Well?

2 AM. Counting today, there are 2 days of Ramadan left and 3 days of summer vacation.

I'm disappointed with my schedule. I'm frustrated with my parents. I'm mad at myself for only partially reaching my daily goals.

I could be finishing up my summer reading or praying qada prayers or reading Qur'an, but I'm sitting on my laptop and watching Chicago.

Well?

Am I depressed or am I just lazy?

I am not the Provider

I had $70 left over from camp and my mom has taken all of it. That money was supposed to pay for debate tournaments.

All of my birthday money? Gone. Got a few babysitting gigs and the money from those? Gone. Even the earliest Bat Mitzvah checks? Gone.

None of it has been paid back.

My money has been spent on gas, oil changes, rent, groceries, field trips for the little kids, dinner, and school supplies.

This has been going on for three years and I am beyond sick of it. I know it isn't entirely her fault but I am done. I have given up hundreds of dollars of my OWN money, much of it hard-earned, to provide for this family, and never once has anyone said thank you to me. Everyone is still just as awful as before and I'm doing a job that isn't mine. My parents need to be the ones providing for us and if they aren't, my savings shouldn't be suffering. When I was in fifth grade the savings account with over $500 of birthday money, money from doing odd jobs, and gifts from family members (specifically so i could have SOMETHING later on to pay for college or a car or whatever) was drained to pay the bills, as well as my college fund.

I'm tired of this. I'm done. I AM SICK AND TIRED OF PAYING BILLS I DO NOT OWE.

The Red Shalwar Kameez

One of my best friends came over a week ago just to say goodbye because she's moving and I will probably never get to see her again.

She told me she had some clothes that she wanted to give to me because she would have to throw them out otherwise. I thought it would be a scarf or two and a pair of jeans. WRONG! It was at least four skirts, two kurtas, at least five scarves, and a red shalwar kameez complete with a dupatta.

the skirts and scarves and the kurtas i can wear (and probably will, seeing as i don't have a lot of clothes), but maybe not the shalwar kameez.

it's gorgeous. it's not extremely fancy and made out of satin-y silk-y material like the fancy ones (so it would be a be a bit too casual for eid or a desi party) but it would be perfect for going to the mosque (where at least 80% of the muslim community here is desi and people stare at you funny if you're not in a shalwar kameez or a sari or an abaya).

it's lightweight, but warm. it's extremely confortable. i would wear the pants all day every day if i could. but i don't want it, or any of the clothes she gave me.

because if they're in my closet, it means she's not here.

we have been good friends since seventh grade and her and her family are like extended family to me, even though we never hung out a lot outside of school. but they coached me in my islam and helped to guide me, as well as providing me with advice, rides to the mosque, knowledge, and amazing food.

the first time i went to the mosque to pray after becoming muslim was with them. and when Yy and her sister Mm forced me into a shalwar kameez for the first time before we could go to the mosque, their dad saw me and said, "You look like my third daughter!"

The red shalwar kameez is going to hang in my closet until maybe tomorrow when I go to tarawih with Ee and her family. Maybe I'll wear it. She said just wear jeans, but I want to wear the red shalwar kameez just for Yy and Mm and their little brother and their parents. I'll wear it only a few times, because I want it to be special. Just for them.

And, reasons why I need a job:

1. To pay for all the tournaments I plan on going to 
2. To pay for 6 weeks at the UTNIF (which costs over $5,000)
3. So that I can do SAT prep
4. So that I can pay for college application fees
5. So that I'll have something saved for college. 
6. So I can do things with and for my friends
7. So that I can have more than three pairs of jeans. 
8. So that I can have shirts that fit me, instead of ones that are too small. 

