♥ Juliana Talks Incoherently ♥

19 Kids and Counting

2012-02-06T16:21:00.000-05:00

I don't agree with them, but I can understand them. When Michelle was asked why she would have another child when she went through so much with her last one, she answered, "When I look at Josie's face, I just think that I would do it all again in an instant."

At first I thought she's thinking about how it would affect her and not how it would affect the baby, but then I thought that in her mind, it isn't up to her. She really believes that if God gives her another baby, all she can do is take care of it the best she can and do everything she can. She believes that she would do absolutely everything for her baby and if God still decides to take it to heaven, then it was meant to be.

Obviously, I don't see it this way. I don't see how birth control is any different from medicine or artificial respirators or any other unnatural medical device they used to keep Josie alive. I also don't understand why they think they should keep having sex. Like maybe God is giving them a sign to give more attention to their children instead of to each other. There are so many theories when you involve religion. But I still think they have good intentions.

Social Conventions

2011-10-27T14:11:00.005-04:00

I'm taking Women and Gender Studies right now. I call it angry women class and I talk about how excessively liberal it is, but I actually like it for some of the points it brings up. One thing we talk about a lot in there is how we believe there are some things that are normal and natural when really, they aren't natural at all. They are simply ideas constructed by society that are so ingrained in our minds that we think anything that deviates is unnatural or wrong.

Just because something is different, does that make it wrong? It's funny how programmed people are to see things one way and no other. For example, people need labels to justify actions. In order for it to be acceptable to act a certain way, you need to identify yourself accordingly. You are a girl; therefore, it is okay that you cry and like to look at pictures of puppies. You are religious, so it's okay that you've never kissed anyone. You're just outgoing, so it's okay if you say anything that comes to your mind.

People also need you to define your relationships. If you don't, they'll define them for you. If you're too close to a same-sex friend, they'll label you as gay. If you're too close to an opposite-sex friend, they think you're secretly involved. People will label you if you don't label yourself and beat them to it.

This leads to another thing we talk about in class, how life is performance art. Every day, we decide how we want to be seen by others. We put on a show. The way we act and dress is a performance meant to express something about ourselves to other people. People often reconcile their inner and outer selves, but it's also easy to put on an act that hides who you really are. They live with a poker face, and people believe that's who they are because no one realizes that life is an act. They think people really fit into these black and white categories and that their actions and feelings can be generalized.

I think people's lives, experiences, and their nature make them all different from each other because no one will ever really understand what it's like to be them, but at the same time I think that no one is really an individual because they mold and shape themselves to fit an existing category in order to make sense of their complicated minds.

Not that I'm saying social conventions are bad. You perform what you want people to think of you, so if you don't want to be rejected, you have to put on a good performance. Not shaving or matching clothes for example tells people you just don't care about anything, which isn't the kind of message you want to be sending about yourself.

Just something I've been thinking about.

Love,

Juliana

Oh dear God.

2011-10-17T17:48:00.003-04:00

So now parents are supposed to fully explain sex to their kids by the time they are 8 years old at the very latest. They suggest you explain it the first time the kid ever asks where babies come from. Now they're saying you're supposed to teach 9-year-olds how to use condoms.

Seriously? Are we for real here? As always, I'm taking issue with advice from supposed psychology experts. Maybe I'm naive, but I also know that adults really don't understand kids very well, and most adults really suck at parenting.

First of all, their argument is that kids are hitting puberty earlier than ever. Sure, this is true, but does that automatically mean kids are going to be having sex at that age? People think once hormones kick in, kids will give in to them, so we better give condoms to 3rd graders. Perfect solution. No. We talk about this in my gender studies class. People ignore their biology and do whatever is considered socially normal. Teens have sex as high school freshmen because they hear so much about it and are even encouraged to have sex with someone they've been dating for a certain period of time. This is socially normal. When you are 9, it is not normal at all. Unless the kids are really messed up (usually as the result of horrible parenting), they aren't going to do this because sex is not yet a part of their life.

If we start making it a part of their life, society is going to change along with biology and we're going to have a bigger mess to clean up. Take that any way you like.

I think the bottom line here is that so few people deserve to be parents. I think only 25% of parents in this country are actually capable of being responsible for another life. Out of the remaining, I'm sure half of them are barely capable of handing their own lives.

Love,

Juliana

Thoughts

2011-10-14T01:07:00.004-04:00

Sometimes I really like being away from home. It means I'm far away from my past. When I talk about my friends from home, my friends at school comment on how much drama my high school group had/has. We really do have a lot of drama for a group of people that say they hate drama. I miss by best friends, but sometimes it's great to know that if I don't want to talk to someone, I don't have to.

Everyone talks about everyone, it's just a fact. When people leave the room, everyone else talks about them. I know people talk about me, not because I think I'm so special but because I'm not special enough to be the exception. I'd rather not know what they say, more because I can already guess.

I hate that some people really just don't understand social cues. I'm socially anxious, but I do understand when I need to stop talking or go away. It scares me when people don't know. It's like this disconnect that makes you feel like communication with them is impossible.

I'm not even 19 yet and I'm starting to worry that I'll never find a guy I want to marry. I worry that I'll never even want to get married. I only care because I really, really want a baby and a family.

I hadn't until recently seen college as a blank slate. Senior year of high school was just terrible, and this year is so amazingly wonderful. I can't believe how much I used to cry. I can't believe I used to actually hurt myself. I was looking the other day for the scars and I couldn't even find them. They're only slightly visible in good lighting at a certain angle. My friend brought up suicide here one night, and we all pulled out painful memories from our depression days. Everyone was quiet for a minute and then moved on to something happier. This is everything I could ever want, and I'm so grateful to have gotten over that stupid phase, and I really hope I've grown enough as a person to stop it from returning.
I really want to believe in God again so I can thank Him for all this and ask him to please take care of my friends in all the ways I can't. A few years ago, I would have said that in a prayer every night. I really wish I could get that back. Sometimes talking to my roommate makes me more skeptical of religion, but going to her house and celebrating one of her holidays, listening to their prayers of thanks, really made me wish I had that kind of faith. I'm going to teach my kids religion just so they have something to believe in.

Love,

Juliana

Sexy Babies: "Lingerie" for Kids?

2011-09-30T14:38:00.009-04:00

My roommate told me this title is horrible, but that was exactly the reaction I was hoping for. Apparently this happened a while ago, but I'm just hearing about it now. A French company Jours Après Lunes came out with a line of what they call lingerie for preteen girls, ages 4-12, and the U.S. is shaking a finger at them. When I first heard this, my reaction was something like "oh God," but when I looked at it, it's really the label of lingerie that has Americans up in arms and provokes a reprise of the popular tirade about oversexualization.

I think oversexualizing little girls is a big problem that societal plagues like baby beauty pageants bring to public attention. It's pedophile bait and cruelly stripping them of their innocence. I know this idea has been beaten to death, but little girls take images from the media and apply them to their own lives, learning that "sexy" is something they should aspire to be. I knew the meaning of the word sexy as a child long before I understood the finer points of sex, and I knew that to be called sexy was a compliment. It's bad for girls to be sexualized before their time, but I really don't think selling pretty underwear and bathingsuits to kids, especially in France, is anything to be upset about.

We talked yesterday in my Women and Gender Studies class about the difference between the way the public views sex in the U.S. and in Europe. My teacher said in America, it is easy to upset the "delicate sensibilities" of the public, while Europe has a more relaxed opinion of nudity and sexuality, able to distinguish the artistic from the animalistic. Here, we can't tell the difference, and anything provocative excites the public in a different way.

I completely agree that we're oversexualizing children and to let kids be kids, but really, teen sex has been on the decline since the 90s and it was much worse before that. People always like to think that the past was much more innocent than the present, but researchers are finally starting to admit what we've been saying all along: rejecting all reference to sexuality makes sex more appealing to teenagers, who want the rush of doing something they feel they shouldn't. We aren't doing our kids any favors by making them ashamed of sexuality.

So they're making cute undies for 10-year-olds overseas. Yeah, it's weird to see these kids modeling the stuff, but it's not such a big deal. Why do you care so much, America?

Love,
Juliana

Excerpt from Angry Women

2011-09-29T17:05:00.003-04:00

My Women and Gender Studies class (affectionately referred to as "angry women") was actually thought provoking today. Unfortunately, I couldn't even decide what I think about all this on the spot so I didn't contribute anything to these discussions, so I'll discuss them here after I had the 20 minute walk from class to think about her questions.

What is the difference between romance and romantic love? I don't even know what romance is. I don't like it, so it's hard for me to define it. I think it's a set of actions someone takes that are part of society's...courtship ritual? Sounds terrible, but that's really what it is. Everyone agrees that these are the rules of dating. Romantic love I guess is just love for someone you want to be with "romantically?" See that's hard too. What if you don't want romance, but you love them that way? Is it possible to love someone romantically and not want any romance?

This led to another question. Can you love someone romantically if you're not physically attracted to them? I want to say yes, but if you aren't attracted to them, what's the difference between romantic love and platonic love? Platonic love by definition is love for someone you aren't sexually attracted to. If you don't need attraction for romantic love, then what distinguishes it from platonic love?

Can you love someone who doesn't love you back? I thought this was obviously yes, but some people said no. This led to the question of whether you can love someone who has never loved you or will never love you back. Does it have to be reciprocated at some point to love that way? What if the person loves you but not in the same way you love them? Does that count? I think you can love if it isn't reciprocated, but a lot of people in my class disagreed.

There are more but this post is already too long. It's interesting to think about.

Love,
Juliana

Take this quiz!

2011-09-28T21:34:00.003-04:00

I'll explain at the end. It's a spectrum, so you pick the number that corresponds to the place between the two personality traits you think you are.

1. Not independent 0 1 2 3 4 Very Independent

2. Not emotional 0 1 2 3 4 Very emotional

3. Very rough 0 1 2 3 4 Very gentle

4. Not competitive 0 1 2 3 4 Very competitive

5. Not helpful to others 0 1 2 3 4 Very helpful to others

6. Not kind 0 1 2 3 4 Very kind

7. Not self-confident 0 1 2 3 4 Very self-confident

8. Give up easily 0 1 2 3 4 Does not give up

9. Not understanding of others 0 1 2 3 4 Very understanding of others

10. Goes to pieces under pressure 0 1 2 3 4 Handles pressure well

Now add up the numbers you got for 2, 3, 5, 6, and 9. That's your score for feminine qualities.

Add up the remaining ones (1, 4, 7, 8, 10). That's the score for your masculine qualities.

We did this in my Women and Gender Studies class to talk about personality traits that are assigned to certain genders. I got 18/20 for feminine qualities and 3/20 for masculine. Unbalanced much?

Beautiful

2011-09-24T21:59:00.002-04:00

Lately, things I never thought about before have seemed beautiful to me. On my way to class, I notice all the spiders on webs strung across trees, and I think it's beautiful that so many people walk by every day and see those spiders. They do their thing and we do ours. We all notice the spider and continue with our day while the spider continues with its life. I see some little kids running around and think that childhood innocence and inhibition is really beautiful. Hearing about my friend's first kiss. Exchanging smiles with a stranger. The lake in the middle of campus early in the morning. The way my family hugs me when I see them after time away. The sincere eyes of someone who is happy to see you. Engagements. The way my cousin plays with her two-year-old soon-to-be stepson. When someone who loves you plays with your hair. Deep conversations with friends late at night. When someone verbalizes exactly what you're feeling and in that moment, you realize that you aren't alone. Beautiful.

Love,
Juliana

Each is an island.

2011-09-19T11:24:00.006-04:00

I was watching melodramatic 90s teen show called My So-Called Life, and in the pilot the main character says:

"It just seems like, you agree to have a certain personality or something. For no reason. Just to make things easier for everyone. But when you think about it, I mean, how do you know it's even you? And, I mean, this whole thing with yearbook -- it's like, everybody's in this big hurry to make this book, to supposedly remember what happened. Because if you made a book of what really happened, it'd be a really upsetting book."

This show is too dramatic for me to get into, and the teen angst is sometimes overbearing, but it often hits these existential notes that make me think. How much of who we are is determined by others' expectations of us, or our expectations of ourselves? I think people are really too complicated to express the confusion in their own minds, so they make choices every day about how they want to express themselves to the world. From the clothes they wear to the things they say, their Facebook statuses, their friends, the things they keep secret and the things they broadcast, and the lies they tell to mold their public selves into something they're not.

I guess I've talked about this before, about the concept of normality and this human desire to fit in a stereotype while at the same time rejecting the idea of labels. This made me think about something different. Are we really independent and unique, or do we simply mold our interests, likes and dislikes, behaviors, and preferences just to make it easier, just so everything makes sense? Quoting The Breakfast Club, "in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions?"

Everyone has these thoughts, whether they be happy, sad, irrational, strange, embarrassing, whatever. They don't share them with others because they don't fit this image they choose to project, or people won't react well to them. Maybe they can't quite explain why they feel that way, and they could never make anyone understand.

Maybe someone has irrational thoughts that they know they can't justify, and logically they know they shouldn't feel that way, but those thoughts stick like a leech and drain them of happiness. Maybe they have dreams of traveling and exploring a far away place, and this makes them happy, but other people just don't understand why they want to do it. Maybe they have feelings for someone that they can't explain, and they know there isn't an English word to correctly pinpoint the emotion, so they pick one that is misleading but simple.

All these things make someone who they are, but no one else can really understand. Instead, they create this outward persona because it makes it easier for everyone else. They make their feelings fit into a category, assign inadequate words to complex feelings and give people a false image of themselves.

Here's an example. I don't want a boyfriend. I know I don't, but people ask me why I like to be so close to guys. I really don't know. They think that getting cuddly with a friend means I actually like them and won't admit it. That's not true. There's something about it that I really like, even though I don't know what it is. Instead, I label myself as a touchy person who just isn't ready to be in a relationship. It's true, but not completely, and know one knows the half of it. The whole situation is so complicated in my mind that there is no way I can make anyone understand, so I just don't try. No one knows how I feel because I can't make them understand.

There's a quote from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad that I really like, and I just realized it describes this perfectly.

"It is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream—alone."

No one knows what it's like to be you, but what I think is interesting is that everyone has more in common than they know. Our experiences are different, but we feel the same. We're all alone in that no one can ever totally understand us, but humans naturally have the same fears, desires, feelings of pain, and the same intrinsic feeling of loneliness that inevitably washes over them when they realize they can't let someone into their mind the way they wish they could.

Love,
Juliana

My Purple-Colored Glasses

2011-09-14T18:39:00.005-04:00

I know I went from not posting anything for a long time to posting twice in one day, but I had lots of thinking time as I wandered around looking for my Spanish professor's office.

I look at the world through rose-colored glasses, or in my case, purple ones. I'm not sure if there's a name for this in psychology, but I have a tendency to view my own life as better than it is and ignore the imperfections while viewing the problems of my friends as worse than they actually are. I worry a lot about outcomes, but I think in general, I'm optimistic. I think my life is great, and I've always thought so even in my worst moments. I have never once thought "my life sucks."

Since many of my major stressors are behind me now, I was thinking the other day about laying off my anxiety medicine. I don't like the idea that I'm dependent on drugs to maintain my mental health. I started thinking about the reasons I needed the drugs in the first place, and I came to the conclusion that senior year of high school was in fact the worst year of my life.

I hit my lowest point, and I remembered the days I spent crying uncontrollably, the ways I would hurt myself or think about hurting myself, how "punishing" myself actually made me feel better. It brought back memories of times when I was catatonic and would stare at a wall or lay in the grass for 30 minutes, motionless, and not realize how much time had passed until I was interrupted. There would be days when I literally couldn't eat, and I never wanted to. I know now that I hurt a friend who means a lot to me, and sometimes a trigger will set off that emotional pain and give me just a glimpse of what I lived with for months last year.

The funny thing about all this is that I never thought I was unhappy. Even when my neurologist asked me, I told him I think I'm a happy person. The rational part of me weighed everything in my life and decided that it was all good, that I had no reason for any of my behavior. I told him I was just always worried, which was true, but this constant anxiety caused me serious unhappiness that, even though I didn't recognize, instilled guilt in me that ate away at my already damaged psyche.

I love my life and everything about it. I wouldn't change a thing. I don't always love myself, in fact there are times when I hate myself. Last year, I hated myself every day. In a new light, I realized that my optimism about my own life and heightened concern for everyone else's was exactly my problem. I can't see things for what they are. I'm not realistic, I'm idealistic, but I'm not sure this is a bad problem to have. I would rather never realize my own unhappiness than live with both the nagging depression and the acute awareness of it's presence.

I didn't remember what it's like to want to get up in the morning. Now I feel like every day has the possibility to be an adventure or a new experience, and I think that's exciting. I really love life, and what I find very sad is that my friends from home have made me cry more since I've been here than anything at college has.

Love,
Juliana

Perfect Day

2011-09-14T16:38:00.002-04:00

I think there's this thing about bad days. If you start the day off with something bad, then every little thing that happens later seems so much worse because you're already starting that much further down. Bad things just compound and their effects are exponential. Is the same true for good things? I don't know. I think people are less likely to notice the good things. Once you're already up, you're in such a good mood where nothing bothers you. Everyone has days when you start low and feel like the world is imploding with you at the center. Then there are days when your euphoria is like a force field around you, blocking anything that tries to ruin your good mood. That makes me think of this song from Legally Blonde.

I didn't have a great day today, but I reminded myself that people make too big a deal out of bad days. Even if everything is going wrong, but it's only one day. Maybe tomorrow, everything will be perfect.

Love,
Juliana

Don't you forget about me

2011-08-31T14:48:00.003-04:00

I'm so much more sensitive now to the reactions of my friends. I don't see them every day now, so it's much easier to lose them. I feel like they're forget about me if I don't remind them once in a while. If we go a few days without talking, it feels like a year and that things have changed since. Our world used to be the same world. Now, we all have separate lives on separate paths that only cross when we make the effort to see each other. I never thought I was a clingy person, but I can't accept the idea that in a few years we really won't know each other very well anymore. I'm really afraid of how easy it is to break the bonds. I'm holding on, but just one wrong thing could just be enough to make them slip out of reach.

Love,
Juliana

What is my life now?

2011-08-30T07:56:00.003-04:00

I don't even know yet.

It's amazing just how much has changed. I'm in college now. I've made new friends. I'm happy and I already feel like this new life is normal, even though it's only been a week. I've had a lot of firsts in the last month, done things I couldn't even conceive of doing in high school. I have secrets now that I don't even feel like I could tell my friends. I'm living away from home, responsible for my own decisions. I'm saying things like "this girl I knew in high school" as if the place that defined my identity for four years is gone and irretrievable. My TOK teacher said that once you leave a plane of identity, you can never return to it. I tried not to think too much about this until I was happy in college, but I guess we can't do anything but move forward.

