How is it March Already??

It really has been quite a while since I’ve posted an update on what is going on in my life. I’ve taken to posting more actual writing and less about my life lately. There’s no real reason for this transition, but it has happened. I do enjoy writing more about a specific topic and not relegating myself to talk only about my life mostly because life isn’t all that interesting or exciting on a day to day basis. Since I’m about halfway through my Spring semester, I figure this is a nice time to just let you all know how life has been. I noticed that I really haven’t posted something like this since the beginning of the year, and since March is halfway over I figure it’s about time I get caught up with everything happening!

So far, my Spring courses are still going quite nicely. I’m taking French, History, and another English Composition course. Because I generally just find History to be dull and boring, I really don’t enjoy it that much. The professor I have is great and engaging and she knows how to relate things from the American Revolution to the society we have now, so I’ve actually been able to stay interested thus far. Since I am required to take another History course before I graduate, I’m sure I’ll take another course with this same professor since I find her class interesting. My English class is great but there hasn’t been much actual writing involved. This course focuses on argumentative writing and I feel like that’s something I excel at, so I’m a bit disappointed that there haven’t been more assignments. Then there’s my French course… I was really looking forward to waking this course because I love the language. Since I wasn’t able to take the course on campus due to it being in the middle of the day, I opted to take it online. Learning a language online is not easy. Not only due to the fact that you have to keep track of your own progress, but you’re trying to learn and speak and understand a foreign language. That is not an easy task to take on when you’re in a classroom and have someone to assist you. I’m really hoping that I can take French on campus in the Summer or Fall…  I can’t really complain about my courses too much since I am still holding down my 4.0.  

Ballet has been a lot more demanding lately. Not only because I’m preparing for my first performance, but also because I’m spending a lot more time in the studio working on a lot of advanced things. I’m not going to bore you with all the technical aspects of everything, but ballet is actually very demanding. When you have to jump and turn and dance and plié for hours on end, you have to be in good shape so I’ve picked up running to help me out there. I’m really looking forward to this first performance, even though I’m really not one to be put in the spotlight on stage, in front of people. Ballet has also become the best way for me to work through my emotions. I’ve found that when I’ve had a terrible day, I can channel my anger or frustration into a dance. If I’ve had a great day, it makes for a very smooth and peaceful dance. This performance is going to be the first time anyone other than the other girls in my class have seen me dance, so I’m looking forward to hearing what they think. And I get to wear a really cute outfit that looks really amazing when I do my turns. That’s kinda nice, too. This performance is going to be a lot of fun and I’m excited to see the dances all come together. For those that didn’t know, you don’t really learn a dance all at once. You learn the basic steps involved and slowly start to mark the dance and turn it into something more than just a tour en lair or pirouette. You take individual steps and link them together to create a dance, but only after you have perfected each individual move.

As I stated, I’ve started running. I haven’t been doing this for very long, only a couple months, but I definitely think it is something I will stick with. I originally started running a couple months ago just to try and keep my mind off the fact that I had been diagnosed. I found myself spending a lot of time dwelling on the bad and worrying about things that I had no control over and I found that getting outside and running helped to refocus me. I’m by no means the fastest or the one that can go the farthest, but I’m out there. Honestly, when I started running I actually hated running. I didn’t see the point of it and I thought it was boring. Now, I’ve come to see that it’s really quite peaceful and I love to be able to get outside for a little while. I love seeing my times slowly go down and my distances slowly start to creep up. I love knowing that I can make it through four hours of ballet and not be nearly as exhausted. I also love the fact that it really has helped tone up my legs and bum even more. No one would ever complain about having great legs and a fabulous bum.  

And then there’s work… Well, work is a complicated subject, isn’t it? I’ve always been a bit vague about work and try to only write about the good things, but work is not always good. Even the person with the greatest job in the world isn’t going to love their job every day. Since I spend 50 hours a week at work, when things are bad it’s very hard not to write about what is bothering me. We all know how stupid that would be. We’ve all heard the stories about employers who come across their employees posts griping about work and end up getting fired, and I have enough common sense to know that writing about my job would be career suicide. I wont be posting about things that are happening at work, mostly because it’s not going to be interesting to most people and also because this company deserves privacy, too. I do know that there will be a major change, by the end of July at the latest.  

Vote or Shut Up

I'm so tired of hearing people complain about the government and politics when they never vote. If you are old enough to vote, there is no reason that you shouldn't be out there voting. And don't just vote on the upcoming presidential election, vote on the seats in the Senate and the House. Vote for your local government. Make your voice heard, and note just by making a lot of noise.

