Bullying.

Bullying seems to be a rapidly growing epidemic in our society, with more severe endings than the world has previously seen. This horrifying trend is heart breaking and mind blowing. Every time you walk into a school you are bombarded with posters of ‘taking a pledge against bullying’, ‘anti-bullying regulations’, ‘safe schools initiative’… with all these things in place how is bullying still such a rampant issue? The countless stories I hear and read about all have two very important things in common: suspension and lack of attention. Most students who are bullied claimed to have asked for help from teachers, principals and their parents. The parents all seem to address the issue with the school who in turn suspend the bully for a couple of days and assume that is the end of the problem. In what world is giving someone a couple of days off school a punishment? Rebuttal: the suspension goes on your permanent record. Well if that’s not going to terrify students into behaving I don’t know what will… I hope you found the sarcasm there. Kids of all ages are scared to go to school. They dread getting up every morning knowing the problems they will face that day. They are living in agony, hurting themselves and in a growing number of cases taking their lives. HOW IS THIS NOT A BIGGER ISSUE? How are schools not doing absolutely everything in their power to prevent this? If my child was bullied, physically or verbally and it did not stop I would be filling harassment charges. And getting the school board involved for neglect. Parents are losing their children, and the world is losing young minds for absolutely no reason. In elementary school I wasn’t bullied per say, but I was occasionally teased, who wasn’t? It’s not fun and even now, seven years later I still remember it. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain, and fear that is inflicted on these kids who face this every day. If I discovered my child was bullying someone I would be disgusted, with myself and with my child. The Board of Education needs to implement serious consequences to students who verbally or physically harass other students. I don’t know if there are rules regarding expulsion, but I think that would be a fair consequence for tormenting someone every day. Even serving in-school suspensions would be better than being told to go home for three days… Something needs to change. And it needs to happen now. It makes me sick knowing that someone is sitting at home right now in agony at the thought of going to school tomorrow.

Comma splice.

I’m in the midst of writing my final essay of the semester. It’s only 1500 words and I am struggling (I'm currently at 346). I feel like all my intelligent critical thoughts have been used up. I need this vacation to mentally power down and start storing new intellectual ideas to write about next semester. Ahah just kidding, I have to read a pile of Shakespeare, novels, poems and critical essays… there is no time to let my brain relax. But I guess that’s why I write here. Anyways, I must get back to discussing the effect of gossip in regards to Jane Austen’s thrilling masterpiece Emma. Note: I use to love this novel but this will be the fifth time I’ve written on it. Hint to the English department: other novels have in fact been written, and by Austen too.
Also, the 'comma splice' is my mortal enemy.

part of me is made of glass

Part of me is made of glass. It breaks.
Not often, but it happens.
The first time it happened, I hardly noticed.
It was just a scratch. Hardly worth acknowledging. It barely even left a mark
The second time, the scratch went deeper. It cut right through.
But no matter, I taped it to prevent further cracks.
It was okay for a while, but over time the tape dried. The edges began to peel.
It happened a third time.
But this time was different.
The blade slashed through one side, and pierced right through the other.
Cracks branched off, weakening the entire structure.
Pieces broke off, and had to be collected.
I knew it couldn’t take much more.
I put the pieces back, and tied it together with strings.
Because of all the damage it didn’t quite fit together perfectly anymore.
But it held up rather nicely.
The strings proved to work as a barrier, preventing the full force of the blows from reaching me.
It has been a while now; the strings are getting old.
The knots are slowly loosening, day by day; slipping out of place.
The cracks are becoming more visible, and I know what is coming.
I cannot recover from another blow.
No amount of tape and string will be able to hold me together if it happens again.
So please remember;
Part of me is made of glass. And also, I love you.

GET ME OUT

This town is eating me alive. And everyone loves it. I don’t understand. It has no pulse; there is nothing to this place. It makes me want to vomit. Harsh. I know. But I can’t help it. People flock here. They go on and on about how much they love it. And I am counting down the seconds until I leave. I don’t know whether I pity the [fool] people that like it or I’m jealous that they can be content with settling… But I’m leaning towards pity. The greedy north wind is hungry for my soul.

also, don't you just love the angsty-teenager-I-hate-everything-and-noone-understands-me vibe? yeah. it's a good time.

This one time...