Love,

Juliana

The Judgment

2011-08-07T23:53:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure if I believe in God, Heaven, or Hell, but sometimes my mind drifts back to Catholic school when the nuns told me that I would need to explain my sins to God one day. I remember a time when I was little, when I was afraid God could hear my bad thoughts and would be mad at me. We were taught to fear God, and that was our conscience. I still have a conscience, but it's now based on my need to be a good person who makes other people's lives better instead of worse. I'm not afraid of 'dirty' thoughts or wishing harm on someone who deserves it. I'm okay with doing things the Bible doesn't like and all that, and I'm not afraid of hell. I am afraid of thinking, saying, or doing something bad to someone who doesn't really deserve it. I always have good intentions and it's not like I'm a saint or Snow White who sings to animals. I'm can't always be perfectly nice, but it kills me that I can't be as good of a person as I'd like to be. If I do have to explain myself to God one day, I'll would not be disappointed in myself for not following the Bible, for being lazy sometimes, for eating all those cookies at once, for daydreaming about Zac Efron...none of that. I would however apologize for every time I was selfish. If I'm kept out of heaven for being selfish, I would feel that I deserved it.

Love,

Juliana

What's normal, anyway?

2011-07-28T16:53:00.004-04:00

Sometimes I worry about the things I consider normal. I'll talk to someone and realize we shouldn't be talking about that, or I'll do something I don't think I should be doing. Someone asked me why I hang on to this concept of "should" or "shouldn't." Who says what we should or shouldn't do? If it doesn't seem weird to us or the people involved and it's not hurting anyone, who cares what outsiders think? What if you do something you shouldn't have and are too ashamed to tell anyone because of what they might think? Judgment.

I don't know. How much do other people's opinions of us define who we are? I think it's annoying how everyone complains about being stereotyped but then they go ahead and label themselves at every opportunity. They try to make everything they do fit into a category. "I'm such a hipster. I'm so random. I'm a bisexual. I'm a girly girl. I'm a tomboy." Then they go ahead and complain about being stereotyped. Labels come with stereotypes. Once you're labeled, you no longer define you. The label defines you, and other people tell you who you are and who you are supposed to be. People want to fit in and stand out at the same time, so they have to adopt a label to be original that will tell them what is "normal." It's like picking a personality off a list to make sure it's acceptable.

"We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all." - The Breakfast Club

Love,
Juliana

Obsession

2011-06-22T23:19:00.003-04:00

The first symptom on Mayo Clinic's list for Generalized Anxiety Disorder:
Constant worrying or obsession about small or large concerns

How do you stop it?

That's what's wrong with me. I obsess. Everyday. Over every little issue, big or small. That's why I go crazy knowing my friends are hiding things from me. It leads to total paranoia. When my friends say vague things and refuse to explain, I obsess about what they could be talking about. When I know someone's hiding something from me, it hijacks my mind. People wonder why I remember details about everyone, even if I don't know them well. I need to know enough about people to have an accurate picture of them in my mind. It kills me when my friends do it and it makes me want to lie to them, lead them on, and make vague statements without explaining. My childish reaction is "two can play that game" when I know that keeping things from me doesn't mean they love me any less and that I should trust them. My brain knows that, but that sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach and the tightness in my chest make me ignore my brain.

Even writing this is pissing me off. Thank you GAD for the uncontrollable anxiety that makes me freak out over absolutely everything, which is also part of the reason people don't tell me things. I can't handle it. I need to know, but it's too much once I do. I understand why people with GAD usually have depression. You can't live like this and still be happy. Obsession has driven me to nightmares, self-destructive behavior, health problems, eating problems, medication...and I'm sure I'm going to die much younger than I should. What sucks is I know it's stupid, crazy, unnecessary...I know it's a disorder. I just can't figure out how to turn it off.

Love,
Juliana

Edit: I had a horrible dream last night after writing this post. It reminded me very clearly what I used to be like before I started taking medicine. It helps me so much.

I want your ugly. I want your disease.

2011-06-16T13:41:00.004-04:00

I've seen this quote on Facebook a million times. "If you can't handle me at my worst, you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." I thought this sounded extremely bitchy, and it does, bit it's also a twisted way of saying something very true.

Real relationships are all or nothing. You take the good, the bad, and the ugly. You accept their flaws because you know you have them too, and you would want them to do the same for you. It's so important for people to have relationships because they can share the good and the bad. When you share good, it spreads and multiplies. When you share the bad, the weight is divided, and it's not as hard to deal with. Everyone has a dark side, but the people who really love them will work through the darkness.

I would never expect anyone to want me at my worst. I get moody, I have anxiety attacks over small things, sometimes I cry at random, I'm stubborn, I always have to be right, I worry about everything, and the tiniest of triggers can change my mood in an instant. I'm sorry for all that. I wish I could change and I try, but I would never go so far to say that someone who can't deal with it doesn't deserve me. I'm more than grateful for the people who stick around when I'm bitchy, and if we're throwing around the word "deserve," I definitely don't deserve them.

It's what Lady Gaga's Bad Romance is about, isn't it? Or what Baby says to her father at the end of Dirty Dancing? If you love someone, you love all of them. You love them for who they are, even if it's not always pretty, because you know they would do the same for you.

Love,
Juliana

2011-06-10T23:28:00.002-04:00

People ask me why I don't usually let anyone read what I write. To me, my stories are the most intimate things I can possibly share with you. Letting someone read anything I write makes me feel exposed because they are based on my real experiences and real imagination. In short, the purest expression of me. I express emotions in stories, good, bad, weird, whatever. Whenever I don't have words to describe how I feel, I write it into a story and make my characters feel the way I do. I let their actions speak for me. What makes me feel like I'm doing it well is when I let someone read a sad story I wrote and they tell me it made them cry. It made me cry to write it, so it makes me feel like they understand. I just don't like to show people because I'm afraid they'll judge me once they know what really goes on in my mind. I'm afraid they won't understand.

Regret

2011-06-04T01:24:00.004-04:00

I don't regret the last four years. On my 12th birthday, I made all these plans in my mind for my 18th. I thought I would be more confident. I thought about my future boyfriend and what he might be like. I wondered if I would still be a virgin by then. I though my future self was pretty cool, and I admired her.

I'm not cool, and I do wish I wasn't so afraid of everything, but I don't resent who I am. I may not have done all the things I thought I would, but I remind myself that when it came down to it, I didn't want to do those things anyway. I went through high school doing what felt right, not what that naive little sixth grader would have wanted me to do. I definitely don't regret that.

Love,
Juliana

2011-05-24T21:05:00.004-04:00

Chase Crawford

Rob Lowe

Ian Somerhalder

Yes? I think so.

Love,

Juliana

2011-05-23T20:05:00.001-04:00

I'm too happy to be a writer

2011-05-18T14:11:00.003-04:00

I'm not a good fiction writer, even though I would like to be. I write stories for fun and I tried to write a book, but I'm just not a good fiction writer. I'm afraid to add conflict to my stories or make any characters experience anything terrible. I used to think it was for lack of imagination, but that isn't the whole truth. Fiction writing is art and like really good art, really good writing needs raw human emotion. It needs blood and tears. Turning painful emotions into art is often the best there is, but once you're happy again, you have to summon painful feelings over and over to continue your work. It's like you're painting with blood and you have to cut your hand open again every time it heals. I'm not willing to conjure painful emotions for the sake of art, so I will never succeed as a writer.

Love,

Juliana

Brooke Shields: Pretty Baby, Oversexualized Child

2011-05-15T10:02:00.010-04:00

Brooke Shields is one of those names people just know, even if they don't know why they know it. I bought a People Magazine's 1000 Greatest Moments in Pop Culture, and she shows up in it at least four times in a 10 year period. She's more an element of pop culture than an actress.

She had her own TV show, Suddenly Susan, she guest starred on That 70's Show and Friends, and she played Hannah Montana's mom, but no one remembers much about her adult career. What people remember is a series of controversial appearances before she was even 16, Pretty Baby, Blue Lagoon, and the Calvin Klein ads. She was 12 when she starred in Pretty Baby, a movie about a child prostitute in 1917 New Orleans. For obvious reasons, this movie was wildly controversial, especially since the prepubescent actress had more than one nude scene. The movie has been edited on DVD versions to censor some of the nudity, especially direct shots of anything, which were not censored at all on the VHS.

I haven't seen it, and I want to but don't want to at the same time. I watched the clips on YouTube, but I think that's all I could handle of this. Even the clip I watched had me staring with my mouth open. It disturbed me and took me a little while to get over.

Looking at it as art instead of child porn, I think this movie is amazing. It does exactly what it was meant to do: it shocks people. Child prostitution was a problem in 1917 New Orleans, and people should be shocked. I think it was daring and intriguing, but that doesn't make it any less disturbing. I've seen interviews and pictures with her when she was 12, and she actually looks much older. You would think she was 15 at least, but in the movie, between the makeup and hair, they make her look even younger than 12 for the effect.

Why did the parents allow this? I shouldn't judge people I don't know, but it's pretty obvious what the mother was doing by allowing this: A controversial movie like this would skyrocket her daughter to fame and rake in the cash. Her mom was also her manager and was not only okay with it but had also had Brooke take part in nude photo shoots two years earlier when she was only 10 years old. These pictures have been exhibited in art museums in the US and England, which were recently taken down because, ahem, child porn.

Two years later, she starred in Blue Lagoon where she again was filmed naked and had sex scenes. I almost watched this movie. I recorded it, but I couldn't get myself to watch it.

14 years old, dude.

I posted her "No one comes between me and my Calvins" commercial yesterday. She was in many just like that. 15 years old. Shouldn't we have laws against oversexualizing children and creeping out the public? I guess not, since Toddlers and Tiaras is still kickin.

I'm going to end with this, just to keep up the theme of oversexed children.

Oh God, ew.

With an appropriate amount of love,
Juliana

Best of 80s Commercials

2011-05-11T16:23:00.001-04:00

I don't know why I haven't posted this before. I would like to thank all the awesome people who posted these commercials so people like me, who weren't alive for a single day of the 1980s, can watch and enjoy them as if they actually know anything about the decade. These are my favorites, and believe me, I've watched a lot.

10. Pudding Roll Ups

Why I love it: First of all, it's a roll of pudding. It actually looks like pudding. If you hardened pudding into a sheet, that's what it would look like. Disgusting but intriguing. Also, the kids in trench coats with their catchy song make the rest of the commercial.

9. This is Your Brain on Drugs PSA

Why I love it: I think it's hearing the satisfying sound of an egg hitting a hot frying pan while pretending it's a brain. Sizzle sizzle.

8. Don't Drown Your Food

Why I love it: He's towel-drying a potato. Come on, you have to admit it's cute. I think this is such an adorable healthy-eating PSA. Now all we get is Michelle Obama talking about portion sizes on Disney Channel. She doesn't towel-dry cute potatoes.

7. Oreo Big Stuf

Why I love it: The clothes, dude. The clothes. The use of the Mr. Big Stuff song but with Oreos. And the most obvious reason of all, they're advertising a giant Oreo. Omigosh. Gorgeous.

6. Pac Man Cereal

Why I love it: I love when the Pac Man ghosts light up neon, and I love the kids' outfits, not to mention the fact that it's a cereal based on Pac Man.

5. Wanna know what comes between me and my Calvins?

Why I love it: It's a pop culture icon. Brooke Shields was 15 in this commercial so it was pretty controversial. TV shows and movies allude to this all the time.

4. McDLT with Jason Alexander

Why I love it: The clothes. Soo dorky. Jason Alexander (George from Seinfeld before he was George) singing about juicy burgers. I love the song. I will walk around singing this song. Hearing people in dorky 80s clothes singing about burgers makes me happy.

3. Delicious Dilemma

Why I love it: Without fail, it makes me laugh every time. It might be her overall dorky 80s appearance, might be the face she makes as she bites the Dorito at the end, or it might even be the comment left under the video: "She won't have that kind of dilemma when she weighs over 200 lbs from eating so many Doritos..." It's all hilarious.

2. Michael J. Fox - Pepsi

Why I love it: This one's just cool. He turns a piece of paper into a Pepsi, and I love when he crushes it and tosses it in to the trash at the end. Also, showing the book "the Power of Suggestion" was a nice touch. I love Michael J. Fox.

1. Where's the Beef?

Why I love it: Iconic and hilarious at the same time. This one also makes me laugh every time. Every line those old ladies say makes me smile.

Love,
Juliana

What makes a mother a mom?

2011-05-09T17:37:00.006-04:00

Those stupid girls on Sixteen and Pregnant make me angry. I want to be a mother more than I want anything else in life, but I know how much of a commitment a child really is. The commitment to be a parent is the biggest one you will ever make. It upsets me when I hear these bratty sluts complain about taking care of their babies when they would rather be out with friends. They don't deserve their children, and their children don't deserve them.

Some people should not be parents. With Mother's Day being yesterday, I was thinking about how selfish women who deserve no celebration share the holiday with the true heroines, mothers who devote their lives to the happiness of their children. Some women earn recognition on this holiday for having unprotected sex, spending a day in the maternity ward, and resentfully changing some diapers. Others earn this holiday by singing their child to sleep, hanging their crayon scribbles on the refrigerator and telling them they are the most beautiful pictures they have ever seen, and listening to them tell the same stories about their imaginary friends over and over. Both receive the exact same Mother's Day cards from Hallmark, and both consider this holiday theirs.

People who really know me know how much I think about being a mom. My goals in life are to become a wise, mature, patient, unselfish person, marry a man I can be with for the rest of my life, and give my children the best life I can possibly give them. In short, my goal is to be just like my own mom, even though I don't think I will ever be able to match her.

I'm not a selfish person, but I recognize that I'm too selfish to have a child. I wouldn't want to give up my quiet time or sacrifice going out with friends to stay home with a sick baby. I'm 18 - I shouldn't have to. I will one day get to a point in my life, after I've had time to be young and selfish, when I'm ready to devote time to a baby. When I get to that point, I will put them first, and I'm looking forward to it. I want to be as great a mother to my children as my mother was to me.

The whiny sixteen-year-old with pink hair straddling her boyfriend named Stabby Joe in front of the trailer park has no idea what she's talking about when she says she'll be a good mother. I was listening to a radio talk show on the way to school, and they were talking about kids. One lady called in complaining about how all her time is spent potty training one and listening to the other talk about T-ball. She called into a radio station to talk about the same problems that every mother with young children faces as if hers are any different. The minute she decided to start a family, she agreed to the terms of parenting.

The meaning of mother can be as profound or empty as the meaning of marriage, happiness, or even life if you want to go that deep. Mother's Day celebrates all moms, no matter how selfish or undeserving, but I think the real mothers who deserve the holiday are the ones who have the best intentions, even if they aren't always perfect. They do the best they can to raise their children right, and even if they screw up, their love for their kids is never in question.

I think there's a big difference between a mother and a mom.

Love,

Juliana

The Perpetually Miserable

2011-05-07T23:33:00.004-04:00

Some people's glasses will always be half empty. Pessimism is just inherent in their personality. No judgment - it works for some people. What is a problem, however, is the way a negative attitude creates perpetual misery that stinks like a transvestite's cheap perfume, following that person wherever they go.

A girl on my Facebook posts statuses every day complaining about her Chemistry homework and how she'll spend her whole weekend working on it. Get over it, hun. Study outside. Play some music. We all have homework. God knows I've spent many weekends working on Biology labs. Don't spread your misery to the rest of us happy people. I've heard her complain far more often than I've heard her be positive, and because of this I have no interest in talking to her. No one wants to hear about it, and if you continue to do it, no one will want to hear you.

Negative people are often the most boring. People who can only talk about school or work just aren't fun to talk to. Yeah, okay, life sucks, but you don't need to constantly remind people of it. There's this domino effect of happiness. When one person is happy, they spread it to other people who have no choice but to react accordingly. Whens one person is always dragging a rain cloud over their head, they ruin everyone else's happiness and spread the misery.

I know I'm not always upbeat. I know some people have mental disorders that stop them from seeing the positives. They're depressed, and little things like getting out of bed are difficult. I've been through that, and I know from psychological research and experience that those who really are depressed don't constantly complain about Chemistry homework on Facebook. They feel empty, and they're left with the feeling that they're physically incapable of doing simple things like homework, far past simple complaining. There's a difference between those who internalize their misery and those who project it outward onto others. The former don't want to go to parties. The latter just aren't invited, because no one wants them there.

It annoys me when people at my school complain about having a late graduation date because I know they would be complaining if we graduated early and had to return to take IB exams. People blame the principal, the administration, parents, teachers, Obama, God, or Chinese manufacturing for every problem, quick to demand change of others when they can't change themselves. They find any little detail to complain about, and ironically refuse to cut people breaks, even though their friends are always doing it for them.

Love,

Juliana

I'm about to nerd it up: the confirmation bias

2011-04-20T21:13:00.004-04:00

We see the world through a filter, and you can't get rid of that filter no matter what you do or how much you want to avoid it. It's called the confirmation bias, which scares me and interests my inner psych nerd at the same time.

The confirmation bias means that everyone subconsciously pays more attention to information that confirms what they already believe. The example I read was this: Let's say you're at a party and someone mentions that long dead Nickelodeon show Catdog. You haven't even thought about Catdog since the 90s and you never hear anything about it. Suddenly, you start seeing Catdog everywhere. You wonder why everyone is suddenly so interested in Catdog, but it's really just that the conversation at the party brought it to your conscious and made you more aware of things related to it.

Everything you have ever seen or heard enters your brain. Whether or not you remember it depends on whether or not you process it, and in order to process it, you have to have a reason to pay attention to it. When something is on your mind, like a recent Catdog conversation, you start paying attention to things related to what's on your mind. Because of this, we see only what we want to see, only things that confirm what we already know. We ignore everything else, not because we're close-minded, but because that's how our brains work.

This whole concept of information processing applies to our beliefs. If we think something is true, we subconsciously search for information consistent with that belief, and interpret the information we see to confirm. This is like paradigm theory. We have a paradigm, or a general idea that's considered true, and we use it to guide all research in that area. When the paradigm changes, they reevaluate everything they thought they knew to fit the new paradigm (like flat Earth vs. round Earth).

I think this is so interesting because it makes me think that our world exists within our minds. We see the world through a filter, and really isn't a way to see the world as it truly is. Because no one can see the world without a filter or a bias, true reality does not exist. A combination of genetic predisposition, conditioning, cognitive schemas, cultural influence, and experience lead people to construct their world from the inside out.

Like paint samples in a design studio, people choose from the world's innumerable stimuli and paint their world in their own colors. This fascinates me and scares me at the same time. I wonder what colors I chose and just how much I'm missing.

Love,

Juliana

Something I have to say

2011-04-12T16:49:00.004-04:00

In 18 years, there is only one person I have ever truly hated. I can't even express how deeply upset she makes me. It's something I probably couldn't even talk about with a therapist without crying uncontrollably. She is my biggest fear, the cause of the most emotional pain I have ever experienced, and the star of at least one of my nightmares each week. I get a sickening feeling like no other when I think about her and if I think about her for too long, without exaggeration, I will throw up. My heart starts to race whenever the phone rings because I'm always afraid it could be her. I feel powerless knowing she's still allowed to continue living without medication and hurting as many people as she does. If I gathered the pain, both emotional and physical, that she has caused others and sent it back to her, I think she would die from the overload.