Goals for Sophomore Year

1. Win at least 1 tournament
2. Get 1st place at a tournament in extemp and oratory
3. Go to Woodward
4. Go to Berkely
5. Get my license! 
6. 4.0 GPA!
7. Get a job!
8. Read a book each week 
9. Read/listen to the news each day 

Things I need to balance:

Debate, drama, Student Congress, MUN, Memory Project, keeping my room clean, work, family, friends, my deen, sleep, internet usage, STAND, my mental health 

Things I am going to do in the Car and while I am on Vacation (Instead of, you know, spending time with people):

1. Read. 
2. Listen to lots of music. 
3. Do debate work. 
4. Cut my prose piece. 
5. I would say extemp and oratory work as well as cut cards, but I'm leaving my laptop behind because I feel crappy when I spend more than an hour on the internet each day (and also so my family can't accuse me of being addicted to the internet/not wanting to spend time with them). 
6. Finish a lanyard. 
7. Sleep. 

And I have Failed Already

Ramadan is here, but I have not accomplished any of my goals, other than fasting and barely making my prayers five times a day.

I'm anxious for school to start. I don't want to leave town and see any of my family members. They give me too much anxiety.

Some people are anxious and they react by putting a lot of effort into things. I get anxious and depressed and shut down. I retreat into my cave. Part of me feels like if I had someone who was constantly guiding me and pushing me to get everything I need to done then I would be much better off. I realize that, with a couple exceptions, when I'm busy and constantly moving, I don't get depressed. The exception, of course, being in the last blog post.

Before I left camp and we were in the Skills Tournament Finals, the lab leaders were giving an overview of the lectures they were offering and I had to hold myself back from crying because everyone was going to learn so much and I was leaving. And then one of the lab leaders looked at me because I had this horribly depressed look on my face and said, "Next year," and it was, at least in that moment, all okay.

I think it's going to be okay (TW)

Camp is....not how I expected to be. Everything was peachy keen up until yesterday and today was just downright awful.

It took a 30 minute phone call to ZS and some goldfish to get me calmed down, but I think it's going to be okay.

I spent my last lab extremely depressed. When I'm going through a HUGE, depressive low, it's sort of like the front of my head is weighed down (it makes sense to me). I really wanted to cut and started crying a bit and walked back to the dorms alone and started to deconstruct my razor.

My roommate came in and ZS called and that kind of made me feel better.

So I decided that it's okay if my camp experience doesn't meet all of my expectations. As long as I get something out of camp, it will be okay. There are plenty of novice who start sophomore year and do great. One of our lab leaders started policy junior year and is still a good debater in college.

Yeah it's all alright
I guess it's all alright
I got nothing left inside of my chest but it's all alright

And this relates to my videos how?

I receive some of the most ridiculous comments on my YouTube videos. A lot of them are just downright bigoted (either about Islam or feminism or both) or plain old ignorant.

I put up a video about why people need to stop harassing Laci Green and most of the (very few) comments were from anti-theists about how she's not Islamophobic and it's okay to hate Muslims. One even said that I was victimizing her.

That's an entirely different debate, but people, come on! Did you not even bother watching the entire video? Her prejudice(s) was not the main point! My point was that despite what she's said before, SHE DOES NOT DESERVE TO BE HARASSED.

(image source -- article not related to blog post)

Essentially I'm kind of defending Laci Green, so why is everyone jumping on me? In fact, how do these people find my videos? Aren't most of my subscribers Muslim? Subscribers, where y'all at?

I also mentioned that she has made other bigoted statements, not just the ones on Islam. I'm surprised nobody is complaining about those.

Reading Diary Entries from 2nd-7th grade

• I was a very, very, very angry child.
• I was severely depressed.
• I usually wrote the date and the time of the entries. Based off of that, I was up late a lot because of insomnia.
• Did I really use the f-word THAT much? 
• In 5th grade?!
• I dropped the f-bomb in my diary MULTIPLE TIMES in the FIFTH GRADE?!
• I wrote about boys a lot.
• Too much.
• I hated my parents.
• And everyone, really. 
• Did I seriously think I was better than everyone else? 
• Looking back, I would not re-do my childhood. Not a very happy time.
• Am I ashamed of who I was? 
• Not at all. Not one bit.

This is my safe space

i'm glad i have a place to be myself. i can shed my layers and just be me, with my core.

lately i've been very angry and upset and hopeless about a lot of things. my only beacon of hope is UTNIF, but the beacon is dying out.

meanwhile, there's a lot of drama going on with my mom's awful boyfriend. i'm really trying not to go into some sort of homicidal rage.

i also don't know how i'm going to back up my tumblog. tumblr's backup app is shit. i don't want it on the web but i want to be able to look back at the bits and pieces of who i was, like my blogspot.

