disalarming

I was going to write this entry in a letter format addressed to Heidi Montag but I decided that she probably doesn’t have enough brain cells to comprehend what I want to say to her. I mean, as if she’d even care what I had to say. This is a woman who underwent 10 plastic surgery treatments last November after already having had three procedures a few years ago and she allegedly still won’t rule out future surgeries. Why is she going to listen to/read the rants of a teenager who is so incredibly disturbed about what she’s done to herself in the name of beauty and is worried about the effects it’ll have on girls who sees her as a role model?

There was absolutely nothing wrong about her looks before she had her first round of surgery¹ where she had a breast augmentation (boob job), collagen lip injections, and rhinoplasty (nose job). All of these procedures were done for vanity purposes and not for health reasons. The 10 procedures she had done in her latest surgery were a mini eyebrow lift, Botox in the forehead, revised nose job, fat injections in cheeks and lips, chin reduction, neck liposuction, ears pinned back, revised breast augmentation, lipsocution in waist and thighs, and butt augmentation. Let’s remember that Montag is only 23. If this is what she is willing to do to herself at age 23, what on earth is she going to do to maintain her “beauty” and “looks” when she’s 30? 40? What’ll she do when, God forbid, she gets a single wrinkle on her shiny, plastic forehead?

Montag states that her desire to “improve” her look is a result of being bullied as a child for the way she looked. Sure, Montag. Whatever you say. If the words of bullies made becoming a real-life Barbie a life goal for you, so be it. But if you lived for a day in my childhood shoes – or anyone else’s – you’d realize that people learn not to take stock by what bullies say. And if you can’t take the heat, then don’t be in an industry where there’s criticism about how you look because everyone gets scrutinized². If you feel insecure about how you look and who you are, then take time out of the spotlight and figure out who you are and before trying to make something of it. If you try to become what you feel others think you should be rather than staying true to yourself, you will never gain any respect.

I have nothing against plastic surgery when it’s necessary, such as for health reasons, but for vanity purposes? Get real. In trying so desperately to become something other than the freak she felt like she was singled out as in school, Montag’s image is now the very thing she was trying to escape. Her self-created tragedy is a lesson everyone can learn from: appreciate what you are born with, because that’s what makes you you. Character and individuality is what makes a person stand out. All you need is confidence to rock your own look – not the knife of a plastic surgeon.

Daily Mail has two photos of Montag, one taken before her first surgery and one of her now. [↩]
I’m not even going to address my opinions on her lack of talent in any and all areas of work she’s tried her hand in. [↩]

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

The following comment popped up in my moderation queue this morning, which I promptly marked as spam:

sorry to comment other then topic but it may help you,and thanks for your patience.

hey you all guys are just wondering around for cheap hosting and domain names.So stop wandering here and there and come to http://firsthosting.us

And use this promo code “USMAN”
to get 5 domains for only 15$/year
Best of luck

Really, FirstHosting? Really? You’ve resorted to spamming on blog entries to try and promote your company? If you need new clients that badly, try some other form of advertisement campaign that doesn’t involve spamming potential clients as that is never a way to attract business. But if spam is the only way for you to get word about your company out there, at least use proper grammatical mechanics. Spaces after commas and periods are a necessity, you know.

I already have a list of hosts I do not recommend whenever my friends ask for advice about buying hosting and FirstHosting just got added to it. Sucks for them.

ETA: FirstHosting claims that the spam comments are “fake and part of a campaign” against the company. Until they can prove that by providing IP addresses that do not match with that of the spam commentator’s (I believe Hannah has asked them about IPs), I remain unconvinced.

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

Dear X,

I don’t owe you anything. No apology, no explanation, nothing. I have nothing to say to you and, more importantly, no desire to talk to you anymore. You’re no longer worth it.

You are the one that drove the wedge between us, you are the one that chose a guy over our friendship, and you are the one that made me realize I have nothing to gain and everything to lose by remaining your friend.

You called the shots. You made the decisions. And now you can deal with the consequences.

I’m out.