Nothing makes me sadder, angrier, and feel more defeated than knowing she still gets what she wants. Everyone tries to keep her happy when she is the one making everyone miserable. They don't understand. I hate that I can't make them understand. She needs to be arrested, committed, whatever it takes to get her on medication. It's a responsibility, and a duty to society. But I can't make anyone understand anything or do anything. I hate her for everything she's done, but I hate myself for not being able to stop her. The only thing I can think to do is channel my hate toward her back to myself. If I was worth anything, I would not let her hurt the people that mean the most to me. I would stop this. But I can't.

I hate her passionately, but I also hate myself for being powerless against her.

Love,

Juliana

Life is Art

2011-03-25T22:44:00.010-04:00

Miss Congeniality, She's All That, The Devil Wears Prada, My Fair Lady, The Princess Diaries, Sixteen Candles...average, undesirable girl gets a makeover, snags the cutest guy in the movie, and lives happily ever after. I have a drawer of DVDs that could provide a list of examples. Add pajamas and a package of Oreos and you have what an average, undesirable girl like me calls a Friday night.

Average girls like to watch movies about average girls because they can relate, but those of us who really are average can't relate to perfectly crafted characters who trip and fall into fabulous lives. What about those of us who don't have a happy ending? For every one Rachel Leigh Cook in She's All That, there are 99 girls who did not dance with their Freddie Prinze Jr. on prom night. For every Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club, there's a weird girl who does not kiss the school wrestling star at the end of a life-changing Saturday detention. I'm not the awkward girl who stumbles blindly into the arms of a hot football player. I'm just the awkward girl.

It's hard to remember that movies aren't real. Beautiful actors are sculpted into these deliberately designed characters. Their lines are dictated to them, the poetic words carefully chosen by skilled writers and perfected over multiple drafts. It's beautiful, but it isn't real. Reality is improvised. It isn't perfect, glamorous, scripted, or planned. Real life is about as prosaic as a grocery list, but I think that's what makes life art in itself. One thing reality has that movies don't is raw emotion. Real life is real, uncensored, unscripted. The beauty of human emotion, our failures as well as our successes, and unhappy endings as well as the happy ones are what make life art. Life is art because it's real.

Love,

Juliana

The Lizzie McGuire Movie

2011-03-23T15:40:00.009-04:00

This movie came out in theaters in 2003 marking the end to the Disney Channel series Lizzie McGuire. It's not a great movie and like anything Disney Channel produces, a mix of movie cliches with a sappy theme and a happy ending. However, for me, this movie is warm fuzzy childhood memories. I was a huge Lizzie fan in elementary school and 10 when this movie came out. I owned the soundtrack and played it until it broke. It's probably just the nostalgia talking, but I still think this movie is cute.

As a conclusion to Lizzie's middle school adventures, she and her best friend Gordo graduate from junior high and go on a school trip to Rome. Lizzie meets a cute Italian pop singer named Paolo who mistakes her for his singing partner Isabella, who, aside from a difference in hair color and accent, looks identical to Lizzie. She spends her time in Rome sneaking away from her abrasive chaperone and posing as Isabella to sing at an award show.

For anyone who knows Pretty in Pink, there's a Andie-Ducky-Blane situation between Lizzie, Gordo, and Paolo, but unlike Pretty in Pink, there's a happy ending for the loyal best friend. Gordo encourages Lizzie to spend time with Paolo, and he covers for her to the point of getting himself sent home. As the series progressed, Gordo's crush on Lizzie went from slightly implied to extremely obvious to everyone except Lizzie.

The movie brought this to culmination, and Lizzie and Gordo kissed in the last scene of the movie. She kisses him, he says "Uh...thanks" and she responds nervously with "You're welcome." It's cute and not so in-your-face, so I think it works for the end of this movie and the series as a whole.

Here's the scene in the movie where Lizzie sings on stage. I'm ruining the ending, but I doubt anyone cares: Paolo's plan was to use Lizzie to make Isabella look like a bad singer, embarrassing both of them in the process. In reality, Paolo can't sing, so Isabella exposes Paolo and makes Lizzie a superstar.

I would like to know why they're Italian but their songs are in English, and I need a better reason than because it's an English movie.

♥ ♪Hey now, hey now, this is what dreams are made of ♪ ♥

Love,

Juliana

2011-02-27T21:58:00.003-05:00

This weekend my little cousins stayed over our house, and this morning I was sitting on the couch with my 18 month old baby cousin watching Barney. I sat her on my lap to keep her from climbing over the back of the couch (she would try), and a short while later, she held my hand and cuddled into me all sweet and calm. Every once in a while, she would look back up at me, smile, and look back at the TV. I would sing along to the Barney songs, and she would look at me and giggle.

Still, every once in a while, she would check to make sure my mom was still around. If she couldn't see my mom, she would yell at me to put her down, run down the hall, and call my mom's name. When my mom came back in sight, she would jump back up on my lap and be content to watch the show.

After spending the weekend with her, I know how hard it is to balance your attention between a toddler and everything else you have to do. I also know that one day I want to hear tiny little feet running down the hall, a squeaky little voice calling for mommy, and the call to be for me.

Love,
Juliana

Juliana Tests Positive for Unstable Loner

2011-02-12T17:29:00.007-05:00

I "stumbled upon" this personality test. Here were my results.

Global Personality Test Results

Stability (13%) very low which suggests you are extremely worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious.
Orderliness (73%) high which suggests you are overly organized, reliable, neat, and hard working at the expense too often of flexibility, efficiency, spontaneity, and fun.
Extraversion (36%) moderately low which suggests you are reclusive, quiet, unassertive, and secretive.

Take Free Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

I'm boring, unstable, and I have a stick up my butt. Cool. Then here was the "trait snapshot" they gave me.

"Introverted, neat, needs things to be extremely clean, observer, perfectionist, not self revealing, does not make friends easily, suspicious, irritable, hates large parties, follows the rules, worrying, does not like to stand out, fragile, phobic, submissive, dislikes leadership, cautious, takes precautions, focuses on hidden motives, good at saving money, solitary, hard working, emotionally sensitive, prudent, altruistic, heart over mind, unadventurous."

It's sad because it's true. I think I'm a little more fun than it thinks I am, but maybe not. Please help the cause by checking this box.

Love,
Juliana

Cruel Intentions

2011-02-11T16:27:00.015-05:00

Cruel Intentions is a 1999 remake of Dangerous Liasons, except with teenagers in Upper East Side Manhattan. An evil, soulless team of stepbrother and sister, Sebastian and Kathryn (Ryan Phillipe and Sarah Michelle Gellar), plan to destroy the innocence of two girls new to their school (Selma Blair and Reese Witherspoon). Witherspoon's character wrote to Seventeen proclaiming her decision to remain chaste, and Sebastian believes her to be the perfect challenge. Sebastian and Kathryn make a bet. He has to have sex with the self-proclaimed proud virgin. If he loses, Kathryn gets his car. If he succeeds, he gets to sleep with Kathryn.

Manipulation, vindication, pseudo-incest...in short, Gossip Girl: The Movie. They directly based the plot of an episode off this movie. Blair and Chuck in season two were Kathryn and Sebastian, just not related.

Let's meet our main characters.

Such a close family

Now we meet Cecile, a new student played by Selma Blair. I would tell you how innocent she's supposed to be, but her koala shirt speaks for itself.

Another thing that speaks for itself in this picture is Cristine Baranski's face

The plan comes out after this meeting, and we get a little introduction to Annette Hargrove.

And she's from Kansas.

And then a formal introduction.

The outfit screams "I'm a virgin and proud of it."

After a dose of Annette's chastity khakis, it's about time for some girl to girl tongue action.

This won for the "Best Kiss" category at the MTV Movie Awards in 2000.

Kathryn tells Cecile that girls learn how to kiss by practicing on each other. Cecile believes her. Later, Kathryn tells her that girls learn how to be good in bed by sleeping with everyone they can. Cecile believes her.

Kathryn keeps cocaine in her cross necklace. I wouldn't listen to anything she says.

A little more inappropriate relations.

Complete with dirty talk. Too bad you didn't get to hear that.

A negative review on rottentomatoes.com says: "Despite its highly descriptive dialogue, Cruel Intentions features no nudity ... I doubt teenage boys will be satisfied just to hear Buffy talk dirty."

I'm going to stop here and leave the fates of these characters a mystery, although the entire tone of the movie shifts at the end. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. I didn't quite expect it, I've heard critics call it a cop-out, but I think it was definitely effective.

Now I think is a good time to mention just how gorgeous Ryan Phillipe is.

Dude.

Even lame episodes of Gossip Girl can be sugar-coated with hot guys and sex scenes. Same goes for this movie. It was nominated for a Teen Choice Award for Sexiest Love Scene.

Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillipe got married the year this movie came out. If you don't envy Reese Witherspoon for being pretty, talented, and successful, envy her for this.

On Rotten Tomatoes, it received a 47% from critics and a 79% from viewers. Other sites have it rated much higher, but most of the negative reviews criticize it for being an excuse to look at pretty people doing bad things. Sarah Michelle Gellar won an MTV Movie Award in 2000 for Best Female Performance and was nominated for Best Villian. It also won the Teen Choice Award for Best Drama. Critic Charles Taylor on salon.com calls it "The Dirtiest-minded American movie in recent memory - and an honestly corrupt entertaining picture is never anything to sneeze at." I agree with that. Fluffy but definitely entertaining.

Love,
Juliana

Breastfeeding an 8 year old...

2011-02-02T16:41:00.007-05:00

This mother from England still breast-feeds her almost 8-year-old daughter. Allow me to illustrate my sequence of reactions when I watched this video.

?_?
:o
@_@
O.o
=/
=|

Now allow me to share it with you, and let me tell you it gets progressively weirder as it goes on.

Every comment I can think to make just seems to completely inadequate. This speaks for itself.

This is probably a weird thing to say, but if these girls are so fascinated with breasts now, I wonder what they're going to do when they get their own...I mean 8 and 9? They're only a few years away.

I never even thought about anyone doing this. I always thought the general cut-off was whenever the baby started getting teeth, sometime before a year, not when they were getting their second set of teeth. Turns out pediatricians recommend doing it for at least a year in order to build up the kid's immune system and prevent diseases later in life.

I watched a few other related videos after this one (American women whose children are five or six), and supposedly the international average age to stop breast-feeding a child is four. I also read that this is an insignificant statistic because it doesn't account for cultural factors. It did say though that in societies where the children self-wean, most stop around three or four, which is supposedly the natural age.

They all made an interesting point that the United States and I guess Western culture in general made breasts a sex symbol, and that whole belief is a learned social construct that makes people uncomfortable with breastfeeding. Nevertheless, society dictates what is appropriate and inappropriate, so it might be difficult for these children to adapt to what is considered normal if they were raised that way. I would be beyond mortified if I was one of those children.

I spent seven hours at school today and the most useful thing I learned was from watching Cracked TV on YouTube.

Love,
Juliana

Hot in Cleveland and Golden Girls

2011-01-31T18:58:00.008-05:00

I was sick today, and sick days always lead to a discovery of some new show that I will watch half the day. Last night I discovered "Hot in Cleveland," a sitcom on TV Land, and I've watched six episodes since last night.

The show is about three single middle aged women who moved to Cleveland from LA and still try to act like they're 30. (Sex and the City anyone?) The three of them are funny, but it's the 80 something-year-old quick-witted caretaker of the house played by Betty White. She was cast in the pilot of the show as a guest star and was not meant to be a regular, but her appearance received such enthusiastic reception that she was written in as a main character.

Betty White is adorable. She is 89 years old and still kicking. In the last couple years she's been on Saturday Night Live, the movie The Proposal, You Again ("I'm also on Facebook. And the Twitter!"), an episode of 30 Rock, and several other things including a major role on the show "Hot in Cleveland." She won a SAG Award last night for her role on the show.

She has been acting since 1945 and used to host the show Password in the 60s, but I know her from the show that kept her name alive in the last part of the 20th century, "The Golden Girls."

This show is about three old women who live together in Miami, and one's mother who hangs around their house and gets in the best sarcastic one-liners. Estelle Getty was to Golden Girls what Betty White is to Hot in Cleveland. They're all basically a family and have problems you would expect among a group of young women, made funny by the fact that they're in their 60s.

Betty is the last living Golden Girl, as of June last year. She played Rose, the dim-witted, clueless one of the group who would tell crazy stories like Kenneth from 30 Rock about living on a farm. Golden Girls is one of those shows that can put you in a better mood instantly. I love the theme song.

Love to these shows, Betty White, and you,
Juliana

The Parent Trap

2011-01-23T18:32:00.008-05:00

There's a kind of magic to these movies. If you don't know what they're about, two estranged twin sisters meet for the first time at a summer camp and realize they were separated at birth by their parents who divorced and each took one child. The one who lives with her father in Napa, CA is more of a tomboy and the one who lives with her mother, a famous wedding dress designer, in England is more refined and feminine. Each girl wants to meet their missing parent, so they decide to switch places and get their parents back together so they can finally be the family they were meant to be.

Like any little kid, I went through phases of being totally obsessed with certain movies. In Kindergarten, these were my favorite. I remember watching both versions so many times at my grandma's house that to this day she still can't stand them. Sometimes I used to watch the Lindsay Lohan version twice in one day.

The original version came out in 1961 and starred Hayley Mills, my favorite actress when I was little. I loved old Hayley Mills movies like That Darn Cat, Pollyanna, and The Parent Trap. The mother here is played by Maureen O'Hara, the mother in Miracle of 34th street, which I'm sure means nothing to anyone but me.

I used to walk around singing this song. They nod to it in the 1998 remake where they have Lindsay Lohan sing it while waiting for an elevator.

This was Lindsay Lohan's break into acting, and it makes me sad to think of the drastic downward spiral her life has taken since then. Between the soundtrack and the charm of the awesome cast Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson, and young Lindsay Lohan, this movie is an adorable remake of an adorable classic.

Love,
Juliana

Desperately Seeking Susan

2011-01-22T21:20:00.004-05:00

I saw this movie for the first time tonight, and when I pressed play I actually squealed. My sister said "What was that?" I said "I'm so excited!" She called me a nerd, and I deserve it, but it's Madonna in a movie!

The tagline for this movie is "Roberta is desperate to be Susan. Susan is wanted by the mob. The mob finds Roberta instead."

This movie is about a bored woman named Roberta, married to a nerdy hot tub salesman, who lives vicariously through some woman named Susan she has never met. She knows of Susan through the personal ads where her boyfriend leaves messages for her titled "Desperately Seeking Susan."

Susan is a drifter, so when her boyfriend can't find her, he leaves her a message in the personal ads detailing a time and place for them to meet. Roberta wants to know more about the elusive Susan with the kind of exciting life she will never have, so she stalks their meeting. When Susan sells her signature jacket, Roberta buys it to emulate her idol. She ends up hitting her head and gets amnesia, and everyone including herself believes that she really is Susan. Unknown to Susan, the mob is after her for her earrings, stolen artifacts, and they come after Roberta instead.

This movie is everything I love about the 80s. If I could be made into any character from any movie ever, I would want to be Madonna's character in this movie. This review calls it "a must see for anybody interested in 80's culture."

Love,
Juliana

Todo Pasa

2011-01-21T18:46:00.003-05:00

The best advice I ever received was from a story in my Spanish 3 reading workbook called Todo Pasa, or Everything Passes. Basically, the story is about a King whose servant offers him a piece of paper with a message on it and says to keep it in his ring and only read it when all else has failed. Later in the story, the kingdom is invaded and the king remembers the ring and reads the note that says "Esto también pasara" or "This too will pass." Everything gets better and his kingdom is like the best ever. The servant tells him to look at the message again to remind him that his success won't last either.

It means that time passes and things that seem really important or really horrible right now won't last forever. Things will get better, but it's the same with really good things. Those won't last either.

"Ninguna cosa y ninguna emoción son permanentes. Todo viene y va como el día y la noche. Habrá momentos de alegría y momentos de tristeza. Acéptalos como parte de la dualidad de la vida; es la naturaleza misma de la existencia."

Nothing and no emotion is permanent. Everything comes and goes like day and night. There will be moments of happiness and moments of sadness. Accept them as part of the duality of life; it is the nature of existence.

Love,

Juliana

5 Things I'm sick of hearing about Twilight

2011-01-17T17:01:00.005-05:00

Twilight is one of those topics on which everyone has an opinion. It is also one of those things you don't discuss in mixed company, like politics or religion. What I find more amusing and annoying than any obsessive Twilight fan is the ardent and vocal backlash from the Twilight haters. When you find someone who hates Twilight, chances are they *really* hate Twilight. Many times I can laugh at the awkward teenage boys who whine about Twilight while secretly resenting this fictional vampire for attracting girls in a way they never could, or the "intellectuals" who condemn shallow teen literature for insulting their intelligence while using the very intellectual work "Twitard." However, it does bother me that I hear more Twilight talk from the haters than anyone who likes it. Here are 5 things I'm sick of hearing about Twilight.

1. "Harry Potter is sooo much better!"

You can't compare apples to oranges. First of all, I would put Harry Potter in the category of literature and Twilight in entertainment. That's like saying Newsweek is so much better than Cosmo. They're not trying to compete. They cater to different audiences with different interests. They serve different purposes. Also, I could whine about Harry Potter fans just as these Harry Potter fans whine about Twilight. Twilight is overhyped, but I got sick of hearing about Harry Potter in 6th grade. Anything that's talked about too much becomes annoying. Everyone should just shut up, stop making it into a competition and leave the two alone.

2. "These kids think they like vampires but they don't know anything about vampires!"

It's kind of ridiculous to complain about the factually inaccurate portrayal of a fictional monster. If you feel like fighting for social justice, leave the sparkly vampires and take up gay rights or something. If you really care that much about Twilight tarnishing the good name of vampires, maybe it's time to reevaluate your life.

3. "Twilight is so stupid blah blah blah Twitards blah blah blah blah blah blah blah vampires suck blah blah blah..."

People who talk endlessly about how much they hate Twilight and roll their eyes at any mention of it. Shut up. The difference between pro-Twilight babble and anti-Twilight babble is that one is positive and one is negative. People would always rather hear positive babble than negative, so shut up and don't drag your personal rain cloud over the rest of us.

4. "They copied other books! There are other books like this! It's not original!" *points fingers*

So? There's a reason this one became popular and those didn't. You want to sell a book? Make the people like it. There's definitely something about Twilight that makes people like it. When they sue Stephanie Meyer for copyright infringement, you can picket outside the courthouse.

5. "Stephanie Meyer is a bad writer who doesn't deserve to be famous!"

