Abortion protests at my college

Yes. You heard me correctly. A group of people came to my college today, a place with many 16-18 year old boys and girls, and held up pictures of aborted babies and told us abortion is wrong.

This actually happened and I had no idea how to respond. I was shocked that these people had the audacity to impose these opinions of theirs on us. That being said, I had a conversation with one of these people and we shared our opinions in a polite way. I don’t feel as if I’ve made a difference since I probably did nothing to change her point of view, and she definitely did nothing to change mine.

The only things that I learnt from this protest were:
1) How to have an argument without raising my voice and shouting and how that helps get your point across more effectively
2) How mad I am

I’m very very mad. They didn’t know our stories or anything that we’d been through and yet they showed us these horrific images in an attempt to emotionally blackmail us and I just feel the need to summarise their arguments against abortion to summarise our main points against it

- "Babies born with disabilities may have a worse quality of life but does that mean a bad quality of life is a life not worth living?"
Of course that’s not what it means! But if you can spare the suffering, and if the mother thinks it would bring suffering on her, then why shouldn’t she get an abortion.

- "The mothers quality of life won’t significantly decrease if she had that baby."How would you know? It may do, depending on her situation, and if she has the ability to have a better quality of life, then why shouldn’t she take it? How can anyone have the right to say that another person has to sacrifice their quality of life?

- "The baby is just a child." Potentially, so is the woman. In a teenage pregnancy, the mother would just be a child. So who do you pick? The child who is already existing, already living and has already established a life for herself, or the child that is currently growing inside of her with nothing? The baby has no life, and nothing to lose, whereas the woman has everything to lose.

- "Can you pick one human being over the other?"Imagine there was an accident in the ninth month of pregnancy and the doctor’s could only save either the mother or the child. Who would you pick? Would you not pick the mother? The woman with a life, friends and family, or the baby? How would you tell her family that you saved the baby because you believe abortion is wrong, and you allowed the woman to die.
Effectively the same thing happens if someone stops an abortion. You let the baby live, but the woman has to live with this feeling inside of her, and maybe she’s physically alive, but how alive is she emotionally?

I’m pro choice and have been ever since the moment I sat down and really thought about it (I must have been 13 or 14).  But of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I just feel as if sometimes there is a way to express your opinion, and this was not the way.

They don’t know who’s had abortions or miscarriages or who’s in that situation themselves right now and to show these pictures was tactless. It was emotional blackmail and abuse. To come to a college with 16-18 year old’s who are only just growing up (let’s face it, we’re still kids really), and who only started to understanding situations like these in the past few years, was tactless.

This whole protest was tactless, and I can guarantee you that none of those people had ever been in that situation where they've had to consider having an abortion (especially since some of them were men).

I am really very mad at these people but it gave me a sense of hope:
People from college came in groups and started arguing with the protesters. Everyone was respectful and no fights broke out, as far as I’m aware; it was mostly just conversation. The majority of the college heard about this and argued against it. (We also had a fair few laughs. I remember one guy standing next to me saying “so do you think it all starts with ejaculation then”…. I didn't hear the rest of his point since I was laughing so hard.)

No matter what our government says, our future is in safe hands because the majority of 16-18 year old’s have more sense than these adults who run our country, and we are not scared to stand our ground.
We are not scared to fight.

And we will fight.

It's rant time

I saw these pictures on Tumblr (I'll only include a few)

and these pictures has the following caption: 

"The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible"

I responded with this following rant:

I’m not a Christian, and I’m not arguing that any of these quotes are justified because they are in no way justified, but I’m getting incredibly sick of this religion bashing on Tumblr.

I have met Christians, I’ve met a very large number of them. Some go to church every Saturday and some have never set foot in a church, and I can say from personal experience that none of them are like this. Most of them haven’t read the bible this thoroughly and if they have they chose to ignore these parts of it, because nothing is perfect, and the majority of Christians realise this about their religion as well.

In fact many are gay or bisexual or lesbians or trans or anything else, and one of the main arguments against Christianity seems to be that “they all hate gays”
That belief isn’t for everyone, but it helps some people and it lets them have faith in their own existence. That is essentially what religion is: faith that you have a reason to be here, and what is wrong with having that faith no matter what the means to reach it were?

