The Basis of Optimism

Apr 8

A Day without Shoes

Tom’s Day without Shoes is something I didn’t hear about until college. Previously I’d participate if I remembered. This year, I planned. Originally, I was going to paint my feet with Tom’s logo and some random patterns but there was a possible rainstorm so I painted my toes.

Angelica's Feet

I decided that besides participating, I’d also write about it. That way those who didn’t go barefoot could understand what it felt like. I tried explaining how it felt to people who asked too, though I think this will go over better.

Angelica's Feet

Walking around barefoot sounds “disgusting” to most of the people that I talked to. And they are right. It is disgusting, to have to watch every step you make in case of trash, gum or filthy puddles. It’s disgusting having to go across a carpet full of stains barefoot. I refused to go into a bathroom without my sandals on because just the thought of being barefoot in a public bathroom was disgusting.

Going through the cafeteria, I had to avoid spilled drinks and food. I stepped on ice and nearly dropped my plate from the surprise. The floor was sticky too. The carpets were atrocious. You don’t really notice these things when you’re wearing shoes’ your feet protected by a layer of plastic, leather or fabric. When you’re barefoot in a place like that, you think about exactly where you step and what it feels like while you hope to not step in something wet and squishy. I didn’t even want to get up and get a drink because I was worried I’d step in something nasty.

I was actually asked to leave because I wouldn’t put my shoes on. I told the woman I didn’t have any. She explained that it’s a health code violation; that no one was allowed in without shoes. There were several people there without shoes, and I wonder if they managed to avoid this or were asked to leave as well?

Outside wasn’t much better. The cement was hard, cold and very rough. The grass was even colder, and wet. We have a lot of brick paths that were even worse. My feet were cracked and rubbed raw after walking to my first class, lunch and then to my second. I got a few small cuts as well later in the day. Needless to say, my feet hurt and I was aching to put my sandals on. I didn’t though, since I promised myself I’d do this.

Bethany!

Something I’d never given much thought about was arch support. I know a lot of people have issues with their arches, but I just didn’t care. Now, I do. Every step I took without shoes, it felt like I was flattening out my arches. That made my feet hurt even more. The few times I put on my sandals to visit the bathroom actually made it worse because my they’re the very thin, very flat kind. I must have spent at least an hour at the end of the day rubbing them down to make the pain stop.

Lovely. :3

Erin

This is what hundreds of people - even in the U.S. - go through every day. Why should anyone have to go through this every day? They shouldn’t, obviously. And I know this one thing I did won’t affect how many people go barefoot or get a pair of shoes. There are only two ways that it will. One is if it convinces someone to buy a pair for someone else, and the second if for me to buy a pair myself. I’d like to challenge everyone to buy a pair of Tom’s, or at least make a donation to them at their site. If you don’t have to go barefoot, why should someone else?

Toms worn by Jenny

Apr 4

30 Days of Obsession

Amazingly I only just found this. I think it’ll be a nice stress relief to do this every day. I get to schedule time just for my favorite obsession! :D

Day 1: Your favorite book?
Day 2: Your favorite movie?
Day 3: Is there any of the films adaptations that have made you angry because they’ve ignored important parts of the book?
Day 4: Least favorite female character and why?
Day 5: Favorite male character and why?
Day 6: What house would you want to be in?
Day 7: Favorite female character and why?
Day 8: What do you think would be your favorite lesson.
Day 9: Least favorite male character?
Day 10: Horcruxes or Hallows?
Day 11: What character would you say you are most like.
Day 12: Favorite ship?
Day 13: Least favorite movie.
Day 14: Team Voldermort or Team harry?
Day 15: Who would be your best friends at Hogwarts? (three only)
Day 16: Favorite professor?
Day 17: Are you excited about The Deathly Hallows movie or scared it won’t do the book justice?
Day 18: Least favorite book?
Day 19: Do you prefer the books or films?
Day 20: If you had to meet one member of the cast, who would it be?
Day 21: Out of all the characters that died, if you could bring one back, who would it be?
Day 22: Harry Potter or Twilight?
Day 23: Any part of the books/movies that makes you cry?
Day 24: Any particular scene you wished would have been put in the movie but it wasn’t?
Day 25: Nineteen years later. Are you happy how it turned out, or do you wish something was different, ie Neville married Luna?
Day 26: If you could be able to work one spell without a wand what would it be?
Day 27: Would you rather own The Invisibility Cloak, The Resurrection Stone or The Elder Wand?
Day 28: Do you listen to Wizard Wrock, what do you think about it?
Day 29: Did you enjoy A Very Potter Musical?
Day 30: What affect has Harry Potter made on your life and how much does it mean to you?