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

Dear Fellow Tweeters,

For the love of God, please stop using your personal Twitter account(s) as vehicles to spam for businesses. Yeah, free MacBook Pros and iPod Touches are really appealing and everyone wants one. And okay, (most of) the tweets for the Moonfruit (#moonfruit) competition were creative and amusing. But the Moonfruit competition was just one of the many, many ones businesses are running on Twitter, and it’s getting really tiring to read my Twitter updates page and see tens of hundreds of the same @replies and #hashtags with nothing personal or interesting in the tweet.

@sensatlandsend said it best in one of her tweets:

This trend of regular people voluntarily using their Twitter accounts to spam for businesses is wrong in so many ways. [source]

I know I can always just unfollow those who use their Twitter accounts to spam on behalf of companies. But everyone I follow on Twitter I “know” in one way or another, whether it be through various online communities or friends I’ve made through this blog. I don’t want to unfollow friends because I do care and am interested in their non-spam tweets. It just makes me sad that even though people hate spam (who doesn’t?) they’re still willing to unwittingly spam for companies. Just because it’s people and not spambots doesn’t mean it isn’t any less spammy.

And don’t even get me started on the Namecheap trivia contests and all of the pointless drama it ensues every time a contest rolls around. (My hatred of those deserves its own entry, to be honest.)

P.S. Twitter is also not an IM client – no one cares to read loads of tweets between two people about a subject no one cares about. I’d complain about this more as it irritates me as much as the whole tweeting for businesses topic does, but Melissa already covered this in “5 Ways to Fail at Twitter.”

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

I live in a townhouse complex that’s in a U-shape, and in the center of the U is a lovely pond with a nice fountain that never seems to be working. It’s quite a nice pond really, and there are one or two tall trees that provide nice shade if I ever want to go and sit near the pond and relax outside. In the warmer months, there are loads of wildlife that come by this pond, like ducks, squirrels, chipmunks, and various types of birds. Sometimes, when I look out the window overlooking this pond, I feel like it’s a scene out of Bambi due to all the wildlife outside!

I’ve never really paid much attention to the wildlife that frequent the pond, I just associate it with how nature works and leave it at that. However, as the months have gotten warmer, I have noticed that there seem to be more and more animal visitors to the pond and the townhouse complex. I assumed that maybe word got out among the animals that the pond was a nice place to chill so they were all coming to hang out, so I didn’t really think much of it. But then one day I was looking out the window and into the mini-garden my family planted a few weeks ago and saw a type of animal I had never seen before near the pond: mice.

After some investigating and talking with my neighbors, it was discovered that my next-door neighbor is feeding the animals that visit the pond. I guess she thought it was cute to have all of these animal visitors, and her feeding them encouraged more and more of them to frequent the area. However, she either fails to understand or does not care that other people living in the complex view these additional visitors as nuisances, and not only has she attracted more cute Bambi-esque animals, but she has also attracted enormous amounts of mice. They get into the mini-gardens many of my neighbors have, and one even darted quickly into someone’s house when they opened the door to go outside! My brother keeps a watering can outside to use to water our mini-garden, and once he found a drowned, bloated mouse inside after a particularly heavy storm.

Many of my neighbors have complained to the management office about this particular neighbor’s habit of feeding the wildlife and attracting the mice. Some have taken it a step further and have set out poison for the mice, despite putting the other forms of wildlife at risk as well. I think the whole situation is ridiculous. Mice are rodents and are unwanted pests, and if it’s gotten to the point where poison is being set out to get rid of them, then why doesn’t this idiotic woman stop feeding the wildlife out by the pond?!

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

For the last couple of days, the DC area has been experiencing a heatwave. It’s been a rough couple of days, with temperatures hovering around 90F. While 90F is not an ideal temperature in most circumstances, it is even less ideal when it’s finals week and Housing and Dining refuses to turn on the air conditioning for some unknown reason. I’ve spent the last couple of days devising ways to stop myself from feeling like I’m roasting as I force myself to study and concentrate in the hot, hot temperatures¹.

I understand that everyone on my campus is in the same boat when it comes to suffering in this heat. None of the air conditioners in the residence halls have been turned on, and everyone is stressing over end of year exams and are fleeing into air conditioned buildings such as the library or the student center in the search for cooler temperatures. However, what irritates me to no end, heat or no heat, is that whenever the sun comes out in such strength, girls decide to sunbathe on campus in the skimpiest bikini they can find and drape themselves all over every open, grassy surface.

