The Dawsons put up our Christmas tree this evening which can mean only a handful of things...
1) I've already dropped and/or broken at least one ornament
2) My sister and I have fought over hanging an ornament on the same tree branch simultaneously
3) The cats have started batting the "soft" ornaments at the bottom of the tree
4) The dog is sleeping underneath the tree while we try to work around him
5) We've had a hearty laugh at my sister's famous nude ornament
6) We're all wondering where the disco spider ornament came from
The best dialogue of the night has been awarded to Maddie for this gem:
Maddie: *Setting up the nativity scene* "WHERE'S BABY JESUS??"
Mom: "What do you mean, 'where's baby Jesus?'???"
Maddie: " There's a manger, but no baby!"
Mom: "Jesus is in the manger, idiot."
Maddie: "Oh...I was looking at it upside down." *turns manger toward us so we can see* "DOES THAT NOT LOOK LIKE A BABY HOLE TO YOU????"
............
Mom: "Who's baby hole have you been looking at??"
Couldn't have written that better if I had tried.
Happy holidays, everyone!
Friday 11 December 2015
Friday 6 November 2015
Don't Tell Me I'm Beautiful
People may have the best intentions to compliment me with a comment about my appearance. Words like "beautiful", "gorgeous", and "pretty" were things that I had gotten from all of my previous romantic partners. I got it from friends, family, and even strangers too. People seem to think that it is acceptable to comment on my weight whether I am losing it or gaining it. Even medical office admins used to gush over how "beautifully" thin I was, ironically, while I was 1 more lost kg away from a diagnosable eating disorder. People comment on whether I looked tired or not any given day, my waist to hip ratio, the length/colour of my hair...etc, etc.
And I thought I was supposed to like it. I thought that being told I was beautiful was what I was supposed to want to hear from others, especially my partners. I thought these attentions were supposed to make me feel cared for. But these comments never elicited a good feeling in me. Instead, they evoked feelings of social inferiority, guilt, and reservedness. When people tell you that you're a "pretty girl", it's associated with being a mild-mannered, polite, and quiet girl. "Elegant." "Graceful." How about "give me a break!"
Tell me I'm funny if I make you laugh. Tell me I'm a good problem solver if I get the job done. Take me seriously when I'm bringing up a legitimate issues instead of writing my feelings off as female emotionality.
Treat me like a person of actual worth regardless of my appearance.
I have spent all of my past relationships worrying about how I looked. I constantly wondered whether my partner thought I was pretty. I worried about what I wore, how my hair looked, and how much I weighed every moment of every day, especially leading up to a meeting with my partner. I closed myself off with my body language because I didn't want people to look at my "flaws". I starved myself and ran myself sick.
A comment on my body meant a sick feeling in my stomach whether the comment was positive or not. If somebody commented on my weight (lost or gained), I ate even less that day. My hair started falling out, my iron levels became dangerously low, I stopped menstruating, and climbing stairs without passing out became something achieved only out of stubborn determination. I was unhappy and angry and channeled these feelings into punishing my own body. It became a vicious cycle. The worse I felt, the more I took it out on myself because it became the only coping method I had. I hated the way I looked in everything. I wouldn't even breathe deeply because I thought it made me look fat. People told me I was "wasting away" while others were asking me what my secret to a flat stomach was.
And all of this just told me that my self worth was determined by my level of physical attractiveness. So, hearing from my boyfriends that I was "gorgeous" and "beautiful" and "stunning" didn't help at all. It made things worse. Every time I considered having a future with any one of them, I fretted over how much they would love me when I was old and no longer had my "youthful beauty". I couldn't be sure that there was anything beyond my face that was worth loving... and that didn't seem like a very stable foundation for a relationship to me. I felt like a trophy. I felt sexually objectified and worthless because I didn't even feel beautiful. I was a fraud, manipulating people into thinking I was worth something by harmfully controlling my appearance.
It took a long time to stop caring about my appearance. It took spending time with people who didn't care what I looked like and who were comfortable being bare-faced around me too. It took looking at others and realizing that what I thought was truly "beautiful" about people was their stories. I had to realize that what I wanted was also a beautiful story and I wasn't getting it by hating everything about myself and projecting that negative energy out to others. It took tears. It took tantrums about the weight I was gaining back. And it took the occasional angry punch to my reflection in the mirror. However, I can say now that my self worth is no longer based on my appearance.
