Holidays...

I don't know about you, but my holiday is the busiest time of the year.

I've got a job, which I am currently meant to be working on. But I'm going to blog instead because if I look at one more bank statement I will vomit.

I'm spending most evenings this week at a Christmas Fantasy, where kids get to come and see their favourite characters. In order for this to happen, someone needs to be these characters - I'm one of them.
The first night I was a clown and I think I was pretty scary.
The second night I had to wear a really really uncomfortable SpongeBob Squarepants costume and then last night I was Tinkerbell.

I'm also a director of the DYC which is really cool, so I've been planning projects and stuff for that.

I've been staying with friends and stuff and it's just been one of those hectic weeks!

TMI tag...Sarah's request......

1: What are you wearing? 

A shirt I won from a cycling competition and some shorts.

2: Ever been in love? 

I don't think that one can define love until one gets to a certain age, so no...

3: Ever had a terrible breakup? 

Kinda. My ex and I broke up the day of one of my exams...

4: How tall are you? 

165 cm

5: How much do you weigh? 

I don't know. I don't weigh myself because it makes me sad.

6: Any tattoos? 

Nope...

7: Any piercings? 

2 holes at the bottom of each ear, a cartilage piercing and a belly ring.

8: OTP? 

Me and Troye Sivan. It's irrelevant that he's gay.


9: Favourite show? 
Revenge


10: Favourite bands? 
An abundance of them. I listen to everything from Debussy to Nirvana to Jack Johnson.


11: Something you miss? .
Free time - exams suck


12: Favourite song?
I don't have one because then I kill it.


13: How old are you? 
16


14: Zodiac sign? 
Aries


15: Quality you look for in a partner? 
Kindness.


16: Favourite Quote? 
"It's not who you are that holds you back - it's who you think you're not"


17: Favourite actor? 
Hmmmm....Troye Sivan or Zach Galifianakis


18: Favourite color? 
Black or blue


19: Loud music or soft? 
It depends on the mood, usually loud


20: Where do you go when you're sad? 
My room and iPod


21: How long does it take you to shower? 
About 5 mins unless I'm washing my hair. I like to contemplate life in the shower.


22: How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? 
For school about half an hour, and otherwise around 45 mins


23: Ever been in a physical fight? 
Not really


24: Turn on?
Guys who sing/play an instrument. And passion, I love guys who are passionate about things.


25: Turn off? 
Guys with long hair that wear it in a ponytail. Just no.


26: The reason I joined Youtube? 
To comment on stuff.


27: Fears? 
Snakes, spiders, creepy-crawlies


28: Last thing that made you cry? 
I'm not sure, I can't remember, I hardly ever cry.


29: Last time you said you loved someone? 
When I called my mom and she said she loved me...


30: Meaning behind your Youtube Name? 
Its my name...


31: Last book you read? 
My history textbook....


32: The book you're currently reading?
The Y. It's for book club.


33: Last show you watched?

Uhmmm some show on youtube about how to differentiate because I'm failing calc. 

34: Last person you talked to? 
In person....my stepmom.


35: The relationship between you and the person you last texted? 
Saskia - a friend of mine


36: Favourite food? 
Ice cream :D


37: Place you want to visit?
Anywhere where I can see the northern lights.


38: Last place you were? 
My house. I'm still here.


39: Do you have a crush?
I am the crush.


40: Last time you kissed someone? 

Yesterday.

41: Last time you were insulted? 
Today - my friends and I are very joke-y with one another


42: Favourite flavour of sweet? 
Green anything. Preferably jelly sweets.


43: What instruments do you play?? 
Guitar and violin.


44: Favourite piece of jewellery?
Uhm i wear a necklace with my birthstone (jasper) on it most of the time.


45: Last sport you played? 
The fool. I play the fool often.


46: Last song you sang? 
7 nation army while watching Freddie van Dango sing it :D


47: Favourite chat up line?
I don't know but i think really cheesy pick up lines are funny.


48: Have you ever used it?
Not in earnest


49: Last time you hung out with anyone?  
I'm on house arrest because of exams....


50: Who should answer these questions next?

Marc, I challenge you.

Dear parents....

To all the parents who argue in front of your kids

This is one of the most selfish acts you can do. Your kids will more than likely either accept this as relationship norm, or think that his/her family is weirdly different from those around them.

