I make my own waves when
I don’t need to.
I make myself angry when I don’t need to be!
And it’s not good for me,
not good for my health.
I see you do the same thing to yourself.
I think it’s something you inherited,
like it’s genetic, maybe. And I’m sorry.
It has taken me my whole life,
fifty-some years to realize that
I am the only one who can control how I feel,
that it is me, and not other people, who changes
the way I feel.
I see you do this to yourself,
you expect people to think the same way,
and to care and to try the same way that you do.
It’s taken me my whole life
to realize that, and I still
don’t know how to fix it.
If you could learn this now,
so early on in your life,
you’ll be so much better for it.
You’ll be just fine.”
I make my own waves too, sometimes.
But the thing about waves, is that even though they can be destructive, they can also be spectacular.
So, I think that it’s okay to make waves in our lives, but we have to decide which kind they will be.
I’ve been embarrassed of my height for a while. I wear platformed shoes, I sit up as straight as I can, and I do exercises that supposedly help me grow. But, no matter what I try, I’m not going to get any taller.
I’m short and I don’t like it, but I can’t do anything about it, so why not own it?
Photo Credit: whiskeyriff.com
I’m short, I have a lower risk of cancer.
I’m short, I can wear children’s sizes and save a bunch of money.
I’m short, I can wear heels without towering over my date.
I’m short, I don’t have to worry about hitting my head on doors.
I’m short, blankets will cover my body and my feet, so no cold toes for me.
I’m short, I can fit in small places.
I’m short, I can fit in my dog’s bed and cuddle with her.
I’m short, I can beat just about anyone in a limbo competition.
I’m short, I have a higher life expectancy than taller people.
I could go on and on about the pros of being vertically “challenged,”
Yes, people have different opinions, but why does that make them a monster?
I am so tired of having people hate me for my beliefs.
I am tired of losing friends because of my political party.
I feel as though the side that is supposed to be the most accepting is the side I feel the most attacked by.
I want to be able to have civil conversations and hear other people’s ideas, but I feel as though those conversations are hard to have. The last time I tried to have a conversation with a friend that had different beliefs than me, she started to become distant and our friendship started to fizzle away.
Photo Credit: Pinterest.com
The side that wants everyone to be comfortable and happy has made me scared to have a different opinion, but I am no longer going to keep my ideas hidden. I am a young female Republican who is tired of acting like she isn’t. I know some people won’t be happy about my beliefs, but I am tired of caring and it is something I want people to know now.
I know that I go to a liberal school and everyone in my journalism class is liberal and I am not trying to offend anyone, but I am just tired of keeping quiet.
It’s a bad feeling. No, it’s an awful feeling. Yet I find myself facing it time and again. I’m currently sitting in the car feeling almost as shitty as how I performed today in practice. I could have gone harder… I should have gone harder. How can I strive to be the best if I’m not even giving my all?
The breakdown: the set was hard, I knew it would be a challenge, so I gave up. Looking back, the emotional pain now is far worse than the physical pain I would have experienced if I just kept trying. For me, muscle fatigue, not being able to breathe, the lactic acid burning in my throat, and the pain of pushing yourself to the limit is nothing compared to the pain I go through knowing I could have done better, knowing that I’m the one holding me back. Because I didn’t want to suffer through eighty laps on a challenging interval, I am currently suffering through the disappointment and regret of knowing I am hindering my growth.
Photo Credit: pinterest.com
You know that feeling when the teacher pulls out a test on the reading you were assigned last night but you didn’t do it, just because you didn’t want to. Not a great feeling. This got me wondering, if we know the effect of our actions, how come we still proceed in doing the easiest thing in the moment. Why not put in the ten minuets to read a chapter and feel confident when the teacher pulls out the test? Why not give your all in a work out, suffer through the pain and embrace it, to experience the rush of endorphins after and the confidence knowing you did your best?