*sigh*
sigh, sigh, sigh

Eta,

You can't help other people until you help yourself.

You can't change the world until you change yourself.

Take a deep breath. You have only walked the Earth for fifteen years. You don't have to know everything about yourself, about the world, about anything. Just try to humble yourself and learn as much as possible.

To Clear One's Head (TW)

I never realized this until reading my summer reading (How to Read Literature like a Professor, by Thomas C. Foster), but some people are vampires.

Foster says that a character doesn't necessarily have to literally suck people's blood to be a vampire. Some characters drain the life out of people in the metaphorical sense.

This concept of metaphorical vampirism doesn't just apply to literature.

Some people take everything away but don't give anything back. 

Last night was the umpteenth time my mom broke up with her boyfriend. They went out to dinner last night and she had planned on breaking up with him, but just couldn't. And even while she was screaming at him to get out of the house, he stayed.

I have watched her self esteem crash and burn while she has been with him for the past two/three years and I am sick and tired of him walking all over her and then the next day everything being all hunky-dory and crap.

Every day I have to think about him because that's all she talks about is work and him. And if she's not talking about him she's talking to him and I have to hear the awful, half-sobbing phone calls from behind the bedroom door.

He is a vampire.

And I fucking hate him. 

What Moonrise Kingdom taught me

Two days ago my mom took me to see Moonrise Kingdom.

It's a beautiful film with great music. Loved the storyline and the humor, though it totally fails the Bechdel test and has no POC in it (there was one Asian boy sitting in the background. *sigh*).

Anyways, as Suzi and Sam run away and are absorbed in their own struggles, the plot progresses and reveals that each of the adults has their own issues too. Like, major issues.

I'm not good at reading critically and analyzing media and whatnot, but I do enjoy it. I've learned that maybe your crazy childish fantasies aren't that crazy at all when the adults around you have totally fucked up problems too.

Oh my, I went back and read my first post in the 4n6 tag

Dear Eta from Spring Break 2k12,

You are not the only girl. There are 2 others going (But you might as well be the only girl because they will ignore you and you'll end up hanging out with some of the guys. Don't worry though, they are nice and will treat you like their little sister.). You will, however, be the only drama kid and the only freshman.

You break to finals but get 5th place. That's okay though, because you don't care.

You also get pulled into doing Congress but place 5th in that as well. Don't stress over it at all though. You'll have a great time and you'll be really good at it. AB will invite you to do State StuCo afterwords.

You have an amazing time. Beware of the MASSIVE tourney hanger you'll get afterwards though.

Try not to snap at CL. Don't act too cocky.

Relax. Don't worry. NFL Nat Quals was by far the best tournament of the season. You are going to have an amazing time and you will remember this forever.

Love,
Summer Break 2k12 Eta

P.S.
Coach H will say some really nice things to you on the bus on the way there. 'Twill be a pleasant surprise.

Debate Camp Anxiety!

UTNIF CX Novice in ten more days!

I am extremely nervous because I pretty much know NOTHING about the camp. I have never been to Austin. The UT campus is HUGE. During the 2011-12 school year there were over 50,000 students.

I am nervous because I don't want to be the only girl. I am nervous because I am the only one from my school going to this specific session.

I am nervous because everyone expects me to be this amazing debater, and I am worried that I won't be. 


I'm scared that I'll get lost on the ginormous campus and that I won't make it to my labs on time.

I'm nervous that I won't be able to find a good partner. I'm nervous that when I come back I won't have a good partner.

What do I need to bring? Is the food in the dorms bad? I'm too nervous to make a thread on Cross-X.com!

I'm not the nervous novice for nothing.

I'm not as anxious as I was a while back but I think the anxiety will flare up as the first day of camp gets closer.

Oh and another thing, it will be Ramadan while I'm there. My best guess will be that I'll have to make up four days of fasting.

What are people going to think about the hijabi debater with the extremely Jewish last name? I always wonder about that.

