aminaswriting

[aminaswriting]

20 things I learned at 20

1. Not every message deserves a reply.

2. Take a step back.

3. Set your boundaries and stick to them. The people that love you will respect them, those that don’t shouldn’t be in your life anyway.

4. Time apart is good!

5. Sitting at a restaurant alone is amazing.

6. A few good friends > a large group of superficial acquaintances.

7. The pleasure in waiting pays off when you get what you want in the end.

8. Don’t beat yourself up for embarrassing moments.

9. You cannot vacation away your problems.

10. You don’t have to be kind to everyone. Some people are fucking assholes.

11. It is okay to fall out of friendship with people.

12. Strength training is better than cardio, but cardio is still fun.

13. It’s okay to go ghost for a day to anyone that is not your kid.

14. Sitting next to bodies of water gives a surreal kind of peace nothing else can give you.

15. Carrie was the villain of her own story and a terrible friend. Don’t be like her.

16. Don’t tell everyone everything. There’s something special about keeping things inside.

17. People look up to you, even if you don’t believe it.

18. You can try to hide the past but it doesn’t change it.

19. Rory should have said yes to Logan. Dean turned out to be a complete ass. Jess didn’t deserve her in season 7.

20. Leave it open.

[aminaswriting]

Don't Get Caught in A Bad Romance

Previously on my blog I’ve written about why the nice guy is not really a nice guy. While it takes maturity to realize this, it also takes quite a bit of time to realize why people continue to date or befriend bad people. This article just focuses on dating but of course, being in relationships with people that deserve you happens in platonic, romantic, and familial relationships as well. Just why do people stay around toxic individuals?

No matter how I think of it, it's connected to the inherent savior complex people have. For women, this is usually tied to the idea of the inherent need to "fix people" or the "motherly nature" tied to the feminine side of women. It is also tied to the thrill people get. There is a need to see where it goes, if you can make a dead flower bloom, or just how toxic the pair will turn out to be.

Just take Lady Gaga’s song “Bad Romance” that continues to stick with fans to this day. She wants to be with this toxic person, everything that is bad about them, and see where it goes. It is a catchy song, but not a good experience for people in real life.

With the rise of twitter accounts creating and normalizing posts such as:

It is imperative that more people are aware of the relationships that they come into. Although it may be a temporary viral joke on the internet, toxic relationships are scarring and hurting many people throughout the world.

Many people ask, why do people get into toxic relationships? And the answer is that they didn’t know the relationship was going to end up this way. Yes, there are a million signs. Yes, there are red flags. But like Taylor Swift says, when you’re 15 (or maybe 21, 45, 87, etc) and someone tells you they love you, you’re going to believe them. Ultimately, it is up to the person to determine for themselves what kind of love they want. It takes a certain kind of courage to look at someone you loved, or thought loved you, and tell them goodbye.

However, the impact of any relationship changes you, even changing these people to be toxic in their next partnership.

Scientific research has been conducted to show that wanting to be with these toxic partners results in the non-toxic partner to adopt their toxic traits, raising the possibility of damaging future partnerships. In fact, “in romantic relationships, individuals merge aspects of their partner's self-concept with their own” to make sure that they can “potentially draw them closer to a desired potential partner” (Slotter and Gardner 1174). While it may seem that one must be like their partner to avoid being dumped, this should not be normalized and it can actually lead to the opposite. Those negative traits probably come from a place of insecurity the person might have and can even make the person not be with the one adopting them. This connects to Carl Jung’s famous theory of shadow work and the concept of “what you don’t like in others is what you reject within yourself.”

On a younger scale, adolescents are usually found in these toxic relationships. In the study written by Soller it was shown that “relationship demands, coupled with desires to gain partner approval, may suppress authenticity and promote behavior that reflects what adolescents perceive relationship partners wish to observe” (56). Instead of being open and being who they are, just like the previous study, these individuals seek approval from their partner and it goes hand in hand with the stage of adolescence which is “storm and stress” making them compromise their well-being. This causes increase in suicidal thoughts, damage to familial relationships and friendships, as well as an increase in depression for adolescents. It also increases the risk of sexual intercourse which is linked to increase in depression among adolescents (Soller 57). In a society that has repeatedly pushed the "coolness" of casual sex, living in this world as a teenager is like getting shot at in every possible place. As if missing prom because of COVID was not enough, we have idiots on the internet boasting about their toxic relationships and casual sex as something to be jealous about.

