"that's the best thing a girl can be...

...in this world, a beautiful little fool" (Fitzgerald 17).  These famous words from the beautiful and delicate Daisy have been posted thousands of times on ignorant girls Instagram bios.  Amid it's caption with emoji flashes and glitter, it seems that this quote has lost it's meaning in todays world where feminism is a prevalent movement and such ideas are frowned upon.

women are anything but innocent these days, from the looks of this picture

Back in the early nineteenth century, society valued women who were submissive and innocent: they were expected to remain home and take care of children and not have a mind of their own.  In a way, Daisy embodies this ideal by avoiding anything that displaces her from her more calm life.  She stays out of her husband's affairs while forgetting her real love for Gatsby.  She wants her daughter to be free of such "sinful" affairs by being innocent.  If a woman doesn't understand the truth and doesn't question her husbands motives and actions (such as where he gets his money), then she is better off being carefree.  This applies to the cliche "ignorance is bliss".  If you don't know what is going on in the rest of the world (poverty, war, refugees), you have less stress and can focus more on your own *petty* issues.  However, is this really better for society as a whole? How about for those around you? Educated people may not be able to live as non-chalantly, but they do get to understand things better without being put to the bottom and demoted as empty-headed.

innocence is bliss?

As the novel progresses, the innocence that women were supposed to have slowly slipped away to more sensual pleasures- such as Daisy's affair with Gatsby.  Like many of the women during the Jazz Age, the submissive character was stripped away as a sense of freedom came with the freedom to vote.  So maybe ignorance is not bliss after all, for such innocence can cause servitude.

The dreadful day I got my ACT score...

Three weeks later, my ACT scores came out. When I got to my computer, the black screen seemed to be taunting me, asking me to unlock it. My mind was racing. "It's the test that decides your future, no big deal" it said.  I knew my parents would kill me, if they saw a bad score. They would disown me, put me "out in the wild somewhere" (Walls 280). Even more than that, no college would ever let me step onto their campus with a bad test score. I wanted to throw my computer out the door-- never let the scores get to me and ruin my life.

Instead, I logged into http://www.actstudent.org/. It was tan with a blue banner. I clicked on the scores button, and saw a blaring 36.

In the seconds that followed, I quickly scanned the subscores. 36, 36, 36 okay... 35.9 on reading?!? If this was a nightmare, I wanted it to end. If this was what failure feels like, I wanted it to end. If my parents wanted to disown me, they should just do it to end my pain. I couldn't believe this defeat was the result of 5,000 hours of studying, 60 practice tests, and innumerable amounts stress. I knew, that this moment would traumatize me for the rest of my life...

DISCLAIMERS:

1. this post was mimicking The Glass Castle page 280 (Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle. London: Virago, 2005. Print.)

2. this is also a sardonic post- not only did I never take the ACT and make up an impossible score, but it also shows that people put too much of their life on standardized testing (or even school and scores in general). As my fellow junior-suffering friends and I stress about getting the best scores possible, it seems like we all lose sight of what's important.  Yes, college is important, but the obsession should not consume your life and you should definitely not let a less than favorable score ruin your life.

horror

ca·tas·tro·phe

kəˈtastrəfē/

noun

1. an event causing great and often sudden damage or suffering; a disaster.

Many people will say they have not personally gone through a catastrophe. However, a catastrophe is not limited to events that affect a wide mass of people: it could be a local disaster, a family tragedy, or even a personal suffering. Nevertheless, widespread disasters affect all of us- it makes us realize just how lucky we are. Everyone comes into this world with a different circumstance. Things we can't control like our genetics, color of our skin, our physicality, etc. can greatly limit or stimulate us. In The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove is restricted by her gender, skin color, nationality, and even her "ugliness". In fact, even her own race turns against her, one of whom made a distinction between "colored people [and] n******" (Morrison 124).

Supposedly, one is better than the other

Because of this, Pecola is constantly facing discrimination and, as a result, catastrophes. She is accused of killing a cat and even raped by her own father. Such events had me on the edge of my seat, filled with emotions that could only be described as horror. The only thing that kept me from breaking down was the fact that these events did not happen in real life. Unfortunately, however, these events do happen everyday, prevalently. While going through my daily internet surfing, I came about the rape accusations put upon a very well-known YouTuber: Sam Pepper. With over 2 million subscribers, he sexually assaulted and forever scarred over 8 girls. Girls that- like Pecola- are unable to come out (or even worse, are not believed when they do).
On the topic of catastrophes, the recent attack on Paris has left millions around the globe in shock and horror. Even worse, this event is happening around the globe, constantly.  Dozens of people killed in Beirut.  Hundreds of refugees dyeing in an attempt for a better life. Iraq.  Afganistan.  The list goes on. 

thousands of people have changed their facebook profile picture #prayforparis

It is important to remember that catastrophes are always happening, and each deserves mourning. You may not be the rape victim, the girl who had to pretend to be dead so she was not shot by the terrorists, or student diagnosed with cancer, but each event impacts you directly. Each event continues to remind us to value what we have and help whoever we can. On the same note, everyone does go through their own catastrophes, and even though it's not all over CNN or posters on the wall, these horrible events need to be treated with empathy. Cholly and Mrs. Breedlove's chapters taught me that much. 

"this is an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share" -B.O.

YOU, yes you, are beautiful

What defines beauty? Or in other words, who is beautiful?  It may be overly optimistic to say that everyone is beautiful-that is impossible.  If everyone is beautiful, then no one is beautiful.  However, it does make sense to say that everyone is beautiful in their own way- in other words, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Shortly after The Martian, I was obsessing over this beautiful face- my good friend Emily, however, was not so ecstatic

I was moved to write this blog post after reading Toni Morrison's reaction to the first time she saw "beauty" as "the force of which was equaled by the knowledge that no one recognized it... not even the one who possessed it". A fellow female classmate can definitely relate with the following situation: you're in the bathroom with a friend and she can't stop picking out her flaws and declaiming  that she is "ugly". However, when we look at the mirror, we only see the impeccable characteristics that they seem to be oblivious to.  So maybe that's the reason for the fuzzy outline of beauty- no one believes they are beautiful.  Countless models we look up to daily in magazines body sham themselves (with the help of the press, of course).  So the problem doesn't seem to be that there is no set characteristics that a person should be to be considered beautiful- rather, they are unattainable.  No matter how skinny her waist is, or how flawless her hair looks, she still won't be perfect (at least to themselves). 

this does not apply to just females; males also get labeled for "hotness"

So is a L-shaped nose, blue eyes, and blonde hair the epitome of beauty? Or can a brown-skinned, curly-hair, and dusty brown eyes also be beautiful? The answer is yes; the problem is not everyone sees that.  Toni Morrison's book explores what society deems to be beautiful and how people (specifically one lost child) react to these standards. In a nutshell, everyone is beautiful- it just takes the right person to see it (ends with a trite statement).