She repeats the same adjectives and verbs endlessly, her ideas weren't original, and the whole thing is teenage fluff. But the combination of elements she threw together hit a serious chord with girls. I think she definitely deserves her fame. If you can throw together a book that is so frivolous and simple but pushes just the right buttons to make girls obsess, more power to you. You deserve fame. She pulled strings, pushed buttons, and hit chords with the simplest things. It won't win her any Pulitzers for literature, but it is the entire goal of the entertainment industry to bring people something that interests them to the level of obsession.

Basically, people would rather hear about how much you love something than how much you hate it. Compulsive negativity is annoying, more annoying than any teen obsession. I'm sure soon everyone will stop talking about Twilight and move onto their next target. Watch out Justin Bieber with your baby face and childlike smile. If you keep spreading sunshine to children, the world's former Twilight haters will beat you with copies of the newest Harry Potter.

Love,

Juliana

Looks matter, but not in the way that you think

2011-01-17T00:31:00.005-05:00

People (self-righteous holier-than-thou free love anarchists) like to say looks don't matter to them. It's just an inevitable fact of nature that they do. Things that are more aesthetically pleasing are more attractive, and this applies to art, nature, architecture, people, everything. Looks shouldn't dictate our judgments about people -- they're part of a genetic lottery not everyone can win, but that's not the whole story. There are aspects of appearance that people can control very easily, and it is by this more than anything that people are judged.

I used to argue about this with my dad endlessly when I was little. He would yell at me to take off my chipped nail polish and cut my gross nails, and I would yell back with "I don't care! No one ever looks at my nails!" He would say "If you look like you just don't care, why should anyone care about you?" When I was eight, I thought this was ridiculous. Now that I'm 18, I wish I could time warp 10 years and tell myself to listen to Dad.

Your genetics are out of your hands, but the way you present yourself is your choice. It's shallow and unfair to judge guys on a scale from 1 to Chace Crawford, but they just ask to be judged when they voluntarily choose to look like a hobo. If they have the means to cut their hair, shave, and wear clothes that match, and they don't do those things, that screams to the world "I don't care what you think, so don't bother to think about me."

It's a matter of respect for normal social customs, and those who defy them only ask for judgment. People like to criticize those who judge by looks and label them as shallow, but looks can tell you a lot about a person. Everyone makes a conscious decision about their appearance when they get dressed in the morning, and this choice can immediately tell you how lazy or apathetic they are. It doesn't mean spending an hour doing your hair or wearing pounds of makeup, but looking clean is just a little thing anyone can do to respect themselves and everyone who has to look at them.

Don't judge a book by it's cover? The cover is not the whole story, but we shouldn't ignore the choice that went into it. Someone chose that cover to represent the book.

Love,

Juliana

Middle School Party Games

2011-01-07T23:44:00.016-05:00

Middle school probably produces the most embarrassing and hilarious pictures of yourself that you will ever see. I had horrible teeth then braces, I dressed like a boy, and weighed 25 pounds more than I do now even though I was shorter. I'm still in an awkward stage, but middle school was the climax of it, and everyone looks back on middle school pictures and laughs. The party games we played reflected just how unfabulous it all was. Drugs, cigarettes, violence, and pre-teen pregnancy are pretty common in middle schools from what I hear, but my middle school years were more like a 90s sitcom. Doing makeup, talking about boys, and playing one of these games was our idea of a party.

Make room for Jesus, kids!

1. Truth or Dare

I could make a whole post on this game, guaranteed at any party from 3rd grade on. It was actually more popular in elementary school and started to die around 7th grade. Players are asked to choose truth or dare. If they pick truth, they are asked a question which they have to answer. If they pick dare, they're dared to do something weird. Obvious popular truths were "who's your crush," "have you ever kissed a boy," "have you ever seen a guy naked," "have you ever slept in the same bed as a boy," etc. For whatever reason, daring people to hump things was always popular, even in 4th grade. I was dared to make out with a life-sized Barbie doll in 5th grade (forshadowing?). I've probably played this game 40 times.

Of course, it was more fun to play with guys. As sexual as 12-year-olds dared to make it, the co-ed version of this game involved taking off clothes, touching, kissing, whatever, but it was all generally innocent. Girls for some reason all thought they had to kiss someone before high school, and this game was their ticket in. Daring the guy to kiss the girl put the spotlight on him and made it less awkward for her because she was the "victim" of the dare. Victim, yeah right.

We never played spin the bottle or seven minutes in heaven, and I've never heard of anyone playing them in real life, although I'm sure they do. Kids have texting now. They skip the little games and sext each other instead. Wow did I just say sext?

2. Park Bench

In this game, one person pretends they are sitting on a park bench. The person whose turn it is pretends they are a stranger encroaching in the space of the park bencher. Their job is to say the most awkward things possible to make the park bencher surrender and get off the bench.

They can move into their space as much as they want, whisper in their ear, whatever, but it's generally no contact. There's a contact version where you touch the person until they're so uncomfortable that they surrender, but that one is more fun with boys. We used to play this game in P.E. instead of actually, you know, exercising like we were supposed to.

3. The Interview Game

My friends used to love to cause drama, and someone was always fighting with someone. At lunch, to keep a catfight at bay, we would play this game. One person is the interviewee, and everyone else is an interviewer.

The interviewers all discuss a job they want to assign the interviewee, but they never tell the person. Let's say lion tamer. The interviewers all agree on lion tamer, and they ask the interviewee questions about their job as a lion tamer, dropping subtle clues as to what that job is.

The interviewee has to answer the questions, pretending they know their job, and eventually, using the clues, guess what that job is. "You really seem to take a bite out of life. Is it hard to tame your passion for your line of work?"

4. Kiss, Cliff, Marry

I first played this in 7th grade and actually played the older version Kill, F*ck, or Marry in the past year. In this game, you're given a choice of three guys you know, and you have to decide which of the three you would kiss, throw off a cliff, and marry. It's an ice breaker in a group situation and less personal than truth or dare, which at times had a hangover effect when you did/said something you regret later.

5. Magic 8 Ball

Pass it around. Ask it questions. Who will kiss whom, who will marry whom, everyone laughs. Simple party fun that could last a long time, surprisingly. One of those truth or dare kissing schemes was hatched as a result of Magic 8 Ball results.

6. Ouija Board

This is an oracle game that contains just a board full of letters and a compass with a magnifier in it. What you're supposed to do is sit in a dark-ish room and have everyone put their hand on the compass. Then you ask the "spirits" a question, and they are supposed to guide the compass over the answer.

Like the Magic 8 Ball, it was supposed to be a fortune telling game, but it always turned into a séance. We would make the room as creepy as possible, and every little sound or movement we would look at as a sign of a ghost. Whenever the compass moved, someone was always moving it and swearing they weren't.

I played truth or dare at my sister's friend's party recently. They asked me if I liked my sister's 13-year-old guy friend. I very dramatically said yes, but I didn't want him to find out this way. I still pull out the interview game in boring situations and it always breaks the ice, and Magic 8 Balls are fun no matter how old you are.

I was thinking of posting on the hand clapping games we played in elementary school, but I don't remember enough of any of them to explain. I'm working on it.. ^_^

Love,

Juliana

Toddlers and Tiaras Season Premiere

2010-12-30T10:59:00.007-05:00

I've talked about this show before, and this post from a year ago makes my feelings abundantly clear. I feel guilty for watching it because I feel like I'm supporting baby beauty pageants, but it's like a train wreck. A creepy, sparkly, pedophillic Christmas kind of train wreck. The season premiere last night showcased the worst parents and children I have seen.

The format of the show visits the homes of three children and documents their preparations for whatever upcoming pageant is being featured on the episode. It interviews the children and the parents, then follows the three to the pageant, switching back and forth between them. It ends with crowning and final thoughts. Last night's three were dream teams of parent and children.

1) Mackenzie - Her mother is under her control

This 4-year-old knows what she wants and she does not hesitate to kick, scream, hide in closets, and whip out her sharp tongue to get it. Mackenzie dominates, and her mother seems to know this. She doesn't try to control her. In reviews I read, everyone seems to name this mother-daughter duo as the worst in the episode and Mackenzie as the most horrible child. I disagree. Mackenzie is out of control, but it's what's you would from a 4-year-old pageant child. She has a cute and funny personality, and I think she would be as sparkly as her completely inappropriate eye shadow if her mother knew how to discipline. And maybe if she wasn't thrown into baby beauty pageants. Whatever.

I like how she really exaggerates her southern accent when she's dressed up.

2) Scarlett and Isabella - When they learn to talk, I hope they yell at their mommy

The mother with her one year old twins was priceless. Oh, no, actually, there is a price. The mother with her twins was $250,000 because that's how much she spent to get her twins started in beauty pageants. She says she decided to enter them before they were even born and has a room full of dresses that cost between $1000-$2000 each. Remember that they are babies and outgrow their dresses before the dress maker is even finished adding the jewels. They take a private jet to pageants, and she name-drops designers many times during the episode.

I can't find a video or picture of these people yet, but that's okay. They're nothing special. The babies aren't anything special. They're cute like all chubby-cheeked babies are cute, but Gerber won't be calling them for a photo shoot. The mother said she's been married more times than she wants to say and looks like a heavy smoker with tattoo'd arms and a drawn face, which we notice as she talks about the importance of facial beauty.

What made me laugh out loud was how she actually gives pep talks to her daughters. They're barely a year old. They can't even stand yet. She tells them "You need to do your best in this pageant" blah blah blah and yells at one child to look at her. This lady is delusional if she thinks she can give a pep talk to a baby, but I guess when you spend a quarter of a million dollars to play dress up with infants, the reality ship has already left the dock.

3) Danielle - 8 years old and pure evil. Nothing else.

I think this is best described with a quote.

"If I don't win, I *will* trash the hotel room."

Watch her in action. I was actually hoping for her not to win. This brat needs to be backhanded. She whined about other girls stealing her spotlight. She says she doesn't believe in beauty sleep because she's naturally beautiful. She says she doesn't like to wear makeup because she knows she's beautiful enough without it. She says she would jump on the judges if she didn't win. She ran off the stage crying when she lost supreme title. I was satisfied. Such a little biotch.

Another observation: So many of the pageant moms who babble on about the importance of physical beauty look like Danielle's mom.

I'm going to go ahead and make the assumption that they are living through their daughters.

Love,
Juliana

I feel like a bad person, but...

2010-12-21T22:00:00.004-05:00

I get excited about college when I think of it as an escape from all the relationships that make me feel trapped and from all the people I don't like. As much as it scares me, as much as I'm not ready for it, and as much as I'll miss my family and best friends, I kinda like the idea of a new beginning. I won't start college committed to anyone, and the constricting ropes of some of my current relationships will loosen and let me breathe again. Hopefully I won't make the same mistakes in college and get into these situations all over again.

Love,
Juliana

Fishing for attention

2010-12-14T19:02:00.002-05:00

I probably shouldn't laugh at this, but it makes me laugh every time.

see more Failbook

It's such a pet peeve of mine when people post stuff like this. I think if you were really desperate enough to commit suicide, you would just do it. You wouldn't tell everyone. If you broadcast it on Facebook of all places, it's because you want people to tell you how much they love you and you're really not going to do it. I know people who get too emotional and write stuff like this in statuses and it's usually in bad grammar. I always want to correct their grammar and say "If this is going to be your last status update, you might as well have made it a grammatically correct one."

I'm not insensitive. It's just like the boy who cried wolf. When people post a status like this one time in a serious situation, that's one thing. When they constantly post dramatic things like this, it's just fishing for attention.

Love,
Juliana

When happens when your best is not good enough?

2010-12-09T20:18:00.004-05:00

It sucks to be told you're not good enough. It sucks more to be told you're not good enough when you actually try, but it sucks the most to be told you're not good enough when you try your best to do something you actually care about. It hurts to know your best isn't good enough.

You know why I try to get good grades in school? It's not because of a stupid letter on a piece of paper, it's not because of my parents, and it's not because of college. I need those grades to feel good about myself because that's really all I have to make me feel like I'm worth something.

Not sure if people realize this because I didn't even realize until recently, but I'm competitive and I'm a sore loser. I can't be happy for someone who beats me. I know that's immature and makes me a horrible person, but there are people I need to compete with and people I need to beat. I constantly compare myself to other people. I didn't realize just how much I do it until I thought about it, but I not only can't go a day without comparing myself to other people but I can't even go an hour. It affects everything I do and I base my self-worth on how I compare to other people.

Let me say first here that I hate rubrics. They're boring, annoying, and allow people to write a horrible paper that hits the criteria of the rubric and scores perfect. I do however acknowledge the need for them because without them, how would you know what's good and what's bad? I did my oral for Theory of Knowledge today on beauty as a symbol of status in society, and even though I'm probably going to get a devastating grade despite pouring my soul into it, I think there is a lot of truth to the idea of people needing a hierarchy, whether it be based on beauty, grades, skill, etc, to give them a real-life rubric. They often complain about it and say they don't like it, but they're the ones who let it consume their thoughts and dictate their behavior. Whose fault is it?

The people I like best are the ones who don't color in the lines. I love brilliant people who can't fit a rubric, even when they try their hardest, but they always write the most interesting things you'd ever want to read. I like artists who can create something imaginative without rules. I envy them. I wish I had that ability to create something from scratch that would blow people's minds.

I can't do this. I'm not great at anything, even though I would like to be. I used to want to be a writer. No rules, no rubric, no grades. All I would have to do is write something people want to read, and I was confident that I could do that. I got realistic and realized that there are thousands of people who want to be writers and the majority can't get published or make a career out of it. What makes me think I'm special?

I'm not. No one should think they are.

Love,

Juliana

My List of 10 Creepy Kids Shows

2010-12-03T22:38:00.000-05:00

There are so many adorable kids' shows that just make you happy even if you aren't four years old anymore, but for every Arthur there is a Teletubbie, and for the Power Rangers there are The Wiggles. What makes a creepy kids show? Unsettling puppets, clowns, adults pretending to be children, hands with eyes...Creepiness is purest when it's unintentional, and nothing can give you the same feeling of unease you get from watching four grown men sing about fruit salad or fat colorful fluffballs with baby heads swirl around.

These are the ten children's shows I think belong on a list of creepy.

The Teletubbies - Personally, I don't think the Teletubbies are all that creepy, just weird. I think the whole adoption of Tinkie Winkie as a gay symbol is creepy, but that's just adults once again ruining children's shows with sex. People always ruin innocent things. Weird colorful alien things that make weird noises and have TVs in their stomachs are strange creatures, but the one thing that gives me a weird feeling in my stomach is that sun baby. What is that? The sun baby with it's strange laugh and gazing eyes...the first time I've ever been creeped out by a baby.

The Wiggles - I loved The Wiggles when I was little, but it's a little unsettling to watch four grown men wiggle. Although I promote their effort to encourage wiggling among the youth population, it's uncomfortable to watch them do the wiggling.

Angela Anaconda - I watched this when I was little because the animation interested me, but holy crap is this weird. They look like magazine cut-outs of faces pasted on cartoon bodies and they move like paper dolls.

Howdy Doody - This show was on way before I was born and I never saw it, but this puppet is going to haunt my dreams.

Oobi - Hands. With eyes. That talk. I wouldn't call this one creepy, but it's definitely weird. My question here: Why? Do preschool aged children really have such simplistic minds that they can be entertained watching hands on a TV screen? If they're going to watch Oobi, they might as well just make their own hand puppets.

Wonder Pets - I think this show is more annoying than creepy. This was my final choice, and it was between this and The Backyardigans, but I don't think The Backyardigans can be considered creepy. I just hate them. The Wonder Pets are cartoons made to look like real animals that sing, but the creepier thing is their attempted baby voices. They don't match, and the songs combined with the animation is just...unsettling. My sister used to watch this show, and I could never decide whether I thought it was cute or creepy. All I knew was I felt uncomfortable watching it, and I don't think that's what guinea pigs, baby ducks, and turtles are supposed to make you feel.

Boohbah - I have two theories for the creation of Boobah. The first is that the creator was tripping acid. The second is that this was an attempt to outdo The Teletubbies' weirdness. Someone saw Tinkie Winkie, Dipsy, Lala, and Po and thought "Nope, not creepy enough. We can do better." I would say they succeeded. This truly screws with your mind. Once I start this video, I can't look away.

The Doodlebops - I hate clowns. I don't know who decided clowns were funny. The only funny thing about them is the funny feeling I get when they come too close. The Doodlebops combine the weirdness of adults wiggling with the scariness of clowns. The pink one's hair looks like it's plastic. I'm sure if she decided to take her revenge, she could kill you with her head.

Lazy Town - This Circa 2006 Icelandic Nick Jr. show scares me more than any of the others, even Boobah. The pink haired girl who is more flexible than any normal little girl, a superhero with a pedo-fake mustache, and the villian with plastic chin extensions together with the weird-looking puppets all in an uncomfortable setting make for a weird show. The girl's name is Julianna actually, and she was 15 in this show. I know. She doesn't look 15. Because of the ridiculous gymnastics she does, when you search this show you get more icky results from perverted adults than you do about the actual show.

I could have put Mr. Rogers on this list, but I don't think he belongs on it. I don't think he's creepy. I always felt like watching that show was like spending some time with someone else's grandpa, and even though it was boring, it was comforting.

Conclusion? Um. Creepy kids shows are creepy.

Love,
Juliana

Miss Independent? Mistaken.

2010-12-01T20:12:00.002-05:00

I hate how much I need other people. I wish I didn't need my friends to make me happy, and I wish that I wasn't so afraid of everyone else. When my friends decide to skip a pep rally, all decide to stare into their math books at lunch, or cancel plans last minute, I let it break me. In those situations, I always wish I could be cool with it, say in my head "I don't need you," and go talk to some other people like a normal person...but I can't. I make the most awkward attempts to talk and when I do forget to be afraid and act like myself, I get embarrassed. I can't come out of my shell...not because I'm protecting myself but because I feel so inferior to them that I don't think I deserve to come out.

I still feel like the freshman in a room of seniors, even when I'm the senior in a room of freshmen. I hope one day I stop being a scared little freshman and lose the shell, but that's been at the top of my wish list for a long time and I don't think it's getting much better.

Love,
Juliana

Big Fat Liar

2010-11-27T11:24:00.006-05:00

I was flipping channels this morning and found this movie. It was one of those OMG moments where you suddenly remember something you haven't thought about in a long time. I loved this movie when it came out in 2002 and it's still funny now.

Frankie Muniz is a 14-year-old named Jason known for telling little white lies. His summer relies on one essay...if he doesn't get it in on time, he has to go to summer school. When he gets hit by a horrible Hollywood producer Paul Giamatti's limo on his way to school, the story he wrote for school falls out and soon becomes the next new movie everybody's talking about. No one believes Jason is telling the truth when he says the guy stole it and turned it into a movie. To clear his name, him and his friend (Amanda Bynes) run away to Hollywood, messing with Giamatti until the truth comes out.

