frustrate

argh argh argh.

Kay so I know this is controversial, and it’s probably not even a good idea to post this on here because, what, 12 people follow me and at least two of them (hi, guys) are against abortion, so if this already going to a place that you do not want to follow, then please hop off and find a nice picture of kittens or something. Thanks. I won’t be offended, really. I just need to get this off my chest and pretend like somebody cares.

But,

with all the shit going on with Planned Parenthood,

it’s really struck me how possible it is that abortion could be severely limited, maybe even banned. I don’t think it will be rendered illegal, not unless something hugely major happens, but it’s possible that abortion services will get chipped away until they’re effectively out of service, until abortion is effectively illegal. And that’s so, so, so scary. Not even for myself: I’m thankfully and decidedly unpregnant right now, but if, god forbid, if I were to get pregnant in the next five years, I can imagine myself getting an abortion or going through with the pregnancy — or to be more accurate, I can’t at all imagine myself doing either. That is, they both seem like options so far removed that it seems impossible that they could ever happen. Maybe I wouldn’t get an abortion at all. I think I could live with that. So no, it’s not that I’m afraid I wouldn’t get an abortion, it’s that I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get an abortion. Can’t and won’t: two hugely different things.

Think about it. If abortion is made illegal, that’s a good 39 seven years of effort lost. That’s making women a little more equal than they were 39 years ago. No, it wouldn’t be as bad as it was back then — we’ve made advancements in other areas as well — but the right to abortion has helped make us more equal in many ways and, I would go so far as to argue, has allowed us to improve in other areas as well. But if abortion were to be made illegal, that’s taking away the right to control our bodies, something that was established thirty. nine. years. ago. Thirty nine! And people want to go back to that! Now, I realize that the number of abortions has gone way way way up to what it was before abortion was legal. And some people, I suppose, think that if abortion were made illegal, this number would drop back down and everything would be fine and dandy. Um, hella no. Thing is, our culture is now so much more used to abortion (even though a lot of people will never come into contact with one) that to get rid of them now would like getting rid of women’s right to vote one hundred years after the fact. Horrible analogy, yeah, but the sentiment is the same: shit’s changed. Logistically, we can’t go back.

Forget the number of years for a second. People want to allow the government to control our bodies. People want the government to force women to have babies. People want to force women to be pregnant. Think about that for a moment. Let it sink in. And then — holy shit. People want this. The only other group of people whose bodies are controlled by a higher authority are children. Seriously. Seriously seriously. For the most part, you can do whatever the hell you want to your body without government interference. You can eat extremely bad food and never exercise. You can contract lung cancer by smoking tobacco. You can kill your liver through excessive drinking. You can go to war and risk getting shot or exploded. You can get surgery or you can opt not to do so. You can take your meds or you can refuse them. Shit, you can probably cut off your own arm if you really want to. And yet people want to control our right to make a medical decision about our own body.

What pisses me off so much and is actually one of the most insulting things I’ve ever heard is when people say they’re against abortion because it’s harmful to women. Firstly, please look at the list above — the one about killing your body through bad choices — and realize that people do many bad things to themselves, and abortion, purely in terms of the damage it does to your own body, is no worse than any of those. In fact, for many women, it’s better. People sometimes like to reference abortion giving you a higher chance of getting breast cancer. In response: a) it has so far proven to probably be false; b) so so so so so so many things that we do make us more at risk for cancer, and they’re still legal. People may say that abortion makes a woman depressed or feel extremely guilty. In response: a) postpartum depression, anybody? Like seriously, giving birth can screw you over emotionally, too; b) that most definitely does not go for all women. In fact, a number report feeling relieved about and supportive of their decision.

No, the real reason people are against abortion — and I respect this approach a little more just because it’s frank — is because they believe that it kills babies, which is immoral. Now, this is something that I can understand. I really can. However you look at it, abortion isn’t a nice, fluffy procedure. It doesn’t result in a cute, wailing baby. It ends in a silenced fetus. And yes, that is something that is somewhat disturbing, and yes, those pictures of aborted fetuses (although not all of them are real, I hasten to add) are extremely sad.

