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[its8simplejulesblog]

Quite Honestly I Sometimes Feel Like

DA kindergarten teacher addressing literal children, but I feel like SOME people need this reminder every once in a while. COVID sucks, I get it, I promise that I understand what it’s like to have things cancelled and feel depressed because I miss my friends and seem a little bit hopeless and worried about the uncertain future. And, while I recognize that there are people out there doing their part, let me just quickly address the people that aren’t.

Let me just start by saying that there is no such thing as a perfect human. I still go out and see my friends and sometimes take my mask off when I shouldn’t. However, the difference between a socially conscious individual and an, objectively speaking, blatant egoist, is when you don’t even try, not at all, to be considerate of the situation we’re in. 

When you think about the definition of integrity, it’s doing the right thing when no one is watching. Granted, that can be a little bit tricky when “the right thing” is highly subjective, but I would argue that in this situation it’s really not. The right thing is wearing a mask: and when you need to take it off, assess that it’s safe to do so,The right thing is putting your entitlement aside and not partying constantly and recklessly even though I know that is what most of us want to do (college students man)

At this point I’m sure some people would say, “Julia...I’ve SEEN you at a house party.” To which I’d reply, yes.. you did, but what you didn’t see was the conversation beforehand about the previous testing of the people at the party and the precautions that were taken to limit everyone’s exposure. Everyone was tested within the incubation period because we are cautious and following science (wow, no way). 

Maybe that leads me into my next thing. One: in Delaware, testing is readily available and results are quick and accurate. I am so thankful for that. I know that in other states that isn’t the case and I’m sure it’s a pain, but it is absolutely imperative that people are tested frequently and accurately. I don’t mean tested five weeks before you go out and party, I mean within the incubation period. 

Two: remember that you are never in a place to judge. I often feel like I fail at this. I get angry when people judge me, but it’s still so easy to judge others. No one is morally righteous. If you care about other people’s health, fantastic for you (as you should), but I promise that yelling and screaming and making assumptions about the character of others is unwarranted (unless they’re Donald Trump or someone explicitly tells you that they don’t care about the virus or their actions CLEARLY imply this)

It is no one’s job to be the social justice police. I promise if you call me a stupid idiot for taking my mask off to take a single picture with my friends it’s not going to motivate me to be more health conscious, it’ll just make me hate you. 

So there definitely is a fine line between educating and accusing. Only you, as an individual, know your heart and know what you want to represent so just represent that. I know that it’s hard for me because every time I go out now, even if I KNOW I’m being safe, I’m always worried that I’ll be labeled as a hypocrite, but it shouldn’t really matter because I know what I do to prepare behind the scenes. 

Three: I’d just like to say that it is factually inaccurate that the virus is “less airborne than people think”. It is, in fact, mid fall, nearing flu season. Scientifically speaking, quite the opposite is true. The virus will absolutely be more airborne than before. While not “proven” necessarily, theories contend that flu season and the more frequent spread of viruses occur in the winter because

1.) We are in close indoor contact to others, therefore catching an airborne virus due to close contact is more likely.

2.) The short winter days lead to a lack of vitamin D and melatonin, resulting in a compromised immune system. 

3.) Some viruses actually thrive in cold, dry environments. 

 Therefore, “more” or “less” airborne is irrelevant. The fact that it’s airborne at all is all the justification you need to be cautious. The alleviated risk of it being “less” airborne is again expanded by other factors, so that excuse really won’t work on me. 

Four: Be careful how you deal with statistics. The must dangerous thing you can do is merge your own confirmation bias with stat. I am very clearly not a genius, but I have worked with many a stat project and I know how easy it is to manipulate numbers in your favor. Check your sources constantly. If you’re just throwing out survival rates  without the ability to tell me the where, how, and what..don’t even throw them out to begin with. Remember, even if there WAS a 99.9% survival rate and we multiplied that .01% of deaths by the current number of (WHO reported) deaths, that is STILL 77,747 deaths. Doesn’t seem as irrelevant now, does it? 

Similarly, why discount the number of people that are suffering with the ability to breathe or preform essentially bodily tasks solely because they aren’t dead. Why are we only reporting on the number dead, and not the number suffering in general (which is a lot higher). Again, I never want to generalize, but it SEEMS like face value empathy as a bear minimum is severely lacking. 

Unfortunately, it seems like we are at the point where we have one of two options: ignore the very clear plea of the scientifically knowledgable about preventative measures to overcome this, or continue upon the fantasy that this will go away on its own.

Trust me when I say that I understand the hopelessness that everyone is feeling. I have had nights where I thought, “well, everyone is breaking the rules anyway and this will never go away so I might as well do what I want.” But, if everyone thinks that way it truly never will go away. Instead, as hard as it is, I’m just going to try to do what’s right.  It makes me so sad and angry to see people so disgustingly manifesting their selfishness like this and it is unfortunately changing my opinions in terms of people that I want to hang out with once this is over, as drastic as that may sound. 

In my opinion, it is our moral responsibility to care for others. And, even though I previously said that it is no one’s responsibility to be the moral police, I do think ignoring or belittling the severity of this virus is a disgustingly inhumane trait. And while it is not my place to tell others what to do, it SHOULD be obvious.

And the fact that it’s not is at the very heart of our most primitive egotism, and it’s not a good look. 

[its8simplejulesblog]

When I Was Six Years Old

I got my “fortune told” in China, however I hate using that term because I think it’s disrespectful to what it really was which is a Taoist/Buddhist practice called Kau Chim. Kau Chim is essentially a “lottery poetry,” where an individual is presented with a woven basket full of sticks. Each of the sticks is inscribed with a fortune, but is “transcribed” according to the oversight of an oracle (in other words it’s fancy). So you may be thinking, “how do you even know this happened if you were six?” To which I would respond to you: my parents recorded MY ENTIRE childhood through pictures and video. I could almost monologue it for you hehe (don’t ask me to). And yet, of ALL of the hours and hours of footage of me growing up, this was the ONE video that I’ve thought about every single day of my life since rewatching it a few years ago. I’ll tell you about it.

Just to reiterate, this video alone is one of the biggest reasons why China has such a strong place in my heart. It may be a smidgen dramatic, and I can’t say that I’m not skeptical of anything of the “fortune telling” variety, because it’s generally pretty vague, but this experience still affects me 15 years later. 

And before you ask, at the time we were with my uncle and he’s native born Chinese, so while the oracles fortunes were ridiculously detailed, it’s not like, at least in my opinion, this was some cheesy tourist trap. He rattled off in Chinese like he was speaking from God himself haha (or maybe I mean the Buddha..I don’t know) 

Anyway, the video flicks on and my brother and I are sitting in front of an oracle (he just looks like a monk) and my brother is sitting in front of a table draped in a red cloth with countless pieces of white cloth with Chinese characters written on each. My brother has picked a stick, and momentarily, the oracle begins speaking while my uncle (he wasn’t my uncle at the time though, long story) begins to translate. He says that my brother will find great occupational success. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be traditional, but he will find it in his own, creative way (there was more to it, but I can’t quite remember). It was so fun to watch the video and hear everyone in the background say “ooo” and “oh that makes sense” and all the normal things people say during fortune telling..I think? 

Anyway it was clear that my brother was intrigued by the story of his future and naturally I was too. Therefore, being the impatient little girl I was a snapped right awake when it was my turn to pick a stick. The video shows me thinking about it very carefully (duh, this is my future of course) and almost picking one and then deciding against it multiple times until I finally picked one. I shuffled over to the oracle (I clearly look a little scared of him) and he gets working on the transcription. My uncle is patiently waiting to the side to tell us what he says and we all anticipate a speed response. 

But it doesn’t come. 

If you were to watch the video it’s even awkward to watch. When I watched it with my family not long ago, again, there was even STILL an awkward silence in the air. You can see me restlessly kicking my legs back and forth (because my feet didn’t touch the ground) and over and over I look at my dad and the camera because, as previously mentioned, I’m not the most patient six year old ever. 

It truly was agonizing, that wait. It almost made me thought that the man forgot how to read or something. And you may be thinking, “Julia, you’re probably making this more dramatic than it actually was,” and maybe there’s some truth to that, but ask anyone in my family and they will confirm that it took an abnormal amount of time for this man to decipher the future of the six year old in front of him. 

Finally, he begins to speak: softly, but a LOT. I half anticipated a scribe behind me to publish a novel or something, so, for that reason, I expected my uncle to speak just as much but again 

He didn’t. 

He said: “He says that Julia will be successful too, but it will be different. She’ll be happy and she’ll do well, but they’ll be an event in her life that leaves her on her own.” 

And I just- I was six...

And the reason why I think about this so often is because I replay over and over again the face that I made at my dad and the camera when I heard those words. I genuinely looked so confused. I wasn’t expecting to hear anything like that. But I wasn’t sad, I just didn’t get it. But I get it now. 

My uncle kept speaking: he said that I would be on my own, but not “lonely,” just independent. In fact, he said “extremely independent” and then I smiled, because that changed everything. 

When you’re “lonely,” I always like to point out, it’s not the same as being alone. I feel like people don’t understand that. I mean..I didn’t when I was six. Lonely is when you speak and no one listens, you have no socialization, it’s depressing. However, “alone,” alone can be pretty powerful. On your own, alone, and independent hold hands in my mind. That connotation is one of control. If you so desperately need to be around people then you will find a way. If you need someone around for your validation, communication, protection, or support you can get it if you really need it. 

However, it’s a choice. I don’t need it. 

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I would never devalue the importance of relationships in my life, I just think that this video is so important to me and I would never realize why until 15 years later. 

We’re humans- social creatures- if you will, and as they say, “you’re never alone,” but that’s not true. Because in reality you are alone a lot. You make decisions by yourself, you have to validate yourself and define your own success. You have to recognize that you really don’t need another person to do those things for you and it’s a weakness to think that you do. 

As I grew up, quite honestly, I forgot about that oracle. I forgot about some parts of that China trip. I lived my life. I went to school, I fell in love with school and learning, I traveled more and learned new languages and danced in recitals and did robotics. 

And I attached myself to my relationships. My friends and family and boyfriends. If you know me at all you know how imperative their maintenance is to me. In fact, I maintained them a little too much, to the point where I lost sight of who I was (the peanut gallery is rolling their eyes right now haha).

But it’s true, it’s such an easy thing to do. There were times that I felt guilty traveling and doing things that I really wanted to do. There were times when I was distracted during school, and I stopped dancing and robotics eventually ended and I threw everything I had into my relationships..truly everything. 

And it’s in moments of you life like that, 15 years later, where you find a tape that tells you that you’ve done something wrong. Again, believe in fortune telling or not, but that tape knocked the wind out of me because I realized that I want to be the person he described. Not once did he say that I would be lonely and sad and depressed, but instead on my own, yet extremely independent and successful, in my own way. 

So I switched my perspective and I latched on to that. Does it mean I toss my relationships out the window? Mmmm, no. But what is does mean is that I need to recognize that lonely and alone are different. I can choose to be depressed and sad when no one else is around or I can be tranquil knowing that Julia, the individual, is pretty fu**ing dope. 

And when I look back at some of the things I’ve done..just ME..I’m pretty proud. To travel alone and go to school and transfer schools and grow up and breakdown and rebuild and meet new people and try new things and fail and try again, that’s impressive. 

I’m not going to say that there weren’t times when I was lonely, it’s hard not to be when you’re traditionally a friend-group jumper, but I wouldn’t change it, because the oracle told me not to (okay, I sound crazy :) ). 

I know that people always say that you have to learn to love yourself before you love anyone else and I hadn’t given myself enough time for that. It’s been 15 years and I still haven’t (have I mentioned I’m impatient). But I get it now, I do. 

So hey six year old Julia, I know this wasn’t what you were expecting but I promise it will only get better, then it will get worse, then it will get better, then it’ll get WAYYYYY worse, but then it’ll get so much better...

Frankly, the cycle won’t end, but the way you push through it will. You are “extremely independent” after all, Chinese oracle man said so, so it must be true.

And if it’s not, just make it so. 

[its8simplejulesblog]

This Will Be Brief

Today my cousin (who is in fourth grade) mentioned that a friend of hers (in fifth grade) had “The Talk” today. And it flew me into a frenzy. First, because I still see her as a baby in my head and it makes me feel so old to see my cousins growing and talking about bum bum buhhhhhhh... sex and puberty. Second, because it made me reflect on my own experience in that regard. 

Listed below are short summaries of the health classes I had throughout middle school and highschool 

1.) All we did was watch supersize me in this class

2.) This class was all about “loving the way God made me” (it was a private, christian school) and all we did was go around saying things like “I like my eyes, but I don’t like my hair...” 

3.) In highschool we learned male and female anatomy which was at least a step in the right direction but it was very brief, we then spent the same amount of time learning how to preform the Heimlich maneuver to the beat of “Staying Alive” haha. 

Great, so clearly I was prepared for college..

When we look at today’s discussions about abortion. THESE are the types of conversations we need to have. Why do unwanted pregnancies happen in the first place. Of course, there are a multitude of reasons, but a lack of education is huge. On paper it looked like I got everything I needed, but really, I have only my mom to thank for not preventing me from freaking out when I got my period and introducing me to resources that ACTUALLY taught me how to be safe and healthy. 

