The First Morning

There was a period of time when my parents left me alone at home to do some thing that concerned them in another county. They had to stay the night, and I was left alone at home. I'm usually never left alone until that moment, and the feeling was great. The next morning would be my first morning that I could get up without some adult hovering over me. First mornings are always great. You get up with unusual alacrity, and you are excited with what the day has in store. What was in it for me was that I was free for the whole day, no parents whatsoever.


The first thing that I did was to call all  the friends that I had, and said that I was free for the whole day. At first, none of my friends believed me. My parents never let me be so free. Besides, I was never given the whole day to do whatever I wanted. I had to keep reassuring them that it was true. I was absolutely free for the whole day. What I didn't know was that the day was not going to be as fun as I had thought it would be.


For one, every little noise that my house made sounded as if someone was going to break into my house. I don't want to sound paranoid, but then maybe I am. After a while, I was carrying my tennis racket with me wherever I went. At least I could have used it as a club if someone was to attack me. If anyone watched me through the window, they would have laughed seeing me armed to the teeth investigating every noise that creaked through the house. The whole time I was doing this, I was thinking, "Where the hell are my friends? They are supposed to be here already!" And so I waited for the next few hours. I tried watching T.V., but there were no good shows on. I must have dozed off at some point because when I woke up, it was four in the afternoon.


I didn't wake up naturally, mind you. I felt as if something or someone was very near me, and lo and behold, when I woke up, there was one of my friends sitting next to me. I must have given a huge start, because she woke up too. I couldn't even hear myself scream. That was how jumpy I am to people touching me when I am not aware that they are there. I don't think it was her that really scared me, it was the suddenness in which she appeared. How disturbing, I didn't even feel her sit next to me. And how'd she get in? Was my house that easy to break into? But anyway, there she was, laughing her face off at the expression on my face. I didn't find anything funny about the situation that I was in. So I started asking questions.


"How'd you get into my house?"


"I let myself in."


"I can see that. Now how did you get in here?"


"Gina, stop asking awkward questions. It doesn't matter how I got in, it's just that I'm here. Be thankful that I found the time to come over or you would have spent all day alone."


"Don't exaggerate. There are more people coming. You're just the first one to come."


"I'll let you have that one. Now are you going to spend the whole day yapping at me, or are we going to do something fun?"


"I don't know what to do, since my parents are coming back here tomorrow. We can't even have a sleepover."


"We'll figure something out. We always do."


I guess first mornings can also be the start of many firsts. For example, I never knew that I would be so paranoid of noises if I was really alone at home. I always felt as if I was brave enough to face just about everything. Guess not.

Winner

Sorry for taking so long, but I have randomly chosen the winner of my giveaway!

The winner is Tom Smithers!

Thank all of you for entering!

Rebuttal to Miranda Kerr Article

This post is a rebuttal to the article that I found online denouncing Miranda Kerr. You can read it here . I'm only doing this because I feel strongly about this topic.

One passage that draws my extreme ire is this, “Kerr's problem - the reason why much of the industry has come to quietly despise her - is that she builds her brand around these lofty ideals of positivity and self esteem, and then draws them all back in to the physical, a realm where she clearly has enormous advantage.” I mean, this quote shows the degree in which the author of this article strays from the truth and inserts his/her opinion in the story. Just because Kerr has been endowed with the natural gifts of being beautiful does not mean that she cannot use this to her advantage. The foundations of the argument is not stable.

Another quote that annoys me is: “Ask someone in fashion what Miranda Kerr seems like, however, and you'll hear their voice rise several octaves their head tilt manically from side-to-side in a grotesque imitation of hair flipping, and the words 'I just like, really, you know, like doing yoga? In nature?'” spill from their mouths.” I checked out some other posts that this blog bothered to post, and I don't believe that they can claim to to be “someone in fashion”. And what is wrong with doing yoga and being in nature? If I met the writer, I would tell him or her to go get a life instead of blindly attacking people who have earned their fame through hard work.

Because this is a blog, there is nothing wrong with ranting about some celebrity that one really hates. Sometimes I rant too, but I do not attack anyone with the strength that this author has. To go under a fake name and do this is extremely cowardly in my opinion. 