But look, and this is something serious: life does not guarantee a happy beginning, middle, or end. Maybe that sounds like a cop-out, but hear me out. In a perfect world, we’d putter around, giving babies stable, happy, two-parent homes and access to education and enough money and all the things they need to be the happiest babies, children, teenagers, and adults. In that perfect fantasy, women would only get pregnant when they want a baby, and they and their partner would always have enough time and money to take care of it, and it wouldn’t conflict with their career or future or anything. In a perfect world, nobody would have to weigh two ‘immoral’ things and choose the slightly less awful option.

But this isn’t a perfect world, as I’m sure you’re aware. Sometimes — often, even — we have to choose between two terrible things. And sometimes one of those options is getting an abortion. And the world simply isn’t simple enough for anyone to go, look, getting an abortion is always the worse, more immoral option. Because sometimes, that’s just wrong. Yeah, killing a baby is terrible, but you can’t — you really, truly can’t — put the baby in such a position of superiority over the mother. You can’t treat the baby as though its right to be born trumps every aspect of the mother’s free will. You can’t assume that the baby getting born is a greater asset to the world than the mother living her life the way she needs to, without a pregnancy and without a baby. You can’t keep putting this baby’s life over the mother’s life. Because that’s essentially what you’re doing, when you’re blindly opposed to abortion on a legal level: you’re saying that the baby is always more important than the mother, and that belief, whether you explicitly recognize it or not, is extremely degrading and extremely dangerous.

Here are some examples of anti-choice people’s beliefs about abortion and why they are dangerous or wrong:

- Being pregnant and uncomfortable for nine months is worth it if you can save a baby’s life.
I understand the sentiment here, but look at it like this. If you really, really don’t want to be pregnant — like, it’s actually the worst thing that’s ever happened to you — then five minutes can seem like nine months. To put a person in that position is essentially like torturing them for nine months. It’s a horrible thing to experience and it’s a horrible thing to force on somebody. Pregnancy itself isn’t always a nice experience, just in terms of the physical discomfort (not to mention the pain of giving birth), and that coupled with roughly nine months’ worth of psychological torment is cruel to force on anyone.

- Getting an abortion (because of your career) is selfish.
This one pisses me off so much. Do you realize, do you really realize, that a job is one of the most important things in anyone’s life? Do you realize that many, if not most, if not all, women with jobs can’t just put those jobs on hold for nine months and get them back when the baby is born? (I know that being pregnant doesn’t indispose you for nine months, by the way; I know that many pregnant women work right through their eighth month. The fact is, though, being pregnant can make you sick for a long time, and even if it doesn’t, it can severely limit what you’re able to do, especially depending on your job.) Especially for women with competitive careers, ones with positions of superiority, for example, being pregnant can be a serious blow to their career. Who are you to tell them that’s not important? Who the hell are you to decide that this baby is more important than their source of income, which they need to survive, I remind you? Not to mention that they would need that job to pay for the hospital bills if they go through with the pregnancy, so yeah, I’d say a job is pretty damn important.

Also, abortion is sometimes selfish, yes, but it’s often not. It’s often — usually — a case of a woman looking at her life, realizing that she can’t handle being pregnant right now, and making the decision to do the best thing for her. Who the hell are you to judge her for that? You don’t know her life. You couldn’t make a better decision for her.

- If you didn’t want to get pregnant you should have kept your legs shut.
Okay. Okay okay. This is one of the worst. I’m not one of those people who thinks pregnancy is super unfair, because it’s not. Nature needs somebody to crank out the offspring, and since we’re not an asexual species, 50% of the population gets saddled with that. That’s not unfair, that’s life — literally. What’s unfair about this situation, however, is that in our present, modern, American society, which allows for enormous flexibility and mobility in nearly every aspect, would be that the absence of abortion would not allow women to get out of the state of being pregnant.
Let’s not get too caught up on rape. To put it briefly — if you’re raped, you can’t very well choose to keep your legs shut. Let’s talk about the women who don’t want babies at all. Let’s talk about women who don’t want babies right now. If you go by the pro-life statement, that means that all women, even married ones, would have to abstain from sex until about the age of 50 or older. You know why? Because even the most careful use of contraceptives sometimes fails and women get pregnant anyway. The only fail-proof way to avoid being pregnant is to not have sex, and it’s so unrealistic to promote abstinence as the only life path. Even if you think it’s immoral to have unwed sex for any reason other than baby-making, you must at least realize that that attitude is not adopted by the general population — both men and women. Basically, there’s no way to ensure that women never get pregnant when they don’t want to, and for that reason, we need abortion to remain safe and legal.