THIS IS NOT TRUE. THEY DO NOT ALL HATE GAYS. I DON’T DENY WHAT IS SAID IN THE BIBLE AND I DON’T DENY THAT SOME CHRISTIANS TAKE THIS TOO FAR BUT NOT ALL OF THEM, AND DEFINITELY NOT MOST OF THEM.

I think what Tumblr and the internet in general needs to realise is that everyone has their own life and their own problems and they need different ways to deal with them. Many people turn to music, books, TV shows, fictional characters, comic books etc. But many people also turn to religion. Is there something wrong with that?

They’ve found something they believe in and you don’t only have to believe in music. They’ve found something they can trust and something they feel gives them a purpose in life. I’m not a Christian but I have no trouble understanding that some people chose to turn to Christianity in their time of need because it reassures them that someone greater than them is watching over and has a plan. It’s reassuring to know you have a higher purpose in life and that eventually God will help you reach it.

There are different people in the world and many have their own ways of coping, so here’s an idea: Stop putting people down because they chose to have a little faith in something different to you.

Like I said, there are issues with some of the things mentioned in the bible and some of the people involved, but what happened to there’s no need to stereotype groups of people? Does that rule exempt the religious?

I would like to add that there is no way I’m saying everyone should follow a religion, I’m just saying that everyone who wants to, should be able to do so without their belief being referred to as a disease which requires a cure, because isn’t that essentially what many people used against homosexuality? Didn’t they call homosexuality a disease? Was it nice? No. What makes it nice the other way around?

Also, everything I’ve said applies to every religion not just Christianity and I can say this because I’m a Muslim who’s tried to find hope in many different things and has found it in music and books but also found it in the Islamic belief that all humans are “khalifahs” (i.e. stewards/stewardesses or the Earth put on the Earth to look after it and the people on it).

To conclude: Equality works both ways.

So far, it seems as if only one person seems to agree with me.

It seems as if only one other person thinks religious people have rights.

I really hope this is not true.

I'm joining the trend: Doing a 2013 year review.

I've always found year reviews hard to do because how do I sum up the entire year? There have been way to many different things, both good and bad for me to say whether this was a nice year or I'd rather it didn't exist.
But I figured I'd give it a go.

At the beginning of 2013 I was really excited. I thought this was going to finally be the year I turned things around and I felt like I was finally growing into exactly the kind of person I want to be, but in fact I'm a lot different now than what I was in January, and not in the way I expected. And now I realise that no year is the year "I'm going to grow into my personality" because people are always changing and I'm no exception.
Also, I had some new year's resolutions I set myself and I failed most of them and some I didn't fail. Most are too private for me to share but I'll share a couple:
     I did not manage to stop clicking my fingers
     I did however get my head down and finish high school without *too many* major incidents. Saying that there was some major drama but that's just life I suppose.
There were, however, many many different things I wanted to accomplish by the end of 2013 that I haven't even thought about since January, and other things that I have thought about but haven't really gone the way I'd hoped.
So I've decided that in 2014 I will not set myself any resolutions. I will not set unrealistic goals, some of which are the same every year, for myself, and I will not reach December feeling as if I have failed myself in the year. I will let my life take its course and I won't get caught up in the things that don't matter and I'll allow myself some more time to just do stuff rather than sit down specifically thinking about the list of unrealistic things I have to do.
But I suppose I can't help but feel, or hope, that maybe this year might just be my year. It's futile to hope though.

So to conclude this year I'm going to try hard to think about the positive things, the things that mattered, rather than the negatives. I don't believe in forgetting all the bad things though, because we need them to grow as people.
So here's my summary of the year:

Good things:

• Went to India after 4 years
• Met Tasha (on the internet but whatever)
• Nikola
• Saw All Time Low live
• Saw Mallory Knox live
• Met Sam and Dave from Mallory Knox
• Left high school once and for all
• Went to America/Canada
• Completed a very specific new year's resolution that was the hardest thing I've ever done and is still going on and this is very vague but it's a really really important part of this year
• And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
• GCSE's
• Fall Out Boy came back
• Iron Man 3
• Thor: The Dark World
• The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug
• Catching Fire

And of course there were some negatives:

• My chemical romance break up
• I start college
• College
• College
• People at college
• Social situations at college
• College subjects are hard
• (Nikola) 
• A certain failed (again I know it's vague but still) new year's resolution that changed my life

So, 2013 wasn't great but it wasn't too bad. There are certain things that I would do a thousand times over and certain things I wish never ever happen again to me or to anyone. 