Abortion is very complex, and it’s not my main focus here. In a more general sense, I really just wish we taught kids how to be safe from the youngest age possible. I looked it up, and the AVERAGE age that people lose their virginity is 17 and in case you don’t know how averages work, that means an approximate half lose it younger. 

The societal stigma is grueling. If you don’t lose it quick you’re a god damn loser. It’s a real pressure that teens feel constantly and lately I’ve been hearing that the average age keeps getting lower and lower for that exact reason. Therefore, we toss a lot of uneducated kids into the real world far too quickly. According to the CDC, in 2017, 194,377 babies were born to mothers aged 15-19. Sure, in the grand scheme of things that’s not a whole lot, but imagine yourself with that responsibility at that age, no no no thanks (unless you plan it, then do you I guess)

And it’s not just pregnancies as a result, we’re talking STI’s and financial wreckage and broken relationships and in severe cases, self harm or suicide of teens that can’t handle the consequences of a seemingly temporary choice. Because when I think about my experience I can see that even at my decently expensive middle school and notably prestigious highschool I still wasn’t prepared, I can’t even imagine the circumstances elsewhere. 

And again, I never wish to discount the hardships that males face in life, but the toll on a women during an unplanned pregnancy is really heartbreaking, especially if they are left alone to handle it. 

So, with that being said, I really wish that my cousin is taught well. If she’s not, I’ll teach her myself and answer any questions she may have. I feel like it’s that much more important lately that girls have someone (besides their parents) that they feel comfortable talking to. 

And with the way my life has been lately, nothing is an uncomfortable topic for me anymore..and that’s how it needs to be. The second you stigmatize something, the more you make it unapproachable, and these very natural, very delicate aspects of our lives and bodies should not and can not be ignored. 

And with that, I’ll add that I really wish people just respected their own bodies more. That’s really what health is about, not what’s “taboo” and what’s not. If our bodies are “temples” and knowledge is our most valuable resource then what the heck are we doing consecrating our temples with shitty facts. 

And on that note, think about the fact that the people making legal decisions about these “temples” probably got the same crappy education as you, if not worse (because they’re old) 

Hopefully you take the time in the future to prevent this widespread ignorance from becoming the norm. I don’t know about you, but I know that a staggering percentage of Americans can’t even name our first president so I’m wary about them deciding how my body can and cannot function thanks...

-Julia 

[its8simplejulesblog]

I Always Tell My Friends That I

Only write posts when something specific inspires me or something is prominently on my mind. That way the content is genuine and presently meaningful and I’m not just writing for the sake of getting something out there on a schedule. 

Right now it’s the month of September, Suicide Prevention Month, and while I know that the topic is heavy, I was inspired to write this today because I got a very random and very temporary wave of depression a few minutes ago and I wanted to channel that energy into something productive rather than sit in it moping. 

I used to struggle a lot with this inherent feeling of never being enough. I think a lot of it was perpetuated by my lifestyle. I always had new interests and was never in one place for a long time so there was constant movement in my life: new friend groups, new extracurricular activities and in college an entirely new school. This was just the way I was: and I hated it. I always felt like I was a step, hop, jump outside of the circle. To be honest, college didn’t change that. While I can say with absolute certainty that I wouldn’t change my college experience or the people I’ve met for anything, I had extreme..EXTREME FOMO (which if you don’t know is the fear of missing out) because I felt like social events were the main way I could redefine my identity in new places. 

And when you boil it down, fomo is entirely rooted in your own internalized validity manifested in whether or not other people invited you to things because as we all know, most of the time it’s “not that deep” and you end up creating such dramatic situations in your head about why you didn’t know about an event blah blah blah and that is almost never the case. However, one of my most distinct memories from college revolves around this very concept. 

I was in my dorm room on a Friday night and I had nothing to do which I DREADED. I was always disgustingly busy because I hated the idea of being stagnant and alone. Well, that night I was alone and I had a very real panic attack because all the friends I reached out to were very busy with other things. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Julia, that’s dramatic” and I know..I know. And yet, I felt like the air was being sucked out of me and I just sobbed because I felt like I wasn’t needed, wanted, or even a thought in anyone’s mind. I cried so hard. It was scary because I remember laying on the floor and I very truthfully could not breathe because on loop I was playing images of everyone else having this perfect college experience that I was CONVINCED I would never have. 

The next few moments were crucial because I immediately became very afraid of myself and what I was going to do with myself in that moment. I don’t know how to describe to you that I remember this night so well because I felt like the definition of the word worthless. 

I ended up calling my mom. And I know that this took so much strength in a way because I had to be very vulnerable with her about how I was feeling and she immediately drove out to take me home. It was maybe 30 minutes later and I was home on my couch and I still couldn’t breathe. It got to the point where I had to sit there while my parents worriedly called the hospital about taking me in. Again, I realize how dramatic this sounds to someone who has never experienced depression or anxiety attacks, but this is a very real thing. 

Fortunately, I was able to calm myself down. Looking at my parent’s faces I knew that there was no point in stressing them out more so I managed to calm myself down. So what was the point of that story? 

Here’s the thing: months before this ever happened I was on a spring break trip with one of my best friends. One night I remember getting a call from someone at the time who was quite literally alone in an apartment with a knife in his hands and the fact that he chose to call me to talk him out of it was something I will never forget. At the time I was seven states away from him and I sat in the hotel hallway for maybe an hour and a half convincing him he had worth. And yet, I STILL found myself sobbing on my dorm room floor a few months later. 

I know it’s easy to give advice to other people, and see how they are valuable in your life, but it is tenfold harder to convince yourself of your own. Depression is an epidemic (add it to the list) and working towards leaving it behind is one of the longest journey’s you will ever take. I’ve heard too many stories of either friends of friends committing suicide or the husband of my neighbor  or someone’s acquaintance that seemed fine but apparently wasn’t etc etc. 

So there’s your reminder that it can be anyone. The girl that always texts you about how she loves and appreciates you, your friend, or your friend’s dad, the star athlete or the most talented singer. Everyone feels like shit sometimes..it’s just fact. 

I always like to point out the fact that I am not perfect and will never claim to be, but I WILL say that I am very happy and proud to be alive. Even the people that hurt you deserve life. The person who I talked about earlier was my ex boyfriend and while he’s not at the top of my list right now, if he ever called with the same issues again I would handle it exactly the same way. Granted, it’s not my place to talk about his life, but just know that this type of thing is serious enough that sometimes you have to disregard everything you think you know and feel about someone to remind them that in some way they are valuable.

I recently heard a quote that says, “hurt people, hurt people.” And for some reason that popped into my head while typing this. There’s something about someone living in depression and insecurity that is so hard to explain. Because, while you can love and care for them with all of your heart the way of the world is that if they aren’t able to love themselves the same way then it will hurt you at some point. And that goes for everyone that loves and cares about you as well. 

To change the pace a little bit: recently I’ve been thinking about the fact that I haven’t been single like this since 2015. For me, I really can’t lie and say it has been the easiest thing ever because singleness is truthfully THE time when, whether you want to or not, you are forced to recognize your worth because it won’t come from a partner (and the tea is it never should buttttt). 

And it’s hard. A lot of my friends are either dating or married and I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t jealous of the cute pictures and dates and thoughtful gifts and such but I have to remind myself that that really shouldn’t be my priority during this time. In fact, this is the first night in a very long time where I’ve given into the negativity. 

Usually, I can remind myself of how important it is for me to be building other relationships either with my family, friends, myself, and God. Usually I can sit down and convince myself that rushing into something is silly because it will only make things worse because whoever you date is a reflection of you, all of your good things and all of your insecurities and we all know that. 

But, my uncle and I are really close and tonight at dinner he brought up my ex because I tell him everything but we hadn’t been able to talk in a while so he didn’t know the situation and to be real every time someone else (besides me) mentions him I am constantly reminded of how I wasn’t enough for him. Which is so hard when the one person who always convinced you that you were is not there anymore. 

So that’s why I’m writing. Because I know what it’s like to feel like you’re a failure and no one cares about you. I know that it sucks and I also know that it’s not true but that’s not really how these things operate. 

When I sense myself getting depressed it’s like someone is sitting on my lungs because my breath instantly catches. I think really one of the first steps of conquering depression is recognizing that feeling and then before you succumb to it really analyzing why you’re feeling it. 

If I had felt the way I just felt five minutes ago a few months ago I would have cracked. I would have paralyzed myself in worthlessness. Instead, here I am, okay and knowing that I will just carry on. 

I must clarify that I’m not saying that anyone that has committed suicide is weaker or is selfish. I don’t think that those kinds of considerations are available to them at that time. I really think that those types of claims are made by people that have never experienced that feeling and therefore can go through the logical thought process rather than the emotional one.

For that reason, let me drive it into your head how important it is to check on the people you love. And I don’t necessarily mean just a “how are you,” I really mean having a conversation and spending time together. 

If we’re speaking more generally, we have to get to the origins of other pressing issues that can cause suicide: poor methods of acquiring medication and therapy, lack of security either financially or in the home, relationship counseling and education etc. This is a very real thing and with the continuation of this virus I know that the numbers, unfortunately, will only continue to rise. 

I love that September brings awareness to these issues, but consider this your reminder to always be thinking about them once the month is over. I don’t mean fretting about the feelings of everyone around you, but just be on high alert. 

Love you guys 

[its8simplejulesblog]

Today I Made Kale Chips

Which are four words I really never thought I would say, especially considering my track record of eating 2 cans of pringles for dinner and being the type of person that used to make snarky comments about people that ate kale chips (I mean really..you really have NOTHING else to eat??) 

But I made them, and they were FANTASTIC because I put lemon on them and MMM *italian finger kiss*. I even had to shoo away my parents because they kept eating them and I’m bad with sharing food :) 

However, eating kale is just one small thing in the midst of my self-care/wellness journey. I think that my recent breakup mixed with quarantine mixed with a complete and total change in mindset about my worth and what makes me happy has really led to a passionate interest in health and wellness. I’ve recently found myself so interested about the nutrients that I’m putting in my body and how different actions impact my mental health. 

With that being said, I think the most important thing about health and wellness is that the same effects can be reached through multiple different mediums. It’s likely that not everyone is going to enjoy sitting in absolute silence and deep breathing (I know I talked a little bit about that in my previous post about meditation too) but the fun in experimenting with health and wellness is that everything you try is good for you in some way, and when you finally find a routine for yourself there is nothing more gratifying. For that reason, I want to share a little bit about the things that have made me a lot more comfortable and confident in my own skin. 

I think the first two things that people think about when they hear the words health and wellness are working out and eating right. I know that there are SO many people out there telling you what you should and shouldn’t do so that is not what I want you to see this as, but rather just one individual’s story in the pursuit of feeling better about herself. 

For me, I’ve always loved working out. It used to be something I dreaded because my only experience with working out was through organized sports: either being on a soccer or swim team, running cross country, playing tennis etc. All of those sports were sports I liked, to be fair, but at the end of the day I realized that I was just WAY too competitive for a team sport; and I often found that the presence of a lot of other people made me feel worse and worse about my own athletic ability. Again, this is just my own experience. I know there are people who love the motivation and accountability of having others around. For me, not so much. 

Working out has always been a coping mechanism that I’ve always loved, not because of the way it makes me look, but because of the way it makes me feel. Let’s be honest though, it’s a horrible temporary feeling. If you’re running or lifting or holding a pilates pose it can be fricking unbearable and not everyone’s idea of “fun”. “ However, endorphins really are your friend because when you find the type of exercise that you enjoy it will seem more like fun than work. For me, I’ve really come to love pilates (which is essentially yoga, where instead of holding poses you’re constantly moving) and it’s gotten to the point where it’s something I look forward to everyday. I used to tell everyone that I was a runner and I DO enjoy running, but with yoga and pilates it feels like slightly less of a chore. I usually finish out by stretching and fixing my posture because sitting around all day slumped over honestly hurts sometimes now. 

Whenever I feel good after working out it inspires me to take better care of my body in general, which leads me into my next topic of food. In everything I do I alway remind myself that it’s a combination of both mental and physical. Many professionals say that the biggest mistake that people make in terms of working out/ eating right is setting self righteous/ self centered goals like “I just want to look like...” “I just want to be hot/skinny” instead of “I want to be healthy for my body’s sake” “I want to feel accomplished” etc. I’m not going to lie and say that the former two things don’t cross my mind while I’m working out, but my main goal in terms of working out is remaining mentally and physically healthy for my kids and family in the future, and remaining able to do all the small things that I like to do like going on nature walks for as long as I can and am able. 

The same mindset goes with food. In tandem with working out, I think that everyone and their mother knows that you have to eat right. However, the toxicity in terms of diet arrises when you either a.) overgeneralize  b.) scrutinize or c.) polarize. This is what I mean by this. In terms of “fad diets” overgeneralization is the belief that something that works for one person will work for everyone..that’s plain and simply the reason why they’re called “fads”. Diet never has been and never will be universal. That’s why I am often confused by concepts like the paleo diet etc. It really doesn’t seem logical or safe to me. 