I'm happy that I have the energy to dance. I'm grateful that I can study without falling asleep because I have no glucose available to my brain. I'm excited that my body feels strong again even if I can't fit into the size 0 clothes I wore a few years ago. Most of all, I'm empowered by the fact that society no longer controls me through my physical appearance. Fuck your make-up. Fuck your tight women's clothing that doesn't allow for pockets. Fuck the expectation that it's better to have bleeding shaved legs than to have undamaged hairy ones. Fuck your uncomfortable underwire bras, fuck your high heels, and fuck your flat ab exercises. Somehow I've still managed to be a functioning member of society with genuine social connections without these things.
Don't praise me for making myself physically weak to be physically "beautiful". Channel that praise into making someone strong in worthwhile ways and then you'll see true beauty.
And I thought I was supposed to like it. I thought that being told I was beautiful was what I was supposed to want to hear from others, especially my partners. I thought these attentions were supposed to make me feel cared for. But these comments never elicited a good feeling in me. Instead, they evoked feelings of social inferiority, guilt, and reservedness. When people tell you that you're a "pretty girl", it's associated with being a mild-mannered, polite, and quiet girl. "Elegant." "Graceful." How about "give me a break!"
Tell me I'm funny if I make you laugh. Tell me I'm a good problem solver if I get the job done. Take me seriously when I'm bringing up a legitimate issues instead of writing my feelings off as female emotionality.
Treat me like a person of actual worth regardless of my appearance.
I have spent all of my past relationships worrying about how I looked. I constantly wondered whether my partner thought I was pretty. I worried about what I wore, how my hair looked, and how much I weighed every moment of every day, especially leading up to a meeting with my partner. I closed myself off with my body language because I didn't want people to look at my "flaws". I starved myself and ran myself sick.
A comment on my body meant a sick feeling in my stomach whether the comment was positive or not. If somebody commented on my weight (lost or gained), I ate even less that day. My hair started falling out, my iron levels became dangerously low, I stopped menstruating, and climbing stairs without passing out became something achieved only out of stubborn determination. I was unhappy and angry and channeled these feelings into punishing my own body. It became a vicious cycle. The worse I felt, the more I took it out on myself because it became the only coping method I had. I hated the way I looked in everything. I wouldn't even breathe deeply because I thought it made me look fat. People told me I was "wasting away" while others were asking me what my secret to a flat stomach was.
And all of this just told me that my self worth was determined by my level of physical attractiveness. So, hearing from my boyfriends that I was "gorgeous" and "beautiful" and "stunning" didn't help at all. It made things worse. Every time I considered having a future with any one of them, I fretted over how much they would love me when I was old and no longer had my "youthful beauty". I couldn't be sure that there was anything beyond my face that was worth loving... and that didn't seem like a very stable foundation for a relationship to me. I felt like a trophy. I felt sexually objectified and worthless because I didn't even feel beautiful. I was a fraud, manipulating people into thinking I was worth something by harmfully controlling my appearance.
It took a long time to stop caring about my appearance. It took spending time with people who didn't care what I looked like and who were comfortable being bare-faced around me too. It took looking at others and realizing that what I thought was truly "beautiful" about people was their stories. I had to realize that what I wanted was also a beautiful story and I wasn't getting it by hating everything about myself and projecting that negative energy out to others. It took tears. It took tantrums about the weight I was gaining back. And it took the occasional angry punch to my reflection in the mirror. However, I can say now that my self worth is no longer based on my appearance.
I'm happy that I have the energy to dance. I'm grateful that I can study without falling asleep because I have no glucose available to my brain. I'm excited that my body feels strong again even if I can't fit into the size 0 clothes I wore a few years ago. Most of all, I'm empowered by the fact that society no longer controls me through my physical appearance. Fuck your make-up. Fuck your tight women's clothing that doesn't allow for pockets. Fuck the expectation that it's better to have bleeding shaved legs than to have undamaged hairy ones. Fuck your uncomfortable underwire bras, fuck your high heels, and fuck your flat ab exercises. Somehow I've still managed to be a functioning member of society with genuine social connections without these things.