I believe there are a few moments in everyone’s life when they are made aware of the fact that they are truly alive. It can happen anytime, anywhere; something clicks and you understand that this moment, this exact moment is going to be one of the best of your life. This is a moment to remember, to cherish, a moment you wish could last forever. But part of the beauty of that one particular moment is that it will only last a couple of seconds, minutes, maybe an hour, if you’re lucky.
We all have memories of times that were wonderful, amazing, times to remember forever. The difference with these almost transcendental moments is that the significance of it hits us in the moment; it’s not something we realize was important later.
I was lucky enough to have one of these moments the summer before last. I was with a friend of mine; well more like my soul mate (but my views on that term is a whole other blog topic) and we had gone on a date. We went out for dinner then to a play and finally sat on a bench looking out on a lake for almost three hours. That was all lovely and if that was all that happened that night I would always hold the memory of it very dearly. However, something else happened that truly awakened all my senses. When we finally decided to leave the lake and head home it was around 2:30am. I was wearing extremely inappropriate shoes for walking long distances and therefore a cab was needed. As we walked to the main road we noticed the complete lack of taxies, which was a little nerve-wracking. We were in a neighbourhood neither of us knew at all and the blisters were forming on my heels. We wondered for almost an hour, mainly in circles, trying to find our way home.
That’s when the arguing started; we both thought opposite directions would lead us home and neither of us were willing to compromise. The arguing turned to yelling which lead to a full blown fight about everything we had ever kept from each other. We must have been fighting for about twenty minutes; I had tears streaming down my face and he wouldn’t look at me. He caved and said fine we could go the way I wanted. I walked towards him, took his hand and he put his arm around me (more to help me walk than out of affection, but it’s what I desperately needed) and we set off again. I wasn’t paying attention to where I stepped and unfortunately stepped right into one of the holes in a sewer. My heel went right into it and I was about to fall right on my behind. You however were there to rescue me; you caught me and pulled me up. The shoe was not so lucky, the heel snapped right off. That was it; I just sunk to the floor and started crying. I was tired and cold and just wanted to be home. I was so overwhelmed that I became hysterical. You didn’t know what to do; the look on your face was priceless. Your mouth was hanging open and your eyes were as wide as can be; a deer caught in the headlights. You finally came to your sense, sat down and wrapped your arms around me. And that is when it happened. I looked in your emerald eyes and completely lost myself. You captivated me; I couldn’t have looked away if I wanted to.
I never wanted that moment to end, just sitting with you made me happier than I had ever been. What started off as a little giggle soon turned into side splitting laughter. The ridiculous situation paired with our exhaustion made for the funniest thing either of us had ever experienced. I wanted to spend forever laughing with you, but I knew it had to end. I knew that soon the laughter would die down to the occasional chuckle and eventually stop altogether. It was one of the best moments of my life and was followed by one of the worst. It was the happiest I had ever been, and it felt amazing. But I knew that I would always compare future moments to it, would they compare? Could they compare? Is it possible to be so perfectly happy twice? It was such a terrible fear and as hard as I tried to shove it deep down inside of me and erase it from my mind it left traces, marks to remind me it was there…
I wouldn’t trade that night, any part of it, for anything in the world. I will remember, cherish, love and treasure every second of it for as long as I live.
I guess, the whole point of this blog was to say I miss you; I think about you all the time. You’ve made a lasting impression on me that I value more than anything.
I love you forever, I love you for always. As long as I’m living, my best friend you will be.

I think I May Be Defective

A lot of my friends talk about how they love being single and being able to hook up with whoever whenever and all the other joys of the lonesome life. However, these same friends who continually claim how they simply adore this life style all fall apart when a guy comes into the picture. I kid you not, as soon as a guy shows interest in them they change. They get so excited and happy and hopeful... and then they date the guy, eventually breake up and curse themselves for getting in the situation in the first place. Here's the punch line, the very next time a guy appears interested they completely forget about how much they 'love being single'. I don't understand. I really don't. It's like they are embarrassed that they are not in a relationship so they make this false pretence for themselves. But guess what, NO ONE CARES THAT YOU ARE SINGLE. Really, I'm not trying to be offensive, but you're relationship status affects NO ONE besides you. People aren't going to judge you or pity you because you're not currently seeing someone.... However they are going to call you a hypocrite when you brag about how great it is to be single and then shack up with the next guy that seems interested.

This is where my defective bit comes in. I actually enjoy being single. The thought of relationships and dating and being with someone else all the time stresses me out. And I mean to the point where I sometimes get crazy panic attacks. I enjoy being able to go out, flirt with whoever and potentially more whenever I want. I don't feel like I'm missing something or that I will 'change' when the right guy comes along (like all my friends insist I will).

I guess I'm just a no strings attached kind of person.

ps, I really love my cat.

Dear you;

It makes me mad that you don’t appreciate it. I don’t understand how you don’t understand it. This thing that is such an important part of my life and you don’t see any value in it. How is that possible? I know it’s wrong but I don’t see you the same way anymore. A cloud is covering part of your light. The words change my world. And you brush them off. The pictures make me believe and you see them as immature. It’s special. They are special. They are my everything and they are your nothing. It is painful for me to know that you see it as useless. Not that your opinion is that special, I just thought we had a certain type of bond over these things. I was wrong. You see the value in the things you like. And that is it. You shut yourself off from anything you don’t agree with or don’t understand. You don’t take the time to try and see things. And that is exactly what this is, a new way to see the world. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t care. But don’t judge me for finding beauty and truth and peace and happiness in such simple words.
Sincerely Me.