What is the point of cable?

I hate getting in my cable bill every month. Not only do I hate having to send this company money because it is just one more bill to pay, but I hate it because of the fact that this is a cable bill.  To me, cable is a pointless service that I shouldn’t ever have to actually pay for.

I have Netflix, like thousands of other people in the United States. I pay ten dollars a month for hundreds of television shows and movies. All of this comes without commercials and without any sort of advertising to interfere with whatever I’m watching. Even though Netflix is extremely cheap and there are no advertisements, I will be canceling it in the next month. I’ve come to realize that even though Netflix offers a lot of things to watch, I don’t watch them.

Yet, I still have cable.

I watch a lot of channels on Youtube and enjoy finding new things to watch. I like to watch shows on Hulu and find shows from Comedy Central that are already posted online. When I watch all of these things, I know that I will be getting advertisements at the beginning of the video. In a forty-five minute program, I only get three short commercial breaks. In total, to watch forty-five minutes of a show I only have to watch five minutes of commercials. And it’s completely free!! I have every show that I want available at my fingertips. If I so choose, I can stream an episode of Doctor Who or Sherlock that is available in the UK but not in the US, completely free and without any advertisements. Online, I have access to any movie or television show that has been made. For only the cost of my internet.

Yet, I still have cable.

I work forty-five to fifty hours a week on top of spending ten hours at school or studying and five hours of ballet. I don’t really have time to watch television. If I do have time to watch television, I want to be able to relax and not worry about annoying commercials interrupting the plotline. So, I usually don’t even turn on the television unless there is a Stars game on. When I’m home alone, I put on music and clean or cook or read or paint. I might make a vlog (yes, I have one I’m currently editing and will be up Friday evening) or work on homework. If I’m really enjoying a class, I might even read ahead. I might spend time research a topic that peaked my interest earlier in the day. I might work on writing a blog post.

Yet, I still have cable.

I love watching the Dallas Stars. But, being in Texas, hockey is not the priority and is therefore not shown on a public channel. If the game is out of town and on a weekday, I usually can’t watch the game. Since October, I’ve spent over $2000 on hockey tickets. I’ve been to roughly fifteen hockey games so far this year, and will be going to a few more before even the playoffs begin. So, I don’t watch the games on television during the week and I spend a ton of money going to the games. Yet, I still I am willing to pay for a cable bill when I usually only watch one game a month on my own television.

What exactly is wrong with me and why am I so attached to having cable? I have this service that I hate paying for, I never use, and I just generally loathe. I have several other services that I can use for free or a fraction of the price. Why can’t I just let go of cable? I spend more money actually going to hockey games and going out to watch them than I can justify to myself while having cable. Why is cable so important? Why do I have such an attachment to this cable? And why is everyone the exact same?  

Get Your Boehner out of my Uterus

When Obama was campaigning in order to gain the Presidential nomination and later the actual race to the White House, he made the same promise many Democrats who came before him promised: There will be national healthcare. During the short time that he had a Democratic House and Senate, Obama shocked the nation by pushing this through and being able to provide a national health care bill. Republicans have never been happy about this fact. Now, with the next Presidential election approaching, they have decided to deem this health care bill a “War on Religion” due to the fact that religious institutions would be required to offer birth control to any women they employ. Republicans have recently taken up the great call to interfere with women’s rights, most notably their right to birth control. By taking up these causes, Republican leaders are taking away the rights that women have fought for years to attain.

The Roman Catholic Church has opposed birth control use for decades. Pope Paul VI reiterated the Roman Catholic Church’s view in 1968 when he issued the Humanae Vitae. It is one of the core beliefs of their faith that life begins at conception, thus birth control of any sort is destroying this sacred life. Pope Paul VI also stated that sex is meant only for natural procreation, thereby condemning extramarital sex, premarital sex, and sex for pleasure. If the government is forcing all American companies and places of employment to provide birth control to their female employees, then this is a direct violation of the Church and should not be upheld. Even the United States Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Forcing the Roman Catholic Church to distribute birth control and go against their doctrine is breaking this core foundation of the nation. The roman Catholic Church has ignored the fact that there is great disparity between the rich and the poor, another pillar of the Catholic faith. There have been hundreds of thousands of people crying out about the income disparity, yet the Church has remained oddly silent. Even though it has recently been widely publicized that roughly 98% of Catholic women use some form of birth control, contraception is still an issue that the Church feels interferes with their religious freedom.