————-

Day 1: Your favorite book?

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, though it’s only slightly more my favorite than The Half-Blood Prince. HPSS is my favorite because it’s the beginning, and not just of the story. When I first read Harry’s story, I could sympathize- sure I had a great home life, but school was like living with the Dursley’s. (And we would both escape to a park near our houses to escape. Though that came later.)

He was friendless, frumpy and miserable, and then he got magic. He was suddenly so much more, his parents weren’t just any other people but heroes, and he made friends. Not to mention he got an owl, come on, that’s just awesome! So it was a beginning of hope for me, that one day I would be able to make friends and go somewhere safe to escape the bullies, the fear and the sadness. I got that at Winthrop, actually. No more bullies, I made friends that I still know and suddenly I wasn’t the reject of the group.

Another first was having a book I re-read almost instantly, rather than returning to it when I was bored. I think I read my original copy of HPSS (A paperback that didn’t live long) about 20 times before mom got me a hard cover when book 2 was coming out. Speaking of mom, I must of tortured her (and dad, but he slept in the car) when I dragged her to the book openings at Books-a-Million. (Yeah, apparently B&N was better, but I don’t care.) Reading the 2nd to 7th books were my first all nighters. They were so much more fun than the ones I do now.

Harry Potter was my first obsession. I’ve been fans of things, YuYu Hakusho, Tenshi Muyo, Sailor Moon, Criminal Minds, Law & Order: SVU, Barbie, Lion King and (as I’m often reminded by mom) The Jungle Book. But none of them were things I liked nearly as much as the HP series. Yeah I would watch Jungle Book over and over, but like everything else, there was always something else to do and they were only fun for a few times in a row. So maybe I have a problem, but at least I’m not alone in that.

And the last first I have to share, is my first old man crush. Severus Tobias Snape <3 . Yeah, I know I’m weird. Not like a give a crap. I started liking ~~Snape~~ Severus (I’ve loved the man for years, we’re on a first name basis by now, right?) because he was a snarky, emotionless bastard. He could verbally lash anyone into a corner, never showed when something hurt him, and he was killer in all black and a diabolical goatee. (I could rant about the lack of goatee or any facial hair on Alan Rickman, but it’s really not about looks, you know.) Little Nina, self-conscious and alone wanted to be like Severus. In billowing black robes, brewing poisons because she could and making people cry with just a few words and a dirty look. That was a beautiful thing back then. Obviously he developed into a much deeper character, but that is another day for this challenge (because I totally didn’t start to rant about Sev. Nope.)

Lastly, HBP is my very close second favorite because of all the Severus in that book. You learn his side, he becomes a deeper character and we all know I love love love Sevvy. Interestingly enough, my liking of Alan Rickman (despite popular belief) is entirely unrelated to him playing Severus. (Didn’t help my liking of Mr. Rickman though.) I saw him play in Love Actually as Harry and started having a separate crush on him then. I think it was the glasses and the accent. (I could swear I didn’t think they were the same person, but I doubt I’d be believed.)

And come on, it’s the Harry Potter book series! What’s not to love? (Besides the extended camping trip)

➟

Mar 25

Leave the Scar

Jan 15

IMVU (Cause I get paid for this)

World’s Greatest 3D Chat Shop from over 1 Million virtual items IMVU

I enjoy IMVU honestly. It’s easy to chat with people, I get to play dress up and hey there’s role playing which I love as much as talking to friends. Sometimes I think those are the same thing…. so if you’d like to support your local Nina Pina, just click the link.

Dec 28

Punch and Pie

The Punch:

I’m a vegetarian. We all understand the concept, right? I don’t eat meat, though I make exception for seafood (as a college kid, I have to accept some limitations with what I can get for protein) and for my mom’s sake, chicken. I decided this initially after seeing a horrible video showing how they salughter pigs, cows and chickens as well as the conditions they live in. I decided to keep doing it for 2 reasons:

1.- The sight of meat makes me think of what I saw in that video. It was cruel, and suffice to say I wouldn’t let someone be that cruel to a goldfish, so why should I accept it happening to a pig, cow or chicken?

2.- Honestly, I feel a lot healthier now that I don’t eat meat. I don’t feel bloated after every meal, I have to think of what I’m eating more, and as a bonus, I’ve lost some weight.