This is not to say that people shouldn't have casual sex. By all means, go ahead. But it is no one else's fault for the way that those who contribute to casual sex culture end up. Ultimately, their fate is in their hands and this article should just be something to make them think twice. Casual sex is an easy gateway to entering bad romances and should not be taken as the "best" thing to do to avoid being hurt or attached. Being abstinent, being single, or just not engaging in these kinds of relationships is cool as well and it is not talked about enough.

In the end, the romantic past, present, and future of an individual is to the person's own discretion. How you choose your partners is up to you, nobody else. Who you decide to surround yourself with is in your hands. Just be careful who you let into your circle or else you will be singing tearfully to the Lady Gaga song.

Citations:

Mackinnon, Sean P., et al. “Caught in a Bad Romance: Perfectionism, Conflict, and Depression in Romantic Relationships.” APA PsycArticles, vol. 26, no. 2, 2012.

Slotter, Erica, and Wendi Gardner. “The dangers of dating the “bad boy” (or girl): When does romantic desire encourage us to take on the negative qualities of potential partners?” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 48, no. 5, 1178, p. 1173.

Soller, Brian. “Caught in a Bad Romance: Adolescent Romantic Relationships and Mental Health.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior, vol. 55, no. 1, 2014, pp. 55-72. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43186880.

[aminaswriting]

Winter Sunset

Two people sit in a diner

Overlooking West Hartford

She stares at him

While he scopes the city

And the girl joked the jokes

That made her sound so witty

Two people sit in a car

Drifting through the interstate

Neither of them hesitate

Singing along to their

Favorite Sinan Sakic song

She hasn’t been this happy

In so long

Two people sit on the River bed

Looking over placid water

Laughing over small things

His laugh playing a rhythm

On her heart strings

You can hear it in the silence

You can hear it in their laughter

One that makes the man wheeze

And the girl cry with joy

You can see it in their footprints

Painting a cold world

With a warmth never felt before

She turned to him and said,

You’re like a winter sunset

Unexpected but magnificent

Something people only dream about

You’re my winter sunset

Something I’ve been waiting for.

[aminaswriting]

Star of CCSU: James J. Maloney

As students stand in front of Maloney Hall, they often do not consider how the building got its name. James Maloney was a Hollywood actor that used to teach at CCSU. He starred in shows like “The Twilight Zone” and “Tales of Tomorrow.” He was significant for his many years of teaching at CCSU and his contributions to the arts. He was also a native to New Britain, CT. He participated in all kinds of town events such as giving program readings to juniors and seniors in New Britain High School and participating in the Women’s Club events in the neighboring town of Newington, as recorded within the Hartford Courant.  He was truly an important person in his community.

The building dedicated to Maloney is located on the corner of Stanley and Wells Street, right across from the Welte garage building. It is the center of Fine Arts and hosts a number of different classes as well as artistic events throughout the year.  The original building was built in 1921 for student teaching labs, but it was originally built in the same style as Davidson and Marcus White. However, it was abandoned for quite some time until it was restored into an Arts and Theatre building. It now has a modern art kind of structure covering the original brick which is still shown around the frame of the doors. The building was dedicated March 14, 1990, and memorialized after Maloney, who died in 1978.

During this time the United States and many other countries were welcoming women to the workforce where they were breaking barriers never seen before, and the Reagan administration was dealing with the AIDS epidemic as well as carrying on the war on drugs started by Nixon. All these events happening did not stop the school from paying attention to the education of their students, which included fixing this building. From an analytic view, it is not relative to the world events why this building was dedicated at this time. However, it was time for the building to have a new name, and having it named after someone who contributed so greatly to the area of Greater Hartford made the most sense.

Although it is honorable to have a building named after you, CCSU could do better at educating their students about who this person was. After a closer look at James Maloney, it is clear that he loved acting and the arts so much that he was willing to postpone retirement to continue teaching. Having the experience, he had must have shaped many students’ lives for this whole building to be dedicated to him. Additionally, it is obvious his efforts helped push those who wanted to act, to act because if the teaching was not successful, the building would be dedicated to someone else or simply called the Arts Building.

I think the next person we should name a building after is President Toro. I think that she represents a whole new generation of educators. First, she is the first female to be in her position. Secondly, she is the first Latinx-American to be in her position as well. These are huge breakthroughs as we remember how hard it used to be for women to join the workforce in the beginning let alone minority women.