If your child does the former, then this will be the basis on which his/her relationships will one day be formed. Think how hurt you feel when you fight with your partner. Would you like your child to feel the same? Then stop giving him/her the example of that sort of their relationship.

If his/her view is the former, he/she will find it difficult to relate to people of a similar age. He/she will distance him/herself from her friends and find it difficult to connect. He/she will also question why his/her family are different.

I understand that situations can occur and they need to be talked about. But for as far as possible, don't do it in front of the kids! Put the TV on for them and then go yell at your spouse privately. Wait till your kids go to bed. Do something. Please.

teachers' roles

I think that teachers play such an imperative role in shaping an individual, almost as much as parents.
I also think that teachers can make or break one.

If a teacher is bullying one, one could be more affected than if it was by another pupil. If one is constantly being told that they can't do something by the person whose supposed to be teaching them how to, one will start to believe it.

This is such an honour for teachers, to be able to say that they've played such a big role. But I think that some teachers fail to realise the responsibility that comes with it.

I also think that students are affected by when teachers have obvious favourites. I know that it's human nature to get along better with some people than others, but I don't think that teachers should advertise it.

Well that's my rant for the day.

"Snap out of it!"

“Mental imbalance is about as acceptable as herpes. It’s never going to be accepted. But really, it’s a disease just like cancer. It just happens, and eats away all the good parts of your brain, like judgment and happiness and perception and memory and life. And you can die from depression just like any other disease. And it’s not as if people choose it. So why is it still a joke? “She died of cancer” is a lot more socially acceptable to people than “She committed suicide.” Why?” –Sarahbeth Purcell.

Depression is described in the Oxford Dictionary as “severe, typically prolonged, feelings of despondency and dejection; a mental condition characterized by severe feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy, typically accompanied by a lack of energy and interest in life.”

 

I am exasperated by the way in which depression is viewed, particularly that of a teenager. Depression is not something you can snap out of. Depression is a medical illness, the same as diabetes. But there is a lot more controversy about antidepressants than about insulin. Why?

 

I feel that people are wary of mental illness, and that the acceptance thereof is long overdue. While the status quo is better than it has been in the past, it still needs massive improvement. In the Victorian times, a person with a mental illness was treated as a freak of nature and caged like an animal. Nowadays, people will still talk in hushed whispers about someone being bipolar. Teenage depression is problematic because parents are quick to blame their child’s behaviour on teenage mood swings, because they feel that if their child is depressed, it is their own fault. Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot stress enough that depression is customarily a chemical imbalance.

 

Children as young as four years old are being diagnosed with depression. How does a child who has only lived 48 months on this earth feel so despondent? Moreover, how does a child of this age deal with these feelings? Especially when parents refuse to accept that the child in question has a medical illness.

 

There is such a stigma about being diagnosed with a mental illness, and I think that this is due to people being afraid of what they don’t understand. People need to realise that one does not choose to be ill. It impacts upon everything that one does. Depression is so difficult to get out of once one has been diagnosed with it.

 

Also, I think that it is more correct to say “died by suicide” not “committed suicide”. To say someone has ‘committed’ suicide makes it sound as though they’ve done something wrong. One can’t call suicide a choice on any level. When one’s mind is not functioning properly one does not see alternatives. I didn’t choose to be sick, whether it be flu, cancer or malaria…I do not choose the way the hormones in my mind make me feel. Mental illness is not a choice. Suicide is not a choice. They are not signs of weakness nor selfishness. Living with a mental illness is hard enough without all the shame, guilt and isolation that come with it because of lack of education.

 

I was first diagnosed with depression in 2010. I played around with this label for a while, and decided that I couldn’t possibly be depressed. Depressed people didn’t have friends and just blubbered all the time. I had friends and I never ever cried. Yes, maybe I got sad sometimes, but so did everyone else. My depression manifested itself in the form of anxiety and anger, and when I thought about it, I guess I did feel helpless a lot. I had trouble getting more than two hours sleep a night. I didn’t withdraw from my friends in terms of seeing them, but I couldn’t connect with any of them on an emotional level because what if I told them about how I felt and they thought I was weird? I already felt so worthless, so inadequate; I didn’t need those around me to confirm my self-doubts.

 After a while, I decided that I did show symptoms of depression, but that obviously meant that I had created a problem. And antidepressants were most definitely not necessary. I didn’t need pills for something my mind had created.