In late January, it was announced that Obama’s health care would cover birth control for women across the country. January 20^th it was announced that there would be changes to the current national health care that would go into effect next year. Birth control and contraception will be completely covered by all employers. If the health care plan was not fully put into effect by employers, they would be fined $2000 per employee annually. Obama and his administration were willing to meet with religious officials to ensure that this would not hinder their rights, but he was only met with opposition at every turn. The Roman Catholic Church insisted that this was infringing on their rights and nothing could be done in order to appease their worries that this would take away the rights of the members of the faith to freely practice religion. The Church claimed that the government could not mandate that employers provide healthcare when it was in direct violation of their faith.

The Roman Catholic Church and many Republicans feel that mandating birth control be covered, not forced down anyone’s throat, is interfering with their religious freedom. This provision is not forcing anyone to take birth control. It is simply another preventative medication that is covered. Contraceptive measures that would be covered are like other medications, like Viagra, that are currently covered. Does everyone use Viagra? Does the Church get up in arms that Viagra, a pill that lets men interfere with God’s decision on whether or not they should be able to impregnate their wives, is currently covered by insurance companies? No, the Church and Republican leaders are solely concerned with what a woman does to her own body.

The Speaker of the House, John Boehner, has spoken out multiple times against the President and Democrats that favor the health care bill. Boehner has even gone so far as to call this an attack on religion by the federal government. He has long called many of Obama’s more “radical” policies an attack on religion. When Obama called for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Boehner was quick to say this was the liberal bias that is ruining the country and our military. When this health care provision was proposed, he began to tell media outlets that the government was promoting abortions and abortions would be funded by the US government. This battle cry against state-funded abortions has been picked up by many conservatives. This is also one of the major reasons people oppose the birth control mandate, they have heard it is also going to fund abortions. Many conservatives have not given much thought to the claims made, they just take up the cry and perpetuate the lies spread. Does anyone recall the “death panels” that were said would go into effect? Or the fact that Obama is not even real United States citizen and was born outside of the country?

When the White House issued the statement that birth control would be provided as a preventative measure to women, free of charge, the backlash from the Church was instantaneous and loud. Even though the Obama administration has clarified that religious institutions are exempt from this ruling, the Church is still up in arms. Government officials have clarified several times that houses of worship and church affiliated organizations are exempt from the birth control mandate, but this is not good enough for the Church. The Church and many Republican officials have called for the government to remove all mentions of the birth control mandate. There was even a debate held in Congress, with the ability to call witnesses on both sides of the debate, led by Representative David Issa. The debate that Issa wanted to lead centered not around women’s rights or even birth control, the issue that Republicans had with the health care provisions was the infringement of religious freedom. Issa was outraged that religious freedom was being stepped on in favor of this health care provision.

Even though the debate itself was called over the issue of birth control and the fact that it is going to be available, Issa claimed that this was not a women’s issue. He felt that a group of older men would be the key witnesses on the issue of birth control and would have more knowledge than any woman. Issa claimed that this was not about women’s rights, even though it was only the matter of birth control for women that was an issue, so women had no place in this debate. Many Democrats were enraged that a panel of religious leaders, all male, were the ones that had authority to speak on a woman’s right to birth control. The panels did not have a single legal scholar on them, either. This meant that there was no one to speak on whether this provision really was unconstitutional or not.

Republicans are constantly calling for an end to big government, but wouldn’t it be nice if this group of men would stop pretending they knew anything about what life with a vagina is like? Many women do not take birth control for the “birth control” aspect of it. Many use it to relieve the symptoms of a painful menstruation cycle. Women might choose to use birth control in order to be able to skip periods altogether. Some women might use birth control to help regulate their periods, this way they don’t have to constantly wonder when it will happen. Men that sit in Congress assume that any woman that is on birth control is using it so she can have sex without the repercussions of a baby. Conservatives ignore all of the other reasons a woman might need access to birth control, or why they might want help paying for it. Birth control is not cheap. Even though many Representatives believe otherwise, this birth-control-using-woman knows otherwise. Birth control is very , very expensive. A woman on a hormonal birth control pill can spend up to $18,000 in the thirty years in her lifetime that she is using birth control.

If the US government was forcing women of all religions to take birth control and forcing men to wear condoms, this would be infringing on the religious freedom of these people. The provision that everyone is throwing a fit over is just providing an option to women who need assistance. Women have fought long and hard to be able to decide what to do with their own bodies. Women are competent people who are able to decide what to do with their own bodies. We do not need a bigoted man to tell us what to do. We do not need to have a religious body tell us we are not allowed to enjoy sex because it is only for the use of natural procreation. We especially will not stand for this when “natural procreation” is allowed between a priest and a little boy.

