Cherish it.

There's this girl at school who is complaining because her boyfriend broke up with her.
"Life sucks," she says. "My life is over."
Well, Chickidee, it doesn't and it's not. There are people out there who are worse off than you, and I'm not even talking about those in poverty-ridden countries, like Haiti or Ethiopia. I'm talking about people right here, in the state of Texas.
My friend Kathy's* mom had her at age 16. She had been raped and was under the influence of drugs until she found out she was pregnant. She had Kathy and kept her. She met and married a man named Dee*, who was at least 10 years her senior, when she was 21. She had another daughter by the time she was 22 named Sally*, and then a couple years later, another girl named Briana*.
All was well with the family until Dee was killed in a car accident in 2005. After that, Dee's family ostracized his wife, and Kathy.
Kathy's mom moved the whole family out to Texas to live near her parents in Dallas.While in Dallas, Kathy's mom met a guy online on a gamer's site. They started dating and she got pregnant. They married, and he moved down from New Jersey. Kathy's mom became jealous of Kathy, especially when Kathy was around Charles*. Kathy was 13 when this started. Kathy's mom kicked Kathy out of the house when Kathy was a freshman, and Kathy moved to live with her grandmother in another town.
Kathy moved back in with her mom six to eight months later,and the new family moved to the same town as her grandma.

All was well, except for the name calling by Kathy's mom- along the lines of slut, whore, bitch, etc.
Kathy's biological dad started talking to Kathy through Myspace. Kathy visited him in Australia, and then decided to move there, because her mother was so verbally abusive.
She met her dad's fiance, and made fast friends with their friends. Her dad got more and more controlling and wouldn't let her go anywhere unless he or his fiance were with her. She arrived in Australia in late December, but was not enrolled in school until May. Kathy realized she would probably have to do her sophomore year all over again unless she was placed in school, so she asked to go back home, and her dad said he had no money to buy her a plane ticket.
Kathy's mom, in America, bought her ticket. Kathy arrived home in the States in June. She found out her grandparents had paid for the plane ticket, and then had made bad financial decisions and were collecting what Kathy owed them. They told her she had until she was 18, which at the time was only two months away, to pay them back $2000.00. Also, Kathy's mom stopped recieving social security payments on Kathy from her deceased husband's Social security, and Kathy started receiving a smaller amount. Kathy had to open a bank account now that she was 18 years old. Kathy had started a new school year, her junior year, in a new town, also thanks to her parents.

Her parents then moved to another town. Kathy wanted to finish the school year, so she moved in with her boyfriend's family. She bought a car with her money, but her mother still had access to it. Kathy had $600.00 set aside for car repairs and for prom shopping, and her mother, from another town, spent it "accidentally".

All this shows that there is always someone whose life sucks, just as there's always someone whose life rocks.
Cherish it.



* Names have been changed for security reasons.

What being Pro- Anything REALLY means.

I may be young, and REALLY have only about 2 years of actual interest in politics and the goings on there under my belt, but I like to believe I have a pretty good understanding of what democracy is all about. It's about freedom; having the ability to be able to decide for yourself. That said, there should be limits. Too much of a good thing can turn into a bad thing.

Pro-Choice, to me, is not the same thing as Pro- Abortion. It summarizes, in this label,exactly what our Founding Fathers built this country on. It is about having the CHOICE to choose whether or not to keep the fetus. (I call it a baby, but apparently it is WRONG for Pro-Choicers to call it that. Apparently, it's hypocritical.) Back to my point: Pro-Choice is letting a WOMAN decide what to do with HER OWN BODY!
Also, in a side note, just because a person in PRO-CHOICE doesn't mean they will not grieve for their loss. They will. It doesn't mean they hate babies. The thought of abortion isn't something to be taken lightly. It's serious. There are cases, such as Rape, where the mother is emotionally unstable or can be emotionally unstable.
Pregnancy is expensive, so financial situations can also lead to this decision. Medical decisions can also. The system of Adoption and such isn't the best, so that can be a factor in the mother's decision.
I don't think it should be done because the father wishes it. It should be done if the mother AND, not OR, the father cannot RESPONSIBLY take care of the growing baby, if that makes sense.
In my point of view, Passing laws concerning a Woman's body is unconstitutional, although it did take years and years for us to get the right to vote, so...

Men, especially those in POLITICS, need not concern themselves with this. Unless they are the father of the unborn or of the mother, or somehow related in another way, it doesn't involve them.
You can have your opinions, but FORCING someone not to do something is just as bad as forcing someone to do something.

This leads me to Pro-Gun. You don't have to carry a gun, or even own one. I realize that there have been situations where guns have hurt more than they have helped, but there have also been cases where being able to carry a gun would have saved lives.
EXAMPLE: The Luby's Shooting in Killeen, Texas, where Suzanna Hupp saw her parents be killed. Had she been able to carry her handgun into the Luby's restaurant, she could have injured the killer and saved lives.
MODERATION! LIMITS!
Yes, they are necessary, but going extremely against or extremely for is not!

Being Pro-Gay Marriage doesn't mean you are gay. In my opinion, it means you view a HUMAN couple as just that and nothing more or nothing less.
There are those who bring their faith into the argument, but a Gay or Lesbian is a person. Does their being in love harm you? If so, I can see why you would object. Myself, I don't see the harm in true love.


And that is what being PRO- Anything REALLY means.

The Fashion and Beauty

My future career is so very connected to the fashion and beauty world. I aspire to be a fashion/beauty industry journalist. I want to be that stylish gal sitting in the front row at a fashion show of some amazing designer like Proenza Schouler or Zac Posen, with my laptop or pen and note pad and my handy dandy Star Bucks Venti Frappuccinno. I want to be the next Kate White! Or Cindy Lieve!

As someone who is immersing herself so deeply into the treacherous path that is fashion, I understand that there are villains in every nook and cranny. They come in the shape of editors and other journalists, and fashion designers, but the scariest ones are the ones that I would be writing for. The consumers.
And this leads me to my question: Why is it that women, and some men, have to find fault with a person’s appearance, specifically? Why can’t a women of a certain size just be accepted and admired. Why does one need a preference for curves or for straight lines?

And why is it that women dress to look curvy when they aren’t curvy and dress to look skinny when they aren’t skinny? There’s this one body ideal that everybody wants to achieve, but no one can agree on which shape it is.
I hope, for the future, we can all appreciate our shapes.