Now, I understand that I am not responsible for my depression. Depression is caused chemically, by problems in the transportation of serotonin, or “happy hormones”.

I understand now that my brain isn’t the problem, society’s view is. There’s nothing wrong with me. Would you blame someone for having a genetic predisposition to having something like cancer? Why depression? Yes, a positive outlook helps, but by the very definition of depression, there is a lack of positivity.

I think that if there was more awareness of depression, society will move forward into accepting and handling it. There is such ignorance and this can be rectified by media coverage, magazine articles, support groups, even just discussion.

Over the last few years, I learned to accept myself and not worry about everyone else’s judgement. I have found that depression will never up and vanish, and while it is chemical, antidepressants won’t make it all better. I've developed a mind-set that has allowed me to accept that happiness is a constant pursuit, and that I need to embrace the life that I’ve been given with all the obstacles in my path. 

Soup for the soul....

Okay, so this isn't quite a post like those books that are "Chicken soup for the  *insert category of people*'s soul."

This is a post to inform you that music is literally my antidepressant. Music does for me what the sun does for photosynthesis.
I wake up in the morning, and have plugged in my earphones before I've dressed.
After school, the earphones go back in and don't come out much until bedtime. And if I'm in a situation where I can't listen to music for whatever reason for an extended period of time, I will get grumpy.

I love playing music too. I love to sing (even though I can't) and to play guitar and violin.

I think that whatever I happen to be going through, music is there and there's always a song to explain how I feel, and there's a sort of double-edged comfort in knowing that someone knows what you're going through but you don't have to talk to anyone at all.

English

I received this as an email and found it rather amusing, so I thought that I should share it with you.

How To Write Good...

1. Avoid alliteration, always.

2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

3. Avoid cliches like the plague.

4. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.

5. One should never generalise.

6. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.

7. Be more or less specific.

8. No sentence fragments.

9. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

10. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.

11. Always be sure to finish what

Reminiscences of the past

"I want to go back to believing in everything and knowing nothing at all." - Evanescence, Field of Innocence.

Evanescence always manages to capture my feelings of something or another, but this song is exactly how I feel about growing up. As a child, Santa and fairies were as real as the sun. But what I miss even more than the belief that something would take my teeth and leave money in its place is, strangely enough, fear. I loved that exhilarating feeling of being scared of, well, anything. I miss being scared of what was waiting in the darkness of night. I yearn for how gullible we all were. If someone mentioned ghosts, or monsters, we'd all end up sleeping in our parents' bed.

Then, once you were a bit older and a bit more skeptical about these things, but the ideas of The Boogey Man still bothered you, and despite your knowing it wasn't real, there was still a nagging, irrational fear. You were so excited and nervous all at once and you couldn't help but giggle.

I miss those feelings. Every time the sun went down was a new exhilarating adventure and all we ever wanted to do was grow up.

But now that we're older, we are scared of monsters of a different kind. As Jordyn Berner aptly put, "We stop looking for monsters under our bed when we realise they're inside of us."

As a child, I trusted the world and all the adventures that it had to hold. And while I still have huge dreams for my future, they're a bit more refined and realistic. I no longer want to become an astronaut, or the president of the United States. I don't expect to marry Prince Charming anymore. I miss the past and I'm terrified of the future. So, I guess it's time to embrace the present!

Running out...

Have you ever thought that every book that you've ever read is just a combination of 26 letters? And that every song you have ever listened to is a different combination of so many frequencies of notes? Every person that you've ever loved is a certain combination of atoms.

To me, this begs two very big questions. Firstly, how many more combinations can we make? Is there ever going to be a time when no more books can be written? Where all the ideas are going to be used up? The thought saddens me, because reading transports me to my own world. Reading is incredible. I wish I knew a way to convince non-readers to read, because the experience is truly magical. And I fear that as soon as writing becomes something of the past, so will reading. The same goes for music. We cannot carry on creating new combinations of notes if there are finite scales that we're working from.

Secondly, if everything can be done, how do we go about making an imprint on the Earth? Any job that we do cannot last forever, but we can only hope the legacy remains. As John Green says, "what's the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?"

Screaming kids at shops...

Today, whilst running some errands, I encountered a more than common scene, yet I'm sure it's one of the reasons mothers hate shopping.