NED Awareness - An Eating Disorder is Not a Choice

I was only eleven when I started to worry about my weight. For the next ten years of my life, it would be something that I struggled with constantly and a battle that I fought every moment. I did not choose to get an eating disorder. I did not wake up one morning and think that it would be a good idea to stop eating. I was not oblivious to the effects that came with a restrictive diet. I did not find joy in counting every calorie I ate. I did not take joy in trying to "burn" every calorie I ate in order to be able to look at myself in the morning. I did not think it would be fun to wake up every morning and hate the way I look.

I could try and make excuses for how I got myself into this situation. I could try and justify it. But, the truth is, every single person that has dealt with this battle will have their own personal reasons as to what started them off on this path. Society tries to simplify into something generic like "They just want to have control over something in their life" or "They have low self esteem" or "They have been teased about weight." For me, it was no single cause. There was no single reason in life that caused me to go from being a happy child into a person that would obsess about every bite eaten and torture myself for every calorie. I was unhappy at home, I was teased, I did not have much control over my life, but none of these reasons were the reason that it all started. To me, it seems ridiculous and pointless to try and find the cause. I feel like the focus should be on reaching out and giving support.

At my lowest point, I weighed 90 lbs. Considering I was 5' 10" at this point, I know that it is extremely unhealthy. My parents seemed to ignore the fact that I stopped eating and was starting to disappear. My friends would try and talk to me about it, but I would be deaf to their concerns. A lot of people would say things along the lines of "You just need to eat and get over it" or "You're being selfish, don't you know there are people that don't have access to food??" I would assume they were genuinely concerned, but these things only pushed me more into my cycle of self-hate and starvation. I have always been very critical of myself and see flaws even where others do not. After I got to the point where eating even 200 calories a day was a struggle and I would feel like a failure, the criticism of others would only push me further into myself. I was obsessed with calories and food and exercise. If I knew I was going out with friends for dinner, I would plan my week around it so that I wouldn't "over eat." To me, it seemed like my eating habits (or lack thereof) were only affecting myself. I didn't see how it hurt the people around me. My relationships suffered, my grades suffered, my job suffered.

Once people began to realize that nothing they could say or do would get me out of the mindset I was in, most people stopped trying to help. A lot of people stopped trying to help and they just turned a blind eye to what was happening. For the past three years, I was eating on a regular basis, but I was also trying to "burn" the majority of things that I would eat. I would count calories and the number at the end of the day would determine my mood for the next day. If the number was too high, I would mentally berate myself for days and nothing could be said to change my mind about how I saw myself. I saw fat where others didn't. My self worth was determined by the number on the scale. Any comment about my weight, even if it was in a joking manner, would make me crazy. It got to the point that, after so many years, I saw the rest of the world as wrong. I had convinced myself that it was everybody else that had a problem overeating, I was just trying to be "healthy" and stay "fit." The fact that I was supposed to be eating at least 1500 calories more a day was a fact that just reinforced in my mind that it was everyone else that was eating too much.

There is no way to "cure" someone of an eating disorder. Just like any other mental illness, it is something that will be fought every day. It can be managed but it will never really go away. About three months ago, I came to the point in my life where I realized what I had been doing to myself for all of these years. For a decade, I had been starving myself and closing myself off from everyone that cared about me. I didn't want to be alone any more. I made the decision to try and be healthy, not skinny. I wanted to be the person that would be able to go out with friends and not have to do the math to figure out what I would have to do the next day to justify what I was eating and drinking to look normal. I wanted to be like everyone else. I didn't want to hate everything I saw in myself. I wanted to be happy. And, most of all, I didn't want a number to determine my happiness.

I wish I could say that I wake up every morning and feel wonderful about the way I look and I am completely comfortable in my own skin. I wish I could say that I no longer worry about what I eat or what I do to "balance" it all out. But, now I try not to let the number of calories eaten, the number of calories burned, the number on the scale all determine my happiness. I try to focus on being healthy and happy, not on hungry and skinny. I know I will probably struggle with this every day, every meal, but I am willing to try and fight what has become my natural tendency. I promised myself I would never again purge after going out with friends because I didn't "deserve" that night.

Unless someone has personally dealt with an eating disorder, they will never really know what the comments about a person's weight can do to another. They will never really understand the isolation that comes with this illness. They will never really know how to help. If any of my readers ever need someone to talk to or someone to just listen, I will be here for each and every one of you. Nothing can be said to make a person change the way they think, the most I can do is promise to be here for you all.