3.- Meat doesn’t look like something edible anymore. It grossed me out to smell the pork leg my mom cooked for Christmas, and when my dad insisted on walking around with a plate of it later after heating it up.

Have I been tempted to eat meat and see if I still want to eat it? Yes. Did I try? Yes. I ate a small bite of sausage. Result? I spit it in the trash and my dog got the rest of the sausage.

But my parents are insistent that it’s a phase, I’m being ridiculous. Maybe my initial reasons weren’t good enough for some people. Fine. I’ll take sounding like a silly kid and live as I please rather than just “stopping this nonsense” as Mom put it. I’m happy being a vegetarian, and no matter what my dad says I don’t need to see a psychiatrist because meat grosses me out now. I don’t need to let it go. I need my choices to be respected, rather than be insulted like an idiot.

Every one who ends up talking with me about being a vegetarian if they’re not a vegetarian or vegan, always says something along the lines of “It’s nice but I like to eat meat.” And then tell me all the merits of eating it and what they like. Half the time I feel like they’re trying to convince me to eat meat again. Very few people haven’t patronized me and I’m grateful for those people who just say they respect my choice and let it go.

The Pie:

For Christmas this year I got something awesome. A Pandigital Novel, which is a smaller brand of e-reader. There are already quite a few reviews for it, some bad and some good. The PD is actually a lot more than I expected, it has the functions of an e-reader it also has a web browser, facebook app, and can play music and videos I copy to it from my computer. It’s amazingly fun, especially since I found quite a few free ebook sites and as a bonus I can download straight to the PD.

I’ve got a few suggestions for you guys, if you care to look. You can download these to your computer too, so no worries if you don’t have an e-reader of your own.

His Robot Girlfriend by Wesley Allison (My favorite by far, a realistic future fiction)
Beasts of New York: A Children’s Book for Grown-Ups by Jon Evans (All from the perspective of one lil squirrel named Patch. Not cutesy at all though.)
Harry Potter - Three Short Stories by Bruce T. Forbes (Very awesome set of three fanfictions featuring McGonagall, Charlie Weasley, and a memorial for those who died in the last battle. Also, dragons galore!)

And as always, anything by Oscar Wilde since I’ve also been reading his work. :)

Dec 12

An Adopted Child: I can’t go back to yesterday.

“I can’t go back to yesterday, I was a different person then.” - Alice, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol.

It’s nearly the end of another semester, full of a lot of things I enjoyed, regret, and would never trade for all the glory and riches the world could offer. Overall, it was rather successful with the exception of a few things, mainly my mathematics class. I’m happy to have made the friends I made, did the things I did, and live as I did.

Just one thing has started to bother me, something I’ve put off since last year, and the year before that. I could put this one thing, a simple choice, off for a very long time and I’m sure I would be easily persuaded to put it off again if I were talking to the right person or people. And I don’t know that I’d feel bad for putting it off again.

When I was a baby, an unborn child, I was put up for adoption. My “mom” decided she didn’t want to raise me for her own reasons that I don’t know, and my “dad” decided he agreed. So I was put into the system not even a day old, and by the time I was born in 1990, I was going to be adopted by my parents now- my real parents.

Now I don’t have any ill will towards my biological parents. I just don’t have any way to connect them to the term parent. Mom and Dad are the people who raised me, the ones who taught me to talk, walk and ride a bike. Honestly for all I act like them and, as everyone I ask claims, look like (my dad, anyways) I might as well be their child. The ones who game me their genetics, they’re just names associated with strangers. Give me a name of any person in the world and I’d know the same about them as these two people. Yes, I do have medical records, a list of likes and dislikes for them, grandparents and an aunt or uncle. I can’t even remember anymore. Plus Mamacita lost them. (Yes, I do call my mom that. Also mama, mommy and mother if I’m joking around with her in the sarcastic way we do.)

So I’ve come to wonder if I should try to contact them, those two strangers that for whatever reason got together and had me. I do know some details to what happened, like my “dad” being separated from his wife, and something about why “mom” didn’t keep me. But those don’t exactly make me feel better about being adopted, minus the gratefulness I feel for not having a hateful step-parent that resents my existence. I’m not sure why I even want to know, it just seems like some kind of morbid curiosity. Would they want to talk to me? Are they still alive? Do they even care if I am or if I’m well? Not exactly the best course of action, as it seems. But if I don’t I’m always going to wonder. No comments regarding cats, please. I know very well the risks I’m (maybe) taking in the near future.