After reflecting on my errors and embracing the sucky emotions I am feeling right now, I have a goal. Every time I feel like skipping a fifty, reading spark notes instead of the book, going easy instead of all out, not doing what I should just because I don’t want to, I am going to think. Think of how I will feel in the future, and ask: Is the emotional conflict that will take place in the future worth just doing whats right?
I wasn’t sure what to say tonight, so I decided to comment on a few things I found while flipping through my journals. Enjoy:
November 3, 2015: Middle school is hard.
(This one made me giggle.)
March 6, 2016: Being carefree is not the same as being careless.
(Not sure what prompted me to jot this down. I probably thought it was a lot more profound back then, but I guess it’s still a valid point.)
April 5, 2017: I got hit in the eye with a baseball today.
(I remember it like it was yesterday. Ouch.)
November 20, 2018: TOO MANY FEELINGS AT ONCE! WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE AND YOUNG!
(This one was written in capitals and had some vigorous underlining. I like it.)
December 4, 2018: I’m just so different than I was before. But I think that’s a good thing, somehow.
(Yay for personal growth!)
December 23, 2018: Some people are just easy to love, and easy to fall in love with. They are both my favorite and least favorite kind of people.
(haha no comment.)
January 6, 2019: “Wish I was there, wish we’d grown up on the same advice, and our time was right…”
(These are Frank Ocean lyrics. MAN, I wish I could write songs like Frank Ocean.)
Sometimes I write down the random thoughts that pop into my head. It’s kind of cool to see how they have evolved over time. That’s all for now.
I always go to the movies purely for entertainment. I’ve never gone to a movie where I’ve left inspired about my future.
But after watching On the Basis of Sex on Saturday, I couldn’t wait to be a lawyer.
The movie was based off the life of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She was the top of her class at both Harvard’s and Columbia’s law schools, but she wasn’t allowed to practice law in New York City solely on the basis that she was a woman during this time.
The story followed her through her first case following a male who wanted a care giver tax deduction, but the law stated that only women or widowed men could be care givers.
This case was the spark that started a series of changes in laws contributing to giving women their rights, many cases won by RBG herself.
Photo Credit: Rottentomatoes.com
Ginsberg went from a lawyer fighting sex-based discrimination against people who wouldn’t listen to being a Supreme Court justice with a 96-3 vote from Congress.
If that’s not inspirational for a young female and aspiring lawyer, then I don’t know what is.
Ever since I was a kid, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer. I would make up cases and make my family act as the other lawyers and defendants. I went to a mock trial program at UCLA over the summer and most of my daydreams lately have been about excelling in law school.
I’m pretty sure I’m more excited for law school than I am for college.
Watching that movie made me excited for my future, excited to live in NYC, and excited practice law and work on influential cases.
So, thank you RBG. I hope to follow in your footsteps on the path you’ve helped create.
Recently I got a tattoo and everyone has been wondering what it is or why I got it. I haven’t explained it to many people because I just haven’t had time to fully explain it. There are so many things someone must know to understand why I got that tattoo. It is not something simple to me. I mean I planned it for 8 years, so what can you expect?
When I was very young, around the age of 4, I took father and daughter guitar lessons with my dad. I don’t really remember the classes, but one day has always stood out to me more than others. My dad and I went to the class, then went to the fair after. We got mint chocolate chip ice cream and I just loved spending the day with my dad. The main focus of the day was music, but that was most days for us.
Another really strong memory I have with my dad is painting with watercolors. We painted together so many times that I don’t have just one day I can recall. All I remember is painting with him.
He was very artistic. In fact, I think that I got my artistic side from him. We used to always jam out to “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath in his car and look at nature together. We always talked about how beautiful nature was. Our favorite colors were green and blue because they were always in nature and we both had beautiful blue eyes.
In 2011, God decided that it was time for my dad to go home. I tried to follow him multiple times, but luckily I failed.
Photo Credit: pinterest.com
Now that I got the background information out of the way, I think I can actually explain my tattoo.
My tattoo is a black bass and treble clef that resemble a heart with blue, green, and purple watercolors behind it on my forearm. It sounds simple, but it really isn’t.
