Knowledge is power.

Being a college student has taught me a lot over the past year. College is optional and in my opinion is the best way to educate yourself, whether its in mathematics or art. College (and university) is something I truly believe helps the teenagers of our society to not just gain knowledge for jobs, but knowledge for interacting with individuals in a friendly manner, this is the knowledge we will need every day in the near future and is something that has taught me a lot about others around me.

Now, obviously there are a lot of people within colleges and universities so being friendly and well mannered is key to making friends and enjoying your time there. Learning new things not just on certain subjects but about certain people is something i thoroughly enjoy and find very helpful. By learning different things about different people you may also discover new things about yourself, you may discover a whole new person within yourself just by talking to people who have different views and opinions. One conversation with someone, even a stranger, may change you for the rest of your life… hopefully for the better!

The friends I had when I started college are still there for me but I have made a whole new group of friends throughout the year, people I have known for a long time but never gave any thought on whether I should actually make an effort to talk to are now my closest friends I’ve ever had. Totally unexpected doesn’t even begin to describe the friendships I have. A few of my friends in particular have completely changed the outlook I have on life (for the better.) Becoming a motivated, happy person is the person I have molded into and I can’t thank the people I have in my life now enough for the amount of times they have helped me through the hard parts of this academic year.

Back to education. This is something that can also change you for the rest of your life, learning something different other than mathematics and English is something I am thankful I have the opportunity to do because there are many unfortunate children who do not have that chance. Taking control of educating yourself is something many people take for granted and just throw out the window. Why? Having the opportunity to get yourself up to that dream job and then completely blowing it off for a few ‘fun’ years will never be something I do. Now taking into account that a lot of people can’t turn up to school and college for legitimate reasons are the people I feel sorry for the most out of anyone. Not being able to grab that chance of becoming a Doctor or an Anthropologist or whatever someone may want to be is just unfair.

Any knowledge you can acquire makes you that little bit more powerful. Knowledge is power, knowledge is attractive and is most certainly helpful in any situation.

What the Fuck is Fuckable

This is brilliant, anyone can be fuckable!!

Heather Matarazzo

Seriously? What the fuck is fuckable?? I don’t know if I can answer that question for you, but I can share my own experience.

When I was 19 or so, I was standing in a Starbucks in West Hollywood with a director, talking about the upcoming film we were about to shoot. It had been a long road, but we had finally made it. Waiting for our coffee, I could see that he seemed a bit uneasy. I asked him if everything was ok. He said yes. I didn’t believe him, so I asked him again. He looked at me and said “Heather, I’m sorry, we have to give your role to another actor. The producers don’t want you.” I didn’t understand. I had been attached to this project for two years, and now two weeks before filming, I’m being let go. I asked him why. He looked me dead…

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The Beauty of Teens

How all teenagers actually are, learn to take interest and you will have a complete new opinion on our generation. Teenagers aren’t really all that bad!

The Human Rights Warrior

Photo taken by (and used with permission from) my son Sevrin at his high school sailing team practice.

As I write this, there are seven teens asleep in my basement.  My son and his friends came back from their high school dance in high spirits last night. Laughing and joking loudly, they boisterously descended on my kitchen, devouring everything within reach (even some chips that I thought I had hidden pretty well).  These guys were the human equivalent of an invading colony of army ants, foraging insatiably through my refrigerator.

Now these boy-men are dead to the world, asleep in a puppy pile on my basement floor.  And I have to be honest – I am loving every single thing about these teens.   In fifteen plus years of parenthood, I have grown accustomed to – perhaps, in some ways, inured to – the many and diverse aspects of wonder in…

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GUEST POST: Excluding Transgender People Doesn’t Make Anything Safer For Anybody

LaDIYfest Sheffield

Content note: this piece contains descriptions of transmisogyny, homophobic bullying and sexual assault.

Recently I read an article in the New Statesman in which the writer recounted her experience of rape, and the subsequent lack of empathy and care she experienced from the men around her. My heart sank as I read this all too familiar story. I felt a surge of empathy with the woman, as well as anger on her behalf.

And then my heart sank even further, and the anger I had felt in solidarity with this woman turned towards her, as she made the argument that, having felt safer and more able to recover from her ordeal in “female only” spaces (implication: spaces that do not admit transgender women on the basis of their gender assigned at birth), there was a reasonable debate to be had about the exclusion of transgender women from such spaces. While I…

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8 Ill-advised Reasons for Getting Married, 1792

The History of Love

What would you say makes the most solid foundation for a marriage? Trust? Financial security? The sort of profound and death-defying passion that would make Jack & Rose weep with envy? [let’s face it, they are the modern-day Romeo & Juliet, and I’m only moderately ashamed to admit it.]

It was in the latter half of the eighteenth century that the concept of marrying for love began to gain currency in the English popular mindset, and the younger generation expected a bit more say in who their partner might be. Inevitably, centuries of parental tyranny in these matters meant that alliances negotiated in terms of acreage and titles continued to sweep many reluctant couples to the altar.

Here, however, we have a brilliant print suggesting that many people cannot be trusted with such a momentous decision, giving a range of slightly less conventional – but still remarkably unwise – reasons for marriage. Take…

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Discrimination.

Social inequality has recently been something that has caught my eye. Over the past few months of being at college I have witnessed some things that have stunned me.

I am one of those people that constantly watches what happens around me between either two people or a number of people in different groups, now obviously there’s the popular, loud groups and then the quieter groups who keep to themselves. But what bothers me is why it matters what group you are in, why do people feel the need to constantly bully and verbally beat down people that are different?

I found myself in a situation the other day where I could hear two girls talking about another girl wearing ‘revealing clothes’ to college and how she makes herself seem ‘cheap’ and ‘easy’ now I’m not being funny… But what right do these girls have to speak about another female in such a horrible manner, this wasn’t exactly a winters day. Just because a girl shows some skin does not in any way give other people the right to judge her and assume what type of person she may be from her dress sense.

Being a girl myself I understand the struggles of having to dress accordingly to how society say is ‘right’. What people need to understand is, there is no right or wrong, if you’re aloud to wear your all black outfit, why isn’t someone aloud to wear the outfit they feel comfortable in too? The nerve of some people telling others how they should and shouldn’t dress is outrageous!

Moving too discrimination of people with tattoos and piercings (mainly within the workplace/schools) This is something I have been through myself throughout the last two years in my secondary school. During a mathematics lesson I was removed by my teacher and told to take my nose piercing out or I was to be sent to isolation where my parents would be brought in a for a talk with my tutor. During the talk I had with my math teacher when I was removed from the lesson, the reason I was told to take out my piercing was because it is distracting for the other students and places me within a certain group/ gave me a name for myself. Now, this was the very same school that told me told be comfortable with expressing myself and being the person I want to be ect. Now I know a nose piercing most certainly does not define who I am but is something I liked on myself. Then being told to remove it was beyond hypocrisy, ‘be comfortable with who you are, embrace your differences’ and then being told to remove it was just baffling. In certain situations such as a P.E lesson this request would of been understandable due to health and safety issues, but a mathematics class? I don’t think so.

Discrimination against those who look different is one major issue we face and is something I will always fight against. As the saying goes, do not judge a book by its cover. Do not assume, do not judge and certainly do not label someone because of their appearance!

Is Social Rejection the Key to Creativity?

Love this, so interesting

Cody Delistraty

On the psychology of why rejection and loneliness may be necessary evils for the creative genius

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