Utah Coalition Against Pornography

IM BACK!

i haven't written a blog post in years. What makes me break my vow of silence you may ask? Pornography. and how much i absolutely loath it.

A couple days ago my sister and i went to a Utah Coalition Against Pornography conference. it was really great, and just fueled my passion to rid our world of this awful drug. but there is a certain perspective on this multi faceted issue that i am most passionate about: women's rights.

during the conference, at one point i was thinking to myself, "well i know why i hate porn (i have very personal reasons for hating it so much), but what makes it so awful for society?" (Because it is. it really is just awful for society. go look here )

As ally and i were walking from a class, i just had this thought really hit my heart, its one of those things i hear all the time, certainly not a new thought, nor a clever thought that will change the world, most certainly not. but there is always that moment when a certain bit of knowledge travels from your brain to your heart, and that is the moment when you know you have finally learned. warning: nothing i say from here on has never been said before. nothing i say will make a big difference in anything. but, alas, i need to say it. even if its jumbled and missing much of what i actually want to say, it must be said.

the thought was this: "the sexualization in our society is making women objects." and it just infuriated me. we live in a society where sex is a money making strategy. it is used to make millions of dollars for everything from pornography to clothing to movies to fragrances. i mean have you seen perfume commercials lately?! ill tell you one thing, they certainly aren't using the product to sell the product, they are using sex. because everything has become hyper sexualized, women are no longer people, but objects. objects that need to dress well, have great bodies, be gorgeous, and do what they are told to do to be profitable and be appealing.

ok, don't get me wrong, i am fully aware that not everyone believes this lie, and i am fully aware that there are some great counter movements and amazing advocates against this way of thinking, and we have come a long way in certain aspects. but tell me one popular movie lately that doesn't include a prominent sex scene, and then think of that scene, or what led up to that scene and then tell me what that women looks like, how was she depicted. describe some of the things that make that scene what it is. lets look at the advertisements for popular clothing companies and merchandise brands. tell me what that women looks like. all of these things sexualize women so that we no longer look at them as women, but as parts. she become a person who looks really gorgeous, or has amazing _____ .

 the focus isn't on how kind, or hilarious, or smart a women is. we don't think about the personalities behind the body, what makes a human being a unique person. what is their favorite type of movie, the last book they read, what makes them happy or sad, who is their best friend, or countless other things. we focus on images. do i look pretty today? does this picture on Intsagram show off my outfit well enough? can you tell i've lost 10 pounds, let me stand a different way so you can tell. because our society focuses on sex and not love we focus on images. pornography has told society that sex sells, and it sells big time. pornography has told us that certain things are "sexy" and that sexy is the most desirable quality a woman can have.

the ultimate expression of love has become a cheap meaningless expression of nothing. women are not images. and love is so much more than disgusting misogynistic images and videos, where women become nothing more than things to be manipulated and used. objects. intimacy is mental, physical and spiritual, and that has been so ruined. our society has lost what it means to be valued, to be special and to be truly loved.

i for one am not an object. i know i'm not the most gorgeous person, and that people don't spend countless hours fantasizing about my great looks. and i'm definitely ok with that. because i want to be noticed for qualities not images. thats not to say beauty is a bad thing, its not! but agonizing and worrying about how we look so that we can live up to a certain standard of beauty or fashion or sexiness is just ridiculous. pornography is no longer contained in dirty magazines, or a small section of the video store stuck in a closet behind beaded curtains (or is that just how stupid movies portrayed those sections) porn is all over. it is seeping into mainstream culture. its leaked into blockbuster movies, social media, advertisements...everything! and as it starts spreading, the "real" stuff just gets worse and worse. children and women being victimized and and spread all over the internet. violence against the victims becoming something desired and paid for. horrible, awful acts becoming something sold as a commodity. and as the targeted audience gets more and more addicted, more and more is expected. so the line just gets pushed more and more. and as the line gets pushed on the bad side, the line on the "good" side does too. oh but wait, i forgot, its art right? news flash. pornography is taking over. and as it does, women are loosing. don't give up the fight. look around and see what is happening. we are more than porn.


www.fightthenewdrug.org

http://utahcoalition.org/

https://ourrescue.org/

taking pills

before i go into my story, you should just watch this 6 second video.


ok well now that you watched a human bicycle, you will now hear the story of why i take the pills the way i do.
so, when i take a pill i take a big drink of water, and before i swallow it, i tip my head back and drop the pill in, unlike some people who put the pill in their mouth and take a sip of water. my family, well mostly my dad, always laughs at the way i do it. my response is always "it gets stuck in my throat if i don't!" to which my dad laughs. and I'm here to say, i have evidence!!!

so i just got my wisdom teeth out a few weeks ago. along with the pain killers, they gave me an antibiotic prescription that i had to take every day until it was over. just try to imagine this....