If it is a girl’s desire to get a tan, that’s her choice. I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with, though, is that whenever I walk around campus I have to navigate around seas of bikini-clad girls who are determined to get a tan, no matter what else might be going on throughout campus². My school had its Admitted Students Day last week for the incoming freshman class of 2013, and for every huge tour group I saw of admitted students, I saw roughly six girls in bikinis, tanning on the quad. I mean, really. What irritated me even more is when there were girls lying in their bikinis in the shade. What is even the point of that? If the bikini is worn in an attempt to only cool off and not sunbathe, then take a dip in the pool. The campus has two pools for a reason!

My school is not a beach, nor is it a tanning salon. It is first and foremost a university, and I think students should treat it as such, especially on days such as Admitted Students Day or Preview Day, where potential and future students and their parents come to tour the school. There is a time and place for everything; lounging around in a bikini³ throughout campus grounds is not the time or place for sunbathing, even if it is incredibly sunny out.

I picked up a lot of tips about how to cool down your body temperature when I was living in Australia. I never thought I would have to use any of those tricks when living in DC! [↩]
There is always something going out at campus, whether it be concerts, fundraisers, guest speakers/lecturers, visiting diplomats, or functions organized by various student organizations. [↩]
I would address this to male students who sunbathe too, but they seem to be content in playing Frisbee on the quad during hot days, and they don’t have any scantily clad sunbathing going on. [↩]

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

Dear Ms. Betty Brown (R-TX),

Your recent statement about how Asian-Americans should change their names to ones that are easier to pronounce during House testimony on voter identification legislation is not only insulting towards Asian-Americans, but also to the people you represent in Texas. Your assumption that Asian-American names are the only foreign names that are hard for the average English speaker to mispronounce is ignorant, and demonstrates your lack of cultural and awareness about the diversity on which the United States prides itself. Furthermore, your belief that citizens should change their name for the convenience of poll workers and other civil servants shows that you see poll workers as lazy and/or ignorant and do not possess the intelligence required to identify one person from another.

You are quoted as saying, “Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Yes, Chinese is a difficult language to learn, one of the most difficult, in fact. However, if one’s name is in a language other than English, the English speaker is not required to learn the language that the name is in, they only need to learn the name. There are plenty of Asian-American celebrities that have had their names recognized by the American public without having to change their names so that they could be dealt with “more readily” in the States – Kelly Hu, Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, Ang Lee, to name a few. I doubt that all of the American people who are familiar with these aforementioned celebrities as well as other famous Asian-Americans became fluent in Chinese before learning how to pronounce their names.

Read the rest of this entry »

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

I like to keep details of my romantic liaisons private. I dislike sharing the finer details about what goes on behind closed doors when I am with someone I have romantic inclinations towards, and I don’t have any particular interest in hearing about what goes on closed doors for other people either. It’s not something that I feel should be shared, generally speaking. I might tell some of my closest friends a few things, but even then I will not share all the details. Even people with cotton wool between their ears can figure out what happens behind closed doors, so it’s not like it’s incredibly difficult to pick and choose what parts to share when it comes to discussing private details of my romantic life.

I don’t kiss and tell, and I really dislike the entire concept of kissing and telling. It’s not an attractive trait, nor is it one that will gain you respect from others. It’s simply another form of gossip, but in some ways the damage done by kissing and telling is far worse than the standard friendship/drama gossip. Kissing and telling is really unbecoming, and it’s essentially sharing private information that is not wholly yours to share, as it involves a second party as well. No matter how enjoyable or miserable the interaction was with someone, I don’t tell analyze with others over what happened. The farthest I’ll go is say that it happened, and move on from the subject.

Question of the Week: What do you think about the concept of kissing and telling? Do you kiss and tell?

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

Every girl wants to be seen as beautiful, no matter how small this desire may be. Perhaps it has been hardwired into a girl’s brain, or it has been drilled into a girl’s mind by society and the media. There are images of “beautiful” girls everywhere that are tall, thin, clear-skinned, and are so beautiful and so perfect that it seems as though they are too beautiful and too perfect to be true. And most of the time, they are, for the images the media projects to us of beautiful girls aren’t entirely real.