On the opposite spectrum is scrutiny. This is where, unfortunately, we see a lot of the eating disorders come in. Personally, I’ve never struggled with an ed but I know plenty of people that have. It’s this mental capacity where you’re constantly judging and picking apart your own journey to the point where you mentally convince your mind and eyes to see yourself differently and it is very scary and very real. Obviously, the individuals that struggle with scrutinizing their eating habits are the only ones that can change their mentality and for that reason I think it’s SO important to validate your friends that you think may be struggling with this. No one knows what they look like to other people so confirming that they look nice today or making cute lil snacks together means so much. Obviously don’t LIE or say self centered things like “wow you look a lot skinnier” because that often strengthens their obsession, so just be careful. People often subscribe to commonly endorsed lies about weight loss that frequently damage their success and mental capacity because they simply don’t work. For example, eating less is not necessarily healthy and doesn’t mean that you’ll lose weight. Eating raw veggies in bulk is not really good for you either. If you look at diet as a systematic purge then it is actually very toxic. Instead, what you need to do is simultaneously forgo certain items while replacing them with others of better nutritional value. It’s a lot of research and experimentation that has caused me to have a growing interest (I say interest and not OBSESSION because if you scour nutrition labels in a worried tizzy then you’ll work yourself into stress which often causes eating issues)  in reading nutrition labels and looking up health benefits of certain foods. 

With polarization you categorize every food as either good or bad, which when you think about it is really silly because in everything there is good and bad. If you think “this is good for me and this is bad for me” then you’ll never eat pizza and brownies and cookies and ice-cream again and idk about you but that looks like a pretty dark world to me. What you really should condition yourself to do instead is weigh the pros and cons of the foods you’re about to eat and instead of forbidding yourself to eat the bad foods, just hold off or eat less of them or eat them less often. Naturally it’s hard at first, but I’ve found that when I drink less soda or eat less ice-cream that when I finally do drink and eat those things they taste a LOT better haha. 

I know that a lot of people use the excuse that healthy food is expensive and it is and capitalism sucks, I understand; but what I’ve done (and you can do too) is just TRY a little. Ridiculous I know, but all you need to do is search up “2 or 3 ingredient, healthy meals/ snacks/ desserts” etc. and there are SO many options. I was honestly shocked at how easy it was to make food that was so good considering how unmotivated I can be to cook sometimes. It’s almost become like a game/experiment to me. 

I know I talk about perspective and psychology and how I’m feeling a lot in my blog, but I’ve realized that the two concepts I’ve mentioned above in terms of working out and eating right are so foundational to everything else. When you condition yourself to have realistic and selfless goals to a pursuit of something other than a societally driven self image, you’ll come to realize how imperative that is to your mental health. 

In fact, I can’t emphasize how true it is to take care of yourself for your own benefit FIRST and everything else will follow. I have gotten more genuine and supportive compliments about my body, mind and overall attitude so much more now than I ever have. It really does something about the way you receive compliments too because if I kill myself working out every day and force myself to eat things that I hate for the sake of losing weight then someone’s compliment about how skinny I look will only trigger the pain of all that I went through to get to that point. However, when I find things that I enjoy and eat food that I actually like then those compliments will reaffirm that I’m on the right track mentally. I really think that you’ll attract that right kind of attention if you treat yourself the same way. (it’ll be like if someone says you’re hot and instead of it being kind of lowkey creepy and shallow you’ll be like “YEAH BITCH YOU RIGHT” hahaha) 

This goes both ways. When you give genuine compliments you’ll receive them and also you’ll be so much more attuned to realizing when they aren’t genuine. Once you’re good at deciphering who is genuine and who’s not you can give everyone else the boot :) 

Annnnnyway...here are my kale chips hehe (also I’m having pizza for dinner because we don’t limit ourselves yeehaw) 

[its8simplejulesblog]

As I Write This

My laptop is on my lap and my feet are crossed on my brilliantly teal blue yoga mat. I often think about what in my right mind made me interested in ever starting yoga but I’ve found in life that there are some things that don’t need to be explained. I had an interest in pursuing it and I did, it’s as simple as that. I didn’t, however, ever think it would turn into what it has turned into today. 

When I tell you that I practice yoga what do you immediately think of? I know initially for me I thought essentially of vsco girl contortionists which, unfortunately for me, did not match my vibe. I am neither flexible nor necessarily affluent and aesthetically pleasing. In fact, I still can’t touch my toes (September 6th update: I can touch my toes now! Vsco girl here I come). I thought of entitled white women that rattled on about manifestation and things that truthfully sound like a load of garbage. However, I went in with an open mind and that’s all you must do. Your practice is entirely selfish in the best way. It is about you and only you and your metaphysical connection with yourself. 

So what does that look like? Well I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t look like a pretzel all of the time..if ever. In fact, the important part about yoga is that it is equally a connection between mind and body. It is you talking with yourself and quieting your mind and if that takes you touching your feet to your head then fine, but that’s not the case for me. Quite simply, yoga and meditation take the form of acknowledging your consciousness. There is often the misconception that you have to meditate only in utter silence sitting cross-legged with your eyes closed. That’s not true. I know people that are most appreciative out in nature, and they meditate while walking. Some mediate while playing sports or playing the guitar and laying down on a carpet. The importance is that you take the time to recognize and prioritize the thing that makes you most content. 

In the heart of my minds eye (Julia wtf..why are you speaking like this) I see yoga and meditation as voluntary gratitude. This is something that I really came to define as my personal practice. This is why I enjoy and look forward to yoga and it has absolutely nothing to do with whether I can touch my toes or not. As my own personal definition, I recognize yoga as experiencing and accepting the world exactly as it is and this often begins with the metaphysical, rather than the physical. 

In everything that we do, we can direct our thoughts. Whether you currently think so or not, your body will never feel good if you don’t mentally feel good. I know a lot of people that use the excuse/ example of saying, “well when you get sick your body deteriorates and because your body deteriorates you have to stay inside and because you have to stay inside you can get sad and depressed.” To which I would argue that never in a thousand years would I say that being sick in and of itself causes me to be more sad than I already might have been. If anything, it just highlights whatever negativity was already there. 

Our bodies are representations of the internal, not the other way around. I believe this is why I find psychology and sociology so intriguing, and are frustrated when it is refuted and defined as a “fake science.” In my eyes, empirical science is only half of the story. I know that while data is important (I DO always gush about statistics after all) inquisitive research means even more. In our minds we are all different. We experience the exact same situation differently, we react to them differently, this is something that could never be empirically explained and to that I revere the scientists that are denied credibility solely because they cannot produce equations on paper. 

If you’re a close friend of mine you’d know that I’ve been struggling with my self worth recently. This manifests itself in my constant requests for confirmation that my friends are not bored of me and that I’m still interesting and worthwhile. This feeling is like a groundhog because as quickly and passionately as it pops up it will go away and I continue with my life, but that’s the thing about the subconscious, it doesn’t “go away”. When Punxsutawney Phil announces the coming of the next season he doesn’t just pop underground and cease to exist. Every single thing that we worry about is housed in ego and as our egos like to title themselves our “identity” you can’t shut that up and suddenly become a shell of a (wo)man. 

For that very reason, I’ve come to adore the job that I do as a social policy research assistant. At it’s very core is the act of interviewing those that you would never even THINK you had anything in common with. The project I’m currently working with is with the elderly and disabled, two things I’d pretty confidently claim I am not. And yet, constantly their words set of alarms in my mind. Not a warning bell, not a “get the hell out of there it’s going to suck to be old” bell either, but moreso, a glimpse into all that life has to offer in the most inspirational way. 

Yesterday I was speaking to the kindest woman I have ever spoken to. She was orphaned at 17 and her mother had died of cancer and she had been suffering from a disability to the point where she is currently homebound at the age of 57. Was this disheartening Yes, but what did we talk about? We talked about the fact that she had multicolored crystal prisms all over her house. We talked about the fact that whenever she was depressed she reminded herself that everything she was feeling was temporary and she would see color again soon. We talked about how because of all the things she had been through she developed a passion for service through the mother of her ex-boyfriend who took her in and forced her to carry on. We talked about how she was proud of me and thought I was perfect for this inquisitive role (remember I have never met this woman) and should continue on being curious and kind as I have so much life ahead of me. This is what meditation is all about. You don’t have to sit in silence, but rather reflect on what the world around you means. 

She told me she wanted to give me a prism :) 

I mediate through reading. My entire LIFE books have been healing for me. I have found that I look forward to being in my own head and learning constantly learning about anything and everything because every book, in its own way, is applicable to life. And its for that reason, when my dad and I walked into 2nd and Charles the other day, that I had this urge to look for “Eat, Pray, Love,” by Elizabeth Gilbert. To be truthfully honest, I had seen a tik tok about it about a week before, that was kind of like a parody for the movie trailer and for some reason it stuck with me to the point where an entire week later I was roaming the aisles for this book. 

If you didn’t know, 2nd and Charles is a second-hand book store so there is never any guarantee that something you’re looking for is there. In fact, I had been roaming for about as long as my impatient temperament could take when I turned around by accident and there it was on the tippy top of the shelf behind me. I couldn’t tell you what drove me to grab this book at this exact time in my life, but I have never been more thankful for a book in my entire life. 

Elizabeth Gilbert simultaneously writes like God and your older sister. Her language is divine and it rocks you from the very essence of your soul but she’ll also talk about how much sex she’s had and how bloated she was after eating more pasta than anyone should ever eat and how she didn’t give a fuck. And, I don’t do this often, but I found myself repeatedly stopping to type quotes in a note on my phone. If you haven’t yet heard of it (I’d be surprised) but “Eat, Pray, Love” is about a woman in her mid thirties who lived the ideal life in New York but ended up going through a nasty divorce with her husband and went through a complicated affair after the fact. 

I think that a lot of people misjudge this book as being equivalent to a rom-com like cringey love affair of superfluous nonsense and un relatable emotional sentiments. That couldn’t be further from the truth. This book was raw. She is often sobbing on her bathroom floor or crushed with suicidal depression. She is infinitely lonely and feels so small and it is nothing short of a mirror into all of our lives at some point. She goes to the countries to work herself out of this nightmare after a notably horrible episode on her bathroom floor where she finally admits to herself that she refuses to live her current life anymore. In Italy, India, and Indonesia she details her experiences in the pursuit of pleasure, devotion, and balance of a means of essentially finding her purpose. 

When I say pleasure, you’ll probably think of Rome and romance and sex and pretty people. Those things definitely weren’t absent in her description (Except the sex because she decided to remain celibate for the year), but her pleasure presented itself in the most genuine form. Through her appreciation and slow consumption of good food, her slow meander through Italian architecture, her sunset discussions with new friends. These are things all the more important to being content. 

I personally enjoyed her description of India the most as it brought me back to my experience with yoga and the individualized nature of the practice. Liz studied at an Ashram (a religious temple) under a guru for multiple months. It is at first torturous for her to find the the faith and courage to let herself go to some divinity that is not tangibly seen but she so acutely describes how important it is to quiet your mind to the chaos of the world. Once you do so, you really realize the lack of weight it ACTUALLY has on your life. This means that the way you perceive your situation will dramatically change the way you act and feel and treat others, something I have constantly been repeating in my other posts. Similarly, one of my favorite aspects of this section is her description of religion not as a border of political and historical idol complexes of rules and punishments, but a thin golden thread woven together with hundreds of other thought processes to form a spiritual connection between self and the divine. 

In Indonesia she balances the two through helping others. I won’t go too much into detail but everything is so perfectly combined. So much so that I have tenfold more a desire to go to these three places than anywhere I might have mentioned before in my discussions of travel now. 

In reading her words, she mad me cry and compose myself only to cry even more. That’s the beauty of a book that is so well renown, yet applies to every reader’s individual experience. I felt like she was addressing me directly. I really felt like someone or something was speaking through her directly to Julia Larock and I have read plenty of books and have never once felt like that. Specifically, here are a few quotes that really punched me in the face: 

“There are only two questions that human beings have fought over, all through history: How much do you love me? and Who is in charge?” 

“Vipassana meditation teaches that grief and nuisance are inevitable in this life, but if you can plant yourself in stillness long enough, you will, in time, experience the truth that everything (both uncomfortable and lovely) will pass”

“How do the survivors of terminated relationships ever endure the pain of unfinished business? From that place of meditation, I found the answer- you can finish it yourself, from within yourself. It’s not only possible, it’s essential”

And so as I finished inhaling her words after hours and hours of reading today I decided to try a new kind of yoga. Not that I had been doing it incorrectly before, but I wanted to focus my meditation more on gratitude. So I rolled out my mat and put on my meditation music playlist on spotify (don’t make fun of me it’s a real thing and it will change your life) and just sat. I originally tried to close my eyes, but that actually distracted me more so I kept them open (that’s the thing about meditation, you just do whatever works for you) And this time I actually let my mind wander, but only to a positive place. A place of thankfulness and peace. A place where every negative aspect of my life still existed, and I let it enter my mind, but it never once turned into the chaotic anger that it once was, the shame was there but I controlled it, the hurt arrived but it was nothing compared to what else I saw. 