And as if happens, I think my parents may attempt, however inadvertently, to distract me from this little quest of mine (Campbell’s Circle comes to mind). Mom will bring up the missing forms and paperwork, Dad claim time limits. But if I do decide to go through with this, I can’t back down. Something in me is going to have to hear the truth from the biological parents, even if it hurts and makes me hate them.

Opinions now, if you would. Do you think I’m better of leaving sleeping dogs lie and moving on or should I try and find them? I want to, but I think I’ll be needing a support team for this one.

Dec 1

This short was sad and sweet… It makes something in the sympathetic person twist itself up, and some may even cry. It’s beautiful in both the narration and the level of skill in filming.

Nov 30

A Kinda Veggie Thanksgiving

I was going to title this a Very Veggie Thanksgiving, but the alliteration seemed to be a bit much….and it wasn’t that full of vegetables.

It’s a pretty recent thing that I’ve been a vegetarian. I decided to do this for a few reasons, and some that came up along the way. It started as being horrified at a slaughterhouse video, and I couldn’t even think about eating meat without a feeling of nausea. Then when I actually saw meat, I couldn’t stand the idea of it being a meal. My dad ate a steak in front of me, and all I could think was that it looked rather gross. Same for burgers and that turkey. Ugh…I couldn’t stand thinking what that turkey had to go through. Actually, meat submerged in its own juices looks a lot stranger now.

So far, being vegetarian has worked out well for me. I don’t feel bloated after eating, except on Thanksgiving (but that’s an exception). I’ve also been eating healthier in general, having to consider where I’ll get my protein from. It’s strange- I’ve never really liked black beans before. (Still not touching kidney beans, mom.)

During Thanksgiving dinner, I got very full on everything but turkey. Stuffing topped with cranberry jelly, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and my favorite- sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows. Made just for me and dad, since mom hates them. Now if mom had had her way, I’d have had a bite and normally she’d get her way. But since we had 12 people plus a dog opposed to our usual 3 plus canine, she was too busy to even notice if I was eating, let alone what I ate. All in all, I was very successful in avoiding meat.

This is why dreams can be such dangerous things: they smolder on like a fire does, and sometimes they consume us completely.

Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden (via fuckyeahliteraryquotes)

Nov 26

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

The reason for the name of this blog is simple. I want to move forward and towards a better future at this time in my life. I’m one year away from graduate school, another year closer to achieving full adulthood without the pseudo-independence of college life. It’s terrifying. It makes my chest ache to wonder if I’ll even survive any time it comes to mind. But I’m hopeful for one day, I’ll have my own place, a steady and happy relationship and most importantly, a job where I’m helping other people get a better life. How I plan to do that by catching serial killers is a fun one to discuss with others.

I’ll know I’ll probably end up using a lot of Oscar Wilde quotes. My love of the man’s literary genius has yet to know any boundaries, though I’d like to continue believing I’d never become a stalker were he and I alive in the same time period.

I’ve started this blog as an attempt to catalog my personal growth. Call it a sociology experiment if you will. It should be easier to keep track of how I change with something so much in my control, and with others able to see what I say I won’t be tempted to edit or remove older entries I dislike. (Unlike facebook, where things just disappear after a few months.) I may not be tempted to speak of some things, but this is for me and I’ll always know what I’ve done and what’s happened. I hope to maintain a certain level of openness and honesty. I think a lot of this will be sharing whatever strikes me as interesting to begin with, until I get into a habit of writing every day. With exams fast approaching and the year coming to a close I don’t foresee more than twice a week entries. Hopefully over Christmas break they can increase. I can only hope.

Currently, I feel stressed. I have a class I may not be able to pass, but due to the S/U option I took, it won’t harm my already fragile GPA. To be honest I’ll be happy with any passing grade, since I know math is my weakest subject. I’d like to say I tried, but I guess the amount of stress I’m feeling because of this class says otherwise. There’s always more I could and should still do. I’m hoping the final assignment will be a good grade and a tutor for the final will save me if only by a margin. With every other class- social work, fairy tales, philosophy, and critical thinking (this class deserves an entry of its own) I’m assured of a B at the least. Critical thinking will probably be the lowest B, but that’s my own fault for a late assignment and a weak in class paper. Writing under a time limit, without the option of revision is torture to me. Unless I’m writing something informal, like this blog or class notes I have to revise them. I even revise my notes while I study them actually.

And that, for now, is the most precedent thing in my life. Besides being home for a few days and enjoying the freedom of playing music at 2 in the morning without headphones and having a light on without a roomie to complain. ;)

The Basis of Optimism

...is sheer terror.