Three months ago at NFL Districts, HS told me that people would underestimate me. I'm short, I'm a girl, I'm a hijabi. But it wouldn't matter, because they would be caught off guard and would be blown away as soon as I started. And I want to believe him.

ZS and NG told me to get back from camp and go to the first tournament where nobody will know what's going on and run a K and win the entire thing. What about judgefucks? What if I can't run a K properly? What if my partner can't keep up?

And AM as well as DL want me to debate JV with them as soon as I can. I really want to debate JV at least once my novice year just for the heck of it. But I'm not sure.

So much anxiety over something so small.

Am seriously considering deleting my tumblr

I really need to kick this internet addiction and go back to reading and making art and getting good grades.

The toxicity of Tumblr is astounding. The only thing that's keeping me on there is all the great people that I've met.

What I've learned about meeting people is that they come and go. That doesn't make them bad friends, it just means that circumstances change and the world continues to turn. And sometimes, no matter how hard you try to communicate with someone and keep the conversation going, things fall apart and you fall out of contact.

I'm still working on 1.) Not getting too attached to people and 2.) Not being afraid to open up to people out of fear of getting attached and losing to them. You have to trust in Allah that things will all go well for them and you can see each other in the next life.

also, posts to make:

• my history of depression
• my long and complicated relationship with islam
• anxiety over debate camp
• goals for ramadan

The Root of my current Awkwardness

I know that I am INCREDIBLY socially awkward. This started when I was in eighth grade. I had recently converted to Islam and my parents were super pissed. They moved me to school B from school A and I knew I would be going to school C (the largest school in my state) for high school with the majority of kids from all around the city (basically I'd be seeing most of my friends from school A one year later for high school).

Having a very conservative view of Islam, I decided I would end my jihad of talking to boys when I moved to school B (This didn't work out at all by the way, and after a bit I realized that carrying out a casual conversation with a member of the opposite sex isn't a sin. It's okay.). I also decided I would stay loyal to all my friends at school A and totally isolate myself from everyone at school B (This also didn't work out. I'm an ambivert, so I need SOME friends, plus you can be loyal to your old friends while making new ones).

On top of separating myself from most of the students, my depression got really bad and I wasn't dealing with it so well, especially since my parents were not around for me and I wasn't seeing my therapist.

So the year of awkwardness and isolation began. I had a small circle of really great friends, some of whom I still talk to, but I never totally fit in and wasn't really making an effort to have a social life. I conversed with people from an internet forum that I visited frequently (thank GOD I stopped posting there) and read a lot (something that I don't do as much, unfortunately).

I don't know how to get over the awkwardness that I let take over myself. Eighth grade was probably the worst year of my life and I'm still recovering.

Toxicity; Inhale Love, Exhale Hate: On Tumblr

I initially joined Tumblr after TMIing on my first Blogspot (Which is now long gone, praise the Lord). I joined because several online acquaintances had blogs there and it seemed interesting. So I joined and followed a few photoblogs, some Islamic blogs, and a feminist blog.

Fast forward a little more than a year later and Tumblr is absolutely NUTS. I have 400+ followers and over 12,000 posts. And the toxic drama that goes on is ridiculous. MUSLIMS cursing at other Muslims and calling them shayateen. "Social Justice" bloggers cursing at people (There is no point in calling someone out on their bigotry if you're going to scream at them. They are MUCH less likely to learn how their actions are harmful to others when the person telling them so is being harmful). Annoying site owners who don't listen to/threaten users. Tumblr is an absolute zoo.

Part of me wants to delete my blog (I've decided to white it out temporarily) but I don't want to lose touch with the amazing people I've met. I like being able to look back through my archive and see how much I've changed and look at all the bits and pieces of myself. There's DEFINITELY stuff in there that I don't agree with now.

Unfortunately, parts of me seem to have changed for the worse. I don't quite have the same passion for politics and current events that I used to. I don't know if that's because of my depression flaring up again or being so jaded. And I have fallen into the toxic pit of doom that many other users have; there are a few Tumblr users whose sheer existence annoys the living crap out of me.