I saw Ryan giving me the longest hug of my life while I sobbed in the West Chester parking lot, I saw my mom stroking my hair while I sat on her lap and told her about my day, I saw my brother and I playing rock band and taking it way too seriously, I saw my Disney roommates and I celebrating Christmas together, I saw Steven and I discussing how similar we are, I saw myself walking hand and hand with some of the young children I met on the dirt roads after church in the Dominican Republic, I saw Lauren and Steph and I screaming when we saw each other in the Longwood parking lot, I saw walking on the boardwalk with Lauren and Amanda scaring me from behind, I saw myself playing golf with Graham and Cameron, I saw myself having photoshoots with Jaelyn, I saw myself handing out drinks to Brewed customers that wanted nothing more than to tell me their entire life stories, I saw all my robotics friends supporting each other at competitions, I saw all of my fellow TFA interns drunk at our staff social (oops ;) hehe ) I saw my dad telling me he was proud of me, I saw Zach taking care of me even though we just met, I saw the hoards and hoards of kids in China writing me love letters and calling me a Disney princess, I saw the zoo in Australia where we took little Ethan for the first time, I saw Eloise telling me she was pregnant and I could be an aunt to her daughter, I saw my cousin Genevieve telling me that she wanted me to come to Cape Charles with her family because “whenever you’re with us the vibes are good.” 

And I literally just sat there and cried. 

Maybe it would have been a little bit eerie if anyone walked into my room, but it was a silent cry. I wasn’t sobbing or dramatic or weepy, there were just tears, because there was so many thoughts flashing in my mind and I probably only sat there for 15 minutes. And towards the end, over top of it all, I kept hearing the words “I’m speaking to you.” It was kind of like a mantra because I heard it in my own voice, but it wasn’t necessarily coming from just me. It was like in my own voice I hear, “I’m speaking to you, I believe you, this love that you see in these memories, hold onto that because this is all I want for you.” 

And that’s all I want for me too, and for everyone really. Because at the end of the day when we better ourselves we better everyone. 

When I finally dragged myself off the mat I picked up my phone for the first time in a few hours today. There was a text there from Casey, who is the youth group pastor with the group I used to be apart of at UD. He told me that he was thinking of facilitating a mental health support group this fall and he wanted me to advocate for it and be a part of spreading the word about it because I’ve been blessed with so many connections. What a situationally ironic time for a text like that, after just sitting in gratitude for those in my life. I told him that I’d absolutely love to be a part of that and now here I am, writing this. 

I’m not going to try to be disgusting and poetic and say that my life is changed and nothing will ever be the same. I’m positive I’ll still get upset and angry about the same things in my life. The difference though is that I don’t see that as an impenetrable barrier, but more like a hurdle where all you need to do is put some pressure on yourself to get yourself in the air. 

And once I’m in the air I’ll bring out the prism that was just given to me and it’ll create color. 

[its8simplejulesblog]

Ever Since I Can Remember

I have been surrounded by ridiculously independent, confident women. My mother was/is a chemist, my grandmother’s took charge of their households, my aunts are all working jobs that they love while simultaneously raising children. My research bosses are both women, my managers at Disney were often women, my economics professor (and hopefully future mentor) is a woman and so many of my favorite language professors were women. It’s easy to see why I am the way I am haha. I truly believe that these women have shaped me in immeasurable ways across all aspect of life. However, when I found Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir on our bookshelf, I was a little bit intimidated to learn what my fate would be as a woman but let me tell you I was not disappointed. 

Second Sex was written in the 1950s by feminist Simone De Beauvoir in France. It was roughly translated into English and is commonly referred to as required reading in both women studies and existentialism courses. The topics discussed follow womanhood through Destiny (biology), History, Myths, The Formative Years, Situation, Justifications, and Liberations. 

The Destiny section, in my humble opinion, was the most boring (although still necessary). It essentially delves into the differentiations between the male and female sex biologically as well as how these biological factors are often apparent in animals as well. I was very pleased with her writing because she truly did not sugar coat anything at all and her opinions were very minimal in comparison to fact. In that regard, De Beauvoir compares the obligations of the male and female in terms of perpetuating a species. As i’m sure you’ve all learned in an intro either history or biology class, the intents and purpose of the male are to protect while the purpose of the female is to maintain. The female is the passive vessel and the man is the active instigator. That’s just how it is. I found it interesting that she discusses that it was actually commonly believed that the male had less of an active role in sexual reproduction than we know now, meaning that many people thought the sperm weren’t even necessary for reproduction. Anyyyway, 

Historically accepted, these biological responsibilities contributed to what we’ve studied as the hunter-gatherer societies. It’s a biologically known fact that a higher percentage of a man’s body weight is attributed to muscle mass, therefore they were always out hunting. Women, on the other hand were left to their own devices at home. In fact, we know that the sole purpose of the woman at the time was to be a distraction for her husband. Her kids were often encouraged to “grow up” and “help out” but she was often doomed to a sedentary life. Not only that, but the nomads of patriarchal societies very seriously viewed women as sexual objects of pleasure, always giving and never taking. That’s why polyamorous relations were so common. They had no right to argue against at that point. There were some societies however, that had different views. In matriarchal societies the woman’s running of the household was more highly respected. The reasoning for this bleeds into the Myths section of the book. 

Since ancient civilizations and the creation of the domestic community, both myth and religion have attributed the characteristics of the woman to that of nature. A theme commonly referred back to in this book is that woman is immanence while man is transcendence. This means that the woman represents “the divine” she is nature and the uncontrollable. This is an interesting view because as a pipeline debate, this has been seen as both a good and bad thing. The woman can represent beauty in the form of mother nature, or inherent evil if she is left to her own devices, and will therefore resort to black magic and witchcraft. It’s kind of like...wait what? But at the time it made sense. Males, on the other-hand transcend the universe. They operate entirely outside of what is natural. If you think about it, in school we always talk about how the creation of the first tools of cavemen were so important because they represented a control over that which was previously unable to be controlled. In essence, that is what the man represents. The ability to lasso and reign the chaos of the universe. Woman, contrastingly, IS that chaos. She is emotional and flighty and confused. She doesn’t know if she should be proud of her womanhood or ashamed and that is all due to the psychology of the formative years. 

As a young girl, and I’ll be pretty blunt here, there is psychological debate about the concept of penis envy. What this means is that at a young age a young girl may see her brother..I don’t know...peeing in the woods or something and think “wait, why can’t I do that” and this is often subconscious in the sense that there is known to be internal dread and shame associated with not being able to see and control female genitalia as easily as males can. Along with this, puberty is like a slap in the face. We’re (females) are always encouraged and supported in “becoming a woman” but it’s a horribly inconvenient process. In fact, De Beauvoir even concludes that this stigma in a girl getting her period for the first time often leads to an inferiority complex because for the first time she tangibly recognizes her societal insubordination and passivity. Pessimistically said, she realizes that she will be a prisoner to her body for the rest of her life (yay!) This kind of confusion continues into adolescence where the entirety of a girls life (most of the time, not all of the time..of course there are exceptions) is spent thinking about catching the attention of some guy. This is ingrained in us whether we like it or not and god FORBID you grow too old for a guy to be attracted to you anymore before you get married..it’ll be seen as you abandoning your life’s purpose. 

There’s a section about sexual initiation that honestly made me a little bit sad. Mainly because it really drilled home the concept of passivity. There used to be such a huge stigma about sex and what it represents and a lot of that was often biologically incorrect anyway. For example, historically, if you have sex and a woman’s hymen breaks it means she was previously a virgin and there should be blood to prove this case. However, it’s been widely known in recent years that some women don’t even have a hymen or it broke doing some sort of remedial task like riding a bike and they don’t even realize it. In simple terms, it’s really not that deep haha. In some cultures, it can be though. There are cultures that actually PREFER that a woman has had sex multiple times before she gets married because it means that the husband will have a more enjoyable time with someone who is experienced rather than having to carefully operate. 

The stigma of the virgin was a big thing too. Naturally, this has a lot to do with religious preferences (but I guess in their eyes it’s obligation) to remain chaste until your wedding night. Personally, (not always) I think this can be a toxic mindset. When sex is viewed on a pedestal, a lot of women are unfamiliar with their bodies and often become frigid and afraid of having sex for the first time. And if I know anything it’s that in life there are so many times where body and mind operate in tandem. If you are afraid of something that you’re naturally created to do then there is a higher chance of your body rebelling against you (I should know lmao). 

Simone also talks about sexual preference, because even in the FIFTIES they knew that sex and gender and sexual preferences were all different things *ahem*. Anyway, a man is often viewed as superior due to their virile temperaments, which if you don’t know, means that they naturally are stronger, have more energy, and have a more dominate and regular sex drive. These are all things that very clearly are not biological in my eyes, meaning that women can adopt this temperament as well in the form of being more energetic and a more dominate and strong personality which often leads to becoming a lesbian. I don’t want to be too detailed about this topic because I don’t want to say anything ignorant, but a lot of it is related to how you were reared as a child. Determinants include either having a positive or negative relationships with your mother, having deep relationships with women mentors etc etc. She makes the claim that the opposite is true of homosexual men. There’s a lot going on there. I was pleased to see, however, that again, she was very factual and it was surprising to me that she did not exert as much of an opinion as I would have thought. She did, however, claim that sexual preference was a choice and in that regard I disagree. While temperament is SWAYED by environment, it is not entirely determined by such. In every scientific/psychological etc debate, nature and nurture are coexistent. You can’t pick and choose when that’s true and when it’s not. 

I could easily go on and on and on about this book. She talks about the origins of prostitution and what it means to be a mother and what happens to women when they mature etc, BUT, I must narrow the rest down because I’m getting tired :) 

A very interesting point to me was the concept of ego and narcissism in terms of romantic relationships. She says that in (heterosexual) relationships, the man is often looking to condition and mirror/ learn more about himself through the woman while the woman was subconsciously looking to validate herself through the affections of the man. Damn, that’s definitely a statement. I’ll be honest I was a little bit pissed because it felt like she was saying we have no coherent thoughts of our own when in reality what she was saying was that this is what the sexes are CONDITIONED for, and in every relationship I’m sure there is an ounce of truth to this. However, she also said that it’s important to adopt both tendencies if you want a functioning relationship. By this she means that the male, while recognizing the femininity of the woman must also allow her to become independent and transcend. She must be able to learn just as much about herself through her relationship with him as he does with her. In the same way, guys want to be validated too. For a lot of them, if they’re sincere and genuine then the validation of their lover or wife or whatever would be enough. That represents a sense of maturity that a lot of guys don’t have (that’s why their relationships don’t work). 

A big part of maintaining a relationship, in tandem with maturity levels, seem to be a sense of obligation. It’s likely that sex drive will die down and as the bodies of individuals deteriorate there are other things that keep couples together. Obviously it’s scary thinking about losing the novelty in a relationship and having someone get bored of you, but optimistically every day is a new day and if you’re going through it with someone you truly love then you shouldn’t get bored. In fact, the mundaneness of everyday life often brings people closer in the weirdest ways. 

I skipped a lot, but the last section is about a woman’s liberation. It’s about the balance between accepting her femininity and bracing a man’s world. It’s about being prepared to not be taken seriously, to be ignored, to constantly have to prove her worth in the business world. Again, I love how blunt Simone is. She really says that there is cause and reason for societal change, but don’t be naive...and she was so right. Considering the fact that it has been 70 years since this book was written and so many of her points still hold true is proof enough of her pragmatic way of analyzing the world. She said that it would be difficult for the intellectual woman to succeed because she would constantly be at odds between her goals and her womanly obligations. 

This sentiment bummed me out a little bit but when I read it again I realized that while she said it would be difficult, she never said it would be impossible ;) 

-Julia 

[its8simplejulesblog]

The Disney College Program

I have a distinct memory from when I was about 13 years old. My family was returning from a vacation in Florida and we saw a girl in line for security with a Disney College Program sweatshirt on. I was instantly intrigued. Disney has always been an important destination for my family. It was filled with memories and celebrations of birthdays and graduations and friendships. It was the stomping grounds for reunions with our friends from Australia and it was a symbol of novelty and excitement whenever I was able to bring my friends there for the first time and see their reactions to the magic. I wanted to ask this girl about her experience with the program, I really had no idea what it was, but being the shy kid I was I left all the talking to my mom. It was thrilling to me that a program existed that didn’t necessarily devalue the importance of an education, but it highlighted the importance of having fun in parallel to that. 

Flash forward and I really did my research. Little preteen me was watching vlogs and on the DCP website as soon as I got home. However, I knew that it would be such a long time before I had the opportunity. Quickly, life got in the way and in the blink of an eye I was in college. 

I’ll be honest, the end of my sophomore year of college was not the best. I felt very alone (contrary to social media) and I felt like I was stuck in a vicious cycle of monotony in my life. The very idea of waking up and doing the same thing every day haunted me and I felt like a zombie prisoner. I remember having a conversation with my dad in the car and he brought up the DCP for the first time in years. However, contrary to my childhood whims, I immediately shut it down. I think the mindset I was in at the time put a very negative spin on life. Although I was bored with my current routine, I was afraid that the Disney College Program would ruin the magic of the one place where I knew I could get away from all of that so for that reason I said “absolutely not, I don’t want to do it...I’ve changed my mind.” 