The beauty company Dove launched a campaign for real beauty to emphasize the fact that today’s standards of beauty set by media and society are not realistic standards at all. These standards are based off of images that are airbrushed and Photoshopped to the point where the final image bears few or no similarities to the model in the photo. The accompanying video for Dove’s campaign makes a powerful statement, and it really shows you how the image of beauty has been distorted by society today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

Aside from the time when I had strep throat in second grade and when I got an outer ear infection in late October 2008¹, I can’t remember the last time I was on any type of medication/drugs, whether it be over the counter or prescription. Other than the two aforementioned occasions, my life has pretty much been drug-free.

If you think about it, shying away from over the counter drugs like Tylenol, Aspirin, Benadryl, Mucinex, and other related drugs is quite a feat in the pill-popping culture we live in. Never have I depended on drugs or wished I had medicine to get me through whatever I was sick with². I grew up in a household that didn’t see medication as necessary. Have a fever? Stay in bed, sleep, and drink some chicken soup. Have a cold? Get rest, carry around a packet of tissues with you, and suck it up. Headache? Drink lots of water and take a nap. Sore throat? Drink some honey lemon tea and stay away from fried or greasy foods. Can’t sleep? Wait it out for a few days, sleep will come back eventually.

Each time I was sick, I recovered from whatever was bothering me just fine with a some rest, vitamins, and hot tea, without help from any type of medicine/drug. I am a firm believer in the fact that our bodies were designed to be able to heal themselves³ without help from modern medicine. The human body has had the same “design” since before modern medicine was invented/discovered, and the body was able to heal itself long before over the counter medicine became popular. Taking medicine for things like headaches or colds aren’t necessary; our bodies know how to take care of themselves and will do so in due time. Yes, it might take a little longer to recover than if you popped a few Tylenol or Aspirin. But you still end up recovering just as well, with the added bonus of not having to dump chemicals into your system just to get better.

Some people claim that they “need” to take medicine to get rid of a cold, or to recover from a headache. Perhaps they need it now, but did they need the medicine when they first started taking it? Or is needing to take medicine something that had been borne out of wanting a quick fix for discomfort rather than letting the body do its own thing, which resulted in a dependency on the drug? Maybe any alleged “dependency” on medicine for simple ailments is psychological, and your body has been conditioned to think that it needs medication when it really doesn’t.

It’s ridiculous to think of people that depend on medication for basic functions in addition to recovering from minor ailments, such as sleeping, because sleep is one of the most basic things the human body does, yet people are resorting to popping pills left and right to try and catch some shut eye. Whenever I personally have trouble sleeping⁴, I usually end up getting a few hours of sleep for a few nights in a row, but it usually works itself out of my system in a few days and then everything goes back to normal. I’ll take a few sleepless nights every now and then over turning my body into a walking pharmaceutical company. Exhaustion is natural; medication isn’t.

The thought of creating a dependency on unnecessary medication scares me. A cold is a cold, a fever is a fever no matter who suffers from it, and I am sure there are countless people that see Benadryl or Mucinex as necessities and their body suffers as a result. Not only is there the risk of a dependency on the medicine, but it also prevents your immune system from fighting the bacteria that it should, and needs, to fight in order to keep you healthy. And unless I (God forbid) am diagnosed with a serious illness/disease, I am going to continue letting my body take care of itself in a way that only it knows how (with bed rest and vitamins, of course!) rather than pop pills at the alarming rate that seems to be a societal norm.

I had gotten my second ear piercings and I was allergic to the metal used in the earring, so the piercings got infected really, really badly and even though I wasn’t really comfortable with the idea, I had to go on antibiotics to prevent the infection from spreading to other parts of my body. The holes had to close up too, which was a bummer. [↩]
When I use the term “sick” in this entry, I mean ailments such as fever, cold, sore throat, etc. I do not mean serious illnesses such as pneumonia, bronchitis, respiratory infection, or other illnesses, nor do I mean diseases such as cancer, hepatitis, or diabetes. I am fully aware that serious illnesses and disease often do require drugs and medication, and without it, people can die. [↩]
Again, this is only about minor ailments and not serious illnesses/diseases. See this footnote for more details. [↩]
My opinion about sleeping issues does not cover insomnia, it only covers poor sleep quality. I’m not well-informed enough about insomnia, nor have I experienced it, to make a judgment about it. [↩]

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

In the United States, it is illegal for an individual under the age of 21 to drink alcohol. Most other countries in the world either do not have an age limit for drinking alcohol or the age is 18 rather than 21. The debate about lowering the drinking age in the States or abolishing the law altogether is a heated one, but regardless of whether or not the law is changed, the fact remains that alcohol is a dominant part of student life.