They put blue dye in his pool, orange dye in his shampoo, super glue on his headphones, they steal his planner, send him to a kid's birthday party instead of a meeting with a network executive, rewire his car so the brake becomes the horn and the turn signal plays the song "I'm Blue." So funny. I really like that they didn't try to add romance to this and make the two kids get together.

Big Fat Liar was produced by Dan Schneider, the king of preteen TV. He produced All That, The Amanda Show, Keenan and Kel, Drake and Josh, iCarly, Zoey 101, Victorious, and What I Like About You. Every good live-action Nickelodeon show of the last 15 years. For anyone who has seen Better off Dead, he played Ricky the next-door neighbor.

I laughed when I found out he was Ricky.

Anyway, Big Fat Liar. Good movie.

Love,
Juliana

Let's talk about faith?

2010-11-26T23:18:00.007-05:00

I was always afraid that if I questioned my belief in God, I would go to hell, so I never did.

I went to Catholic school for the first nine years of my literate life. Nuns who wear habits and live in a house on the school ground, statues of saints next to the playground, crucifixes over the chalk boards in every room, and Hail Mary every morning before the Pledge of Allegiance...who would think to question it? I was the best guilty Catholic, the best grace-saying, Jesus-loving, hell-fearing child that Sr. Ann and Sr. Mary Theresa could have hoped to have in their religion class. I learned that all I had to do to go to heaven was believe in Jesus.

It took a while to adjust to non-sectarian high school. No Bible readings, no Thursday mass, and the teachers don't start each class with a prayer. Strange. I met atheists for the first time. Stranger. Atheists have no problem talking about God as a belief instead of a divine entity, something I was never comfortable with. I would push those thoughts from my mind for fear of going to hell, but as I became more comfortable thinking about it, I realized my religion was a matter of tradition, not faith.

Why am I Catholic? I don't agree with the Bible. I don't agree with the Church. I definitely believe there is a higher power, but how do I know it's the God I learned about in school all those years, exactly the way they taught Him in the Bible? Do I even believe in Heaven? I don't know. I don't know what I believe anymore. Without someone to tell me what to believe, I can't decide for myself. There are too many options.

I want my religion back. I want to be a good Catholic girl again because I want to believe in something again. I want to believe in Heaven, but to believe in Heaven, I have to also believe in Hell. Instead of Heaven or Hell, is it better just to believe that when you die, your life ends? You won't know you're dead. Logically, it's better to believe in Heaven because, if you're right, you will go to Heaven for believing in it. If you're wrong, you will never find out. That thought doesn't comfort me. I had to write an essay in sixth grade about what I thought Heaven would be like. My description did not include the possibility of knocking on the door and no one answering.

Even writing this, I'm afraid. I'm so paranoid that I heard my mom calling for my dad down the hall, but he wasn't answering, and I thought of the possibility of something bad happening to someone I love just because I'm thinking about this. The strongest part of my faith that remains is my fear. Even at times when I think that God was made up by people looking for answers and guidance in their lives, writing the Bible to give others the same sense of direction and purpose, I walk carefully down the stairs in fear of my punishment.

Believing in God just makes sense, more sense than anything actually. Without God, there would be no absolute truth and nothing to rely on to always be there. God is the answer to everything, giving guidance, direction, purpose, meaning, hope, and simplicity to a complicated world. Maybe God doesn't do those things, but maybe those things are God. Maybe God is just the presence of all those things in the lives of people who believe it. We can never prove God exists just as the religion believe, but in the end, does it matter? What if God is a myth? That doesn't make Him any less real to those who believe.

I could go on with this train of thought. I need to go to sleep now, but unlike I did when I was little, I can't just recite my little prayer before bed and feel assured that everything will be okay.

"Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. May angels watch me through the night and wake me with the morning light."

Love,
Juliana

Gossip Girl AKA The Chuck Bass Show

2010-11-20T20:46:00.008-05:00

If this isn't the most obvious statement of the day or even if it is, I love Gossip Girl. There is something about the combination of pretty and evil that is totally alluring.

Don't they look like vampires here?

Basically, this show is about a group of pretty teenagers (well, they're in college now) who live on the upper east side of Manhattan and come from extremely wealthy families. Almost all have been step-siblings at one point, and almost all have slept together. Everyone does horrible things to each other, and the victim and the villain manage to change every episode, always unexpectedly. An anonymous person that goes by Gossip Girl sends mass texts and updates to a blog about the events in the lives of this group, so everyone always knows their business. I actually say "oh man" out loud to the TV while watching this show.

I saw these ads on billboards in LA a few years ago

The main attraction of this show, however, is the amazingly manipulative, brilliant, and invincible Chuck Bass.

Ed Westwick is a British dude whose voice makes any scene of this show instantly intriguing. His fake American accent is better than the real one. Despite his character's weird preppy outfits and the nerdy way he gels down his hair sometimes, this guy is still sexy as hell. His character is *the* OMFG character, the "hedonist everyone love to hate." The one guy that is never boring.

This whole show is pure sex.

Love,
Juliana

The Bell Tolls

2010-11-03T19:24:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I forget that life is a temporary condition.

My grandpa died from a heart attack when my dad was 17 and he was only 56. When I was too young to understand death, my parents told me that he died because his heart just stopped. I believed that death was a random and unexpected occurence, something that could happen to anyone at any time. I would constantly check to make sure my heart was still beating, and I remember being scared in the car because I couldn't feel my heartbeat through the vibrations.

When I was little, I thought about death a lot. When I was very young, probably even younger than six, I believed that dying meant falling asleep and not waking up. I thought that every time you went to sleep at night, there was a chance that you wouldn't wake up in the morning. I was so afraid that my parents wouldn't wake up the next morning. When I was too young to understand death, I understood the unpredictability of life and that everyone I care about could disappear in a moment.

I remember sitting in the corner of the kitchen on the floor in my old house, which means I was definitely younger than 7, listening to talk of some natural disaster on the news. I sat there hugging my doll (which I had a major attachment to--it's still in my room) and thinking about how I can't ever let go of her because if the world ended, I would want her to be with me. I thought that everyone else can run, but my doll needed me to carry her.

I don't think much about death anymore. Now I know that your heart doesn't just stop. I know that sleeping and dying are not the same thing. Whether it be my own or anyone else's, and it's hard for me to even imagine until a real, unexpected, heart-just-stopped kind of death makes me think. A healthy 16 year old girl died unexpectedly. I didn't know her, but all I could think about was how her parents, her brother, and her best friends must feel. It made me think about what I would do if I lost my best friend like they lost her. I can't even imagine how that must feel, but it was enough to make me cry a little. For them and for her.

Now it seems so easy to take everything for granted. You don't consider the possibility that everyone you love may not wake up tomorrow. You don't think about that probable day in the future when your best friend is no longer your best friend, when your relationship is reduced to awkward generic conversations on holidays. Over something as simple as geographic distance or as serious as the difference between life and death, you can lose someone who means the world to you.

When life disappears, love stays.

Love,
Juliana

What are you thinking? >.>

2010-10-31T09:14:00.005-04:00

I read an article a while ago about this study on masturbation. The researcher said that his shows that it's not as common as other psychologists say because in his face-to-face interviews, only 38% percent of women and 61% of men said they did it at all in the last year. He said that he proved them wrong. He did mention that people may have lied if they felt awkward answering that question face to face.

Excuse me while I say NO DUH. Of course a face-to-face interview is not the format to use when trying to get valid statistics about masturbation. That's like...on the list of things you can't expect people to tell you. Another article provides a study about lying when asked an awkward question, discrediting the results of Mr. Brilliant's face-to-face interview.

This brings up the point about how people build secret worlds in their minds and will lie to keep anyone from breaking the walls. In an interview or even in a normal conversation, how do you know if people are telling the truth, or just telling you what they think you want to hear? You don't.

You really don't know what people think. I started clicking around articles and found one on sexual fantasies, saying that in a conclusion of a study of 23,000 people, the most normal people have the weirdest, most shocking fantasies, some of which he calls "frightening, violent, dangerous and disturbing." and that the "most disturbed people" have the most simplistic ones. You would never guess. For all I know, you could fantasize about penguins or something. For all you know, I could be one of the "frightening, violent, dangerous, and disturbing."

I've been put on the spot with questions similar to these, and although I don't have much to hide, I thought it was interesting to see what I couldn't talk about face-to-face but would answer in the dark (truth or dare) or over AIM. I also noticed that some kinds of questions immediately prompt a predetermined response, almost like a reflex, whether it be true or untrue. It's kind of interesting to know that you can hide in your mind and create a secret world you can't tell anyone about. Cost is you have to lie to keep it there.

Love,
Juliana

I'm Juliana, in case you forgot

2010-10-28T18:22:00.009-04:00

I have a great memory for people. I could look around any one of my classrooms at any time and tell you everyone's first and last names, and I could tell you where half of them live. If I meet someone once, I remember them. I recognized the waitress from TGI Fridays because she used to work at Chick-Fil-A, I recognized the mother of a girl I went to preschool with when I saw her at Publix, and I recognized my cousin’s friend from elementary school at the beach, even though I only met him once or twice when I was 11.

The bad part of this, though, is that knowing so much about people makes it awkward when they don’t remember me. And they usually don’t remember me. This kills my self-esteem every time and I always thought either I just wasn't memorable or they were too self-involved to remember. I would think that was either a problem with me or a problem with them, but maybe it's just the difference between introversion and extroversion.

I was reading an article in Psychology Today called "Revenge of the Introverts" that talked about how introverts think and reflect on everything while extroverts barely finish their last activity before they're on to a new one. Extroverts thrive on social interaction, but they don't stop to worry about details. Introverts are overwhelmed by too much social interaction and would rather observe, but they consider the details and often overthink. Extroverts talk to everyone, but remember few. Introverts talk to few but remember everyone. I am definitely an introvert, and according to the article, introverts are outsiders in our society.

I do know some people who really don't care to remember other people. They mentally catalog the important faces and names and ignore the rest. Others just don't remember because they're not thinkers. I hate when someone I've had classes with for three years asks if my name is Carrie, or my cousin's friend who I've met at least six times says "nice to meet you," but I try to remember that sometimes it's me and sometimes it's them, but sometimes I'm just an introvert caught in a society of extroverts. And that's nobody's fault.

Love,
Juliana

Anticipation

2010-10-22T19:12:00.002-04:00

I'm very afraid of needles.

I will worry, shake, and not be able to think about anything else. I cry every time, no matter how hard I try not to. But I know it really doesn't hurt, and I calm down the second it's over. I know it doesn't hurt, I know it's over in a few seconds, and I know it's no big deal. I can't tell myself this, though, because no matter how I explain it in my head, it's still a piece of metal piercing a vein. The time spent thinking about that, the anticipation, is far worse than the injection itself.

Anticipation, good or bad, is often better than the thing you're anticipating. Thinking about something, building it up in your head, is in itself a horrible period of anxiety or elongated periods of happiness. Actual events that make you happy or sad don't last long, and after the memories of them persist, but they fade as time goes on. With anticipation, those feelings get stronger as time goes on and the anticipated event closes in. Good or bad, anticipation is seriously underestimated.

Love,
Juliana

Daria

2010-10-15T12:47:00.006-04:00

This is the kind of show that if you don't appreciate the humor and you don't see the point, you'll think it's really stupid. This is the best adult cartoon I have ever seen, and probably the only adult cartoon I actually like. The combination of exaggerated characters, dry humor, and social satire give this show an understated intelligence that you definitely don't see in normal adult cartoons.

The premise is about a smart but apathetic, sarcastic, and nihilist teenage girl who shows no emotion in any way. The intro explains her perfectly.

To contrast her character, all other characters in the show have dramatically exaggerated characteristics. Her parents are the kind of dumb and oblivious that mirrors the parents in "The Fairly Oddparents." Most characters are overwhelmingly vacuous, and most of her humor comes from her commentary on the stupidity of others.

This show aired on MTV from 1997 to 2002. I used to stay up until midnight to watch reruns in 5th grade, but sadly The-N replaced it and it doesn't show on TV anymore. Every episode is on You Tube and it was just released to DVD a few months ago.

These are someone's idea of the best Daria quotes. I don't think they're the best. It's hard to understand when they're out of context. If you want an idea of the show, watch the beginning of the first episode.

I am willing to look past the fact that this is a spinoff of "Beavis and Butthead." I think this show is uniquely interesting.

Daria: "Is there ever a time when the way you look doesn't affect the way you're judged?"
Jane: "When you donate an organ, unless it's your eyes."

Love,
Juliana

Can you deny your thoughts?

2010-10-14T23:36:00.005-04:00

You can lie about things you did, but it's hard to convince yourself and everyone else of a lie when there is evidence that won't let you forget. It's much easier to lie about your thoughts which have no consequences, but what if you shared those thoughts with someone? Then there's a consequence. You can lie about things you said or cover yourself by claiming you meant something different, or you could cover it by lying about lying. Complicated. All this to convince someone else, but can you ever really convince yourself?

This is my problem. Some thoughts need to stay in my head. If they're too influenced by a moment of intense emotion, immaturity, or mixed priorities, I need to let them burn out in the safety of my mind. But when someone forces them out, I usually have to go back and cover it up. This has changed my relationship with some people because although I think I convinced them, I never completely convinced myself. Even after they likely forgot, I always felt like that confession hung between us. I covered the truth with a lie, and that blurred the line between real and imagined because even though I knew the truth, if no one else does, it really doesn't matter.

When I'm the only one who knows, it makes it hard to be sure of those things, and in a way that's a good thing. If we could take every silent mistake and blur the memory, making the truth indeterminable, those unwanted thoughts of the past lose their grip over our lives. Nothing is really true until you say it outloud and tell someone else. On the contrary, it's scary to think that it's easy to fall for a lie, even one you tell yourself. If you can't be sure of what you think, what can you be sure of?

Love,
Juliana

Madonna

2010-10-08T18:04:00.001-04:00

I love this woman. Her songs such as "Like a Virgin," "Material Girl," "Vogue," "Crazy for You," "Borderline," and "Lucky Star" among many others are constantly played on the radio and in any store, but take a look at the woman behind the elevator music and you'll see that she's a cliche for a reason, not to mention so perfectly 80s.

According to Madonna: An Intimate Biography by Randy Taraborrelli, at the start of her career, she told a journalist "People don't know how good I am yet. But they will soon. In a couple of years everyone will know. Actually, I plan on being one of this century's biggest stars." When they questioned her use of her first name alone as her stage name, she said "It's Madonna. Just like Cher. Remember it."

I read just a little of that biography. I learned some things about her I didn't know like the extent of her Catholic upbringing. She went to a Catholic elementary school and came from a large, very Catholic family where she learned that if she wanted attention, she had to shock people. Her religion is a major source of her rebellion. She would wear religious jewelery in videos like Like a Virgin as a way to satirize it and cause controversy.

It claims that her mother had multiple religious statues and paintings, and when a relative would come to the house in clothes she considered inappropriate, including jeans on women, she would turn the statues and paintings around to shield Jesus from the indecency. This reminds me of Lady Gaga who also had a strict Catholic upbringing and Katy Perry who was the daughter of two ministers.

In Taraborrelli's book, she's quoted saying "Catholicism screwed up many a catholic person. How many Catholics are in therapy, just trying to get over the idea of Original Sin. Do you know what it's like to be told from the day you walk into school for the first time that you are a sinner, that you were born that way, and that that's just the way it is? You'd have to be Catholic to understand it." I love that. I was also told that in Catholic school, and it made me think that if everyone's a sinner, than nobody is. It's relative.

She wore this to perform "Open your Heart" in 1990

In a documentary called Truth or Dare, she said "I know I'm not the best singer or dancer in the world. I know that. But I'm not interested in that, either. I'm interested in pushing buttons." She did push buttons, and crossing lines was one of her specialties.

"Crazy for You" (1985), my favorite Madonna song.

Borderline (1984) - I love this one for the clothes in the music video.

Like a Virgin (1984) is probably the most referenced song in pop culture and also the one with the goofiest lyrics. "Shiny and new" makes me laugh every time, along with the random lion in the music video. The lyrics aren't great, but something about it makes this song lovable.

Madonna - New Music - More Music Videos

She challenged tradition and forged her own path, creating some of the most known songs and trends of the 80s. Kickin ^_^

Love,
Juliana

Elefun

2010-10-06T22:32:00.003-04:00

I have four blog posts saved in my drafts that I started but didn't feel like finishing over the last three days. I felt like this requires little commentary because it speaks for itself. A game where you catch butterflies that fly out of an elephant's trunk. ♥

Love,
Juliana

Katy Perry: The Good or the Bad Kind of Provocative?

2010-09-29T15:34:00.007-04:00

No matter how you see her, you can tell she's some kind of provocative, but what exactly is she provoking? Is she spreading social messages and provoking controversy, or is she trying to feed the dirty minds of the oversexed American population? It's hard to tell.

Best known for her 2008 song "I Kissed a Girl" that was wildly popular not only for it's catchy tune but for it's deviant social message about experimentation, Katy Perry went onto creating more pop hits like "Hot and Cold," "Waking up in Vegas," and the two most recent and most ubiquitous, "California Gurls" and "Teenage Dream."

I'm not sure what to think about her. She balances on the line between sexy and disgusting, and it's actually not that thin of a line. She just doesn't have very good balance. The most interesting thing about this chick is that she is the daughter of two pastors and she started out singing Gospel music. Her first album was Christian Rock. Mmhmm.

Her "California Gurls" music video is definitely the most disgusting music video I have ever seen. I have watched twice, and I can't stand to ever watch it again.

First of all, what does Candy Land have to do with California? This is just icky in so many ways. I think this is so not sexy, but if you look at the long line of comments that are just as gross as the video from guys expressing their approval of this. People think this is a great video.

Message: "It doesn't matter what the song is about. If I roll around naked on a cotton candy cloud, people will love it!" Thank you, Katy, for that valuable message that has unfortunately been proved true.

She also guest starred on Sesame Street to sing "Hot n Cold" with Elmo. That playdate was cut short because her mommy apparently let her dress herself that day. Her appearance was banned for her inappropriate outfit.

This also grosses me out. Elmo and Katy Perry's breasts should never share a spotlight. Never. You don't wear something like that to play dress up with Elmo. That's what you wear to play dress-down.

I don't get her. What's her deal? Is she trying to pull a Lady Gaga and shock the public into paying attention, or is she trying to draw eyes to her boobs and keep them there? We'll see where she goes with this, but if you look at the contrast between "California Gurls" and the also recent "Teenage Dream" video, it's hard to tell what exactly she's going for.

If she didn't do things like these, though, she wouldn't be any fun. I wouldn't be talking about her right now if she hadn't shocked me with her disgusting videos. I hope that's the kind of attention she's sure she wants.

Love,
Juliana

Lizzie McGuire or Hannah Montana?

2010-09-25T22:14:00.011-04:00

We are in the era of Hannah Montana. You already know this. You probably hate her and her show. I know I do. However, when I was the age of today's Hannah Montana fans, I was obsessed with the show Lizzie McGuire, who very similarly to Hannah, was a teenage girl with one female best friend and one male best friend who faced a life lesson in every episode. I like Lizzie McGuire better, but is that because it's a better show, or do I just like it because it was part of my childhood?