However, the VERY NEXT day, I couldn’t take it anymore and I applied on a whim. It was towards the end of the application window so in contrast to all the preparation videos I had seen, I really just went for it with no preparation. That mentality continued and I flew through the 3 interview stages. I treated my phone interview as a conversation with a friend rather than a life or death situation and my interviewer and I were laughing in no time. Honesty, it was pretty fun. 

I remember sitting in the front row (yeah, what a loser) of my econ lecture when I got the email that I had been accepted and I immediately lost focus and just started crying while texting all my friends for the entirety of the rest of the lecture. I joined all of the facebook groups and made friends and was surprised to find that even though we all loved Disney, we weren’t crazy Disney freaks like I was expecting (although there were definitely some of those).

I met some fantastic girls online that I was planning on being roommates with (Alyssa, Joanna, and Tara ily) but you don’t necessarily always get placed with the people you request, so only Tara and I ended up in the same apartment. I was assigned to work at the Emporium. The busiest store in Disney on the way to the castle! There’s a really cute video of me finding out I was going to work there and I think I cried, it’s really cute. I quickly looked up what my costume would be and to be honest I miss that white button down and blue tie and plaid skirt, it really grew on me. 

Finally the time came to move to Florida. Tara had been in Italy so while we were able to talk a little bit, it was still very much a new environment with new people (4 of which I didn’t even know until I got there). It was the first time where I ever really lived away from my family for that long. I had been abroad, but the longest I was away was 1 month and this was a 4 month program. I was there for the fall program too, meaning that all of the major holidays I would be away from my family and honestly it was sad and difficult at times. 

I moved in during hurricane Dorian so Disney really looked like a freaky ghost town. However, I was quickly accompanied by a bunch of strangers :). I truly knew nothing about any of my roommates from the start besides their names: Carly, Rylee, Emma, Haley, and Tara and a few days later we were all moved in and forced to get along HAHA. To be honest though, these girls were the biggest gift I could have ever received from the program. If you go to Patterson Court 6102 right now you’ll even see where we signed our coffee table :) That’t the thing about this program, while the work is very useful in terms of learning how to deal with people, it’s really the relationships that you make (or in some people’s unfortunate cases the fights you have) that you’ll remember. 

We had traditions which is where they introduce you to working for the company and it’s very disgustingly disney and mickey shows up and they make you cry with promotional videos. At the end of the “class” they take you through the utilidoors which are the underground tunnels (dare I say maze) that leads you through the Magic Kingdom. This was where I walked every day to work and where I often saw the princesses on their off time (and yes, it was odd). 

Work was truly a whirlwind. We had training for a few weeks at the cash register and the Emporium was a clusterfuck because it’s a HUGE store with multiple jobs like stocking and collecting hangers and conversing with guests in addition to being at the cash register. Every day was a new adventure and at the start they really just threw us to the wolves. Not that we weren’t prepared, but I definitely would have loved to have been more prepared. However, in a place like Disney, you learn quickly. There were times on the floor where I felt like guest were pirhannas because you truly could not catch a break from questions (some of them really stupid like, “where is the castle” to which I responded, “it’s literally right down the street...”) 

You experience all kinds of guests, both cranky and kind. I met an old couple that made vintage costumes every halloween as a different prince and princess, a man who designed the disney park maps, I gave a little girl an Elsa doll for her birthday and she screamed and cried and gave me hugs, you interact with foreign guests and do your best to fight the language barrier. If you’re learning a new language you’re able to practice speaking with guests. You end up having some of the most heartfelt stories. One component of the program is your location which quite literally makes or breaks your experience. It is all very random. You can end up working at any park or resort under a variety of different jobs. I was clearly merch, but you could also do food service or housekeeping or children’s activities or janitorial etc. Some of the staff was great, and sometimes they’re just not. It really is all the luck of the draw. 

I personally loved merch, I absolutely had some hard days where I just wanted to go home and cry (and I did), but the cool thing about merch is that it’s universal training so I was able to work in any different merch location in any park. At the end of my program I had worked in Tomorrowland (love you Maddie), the Pirates of the Carribbean store in Adventureland (love you Corbin), I worked a halloween party (love you Wyatt) and in Fantasyland (love you Toni). Each place was uniquely different and I have stories from each. 

For example, while the Emporium was my home, I easily fell in love with Fantasyland. It was an absolute dream dressing up little girls in princess dresses and seeing their parents cry when they looked in the mirror. It was so fun giving old men pixie dust and watching them frolic all over the store. In adventureland one of the cast members taught me how to swordfight (like literally sword fight...he studies it) and I was given a plastic pet snake (which I was surprisingly able to convince a GOOD amount of people that it was real). during the halloween party I made some of my very best friends while handing out candy and seeing all of the unique costumes was so much fun. Tomorrowland was an adventure because I was able to be outside and walk around while all of the lights were on after the park had closed. 

It was tiring work. No one is meant to be as happy as I was required to be all of the time. And yet, I wouldn’t change the experience for the world. The program was a new view into a place that I’ve loved so much and the magic takes a new perspective now, but it is still very much there. 

To my roommates, I love you so much. Thanks for STILL being in my life and being my favorite jedi, funnel cake maker, candy apple dipper, hotel waitress, and pizza oven survivor I’ve ever met. 

The program really changed the way I see myself. It made me a lot more confident in my interpersonal communications with people and ability to handle conflict. It showed me the beauty of the holidays and how much I appreciate being with my family at that time (I worked the Christmas parties and they would let us go stand outside in the “snow”). 

I learned a lot. So to close, let me share some things I learned 

1.) If you do the program you will LOSE at grocery bingo...don’t go 

2.) In everything that you enjoy, there is someone providing it so please PLEASE be respectful and stay humble. There was nothing worse than dealing with an entitled family. 

3.) Everyone has a story to tell. I talked to people from all over the world at my register: army vets and newlyweds and artists. If you just take the time to listen, you’ll hear some incredible things

4.) Life comes at you so fast. It’s crazy that I can remember seeing that girl with the sweatshirt when I was 13 and then BOOM my college program was over. Slow things down sometimes 

5.) Explore in your free time! My favorite memories were just going to the parks or hotels with my friends and roommates on our off days and having fun. You don’t need to be productive all the time to live a valuable life. 

6.) Don’t grow up..honestly don’t. I’m 21 and my roommates were also around my age and we STILL hung out with Peter Pan during the MK scavenger hunt..honestly who cares 

7.) Appreciate your family while they’re around. I know I missed my family so much throughout those four months so when you’re with them, don’t take them for-granted 

8.) But also...make a new family. Every group of friends of mine that have come into my life for different reasons are added to my family. I treat them with the same respect and pour the same amount of love into them that I do with my own family and that’s the way it should be done

9.) Don’t wait! If you want to do something fun in your life and the means and resources are available and it’s safe then DO IT. We really don’t have as much time as we think so don’t put things off, especially things that are going to make you happy and be good for your mental health. 

10.) Celebrate change and novelty. I was scared to start the program with people I barely knew in a job I wasn’t necessarily the best at. However, what an experience that has morphed me into so much of a stronger person. My life has changed so much even since the program ended seven months ago and now I welcome that kind of change as openly as possible. 

Thanks to the DCP for all the memories and magic <3

(if you have any questions about the program let me know!) 

[its8simplejulesblog]

Body Image

Early this morning I decided that I wanted to tan on my back porch later. My porch has been my respite during quarantine cause it’s so peaceful and decked out (no pun intended) with a bunch of nice furniture that my parents bought and our hammock and I can listen to my neighbor’s fountain. It’s cute. However, I was thinking that I would put a bikini on today because while I tan often, it’s usually in clothes which results in a really uneven tan. When the time finally came, I decided I wasn’t going to because the idea of being in a bikini just sitting there in full view of my body was not one bit appealing to me (although I guess neither was roasting in the east coast heat wave either). 

When I think about my personal history with body image. I’ve really never had an issue with the shape of my body. I’ve been a healthy weight all my life and I personally am happy with my height and the length of my legs. However, EVERYONE has something they don’t like. We’re flaw filled beings that are hyperfocused on our imperfections. It’s normal. 

For me, I remember the first instance of body shame was in second grade. My genetics lends me to have a dark complexion. I’ve always been olive skinned with dark eyes and dark hair. The issue was my hair. Specifically on my arms and legs. Granted, I can’t think of a second grader that shaves, but I remember distinctly sitting next to a girl in my class on the rug that scooted next to me one day and rubbed my arm and told me I looked like a gorilla...WTF. 

From that day forward I was paranoid about hair on my body. I waxed it, shaved it, epilated (although these things happened later, not in second grade) and I frequently came out temporarily pleased, but ultimately disappointed because believe it or not hair grows back. By the time I reached highschool and college if my body was not silky smooth every day I was genuinely disgusted. That’s something I think about every day. 

Similarly, as I grew up I had a constant tussle with acne. It was insidious. I tried every product and medicine throughout middle school and highschool. In fact, I overwhelmed my skin so much and mixed creams so often that one time I got chemical burn around my entire face and had to miss school to go to the doctor. Thankfully, with time (and after being on acutane) the worst of it went away. That’s not to say that I don’t get pimples anymore (oh honey I wish), but I don’t wake up sobbing and desperate to not leave my house or consistently ask my mom for a bag to put over my head. I got a pimple on my nose once and I seem to remember someone calling me Rudolph because of it. Kids really just can’t seem to let other people be can they? Words hurt people. 

As time has progressed, I have become a lot more confident. I work out on a schedule that is comfortable and healthy for me (that’s important). I take care of my skin to the best of my ability as well. Everyone has their issues and it’s no secret that social media is a monster in highlighting and reminding us of them. I found myself on tik tok today just absolutely gutted by all of the barbie doll looking models I saw. It stings, because all you can do is accept the fact that that will never be you. 

It’s a constant struggle. I feel like this is such a popular topic because everyone goes through it and there’s really not a universal way to get over it. It would be easy for me to say, “just love yourself, you have so many good qualities” and I 100% believe that is true. However, what I have found almost more beneficial (at least for me) is actively working to change my mindset in terms of comparisons. 

If you currently don’t see yourself in a positive light, it is likely that you are jealous of traits that others possess. Instead, I’ve found that I feel so so so much better when I praise those traits instead of long for them. Do I wish I had a bigger butt? Hell yeah, but I will always be a flagpole. I know that it sucks, but what I SHOULDN’T do is waste away wishing for it, what I can do is compliment other people on what they do have. It ends up making both of us happier. While I recognize that I’ll never have it, highlighting the good in other people opens your eyes to seeing yourself in a new light. 

I don’t like to think of it as fishing for compliments. Don’t think of it as, “oh if I compliment them, they’ll compliment me and I’ll love myself.” You shouldn’t have expectations about what other people will do. Instead, just spread love in as best a way you can. This changes your perspective and as I say over and over and over there is no greater remedy to so many of our issues. If you start to recognize beauty in its most natural form in other people, you’ll hopefully be more attuned to your own. 

I really think that body image actually stems more from a feeling than an image. Take working out for example. I’ve found that I love working out not because I necessarily look any different, but because the endorphins (we love endorphins) make me feel good afterwords and that in turn translates to how I feel about my body. Am I gonna sit there and check myself out? Mmmmm no..some people might, but I personally think that’s a little weird. But I can live my life content to know that this is just how I’m supposed to look. As long as I’m healthy and breathing that’s really all I could ask for. 

The grass is only greener on the other side because you’re only watering it over there. Give yourself a drink, damn. 

[its8simplejulesblog]

You Know How There are Certain Things that Multiple People Say to You?

Things that you hear all the time over and over again about your appearance or your personality/character? For me it was always: “You have great hair” in terms of appearance and either “you’re very empathetic” or “you get along really well with kids and old people.” I’ve always cracked up at that last one, I just feel like it’s really creepy to say “yeah I just have an affinity for small children and the elderly,” out of context, but usually what people mean is that I just tend to really easily form connections with little kids and older people. That’s not to say that I can’t get along with people my age, but for some reason kids have always gravitated towards me and the elderly are always eager to talk to me (again, don’t take these things the wrong way). 

I like to think of this as a gift. A few weeks ago at the beach, there were two small kids: a boy and a girl. The girl came up to my friend and I and said hello out of the blue and we just had the sweetest conversation with her. She was looking at her reflection in my sunglasses and she said “WHOA, that’s me” and she started dancing around and it was so cute. Later, we were getting smoothies and this little boy said hi and started telling us about his day. It was really random, but those kinds of interactions make me light up. It’s nice to know that people think I’m approachable I guess haha. 

When it comes to little kids, I have plenty of stories. The number of camps I’ve been a counselor at is endless and the amount of ridiculous things I’ve heard is unmatched. Some of my personal favorite memories: one time a little boy asked me for more “chocolate jesus” (he was talking about chocolate teddy grahams), at the elementary school I worked at we had a dance party in the gym and I still have videos from that, catching butterflies at nature camp, one time a kid made a sticker for me and slapped it on my boob and it was the most uncomfortable thing ever but of course it didn’t phase him. You just really never know with kids. 

I think my favorite part about being a counselor or assistant teacher is the amount of endless love these kids throw at you. They just immediately (for the most part) look up to you and they’re all vying to be your best friend. I’m sure any of my friends that are currently in teaching positions would say the same. There’s nothing quite like a compliment from a little one. “You look nice today” or “you’re my favorite” I could cry. It was one of those things where I knew that even if I had a bad day at school I would never dread going to work because I got to give all of my kids a hug and get paid to make a billion pancakes out of playdough. 