Rather than seriously infringing on women’s rights, let’s all work together to make pregnancy a better experience, however it ends, or fails to begin:

- Sex education

- Easy and cheap access to effective contraceptives

- Dramatically reduce the amount of rape and for god’s sake, don’t encourage rape culture or the rape myth

- Informed and unbiased and available information about women’s options for pregnancy, listing all of the information, both pros and cons, about: abortion, pregnancy itself, adoption, and raising the baby

- Much better benefits for pregnant women and benefits for parents

- Better health care in general

And if we can achieve that, then thank you. (For the record, I definitely don’t hate/dislike people who are pro-life. I respect their opinions — when they’re opinions and not actions. I don’t respect the action of trying to make abortion illegal. But the actual people who are pro-life are rarely evil or misogynistic, I just think they’re misguided about this one particular thing.)
(Way hay, I've missed the past five days of BEDA, but this is about five pages in Word so let's hope this makes up for it!)

BEDA 3: Haikus for the Lazy

Homework is no fun

Procrastination is dumb

I want to go sleep.

Does this blog post count

If it is thirty four words

I have no time. Boo.

Why is there thunder

The weather changes a lot

Maybe that is why.

These are the best words

I think I've ever composed

Appreciate them.

[Actual blog post tomorrow, I hope.]

BEDA 2: Angst, Stolen from Tumblr

(Preface: No, I have not already failed BEDA. I blog over at Raving Persuasions on Mondays and Fridays -- even though most of the people who find this blog will probably find it via Raving Persuasions, rendering this note redundant -- so the ne'er-ending chain of blogs shall not be broken.)

I have to go to church tomorrow with my parents so that we can visit my grandparents afterwards (it would be very much out of the way for my parents to go to church and then come back home and pick me up and go to my grandparents' apartment).

It's so awk because erryone's like "Praise Jesus!" and I'm like "Well I'm sure he was a nice person and everything, if he was real at all, but I really think that at best his stories are allegories and not actual facts and also, how can he be God and also the son of God? Have you heard yourself say that out loud? Have you? Because you don't make sense."

Except I don't actually say that because it's sort of a bitchy thing to do, especially when people are in their Jesus-praising element. Also, it's not nice to have people you've known since you were a wee thing judging you. But when I can't say what I want to say, all these criticisms start to roll around and around in my head until they're so tightly coiled up that I become a walking ball of angst.

I dunno, I'm more or less cool with Christianity and everything, but I think that very large and inescapable amounts of religion bring out the worst in me. It brings out the bitchy voice in my head, at least. Religion is one of those things that I prefer to respect from a reasonable distance so I can just ignore the parts that annoy me.

Awk awk awk.

P.S. I really apologize from copy + pasting from Tumblr (it's my own Tumblr, at least). I hate to do that, but I don't want to fail so early in the game and I have a ridiculous amount of work to do.

One Part SHAME, More Parts ALASKA

Sup guys. Long time no see, eh?

I may have failed in updating this particular blog every day in August, but I HAVE been blogging every day in August, over at the ning. I've also kept up my end of the aforementioned collab blog (shameless self-promotion is shameless!). Really. I'm not a complete failure, I promise.

In today's FUN-FILLED Looking for Alaska-esque blog, we're going to talk about the title character: Alaska.

Even the name glistens with intrigue. Unlike Dakota or the fictional surname Montana, Alaska doesn't make me think of dry, monotonous flatland. (Sorry, Dakotas and Montana. I know you have more personality than that - but stereotypes sometimes hold my subconscious in a powerful grip...) Even my mental image of the state of Alaska is more of the icing on a cake - or the snowflakes on the ground, if you will - than a prime focus. It's certainly a tribute to John Green's writing that when I hear Alaska, my mind skips to the undefinable girl first and the northern state second...

It's also worth nothing that despite my passionate hatred (is that too harsh? Alright- very intense dislike) for Sarah Palin, I haven't thought of her in context with the book until, well, this very sentence. It's comforting to know that, unlike King Midas, she doesn't contaminate everything she touches.