Don't praise me for making myself physically weak to be physically "beautiful". Channel that praise into making someone strong in worthwhile ways and then you'll see true beauty.
Friday 27 February 2015
Be Insensitive Away From The Public
"What do anti-vaccers, pro-choice activists, and people with ugly tattoos have in common? They all think their body exclusively belongs to themselves."
Are you kidding me??
I woke up to this post on my Facebook feed today and only just managed to refrain from posting a vile response to this person before deciding my best course of action would be to just unfriend them.
Yeah yeah free speech, yadda yadda. But HOLY CRAP could you be more offensive to more people on the internet at one time? (Don't take that as a challenge..I'm sure it's possible.)
My problem with this post is not limited to the fact that it was an incredibly insensitive thing to say on social media. I see the issue here as being one of bodily autonomy. I am absolutely terrified to live in a world where it is not accepted that each person has sole control over their own body. This creates a buttload of issues, if you ask me. If you're saying a woman's body is not her own to control in the case of an abortion decision, are you implying that an unborn life is more important than an established one? Doesn't this open up the possibility of legitimized sexual assault? After all, a woman's body is not her own to control. She is not to be taken seriously. She cannot make her own decisions. She cannot give consent, let alone say "no" because her body does not exclusively belong to her. For that matter, women could presumably be forced into surrogacy if someone decided so because, again, women don't have control of their bodies.
How about torture? Again, legitimate because you don't have control over your body.
How about corporal punishment? Abuse in domestic relationships? Human trafficking? Physical punishment in classrooms? Forced organ/tissue/blood donation? How about forcibly injecting somebody with a diagnosed mental disorder with medication against their will? Eugenics??? Why don't we just chop off a person's arm for funsies? Doesn't matter. Their body belongs to us too.
Main point being, you may think you know what is best for someone else and society as a whole, but..actually.. you don't. I'm pretty sure chemically castrating Alan Turing because he was gay didn't make the world a better place. I mean, it caused him to commit suicide. I'll bet that prohibiting Savita Halappanavar Ireland from having an abortion, causing her to die in childbirth, really enhanced the quality of life of all of her loved ones. In the end, neither party's life was preserved as a result of this dis-allowance of autonomy. So...that was effective.
If people are allowed to have freedom of speech such that we cannot legally punish offensive messages such as these, then bodily autonomy should be a given as well. You cannot choose one over the other. Not how it works. Sorry.
I am SO SORRY that my "ugly" tattoo forcibly turned your eyes to look at it and offended you. Please, forgive me. I'll be sure to ask your approval of the next one before I get it done. Better yet, let's hold a public vote so that I don't accidentally offend anyone with my barbed wire arm tattoo.
Good? Good.
Are you kidding me??
I woke up to this post on my Facebook feed today and only just managed to refrain from posting a vile response to this person before deciding my best course of action would be to just unfriend them.
Yeah yeah free speech, yadda yadda. But HOLY CRAP could you be more offensive to more people on the internet at one time? (Don't take that as a challenge..I'm sure it's possible.)
My problem with this post is not limited to the fact that it was an incredibly insensitive thing to say on social media. I see the issue here as being one of bodily autonomy. I am absolutely terrified to live in a world where it is not accepted that each person has sole control over their own body. This creates a buttload of issues, if you ask me. If you're saying a woman's body is not her own to control in the case of an abortion decision, are you implying that an unborn life is more important than an established one? Doesn't this open up the possibility of legitimized sexual assault? After all, a woman's body is not her own to control. She is not to be taken seriously. She cannot make her own decisions. She cannot give consent, let alone say "no" because her body does not exclusively belong to her. For that matter, women could presumably be forced into surrogacy if someone decided so because, again, women don't have control of their bodies.
How about torture? Again, legitimate because you don't have control over your body.
How about corporal punishment? Abuse in domestic relationships? Human trafficking? Physical punishment in classrooms? Forced organ/tissue/blood donation? How about forcibly injecting somebody with a diagnosed mental disorder with medication against their will? Eugenics??? Why don't we just chop off a person's arm for funsies? Doesn't matter. Their body belongs to us too.
