My Long Weekend

Mood: inspired
Listening to: 'Teardrops On My Guitar' by Taylor Swift
Hungry for: dinner?

I am in the middle of a long weekend here. God knows why we have Monday off - and for goodness sake I don't care. Well, I'd prefer it if the day off was a Friday instead of a Monday, because Monday I have English and therefore is actually a worthwhile day of school wherelse Friday does not include English and therefore is not, but any day off of school is good, especially in the mind of a stressed schoolgirl.

I am not spending this long weekend like I normally do - eating junk food and watching movies, ignoring 'that sinking feeling' which is a side effect of overdue homework - instead, I took advantage of Perth's very limited festivity and went to the Perth Writer's Festival, which is part of the Perth International Arts Festival. I spent an hour there yesterday, a very long day there today and I'll be back again, tomorrow, for an even longer day.

This is a bit different to the average way an average fourteen year old spends an average summer long weekend - but I'm not a big fan of average, anyway. Some girls I know are going to a theme park tomorrow - and you may think it ridiculous that I'm going to some festival whilst I could go to a theme park. Well, firstly, I wasn't invited - I'm not normally invited to these kind of things, I'm considered too weird and most people are under the (mostly false) impression that I can't swim - and secondly, there is only one theme park here in Perth, and I've just been there a few weeks ago. The theme park here, which is imaginatively called 'Adventure World', is quite fun by Perth standards, but seeing as we only have the one park we have to be careful not to go there more than a couple of times a year or you risk boring yourself silly on one of our only entertainment sources.

Let me tell you about the festival. It's held at the University of Western Australia, which is WA's top university, and there are two major types of events - adults and kids.

I hate festivals that have adults and kids events. Do teenagers not matter anymore?

So I went to the adults sessions, and copped a lot of strange looks for being the youngest person in the room by about three decades. The audience was mainly old people, and when I mean old people I mean old to the point that they don't care that socks and sandals look stupid, and don't know that no matter how much purple eyeshadow and fuschia lipstick you have on you won't look twenty years younger. Yeah, that old.

I cannot adequately describe the feeling of being the youngest in pretty much everything in your life. I'm the youngest in my family, I take classes with kids in the year above me, and I do a lot of things considered "old" - which is not really intentional, I just don't like most things that entertain people of my age. In some ways, it's kinda fun - people tend to associate words like 'wise' and 'mature' with you (not entirely sure whether that's a good idea), and you get a bit of leeway for not having a clue what's going on, because you're young (which is not a valid excuse for playing SingStar, unfortunately). But in some ways it can be incredibly annoying - getting strange looks from old farts and grumpy grannies, getting your opinions dismissed because of your age, and of course, the teasing and dirty looks from people my age, who are, all in all, quite xenophobic.

Some sessions were very good - as in so fun and inspiring that you the crowds were erupting into applause every twenty seconds and you were rolling in the aisles in fits of laughter - and others had guest speakers with the public speaking ability of a toddler. So yeah, lots of variety.

Why do I go to these things? Partly because I'm a wannabe writer trying to get something published, and partly because I love the atmosphere of these kind of events. It's different to school because everyone is kind of forced to be there, and not everyone actually wants to be there. This event is voluntary, so people are willingly passionate. I love passionate people. There's not enough passion in the world.

So here are a couple of questions for you to ponder (and hopefully answer, in the comments). Do you think you are a passionate person? Do you have the strength to go against the flow? Have you ever been the youngest in a family, a class, or an organization? Do you get the same discrimination and reluctant awe from others like I do?

LADY RENEGADE'S OFFICIAL PLAYLIST, FEBRUARY 2010

Mood: musicky (I know that's not a word!)
Listening to: 'Cold As You' by Taylor Swift...I should have listened to this song about three months ago and saved myself from a very painful breakup.
Hungry for: dinner....

Every month, I'm gonna release a playlist of what I'm listening to. New thing.

This month (in no particular order):

1. One Less Lonely Girl, Justin Bieber (yes, I listen to Justin Bieber. Get over it.)
2. One Time, Justin Bieber
3. Change, Taylor Swift
4. I'd Lie, Taylor Swift
5. Invisible, Taylor Swift
6. Cold As You, Taylor Swift
7. I Heart Question Mark, Taylor Swift
8. Your Anything, Taylor Swift
9. Halo, Beyonce
10. Art of Love, Guy Sebastian ft. Jordin Sparks

Aaaand...that's basically it. My absolute favourite songs of this month.