The major difference between the two is that Lizzie is normal, but tries to be cool. Miley is a rock star who tries to be normal. Besides this, the shows follow a similar pattern.

Both have the central dynamic of three best friends, one a girl and one a boy. Both have a main character obsessed with her own image, moving up the social ladder, following trends, and boys. The female best friend is annoying and even more myopic and conformist than the main character. Both have an eccentric father, although Lizzie has two eccentric parents. Both have an annoying brother. Both Miley and Lizzie face problems with boys, parents, friends, clothes, school, bullies, morals, and every other cliche you can think of.

Pretty similar, right? When you look at them side-by-side, it comes down to one critical element. The foil best friends.

In Lizzie McGuire, her female best friend is ditsy and myopic, concerned with conforming to be popular. Her male best friend, Gordo, is a foil to Miranda. He is a nerd and made fun of in school, and the voice of reason. He offers a practical perspective on anything Lizzie and Miranda are considering. He tells Lizzie she doesn't need to be popular to be happy. He is his own person, rare quality to find in a Disney Channel character. Lizzie never listens to him and makes mistakes in every episode, but in the end, she admits he was right all along. Oliver in Hannah Montana is just an extension of the female best friend Lily, who he has an obnoxiously, unnecessarily mushy relationship with. Also, have you seen his hair?

By the way, the Lizzie McGuire movie was really cute. For a movie based off a Disney Channel show, they did a good job with it. Miley doesn't make things cute.

Love,
Juliana

Play

2010-09-25T19:36:00.005-04:00

I was looking through one of my old journals, which were more just lists of my favorite things than diary entries, and I found a list from 2003 where I say that my favorite music is Play. I don't know how I forgot about them.

Play is a girl pop group that did a lot of covers of old pop songs (as most teen girl groups did) like "Hopelessly Devoted" and "Kids in America," but they're best known for "Us Against the World." While I was looking them up, I found out that they're actually from Sweden. Cool.

I love that there's a ninja crisis in this. Haha. That song brought back so many memories. I used to blast that song. It was in "Lizzie McGuire," which was my favorite TV show at the time. I still know the words. ^_^

They had another song that I remember thinking was really cool. The more edgy "I Must not Chase the Boys" sounds a lot darker than "Us Against the World." I clearly remembered the part of the video where the girl is in the room with chalkboard walls covered in "I must not chase the boys" written over and over.

I liked this song, and even though I remembered how the tune went, I didn't remember the lyrics like "I wanna give in to the woman in me." When I heard that today, I was like...well then. The things that go over your head when you're 10.

Like all former pop groups in their category, Play is dead and forgotten. Play, A*Teens, No Secrets...their memories are locked up in childhood notebooks like mine. I like to think about today's music, who will be remembered, and who will drift into obscurity. Lady Gaga is the present day Madonna or Cyndi Lauper, Katy Perry is to 2009 what Britney Spears was to 1999, and Ke$ha...she'll be remembered for the dollar sign in her name.

Love,
Juliana

Easy A, Belly Dancers, Refrigerators with Feet

2010-09-19T10:44:00.004-04:00

I saw Easy A yesterday, which I thought was pretty hilarious. I posted the trailer a while ago but it's about an "anonymous" high school girl who starts to get recognition when rumors spread that she lost her virginity to a college guy. When other guys find out she's lying, she fakes having sex with them so they can tell people and get recognition. She goes along with her new image and pretends so well that she is the most infamous person in school, who everyone thinks actually sells sex for money. Amanda Bynes and Cam Gigadent (evil vampire James from Twilight) play over-emotional super-Christians.

This clip is of the weekend when she supposedly hooked up with the college guy, but she narrates "That didn't happen. This is what I really did that weekend." I was cracking up.

Then a few scenes later, her phone rings and her ringtone is this song this song.

I also danced with a belly dancer at a Greek restaurant on Saturday, very awkwardly and I'm still pretty embarrassed. I don't know why I did that.

Another thing: What do you think about a refrigerator with a foot underneath that comes out and kicks the door closed if you forget to close it? I had a dream about that, but I accidentally got kicked by the foot.

Instead of ending with my refrigerator dream, I'll bookend it with another clip from the movie. It doesn't show the whole thing, but it is so funny when she fakes sex with the gay dude. His grunting XD

Love,
Juliana

High School Relationships: My Input

2010-09-12T10:59:00.005-04:00

A few people have asked me lately exactly why I hate guys so much. I want to clear this up. I do not hate guys in general. What I do hate is the way they behave in the context of high school relationships, just as I hate girls in the same context. When people are just people, they are who they are, good, bad, whatever. People in relationships totally change who they are. They get all emotional lovey-dovey, dependent, obsessive, neglectful of other things in their life like friends. They're stupid and blind-sided, and I really believe that.

When you're an adult, usually you date to find someone cool to hang out with for the rest of your life. When you're a teenager, you do it for fun. Of course, this isn't saying that adults don't do it for fun. They do, all the time, but the difference between an adult and a teenager is practice vs. experimentation. High school relationships are about experimentation when people are still figuring out who they are. If they haven't figured out who they are, letting someone else in is playing with fire. When kids try to light fire to unknown chemicals, there's a pretty good chance it's going to blow up in their face.

Three things get mixed together in teenage relationships: Emotions, peer pressure, and thoughts about sex. Everyone wants to connect to someone, everyone feels like there are certain things they need to do to be socially normal, and to some degree, everyone thinks about sex. The volatile chemicals of these awesome teen years. Mix them together, light a match, and see what happens.

I think wanting to connect to someone is a big part of it. A lot of people don't have good friends, and they like the commitment of a relationship to give them some assurance or guarantee that someone will always be there to make them feel like they matter. Teenagers are babies when it comes to dealing with emotions. Quoting Zac Efron in 17 Again, "When you're young everything feels like the end of the world, but it's not. It's just the beginning." Emotions get tangled in a complicated web, and since these relationships are destined to end as everyone is subconsciously using everyone in their own experiments, the emotional strings attached get cut and people fall.

I think everybody needs to realize that they are going to get hurt. They can decide whether or not it's worth it, but they need to expect it to end. They make the decision to put their emotions on the front line, but they need to realize that the front line takes the first hits. When babies (dirty babies?) play with fire, they're sure to get burned. If they think they're adult enough to handle the flames, they still must remember that once they've thrown fuel to the fire, it's harder to put out.

Love,
Juliana

Hey, loverboy

2010-09-10T17:15:00.002-04:00

I've been using saying "oh loverboy" and "comere loverboy" a lot lately to freak out my friend's brother, and I knew I got it from somewhere, but I couldn't remember where.

This is where I got it. Dirty Dancing.

I love this scene. She talks to him in the same condescending tone that he used with her when he was teaching her how to dance.

Love,
Juliana

Childhood Toys (Part One?)

2010-09-09T17:38:00.012-04:00

When I finished writing this, I realized that this doesn't even scratch the surface of childhood toys. Most of the things you play with as a kid aren't even toys at all, they're adventures straight out of your imagination. I stuck mostly to toys for which I could find pictures and specific comments about, but there are so many more toys. Play-doh, bubble wrap, coloring books, Colorforms, Fisher Price Kitchen, Easy Bake Oven, Waffle Blocks, Lite Brite (the list goes on) did not make it to the already long list.

Then there are the non-toy aspects of childhood which are even more fun to remember like hiding in a dark closet with a flashlight making shadow puppets, imaginary friends, playing house, playing tag, playing dress-up. I could talk about these things forever. This is likely the first of an installment of posts about childhood, the one subject I feel that I have an authority to talk about. Sit'n Spin: The idea for this article spun off a sudden memory flashback of one simple toy: the Sit and Spin. This thing is amazing. For a three year old, it's like the teacups at Disney that you can operate yourself. It was even more fun to stand on it and spin. I loved that thing even after I had well exceeded the target age range, but I would play with one of those if I had one now. I spin around in my desk chair all the time.

It was even more fun with two people. These kids have the right idea.

Fisher Price Doll House: My grandma recently returned it to me from her garage where it has laid dormant for 10 years in all it's in it's worn, torn, and rainbow-sticker ornamented glory. Guess what I did when she gave it back? I furnished the rooms and put the family in the living room to watch TV. I still remember the names of all the dolls (most named for the kids on Barney because those were the only names I knew, except for one that I called Anadudadaka to distinguish her from her identical twin sister, Jane). I loved to load the family into their little pink jeep and drive them around.

Polly Pocket: This was Polly when her house could literally fit in your pocket. Her house would come in a pocket-size case that you folded open, and Polly and friends were less than an inch tall. Their feet had little circles that fit into circular holes all over her house. I'm actually preferable to the new Polly Pocket with the stretchy clothes. I borrowed my sister's in fourth grade and my friends and I would play at recess. Funny thing is we would joke about being too old for it, using the excuse that it was my five-year-old sister's toy.

Furby: Talking fluffy robot that looks like a Gremlin. It comes with a Furbish dictionary that helps you decode it's language, and supposedly if you played with it enough, it would gradually learn English. Interesting little things. I got one from my uncle for Christmas when I was seven. It was a combination of cute, scary, and intriguing.

Tamagotchi: Adorable little virtual pet that you hatch, take care of, and grow. When I was five or six, my cousin gave me her old one. My mom said she didn't want me to have it because I wouldn't take care of it, it would die, and I would cry. I told her I would take care of it. It died. I cried. What a shock.

Push Pop and Ring Pop: Not toys, but perhaps the best lollipops ever. I used to love after you licked a Push Pop enough at the top, it would form a sharp point. I used to try to only lick around the middle to make it look like an hourglass, but I was never successful. The new Push Pops have springs in them, so you don't have to push them, but before that, you had to stick your finger in the barrel and push it up yourself. Your fingers would always get sticky. Awesome stuff.

The other candy love of my childhood is the Ring Pop. This is a lollipop you wear like a ring. My mom always said they look more like pacifiers, and when they're in your mouth, they do. I remember this exact commercial for them and thought it was so cool at the end when the girl had one on every finger.

Cardboard Boxes: There are so many things a kid can do with a cardboard box. I, like just about any little girl, liked to play house, so I would draw on windows and hide out in there. Having a cardboard box big enough to hide inside is one of the memories of childhood that makes life seem a little less serious.

Now, for what is in my opinion the best childhood game there is...

Forts: Taking those blankets, those pillows, those chairs, and the back of the couch and creating the most insane, kick-ass, epic fort there ever was. Hiding inside and feeling like no one can get you. Hanging out there all day with a coloring book. Designating separate rooms and moving your dolls into them. Spreading out on the floor with a million pillows. Turning off the lights, bringing in a flashlight, and chilling in the dark. Awesome. Also, I wish I had a bed like this. My cousins had bunk beds and I thought those were the coolest things ever. We used to jump off the top onto the floor over and over and over. Like I said, the list of things I could talk about is never ending.

Love,
Juliana

Save the Rainforest, guys.

2010-09-05T12:22:00.006-04:00

I watched this, fell out of my chair laughing, rewound it, and watched it again. It's from Superstar, a really stupid but really hilarious SNL skit turned movie where this girl is an incredibly awkward catholic high school reject who wants to be a superstar.

Also, this song has been stuck in my head since I watched Uptown Girls and heard it in the opening credits. I like how it sounds. ^_^

Thoughts and Movies

2010-09-02T16:33:00.007-04:00

This post is a mess, but I don't have the attention span today to write anything long. Also, if you read the second point, it really doesn't matter if I do or not.

**"Sometimes we don't do things we want to do so that others won't know we want to do them." I saw it in someone's Facebook status. It's a quote from some movie called The Villiage that I never saw, but I think it speaks volumes.

**I care way too much about things. I have such strong opinions about absolutely everything. To me, everything matters, but if everything matters, relatively, does that also mean nothing matters? Nothing really matters unless you make it matter, but by that logic, everyone could save themselves pain by brushing off everything as inconsequential and live knowing that 100 years after they're dead, not a single person will remember them. I don't want to think like that, so I pretend that what we're doing right now actually is important.

**Who decides if a movie is good or bad, or if a song is good or bad, or a TV show, or a book? I see a lot of movies that I think are painfully boring that have an A on Rotten Tomatoes, and I see a lot of movies that are really cute and entertaining but get below 50%. People complain about Twilight, but it's just some lighthearted fun. People complain about Justin Bieber, The Jonas Brothers, NSync. I love the Jonas Brothers, and I love NSync. They make me happy. Who decides if something is good or bad? People who don't know how to be happy with little things?

**Mona Lisa Smile is a great movie. I don't care if critics say it's unoriginal. If you ask me, it's brilliant. Julia Roberts is awesome as an art professor who goes to an all-girls college in the 1950s and won't accept that the girls have no goals besides getting married.

Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Styles, and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

**Uptown Girls is also really cute. I don't care what critics say about this one, either. Oh, and guess who the pretty guy with the guitar is.

If you don't know, it's Dr. Chase from House. I think I'll end with this picture.

Love,
Juliana

Shallow: No Diving

2010-08-28T23:06:00.002-04:00

You've heard about the dangers of superficiality. People who hang in the shallow end are just a few inches away from hitting rock bottom. You want to swim in the deep end and explore what's underneath the surface, right? Well, that's great, but the understated complication of depth is the risk of getting in too deep, and it's a risk that makes the rocky shallow end look much more inviting.

When I get in too deep, I wish I was a shallow person, because even though I know I'll eventually make it out, there are those moments where I'm convinced that I'm going to drown in that water.

Love,
Juliana

Saved by the Bell

2010-08-12T21:19:00.009-04:00

Take a cast of attractive but ethnically different teenagers, assign them socially different roles, match them all up into boy-girl relationships, add a wholesome, unrealistic, yet socially relevant view of a high school, some corny dialogue, dorky 90's outfits, and top it all off with a moral or a life lesson at the end. The result is Saved by the Bell.

This show ran from 1989 to 1993. After that, it ran for another season under another name, Saved by the Bell: The College Years . To give you an idea of how wholesome this show was, it's rated Y7. This is Disney Channel before there was Disney Channel, but so much better.

On the top is Zach Morris, the star of the show who narrates to the audience. He's a troublemaker in the class clown kind of way. Next to him is his girlfriend and eventually his wife, the popular cheerleader Kelly Kapowski. Under them are AC Slater and Jessie Spano. Slater is a stereotypical jock on the wrestling team. Jessie is his girlfriend for most of the series, and she's the type-A, OCD overachiever. Next is Screech, the weird, annoying kid, socially awkward kid. He always had a crush on Lisa Turtle, the last in the picture. She was the princess of the group, the kind of character that complains when her nail breaks. She usually made fun of Screech who took her mocking as a sign of affection.

This show is dorky retro gold. All the characters are stand-up citizens, rejecting bullying, smoking, drinking, and pretty much any issue where teenagers should just say no. They have their disagreements, misunderstandings, and they make their mistakes, but in the end, friendship reigns over all else.

But of course, the cast of the show is not as wholesome as the characters they play. Dustin Diamond, the actor who played Screech, sold out his old friends and published their secrets in a book called Behind the Bell. It looks to me like an attempt to break free of the Screech image. I didn't read it, but in this article listing the main points of the book, he asserts that he "has a large penis and has used it to have sex with more than 2,000 women, most of whom he picked up at Disneyland."

A little farfetched? I think so.

After the end of "Saved by the Bell," all these stars dove into roles to counter their goody-two-shoes images. Sadly, none of them got very far. My favorite blog out there, Children of the Nineties, posted "The Stars of Saved by the Bell: Where are they Now?" From Tiffani-Amber Theissen's bad girl role in 90210 to Elizabeth Berkley's dive into the unecessarily graphic NC-17 Showgirls, these actors didn't waste time trying to reverse the effects of SBTB on their images. Mark-Paul Gosselaar did a made-for-TV movie called She Cried No where he date rapes Candace Cameron (Full House's DJ Tanner). The whole movie is on You Tube.

When you watch Zach Morris rape DJ Tanner, your illusions are shattered forever.

Speaking of date rape, check out number two on Dustin Diamond's tell-all. Shocking. I thought Mario, the one who ended up being an announcer on E!, was straighter than the rest of them. Looks like Lark Voorhies (Lisa) was the most normal of everyone.

Another revelation, number four on the list, was that the cast was actually smoking weed in their dressing rooms while filming the "No Hope with Dope" episode. The first part of that episode is posted below.

The guy who played Johnny Dakota, the actor in the episode booked to do the "No Hope with Dope" commercial, was caught by the gang at a party smoking weed. This resulted in them all losing their admiration for him and the crew getting to do the commercial instead. The funny thing is that in real life, according to Diamond, he was the most "steadfast dude you'd ever want to meet." I don't know how much of his accusations are true and how much is fabricated for the shock factor, but it's not too far off. Most is just normal teenagers with too much freedom doing stupid things.

The No Hope with Dope commercial straight from the show. At least you know these guys were really acting.

This show may be an illusion, but it's a very entertaining one. I think this show should go on Nick at Nite. It's like The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Pure 90s gold.

Love,
Juliana

A Little Info on Yours Truly

2010-08-12T17:28:00.004-04:00

What are you doing right now?
I was emptying last years school papers out of my binders, but I got distracted/tired, so now I'm doing this.

Who was your first boyfriend/girlfriend?
Never had one and I don't want one.

Who's your celebrity crush?
Chace Crawford ;)

Who do you dream about the most?
There really isn't any one person that's in my dreams a whole lot, but there is this one random guy who shows up a lot. I went to school with him from K-8th grade, but I wasn't really friends with and have only talked to/seen him a few times since, but for some reason I dream about him once in a while and in the dreams I always get that butterflies feeling you get when you like someone. It's so bizarre.

Do you think looks matter?
I know everyone wants to say that they don't matter and it sounds shallow to say yes, but how can you be attracted to someone if you don't think they're attractive?

Would you ever kiss a stranger?
Not, like, today, but yeah, I would one day

What do you think about abortion?
That's controversial xP
I'm pro-choice, but I would never choose it for myself. If someone is willing to end their kid's life before it starts, I don't think it would be a good thing for either them or the child to force it.

Gay marriage?
Go for it. People who are against it are all "Well man-woman marriage is tradition" but the whole traditional point of marriage is old school now anyway. It used to be that a girl's goal in life was to find a man who could support her and give her half the genes for her kids, who she would raise for him and carry on his family name. Now, marriage is less of a big deal because the traditional point of it is based on antiquated social customs. We have new social customs and a new idea of marriage, so I'm all for it.

Do you believe in bisexuality?
I really don't understand bisexuality, but I guess it's legitimate. On Sex and the City, Carrie called it "a stopover on the way to gay town." I do think that someone would have to lean one way or the other though...I don't understand how anyone could be straight-down-the-middle bi. I would think you'd have to have a preference.

