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

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.

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