I picture a tiny Alaska skittering her dust-filled fingernails over the yellowing paper surface of those slightly outdated globes as she twirls it 'round and 'round on its stand. In my mind, she's laughing as the countries speed by until they're nothing but an endless string of land, all the cultures and people toppling into one another. They're in their ethnic garb, like the kind the paper people wear on those made-for-elementary-school cartoon Earths. The girls with the braided ringlets and the raven-haired exotic dancers collapse and giggle, collapse and giggle until the bark colored furry coat wearers emerge victorious, stumbling in figure-eights as they laugh and smile and celebrate their major victory in their tiny world. And they're celebrating with Alaska: they're giving her their wide smiles and their mutual respect for each other and now they're giving her their name, her name.

I imagine as she gets older, after her own mother freezes but not from the cold, she forgets those little paper people. She fills their places with the memories of those trapped in the labyrinth, with hundreds of thousands of pages of books that she never finishes reading. I wonder how many of those hundreds of thousands of words would have told her that straight and fast is no way to get out of the labyrinth at all; that the muddle, the confusion is greatly preferable to the pain of busting out through the hedges. The pain of those she left behind, those who don't want to follow her lead and escape the labyrinth, those who would rather tangle through life until they finally, finally reach their peaceful exit.

Alaska, never content with anything less than the unexpected, doesn't freeze her own life. She pours gasoline on it and drops the match without looking back. She doesn't look where she drops the match, though, preferring to let fate decide for her. Maybe she never finds out if the match lit the blaze or if it was snuffed out by a bucket of water because she didn't stay around long enough to check. Maybe there was a moment in the car where the flames filled her eyes. I wonder if she was happy about it. I don't think she was. I don't think she was capable of being truly, completely happy. I don't think Alaska liked the fire, wanted the fire; I think she just couldn't bear the thought of being frozen, trapped in herself, like her mother. Those were the only elements she could remember: ice and fire. She forgot about the earth element, about Pudge and the Colonel and Jake. The split-decision making - her essence was her downfall, but was it really a downfall at all? She didn't make it out alive, obviously, but she died like she lived, as they say. Straight and fast.

She was only sixteen, wasn't she? Who would she have been had she survived? Would she have grown up to be a teacher? Does it matter, or is it enough to celebrate Alaska, not for what she did but for who she was - flawed, like all of us?

First Impressions

First impressions are silly little things. You can't possibly know a person after meeting them one time. You know that. I know that. It doesn't stop your brain from filing away the supposed personality of said person FOR ALL TIME, though.

Brains cause us nothing but pain and suffering. Why we even use them is a mystery to me...

Anyway, we open Looking for Alaska and are immediately sucked into the high-thrills life of Miles Halter: the curious teenager who accepts the dismal turnout to his going-away party without wanting to kill the no-show invitees. As he says, he's not disappointed because his low expectations are met. Still, don't you find it strange that he doesn't seem to care one bit? Proof that nobody cares about you enough to wish you goodbye?

Then again, you'd have a heart attack if you were perpetually surprised by your lack of friends.

Which leads us to the question of why - why doesn't he have any friends in Florida? He seems like your average nerdy kid. Cynics may say it's for the greater good of the plot. I think it's for the sole reason that his Floridian public school isn't his "Great Perhaps" - there's nothing there for him; how can he be invested in a place of absolutely no personal importance? When you make friends, you're giving a part of yourself away. You're saying, "Here I am! You can take this little piece of me and do with it what you want!" And if they're school friends, they're going to take that little piece of you and bury it in the fibers of that school whether you like it or not.

Once Miles arrives at Culver Creek, he wastes no time in embodying my thoughts before most social outings: planning the ideal outcome of the forthcoming event out in your head. O Miles, how truly thou doth speak. Like the trailer for most summer movies, the anticipation is so much better than the real thing.

Then, because he is hot, (wordplay wordplay hahaha!), he takes a shower, like all cool kids . [That was entirely too many commas for one sentence.]

Cool. I am cool. I am MILES [expletive] HALTER and I do what I want, goddammit!

In sashays Chip Martin (henceforth "The Colonel"), whom I have always pictured as black. It wasn't until my second reading of the book that I realized that his race is never explicitly stated. This leads me to wonder why I contemplated his skin color at all and my brain once again directs me to our first impression of the Colonel: he's "short and muscular with a shock of brown hair." OHAI, first subconscious clue - brown. I don't know what this says about me, but every time a character is described as having a hair color that is dark, the movie screen in my head gives 'em dark skin.

It's the same thing with those "tall, dark, and handsome" characters. You may be referring to his hair color, but I always envision a blonde girl leading around an Eastern European man tilting his hat to cast his body into shadow.

