“Girlfriend Conversations”

By Jonas

- indeed :P HAHA.

Yeah, I’ll admit it. I’m jealous of you. I wonder if you knew that I’ve been a very jealous person ever since I can remember.

She’s lucky - she’s gotten everything she’s wanted. I wish I could be more like her so I could be appreciated. Why can’t I be as pretty as her? I wonder how it would be like if I could get that much attention. Why can’t I learn to appreciate everything like she does? 

I can proudly say that things have changed since then. I know I’ve learned to be more appreciative of what has happened thus far and all that I have in my life. A definite improvement.

But the jealousy is not completely gone just yet.

—

Yeah, I’ll admit it. I’m jealous of you. But not in the kind of way I used to be jealous of others. I’m jealous that you still have all these doors open for you. Doors of opportunity. Nowadays, I’ve been able to sit and observe others around me and I notice how much I missed out as a student.

Despite all the different options I knew UW had, I definitely did not take advantage of most of them when I could have. I was so determined to finish school as fast as I could, for many reasons. I wanted to lessen the financial strain for my family (so my sister could go to college with no problem) - the main reason which makes me happy that I did what I did. But also because I was just so tired of the student life. I hated reading, and studying, and homework, and tests, and the normal routine I had been in for fifteen years. I really just wanted to move on with my life. I rushed through it all to get it done, and I got my wish.

But now, the ironic part is that there’s just so much regret that I face.

I see you, always busy, figuring out ways to fit in studying, a social life, extra curricular activities, leadership roles, and even more fun stuff into each day (which is not new to me). But here’s where it all changes.

— 

Yeah, I’ll admit it. I’m jealous of you. Jealous that you have all this time left. I keep telling myself that if I had more time, there’s so much more I would have done.

I wanted to take all types of classes and gain a wide range of knowledge. I wanted to study abroad somewhere exotic. I wanted to try a range of new activities I had never even heard of. I wanted to have the motivation to aim for higher grades. I wanted to know what it truly feels like to be super busy and have no time on your hands. I wanted to explore more clubs and associations on campus. I wanted to take advantage of all the networking opportunities to prepare me for the real world. I wanted to be the ‘perfect balance’ of college life.

—

Yeah, I’ll admit it. I’m jealous of you. There’s a huge part of me that wishes I could turn back time and be a student again.

Did that just happen? I wonder if this is just a spur of the moment thing.

Needing options right now. Still unsure what to do with my life.

God, please give a sign. I need a sign. I need some sort of direction on what I’m supposed to do or where I’m supposed to go next.

“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.” 
― Friedrich Nietzsche

——

Ever since I was 5, I have been given the opportunity to dance. A lot. It started off in Hong Kong because my best friend wanted to take ballet classes. So I decided to take them as well. I thought it was super fun! So even when she quit, I still continued on with my ballet. 

When I moved to the Philippines, the dancing continued. I was able to dance ballet more seriously, taking the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) Exams each year. After 7 years of ballet, I realized that it was hard for me to continue, since it felt like I had to work extra hard to match the levels of the dancers in my classes. So I quit. 

After ballet, I tried out jazz and modern dancing, which I felt matched my needs more. It was in high school when I explored it, both in the dance studio I had been in and in school. Through my school, from class and in the dance team, I was able to participate in multiple dance recitals and shows. Those few years challenged me greatly. And despite the blood, sweat, and tears, I realized that even after I left high school, I still wanted to continue dancing.

When I started at UW, I tried out for the UW Dance Team. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it. But I still decided to take the weekly classes - until I realized how lonely it was. About the same time, I went to my first FASA meeting and found the Sayaw booth. I approached Cjay and asked her what Sayaw was. I thought it would be great to try something new, as I hadn’t really gotten much exposure to traditional Filipino dancing. Through Sayaw, I was also able to perform in multiple shows, which is one component I missed from high school. Not only was I learning and embracing more of Filipino culture, I was also making really good friends, and finding an outlet of stress relief. This passion to continue fueled my desire to be coordinator of the group.

My last year at UW, I got exposed to a different genre of dance through Kasama. I hadn’t done much hip-hop in the past, so once I got over my pride as Sayaw Coordinator to see what Kasama was about, I fell in love all over again. Hip-hop brought on a new side of dance I definitely wanted to learn more of. This style of sharpness and hard-hitting moves were something new to me. And in the group, I also made really good friends.

——

Dancing means everything to me. Even though I’m sure I don’t (and can’t) want to make a career out of it or let it be my sole focus in life, I’m pretty damn sure I can’t live without it. It’s my desired activity of exercise, my stress relief, my form of expression.. 