And what an absolute gift it is to be a role model for our future generations. I think about that all the time. Naturally, OBVIOUSLY, I am nowhere near perfect, but I do think that I’m a good influence on kids. Believe it or not they’re people too and they deserve respect. A lot of the time they taught me things I never even knew. Especially at the school I worked at because I knew that some of them were not going back to the best environment. 

Flash forward a few decades and those generations are grown. In middle school I often performed in nursing homes playing my flute and that continued into early highschool when I also became a waitress in a nursing home dining room. That was definitely one of the most stressful jobs I’ve ever had (yes, even more stressful than disney). I think it was stressful solely because of the uncertainty. A lot of the patients had dementia or alzheimers or were just borderline impatient with a lot of needs and as a decently impatient person myself I was constantly worried and flustered that I was taking way too long. I was about 15 or 16 at the time too so whenever someone was upset with me I just completely broke down and that made my job a lot harder. 

In fact, I wasn’t at that job very long. I do consider it a fantastic experience though. On the good days, the folks there were extremely giving and understanding and all they wanted to do was talk to me like I was their granddaughter. They gave me life advice and talked to me about their pasts and I learned so much about what I should value (that being my relationships and memories, moreso than money and “success”)

All of this backstory leads me to today. If you know me, you’ll know that I am a research assistant for the center of research on education and social policy. The publication we are currently working on revolves around the efficiency of a budding student volunteer led elderly assisted living program. Part of the team interviewed the student volunteers, but part of my role was to interview some of the elderly clients of the program on the basis of their healthcare, physical, and mental needs being met.

In a way, I can see how this may seem like a daunting task to some of my peers. I know a lot of people that hate making phone calls, let alone talking to people in the first place. Thankfully for me, I exploded out of my shell in highschool and got a lot of practice on the phone from various internships throughout the years. While I was a little nervous, considering the age group, I was mainly excited for the experience and while I am still in the early stages of interviews let me tell you I have not been disappointed. 

I never expected to laugh this much. Granted, the interviews are supposed to be formal and I try my best to keep them that way, but these clients are hilarious and they remind me of my grandparents so much so that I almost forget I’m doing an interview and end up thinking I’m on the phone with my grandma and she’s telling me to not do drugs XD. Some of the clients have gone very off topic and for all intents and purposes I’ve just let it happen for my own amusement (oops..don’t fire me). Some of them just speak to me like they’re also 21 years old and we’re friends and I love it.

Because, when you think about it, what is age? I mean, of course legally there are lines that can’t be crossed and remaining cautious in certain situations is a must. But on a wholesome level, it doesn’t mean anything. These people have experienced more life than I could ever imagine. Every interview reminds me that I really don’t know a thing about anyone else’s life until they blatantly tell me. You really can’t make assumptions based off a voice on a phone or the way someone looks. 

It makes me excited to grow old. Of course there will always be a little bit of fear there, but what I mean is I’m excited for new experiences. I’m excited to experience change and watch it morph me into a better version of myself. Today I talked to a woman who essentially relayed her entire life story to me. She had been through countless physical, emotional, and tangible hardships. She had her dreams in the palms of her hands but her body deteriorated and she lost everything.

And yet, I could hear the smile in this woman’s voice. When I first called her she dropped the phone two separate times and she frantically picked it up and said “oh my god are you okay, I dropped you” and she just started cracking up. She had herself and her morning coffee and she was ready to face anything. Over and over again she told me “ I am blessed with the people in my life I am blessed with my resources, I am blessed.” 

At the end of the interview she was telling me about how the best lesson she has learned in her life is to turn away from victimization, but rather utilize your tragedies to your advantage as learning experiences and opportunities for growth. You may think, “well that can’t apply to everything,” but let me tell you this woman had really been through everything. 

Suddenly, I found myself tearing up instead of laughing. It’s kind of crazy how people are thrown into your life randomly to tell you exactly what you need to hear. Every client I’ve interviewed has essentially said the same thing, “it’s just nice to be heard.”

Oh how true that is. 

If you don’t feel like you’re currently heard. Let me listen to you. 

Hugs 

-Julia 

[its8simplejulesblog]

Shock Horror!

I like psychology and sociology and neuroscience. It’s almost like I don’t shut up about it ;) And, when I was having a discussion with a friend of mine about the love languages I ended up researching it a lot and now I make everyone I know take that stupid quiz. You’d almost think I was a marriage/ relationship counselor or something hahahahahhaha shock horror part 2: I’m not. 

Okay so lemme break this down. The five love languages are: 

1.) words of affirmation 

2.) quality time 

3.) receiving gifts 

4.) physical touch 

5.) acts of service

There are a billion and one quizzes out there to determine your ranking, but essentially it determines which of these is prioritized in your life and relationships. for example, I will psychoanalyze myself for you :) 

BUT, before I do that. If they aren’t already self explanatory, let me tell you which each of these mean.

Words of affirmation is a verbal confirmation that someone means something to you. “You look pretty today,” “I appreciate you in my life,” “I love being around you” stuff like that 

Quality time means spending time together. You could be eating mac and cheese for fuck’s sake. You might be sleeping on a couch or singing broadway songs in the car or going to a baseball game etc. etc. This mainly means you value memories over tangible things 

Receiving gifts is the opposite of the previous. You feel appreciated when someone gives you something you can keep forever 

Physical touch...obvious 

Acts of service means that someone does something for you like making a bed or washing the dishes or cooking pancakes in the morning etc. 

OK so now here’s mine (ranked from most important to least important 

1.) Quality time 

2.) Words of Affirmation  

3.) Acts of Service 

4.) Physical Touch 

5.) Receiving Gifts 

Discussion (from bottom to top): I put gifts at the bottom because I truly could not care less if someone bought me something. I always tell this story, but I had a big party for my 18th birthday and I asked everyone to write letters instead of giving me gifts because I feel like the personalization of a note in someone’s own words means a MILLION times more than..idk a bath and body works perfume (love those though) 

Physical touch was 4th because I do love hugs, they mean a lot to me. However, I have been in situations where it just got to be too much. I would find myself flinching away from people or being slightly uncomfortable or batting them away (not in a harassment kind of way) I just think, especially in terms of relationships, you need a balance between proximity. I need to breathe sometimes. 

Acts of Service is something I can confidently say means a lot to me. I find that these are some of my favorite ways to do random acts of kindness for other people. When my mom has a long day I’ll empty the dishwasher for her or something small like that. In the same way, it means the world to be when people offer to take care of me (that sounds bad, but you know what I mean). Again, I have been in situations where I felt like a mom. Giving giving giving. Cleaning up after everyone and offering to drive to see people and offering to take care of this and that. So, when the actions are reciprocated I often don’t know what to do with myself. I really beam at that kind of compassion and it’s something that I associate with people in my head. 

Words of Affirmation should be pretty obvious if you know me at all. I’m frequently sending letters or messages about how much I appreciate people in my life. I think everyone, including myself, needs those constant reminders that we mean something to someone. I’m sure most of you know what it feels like to be worthless and hated and disgusting and alone. It’s crazy because we will often think of ourselves that way, but project our love onto everyone else. For that reason, as I work every day to love myself more and more I know that in the meantime I’m surrounded by people that verbally remind me that I’m worth the same kind of affection. 

Quality time will always be my #1. I’m tired of texting. There is nothing nothing nothing like being with someone you care about. I don’t even mean romantically. All I ever want to do is feel like I’ve made a connection with someone and that’s so hard to do over text. That’s why quarantine can be especially rough for people that value quality time so much. I’m the type where we could truthfully be sitting together staring at a white wall and I’d be having the time of my life just because you were there with me haha :) The type of friendships where you don’t have to be doing anything worthy of instagram, there’s nothing to “show off” you’re just existing together: that’s really freaking beautiful what can I say. And to be technical, you can’t do any of the other things mentioned above if you aren’t physically with someone. Vibes are a real thing people (lmao). Honestly, sometimes mine are ridiculously off, but there’s something about spending time with a person that really makes me feel like I know them, even if we haven’t known each other that long. That is why I’m a critic of time preference when it comes to friendships. I absolutely have known some people longer than others that I’m less connected to than those I’ve known forever. That’s literally why it’s called quality time not,,,length of time?? (I’m trying) 

After reading this, let me know which of these matter to you. It’s important to know within friends or partners or whatever, that way you don’t accidentally offend people. It’s a cute little way of being compassionate. 

[its8simplejulesblog]

Here’s Something I’ve Been thinking about Lately:

Individualism. It came up a lot in my International Developmental Economics class (and when I say “it came up” I really just mean I brought it up in conversation) because I began to realize more and more just how much it applied in culture imbedded economics. Think about it: developing countries typically have foundational cultures of collectivism, this just means that they do everything as a unit and feel they are more productive that way. However, this often lends to the correlational aspect of epidemiology. Because they are still developing in terms of healthcare, and this close proximity is so important to them, they often suffer from communicable disease more frequently. This just means that because they’re so close, germs spread easier. 

The mentality of the United States, however, has always been individualism. The American Dream is building yourself from the ground up upon your own free-will and hard work. However, I’ll be the first to tell you that this is just lonely sometimes. That’s why depression rates are historically high here (that and many other reasons...) But, when I think about individualism, I think about that scene in the Incredibles where Mr. Incredible is sitting in this gray ass cubicle with these boring ass people doing dull ass work. I don’t want to live to work like that.. ya know? I want to do something that has a purpose surrounded by people I love that care about me mutually. The mutual part is the most important, which leads me to my second point. 

When I think about individualism I immediately associate it with a lack of empathy and selfishness, two things that I actively try every day to avoid. Of course, I know that it’s possible to be purpose/goal driven while still caring for other people, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. However, I think more and more we are morphing into a society that deifies those that are prone to selfishness. 

Which in a way makes sense right. In theory selfishness is just doing what is best for you, right? In theory that shouldn’t be a bad thing. I know that I’ve had so many car rant sessions with friends where their advice to me is somewhere along those lines, “you just have to do what’s best for you.” And I get that, but clearly there is a difference between that and some larger decisions (such as, denying international students of their visas just because you have a weird superiority complex with no grounds or justification...*ahem*) 

When you get to the point where you make decisions solely based off of your preference it’s almost a little scary. It’s like you lose a little bit of your humanity each time. We’ve all heard the saying about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes but sometime’s it’s impossible to even do that because our brains can’t fathom a life that isn’t ours. There comes a time when you just have to realize the vast majority of difference that exists all around you. I don’t even necessarily mean on a political or racial scale. It could be a tiny thing like a difference in communication styles, different ways of showing affection, different movie preferences, etc. 

The other day my mom constructively criticized me of constantly trying to change people I cared about. Not consciously, but she noticed that I would get upset if people didn’t react to things the same way I did and to be fair, she was definitely right. We live our lives constantly in our own heads and only our own heads. Who am I to pretend to know what someone else is thinking or going through. Who am I to know why they make the choices they make.

I think that’s something, in politics clearly, but in every aspect of life we tend to forget. That the American foundation of individualism cannot apply everywhere. When you think about it (at least in my opinion) the whole concept is a fraud. When we attribute all of our success to hard work alone, we forget about all of the opportunities that the individual had, maybe they lived in a good socioeconomic area, maybe they’re white, maybe they went to a good school, maybe their parents bought their way through school, maybe they experienced nepotism in the workplace. How commonplace of the successful to attribute their success to hardwork alone, blind to the societal boosts that aided them. 

And so maybe you’re not quite following where I’m going with this (don’t worry, I’m not really sure either). I think what I’m trying to say is, It’s important to know what you want, and go after it, but don’t be too narrow-minded in that pursuit. That applies in work related situations, friendships, relationships, school, etc. Believe it or not, we can’t do everything alone. You need support in everything you do. However, when you finally have that support, don’t try to force your characteristics on someone else. You have to accept that they’re providing you with something you lacked. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it makes sense in my head :) 

I was always the type that was ridiculously empathetic. I truly can feel other people’s emotions as if they’re my own. But that just, isn’t the case for everyone. You can strive to be an individualist, but please never forget that there is a community surrounding you always, even if you can’t pinpoint it. 

And don’t take for granted that fact that everyone is striving for something, just in different ways. 

[its8simplejulesblog]

Nature

I love it. I really am at peace outside. One of my very best friends and I were at Lum’s Pond the other day and we saw the most beautiful sunset. We took way too many pictures of it and were truly in awe. It was a really nice reminder that the world can still be a beautiful place. There is still the potential for good if you change your perspective on some things. Speaking of change, my friend said something to me that I’m still thinking about a week later. I made a comment about how it was crazy, but good, that we had been able to maintain our friendship 14+ years and she said “yes, although I remember when I first met you. I wasn’t sure if we would even become friends because you said you always hated change in your life.”

And it was true, I remember saying that over and over in elementary and middle school. New things were scary and I hated them. New people were intimidating. New challenges were around every corner. 