In the middle of a stationary shop, a child, no younger than 3, demanded a packet of sweets from her mother. When she was refused, she picked up said packet and hurled it at her mother, whilst simultaneously throwing herself violently at the floor, shrieking at such a high pitch that if there were windows in the middle if the shopping mall, they would be shattered. She yelled at her mother, telling her that she 'hated mom' and she was going to 'run away.'

While this scene probably isn't unfamiliar to most of us, I'm sure that most of us still cringed on the mother's behalf when reading this story. And, I mean, shopping with kids is a nightmare. It really is.
I understand that it's difficult for mothers (and fathers) to keep their little tyrants on a leash (metaphorical, of course. Actual child leashes deserve their very own post.) it's difficult for people without children to be able to sympathize.

And yes, your child 'doesn't usually act this way' and I'm sure your baby boy who's banging his head against the tinned fruit is 'just playing up.' But if you cannot control your delightful offspring for the duration of your shop, please leave it at home?

Embarrassing stories...

So I, like everyone else, have had my fair share of cringe-worthy stories. And while they're positively, gut-wrenchingly awful for me, I suspect they'll provide great amusement  for you. So here are a few of the most recent.

Last year, after my History exam, I was messing around and writing poetry. But then the teacher invigilating decided that we had to hand in any rough work with our exams. So my half-arsed attempt at poetry was stapled to the back of my essay on the importance of indoctrination in the Second World War or something to that effect. Anyway, my history teacher told me that she enjoyed my poem and (being polite) would love to see more. So, after taking her seriously, my friend and I waited after history one day to show her these wretched poems. Cringeeee.

The other day, I went out with a guy friend of mine for brunch. He's a very funny guy so I'm usually practically crying after laughing so much when we spend time together. Anyway, at the end of our meal, he decided to tell me that I had something in my teeth. Which meant I had had my mouth open laughing with a piece of goodness-knows-what stuck in my teeth for who knows how long. After this, I battled getting it out! So I was sitting with a makeup mirror and toothpick trying to get half a berry from my smoothie out of my teeth. Awkward...

When I was in grade 6, I was sitting in science, learning about plant fertilization or something equally boring, and writing notes to my then best friend. I was saying how I thought that the boy behind me was quite cute and I liked him (you know,the twelve year old type of like) when the teacher noticed this note writing, and took it from us. He then continued to read this note aloud to the entire class,so not only the aforementioned boy knew, but all of his friends, all of my friends, and all the other girls and boys in the room, as well as my science teacher, knew that I "liked" this boy.

When I was about 5 or 6, my aunt had just broken up with her then boyfriend, and made me go around to men that she perceived as good looking, and tell them that 'if they think I'm cute, they should see my aunty.' If that in itself wasn't bad enough, the one night I decided to take matters into my own hands, and approach a potential uncle myself. I went up, did the whole line, only to look at his hand and spot a wedding ring.  Suffice it to say, he is most definitely not my uncle.

All of these are quite embarrassing, but I've saved the best for last. And this one most definitely takes the cake. When I was three, I went shopping with my mom. As only children can, I was very, very blunt and asked my mom why the "fat lady" was in her "pajamas" (I can only assume now that it was a track suit). My mom, horrified, pretended that I wasn't her child!

I hope these stories have brought a smile to some of your faces.

Pets

Have you ever actually thought about how weird it is to own cats and dogs and stuff?
Cats especially; you have these mini lions chilling in your house, these furry creatures that come and go as they please. And it's the most normal thing, nobody bats an eyelid.
Most would probably see my bearded dragon as a weirder pet, but she's caged. I don't have a lizard that sleeps on my bed.
But dogs are even weirder, come to think of it. You're practically taking a wolf on a walk everytime you take a dog out for a stroll.

Maybe it's me that's weird, not the dogs or cats. Just a thought...

quotes and stuffs

The other day, I was reading a book (The Fault in Our Stars-John Green. Very good read. Definitely recommend it.)
Anyway, I came across two pretty amazing quotes that I felt needed to be shared.
1. "I fell in love the way I fall asleep. Slowly at first, and then all at once."
I love this comparison because it's so true. When you want to fall in love, like falling asleep, it's hard to get comfy and it just doesn't work as planned. And when you're not supposed to, it's almost impossible not to.

2. "My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations"
I don't even know what to say about this quote. It's so simple, yet so deep. I love it.