I know the holidays can be a difficult time but I hope everyone has a good one anyway. And if 2013 wasn't the best year, then stick around because one of the coming years have to be better.

I don't care how cheesy that sounds, it's true. One of these years is going to be brilliant. Who knows, it may even be 2014?

Happy holidays everyone.

6pm

I like walking home alone in the dark.
There's something very beautiful about the way the leaves blow in the wind.
It's quite awesome how listening to music alone feels.

It feels a bit like you're in your own world, you can see people around you, you can see their lips moving, you can see what they're doing, but no one can hear your music. It's kind of like that music, at that moment in time, is yours. And that's pretty cool.

Music kind of means a lot to me. People say this a lot, and often when phrases become widely used, certain people start claiming that the phrase "is a lie" and "you're only following the crowd", when in fact, have they considered, that maybe music does kind of mean a lot to a lot of people?

But I find that listening to music helps me distance myself from people sometimes, and I think that's really important: to find comfort in solitude.
Music helps me take a deep breath and I'm pretty sure we've all learnt about how taking a deep breath is necessary.
In a busy lifestyle, sometimes there aren't many breaks, but if you look really hard, you can find one in something as simple as walking to and from college, or in brushing your teeth before bed, or having breakfast on the kitchen table, or listening to music as you do work (or listening to music as you procrastinate as I am currently doing)

I know I post about bands a lot, but I'm seeing Mallory Knox live in 5 days and that's pretty exciting. I really love the feel of a concert. No where else would you find complete strangers so close together in the same room as each other. Complete strangers with their on life story, their own problems, their own home, their own work, but for a few hours just that one night, you can forget about everything, and literally just live in the moment.
It doesn't matter that you have to go home in a few hours, and you have work in the morning; you forget everything, and bond with complete strangers over that one shared happiness of just being there. That's pretty amazing.

I think everyone should go to concerts, whatever kind of concerts they may be, and just forget about everything for a little while. Because forgetting everything can be just as important as remembering it all.


On another note, I feel obliged to say RIP Nelson Mandela.
The world has lost a truly inspirational and very important man. He changed this world, and I think he stood for something brilliant.
 Also, well done to the human race for letting at least one freedom fighter die of old age rather than be assassinated.
My only hope is that the world keeps remembering all that he taught us, and doesn't forget about his importance as a part of human history.

It feels fitting to end this post by the following quote from the man himself:
"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear" - Nelson Mandela

I'm just rambling a bit really.

So the last time I made a blog post was two months ago, and I feel like I should have been updating this blog a bit more often.
What would I write about though?
How hard college is? It seems like everyone's being talking about that.
How great my trip to India was? Yeah it was pretty awesome but I find it hard to sum India up so that blog post would probably be the size of a novel.
How wonderful Thor was? It was pretty wonderful and I did really like a little bit of shirtless Thor, but I had a feeling that blog post would mostly be "OMFG ASJAGLIUGF TOM HIDDLESTON/CHRIS HEMSWORTH"

That left me with.... nothing. Absolutely nothing to talk about.
But I've decided that I am going to talk about college, but now about how hard it is, because we all kind of get that now, but more about the social aspect of college.

Socially, college sucks.
A lot of my friends have gone to different colleges, which has forced me to try and mix in with a different social group: bad idea.
You know when clever people are at school, they think that they're really clever, and it's okay because it's just school and there's not too many of them? But at college, all the clever people from the different schools have come together, formed one large social group, and are ruining my life.

