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.