Little did elementary age me know that my life every single year from that point on was going to change drastically and constantly. I think that one of the biggest issues with people now is that we’re just afraid of everything. Afraid of rejection or betrayal or being lonely. We’re afraid of not reaching our goals or chasing our dreams or being successful or living a fulfilling life. We’re afraid of always being second best, never finding love, never getting married. We’re afraid of natural disasters and economic recessions and fighting with friends. I could go on. 

In my doctor’s office they’ve decorated with a lot of handwritten letters from patients that have had a positive experience in their offices. These letters are surrounded by inspirational quotes and posters that you would most likely see printed on a shirt from forever 21 or in the bio of a 13 year old’s instagram account. I tend to cringe at these kinds of forced optimism, but two of the quotes really stood out to me. 

The first was, “everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” And a lot of the time, it’s true. I couldn’t even imagine what my life would be like if I didn’t talk myself out of things constantly for the fear of failing. So, every day I change my perspective a little bit more and more. You don’t put on rose colored glasses and pretend like everything is okay when it’s not, but instead, you take the time to assess a situation and the reasoning behind why you are feeling what you’re feeling. The brain is incredibly manipulative, capable of creating a parallel universe in the sense that there is the world that you deserve and the world you’re CONVINCED you deserve. Often times they are only marginally different. The latter just tricks you into thinking that you can’t, when in reality, if you only just overcame the anxiety or fought with your negativity you really can. 

The second was, “grow through what you go through.” I think this one was my personal favorite. I genuinely cracked a smile when I read this. In a way, life is a game of evolution. Every day you become better, even if you feel like you had a horrible day. Even if you feel like things couldn’t have gone worse. You’re just learning. Whether about yourself or your environment or the people around you. You learn about what you do and don’t deserve and what you’re capable of and you learn about how to treat people and the do’s and dont’s of life. You learn about who is truly there to support you and who isn’t. 

Overdosing on negativity is the easy way out. I know that that’s a huge statement. I know how serious depression can be and I would never downplay the validity of that. However, I always choose to fight. As hard as I can. Never again will I let any situation get the best of me for too long. And, as crazy as it sounds, I really have noticed a change in my life ever since I made this decision. When you decide to be better you become better. It’s almost disgustingly simple. All the time my mom always told me that I was my biggest advocate and adversary at the same time. I was my own angel and devil on my own shoulder. You’re only ever going to see life through your own eyes and while it may not seem feasible, you can change the way you see and deal with your own personal problems. About 95% of the time they aren’t at all as bad as they seem. 

I don’t fear change anymore. I don’t fear a good challenge. If every day life presents a new challenge for me I will gladly face it proudly and confidently. It’s not easy, it would be easy to wallow in pity or become anxious or never leave my house. It was be easy to beat myself up about everything I’ve ever done wrong. And yet, I’ve never felt a strength like the strength I’ve felt recently. It’s like the universe is congratulating me for finally recognizing my potential (wow that was meta). 

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a billion times, but I’m a huge advocate of positive psychology. There is no power in being “better” than anyone else, but so much power in being the best version of yourself. I hold my own standards that could be wildly different from someone else’s. I am constantly striving to do better and be better, but I don’t beat myself up if I don’t instantly get there. We’re all just learning. I don’t know what else to say. Every small step is a huge win in my eyes. 

And you’ll attract what you put out. If you’re confident with yourself then you will find yourself surrounded by the people that will boost you. This semester I have truly seen that happen in my life firsthand. Everyone else: the people that bring you down, the toxic people, they weed themselves out. They do the work for you. They’ll just cease to exist somehow. 

Whenever I am unsure I ask myself what is it that I’m afraid of. I always like a good argument and nothing is more interesting to me than an argument with myself. Most of the time I can’t justify the fear. The worst case scenario outcome is augmented in my head. It won’t happen, it just won’t. Naturally, there are some things that are just out of your control, but there is so much strength in learning how to just roll with it (given that you have the privilege and resources to do so, sometimes you just can’t). 

Maybe I sound like a broken record, but I’m thriving, truly. For every bad day there are 40 good ones. To me now, change is exciting. Every new person is an opportunity for a new best friend. It’s opened up the world to me. How absolutely thrilling and inspiring to know how much is out there for us to explore. 

So, when she told me about how I used to talk so much about how I hated change I had to laugh. Here was one of my best friends of 14+, someone I would have never met if it weren’t for a change in my life, telling me that I almost denied her the chance. And for what? 

As cheesy as it always sounds I have no regrets in my life. I got my shit rocked multiple times and I fell and got up and the cycle repeated. I’m still standing. Not even battered or bruised, I actually get up more healed each time. So, as I sat with my friend on the dock looking at the sunset, I fell in love with the idea of my life. That’s what you have to do. 

[its8simplejulesblog]

So I’m Supposed To Be Studying For An Econ Exam Right Now

But I just had to write this. Sometimes I feel like things that would normally be a priority to someone else should take the back burner when I feel like there is an important social issue that needs to be addressed. Today’s topic is a little bit sensitive. It’s a little bit scary and I don’t think this will be too detailed or graphic but I want to issue a trigger warning anyway because you just never know.

I want to talk about harassment.

I contemplated writing this post for a little while now just because I didn’t think it necessarily applied to me. We live in a man’s world. Everyone knows it. You’re taught it in school and it’s reinforced and confirmed in your everyday and social lives. I publicly say “I hate men” about at least 7 times a day just because I don’t know what else to say at this point (but I don’t truly mean it). Life is a game of power and men have it. It’s one of those things that is so deeply ingrained in universal society that there is no hope in it changing anytime soon (just being honest). However, as I grow up and look more inquisitively on the world I see this power play out in so many different ways and if we were to brush all of my jokes and nagging comments and eyerolls aside I have to say, quite frankly, that it’s scary. 

I am very much a feminist (in the traditional sense of equality, not the modern sense of putting men down). If you had asked me if I was about a year ago I would have also said yes, but I would have added a “but....” as to alleviate the implications that I was crazy and aggressive and trying to assert my female dominance and grind all men to a ridiculous pulp. It sounds stupid, but every time the word was introduced in a conversation all of the guys in the room would crack jokes or talk shit and if anyone knows me at all, the unfortunate truth is I’m constantly trying not to be the negative talk of anyone’s conversation, even if that means silencing myself. 

So, for the longest time I kind of stayed away from that word. That is, until my parent’s anniversary. On April 9th, 2020 my mom and dad and I sat down and watched their wedding video. We talked about all of the cute things my dad did for my mom and eventually my mom told me that instead of a bouquet she threw a remote to the women and my dad threw an apron to the men to just highlight how bullshit they thought gender roles were. I fell in love with the concept, and ever since then have been thinking more and more about how I should just say what I feel without the fear of being ridiculed by anyone. 

A woman’s role in society, the cooking and cleaning I get it..in fact, I really do enjoy doing those things. However, that fact is one small drop in the bucket when I consider what those implications mean. The women that fought for the right to vote, the women that are publicly shamed for speaking up about being raped by anyone let alone our fucking president. I know this blog was supposed to be a friendly and welcoming place but let me just say that it makes me shake with rage when I think about how frequently women are disrespected. 

I would be lying if I said this didn’t apply to me, so that’s why I needed to write this. I want to preface this part by saying that I have been so so so SO lucky to have been surrounded by so many amazing men my whole life. I’ve learned so much from them and some of them have turned into my best friends and I trust my dad and uncles and grandfather with my life. However, it has to be addressed that virtually every female in the world has been harassed or treated as less than in one way or another. I know that I’m not typically one for making vague claims like that, and I would rather whip out statistics, but I think that’s a claim I can make with absolute certainty. 

There’s a certain point where it’s not a joke anymore. I understand that miscommunication and misinterpretations are a thing. I understand that a lot of guys have good intentions that are incorrectly viewed, I get it. But a lot of the times...it’s not. I remember when the Me Too movement was at its peak and there were still men making jokes and not taking it seriously and I wanted to vomit. These are people’s sisters, daughters, friends. People that I’ve known since middle school that could do no wrong, people that are sweet and want nothing else than to see the good in everyone get taken advantage of all the time. I have not been raped, but everyday I live in fear that it could be me. 

The concept is unconditional. You don’t have to be conventionally pretty to be taken advantage of. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing at the time it doesn’t matter where you are it doesn’t matter if you think you know someone or not NO ONE deserves to be violated like that. I understand that harassment and sexual assault is not limited to women, but I feel the need to speak mainly on what I am familiar with. 

I was in New York with my family. We were walking through the streets of Manhattan and we walked through a group of men hanging out and they all whistled at me. My mom threatened to hit them with a flyswatter. 

I had a teacher in highschool who was particularly interested in our adherence to the dress code. In the middle of class he would make us stand up and touch our toes so he could measure if our skirts were too short. There were times when he called me out specifically and I was mortified. There was one day when I was sick and he called and asked to speak to me personally. He asked me if I was okay and taking care of myself and he made sure that if there was anything he could do that I should let him know. He asked me to be his TA the next school year, but before that could happen he was arrested. 

I dated a guy in highschool that cursed me out profusely when we broke up. He told me that I thought I was better than him and that I was trash and a loser. He couldn’t fathom the idea that I was capable of making my own choices.

The male mentors on my robotics team always talked over me. It was a miracle if I got a word in. Towards the end, I could finally hold my own, but it was a process. There were days when I would cry to my dad because I was trying so hard to prove myself. I told myself every day that the next day I wouldn’t cry in front of them because if I did they wouldn’t take me seriously. 

In Disney World I had a guy run up to me and ask for my snapchat because he thought I was pretty. I had never met him, we knew nothing about each other. It was supposed to be a compliment, but I felt objectified. 

I was at a frat party at UD. I was hanging out with my friends when a guy tapped me from behind and we started a conversation. He was a really nice guy, very sweet, but when my friends came back and told me they were about to leave I felt very trapped. The guy I was talking to seemed sad and he told them that they could leave and he would watch out for me. I thanked him, but went with my friends anyway and a few days later he stopped talking to me. 

I got cheated on because my ex was bored and had other options

I’ve now blocked 3+ guys on social media for constantly asking to hang out because I’m scared of how they’ll react if I say no. God forbid you reject a man. The second you do you’re called a fraud and told you’re not that pretty anyway and you’re selfish and not actually that great and are a waste of time. 

So no, no I wasn’t raped, but I have every reason to write this post. Fuck Brock Turner. Fuck Donald Trump. Fuck Bill Cosby. I could go on and on and on. This is not just a race war, this is people standing up to what they never could. Is the country in disarray? Yes, but I say, bring it on. I’m sick and tired of people making jokes about things that are serious problems. I’m sick and tired of men thinking they’re entitled to me. I don’t owe men SHIT. I shouldn’t be surprised when someone treats me right or opens a door for me or asks for my consent. How messed up is that that the bare minimum seems like a reward. 

So to the guys reading this: when I say, “I hate men” don’t get defensive, don’t say “not me though,” don’t make jokes. When I say I hate men I mean I hate the system that degrades me to nothing in their presence. I’m tired of feeling like a hero in my econ class because I’m the only girl speaking up. I’m tired of people assuming that I only work out cause I’m trying to impress someone. I’m tired of feeling like a failure because I feel uncomfortable and disrespected sending certain pictures fuck that. 

I know there are good guys out there, I do. I just wish there were more because there’s nothing quite like feeling constantly used. It really puts a damper on your image of yourself. 

I am not here to please anyone. I am not here for you, I’m here for me, and if I recognize that someone in my life is good for me then they will stay, otherwise, you can snip snip yourself out of my life. I’m not a piece of meat. I have thoughts and feelings and I can have intellectual conversations and I can use power tools and solve math equations and I’m not an idiot and I’m not a toy so I refuse to be treated like that ever again. 

I used to be afraid to say that I was a feminist, but now I can say so with absolute confidence and if you’re a male that’s uncomfortable with that then good, think about what that means. Men ARE smarter and more capable after all, right? 

[its8simplejulesblog]

I Have a Friend Who Made

His own personal time capsule online. It’s so cool! It’s like a diary, but not (and if he’s reading this he’ll know what I’m talking about). But it really inspired me to keep up with the blog. I suppose the two mediums are slightly different though because his is private and he talks about specific events whereas I let anyone and everyone read what I’m thinking and feeling but in a vague way (doesn’t make it any less terrifying though). I think writing really frees my mind. I found that during quarantine if I ever had something that was bothering me I would write about it here and then suddenly it wasn’t as bad anymore. I used to have such bad anxiety, especially at school, because whenever I was alone I was terrified of being alone with my own thoughts. I would think that everyone hated me and I was boring and going to be alone forever. However, starting this blog during lockdown just pushes all of my thoughts out into the universe and I don’t have to deal with it alone anymore, this is why I’m in love with writing. 

Throughout my years of schooling, the #1 criticism I get when I write papers is that I’m being too ostentatious (wow, I did it again..) which basically means that I try to make my writing sound too intellectual and impressive instead of getting straight to the point which is confusing for people. To this I would always respond “what do you mean??? That makes perfect sense” even though I also knew that I was just writing in circles, hoping that someone would get it. 