Simple Complications

For a long while, I have been used to thinking of everything to be as simple as I think they would be. But pretty soon, I realized that for most things, everything is not what they seem. As I grew older, I realized how dumb I was to suppose that everyone said what they meant and meant what they said. Everything that used to be simple were now more than complicated. People have actual things or thoughts beneath the surface. Things that they hide behind what they seem. Not everything is as simple as it seems at first sight.


I had this one friend who I met a couple of years ago. We had a mutual friend, and that friend introduced us. She came from this poor neighborhood, and I came from the upper side of the city. At first I didn't really accept her because I thought that we were different. Too different. We came from different backgrounds, different families, different everything. I also wagered that she had bad grades. Poor people usually didn't take much stock in education. At least that was my stereotype of who she was. Don't get me wrong. There has been people who have risen from poverty into very respected social positions. It's only that the poor people who I know that created this stereotype. The poor people who I know only reinforce these kind of thoughts. We had practically nothing in common. 


Until I went to her house.


Her house was a simple affair. One story, two bedrooms. Much smaller than I was used to. Then I discovered that we both liked to read a lot, and she wasn't the poor, uneducated person that I have come to stereotype her with. She was actually pretty smart. Maybe even smarter than I was. Being a comparably smart person by normal standards, I was not used to people being even smarter than I am. I suspected that she was one of those people who could actually surpass me in a test. It was kinda disorientating.


Another thing that we had in common with each other was that we both considered ourselves computer geeks. We were crazy about the merits of each type of computers, which apps were worth downloading, all that. It was kind of fun, but then otherwise it was really stressful. Stressful in the sense that I always felt that I met my match in the arena of intelligence. And I can tell you this: that feeling does not present itself often. It's really rare for me to find someone that I feel can truly match my intelligence level, and when I do, I relish the experience. 


Not that everyone else is dumb. I tend to think of everyone as smart until they prove themselves otherwise. It's just that I want someone who makes me think. Someone who forces me to change my views about a certain subject. It has been really long since someone had forced my head to go through something really challenging. I learned more about society and life in that one day than all of my hours studying in school. My friend taught me just about everything she knew about the other side of society. The side that I had ignored for most of my life. My head hasn't hurt so bad since I had to memorize my multiplication tables.


Her parents contained even more surprises. I thought that parents who didn't have that much money were always that way and didn't really try to get their way up in the world. This wasn't true of what with what these parents were. They had just fallen on hard times, and were trying their very best to overcome their conditions. They weren't all fat and uneducated as I had presumed. On the contrary, they were educated and would have occupied high positions had they stayed in their respective countries.


Later, I could not bear to look at this friend the same way again. I had started with thinking of her as not as intelligent as I was. I ended up thinking of her as one of the most intelligent people I knew. 


Back to my earlier point of how simple things can get complicated. It's really interesting what you can find when you look closely. 

Kids

I imagined what it would be like if I had kids. Once, I babysat my best friends' little sister, and it was a nightmare. She was one of those kids who would scream their head off if they don't get what they want. As I said, it was a nightmare. To be honest, I think I would be the most horrible mom there is in the universe.

Don't get me wrong, I love being with kids of all ages. They are fun. But to be an authority figure to them and tell them what to do? Don't even go there for now. That would be absolute horror. And what do I think about teenagers? Please. I can just imagine what I must look like to my parents, and I can say that they must hate me everyday. They bang their heads against the wall muttering, "Who wants my child? I don't want her." They don't really say that, I was just using them as an example.

I was playing basketball with my cousin a month ago when he started talking about having kids. (And yes, I do play sports. I'm not the clumsy fat nerd that everybody thinks I am.) He's in his 20's, and newly engaged. Already, his parents want to hug their grandchildren. "So, what do you think about having kids?", he asks. "Ummm, I'm not married yet, so I haven't thought about the issue.", I say, stating the obvious. "Oh." The conversation gets dropped.

An example of how kids can grind the ears of people: I was celebrating the holidays with my family and friends. My best friend decided to bring her 3-year-old sister with us. She (the 3 year old) was running in frantic circles pointing at different things at different times. We older people paid her no mind as we celebrated in our own way.