it was late at night and i needed to take the antibiotic, which was in a little red and white capsule. i didn't really feel like going out to the kitchen to get a cup of water, so i just got my hand and got a little bit of water from the sink. i then took the pill, and of course i felt like it was stuck in my throat because i didn't have enough water, but i just thought it was in my mind. so i kept on getting ready for bed. and then i coughed. when i coughed i looked in the mirror and a huge cloud of smoke came from my mouth. a huge, menacing looking cloud of white smoke just appeared out of my mouth. i was so shocked!!! and then in the 2 seconds it took for me to get over the shock of what just happened, i tasted the most horrifying taste in my life. worse than i can even imagine. in fact, i can't recall how it tasted, now that this even has passed, i just remember the horrible, horrible taste. I'm not exaggerating even a little bit. it tasted like a sewer had exploded, or a nasty garbage truck crashed into my mouth (it goes without saying that all garbage trucks are nasty, i just wanted to emphasize that fact). i started spitting and coughing and frantically wiping my tongue with my hand, and making super dramatic disgusted faces. i cupped my hands and got as much water as i could possibly hold from the sink and drank it in 2 seconds. To no avail, the horrific taste remained. so i ran, sprinted actually, into the kitchen and grabbed a million soda crackers and ate them as fast as i could. luckily it helped. once the nasty taste was only a remnant of a horrible memory, i started cracking up. why you might ask? because i kept picturing that cloud erupting from my throat and i replayed the look of surprise on my face and laughed every time.

its safe to say I'm sticking to the way i take my pills.

love

sometimes i see people in love and I'm annoyed, like i think to myself, "you can't seriously be acting that way naturally" and then sometimes i read about love and it is beautiful. like in jane eyre. oh my gosh that book makes me want an exciting dating life. "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you--especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly."  i sigh inside. i hope i will never be one of those annoying couples. actually i vow that i never will. thats all.

random mutterings of my boring life and a whole lotta webcam pics

1. my mom is a doll and is coming all the way from california to save me from the evil after effects of getting my wisdom teeth removed (i honestly can't think about it because I'm scared to death. and i don't care how many people tell me it will be fine, I'm scared i will somehow die of horrendous complications and i can't stop talking about my dang teeth because it won't leave my mind) so i need to be cleaning my room for my mom...but as we all know cleaning is my least favorite thing ever so I'm avoiding it. hence blog post.

2. i got locked out of my house the other day. i was starving and sleepy and ready to hammer in the windows and get cut to pieces by the glass as long as it meant i could lay in my bed and eat some macaroni and cheese. but instead i took photo booth pictures until my blessed computer died on me. evidence....

who doesn't love a little pop art. 

my only company was lady bugs scooting on by

yes, i did take a picture of my clover tongue. whats it to you

ok. after 2 hours i really was wondering if i would have to spend the rest of my life outside under my window talking to bugs. it was a sad moment

i bet you thought i was behind a beautiful scene of clouds. don't be fooled.

3. i carved a pumpkin. a nerdy little pumpkin. it was pretty fitting because i was being super nerd-like carving a pumpkin all by myself. no one around me, or even in my house. laughing at my own jokes as i carved my little guy. don't worry, i realize how lame that sounds.

i even had to take a picture of myself with the pumpkin by myself...because no one was around. i felt like having a transcendentalist moment...

4. I'm obsessed with my cup i made. well correction, my sister made it because i was to scared to do it by myself. its cut from a wine bottle, and i sanded the edges. i can't drink out of any other cups now. my mind tells me all other water from any other drinking devise tastes bad. 

5. I'm almost done with my mission papers and I'm sooo stinking excited! only a few little things left to take care of. including a big thing called a scary doctors appointment i don't want to do. but i can't wait, I'm so excited! 

6. i think its time i started cleaning and sleeping. momma will be here before i know it :)

“No matter how many plans you make or how much in control you are, life is always winging it.” ― Carroll Bryant

i never really thought i was spontaneous. 

 it just wasn't a thought that occurred to me. 

 but I've realized lately that i can be. 

 example one. 

one day i was sitting on Facebook (like always) and a friend posted a status saying that the company she worked for needed 2 more girls to come to Ukraine for 6 weeks and teach at an English camp because some people dropped out. so i thought to myself "ya that would be awesome!" so i left a week later to go to Ukraine. i had never left the country before, and i so unprepared, but i just thought it would be awesome, so i did it. i bought my plane ticket and was sitting on a not so comfy seat miles up in the air 6 days later. 

 example 2.

 i needed a new computer, so i walked in to the buy bookstore computer section, saw a nice pretty macbook pro and said "i want that" so 5 minutes later the nice guy behind the counter handed me my box and i was out the door. ill admit, that doesn't sound very spontaneous at all. but it seemed pretty spur of the moment to me haha :) spontaneity makes life a little more exciting, I've never been one for plans anyway. so here are the clique pictures you just have to take on mac.

the second i got my computer started i just had to open up that pretty little photo booth

 sorry for the picture overload of myself...

i promise I'm not egocentric.

 i just happen to really like my mac. 

 and really like taking pictures...of myself haha

 but trust me, i fully realize the only people who want to look at endless supply of pictures of me are my sisters and mom (if that)

things lately...