And I think that’s part of the problem with writing in school. I see the purpose of it in terms of a research paper, but if I’m writing an opinion piece then who cares what the format is who cares if you don’t get it..it’s not your opinion ya know? That’s why I appreciate blogging. There are no rules and I can just say what I feel. I understand that no one else is inside my head, and truthfully I’m always shocked by how many people read this, but if even one person can read this and comprehend me or relate to what I’m saying that’s a win :) 

Being able to publicly write and post on here has really calmed me. I think it introduces myself to people in a new way and I’m becoming less and less afraid of telling people about the blog. There was a time when I was just going to write and who(m)ever saw it by accident would be the only people that read it; but now, I’m actively excited to write every time and tell people about it. It makes me a lot less anxious in terms of being exactly who I am apologetically and therefore attracting the kinds of people that I want to be around. 

That’s something I’ve noticed a lot more recently as well. The people in my life now all have an honored spot. I cannot think of one person that doesn’t genuinely support me and the things I do. I wish life could be like that for everyone. 

Maybe what I’m trying to get at is this: no one will ever be me. No one can realllllly understand how I’m feeling or what I’m thinking or how I want to get a point across but that’s fine. I think we need our friends as a support system, but the only one that can ever really be your best friend is yourself. I used to hate the idea of being alone with just me. It was a scary thought. But now, now I don’t mind it. In fact, I look forward to it. I like to establish my identity that way, just letting my mind wander and seeing where it takes me. 

You should be inspired and confident in who you are. I know that that’s ridiculously cliche and I’m the queen of cliches, but I’ve never felt as consistently at peace than when I know that I’m okay being who I want to be and saying what I want to say and doing what I want to do. That partially came from growing up, but it also comes with just accepting the fact that your life is your life. I don’t see the point in wasting away and wondering about what ifs. I don’t see the point in comparing myself to other people when I could just make friends with them instead and we can hype each other up. I don’t see the point in mindlessly arguing with other people when I could have an intellectual discussion instead. 

Every choice you make, every person you interact with and every thing you write is a reflection of your character. I don’t want to be identified as my worst traits. Yes, they’re important, but I want to be confident that the way I live my life is beneficial to my well-being and the well-being of those around me. 

The world is a really dark place right now. Just be conscientious of the way you’re handling it. 

Love you guys 

-Julia 

[its8simplejulesblog]

I Hate Math

If you know me at all, it’s obvious. As much as I loved robotics it sure as hell wasn’t for the engineering and physics side of things and I think if anyone took one glance at me during meetings sometimes that would be readily apparent. I do, however, have a love for economics and statistics which, in their very nature are mathematically rooted, however, it’s ~social~ math. This means, in my humble opinion, that it’s the only math with any practical application in real life (sorry to anyone that liked calculus). When I had my internship in Philly last summer I did a lot of excel work on statistics for relative improvement of teachers over the course of a summer training session. I loved it, but it was a running joke that I would often complain about math while I was sitting there “coding” (they even decorated our dorms one day and my nickname was Julia “I like statistics but not math” Larock) whatever guys *rolls eyes* 

The previous meme is me in any math class ever. However, when I’m in an econ or stat class, I’m in my element. So, you can imagine my (strange) excitement to take international economics of developing countries this summer (why are all polysci class titles so damn long). AnYwaY, I was excited. Actually, it was a mixture of excitement about the topics and dreading having to do work again, but you can’t have one without the other. With that being said, my experience during our first class today was a little bit out of the ordinary for me. 

My sophomore year at the University of Delaware I took a pretty introductory writing course. Our final was to write a long af research paper about virtually any topic of interest so I chose the effects of diversity in the field of education. This has been a topic that especially interested me at UD because when you look around it really looks like there is none haha. For a lot of people, white people, it really doesn’t matter because that’s not something you notice. However, I swear that there is also a large chunk of us that notice and are uncomfortable by it. 

At the time of writing this paper I interviewed the university’s dean of diversity and inclusion. She was a sweet woman and while I was initially a little bit nervous to interview her, by the end of the interview I had no fears and was really railing on the school’s apparent failures to harbor a more inclusive environment (fitting, huh). At the time of the interview, the student body was about 73% white and the dean told me and showed me the inclusivity plan for the following years. It’s been a year and a half since then, and now we’re at 68% I want to say. 

It’s easy to say, “wow, an improvement,” and move on with your life. However, if you know anything about statistics and asking basic inquisitive questions you would know that you could never make that claim without follow up questions. I remember the dean telling me that they were simultaneously planning on taking a smaller incoming class of freshmen and when one class graduates and you introduce a smaller class of freshmen of COURSE it’s going to look like the diversity went up. Your sample size is smaller. I may be a blubbering idiot at math, but I can tell you that with absolute certainty. 

In light of the recent protests and my recent blog post about the racist sorority fiasco, many UD students have been called out for other racist remarks, however, there are also students that are workings towards change. I’ve included a link below to a letter to our Dean of Admissions in making changes to the exclusive, ignorant, and sometimes cruel behavior that has previously been tolerated at the university. Please read and sign it if you can. 

So today, when I discovered that I was one of two white girls in my economics class I was truly floored. That’s almost unheard of at UD. Was I slightly uncomfortable? Yes, that’s ingratiated in me by society. However, I’m taking it as a learning experience to FINALLY be the minority for once. I don’t think I’ve ever had a class as diverse as this at UD and I love it. 

You would think this would be basic knowledge, but in my research I included that racially and sexually diverse classrooms lead to an increase in discussion, not just “blah blah blah vague comment that doesn’t make sense yet everyone agrees with it,” but ACTUAL, uncomfortable discussions that make people question well..everything. The only thing about that is, it’ll only happen if people are brave enough to speak out (and considering participation being such a big part of your grade, I’m pretty sure that will happen) 

The interesting part about that is, I had an internal dialogue in my head that I’ve never had before. Normally in classroom settings I’m a raving teacher’s pet. I always do my work on time and ask questions and participate and add to the discussion, I’m not really afraid to say what I think. However, today, my initial reaction was, “no matter what, I’m sure that everyone already pegged me as the dumb bitch that doesn’t know what she’s in for. She won’t understand anything.” 

The demographic of the class is a majority white men, followed by asian men, followed by black men, then like two black girls and two asian girls and one other white girl and me so I KNOW that I’m going to be talked over and not taken seriously. I’m used to it, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stand for it. I can’t wait to be argumentative (mwahha). 

At the end of the day, I know that being white, in the long run, still means that I have ridiculous privilege but in this class, I’m so intrigued to see how being different affects how I’m treated. Of course, it’s more of a “social experiment” for me and I in no way want to devalue the inequities that minorities face every day, but I truly believe that everyone should be a minority in some social situation at some point in their life in order to feel the empathy that is so sorely lost on this country currently. 

So, in the future of my economics class I know that I will have to be very careful about what I say because I need to prove my intellect qualifies me to maintain a spot in this class that already has a growing waitlist. If I say one spineless thing without fact to back it up then everyone’s false impressions of me will be reaffirmed and that’s something that minorities have to think about every day. It must be exhausting to constantly be on guard in terms of a stereotype that you’re so desperately trying not to confirm. My mom had the same issues as a chemical engineer. She was constantly pushed to the side and told that she was too pretty for her work (this is why I’m a feminist now, but that’s another discussion..we love equality haha). 

Keep going after what you’re passionate about people. We all deserve to pursue our interests.

Link to UD diversity petition 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19v5-1dkCK5dUqxcpPn-e0uVNNaT42I7wGE8MnlMNc_Y/edit?usp=sharing&usp=embed_facebook

-Julia 

[its8simplejulesblog]

I Received An Email Today From My University’s Dean

Discussing some race related issues occurring on campus. Unfortunately, I know that my university is not the best in terms of diversity and we often have issues involving ignorance and entitlement. That is not something I ever want to be associated with. 

One of the main issues revolved around racist comments posted on a public blog of a nursing major in Alpha Phi. Following her comments, there has been a lot of commotion in terms of spreading her name and making the community aware of her ignorance. Alpha Phi recently posted an apology on their instagram and claim that they are taking the necessary judicial precautions in terms of next steps, but many people were not content with their response. 

I wanted to start out by detailing the situation, and while I in no way want to devalue the severity of the situation, this whole ordeal got me thinking about a whole lot of “what ifs..” 

When I was a sophomore in college I transferred schools. The school I was previously attending was fantastic, but I knew in my heart that I wanted a change. However, I also knew that it would be difficult to make such an adjustment in terms of social life. I had come to love my friends at my old school (and still do) and was worried that it might not be so easy a second time. For that reason, I was excited at the possibility of rushing a sorority. 

Now, when you take into account greek life in America, historically it’s a LOT more serious than internationally. Why? Because we just LOVE the idea of a hierarchy and it always seems to come back to that. However, considering my privilege of being a middle class, white girl, I never questioned the fact that I would be able to get into one. 

So, as I traversed my new life at this new school, the idea of rushing got more and more exciting. Girls I knew were talking about it CONSTANTLY. There were times when I was almost inclined to tell them to stop. And yet, I knew it never would. Rushing a sorority is almost like the white college girl rite of passage. If you’re against it or not really into it, people get weird around you. I STILL don’t know the names of all the sororities and frats on campus and I guarantee that that would warrant a few weird looks from some girls. 

But personally, I was excited. I knew that wherever I ended up there would be likeminded girls that were friendly and intelligent and had their priorities straight and honestly I just wanted to have fun, who doesn’t? I remember one fateful day when a bunch of my roommates were discussing rush coming up and one of them said to me, “Julia, I really think you could make one of the high level, mid tier sororities,” and everyone agreed. I wish I could say that that meant nothing to me, but truthfully, I was thrilled to hear that. It got me even more excited. 

I remember signing up for rush (it was 90 freaking dollars just to sign up) and my mom came in the room and said, “are you sure you want to do this?” and I had no doubts. However, as the time came, and the rush schedule was sent out, I looked at just how much I had committed to. I remember sitting there when the schedule came out and my jaw dropped because I had no idea how I was going to have the time to make it to all of these events and keep my grades up. Is it possible? Absolutely, and in retrospect I know I could have done it. However, at that moment, I decided no. 

And I think about that decision a lot, because at the end of the day I do think I could have made it into a high level, mid tier sorority. But then I think about what that means. Does a mid level sorority mean that the girls are “prettier”? Does it mean that they’re nicer or that they have more fun or donate more money to charity? What’s the point of the label and why does it mean so much to people. Surely, there are times when I regret not joining a Panhellenic sorority. I think that if I did I would have had a lot more opportunities to go out and meet more people, but I was able to do that in other ways too. 

When I think about it, I saved my mom a lot of money too. I’m sure there are girls that pay their way through themselves, but I am almost positive that the majority have their parents to support them and at the end of the day I know that would have been partially the case for me. When I think about the amount of combined money we would have spent I feel sick and guilty, so I’m at least glad I avoided that. 

I understand the appeal of joining them, I do, because I was so close to joining myself. And in this situation, I understand that not all sorority girls are bimbos and not all frat guys are self-righteous jerks. However, when I see situations like this occurring with the racist girl in Alpha Phi, it really makes me think “where is the sisterhood you promised?” I get that people have differences in opinions, but that is only an excuse when the opinion is “which frat should we go to tonight,” not “is this person’s life worth something.” 

If you’re wondering, I ended up joining Gamma Sigma Sigma, the service sorority on campus. And, while I’ll admit that I don’t have the time to devote to it like I wish I could, some of the girls there are the most genuine I’ve ever met. AND we do service work that can actually benefit people. Naturally, every organization has potential for growth, and there are individuals in it that can ruin the reputation, but if the individuals in Alpha Phi are not held responsible for their actions, then that’s not a “sisterhood” I would ever want to be a part of. 

At the end of the day, your worth comes from yourself. I recognize the benefits of rushing a panhellenic sorority, but I also know the hurt that comes with it. Girls have their spirits crushed constantly when they don’t get a bid from their first choice. They think they aren’t enough and there’s something wrong with them. I’ve walked past girls sobbing on the phone like their dog just died or something. In the same way, the girls that hold the interviews during rush, who do you think you are? Upholding a reputation is important, but destroying people in the process is a sad excuse at that. 

I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that my college experience was not normal. I haven’t nearly spent as much time on campus as most people have. I jumped, skipped, hopped, and flew my way through college. I was neither here nor there. I went from one school to another to philly to other schools to visit friends to florida to Spain and back to a pandemic. Never beat yourself up over the “what ifs.” 

So in terms of college greek life. I only hope that this claim of brotherhood and sisterhood extends outside of your own personal chapter bubble. If girls cry that hard over being rejected from their first choice sorority, image being rejected from a job because of the color of your skin, imagine constantly being talked over at work, being beaten and thrown out of your car by police officers, shot at and stabbed and taken advantage of. 

Sisterhood and Brotherhood are not exclusive concepts. They do not apply only to your privilege. They do not show themselves only in rhyming chants and big little week and photoshoots where everyone wears various chromatic shades of the same color. This is not a unique concept. How dare an organization claim to be a sisterhood, but still harbor hatred towards brothers and sisters during a time when they need support. 

Whether I had joined a sorority or not, I know the value of inclusivity. A sisterhood means you treat others the way you would want to be treated REGARDLESS of race, socioeconomic class, or ability to impress people. THAT’S the sorority I want to rush. Consider that. 

-Julia