Now, my best friend decided to try to make her sister settle down and stop running. Surprisingly, she complied easily. Little did we know that after about 5 minutes, she decided to start giving these high-pitched screams that she passed as entertainment. The noise was beyond excruciating. The noise was akin to a pack of wild dogs fighting each other and yowling at the top of their lungs. Made me want to dig at my ears. Then, the sister got up and started disrupting with the waitress. Now, the noise was past excruciating. She had to go along to embarrass us too. Not to be mean, but I was pretty glad she was not a member of my family line. Both the parents and the older sister tried to make her stop screaming, but with total failure. This little girl was a tornado in human form. The manager was repeatedly walking back and forth at our table, giving us irritated looks. I gave him a very apologetic smile and hoped that other patrons did not mind the noise.

I have nothing against kids, but I guess I'm not too hot on them because I haven't been a parent before. I guess it changes as people change. But if I get a screaming, bawling baby as my child, I will give up totally on human kind. 

Choices

I have learned from a young age that the choices that we make usually define who we are. I have questioned this theory or rule countless times in the past, thinking "What does this mean? What does it mean to be defined by the choices that we make?" I never felt that choice making has ever been that important, until I reached the here and now.


To be perfectly honest, I have made many choices that I totally regret. I mean, when I reflect on some of the choices that I made in the past, I feel like hitting my head against the wall and yelling a few choice curses in the air. Sometimes, I question my own judgement and ask why I chose this instead of that. Only when I made a couple of wrong choices did I realize the truth in these words: choices make who you are. Once I think about it, choices ARE who we are because we have been raised with principles, and we act upon these principles.


I believe that our principles are the underlying basis of all we choose. All of us has been raised to a certain set of morals that we live by. These set of morals are set by an authority figure, whoever that may be. For the rest of our lives, we are guided by these rules, whether we like them or not.


Whenever I encounter a situation where I am offered a choice between two choices, I see myself at a road. Two different signs point me into two different directions, each with potentially different results. The word "two" in this case is a generic word, since we all know that many situations have more than two solutions. Although these choices may get confusing at times, sooner or later we'll have to choose one of them.


Often, I don't know which to choose. So I take a gamble. As with any game of chance, sometimes I win and sometimes I lose.


Choices between friends are also really important. The importance of this, I can't stress enough. As you can see as you read through some of my posts, you can see that the wrong choice of friends had a really big impact on me. Choosing the wrong friend or friends can destroy you. Since I have not been beyond the high school stage, I still don't know what the "real world" has in hold for me. I bet people in the work force are much more devious than teenagers now. Teenagers, at least, are not looking to slit each other's throat for pay or promotion. All we have to fight for is grades and colleges. Compared to the adult world, our lives are so simple they are laughable. One of the main reasons, I think, is that once we are adults, we have already experienced all there is to experience about being a teenager.


I believe for the most part, I am not one who makes stupid choices. At least not the kinds of mistakes that are blindingly obvious.


But choices are choices. At the end of the day, all of us have this list of choices that we are happy with and those of which we regret deeply. I'm just here hoping that my list of choices in which I regret won't be that long.

Reasons to Write

There are many reasons to write. Some people write to rant, some to just prattle of different inconsequential everyday things and situations. But something that I found through blogging is that the posts my friends like the best is when I am honest. In other words, I say what I mean and what my real interpretations of situations are. Although I had to learn the hard way to be honest, I have learned that honesty is always the best policy. People who care about each other really are honest with each other.


Giving honest posts are always good because they allow me to connect to other people. I believe that some of my experiences can be shared by teenagers around the world. Not that I'm a weather vane for all that a teenagers should experience, but at least my experiences are those that I and others have experienced.


Giving my honest opinion really connects to everyone my age, I think. People who are older than I am have already experienced what I have. People who are younger have a longer road than I do. 

I have had my writing torn apart by others before. People have said that I couldn't write. People said that I should stop writing because I suck. What I do is to treat their criticism as total BS, and tell them to go F themselves. There would always be haters, and one should not try to go and talk to them all. It's an impossible task to go and comfort everyone. Seriously, it's impossible.