I won't go into the details of why, but let's just say ignorance is not always bliss. Being ignorant is fine sometimes, but sometimes, you do have to care about other people's problems, or at least know about them so you can stop yourself from saying something offensive or rude, or at least be able to realise when you've said something unpleasant.

I hate being one of those girls, but let's face it; a large majority of white, straight, privileged men are very ignorant to many problems in this world. They know about racism and sexism, but don't bother about it. They don't care about it. They're just simply a little bit ignorant, and when many of them come together in one large group: it's hell.

They also don't apologise. They've been taught to assert their authority.
I, on the other hand, as a brown girl, have been brought up knowing that apologising is the only way forward, and I've been shown by the media, by movies, and by stories, how coloured people and women are always second best if not third best or fourth best to everyone else.

And that irritates me. I think it irritates me more since by having spent the last four years of my life in an all girls school, I didn't come across many people like this.

So to sum up: College sucks, people suck, I don't like it, Thor was great, India was great, I just want to spend the rest of my life reading books and listening to music by myself.




PS. Watch this video. I think it's really moving.

I've been ruined

So recently I became the last person in the world (since it seems as if everyone has already done this) to read The Fault in our Stars and I, like everyone else who read this book, will make comments about how sad it was, and how amazing John Green is.

But I realised something a lot more important while I was reading the book: I've been ruined by good authors. Good authors, such as John Green, JK Rowling and of course Khaled Hosseini, have ruined my ability to read and appreciate books.
It's a bit like when certain celebrities are so amazing *coughcough* Tom Hiddleston *coughcough* that you feel as if any normal guy will never be enough for you.

It's a bit like that. I've been spoiled by good books so much that now it seems as if I could read other books, but I wouldn't be able to appreciate them as much. I've been exposed to truly wonderful writing and breathtakingly beautiful stories so much that it seems as if any other book won't please me as much as it would have done if I'd read them before I read A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Nothing normal will be good enough for me because the media has ruined my perception of normal.

No normal book will be good enough for me, because The Kite Runner exist.
No normal guy will be good enough for me, because Tom Hiddleston exists.
No normal school will be good enough for me, because East High School (from High school musical for those of you who don't know) exists.

So to sum my existence up: I'm going to suffer all my life because I'm a below average girl with above average expectations.

A thousand lives is better than one

I've neglected this blog for what feels like an extremely long time and fallen into my usual habit of putting-things-off-to-do-them-later-but-never-doing-them-until-eventually-it's-too-late-to-do-them, or otherwise known as 'procrastination'
It's horrible. I remember when I used to get things done. *nostalgic sigh* now those were the days.

I've been thinking about what I've done all summer and I've come to the conclusion that I've done.... nothing. Absolutely nothing. I've been on holiday, I've come back home and I've sat in my bed and read books and watched TV shows.

At least I'm finally reading again, so I've decided that instead of thinking of something fascinating to write I'm just going to list the books I've read/plan to read in the "summer" (notice the use of the sarcastic speech marks since I live in England and we don't really get a summer.... currently I'm huddled in a duvet)

1) Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien (must read book)
2) Deception Point by Dan Brown (really really good book... he really is as good as the hype suggests)
3) Sherlock Holmes series by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this book. My obsession with Sherlock grows)
4) The Declaration series by Gemma Malley (great modern fiction which was a nice change from my heavy reading classics)
5)The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins (I'm going to be honest here. It doesn't live up to the hype. It's brilliant! But not as good as the hype suggests it should be)
6) One Day by David Nicholls (courtesy of Jenny and it really is a brilliant book. We all need a good romance once in a while)
7) Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy (I'd read this before but now that I'm older I understood the storyline a lot better and it is definitely a good book, and I personally think a very important book to read. The only issue I have with it that even though it was written such a long time ago, the issues are still relevant when they should have been in our past by now)
8) Hard Times by Charles Dickens (Next on my list to read, and I'm not quite sure what to expect. I look forward to it though)
9) Harry Potter series by JK Rowling (It's just not a summer till I re-read these books)

I hope you found that interesting, although probably not. One thing I do suggest is go read all the books I've listed. Reading is fun and enjoyable and I think that everyone should have a list of books to read.

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me."
CS Lewis