I'm trying to change those things though. My time Tumbling and working with Memory Project has taught me that if you hate something, you do not need to bottle it up. A year ago I was a very angry teenager. I was angry at my family, at my friends, at my teachers, the government, myself, and the world in general. That anger was being poured into my Blogspot, my posts on an online forum (Which I left several months ago; that was also a very positive change that I made in my life, Alhamdulilah), and my conversations with friends (Most of whom I only knew online).

I've learned that it's OKAY to be angry. But bottling up your rage does more harm than good. Taking your rage out on others is no good. You have to turn your anger into positive change or make something beautiful.

It's exactly like what my coach taught me to do with my nervous ball of nerves and anxiety during debate tournaments: channel all of your nervous energy and use it to perform well.

I don't quite know what kind teenager I am now. I'm not quite angry, but I'm definitely still stubborn and challenging of authority (However, I've been that way my entire life and don't think that will ever change). I'm passionate, but maybe not as passionate (A side effect of depression? Have I already been jaded?). And I'm still outspoken, but definitely not as outspoken as I used to be. I'm still very awkward (I know the cause of this problem though, which is an ENTIRELY different post).  I don't know. But I've learned a lot in the past year or so.

ramadan 1433

i know ramadan is going to be extremely hard for me this year. i may be able to spend about a week with my best friend, but i'll be at camp for 10 days during the sacred month. i've had low iman and haven't prayed regularly since last october. i've been telling myself that i'll pull it together and make it through ramadan but i don't know if i can.

i've found that when i pray fajr, the day usually falls into place prayer-wise. but i rarely pray fajr. i don't know how to keep myself together and motivated throughout the entire day. that is way too much.

27 more days until debate camp

All I need to do is mail off the forms, but I'm set.

I'm so ready for this. These 27 more days are going to drag, especially because I have to spend my days watching my mom's horrible dog, who insists on peeing in the house and chewing everything in sight.

I watched NFL Nats today and there were only 3 female champions out of the 14 people on the stage. it made me feel like the odds are stacked against me as a girl competing in forensics.

i'm worried that i wont' be a good debater, even after all the cross-x.com threads i've creeped, the rounds i've watched, the discussions about debate i've had, and the camp i'm going to. it just seems kinda of complicated right now, once you get down to the nitty-gritty, and i'm worried i'll be bad.

i'm afraid of failure.

there was an oratory about how our culture treats failure as a bad thing and how in other cultures, it's used as a point for teaching you how to learn and how it's more acceptable. it got 5th. it was an okay-ish oratyr.

Boiling Point

My 13-year-old sister and I are fed up with my mother. Lately she's been pretty awful. She decided to adopt this really small, ugly dog because apparently nobody loves her (and a dog will fix that problem?). She's gotten worse and not actually doing anything around the house but claiming that she does everything and yelling at us. We can't get the little kids to help out at all so we'll get half the house clean ourselves but then have to listen to her bitch about how messy everything is and how horrible her life is since she works two jobs and comes home to a messy house and has ungrateful children. She then proceeds to do nothing about said messy house and yells at my sister and me even more, doing absolutely nothing to solve her messy house issue (If she really wanted a clean house she would make the little kids work some and make sure they listen to us without throwing temper tantrums).

And on top of that, she has flat-out refused to pay for debate camp so far (the deadline for payment is in 7 days!), despite the fact that she said she had the money and promised, at the beginning of the Spring, that she would get me to camp no matter what. Normally I wouldn't be mad at her for not paying (because it is expensive), but the other kids are going to camp for much longer and for a much higher price, and it's a bit unfair that I have to sit at home all summer. Not only that, she promised. Now she won't pay and is considering barring me from going because apparently I'm never around to clean up her mess and raise her children.

And apparently everything I do is a waste. Because apparently, "school activities" like Memory Project and Forensics aren't that important, because it's just time wasted. Why spend the time publishing a book when I could be at home, taking care of my siblings? Why go to camp for a week when I could be at home, cleaning out someone else's closet or training my mother's dog? And if my mother decides to be merciful and let me have any kind of social life, it's always, "Well, what do I get out of it?" What am I, some kind of investment? As if I weren't already working my ass off at home, any free time that I get has to be paid for with more household chores, despite the fact that what I'm doing (in this case, getting a ride to school to work on the Memory Project book all day) has no effect on her, at all whatsoever. I'm not even asking her to drive me anywhere, let alone do ANYTHING, but I still have to sacrifice something for her.