One big thing that I like about writing a kind of personal blog is that I get to say what has happened to me to other people. It has a kind of comforting effect on me. What I like about reading other people's blogs is that I can sometimes relate to them. Sometimes, what they say is silly, but there are some that are serious. Still others are humorous, and I get a peek at what their lives are. But for the most part, people share stories that are worth sharing. Unlike celebrities, we don't care what happens to their daily lives. If they did that, we would get  a lot of the "same old, same old" stories. Come to think about it, celebrities' lives are probably like that too. We can't be sure. I can't be sure either, since I'm not a celebrity.


But anyway, I write because I find it interesting to. This blog is kind of my outlet where I can say what I want and what I mean. It's one of the only spaces in which my mom has no control over what I say. It's kind of, like, my "free space".

The Light at the End

A couple of weeks ago, I was taking a break from listening to my iPod, and I overheard this older guy talk about “seeing the light at the end of the tunnel”. I took a while to ponder this statement, and I came to the conclusion that everyone is reaching for that intangible goal in the future. Truly, I said, "Man, that is some deep statement to make." I only said this because it was so true. In other words, everyone is dreaming for the end of the tunnel, when they get to see where all of their work come to an end.

I had a friend that I met a couple of years ago. We met at one of our parents' church activities. The two of us were always going outside because we were too bored to stay in a pew. I was just told off by the priest because I was listening to my iPod while he was preaching. Neither of us really grasped the concept of heaven and hell and eternity. I don't think either of us cared. At that time, the end of the tunnel simply meant the start of summer vacation, when we could do what we wanted.

Eventually, both of us lost our faith for various reasons. Me, because I lost my best friend, older sister, and mentor. Her, because she lost her mom, also the guiding light in her life. Neither of us knew why these incidents happened to us. Our hearts filled with anger and resentment with what happened to us. I guess we both lost sight of the light at the end of the tunnel. We both almost lost the will to keep on going with our lives.

But my friend and I had each other. We, there is no other word for it, were lost. The people who helped us through life were gone from our lives forever. But as friendships testified, we got our lives back on track.

The light at the end of the tunnel is far away but there. Those who can't see it should. I temporarily lost my view, but then I got it back.

I mean, its sometimes hard to see the purpose in life. To this day, I'm still atheist, but I know that if Alice was still alive, she would have wanted me to move on. Think like this and nothing would seem insurmountable. It might seem hard at the moment, but everything will come out fine in the end.      

Thoughts about Love

A couple of weeks ago, my friends and I were talking about love. I don't see what's so complicated about what it means to love someone. Once someone loves you, that's it. You guys nurture your relationship, and when things don't turn out as you want it to, you pick up the pieces of your life, and move on. Friends and love always make an impression on your heart. 

It is always a privilege to have someone's love. When someone gives you their love, they are trusting you to be responsible with it. And that is what you are supposed to do: being responsible with love is a big issue. Love is based on trust, and without trust, there is basically nothing. If there is no trust in an relationship, you can't even call it a relationship. It's nothing. This applies to every type of relationship, not only romantic ones. 

For the most part, people feel as if when someone says they love them, then it's real. For the most part, they have their hearts broken. I feel as if the world "love" has been thrown around so much that it has lost meaning to us. We always say things like "I love pizza" or "I love music", but of course we are never going to pursue any relationship with either pizza or music. The word "love" used to be such a serious issue and meaningful word, but it is mostly worthless now. We need to stop making such words so weightless. When we say we love someone, they have to stop and wonder if we mean what we say. It makes me so mad to see people doubt like this. Our words are supposed to mean something. We say things like, "I swear I love you." The words "swear" and "love" are pretty much weightless words nowadays. It was never meant to be this way.

Also, some of us think that loving someone is to always doing things for them and never expecting something back. In part, this is complete bullshit. In religion, this might be true of the god, but not true in humans. To give and not receive some sort of thing back will not only create resentment, but also a whole load of debt to a lot of people. Love does not make us sacrifice everything. Love makes two people create together. That's why we celebrate holidays like Valentine's Day. It's to celebrate the meeting of two people that feel as if they had meant to be together. Love is to make people happy, not making one give everything to another. Love was not meant to be like that.