Song Talk

Mood: confuzzlement
Listening to: 'Invisible' by Taylor Swift
Hungry for: love

I just wanna show you,
She don't even know you,
She can't even love you like I want to.
And you just see right through me,
But if you only knew me,
We could be a beautiful, miracle, unbelievable...
...instead I'm just invisible....
- Invisible, Taylor Swift

He stands there, then walks away;
My God, if I could only say:
'I'm holding every breath for you...'
He'd never tell you,
But he can play guitar;
I think he can see through everything but my heart.
First thought when I wake up,
Is 'My God, he's beautiful',
As I put on my makeup,
And pray for a miracle...
- I'd Lie, Taylor Swift

I remember you driving to my house in the middle of the night,
I'm the one that makes you laugh when you know you're about to cry;
I know your favourite songs,
And you tell me 'bout your dreams,
Think I know where you belong,
Think I know it's with me....
- You Belong With Me, Taylor Swift

When you come to me and say some other girl has broke your heart once again,
Will you ever learn?
All this time I've been patiently hoping that you would notice me;
You need to know that I've been waiting so long....
- Been Waiting, Jessica Mauboy

I could be your favourite blue jeans with the holes in the knees in the bottom of the top draw,
I could be a little beauty queen, just a little out of reach, or the girl living next door.
I'll be your angel giving up her wings if that's what you need,
I'd give everything to be your anything.
- Your Anything, Taylor Swift

He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar,
The only one who's got enough of me to break my heart;
He's the song in the car I keep singing, don't know why I do.
He's the time taken up,
But there's never enough,
And he's all that I need to fall into....
- Teardrops on My Guitar, Taylor Swift.

Why are we, in this day and age, learning from and idoliziong misogynistic bastards?

Mood: zonked
Listening to: 'Iris' by the Goo Goo Dolls
Hungry for: milk

I am, as of this semester, a year ten Philosophy student. We're studying theories proposed by the famous Greek philosophers - Socrates and Aristotle, mostly, but we briefly covered Plato.

The thing that annoys me the most is that two out of the three are MISOGYNISTIC BASTARDS.

Part of this annoyance comes from the fact that I am a staunch feminist, and I refuse to recognise, let alone learn from and idolize, any bastard who is so f**ked up that they cannot even see the true value of the female sex and the equality that should be between the two sexes. I don't care if that's the main mindset of the Ancient Greeks. Philosopher's are meant to go against the norm - Socrates was put to death 'for corrupting the youth', so it wasn't like he wasn't used to being the red fish, as I like to call it. There is no excuse for misogyny, and all misogynists should go F**KING DIE IN A HOLE.

But the other thing is, I believe that the only credible philosophers are those who are completely unbiased - you cannot really count the opinion of anyone who is rascist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, etc. I mean, a biased opinion is not a good opinion, so why bother learning about it? The only times I swear and say the 'f' word is when it comes to sexism and rascism. I can't believe in this day and age we're still idolizing sexist f**kheads.

Which is why I no longer count myself as a Buddhist - because, however enlightened Buddha was, he was still misogynistic. When will women have their place in the world? When someone as esteemed and enlightened as Buddha places men above women, then you know this world is f**ked up.

Demographics

Mood: well-fed
Listening to: 'One Less Lonely Girl' by Justin Bieber
Hungry for: dessert

I must say, I'm very proud of my blog. It is about two and a half years old now, and it's more successful than I ever hoped for it to be. It's really boosted my confidence in my writing, improved my writing skills and fine-tuned my abilities to entertain, and been an essential lifeline during times of pain and stress.

For my new readers, here is the history of the blog:

I've always been a sort of angsty, opinionated kind of person, and I got into all sorts of trouble by voicing my opinions in rather crude and uncivilized means at school. As I grew older, my opinions became more defined and my belief in them much more religious. I needed an outlet for all of my opinions. I wanted to show however small a percentage of the world's population that cared what I thought.

Growing up, I'd always been the 'weird' kid. I didn't conform to your stereotypical nerd image - I was studious but I also cared obsessively about my appearance, I was bookish but also involved in all sorts of societies and clubs - and I copped a lot of teasing from my classmates - a mixture of the thuggish seeking ego boosting, the cruel preying on the week, jealous rivals and confused xenophobics. This did nothing other than to make myself even more eccentric and different.

Also, growing up, I was obsessed with being recognised and rewarded for my efforts and talents. Nothing would tick me off than missing out on an award that I thought I deserved - which happened often, because I grew up in a rather xenophobic and rasicst school - in fact, I was passed over for the English Award at primary school graduation, and I was so disappointed that I couldn't sing the graduation song and graduated crying. You might think that's petty, and what I'm about to say is arrogant, but I truly deserved that award. I worked so hard for it - it was like training and competing the Olympics, and then being told you're not going to be given the medal because you weren't the stereotype for the winner of the event. I was told later that it was because I was obsessed with the Twilight series, but I figured out later that the main reason was because I was always at loggerheads with the teachers, and because I was Asian. I hoped that, since my school had failed to recognise me, that maybe the world would.