Main point being, you may think you know what is best for someone else and society as a whole, but..actually.. you don't. I'm pretty sure chemically castrating Alan Turing because he was gay didn't make the world a better place. I mean, it caused him to commit suicide. I'll bet that prohibiting Savita Halappanavar Ireland from having an abortion, causing her to die in childbirth, really enhanced the quality of life of all of her loved ones. In the end, neither party's life was preserved as a result of this dis-allowance of autonomy. So...that was effective.
If people are allowed to have freedom of speech such that we cannot legally punish offensive messages such as these, then bodily autonomy should be a given as well. You cannot choose one over the other. Not how it works. Sorry.
I am SO SORRY that my "ugly" tattoo forcibly turned your eyes to look at it and offended you. Please, forgive me. I'll be sure to ask your approval of the next one before I get it done. Better yet, let's hold a public vote so that I don't accidentally offend anyone with my barbed wire arm tattoo.
Good? Good.
Tuesday 10 February 2015
Cultural Psychology for my WEIRD mind
In cultural psychology, being WEIRD is something most of us probably cannot avoid. The acronym describes people from a Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic society. Most of you reading this blog will fit into that category. This is relevant to what I'm about to talk about because most of us Westerners hold a drastically different perspective of our world than do people of East Asian cultures. Specifically, the literature shows that there is a tendency for East Asians to hold a more holistic worldview such that they expect life to be made up of both positive and negative things. Think, yin and yang type mentality. In contrast, most Westerners believe that life should be made up of primarily positive events, leading us to see more of these things in our daily lives and hold more optimistic visions of our futures.
How likely do you think it is that you will be diagnosed with some type of cancer in your lifetime?
How likely do you think it is for the average person to be diagnosed with some type of cancer in their lifetime?
If you're like most people, your answers to these questions are quite different. Specifically, you've underestimated how likely it is for you to be diagnosed with cancer compared to the probability of someone else obtaining that diagnosis. (Statistically speaking, you are more likely to be average rather than above average so these probabilities should not differ).
In our individualistic culture, this is beneficial to your well-being because it keeps you from becoming too demoralized to go on living when you're less likely than our East Asian counterparts to receive social support in your down-times. In most non-Western cultures, interdependency is the norm and people can and do rely on one another to maintain their well-being as a collective.
However, this bias to expect mostly positive events has been getting me down lately. In the past few weeks, I've dealt with a dead pet cat, a car with crapped out brake lights, the same car breaking down in the middle of an intersection mere days after spending 150 bucks on it at the shop, wiping out epically on my way to the bus stop, briefly losing my purse at the ballroom, a buttload of midterms, overwhelming school assignments, and a neck pain that even the best muscle relaxants can't seem to kill.
I'm having trouble seeing the positive side of these events.
So, I'm doing what we all do when we experience some uncomfortable cognitive dissonance... I'm reframing my attitudes.
I've decided to take a page out of the East Asian book and am learning how to take the good with the bad in life. So yeah, I'm feeling burnt out and overwhelmed. Life keeps throwing curveballs when I'm trying to study for midterms. But these things happen and all I can do is accept them and move on.
So, I'm accepting these things, but I'm also accepting and recognizing the positives. For example, reading week is almost upon us and I'll be headed to Seattle for some epic dancing, I didn't die in that intersection Sunday night even though my car tried its best to make it happen, I won a free coffee with the Timmie's Roll up the Rim event, and I still have access to a Keurig coffee machine.
Things could always be worse. Look on the bright side of life. Etc. etc. But also keep in mind that shit happens and Murphy's law still exists. If you don't, you might just be extra disappointed when things go wrong...because they WILL go wrong.
It all balances out eventually. Stay strong, peeps!
How likely do you think it is that you will be diagnosed with some type of cancer in your lifetime?
How likely do you think it is for the average person to be diagnosed with some type of cancer in their lifetime?
If you're like most people, your answers to these questions are quite different. Specifically, you've underestimated how likely it is for you to be diagnosed with cancer compared to the probability of someone else obtaining that diagnosis. (Statistically speaking, you are more likely to be average rather than above average so these probabilities should not differ).
In our individualistic culture, this is beneficial to your well-being because it keeps you from becoming too demoralized to go on living when you're less likely than our East Asian counterparts to receive social support in your down-times. In most non-Western cultures, interdependency is the norm and people can and do rely on one another to maintain their well-being as a collective.