Maybe, just maybe, a part of me was really meant to be a dancer.

I’m distracted by the research I’m doing for the Career Fair coming up - doing all I can to try and physically/mentally prep ahead of time. Despite the partial disappointment from it all, I can’t seem to get sleepy just yet.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), I’ve been thinking the last few days. About the situation I’m in now - or the one I’ve been in the last ten months rather. In terms of the job hunt, I haven’t made much progress. Been sending out my resume and applying to jobs here and there. Some I hear back from; others end up in a one-way chase. Regardless of the job position or the company, the result has been the same.

Despite the negativity I have felt during these ten months, there has been a glimmer of optimism. Because I haven’t found anything, I’ve been able to do the things I enjoy the most. I’ve been able to: spend time with friends (help them out when I can), figure out exactly what I want to do in the future, and dance. Although I wish for a phone call that can help me build a new future, all this time has helped me figure out what truly makes me happy.

And that’s as much as I can ask for at the moment.

t-o-g-a:

No one, and I mean no one deserves this.

don’t care if your a bieber, hipster, one direction, kardashian, janoskian blog. you all need to watch this and reblog it

this video deserves a billion notes so please stop scrolling, watch and reblog !

(Source: theerex-t, via jerllariv)

Beautiful Nail Party with the 5117 Ladies! <3

On Kony 2012: I honestly wanted to stay as far away as possible from KONY 2012, the latest fauxtivist fad sweeping the web (remember “change your Facebook profile pic to stop child abuse”?), but you clearly won’t stop sending me that damn video until I say something about it, so here goes:

Stop sending me that video.

The organization behind Kony 2012 — Invisible Children Inc. — is an extremely shady nonprofit that has been called ”misleading,” “naive,” and “dangerous” by a Yale political science professor, and has been accused by Foreign Affairs of “manipulat[ing] facts for strategic purposes.” They have also been criticized by the Better Business Bureau for refusing to provide information necessary to determine if IC meets the Bureau’s standards.

Additionally, IC has a low two-star rating in accountability from Charity Navigator because they won’t let their financials be independently audited. That’s not a good thing. In fact, it’s a very bad thing, and should make you immediately pause and reflect on where the money you’re sending them is going.

By IC’s own admission, only 31% of all the funds they receive go toward actually helping anyone [pdf]. The rest go to line the pockets of the three people in charge of the organization, to pay for their travel expenses (over $1 million in the last year alone) and to fund their filmmaking business (also over a million) — which is quite an effective way to make more money, as clearly illustrated by the fact that so many can’t seem to stop forwarding their well-engineered emotional blackmail to everyone they’ve ever known.

And as far as what they do with that money:

The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending.

Let’s not get our lines crossed: The Lord’s Resistance Army is bad news. And Joseph Kony is a very bad man, and needs to be stopped. But propping up Uganda’s decades-old dictatorship and its military arm, which has been accused by the UN of committing unspeakable atrocities and itself facilitated the recruitment of child soldiers, is not the way to go about it.

The United States is already plenty involved in helping rout Kony and his band of psycho sycophants. Kony is on the run, having been pushed out of Uganda, and it’s likely he will soon be caught, if he isn’t already dead. But killing Kony won’t fix anything, just as killing Osama bin Laden didn’t end terrorism. The LRA might collapse, but, as Foreign Affairs points out, it is “a relatively small player in all of this — as much a symptom as a cause of the endemic violence.”

Myopically placing the blame for all of central Africa’s woes on Kony — even as a starting point — will only imperil many more people than are already in danger.

Sending money to a nonprofit that wants to muck things up by dousing the flames with fuel is not helping. Want to help? Really want to help? Send your money to nonprofits that are putting more than 31% toward rebuilding the region’s medical and educational infrastructure, so that former child soldiers have something worth coming home to.

Here are just a few of those charities. They all have a sparkling four-star rating from Charity Navigator, and, more importantly, no interest in airdropping American troops armed to the teeth into the middle of a multi-nation tribal war to help one madman catch another.

The bottom line is, research your causes thoroughly. Don’t just forward a random video to a stranger because a mass murderer makes a five-year-old “sad.” Learn a little bit about the complexities of the region’s ongoing strife before advocating for direct military intervention.

There is no black and white in the world. And going about solving important problems like there is just serves to make all those equally troubling shades of gray invisible.

[kony2012.]

(Source: thedailywhat, via josh-forte-buen)