Maybe that's strange since people often color characters with familiar traits. To be honest, I usually picture characters as being light skinned unless it's explicitly otherwise stated. (I am Polish-American on one side and English on the other, so I am pretty damn close to actually being the color white.) But... that's probably not a good habit since people aren't homogeneous.

I don't know. Race is a touchy subject. I'm going to stop talking about it now.

The Colonel is one of my favorite characters. He reminds me of Oscar the Grouch - he's, well, grouchy, but in an endearing way. And he gives Miles (henceforth "Pudge") an excellent nickname! IRONY FOR DA LULZ.


Well, this was a shamefully shit first (second) post. SORRY. What can ya do? ("Stop procrastinating," answers the voice in my head.)

I’m trying to find the right balance between straight up discussing the book and relating my own forays into human civilization. I don’t want to be like, “well, the first letter on page 32 reminds me of the time when I was asked – nay, begged – to model by no less than fourteen agencies within a time span of three hours.” Whatever my flaws may be, I’m not that unabashedly narcissistic. (And also because the only time I've ever been asked to model was at the age of eight as my mom and I were walking past a vendor on the second floor of the mall. That, dear readers, is what we call a scam.) At the same time, people don’t often like reading other people’s dissertations about The Wonders of the Elusive Motif in this Very Important Book that You Don’t Understand. Especially not when there are 30 dissertations*. All in blog form.

Of course, I did just come up with that last paragraph while trying to establish “trust eyes” with myself in front of a full-length mirror, so perhaps I’m not an expert when it comes to not be egotistical…

*I mean “dissertation” in the “formal piece of writing way,” not the “needed to obtain a doctorate degree” way; as far as I know, I am not enrolled in graduate school.

J-Scribbles Welcomes YOU!

I can't rightfully call this an F.A.Q. [wow, did I just separate that initialism with periods? Way to be an asshole in the first post, Vita] due to the minor detail that nobody has had so much as an opportunity to ask me questions, so please proceed to my freshly assembled H.A.Q. (Hypothetically Asked Questions).

Q: What the f@*&! is this?

A: The internet!

Q: Shut up. You're not funny. You know what I mean.

A: RUDE. And yes, I know I'm not funny... jerk.
Anyway, I'm glad you asked! This is a blog! More to the point, this is a blog in which I shall discuss John Green's books, starting with Looking for Alaska.

Q: ...Why?

A: Partially because I am participating in BEDA (Blog Every Day in August) for the second year and I thought this would be an excellent way to ensure that I have something to write about every day! And partially because I adore Looking for Alaska.

Q: That sounds really boring.

A: Way to judge, alternate personality of mine. Way. To. Judge.
It won't be boring. Trust me. If things get a little dry, I know how to shake 'em up...
Like, lock your fricking doors cuz HURRICANE VITA is passing through.

Q: ...Shut up. Please. Are you John Green?

A: Given that a) I am a teenager, b) I am a girl, c) I have no real profession to speak of unless you count babysitting, d) I neither possess the name "John" nor do I possess the name "Green," e) I referred to myself as "Vita" not five paragraphs ago and f) I am unfortunately not sensitive to the wonders of nature - all evidence points to the contrary.
Also I didn't write Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, or half of Will Grayson, Will Grayson. If that's what you're asking.

Q: Do you have any affiliation to John Green? The author, I mean.

A: Thanks for specifying! As my tear stained pillows and lipstick smeared J-SCRIBBLES IS DA BOMB posters indicate, I have (much to my disappointment) never met John Green. I truly hope to meet him one day, however, and if all goes well, perhaps I will someday be working alongside him as a fellow YA author --

Q: So what you're saying is, you don't have any authority to speak about John Green or his published works. None at all.

A: Well. Technically speaking, no. But! My keen interest in literature and my undying passion for his books make me as qualified as any, I think, to comment on his novels --

Q: Remember how I told you to shut up?

A: Um. Yes. Maybe we should move on.

Q: Yeah, ya think? Are you going to be posting every day?

A: Every day in August except for Mondays and Fridays when you can find me at my collab blog, Raving Persuasions. (We don't talk about John Green there... not every day of the week, at least.)

Q: Haha! Like I would want to see YOU again!

A: I hope you realize that you're not succeeding in hurting my feelings. Anything else?

Q: No. Goodbye.

A: ...Jerk.