So I started my blog. Blogger was the most practical choice, because it was free, easy to access and easy to use. So my blog, which was then called 'The Secret World of a Misunderstood Writer', was born in October 2008, a few months before primary school graduation.

My web alter-ego, Lady Renegade, is basically a louder version of me - my inner persona unleashed. Lady Renegade lives purely off the passion and dedication I have to keep suppressed so much in the real world - Lady Renegade helps me live the life I wish I could live. A little insight into how I created the name - the 'Lady' part comes from the fact that I come from Korean nobility on my paternal side, and also has some feminist undertones, and 'Renegade' is just a fancy word for 'rebel', which is essentially what I am - or, at least, what Lady Renegade is. I am only Lady Renegade on the web - at school I almost forget about the connection. But, Lady Renegade is my best friend in times of need - she helps me to battle on. Is she and I one and the same? That's what I've been asking myself since I created Lady Renegade.

My first blog posts were, I admit, rather childish, but the time I started my blog also marked one of my first bad experiences with boys - the infamous BSC. This blog has essentially been there for me ever since the drama began.

And so the blog began to progress, and as it got more popular from my Wikipedia buddies (I used to edit Wikipedia for fun, and use my Wikipedia page as a MySpace page so much to the point I got blocked for being useless), word of mouth and my persistent advertising at my school. I gained a lot of enemies from this blog, but I stuck to posting about how I saw the world - no-one could stop me. That's one of the things I love about blogging. You feel invincible, and it's a very good bullying repellant - because where teachers fail, blogging doesn't.

In September last year, I changed the blog name to 'This Is How a Renegade Thinks', and formatted my blog pretty much how it is now, only the background was black. I changed the name one, because The Secret World of a Misunderstood Writer is a huge tongue twister, and two, because I didn't really feel like my world was so secret anymore - I liked having my opinions out in the open. I changed the background to black because at that point in time, I was going through a couple of rough patches with my (now ex) best friend. In December, I rechristened it Tempestuous (I wrote a post about the name change in the December archives) and at some point I changed the background to white, because people were complaining they couldn't read it and that I was emo.

I think my writing has really improved because of my blogging, and I feel a lot healthier having an outlet for all my anger and passion - keeping it bottled up was like a time bomb, just waiting to explode at any given moment. My list of Followers has increased steadily, now at twenty (I never dreamed it would get to this number, but now I'm thinking big - 100 followers) and I now get traffic from all over the world, also something I never thought would happen (I doubted it would ever get out of Australia, but now most of my readers are from the U.S).

I'd like to thank everyone who has kept this blog running - that is, you. I want to thank you for reading my writing, and appreciating a different, slightly darker, take on life. Without you, this blog would be just like most of the other high school blogs - a crash and burn sort of thing, where the only readers are the occasional sympathetic friend. I thank you for supporting me in times of pain, and I thank you for being there to share my times of joy. I hope you'll continue to follow me as I try to find my place in the world. Thank you for letting me dream big. I love you all.

LADY RENEGADE.

Public Speaking

Mood: tired
Listening to: 'Picture To Burn' by Taylor Swift
Hungry for: dinner...

I used to be terrible at public speaking. I'd stutter, ramble off into various realms of confusion, and talk for too long.

So I thought, after I'd handed in my subject selections, that I was an idiot for choosing 'Public Speaking' as my first English course choice.

But, surprisingly, it was one of the best school decision I've made.

For starters, my classmates are great. There is so much energy in the room, the moment you walk in - it's relaxed, yet you can almost feel the passion and dedication radiating out of all of them. And my teacher is super awesome. He's one of those relaxed teachers that can keep the class in check without any effort, the kind of teacher that is energetic and exciting without being overkill and tacky. He's the kind of teacher we all wish we had for every single lesson of every single day.

So my public speaking skills have improved a lot. I actually like giving presentations now, and I put a great deal of effort into making my presentations and speeches original and entertaining.

Today I had to do three presentations: a project on Natalie Portman for Career Studies in Health (we had to research a gifted and talented person who is successful in their career field), an impromptu speech for the floor debate of our Oxford Chamber Debates in English, and a Science presentation. Compared to my long winded, boring, stuttering dronings of last year, I thought my presentations were pretty good - especially the Science one, which I pulled together in a very short space of time. Because I have subjects in two grades - I kind of half-skipped a grade - the Health and English presentations were presented to the older year group, and the Science presentation was presented to the kids my age.

I wish my grade had as much energy as the grade above. Not that it's a bad thing to just sit and silently absorb everything, but things are so much fun when people cheer or boo and give you loud, often wildly out of proportion criticisms and praises. It's so much fun, you know, to get feedback. If all I get are a bunch of blank, dead looks, a half-hearted applause and an awkward silence when I say 'any questions?', then I might as well present my speech to my old dolls, who at least have a permanent painted smile.

