year to boot. But I'm terrified of the English exam.

I don't like exams. At all. Full stop. It's not the hard work and it's not the stress - I'm not an artsy fartsy yuppie who can't stand a bit of blood sweat and tears. I don't like exams because three hour periods of enforced isolation, starvation and stillness doesn't seem to me the most intelligent way to test someone's intelligence. But nobody can say a damn because the people who think it's so clever to do WACE exams are...how to put it...assholes.

The abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery, Ajahn Brahm, once said that a junior monk who dreams of becoming abbot must know that he is only swapping the pain of being a junior monk with the pain of being an abbot. It feels like that now. It was tough, skipping a grade, getting some of the lowest marks in the class after eight years of paralysing boredom but ego boosting easy As. Now I'm at the top and I'm scared, so scared that I'm going to fall.

I don't have what you call 'orthodox' studying habits. I know I have a short attention span and I try and work with it. I study in short, intense bursts that leaves my head spinning, and then I quit before I have an aneurysm or I get distracted. I blog a lot, because I get stressed and this helps. But also...this helps.

This blog has been my baby for four years. I am on my blog every day, doing maintenance, scheduling posts, editing, writing, moderating, formatting, wrestling with html. Anyone who wants to write well, anyone who dreams of making it big some day through writing...start a blog. It'll teach you the commitment to your art. It'll teach you how to write for an audience, how to sell yourself without selling your soul. But I can't describe how my writing has improved since blogging seriously.

There's only so much a teacher can teach you. A teacher can teach you essay structure and grammar and to underline movie titles. A teacher can't teach you voice - and that is the most important thing, to me. To me, it's worth dabbling in a few taboos and bending a few rules to make writing interesting, exciting. I enjoy what I write. I think it's funny. I can see myself in my writing, I can hear my voice - and the people who know me say that too. There's no point in writing something nobody will read. It could be flawless, but if it's boring, you won't get marks or money or joy out of it. Blogging has taught me how to write with voice, and that is a great safety net to have. You can screw up conventions and structure and formal language and correct bibliography formatting, but it's hard to screw up voice. Once you've got it it's hard to lose it.

Everyone tells me I'm wasting time, blogging about feminism, about gay rights, about anything else that I think is important. What if I told you that some of my highest English marks have essentially been rehashed blog posts? If you read some of my funny sarcastic journalistic essays, they read much like what I put up here - slightly more polished, but still with the raw emotion and dry humour. I'll post some of them here next year when I don't have to worry about shameless people trying to rip me off.

It infuriates me that my insecurity issues permeate even my beloved English - the one thing I know I can do well. But in a way, it has served me well - it has kept me humble. I have seen one person reach where I am now, only to stumble and fall for arrogance. Anyone can fail, nobody is infallible. Life has taught me that, but some people apparently missed the memo.

I don't worry about numbers. Prizes are nice, but I've had so much experience with missing out on them and lived to tell the tale. It's my art that is my love. I can't bear to not do a piece of writing justice. I can't even write birthday cards because I agonize over what to say. Everything I do or think or say tumbles out in imperfect, blighted, beautiful prose. I never ever ever want to lose that.