However, this bias to expect mostly positive events has been getting me down lately. In the past few weeks, I've dealt with a dead pet cat, a car with crapped out brake lights, the same car breaking down in the middle of an intersection mere days after spending 150 bucks on it at the shop, wiping out epically on my way to the bus stop, briefly losing my purse at the ballroom, a buttload of midterms, overwhelming school assignments, and a neck pain that even the best muscle relaxants can't seem to kill.
I'm having trouble seeing the positive side of these events.
So, I'm doing what we all do when we experience some uncomfortable cognitive dissonance... I'm reframing my attitudes.
I've decided to take a page out of the East Asian book and am learning how to take the good with the bad in life. So yeah, I'm feeling burnt out and overwhelmed. Life keeps throwing curveballs when I'm trying to study for midterms. But these things happen and all I can do is accept them and move on.
So, I'm accepting these things, but I'm also accepting and recognizing the positives. For example, reading week is almost upon us and I'll be headed to Seattle for some epic dancing, I didn't die in that intersection Sunday night even though my car tried its best to make it happen, I won a free coffee with the Timmie's Roll up the Rim event, and I still have access to a Keurig coffee machine.
Things could always be worse. Look on the bright side of life. Etc. etc. But also keep in mind that shit happens and Murphy's law still exists. If you don't, you might just be extra disappointed when things go wrong...because they WILL go wrong.
It all balances out eventually. Stay strong, peeps!
Monday 5 January 2015
"Transition" Is A Dirty Word
I hate transitions. I dread the New Year must-change-everything-about-myself flip outs. I cannot stand the freak outs over a new school semester. Even people coming off of a holiday break and going back into their regular work routine drive me bonkers. Don't even get me started on new jobs, new relationships, important life events, etc.
Change is scary. I get it. I freak out too. Oh my gosh, it's 2015. I should lose weight. Get a haircut. Pierce my eyebrow. I should quit my job and go back to school. I'll write a blog. I'm only going to eat organic. I'm going to travel the world. I should really conquer all of my fears at the same time and take on a completely random hobby because I haven't done anything substantial in the past decade. Holy-crap-what-am-I-doing-with-my-life-I've-never-won-an-Olympic-medal!!
It's like the "what-the-hell" effect stopped counting calories and overdid it on everyone's ambition at the same time.
But humans are creatures of habit. So the insane amount of anxiety that accompanies this kind of change is not exactly a pleasant thing to experience AT THE SAME TIME AS EVERYONE ELSE IN A FRENZIED MOB OF CHAOS.
Self-improvement is awesome. It's something we should all be striving for. But let's not crash diet our way into depression, people. When was the last time you jumped from the bottom stair all the way to the top in one leap? I'm betting you had to walk up the stairs no more than 2 at a time. You may have even crawled. It was probably not the fastest means to your end and it might have frustrated the crap out of you...but you got there, right? You weren't juggling and singing in Cantonese while you climbed up those stairs either. One thing at a time, one step at a time.
You're going to have a new routine in 2 weeks anyway.
Change is scary. I get it. I freak out too. Oh my gosh, it's 2015. I should lose weight. Get a haircut. Pierce my eyebrow. I should quit my job and go back to school. I'll write a blog. I'm only going to eat organic. I'm going to travel the world. I should really conquer all of my fears at the same time and take on a completely random hobby because I haven't done anything substantial in the past decade. Holy-crap-what-am-I-doing-with-my-life-I've-never-won-an-Olympic-medal!!
It's like the "what-the-hell" effect stopped counting calories and overdid it on everyone's ambition at the same time.
But humans are creatures of habit. So the insane amount of anxiety that accompanies this kind of change is not exactly a pleasant thing to experience AT THE SAME TIME AS EVERYONE ELSE IN A FRENZIED MOB OF CHAOS.
Self-improvement is awesome. It's something we should all be striving for. But let's not crash diet our way into depression, people. When was the last time you jumped from the bottom stair all the way to the top in one leap? I'm betting you had to walk up the stairs no more than 2 at a time. You may have even crawled. It was probably not the fastest means to your end and it might have frustrated the crap out of you...but you got there, right? You weren't juggling and singing in Cantonese while you climbed up those stairs either. One thing at a time, one step at a time.
You're going to have a new routine in 2 weeks anyway.
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