As I said, I never really understood what there was not to understand what love really was. My friends think of 'true love' as this unreachable goal. There is no such thing such a 'true love' guys. Wake up and look for plain love instead.

Twitter

About 2 years ago, I created my Twitter account.

In these two years, I have a total of 59 tweets. This is a little more than a tweet every two weeks. What does this mean? Why is it that I am not half as enthusiastic about Twitter than I am about Facebook?

Twitter has its certain positive attributes. For example, you know what people are doing at certain times. Then there are celebrities that you can follow. Following celebrities can get interesting especially if you are obsessed with them or something. One good thing that Twitter does with celebrities is that there is a way for people to know who is real. For people like me, however, our tweets run out after a while due to our unoriginal lives. I mean, there is no real way for me to keep talking about the same things over and over again. It's going to get irritating after a while.

I think that the main reason why I don't use Twitter as much is that you don't get to chat with any of the people there. Also, without all the apps that Facebook offers, things get boring after a while. You can't even play games on that website. I would understand why celebrities won't have their chat on, since they would be swamped with chat boxes from obsessive fans. Twitter is like, a Facebook with only statuses. Imagine the only function of Facebook: status updates. I really doubt that I would be using this social thing for long.

Twitter is a good thing in its own way. The thing is that I don't find why its such a big deal as a social network.

Giveaway

Hey guys!

This post is to inform you guys that I am doing a giveway.

The rules:
1) Be a follower of my blog.
2) Write a post about any topic of your choice and submit the link below. Right beneath your post, write: This post is for Gina's giveaway, and I will write your name down.
3) Once I randomly choose a winner, I will contact that person and he/she can give me his/address.

I am giving away a scarf.

Good luck!

-Gina

Coolness

For quite some time, I have thought about what defines cool. Teenagers have checked others out and tried to see whats in and whats out. Those who are “uncool” find themselves out of the group that is supposed to be so great. All of those people who either can't afford to keep up or find themselves out of the zone are immediately kicked out.

My real question is, what makes someone so into what people admire? Why do people admire those who are supposedly “cool”?

From my current observations, those who are native to a certain area are more likely to be considered in the “it” group. The people who do things the “traditional” way only in a new fashion are considered in the elite clique. What I mean by that is the people who behave in the traditional American fashion could be looked up upon.

For the people who are stuck up because they are "so cool", know that school only lasts for a couple of years until your reign on the top comes down. Society doesn't look at how cool you were in high school. No longer will dressing in the stylish clothes land you in the cool spot. It's how you treat people in general, not just those who are your friends.

I do not really know how to really word what I want to say, but I believe that the teenagers who read this know what I mean. When I see someone who is supposedly cool or belong in some upper clique, I realize that they are no different from any other person. Most of the time, they seem more dull than the people that I'm usually around. I don't know what my friends think, but that's my opinion about these people.

Favorite Movies

Recently over my winter break, I watched some truly amazing movies. My favorite genre is by far action, but mystery is also really good. I don't really like romance, but every movie has to have a little bit of romance in it. It seems to me as if producers can't make a movie if there is no romance involved with the main character. My least favorite is horror. I don't see the point of terrifying the audience of events that probably won't even happen. Horror has too much gore splashed over it for my liking. However, I am not going to continue with my digression about my favorite and least favorite movie genres. This post is about the favorite movies that I have watched thus far.

Titanic – Obviously one of the classic movies, I think its truly amazing. For the most part, I don't like romance movies, but Titanic is different. It's not so bad that I would label the whole movie as a chick flick because its not. The romance in the movie appeals to us all in a very basic way. We care for the characters in the fundamental way that humans care for each other. This movie has appealed to the basic character in each and every one of us.

E.T. – Easily one of the movies that I will watch over and over again, this movie never grows old. Although I am not that into science fiction movies, E.T. Is no doubt one of my favorite. If you have watched this movie, there is no reason why I should explain why I like it so much, if you haven't watched it, go watch it.

Prom Night – Although this movie might fall into the horror genre, I do not believe that this is true horror. Before you jump up and scream at me for being a hypocrite, let me explain my reasoning as to why I like this movie. The crazy dude that was killing people didn't leave gore. Well, the dead bodies would qualify as gore, but then there are no blood and guts flying around as he goes after the main character. This movie progresses with a build in suspense. Although I had just drawn an extremely shaky line in distinction, I don't think that this movie qualifies as horror. I like this movie for its suspense.