Are you hiding something from someone?
I'm hiding from my orthodontist that I chew gum. Shh. Don't tell him.

What are you afraid of?
Spiders, snakes, people, being alone in an unfamiliar place, sex, needles, dark alleys, sparklers, making phone calls, those 3D rides like Spiderman and Harry Potter, being betrayed by someone I trusted, losing my best friend, going to college, having a baby, going to the hospital, drowning, getting drafted into a war, ghosts, people reading my mind, the phone ringing

When was the last time you fell over or ran into something?
I tripped on the stairs at school today. I don't think I'm going to wear flip flops to school anymore.

Do you get butterflies around guys/girls you like?
It's been a very long time, but obviously I remember what it feels like since I dream about it.

Do you think it's bad to have sex at your age?
I guess it's okay at 17.

Will you be having sex in the near future?
Not a chance.

How many people have you slept with this week?
Two actually XD

Will you get married?
I don't know. I can't imagine finding anyone I want to spend my whole life with, and I think divorce is stupid, but that could change. I really want kids though.

Would you change yourself for the person you love?
Depends on what's wrong with me. I would try to fix the things that are wrong with me if someone pointed them out, but I can't/won't change the little things that are just part of who I am.

What do you tell yourself when things get hard?
That it will get better soon and has to end eventually

If you ever met a unicorn, what would you ask it?
You didn't die in the flood? Also, can I keep you?

Do you know who Stewie is?
Oh God, don't get me started on Family Guy. All those adult cartoons are obnoxious and I will rant about them at any given opportunity.

Ever been addicted to a video game?
I don't like video games. I used to play Roller Coaster Tycoon, Sims, and Pokemon a lot.

Ever wish you were born the opposite sex?
When I was little, yeah. I always thought boys had more fun and I used to prefer to play with them than girls a lot of the time. Now I know that's not true. I would never want to be a guy.

Favorite talk show?
The Ellen Degeneres Show. So funny. My second favorite is The Today Show with Hoda and Kathy Lee.

I guess this is the end.

Love,
Juliana

Easy A

2010-08-05T23:47:00.003-04:00

This actually looks funny. I thought Amanda Bynes left the planet but apparently she's back...and doing teen movies. And she's not even the star of the movie. Aww, Amanda, I had higher aspirations for you.

I like movies about tricking people into believing something about you. It's just funny how easily people can be tricked. I read this book in third grade called Dork in Disguise and I still remember it.

My Top 10 Favorite Boy Meets Girl Movies

2010-08-01T19:43:00.019-04:00

I had said in a recent article that the only boy-meets-girl movies I actually like are The Notebook, The Wedding Date, and Meg Ryan movies. I recently realized that's not correct and have compiled a top 10 list of my favorite boy-meets-girl movies (doing what I'm supposed to do with my blog and spreading opinions on pop culture).

Casablanca is not on this list. I know it's the most famous classic movie of all time and supposedly the best romantic movie ever made, but like I said, I'm not big on romance and I actually thought it was a little boring. Don't stone me.

I'm leaving off the old movies like Casablanca, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Sabrina, The Way We Were, An Affair to Remember, A Philadelphia Story, Roman Holiday...they're getting their mention here. There are too many of them. On my list, I'm sticking to movies less than 30 years old and also excluding Disney because that's another list unto itself.

My Top 10 Favorite Boy Meets Girl Movies

10. The Holiday (2006) – Cameron Diaz from LA and Kate Winslet from England decide to switch houses for Christmas to escape the memories of their ex-boyfriends and they meet new guys on their vacations, Jude Law and Jack Black. It sounds cliché and unoriginal, but I think it’s a combination of the first-rate cast, good screenwriting, and a very mood-fitting musical score that makes it work well.

9. You’ve Got Mail (1997) – Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are e-mail pen pals under anonymous screen names and they fall for each other, even though they don’t think they’ve ever met. Unknown to them, they’re actually fierce enemies in real life. Great use of dramatic irony, and it’s cool to see how they used internet around the time when it was a new invention.

8. Pretty Woman (1991) - Julia Roberts is a hooker hired by Richard Gere to pretend to be his girlfriend for a week. I love Julia Roberts. She may be my favorite actress.

7. Grease (1977) - Good girl meets bad boy in the 50's and they both try to change for each other. Awesome musical, 50's pop culture gold, even though it was made in the 70's.

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6. When Harry Met Sally (1989) - These two meet when they drive from Chicago to New York together after college, and he tells her that he doesn't want to be her friend because he believes that it's impossible for men and women to just be friends. The movie follows their relationship over 12 years, challenging and reevaluating his idea about friendship and introducing ideas about love and fate. A little slow and I didn't like it at first, but it made me think.

The link is a really funny scene from the movie where she illustrates how to fake an orgasm in the middle of a diner.

5. (500) Days of Summer (2009) - You've read my obscenely long review complete with spoilers.

4. Dirty Dancing (1987) – “That was the summer of 1963 when everyone called me Baby and it didn’t occur to me to mind.” That's the opening line of this movie about an innocent 18-year-old girl, nicknamed Baby for a reason, who goes on vacation with her family and through a series of right-place-at-the-right-time, meets a dance instructor and has to be his dance partner in a show. She has to learn to dance, and he teaches her a lot about the real world and makes her grow up. This movie is pure sex, not really about romance.

If you click on the name, it's a link to Patrick Swayze's song "She's Like the Wind" from the movie. Awesome song.

3. Sleepless in Seattle (1991) - A woman falls in love with a widowed man she hears on the radio after his 8-year-old son calls in to a talk show to say that his dad is sad and needs a new wife to make him happy. (Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks)

2. The Princess Bride (1987)- Classic fairy tale romance, literally. Princess falls for a farmer boy, but she's forced to marry an ugly royal instead. There are castles, magicians, pirates, sword fights, monsters, poisoned chalices, and the theme that true love conquers all. It's narrated by a grandfather reading the story to his grandson. There's something for everyone in this movie, and I think it's not just one of my favorites but one of the best romantic movies ever made. My sixth grade teacher used to quote it all the time, and we would watch it in his class before winter break.

1. The Notebook (2004) - Boy meets girl in the 1940s. The story follows their relationship over the years. It sounds generic, but if I give away what makes it amazing, I will give away too much. I believe this is the most emotional boy meets girl movie there is. You will cry. I bawled my first time, and I tear up every time.

The Wedding Date got kicked off the list is revision. It’s similar to Pretty Woman. The girl hires the guy to pretend to be her date for her sister’s wedding. This scene and Dermot Mulroney’s sexy voice are the selling points of that movie, but it actually isn’t quite good enough to make it into the top 10.

And there’s my list! Watch them and love them like I do.

Love,
Juliana

When your friends can do no wrong...

2010-07-31T23:39:00.003-04:00

I think everyone gets in the habit of judging people based on who they are rather than what they do. Pretty people get special treatment, kids who look like trouble are automatically predisposed to harrassment by authorities even if they haven't broken a rule in their life, people from your own clique, ethnic background, school, hometown, etc. (in psychology, it's called your "in-group") are given special treatment in your mind. You're more likely to make excuses for the things they do because of who they are.

I thought of this because I noticed a friend of mine exhibiting what I see as annoying Facebook behavior, giving an account of all her evening's events in terms of inside jokes and posting vague indirect statuses directed at a certain unnamed person (like "You're ruining my life. I hope you realize how annoying you are.") I usually hide these people from my wall, but until tonight, I realized how often she posts these kinds of statuses. I hadn't noticed. If it was someone else that I liked less, I would have noticed a long time ago. With her I just say "well she doesn't go out that much, so I'm glad she's having fun" or "I know who that status is directed to and he deserves to be told off." Why do I make excuses for her and no one else?

This is just a superficial example of making excuses for your in-group. It's silly, but it brings up a bigger issue. How far will it go? When you focus more on who someone is than what that someone does, you're blinded to the truth of their actions. How much is excusable and how much are you just choosing to ignore?

Bullying, drugs, cheating, stealing...things people go along with because their friends are doing them. Things they would find deplorable in another circumstance, but excusable when that circumstance involves their own friends.Lip rings look stupid, even on your best friend. Picking on the weird kid iis mean, even if your boyfriend does it.

Your friends could be bad people and you never realize because you're too busy trying to justify their actions. In reality though, their actions aren't defined by who they are. Who they are is defined by their actions, and even more important, their intentions. I think once you know someone's intentions, you know all you need to know about them.

I think people need to stick to their principles no matter who they're dealing with.

Love,
Juliana

Hey, virtual school. Bite me.

2010-07-29T20:18:00.008-04:00

So I found out tonight that the AP European History class I decided to take as an elective next year is going to be a combination of classroom and virtual teaching. They're calling it "blended learning."

That made me think of smoothies, which made me think of those smoothie places attached to gyms that make people think they're all cool and cosmo because they're at the gym drinking a smoothie, but really they're just dorks who burn off the calories on a thigh master then slurp them back up again in liquid form. This is kinda what I think about this blended learning idea. We think we're so cool because our school has "virtual learning labs" and video conferencing rooms, but in reality, what good does that really do for anything?

If I have to get up early to come to school every day and sit in a classroom in order to learn, I want a teacher in the room who loves what they do and wants us to love it too. That's why I want to be a teacher. I don't want to sit at a computer and IM Mr. Remote Teacher Dude about his online assignments while some "permanent substitute" sits in the room with us.

While our principal, our virtual teacher, and some lady from the virtual school-loving sector of the school district gushed about what an amazing opportunity this "blended learning" is, it reminded me of an article I wrote for the school paper at the end of sophomore year.

It was supposed to be about the only Chinese teacher leaving the school. When I interviewed the principal, all she could do was tell me how wonderful it is that our Chinese program was going virtual and would be taught by a teacher over video chat. All I could think about was my Chinese teacher, a wonderful woman who taught me so much more than just Chinese. The way she ran her class was awesome, and everything I learned from her I wasn't buying the principal's amazing virtual program, no matter how hard she tried to sell it.

I think classroom interaction is the most important part of school. This is how teachers change lives, not by IMs and video conferences, but by actual in-person interaction. I've had so many teachers change my life, and everything I remember loving about them, their passion for their subject, their way of making it interesting, their encouraging words...they didn't do it from their home office in Boynton Beach.

This virtual program is supposed to be the way of the future. Sure, in college, where students have numbers instead of names or faces, that's expected, but I don't think this virtual learning should infiltrate high school. They say it's the way of the future, but I think it's the way compensating for lack of money in the budget.

Love,
Juliana

Pokemon Ghost Black

2010-07-28T21:38:00.004-04:00

This is a really cool story about a creepy version of Pokemon for original Gameboy that gives you the option to choose a ghost as your starter Pokemon with the deadliest attack of all. Read it. It's most certainly fake, even though I wish it was real. It would be so much cooler that way. Creepy, disturbing, intriguing. I will never think about Ghastly's Curse the same way.

Love,
Juliana

♥ Greyson Chance ♥

2010-07-27T23:49:00.002-04:00

If you don't know him, he's one I've been calling the Lady Gaga kid, the 12-year-old who sings and plays a killer version of Paparazzi on the piano. He's amazingly talented and I hope he goes far. I love this kid.

The video of him doing Paparazzi at a school talent show has 30,000,000 views and was discovered by the fabulous Ellen Degeneres who brought him to her show to perform. This was the original video.

I saw a rerun of Ellen this morning that aired about two months ago of him singing a song he wrote, lyrics and piano composition, himself. I think I've listened to this song 10 times today and it's been stuck in my head. I've been walking around singing it. I love his singing and I love the song, and it's even cuter that it's a 12-year-old singing about broken hearts.

I loved his interview from his second appearance on Ellen because he talks about a lucky bracelet a girl gave him and how a snow cone store in his hometown named a snow cone after him. It looks long, but the interview doesn't actually start until about 3:25. The first three minutes are footage of his life back home, so skip if you don't care about that.

In his first interview on Ellen, Lady Gaga calls him herself to tell him how talented he is. Skip to 3:10. The last three minutes are the same song again.

I'm a fan of him on Facebook and I'm signed up for updates. I hope he doesn't lose his voice at puberty and I hope his career goes far. I'm cheering for you, kid!

Love,
Juliana

Ellen Degeneres

2010-07-25T21:46:00.004-04:00

I am a huge fan of Ellen. If you don't know her, she's the comedian you probably know as Dory's voice in Finding Nemo. She's hilarious, has a really fun personality, and her talk show is the best on TV. I like to watch the Today Show with Hoda Kotb and Kathy Lee Gifford because they talk about some interesting things and Kathy Lee acts hilariously drunk all the time, but Ellen's show tops them in all areas.

Ellen always starts the show by dancing through the audience. Another thing she started doing this past year is scare the celebrities she's interviewing. Someone dresses up in a costume and while she's interviewing them, they sneak up behind and scare them. At about 1:15, Taylor Swift falls to the ground.

It's hilarious. I saw an episode where Steve Carrel actually hid in Ellen's dressing room and jumped out to get back at her for scaring him. He said something very interesting, that when someone reacts after they've been scared, it's "exactly who they are in that second." There is no planning or scripting or acting, it's just their natural response. I think that's pretty cool.

I found two of my favorite Ellen moments, the Snuggie and the Hula Chair. I picked the Hula Chair to post, but if you really care about this, watch the Snuggie clip. I love the end with the family at sporting events.

Oh my gosh I wasn't going to post any more videos, but I found a clip where they stick Rob Lowe in the Hawaii Chair. I can't decide if this one's better, so I bring you a second Hawaii Chair clip.

Ellen's awesome. She just is.

Love,
Juliana

Technology Prison

2010-07-24T00:01:00.002-04:00

When I wake up in the morning, I check Facebook. Then I check both my e-mails. I check Google Buzz, AIM's lifestream, and my phone for missed texts and calls. I check Facebook again. Then my blog for comments, hoping for that really good feeling I get when someone acknowledges me. I check other people's blogs for updates or responses to my comments. On Sunday, I check Post Secret. If I have any time left over, I start browsing stumbleupon.com, my new obsession.

WHY DO I DO THIS? WHY?

Ridiculous. Totally ridiculous. And you know what? All this stuff makes me sad. I hate talking to people on AIM. It wastes so much time. I hate checking Facebook and reading status updates from people I don't like talking about things I don't care about. My e-mails almost all junk. The blogs I check are rarely updated. I only follow six people on Google Buzz and they are my sister and her friends.

I don't know why I don't just get up and find something worthwhile to do. I'm actually getting more annoyed as I write this, annoyed with the clicking sound of the keys on the keyboard and the fact that it's 12:40 and I have to get up tomorrow. But I can't sleep. I'm too annoyed with people and their status updates that don't matter, their stupid profile picture changes, and constant IMs from people asking me why I wasn't online all day, where I've been, and what I was doing.

Stupid technology prison. Worst part is that it's psychological.

Can you be addicted to something you hate?

Love,
Juliana

Sex and the City

2010-07-22T23:15:00.004-04:00

This show is my guilty pleasure. I criticize MTV, reality shows, and adult cartoons (South Park, King of the Hill, Family Guy, and the Simpsons annoy the hell out of me), but I really have no right to talk. Don't judge my vices and I won't judge yours.

It's about Carrie Bradshaw, a single 30-something year old writer living in New York City who writes a column about the relationships of her and her three best friends who all have distinct and different personalities. (From left in the picture) Charlotte is the romantic, Carrie is the thinker, Miranda is the cynic, and Samantha is the slut.

In each episode, Carrie asks a question in her column like "In relationships, is it smarter to follow your heart or your head?" or "In a relationship, is honesty really the best policy?" Then the show switches around between all of her friends and shows how their lives relate to the question she asked, all of it narrated by Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker).

I found a blog that lists all of Carrie's questions when I was looking for an example. I don't think anyone really cares, but I thought it was cool.
http://carries-questions.blogspot.com/

I had a hard time finding a clip to post because the clips on You Tube are either restricted to users under 18 or too graphic in dialogue.

I watched the movie the other day, and I actually cried a little. I know that sounds so stupid, but if there's any one couple I really love from this show, it's Miranda and Steve. Steve is amazing. If I could imagine someone I would want to end up with someday, it would be a guy like Steve. I can't get through how much I love Steve in clips, but I swear Miranda and Steve's relationship in the movie made me tear up a little.

This show is trashy, but I wouldn't call it shallow. The movie was rated R for "strong sexual content, graphic nudity and language" and it wasn't even close to being as bad as the show. There are things on that show that I wish I didn't see, but I like that it makes me think. A lot of Carrie's questions are interesting, and the conclusions she draws give me something to think about.

Movie trailer!

As arrogant as I found Big to be, I think it was right that Carrie ended up with him. I love that I can ramble about Carrie's relationships and my mom has some input. She said that Aidan, her fiancée in the middle of the series, was a better guy, but he wasn't unpredictable enough for Carrie's personality. That's true. I loved Aidan, too. He was my second favorite guy after Steve (no surprise that Steve and Aidan were best friends in the show). Still, he wasn't right for Carrie.

I think I'll end with that. I haven't seen the second movie. Took me two years to see the first.

Love,
Juliana

Smoke up with the Flintstones

2010-07-22T12:33:00.004-04:00

Hey, kids! Your favorite modern stone age family says that Winston cigarettes are the best! Try some and you'll be guaranteed a yabba-dabba-doo time!

This commercial aired in 1960 when the Winston cigarette company was the sponsor for the first season of this cartoon. Can you imagine?

Love,
Juliana

(500) Days of Summer

2010-07-19T21:03:00.005-04:00

It's summer and I have a license. That translates into our Blockbuster card being put to very good use. I put a whole bunch of 80's teen movies on our Blockbuster list, and to expedite their arrival, I went and rented (500) Days of Summer to take it out of queue. I don't remember how it got on the list. I don't like dramatic boy meets girl movies very much, but I don't mind watching them. They just confirm my revulsion to romance, and I'm trying to get over the aversion, not validate it. However, I ended up liking this movie a lot more than I thought.

So there's this guy who really believes in love and soulmates and emotion (he writes greeting cards for a living) who meets this girl named Summer who does not believe in love, doesn't want a boyfriend, and is generally confused about the whole thing. This intrigued me because she reminded me of myself so much.

"What happens when you fall in love?"
"You don't really believe in that, do you?"
"It's love, it's not Santa Claus."

The movie follows their 500 days together out of order, skipping around to different days.

If you don't want to hear how it ends, DO NOT keep reading. I think everyone who cares about it saw it when it came out, but in case you missed it, here's your SPOILER ALERT. I really want to talk about it.

Summer tells him up front that she doesn't want a boyfriend or a serious relationship, but it goes along as if they really are together. In the beginning when she says love is fantasy, he says it's real but you don't know it until you feel it. She doesn't believe him, and they go through their whole "relationship" putting no label on it. He thinks she's giving him mixed signals when she tells him she wants to be friends but acts like his girlfriend.

In the end, she leaves and it destroys him. Very cliche, everyone saw that coming. He sees her again, spends some time with her, and finds out in a very abrupt way that she's engaged. Emotional pain redux.

After some more time, he sees her again in the park they used to go together. They talk, and he asks what makes her, the girl who never wanted a boyfriend, happily married? She says:

"I woke up one morning and I just knew"
"Knew what?"
"What I was never sure of with you."

She says "It was meant to be, and I just kept thinking Tom was right. But it wasn't just me you were right about." He quits his dead-end job because of her and pursues a career in architecture, which was always his dream. In the end, he meets another girl at a job interview, realizes Summer was right, and he moves on, having learned about life from his 500 days with her.

I LOVED that ending because it's real. I was expecting another sugar-coated ending where she realizes she loves him and they live happily ever after. I thought that was where this was going. I got so excited when it got closer to the 500th day and she was married to someone else.

I can relate to her in more ways than are appropriate to share on the Internet. It's not that I don't believe in love, but the whole concept makes me uncomfortable. I don't like romance and I don't like the idea of being in a committed relationship. People tell me that one day I will meet someone who will think like me and it will finally feel right. I wish I could find someone who thinks like me.

This movie really made me think. It is going on the list of really great romantic movies.

How to Trick People into Thinking You're Good Looking

2010-07-19T00:23:00.002-04:00

HAH. This is great. "There's no cure for ugly, but you can turn yourself into a human optical illusion."

How To Make People Think You're Hot - Watch more Funny Videos

I'm an agnostic believer

2010-07-12T14:22:00.002-04:00

I like to believe in things that are impossible to prove. I believe that Horton Hears a Who was right about people living on a tiny speck on a flower. On the little J key on my keyboard, I think it’s possible for a really tiny civilization like us to be living.

You think I’m crazy? Prove me wrong. Show me proof that ultra-mega-nano-microscopic people don’t exist. You can’t. There’s no way to know if they exist, but there’s also no way to know that they don’t exist either. You have the choice to believe it or not to believe it. How do you make your decision?

I was hit with the truth about Santa in Kindergarten. I went to a Catholic school, our religion teacher was a 70-year-old nun who actually wore the nun outfit, and she bluntly murdered part of our childhood with “You know Santa is just your mommy and daddy, right?”

I looked for a good opportunity to bring it up to my dad because I knew from movies that parents react funny when kids ask if Santa is real. I popped the question one school morning as I ate my cereal. He said “Of course Santa’s real. Why would she tell you that?” I knew he was lying, and I could tell by the look on his face that the question made him uncomfortable, but if my dad wanted me to believe in Santa, then I would.

I had no real proof of Santa, but I also had no proof that he wasn’t real either. The choice was up to me, and I chose to believe it for years after. I held out until 5th grade when my friends stopped believing and decided that it was time to let go of that part of my childhood. I never saw Santa as something that was definitely real or definitely not real. I saw him as something to believe or not to believe. This is also how I see God.

I believe in God. I believe that there is someone or something that watches over everyone and controls fate. I don’t believe this because I have proof of it. I believe it because I want to believe that everything happens for a reason. I believe it because, like I said about Santa, if there is no way to know the truth, you can choose to believe anything you want. You can make your own truth.

I didn’t think there was a word for the way I think. Last night, I found it. I’m an agnostic theist, someone who doesn’t know if God exists, thinks there is no way to know if God exists, but believes it anyway. That’s the definition of me. I know skeptics who refuse to believe in anything that can’t be proven, but what’s the point? In the end, we will all die, some of us believing that our lives were planned, intentional, and meaningful, and that our souls live on forever, and others that their lives were short blips in time, purposeless, meaningless, and forgettable.

When I decided on the title of this post, I googled "agnostic believer" to see if it was a real thing and I found this. http://skepticalcosmologist.blogspot.com/2007/08/agnostic-believer.html This guy said exactly what I was trying to say, he just did it much better.

Love,
Juliana

My True Love

2010-07-11T22:21:00.003-04:00

Oh baby.

I want you. I need you. I can't get you out of my mind. I know we just met, but I want to make you a part of my forever.

Love,
Juliana

Boys with Long Hair

2010-06-27T22:24:00.007-04:00

I've talked about this before. My thoughts on the matter: So few guys can pull it off, but so many think they can.

Maybe it's just my own preference, but I think a guy has to be pretty damn special to pull off long hair. There's a very small percentage that can make it work, and it almost always has to be part of a look. If you are going for Fabio (i.e. Jared Leto), Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You, or Brad Pitt, you can make it work, but in my opinion, everyone else needs to reconsider. Chances are, they look more like Mitchel Musso.

But today's rant isn't about the adults who can make their own decisions. It's about the little five-year-olds you see and think "Is that a boy or a girl? Looks like a girl, but the spiderman sneakers say boy..." I saw three kids today, all looked exactly the same. Took me a few minutes to realize that one was a girl and two were boys.

I don't think that's a good thing to do to a kid. Gender identity is pretty important when you're that young, especially when a hairstyle can make the entire difference between gender identification. At least with adults, there are ways to tell male from female besides hair and clothes.

I tried to cover the picture many different ways and I still can't see him as a boy. He has pretty eyes though, doesn't he?

Love,
Juliana

Wanting the cookie that's just out of reach

2010-06-21T14:54:00.002-04:00

It's interesting how kids find things more interesting when they're too young for them.

I was thinking about the stack of old Seventeen magazines in a drawer in my room. Looking through them at the relationship advice, the articles about teen pregnancy, how to be a good kisser, how to know if he likes you, and "how to drive him crazy," I realized how inane and pointless those magazines are. Does anyone actually need that kind of advice?

I'm 17. By the name, I'm assuming 17-year-olds are their target readers. I feel like I'm so much more mature than that now. However, when I was a curious 11-year-old, I thought that magazine was so cool. I felt more mature because I had it. Sure, I really didn't need to learn what a G-spot was when I was that young, but that was why I thought it was so cool. It was something I wasn't supposed to have.

Same with "Sex and the City." I used to stay up late to watch that show after everyone was asleep with the volume on low and my finger on the channel button, prepared to flip to Disney Channel when I thought I heard footsteps. I wasn't really that interested in it, but I liked that I felt like I shouldn't be watching it. Now, I like it but I feel vacuous for liking it, not cool and rebellious.

Ever notice how shows for kids always feature characters that are older than their target audience? Look at Disney Channel. The main characters are high school kids. They don't act like they're in high school, of course. They have more in common with their target audience of 7-14 year olds than actual high schoolers, but they're made to represent normal 16-year-olds. Once kids actually reach high school, they lose their interest in these shows because they realize that's not what it's like to be 16. They lose their novelty. Once they know what it's really like to be that age, they don't need to watch and imagine it. There's nothing exciting about it anymore, and there's nothing cool about watching kids your own age act like children.

Not that I should talk. I still order chocolate milk in restaurants and I have a Powerpuff Girls blanket on my bed. But I still get a kick out of the forbidden. Everyone is more attracted to the things they don't know anything about and the things they aren't supposed to have.

Love,
Juliana

Anastasia Krupnik

2010-06-20T21:37:00.004-04:00

I was reading this blog http://whatireadbackthen.blogspot.com/2010/06/sloop-owner-writing-increasingly.html that I thought was pretty interesting, talking about all these old kids books from the 80s. It's not a secret that I wish I was a kid in the 80s, or even a kid in the 90s for that matter. Being born in 1992 unfortunately doesn't make me a 90s child.

I like reading stuff like this even though I've read about two of the first 20 books she talks about. It made me think though about books from my childhood. That post I linked is about a book called Anastasia at this Address, which I surprisingly never read because I loved (and still love) the Anastasia books. It made me want to talk about the one I liked best, Anastasia Krupnik.

I know this isn't the original cover art, but this is the version I had as a child of the new millenium. It's about a 10 year old girl with glasses who likes to make lists. When I first read this, I was a ten year old with glasses who liked to make lists. Anastasia, however, was much smarter than me, had more interesting thoughts, and made better lists. I thought she was cool.

Anastasia's mother is young and an artist and her father is a poetry teacher who likes classical music. She finds out her mother is pregnant with another child, and Anastasia doesn't like the idea of sharing her position in the family. Anastasia keeps a notebook with pages designated for certain things like words she likes, a list of things she likes and a list of things she hates.

The story is a series of very simple events that Anastasia makes sense of by adding them to her lists. She is assigned to write a poem in school and she writes one in e.e. cummings style and fails the assignment. She decides she wants to convert to Catholicism because she finds out she gets to pick a new middle name. She has a crush on an older boy who she likes until she talks to him. She goes to work with her father and learns things about poems by Wordsworth and what it's like in a college class. She doesn't like visiting her grandmother because she's old, but she learns to appreciate her. Through these simple events and her lists, she learns a lot about life and gains a kind of maturity.

She learns to love her brother, her grandmother, and her own name, among other life lessons she discovers on her own. I love this book because it's so simple but shows a kind of maturity in Anastasia. The simple thoughts of a child are sometimes the most true. I used to read this book late at night in the dark by the the light of my neon mushroom lamp. I still read this book once in a while. It's like comfort food.

Love,
Juliana

Spongebob's "homosexuality." Palease.

2010-06-19T23:02:00.006-04:00

I was visiting the amazing Wikipedia for some information about Spongebob. That show has really gone downhill, and I wanted to know if and when there was a change in writers. I stumbled upon a section on the Wikipedia page called "criticism" with discussion of the problems certain groups have with Spongebob's implied homosexuality.

Hold on. We're talking about the same Spongebob, right? The cartoon yellow kitchen sponge from a children's show who lives in the ocean inside a pineapple in a town called Bikini Bottom down the street from a talking starfish, a squid who plays clarinet, a crab with a whale for a daughter, and a squirrel who wears a space suit to breathe underwater? This is the Spongebob we're talking about, right?

Okay, just checking. Spongebob is one of those things that's meant to be taken for face value. If they tell you he lives in a pineapple under the sea, you just go with it. You don't ask how, you don't try to figure it out. You just go with it. This is the same for Spongebob's sexuality. If there isn't one, there isn't one. Stop looking for it.

The writers, the directors, the producers all said that they had no sexual orientation in mind for Spongebob because, after all, he's a cartoon kitchen sponge, but that they consider Spongebob to be asexual. Spongebob said himself in an episode that he can reproduce by budding. The creators of the show did not even consider it.

Some group called the We are Family Foundation used Spongebob in a video to promote gay rights and tolerance. These religious groups freaked out and deemed Spongebob inappropriate for children. In my opinion, these people are morons.

Kitchen sponges do not have sexual orientations, so shut up, turn off Nickelodeon, and go take a literature class somewhere. Literary analysis is all about looking for hidden sexual implications. Spongebob is for laughing at the antics of impossible characters as they catch jellyfish and blow bubbles. Please don't put sex into Spongebob.

Love,
Juliana

There are so many things I don't know

2010-06-19T00:19:00.008-04:00

That scares me more than anything.
Oh, and this post is dedicated to someone.
Dear smartass,
Bite me.
Love,
Juliana

SUMMER NIGHTS IN SPANISH

2010-06-15T23:13:00.002-04:00

This post was originally titled "Why is there no Greased Lightning on Youtube?" and I was going to babble about how much I love Grease and how High School Musical ripped it off, but then I found THIS.

LOVE ♥ LOVE ♥ LOVE ♥ LOVE ♥ LOVE ♥ LOVE ♥

I also love that I can understand it. It's similar. It starts "In the summer, something happened. In the summer, everything changed. A girl was crazy for me. He watched me...something I don't understand...days of sun...nights of love..." Hehe I will work on figuring out the lyrics.

I don't think I would be this excited if it wasn't midnight. Weird things happen to me at midnight.

Love,
Juliana

When flirting isn't flirting, is it still flirting?

2010-06-11T23:06:00.003-04:00

I was reading about body language because ♥ stumbleupon.com ♥ linked me to a page, and there was a section on signs of flirting. I got a little nervous because I do all the things on the list, but not with the intention of flirting. The people I "flirt" with know it's not flirting. That makes it okay, right?

I'm not talking about flirting as in playful contact with cute stranger you meet at party. If you want to trace circles on the back of stranger cute guy's hand while you giggle at his lame jokes, don't blame society for tagging it as flirting. I'm talking about the subtle expression of interest between people who do know each other. You know, it's the kind of implicit indication, the things you do to that guy you like to gage his interest in you based on his reaction and safely say "hey, I like you" without risking anything. It's a legitimate skill, but are you still flirting when you don't think you are?

I've observed this in other people, girls who get close to guys because they are securely in the "friends zone." It doesn't matter what they do because everyone involved knows it's meaningless. Once you've reassigned meaning (or lack of meaning) to body language, it's no longer flirting. Problem is, what happens when you think you've changed the meaning, but the other person doesn't know that?

I was helping a guy analyze a girl's flirting signals. They sound like flirting to me, but she told him she wants to be friends. He thinks her body language and implications say otherwise. Maybe she's intentionally flirting, but maybe she's just ignoring the rules and taking meaning away from body language because she thinks they have an understanding. That makes so much sense because I do it, too. I have a friend I just do anything around because we have an understanding. I probably do everything on the flirting list, but I don't mean it as flirting. He knows I don't mean it as flirting. Sometimes I wonder though if he really knows it's meaningless. It's just easier not to have to walk on egg shells and censor my actions. You're not special because you're a guy, so I'm not going to worry about how I act around you. A friend is a friend...but what if they don't know that?

Errors in communication make this annoying when other people aren't aware that you reassigned meaning to body language. It becomes less of an indication of interest and more of a miscommunication of the status of the relationship. I can name countless TV shows and movies where a girl's behavior is mistaken by the guy as interest when the girl just thinks they're good friends (or vice versa).

So what defines flirting, the action or the intention? I don't think you can ever be sure of it because intentions are never certain, and when actions depend on the intentions behind them, flirting is flirting with disaster. Disaster, or at least some comedy as old as time without a laugh track to tell you it's funny.

Love,
Juliana

To Sir with Love

2010-05-27T20:12:00.004-04:00

Dear Mr. Crazy,

I am working on your lab right now and thinking of you. You know, the lab you assigned on the last day of your class and made due on the first day of exams. I am writing to tell you how much I enjoy figuring out how to make a distribution curve to compare the sizes of my classmates' earlobes. I feel that this is contributing to my education and my life in a profound way, and I would like to thank you for the opportunity to stay up late on a Thursday night and spend some quality time with Microsoft Excel. In the last year, the time I spent staring at weeds and drawing fish has given me a new appreciation for both nature and Crayola. There were times where I had you and your class on my mind for days intertwined with sleepless nights filled with dreams of aerobic respiration.

I need to make this letter short because my data table is calling me, but I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry we didn't get to spend more time together this year. I will be searching for you tomorrow at lunch to turn in this lab. It will no doubt be fantastic, considering how much respect I have for both you and this assignment. I hope in the future I have another chance to measure the earlobes of my classmates on the last day of school.

Sincerely,
The girl from 7th period, in the front row on the left

Some thoughts

2010-05-19T17:16:00.003-04:00

You know that weird relationship you have with the friends of your friends? You get along well in a group of people, but when it's just the two of you, you have no idea what to talk about, and it's just awkward. I love those times when something happens between the two of you and you suddenly become actual friends. I love breaking that barrier. It's weird though when you go the opposite direction, when your friend drifts away and becomes a friend of a friend. You now force uncomfortable conversation with someone you used to joke around with. It's strange.

Words

2010-05-15T13:26:00.002-04:00

I like making lists of words that sound cool. I was bored of studying and made a game out of one of these lists. I had to try to put them together to make sense. This is what I ended up with.

Artistic invention. Another dimension. Invisible waves. The darkest caves. Fear, ice cold. Echoes told. Moments alone. The sword in the stone. Intense illusions. Shocking conclusions. They melt in heat, skipping beats, these hearts that speak. Logic weak. Fantasize. Intensifies. Releasing the restrained. Immersed and uncontained. In darkness glows. In silence screams. The truth in lies, in fantasies, dreams.

I realized it turned out like a poem. Kinda cool. I never write poems. I didn't use all my words but I added some. I guess that's okay.

Love,
Juliana

=P

2010-05-08T14:43:00.005-04:00

So there's some stuff I've been thinking about and I decided to write it out to maybe find an answer to my questions. I typed 1,000 words in 30 minutes and it's in organized transitioned paragraphs with an introduction and a conclusion. My 1,500 word World Lit paper has been taking me hours to write and I've only written 700 words.

If only I could organize my thoughts about German literature as fast as I can organize my other thoughts.

Love,
Juliana

Warning: I'm about to talk about tampon commercials XD

2010-04-18T21:06:00.008-04:00

Every time I see these ads for Kotex U, I literally laugh out loud.

I watched this twice just when I was looking for it to post on here, and I laughed both times. Okay, then there's this one.

And I saw this one in a magazine:

It makes fun of how awkward people get about it. You can't see it at the bottom, but it says something like "Why are 40% of people uncomfortable with tampons? Break the cycle." I think this is hilarious. Also effective advertising. There's a New York Times article here about this (also where I got the picture).

Dear Kotex,
Your commercials made me laugh, so to thank you, I might buy your stuff. You're funnier than Tampax.

Love,
Juliana

Checking to see if this works.

2010-04-18T14:32:00.002-04:00

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

IT DOES. I made hearts! I just used something HTML and it works! YUSH!

Love,
Juliana ♥

Who's your Justin Bieber?

2010-04-13T17:03:00.007-04:00

I just read this blog post about the 90s prettyboy celebrities and I thought I would share since I know about 3/4 of them. Jonathon Taylor Thomas was my first celebrity crush when I was I think 6. I remember watching "Home Improvement" just for the parts with him in it and I wouldn't pay attention to the rest of the show. I still have a couple of his random movies on VHS that I used to watch over and over before we moved.

Fun fact: He was the voice of Simba in The Lion King. I just found that out recently and felt kind of stupid.

Here's another one. I still love Rider Strong. His character Shawn Hunter on "Boy Meets World," the bad boy with the good heart, was probably the best character on the show. "Boy Meets World" is a great show in general. I was thinking in Psych this morning about how I miss that show.

So whenever I think of my sisters' friends and obsessions with Justin Bieber and Nick Jonas, I think of these guys, and I really can't judge.

Love,
Juliana

"1000 Awesome Things"

2010-04-12T16:26:00.002-04:00

I read this blog all the time. This is where I got the idea for those happy lists I make. I thought this was cute. http://1000awesomethings.com/

Sketchers Shape-ups

2010-04-10T22:54:00.005-04:00

My sister and I are always joking about these things. They're these sneakers that are supposed to improve your posture, balance, muscles, while you walk. We're always laughing them whenever we see them.

Well, we were in the Sketchers store today and decided to try them on for a laugh. DUDE these are the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn! They have this foam in the bottom that's all cushy and squishy. I wouldn't pay $100 for that, but I walked around the store in those things for a while completely amazed and received a lot of funny looks.

Dorky but seriously comfy. Actually, only the brown ones look bad. The ones I tried on were pink. ^_^

Love,
Juliana