I live on-campus at my university, and my university campus is a dry campus¹, but no campus is truly “dry.” There are always ways to get alcohol even if you are underage, and it’s not uncommon to see transports² on the weekends because of some students partying too hard. It seems like student life revolves around alcohol, and students become obsessed with it as they adapt the “it’s not fun unless alcohol is involved” attitude. A lot of the appeal to do with the “forbidden fruit”³ factor, but some of it has to do with media and culture, too.

I choose not to drink alcohol by choice; it has never been appealing to me because of both the taste as well as some existing family issues stemming from alcohol and other drugs. This doesn’t mean I judge those that do choose to drink; however, it means that I have a tendency to worry about my friends’ crazy, drunken antics because I usually am the one that is sober. But it does make me sad that alcohol is such a huge deal when it comes to getting a large group of friends together. If there is a choice between getting drunk with strangers at a random party or having fun with friends whilst hanging out, more often than not alcohol is chosen over friends. Alcohol is eternally present in student life, and the quest for getting as drunk as possible as often as possible affects all aspects of a university experience even if one chooses not to drink.

It seems as though alcohol is becoming the glue that keeps friends together, because if alcohol isn’t present at a party or other type of social gathering, people are no longer interested in being there and leave in search for drinks. The underlying assumption is that friends are forever, but the availability of alcohol is limited and therefore has first priority. I understand that people enjoy drinking alcohol, but I hope that they enjoy hanging out with their friends more than becoming good acquaintances with the bottle, because one is obviously more important than the other…

Dry campuses ban alcohol on the entire campus, regardless of a person’s age or an individual’s intent [↩]
When a student is ill a call is placed to the transportation system at my university and the student is taken to hospital [↩]
Legally speaking, alcohol is unattainable for minors, which makes it all the more appealing [↩]

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

For a while now, people have been confusing leggings¹ and/or tights² with pants. It’s slowly becoming a fashion epidemic, and a horrible one at that. I see people that substitute pants with leggings and/or tights everywhere from my local shopping mall, on the subway, or even as I make my way from class to class. These people look perfectly normal, and often appear to be more well put together in terms of fashion except for one thing – they’re not wearing pants.

I don’t care how “in” the current look of using leggings or tights as pants is or how comfortable that look may be, they still aren’t pants. Leggings and tights are meant to be used for layering, such as with short skirts or light summer dresses. They were not designed with the intent of being paired with only an oversized hoodie and a pair of Ugg boots. When worn as pants, leggings make you look like your wardrobe is lacking an important element for any clothing ensemble: the bottom half of your outfit.

It’s not an attractive look, nor is it flattering, and the people that are able to pull off the leggings look are few and far between. If you can’t pull off a particular look for whatever reason, then even the most fashionable of fashion trends make a person look ridiculous instead of sophisticated. Being able for others to see your underwear lines displayed by your leggings-covered butt is not my idea of looking stylish, and frankly, I know very little people that have the right body shape to rock the leggings look without needing to feel self-conscious (leggings aren’t flattering, they hide nothing) and are able to pull it off without looking frumpy or clueless about fashion.

Leggings are only acceptable as pants if you’re off to a fitness class such as yoga or aerobics. Otherwise, they are not pants, and should only be used to layer an outfit, and never as actual pants.

ETA: While Googling about this subject, I found a very good resource. ;D

Exhibit number one, number two [↩]
Exhibit number three [↩]

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31

Heidi Montag is a Plastic Freak

No Thanks, FirstHosting

Dear X

Dear Fellow Tweeters

Asshat Neighbor

Bikini Sunbathing

For Simplicity’s Sake

Kiss and Tell

The Distortion of Beauty

A Pill-Popping Culture

Alcohol Dominates Student Life

Leggings and Tights Are Not Pants

Profile

May 2020

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags