Tales of Triumph

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Thu, 23 May 2013 19:04:46 -0400

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Wed, 22 May 2013 15:14:15 -0400

Who run the world?

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:32:48 -0400

In the context of today’s culture, women are expected to do more now than ever before. Society wants me to have a high-powered, time-consuming, self-defining career in my early to mid-twenties, but nature requires me to breed and raise a family in the same time period. We’re expected to cater to both needs, all the while in high heels and red lipstick.

Anything less hints at the fact that you’re probably a failure as a woman. That’s the sense I’m getting anyway.

However, I’m focusing more on the former. I’m getting close. I’m not quite there yet, but I can feel it.

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Tue, 14 May 2013 19:55:09 -0400

When the professional gets personal

Mon, 13 May 2013 11:18:00 -0400

It took me a long time to get to this point, but I’m not the kind of young woman who requires validation from her friends or family members or strangers to feel good about herself. Call me fat, ugly, boring - it won’t phase me. I have enough confidence in myself to know those things are not true.

But for some reason, I constantly need and crave validation of my hard work and success in my professional life. During my internship at the Winnipeg Free Press, the editors constantly showered me with compliments about my clean copy. Every day, I strived to do the best I could - but only for my ego’s sake. If I was told something was a teensy bit off or if nobody noticed my quirky and attention-grabbing lede, I felt a little wounded.

When the professional gets personal, it’s time to step back and gather perspective. I wrote a piece of advice for myself in my notepad should those feelings arise again: “Just because you got a few compliments last week doesn’t mean you know everything. Take them with a grain of salt. Continue to do great work without the expectation of a compliment. Don’t get too comfortable - push to be better every day, and if you make a mistake, just fix it and move on.”

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Thu, 02 May 2013 12:06:08 -0400

"All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are..."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:02:17 -0400

““All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.””

- Ernest Hemingway

Passion rules everything around me

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:59:00 -0400

I am living a paradox.

As much as it pains me to admit this to myself, but I like structure, safety, and stability.

Yet I am about to enter a profession that offers none of those things.

I ask myself, “why?”

And the answer is clear: “It’s what I love.”

Great, I mean, adequate expectations

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 11:16:36 -0400

Readjusting expectations of people in my life is something I have always struggled with, but I like to think I’m getting better at it as time goes on.

Everyone has flaws, especially me. And everyone does their best regardless of those flaws. I need to remember that the next time I feel like someone “lets me down”.

My best friend told me it’s unfair to have certain expectations of someone and then be mad when they don’t live up to them. I appreciate her for that.

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Thu, 04 Apr 2013 08:20:33 -0400

The prologue of Beauty and the Beastused to and still does give...

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 11:05:00 -0400

The prologue of Beauty and the Beastused to and still does give me the chills.

The next step

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 12:51:21 -0400

Like many students about to embark on a new path in their lives, I have some questions about the next step.

Such as, how big of a step is it? Am I going to trip and fall flat on my face like I did when I was five years old after one ballet lesson? (I never did become a ballerina, obviously.)

For the past few months, I’ve been browsing job websites, not exactly searching for anything in particular. I look at the screen and it’s blurry. Uncertain.

I can’t stay in one spot forever, and I won’t.

"It is time for writers to admit that nothing in this world makes sense. Only fools and charlatans..."

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:58:44 -0400

“It is time for writers to admit that nothing in this world makes sense. Only fools and charlatans think they know and understand everything. The stupider they are, the wider they conceive their horizons to be. And if an artist decides to declare that he understands nothing of what he sees - this in itself constitutes a considerable clarity in the realm of thought, and a great step forward.”

- Anton Chekhov

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Mon, 18 Feb 2013 20:42:55 -0500

CS Lewis: To love at all (x)

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 20:24:00 -0500

CS Lewis: To love at all (x)

Sentiment

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 08:25:00 -0500

My boyfriend and I will be celebrating four years tomorrow. He - with the best of intentions - had already told me what my gift was: a subscription to Chatelaine. What a dear.

But just yesterday, he received a handwritten letter from the magazine which said his credit card was cancelled.

He texted me, “I’ll get you a magazine from the store and drop it off for a year if I have to”.

What a dreamboat.

Love, through and through

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:59:00 -0500

(to men)

I don’t want chocolates. I don’t want flowers. I don’t want a fancy dinner. I want you to think about me, us, what we’ve built, and express that your way, the only way you know how. And if that comes in the form of chocolates, flowers, and a fancy dinner, I will love that. As long as that is truthful to you. I want you to remind me why I fell in love with you. Not because it’s your job but because you still believe in us. Fuck that. I don’t just want to be reminded. I want to be rediscovered. I want you to kiss me, hold me, and touch me like it’s the first time but look at me like we’re eighty and you wouldn’t change a thing. I want you to forget about everything this one night, our fights, your job, the future, and it doesn’t have to be the 14th. It can be today. But be with me. I don’t want to be impressed. I want to be moved. I want you to baptize my heart so my faith in us is unbreakable.

Again.

(to women)

I don’t want you to wear sexy lingerie if you don’t feel sexy in it. I don’t want you to focus on pleasing me or giving me something you think I want unless it is your desire. I don’t want you to compare me or us to anyone else. All I want from you tonight is trust. And if it’s been difficult, I ask that you try. Just for tonight. Let go. And let love. Ours. Lean into what we have, even if it’s not much right now, and know that tonight can change us. I would like you be open, assertive, and expressive. Both with your heart as well as your body. Trust before you knew pain. Believe before you knew doubt. Love before you knew how. Put fear aside and fall back.

Into my arms.

- theangrytherapist

Happy Valentine’s Day.

"In pop culture, girls who crush hopelessly on guys they can’t have are painted as just that –..."

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 20:34:33 -0500

“In pop culture, girls who crush hopelessly on guys they can’t have are painted as just that – hopeless. Over and over again, we’re taught that girls who openly express sexual or romantic interest in guys who don’t want them are pitiable, stalkerish, desperate, crazy bitches. More often than not, they’re also portrayed as ugly – whether physically, emotionally or both – in order to further establish their undesirability as an objective fact. Both narratively and, as a consequence, in real life, men are given free reign to snub, abuse, mislead and talk down to such women: we’re raised to believe that female desire is unseemly, so that any consequent shaming is therefore deserved. There is no female-equivalent Friend Zone terminology because, in the language of our culture, a man’s romantic choices are considered sacrosanct and inviolable. If a girl has been told no, then she has only herself to blame for anything that happens next – but if a woman says no, then she must not really mean it. Or, if she does, she shouldn’t: the rejected man is a universally sympathetic figure, and everyone from moviegoers to platonic onlookers will scream at her to just give him a chance, as though her rejection must always be unfounded rather than based on the fact that he had a chance, and blew it. And even then, give him another one! The pathos of Single Nice Guys can only be eased by pity-sex with unwilling women that blossoms into romance!”

- Lamenting the Friendzone, or: The Nice Guy Approach to Perpetuating Sexist Bullshit (via arbors)

"‘Each day we wake in the morning with a thought in our minds. This thought, whatever it may be, sets..."

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 19:44:00 -0500

“‘Each day we wake in the morning with a thought in our minds. This thought, whatever it may be, sets the tone for the rest of the day. This is not always a good thing as we may wake up in a rush for work or school, with a hangover, feeling depressed or generally in a state of confusion. Therefore it is a good idea to learn how to create an original thought to begin each day, and to make the day a perfect expression of your original thought.’”

- The Tibetan Art of Positive Thinking (via modelsmadeofplasticene)

Sometimes I forget to love you like I should But I’d never...

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 16:42:00 -0500

Sometimes I forget to love you like I should

But I’d never leave you

No, I never would