It's like everything I do has to be of some benefit to her, while she does nothing but constantly yell at everyone around her and wallow in self-pity.

Where do I find the line between clutching my memories and completely letting them go?

I'm an extremely nostalgic person. I hold onto my memories and remember certain dates and times. I can tell you how I felt about certain issues exactly a year ago. I remember the day I flew out of the U.S. and headed to Ankara, Turkey (June 6, 2010-almost two years ago!) I remember random bits of my days. I'm committed to writing down every detail of my forensics tournaments because I cherish those memories so much. Remember my yearbook incident? I had as many people sign that puppy as possible and I'm still disappointed that I didn't have the chance to let as many people sign it as I wanted to.

I guess I cling to my memories because I'm depressed. Because living in the present kind of sucks, so I resort to living in the few happy moments of my past.

And I hang on to my happy moments because they're so rare.

That's one of the reasons why I've been afraid to go back on medication. Because I know that sometimes it will numb you. I don't want to give up the extreme happiness I experience-even though I know after every peak there is an extreme valley. I want to have the extreme happies but not the extreme sads. And being in high school, these may or may not be the best three years of my life (I certainly hope they aren't, but you never know). With depression, you can't have both. With medication, you can't have both.

...And this is where I find myself wishing that I could just be normal.

Memory Project Playlist

1. Fun- We are Young

2. The Wanted- Glad you Came

3. Radical Face- Welcome Home, Son

4. Florence + The Machine- Seven Devils

Insomnia

When most people are asleep, I'm awake.

Ever since I was nine, I've been staying up until sunrise and crashing. I don't know if it's a side effect of depression or a sleep disorder, but I have tried EVERYTHING to get me to sleep and nothing seems to work.

Ambien.

Reading for half an hour.

Relaxation CDs.

Hot milk.

Exercise.

Melatonin.

You name it, I've tried it. My psychologist has been telling me I need to get a sleep study for a while now and I need to bug my parents about it more (that's a totally different post).

I've sort of come to accept my insomnia, but at the same time, it drives me nuts. Laying in my bed tossing and turning for hours only to give up and head to my laptop or pick up a book or run to the kitchen is agonizing. The boredom of the wee hours is crushing. There's not much to do at 1 AM, especially when you're confined to a small house. I'm usually left to wallow in my own depression and sulk around, confronted with the fact that I have done nothing extraordinary with my life.

Nights are just plain lonely. There's no one around the house to talk to and nobody online. Speaking of online, the internet is just plain boring (yet addictive, which is an entirely new post). I don't have a lot of books, and there's nothing on TV at this hour.

I don't like living this way. I'm lucky to get five hours of sleep per night.

The lack of sleep is just killing me.

It's All Over

Just three days ago, I completed my last day of freshman year.

I kind of want to mourn the fact that it's over. Only three more years of high school!

Three years seems like so long, but so short all at the same time.

She took him Back

*sigh*

I didn't think it would happen this time.

I hope it ends soon.

Update on "The Breakup" (see previous post)

Potential Trigger Warning for emotional abuse, stalking

He has her Facebook password.

Today my mom posted a status on Facebook about breaking up with him and getting a dog.

He called her and yelled at her about said status.

She blocked him, so they are not friends and he cannot see her profile or anything she posts.

They have no mutual friends, so there is nobody to tell him about it.

We think that he has her Facebook password.

Untitled

Potential TW for emotional abuse?

I just heard my mother scream "I HATE YOU. I FUCKING HATE YOU. DON'T YOU EVER FUCKING CALL ME AGAIN" to her (now ex?) boyfriend over the phone. 

Somehow I saw this moment coming. Not because my mom spent so much time crying in her room last night, but because the tension between the two had been growing. 

About two or three weeks ago, she stepped outside to call him. 

"But mom, aren't you fighting with him?" I asked. 

She sighed.