ever since i reactivated my facebook, i haven't blogged much at all. pretty much zero. i kinda miss it you know? getting to write down what i'm thinking at the moment never really imagining anyone reading it; but the idea of your thoughts being out in the open able for anyone to read (even though they probably wont) is kind of refreshing. i tend to keep my thoughts locked tightly in my head and only tell people when they ask. so this is like the complete opposite.
sometimes i feel like i'm failing at life. honestly. i just was thinking that to myself about 2 seconds ago. i am putting about zero effort into school right now, and the only reason is because i don't want to. i have no idea what i'm going to do for my major, and i swear if i hear one more person say to me "oh don't worry. that's totally ok. its better to find what you like to do then do something find out you hate it and your stuck. its completely normal" i will scream. i think that conversation is programmed into every single college persons head just to try to make those of us who are completely lost feel a little better. well it doesn't. its about time i figure out what the heck i'm doing. just an all over sense of failing is what i'm feeling right about now as the semester dwindles to a close. i look back and realize how many mistakes i made and the millions of things i could have done better. but i'm so past caring at this moment. and the only thing i want more than this semester to be over is to be home, with my family, in my house. i close my eyes and picture my cozy little home and spending hours with my family and my heart longs for it. i want to jump up from my chair, run to my car and drive the 8 hours until i'm back home in glendora and i'm away from this place and this semester. alas...i cant. sad right??
but, even though i wont be going home for spring, i know it will be great staying in provo. it makes me a little bit sad (actually more than a little), but really excited. and eventually (or 15 days) this semester will be over, and whats done is done. it will be a whole new experience being here for summer, living on my own not going to school, and i'm looking forward to it. whatever the summer has to offer, i am ready for it.

Viva Las Vegas!

so my aunt was getting married, and my family was going to Vegas to see the wedding and spend some time with all my family that lives in Vegas. So since Vegas isn't terribly far from Provo, I decided to go too! at first it was going to be a surprise, then my dad didn't know it was supposed to be a surprise so her told everyone, but then I forgot I had work so I had to find someone to cover my shift, so then I decided to surprise everyone again by pretending I couldn't go, but everyone knew...haha. I went with Alison and Krista (Krista is my new awesome friend from my complex, I seriously love her!!! she is awesome and I’m so glad I invited her to movie night one random day :) coolest friend ever!) we got to Vegas around 7 on Friday night, and did all the fun stuff at the strip. It was seriously a blast!! Don’t worry, we didn't do anything bad folks :) Saturday was the wedding, and besides that it was a pretty relaxing day. Then on Sunday we woke up for the breakfast, I said bye to my family, and we just sat around for a little in the hotel room relaxing and getting our stuff together…and jumping on the bed. Then we went to the temple, walked around, took some pictures, and then headed home. On the way we saw this awesome air show with fighter jets (possibly the blue angels??) and so we pulled over and looked at it for a while. We got home around 6 and so still had time to go to ward prayer :) so it wasn't a very long trip, but besides a few little mishaps it was awesome!!! I wish I could relive it again :) it was soooooo great to see my family again, and I cant wait for Christmas.

happy list

i havent done my thankful list in a little while, which isnt good. so here we go again. except im going to switch it up a bit, im calling it my happy list. things that have made me happy. these are the same things that i am grateful for, but for some reason its just a little more meaningful for me to say they are things that make me happy instead of things i am grateful for. "men are that they might have joy" right??

making new friends
wearing my new coat (which by the way, i really dont like the word coat. i have absolutly no idea why, it just is an annoying word to me.)
cold weather
playing games
a bike that no longer squeaks insanely loud
going to church
having CES firesides at the marriot. i get to be in the same room as apostles of the Lord
phonecalls to my family
sleeping in
taking naps
redbox

service project

so Saturday morning we had a service project. i love sleeping in more than anything, so when my alarm went off at 8 o'clock in the morning on a cold Saturday, it was almost impossible to wake up. but i had already signed up, and i knew i needed to go. so i forced myself to get up, and i went. the project was doing little things around this kids wilderness trail that helps build certain skills. so the 3 of us volunteered to paint the alphabet on this caterpillar painted on the ground. we grabbed a roller, yellow paint, and the package of stencils. welllll....the stencils were way to small, so the roller was huge, and it didn't work at all. but the time we got all of the stencils ready and started painting half of the group had left already to another trail and took all the paint brushes with them. so we had to finger paint, all 26 letters of the alphabet on ice cold cement. my hands literally felt like they had needles stabbing them, and i got paint everywhere. somehow no one else got paint anywhere but thier hands, but i managed to get it on my jacket, jeans, and face. but all in all it was a good service project, and we had a fun time :)

Halloween!!

me and sammi!!

with brian, our awesome home teacher. a gift from God apparently :)

we love Ani

i saw her pose and said "oh my gosh!!! MIRANDA SINGS!" and so looked at me and said "you know her?!" and so we had to take a picture together. even though we dont know eachother...

me and some awesome girls from my ward :)


so i was a rocker this Halloween. it was fun because its totally not me, so i got to channel the inner bad girl hahahahaha. and my roommate was a zebra, i helped paint her. together we took forever for our darn costumes, but it was fun :)