Appearances

So I've been flicking through facebook and stuff, and just thinking how much we all care about appearances. I mean, how quickly will you untag yourself from a photo where you're not looking so fab?
Why? If you're not looking your best it won't stop you from going out and seeing the world?
So why can't the world see you looking less than perfect?

I'm not saying we should all go and change our profile pictures to ourselves in our PJ's looking like trolls and not care at all about what people think.
I'm just saying we shouldn't put so much effort into it.

Everyone will say things like 'don't judge a book by its cover,' but I think the world needs to follow their own advice and stop judging.

I'm sorry, I've broken my blogging promise already.
Not that anyone reads it, but a promise is a promise.

I personally blame the holidays. They make everything a mish. I mean, I get like more than 12 hours of sleep most nights while all my friends are out clubbing...#nolife.

Quote of Note

"Mental imbalance is about as acceptable as herpes. It’s never going to be accepted. But really, it’s a disease just like cancer. It just happens, and eats away all the good parts of your brain, like judgment and happiness and perception and memory and life. And you can die from depression just like any other disease. And it’s not as if people choose it. So why is it still a joke of medicine? “She died of cancer” is a lot more socially acceptable to people than “She committed suicide.” Why?"

You. Yes you. You are absolutely, one hundred percent, draw droppingly gorgeous. 
No, don't shrug your shoulders like that and tell me I'm wrong.
I don't care that your eyes are just a little too close together, or that your teeth are skew. You are amazing.

If you're looking for a sign, this is it. Go find that special guy and tell him how you feel. Just ask her on a date already!

You're only young once, so don't let anyone make you feel less than a hundred percent happy.

And for those of you who think it's too late to be happy...

What the hell are you doing? How old are you...16, maybe 17? Did you ever once think about how you're wasting your life? 

Stop thinking about whatever broke you, it’s not worth it. Stop moping around and being down in the dumps just be happy. You're only young once and this is where you need to forget about everything that doesn't make you happy.

 You're only a teenager...go with the flow and just chill. Stop being unhappy with yourself, you are wonderful. Stop wishing you could be like someone else. Take chances. Tell the truth. Date somebody utterly wrong for you. Spend all your money. Get to know someone arbitrary. Be random. Sing out loud. Laugh at stupid jokes. Tell someone how much they mean to you. Tell the jerk what you feel. Laugh until your stomach hurts. Live life regretting nothing.

The future

I find the future very frighteningly daunting. I mean, sure I also want to grow up, just like everyone else. But the uncertainty of what the future holds scares me most.

I mean, everyday I sit in class, staring out the window wondering who I'll be, and it frightens me immensely that I don't know.

Often I tell myself I can't wait for school to be finished. I can't wait to start university. Then, I start to think about what doing this actually entails. It means I won't live with my parents anymore. It means I don't have teachers to spoon-feed me. It means that pretty much every decision I make will impact my life.

And then, after university, comes real life. Real life holds all the really scary stuff, like paying taxes and getting married. I don't know if I could share my whole life with someone.

I guess, I just wish everything would slow the hell down. We think high school is stressful, but it's probably going to be the least stressful moment for the rest of our lives. So we should go and live it.

Quotes I love

"when was the last time you did something for the first time?"

"there is no such word as 'loved'. Love has no past tense. If you ever stop loving someone, you never truly loved them in the first place."

"I've never told a lie and that makes me a liar; I've never made a bet but we gamble with desire."

"If every drop in the ocean was an adjective, I still wouldn't adequately be able to describe my feelings for you."

Diagnosis and Doctor Google

Is it just me, or does everyone seem to self-diagnose these days?
It really pushes my buttons when people are all "I'm dyslexic"...no, you just can't spell.
Sure, there really are people who are genuinely dyslexic, but the majority of said "dyslexics" have diagnosed it themselves.

The same thing can be said with depression. Every second person is depressed, and while it can be said that depression has become more socially acceptable, I think that it is extremely misdiagnosed and moreover, over-diagnosed.

The worst about self diagnosis, though, is when people have a bit of a headache and a slightly ticklish throat, and when they google their symptoms, they end up deciding that they're dying of meningitis. 

Fact or fiction?

This is a question I have to keep reminding myself when I read Dan Brown's books. The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons and The Lost Symbol all raise issues which I tend to take at face value and I probably shouldn't.
For instance, Angels and Demons suggests that Galileo Galilei was part of the Illuminati - an anti-church brotherhood who stood up for science. Their emblem is said to be an ambigram (it is identical whichever way you turn it) and this was because of Galilei's love for symmetry.
To me, this makes a lot of logical sense, but in googling it, it shows that Galilei was born about a century too soon for this to be possible.

However, they were right in saying that George Washington was a Freemason.

Sisterhood - A celebration of being a woman

‘I'm very proud to be a woman. I've been one my whole life.’ – Ellen DeGeneres

The bra. The medical syringe. Chocolate-chip cookies. Windscreen wipers. Bullet-proof vests.  Disposable diapers. The electric dishwasher.  What do all these things have in common? They were all invented by a woman. Not the same woman, of course. (Now that would be a brilliant - yet potentially unstable woman!)

So, without women, as well as not being able to reproduce, we would be left with dirty dishes, unruly breasts, and terrible visibility on the roads.

Along with arguments as to whether or not windscreen wipers are an important invention that can be accredited to women, there are numerous arguments about the stereotypical idea of women being bad drivers. Women are said to be negligent drivers, something that men usually blame on their ‘emotional instability’. Another car would have driven into the woman, but it would have been because ‘she had a rough day’ and ‘didn’t stop in time’.

Women are usually made out to be whiny, emotional and sensitive, and when women are anything but cheerful, it is generally due to ‘that time of month.’

Then, men have this idea of a stepford wife, who smells of cookies and spends every day baking. She enjoys watching rugby all day, and always makes sure there is an unlimited supply of beer and biltong in the house at all times.

As well as the pressure of having to live up to the expectations a man has of how his future wife ought to act, a woman must also bring in at least half of the household’s income, if they are not already the primary breadwinner. This does not, however, negate their role as a main care-giver and making sure that their offspring attends ballet, French and piano lessons every week.

What do we really need men for anyway? If every man had to drop dead right this second, the world wouldn’t end. Humans would not even die out due to sperm banks and women already carrying their ‘precious loads’. On the other hand, if every female had to die, besides men being completely apathetic and not even attempting a solution, the species would not ever continue.

The Black Widow Spider expresses a similar idea, if not the epitome of my thought process.  After conception, the female bites off the male’s head – if this isn’t concrete proof that women do, indeed, hold more purpose than men, then I don’t know what is.

Throughout society, women have always had a vital (if not dignified) role in society. Women have been used to link families through marriage, they have been used to gain political power and they have been used to raise the next generation.  Women have been repressed in terms of their freedom and choice, but we have always had women in the past to look up to (Mother Teresa, Florence Nightingale…need I say more?) When Joan Jett began to start her band, the Runaways, she was told that ‘girls don’t play electric guitar.’ She broke the stereotype, and formed the first ever all-girl rock band.

An illustration a bit closer to home is the political stance in South Africa. Kwa-Zulu Natal is run by the African National Congress, which essentially, is being run by a group of men; the Western Cape, however, falls under the ruling of the Democratic Alliance, which is run by a woman. Comparing the cleanliness of the beaches, the overall state of the cities and the general efficiency of the two would be like comparing pears and apples. While Durban city centre is too dangerous to walk through and reeks of the rubbish decorating the pavements, Cape-Town is free of these litterbugs.

 So now people begin to think, ‘well that’s great. It really is. Women can change light bulbs. But what do women really have to celebrate in terms of their achievements? Well. We can celebrate our liberation and freedom. We now have our free will to make our own choices, we have independence and we’ve broken stereotypes.

Also, we can use our ‘weaknesses’ to our advantage. When a woman gets pulled over and the policeman is about to give her a ticket of being a metre over the stop-sign, she can start up the waterworks with ease, and tell the cop that she really is sorry, and it’s just been one of those days, and nine times out of ten she’ll get herself out of the ticket.

In the same way, men will nearly always get squeamish when you mention anything to do with menstruation, and this can get you out of PE almost always.

Women have succeeded in breaking gender stereotypes, but we haven’t quite reached gender equality. While women can be lawyers and doctors now, and while I am not discrediting the existence of such, I have yet to meet a female plumber, or a male nurse.

I yearn for the day when we can accept that ‘an incredible person’ did something, not questioning whether the said incredible person was a male or not.

In my view, this is when we’ll experience true gender equality. 

My apology

I haven't blogged in over 3 months.
That is literally the saddest thing I have ever heard.
And I don't even have a proper excuse.
So, I promise to blog. At least once a week.