Avatar – A more sci-fi movie, I believe that this movie appeals to both the lightest and the darkest areas of the human soul. Humans have discovered a planet that has intelligent life and has decided to colonize it. As the native people show resistance to the humans, the military orders complete warfare against the less advanced native peoples. Human nature has shown itself at its worst. Then comes the main character and his friends to aid the revolution, thus showing the positive side of humans. Strangely, I find this movie moving as one friend after another dies in the battle. It didn't hit the box office as it did without being an epic movie.

Salt – Any spy movie involving Angelina Jolie so far has been really cool. I like this movie for the ceaseless action that it brings. To see such a strong female main character is so great. The main thing is that I do not understand what the ending really means. What happens after Salt jumps out of the plane? I heard that the producers were planning a sequel, but as of now, we still haven't heard any news of a sequel.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol – Really great movie. Although I haven't watched the first three movies, this movies still makes sense. There are two main things that I really like about this movie. First off, I like how the whole movie is packed with action right from the very start. Some movies make the audience wait for the action. Secondly, I like how little romance and wasteful chitchat there is in the movie. Now that I think about it, there is not any waste in my money as I watched the movie.

Thus far, I have talked about some movies that I really liked. Notice how I did not but movies like Twilight or Harry Potter in that list. Although they are great movies with cool special effects, I do not think that special effects will make a classic movie. For an example, check out Titanic. It has entered the movie world as one of the classics, and justly so without excess use of special effects.  

Knowing Better

At some point in our lives, everyone looks back at what they have done in their past. For some of us, that "looking back" happens a lot. Sometimes, we look, and we say, "Jeez, we should have done this" or "We should have done that". From what I have experienced, I should have known better in countless situations.

One time, I was sitting at a bench with my friends. I was half-listening to what my friends were talking about. It was the same old, same old. They were complaining about homework, tests, and teachers. I had heard all of this before, and I felt that if I heard them rant again, I would have screamed. School seemed to be their whole lives, and I didn't have that kind of life. I was daydreaming when I noticed a disturbance in the periphery of my vision.

This one kid was backed up against the wall surrounded by three bigger guys. I knew who that guy was. He was in my math class. Although we never really spoke to each other, we had caught each other's eye during class and said hi. I never even asked him what his name was. Didn't bother to. He wasn't that popular, and those who didn't really like him said he was a weirdo. Others said he was stupid. I didn't know what the guys cornering him for. He really had nothing to offer.


Only later did I realize that the guys didn't want anything from him. They were beating him up because he professed to be confused about his sexuality.


But at that time, I didn't know what was happening. Even if I knew, I wouldn't have done anything because other people's sexuality is totally none of my business. And I was not one those "confused" people, so I wasn't concerned with those who were. To me, they were the gray spots who weren't on either side of the spectrum. So then I smelled trouble, and told my friends to move up and go the other way. They took one look at the group from a distance, and we moved on not only with our position but with our lives. As long as I'm not the one getting beat up, I'm okay. I guess that was what we were all thinking as we went away. As long as it was not me. In other words, we thought it was okay to turn a blind eye to whatever that was happening to others. It was none of our business. That was what we did to everyone. 


Only later did I realize that it was my business. The image of the kid backed up against the wall. Couldn't get that scene from my head as I was walking away. The look on the guys face, asking us to help but to scared to voice his needs out loud.


That was when I resolved to never let my "that's none of my business" side get to me again. As long as I could change a situation, I would go change it. I didn't care what other people said, that experience left me scarred. I mean, I keep asking myself, "What if that was me? Would I have wanted someone to help me out?" The answer would be yes. Again, the very nature of human psychology is speaking out to us. If someone else is taking the weight of something, then its totally okay because it isn't us. We are not affected in any way by other people's suffering.


In short, I wish I knew better at what to do at that time. I was kinda stupid to think that without caring for someone else, I could get away scot free. It doesn't happen like that. Memories of the people you left behind haunts you forever.