[aminaswriting]

Introduction

Thank you for picking up this book. I hope you enjoy it. I spent three weeks in Montenegro the summer before my junior year in college, and a week the summer before senior year of high school. I really never see this place, or Montenegro in general, mentioned in any media. I really would love to shoot a movie there but this book could suffice.

::::::HOWEVER:::::

All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

If you do not know where Plav is, please look at a map of Montenegro and see it is nearly on the cusp of Albania. Do not make any judgements of a place you don't know without being there at least once. If you ever have the chance to go, please spend a night. Your life will change forever.

Additionally, there might be some words in Montenegrin, please look at the translations on the bottom.

Veliki pozdrav za one iz plava <3

Big hello for all those from Plav <3

[aminaswriting]

A Blue Summer

"A Blue Summer" unveils the story of Hana, a girl spending the summer in a far away city in Montenegro, and her discoveries of what her father left behind. Faced with her own emotional turmoil, a strange city boy, and newly learned traditions, she gains lessons from this summer she can never forget.

[aminaswriting]

sanjam te sanjam, skoro svake noći, samo si ti u srcu mom

[aminaswriting]

Voliš mi se u Sarajevskom tramvaju,

ne pitaj me zašto baš tu,

ne znam da ti odgovorim,

samo znam

da želim

nas dvoje

u Sarajevu.

—

[aminaswriting]

"A Blue Summer" unveils the story of Asma, a girl spending the summer in a far away city in Montenegro, and her discoveries of what her father left behind. Faced with her own emotional turmoil, a strange city boy, and newly learned traditions, she gains lessons from this summer she can never forget.

[aminaswriting]

i cant wait for fall. when the nights are cold and there are no mosquitoes trying to eat away at you as you sit on the porch at 2 in the morning listening to your favorite guitar songs. when you can drink that hot tea and watch the leaves change colors. its magical.

[aminaswriting]

The Last Lap (on Wattpad) https://my.w.tt/5Rl06ZlknW

Ema Muratovic is 17 years old and the ambitious daughter of Bosnian immigrant parents. She has two goals during her senior year; get a chance to win states for indoor track and break the barrier between her nearly all-white high school, Westbrook High, and the neighboring town’s Timothy High School. These goals are not easy to achieve. Along the way, she realizes the immense sacrifices that she has to make for the betterment of herself and other people.

[aminaswriting]

you deserve someone who’s gonna treat you like you matter everyday. Not just when it’s convenient for them.

[aminaswriting]

Budi lep, budi jak, za sve druge mrak

nemoj da me brukaš

i da umrem ti ja ni to nije znak,

da treba da kukaš

samo napravi krug, za minut si tu

do našeg starog kraja

tu te čekaju još, dve karte za nas do izgubljenog raja

[aminaswriting]

izgubila sam se

ne znam gdje sam krenula

ali tu sam

sjedim pokraj tebe

i slušam te

ali kao da me nema

nisam tu

odlutala sam

negdje daleko

i ne znam kada ću se vratiti

ponovno biti ona stara ja

i ne znam kako

kako da se nađem

prije nego odem

daleko od svega

da uhvatim i posljednji korak

i okrenem se

i vratim

samoj sebi.

/polakoumirem

[aminaswriting]

što te nema?

jebote, kada razmislim nije te nikada ni bilo.

nisam te nikada ni imala.

/polakoumirem

[aminaswriting]

Two girls, bound to one country

Headed in a crowded van full of cigarette smoke

Towards the place where their parents once lived humbly

A town nestled in the corner of black and white mountains

A town not well known but whose citizens’ accent sounds like home

One small city filled with mystique

A place where all will have you critiqued in an instant

Surrounded by black mountains covered with snow in summer

Accentuated by a blue lake with enough beauty to drown you

Two girls find solitude during summer in a dusty, small city

When they are accustomed to yellow cabs and running fire hydrants

Two girls surrounded by chain-smokers and empty espresso cups

Left without cell phone signal

But who needs the internet

When you have true human connection

And unforgettable sunsets

And tall, historic minarets?

Plav and Gusinje

A place where even the hearts of two american girls

Are filled with affection

In the summer, where there is no need for introspection.

[aminaswriting]

"A Blue Summer" unveils the story of Asma, a girl spending the summer in a far away city in Montenegro, and her discoveries of what her father left behind. Faced with her own emotional turmoil, a strange city boy, and newly learned traditions, she gains lessons from this summer she can never forget.