I have known since I was 10 I wanted a heart for my dad but I did not know what kind. I decided that when I saw the music heart that I knew it was perfect. I feel most connected to him through any sort of art.
The bass clef has low notes in music while the treble has high notes. This is to remind me that there are lows in life, but there are also highs.
The bass clef normally has a colon at the end, but I decided to make it a semicolon because there is a very famous project known as The Semicolon Project, which raises awareness for suicide victims and survivors. After my father passed, I thought I could not handle life without him, but I can and the semicolon is a reminder that I can.
The watercolors in the back are not just cool colors to me. Whenever I see blue and green together, I always think of my dad so I thought they were the only fitting colors to have. I added purple as a sort of transition color.
The reason I am calling them watercolors is because they look like splashes of watercolors. The reason I added them was not just for a pop of color. It was because some of the best memories I have of him are when we were painting together and most the time we used watercolors.
The placement is not random either. I know to some people it is dumb to have a tattoo so visible, but I do not care. It is visible in most dresses, but I want it that way. My father cannot walk me down the aisle so having the tattoo on my arm out in the open is the closest I will ever get.
I’m thankful for my feet and for all of the blisters and calluses they’ve endured, simply because they’ve kept me grounded.
I’m thankful for my legs, because even though sometimes I think they are too short, they are strong. My legs have carried me across miles, mountains, and everything in between.
I’m thankful for my stomach, my back. I am thankful for my chest, because it protects my lungs and my heart.
I’m thankful for my arms, no matter how much I hate the way they look in tank tops, because they help me lift myself back up.
I’m thankful for my shoulders, the same ones that I used to think were too broad and boyish, for always keeping my head up.
And lastly, I’m thankful for my head. Although it isn’t always level, it houses my brain and all of the thoughts that are constantly buzzing around in it.
We spend too much time hating our bodies. It is easier to find things we don’t like about ourselves than it is to find things we do like. We can’t control the way we look, but we can control how we feel about ourselves.
And even though it’s hard sometimes, I think we should all try to thank our bodies every once in a while.
We need to be kinder to ourselves, kinder to our bodies. We deserve that.
My body isn’t perfect, but it has gotten me this far. And I’m so thankful for that.
the only thing i can remember is riding bikes around this small town with people who are now mundane
biking around before anyone could drive and before things got so complicated and you liked drinking so much and your new friends
when we would go down random streets just to go down them and listen to music that made us fall in love
not with each other although we loved each other but with this silly small town and the feeling it gave us
maybe it didn’t make us fall in love maybe it only made me
you’re much cooler now but we put your speaker in the bike basket and listened to music with girls singing who had much prettier voices than you and had picnics and sat in grass that made me itchy all over
and this isn’t a love story in any way nor am i mad i just wish i was more artistic and didn’t have to read on people who are much cooler than i am to become inspired
i think that’s where all of this sprouts from
my lack of creativity and artistic ability and i try but maybe i’m made to grow up and hate my job
while i’m at it i might as well just quit this whole class along with every other one too
i’ll probably just keep picking the skin off my thumbs and dedicate my life towards the absolute rotting of my brain like all my friends are doing
and i’ll stay in the same shitty town where i listened to shitty music with you in that only made us hate each other probably because your voice was prettier than hers but I would never tell you that
and this town is rainy now and not the good type of rain but the sad type and the places we used to go make me sick and you
you and your new friends exchange presents while i’m sitting there and that makes me feel lonelier than i already did
and i’m not artistic and i have good grades but if i know anything i know i don’t want to work in an office
but my family told me only people who are super motivated to do something else can get bad grades
and they tell me that will never be me
so i guess i’m going to be sitting in a office at a job i detest but if i’m lucky enough i’ll be in downtown LA or maybe new york
or maybe i’ll blend in with the rest and maybe people will think i’m cool on instagram and i’ll sit around my house on the road to fucking nowhere.
OVS Journalism Blog 
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