 "We're always fighting." 

"Then you might as well get back together with dad." 

He was, at least in my opinion, controlling and borderline emotionally abusive (and I suspect that he will attempt to call back). My mom didn't like him much, but she needed him; she was lonely and needed the financial support. He knew that.

If her phone was in the other room and she couldn't hear it ringing, he would call multiple times until she heard it and picked up, and yell at her for not answering. He did the same thing with text messages. He once saw her driving to the mall and followed her into the store and asked what she was doing there. If he saw her talking to a male friend or coworker, he would hound her with questions about said male, even after she had assured him it was NOTHING.  When she was at work, he would drop by the house for the sake of dropping by. 

When they broke up the first time, my mom told him she was dropping out of cosmetology school and moving back to her hometown, which is a six hour drive away. When they got back together, he kept asking why she lied to him. I don't know dude, maybe because she didn't want you to come near us because you're a FUCKING CREEP? 

I never liked him. I thought the relationship was doomed from the beginning. When they first started dating, my mother kept it a secret. But I'm not that naive. I knew. I might have been thirteen at the time, but I was aware and intuitive. 

I hated how he reeked of cigarettes and disgusting cologne. I hated his redneck accent. I hated his big, disgusting boots that tracked mud into the house. I hated how he made my mom spend hours outside or in her room, on the phone with HIM instead of with us. We would sit down and watch TV together, but we'd have to pause the show and wait for her to be finished on the phone with him. She usually finished hours later, when it was time for us to go to bed. I hated how HE was her number one priority. I hated how much she needed him just to feed us. I hated how she had grown dependent on him, instead of being her usual creative, resourceful self. I hated  how he marched into our house like he owned the place. I hated how he talked to me like he was my father. I hated how he thought he could tell ME what to do. I hated being forced to smile and say hello to him. I wanted to slash the tires on his big, redneck truck. 

And I hate all the damage he's done. I hate the fact that he has my mother's phone number and a key to our house. 

And most of all, I hate him. 

And I hate not knowing if my mother will take him back out of necessity, or move along. 

Update: We think this creep has my mom's Facebook password. I also think he has a key to our house. I am unsure about what to do at this point, but I am scared for us. 

All I wanted was a Goddamn Yearbook...

...But they cost $55.

The fake leather covers, the full-color pages, the smell of fresh ink on paper, my picture in four different places, all of my friends, classmates, and teammates smiling right back at me.

Just a yearbook, like every other person bought.

I went home. I begged. I pleaded. They said maybe I'd be able to get one on Friday.

If there are any left.

It was fine until they mentioned bathing suits.

"Eta, we found some fashionable bathing suits for you!" She said, and I knew what she meant.

The ugly Teletubbie costumes that have the same floral print you'd find on a quilt in your great-grandmothe's basement with a name so ugly it makes you want to vomit.

Burkini.


"Look at this one! It has a nice color!"

The mocking grew louder.

ALL I WANT IS A YEARBOOK. A YEARBOOK, LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. WHY ARE YOU SUCH AN ASSHAT?!


I knew the yearbook was gone as soon as I said it.

"An asshat? What's an asshat?"


"You're not getting any taller. I'm sure a burkini will last longer than a silly yearbook."

I slammed my door.

I was going to walk out the door tomorrow in jeans and a t-shirt, but without a scarf on my head.

I think I have to tomorrow.

A Rant on Evolution and Science in Islam

Note: This post (if you could call it a post, it's more like a collection of incoherent ramblings) is based off of my experiences with Muslims my age (14-15) in my area of the country (the Bible Belt). This is obviously not representative of the entire Ummah. 

I want to have a talk about evolution without some uneducated person telling me "Well, you can believe whatever you want, but you have your opinion and I have mine."

Sigh. 


I'm going to let Hank Green explain why I can't stand it when people deny objective facts and evolution and then we'll go from there.

You know what also irks me? When Muslims say they don't believe in evolution and act like science is something that we should be afraid of. This bugs me for a few reasons: 

1. What Hank mentioned above
2. Muslims have made so many contributions to science! It's so sad that so many Muslims deny science!
3. The people who told me they don't believe in evolution all want to be doctors. Wut? O_o  

I have so much happy

I've been recovering from depression for a long, long time.