I dunno. I'm a passionate person. I know this is nerdy, but I like seeing A's and 99's and 100's on my papers. I like getting praise from teachers and stuff like that. I like working towards things and feeling proud of what I can do. But all I get are dirty looks, rude remarks and teachers who think I'm arrogant, which I get punished for. But I know it's not arrogance, it's passion. I know I'm smart. I like that I'm smart. And that's not a bad thing. Because it's not a lie. I know what I'm bad at, too - I know it all too well - so I'm not a know-it-all, nor do I pretend to be. I know there are people who are so inanely jealous of my rewards, but it's because I work hard for what I get, and I'm not afraid to ask for things that wouldn't be presented to me on a silver platter. I know there are people who overlook my passion and accuse me of being stuck up and arrogant, but those people don't matter, and I don't care. Every day, I thank the world for my talents, for making me strong and proud, and every day, I thank the world for my shortcomings, for making me humble. Contrary to popular belief, just because I'm an atheist doesn't mean I believe in self-worship or that I am some kind of demi-god. I just know that what I get in the world is what I work for, and I believe no amount of God is going to help me.

I don't think I should get punished for that.

Amberrrrr and Clairrrrre

Mood: exhausted
Listening to: 'I Won't Say I'm In Love' from Hercules
Hungry for: dinner!

This post is dedicated to Amber and Claire, the two most awesomest people in the WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD my year ten buddies who ROCK MY SOCKS OF BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Claire: I WON'T SAY I'M IN LOVE!!!!!!

Amber: Coolbeans hair, dude.

The Subtlety of Evil

Mood: tired
Listening to: 'Am I Not Pretty Enough?' by Kasey Chambers
Hungry for: milk

I am not a very subtle person. This often gets me into trouble, and into embarassing situations. Ask Crunchie.

But I've also noticed that the most evil of people who haunt the schoolyard and makes the word 'school' synonymous to 'hell' have mastered the art of subtlety to perfection.

It is, as you will agree, very easy to 'dob' on someone if they've punched you in the nose, and easier still to architect their punishment and social downfall. It is also easy to incriminate someone if they call you a slut or something like that.

But a small, snide comment is harder to blame - yet, if said often enough, the impact is devastatingly huge. And since when has it been a crime to exclude, or do all those other subtle things that are so hard to describe, and therefore so hard to avenge? They're not criminal acts, sure, but they still hurt. And they get away with it, that's the sick thing.

There are always going to be idiots that do the most blatantly obvious things, but I go to an elite school. There, the bullies are not so dumb. They do things they know they'll get away with, things they know will have huge impact on a person's morale and self-esteem. I call it sly bullying. It's the kind of bullying I've suffered for nearly a decade now, and it's the kind of thing I've rarely been able to report, so I'll have to weather it out...for how long? When will subtlety die?

Spark

To live,
You need only to breathe in and out,
To find the means to feed and water yourself,
Or,
If lucky,
Get fed and watered by others.

But to truly live,
To truly live and breathe the passion that humans have nearly lost,
You must feel the wind in your hair,
The beat of your heart,
The fire in your soul,
And the power in your mind.
It's the spirit we've nearly forgot,
It's hard to keep the spark alive.
When the winds howl so violently,
It's hard to stay alive,
When the spark is nearly out.

Masculism

Mood: revolutionary
Listening to: 'Forever & Always' by Taylor Swift
Hungry for: milk

I used to dismiss masculism, but now, I think, I am beginning to take it seriously. I accept that there are some things that women get a bit more leeway on then men - and of course, this needs immediate attention on a global scale. Human rights, for men and women, should always be moving forward.

One thing all of us, feminist or masculist, man or woman, must refrain from, is chauvinism. There is not one race or sex that is better than the others. The world will be a better place when every man, woman and child accepts that.

But you must agree, that men, compared to women, have had it quite easy, all in all. There are the biological things that no-one can change, like pregnancy and childbirth and the endless monthly hormone rollercoaster, but then there are the things that we can change - the atrocious defiance of the most basic human rights to women in third-world countries, ruled by ignorant thugs who seek to suppress those who are blamed for what they are born to be, and the sexual discrimination that exists today even in modern-day, civilized society. Women's rights to education is still a long way behind the rights of education granted to men, with tertiary education only available to women in the 1900's and even now still denied to a significant percentage of the female population. Masculists cannot dismiss or criticise the feminist cause, and feminists cannot dismiss or criticise the masculist cause. We should work together, to secure equal rights for all, forever.

Don't forget to check out my new blog, It's A Crazy Dream, to follow me as I read the Telegraph's Top 100 Novels of All Time.