My highs were high and my lows were low. And during my emotional highs, I've felt as though I was just so happy- too happy- and that I needed something negative to bring myself down. With depression, anger and sadness were my defaults, and being happy or excited, especially for extended periods of time, was abnormal. I had to force myself to find something to be angry about, and I usually did, dragging myself down to my normal depression.

Lately I've been happy all the time, but not abnormally happy. It's starting to feel more normal, and there's less of a need to be sad or angry at someone. I'm less quick to anger.

The past month has been a lot better. My relationship with my mom has been much, much healthier. We spent some time together shopping and watching TV yesterday. She wasn't mad when I made last minute plans. I haven't groaned when she has asked me to do chores.

We say "I love you" a lot.

The trick? I'm not sure. I've found that I have to keep myself constantly busy with school, debate, and other extracurriculars, especially the state National History Day competition coming up in a few weeks. If I'm not busy, I'm sitting around on the internet all day feeling sad and bad for myself.

Now I just have to find the perfect balance between being super stressed and busy all the time and doing nothing at all.

Why I hate Children

• They are annoying
• They smell
• They are rude
• They are annoying
• They are loud
• They are clingy
• They are generally boring people to talk to
• They are annoying

Attack of the Extemp Sources (or lack thereof)

Pictured: Forensics Fox

Part of being an extemper is keeping an up-to-date file of sources. This is the worst part of being an extemper.

I love extemp. I love the panicky feelings you get during prep and I love being a teenager educating an adult about specific topics. But actually finding enough sources and doing research? Ugh. My laziness, lack of dedication, and short attention span plague me. I feel like if I had more interest in extemp, I wouldn't be so reluctant to get off my butt and research.

Reasons why I have lost interest in extemp:

• I am the only girl and the only freshman on the school's extemp squad.
• I'm not a debater. All of our extempers are debaters.
• The other extempers have made no effort to communicate with me/include me in keeping the team file up-to-date. I have to do my own research and keep my own file, even though we have at least five other extempers.
• I get very little practice time with our coach.

I'm going to a tournament on the 30th and as far as I know, I'll be the only freshman and the only girl going. Fun! It's the last tournament of the season, meaning it will be 10x harder than usual. I really want to break to finals but I'm scared that I don't have enough motivation to get off my butt and prep.

The Library

Being the daughter of divorced parents, I spend time between cities. I happen to be in my dad's city right now, which is quite disappointing.

One of the disappointing things about this city is the local library.

Reasons why the Library in my dad's city is disappointing:

1. The lighting is atrocious. It's too dim, but at the same time, too bright (if that makes any sense).
2. The patrons give me dirty looks.
3. The librarians are mean and intimidating. Librarians should not be mean and intimidating. They should be like Miss Frizzle (even though she's not a librarian).
4. The book selection is awful. AWFUL. AWFUL!
5. The atmosphere is just...meh. The place has bad vibes, honestly.

Books I Checked Out:

1. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
2. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
3. The Way of the Sufi by Idries Shah
4. The Little Book of String Theory by Steven Gubser
5. Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de'Medici by Miles J. Unger
6. Women in the Classical World by Elaine Fantham et al.

Odd combination of books? Yes. But I can't wait to read them all!

Hi

This blog is merely an experiment. I've tried many types of blogging in the past and they never work out for a variety of reasons, which include, but are not limited to:

1. The fact that I am very lazy.
2. The fact that I am not articulate.
3. The fact that I need a place to vent often and my blog ends up becoming a collection of poorly-written rants, and
4. The fact that I TMI on the internet (as well as IRL).

I want to start blogging again to

1. Chronicle my life
2. Voice my opinions on current events, politics, and social issues, and
3. Improve my writing.

As you can see, I like lists, mainly because

1. They are simple, easy to write, easy to read, and to-the-point.
2. I am lazy.

God-willing, this blog will become a place for me to express myself. I plan on distributing the URL to people I know IRL and online, but I will not use my real name, school name, or post photos of my face.

Happy blogging!

-Eta