Discounted Chocolate

Welcome to February everyone. The second month of the year is home to a plethora of holidays, including National Umbrella Day (10^th),  Do a Grouch a Favor Day (16^th), Championship Crab Races Day (17^th), International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day (23^rd), and my personal favorite, Public Sleeping Day (28^th). But unfortunately, February is very rarely, if ever, recognized for all of these glorious occasions and usually only known for Valentine’s Day.

The 14^th of February was basically a day created just for Hallmark. Technically we should all be probably be happy that the candy heart industry is getting so much business of once in the year, and providing jobs for so many confectioners. But in reality, very few people are actually happy on Valentine’s Day. Correction: very few women are actually happy on Valentine’s Day. The truth is, women are catty bitches. We all grew up watching our beloved Disney princesses being spun across dance floors and riding off into the sunset, so basically our expectations for the Prince Charming in our lives are higher than is realistic. It’s not our fault really, but it creates an impossibly high standard for men.

If you buy a girl roses on The Day of Love, she’ll be upset you didn’t do more. If you get her chocolate, she’ll wonder why you’re trying to make her fat. If you get her the limited edition, cushion-cut, rose gold, peach champagne sapphire ring she’s been wanting since forever, she’ll freak out because you’re doing so much for her and it’s “so soon” in the relationship. Basically you men out there just can’t win. I understand. All you really want is to make your woman happy, and hopefully get laid in the process. I get it, I really do. But unfortunately you’ll more often end up with your significant other in tears because all her little friends got better V-Day presents than she did.

The solution to this problem is simple. Don’t date. Be forever alone! It’s so much simpler this way, for both men and women. Think about all the advantages of being single on Valentine’s Day. First off, all the delicious candy will be on mega sale as soon as February 15^th rolls around. And everyone knows there is nothing better in life than discounted chocolate, especially when your single life allows you to consume as much sugar as you want without fear of your boyfriend leaving you for that skinny blonde slut who works with him. I guarantee that almost-free chocolate will make you feel better about life in general than a dope-headed man ever could.

And really, so what if February is ultimately going to be single awareness month? There is absolutely nothing wrong with being single. It’s cheaper, smarter, and you’re never left with dying roses sitting in stale water. Nobody really wants to ride off into sunsets with perfect princes anyways.

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Crimes Of Vanity

Can someone please explain to me what the problem is with being pale? It seems like all anyone ever does nowadays is go tanning. Alarm clock rings, get up and tan. Get off work, go and tan. Wake up at two in the morning because the dog’s barking? No problem. Throw him a bone and go tan. Do you wanna get something to eat later? No, sorry, I’m having UV rays for lunch.

I honestly just can’t seem to understand why society considers it so wrong to be light-skinned. Because honestly, it’s nothing but the current culture that gets us to make evaluations about what’s good and bad. Fuck society. In older times it used to be considered beautiful to have the whitest skin possible. Even Shakespeare used the term “fair” to describe a woman as beautiful. So what exactly happened? Along the way somewhere, being pale suddenly became just as undesirable as having warts. Or a third arm.

 But it’s not just women committing these crimes of vanity, it’s men too. All everyone wants to do these days is sizzle under the hot lights of a tanning bed. Now I’m not judging or anything, but this has to be the stupidest thing ever. Okay fine I’m totally judging. Why the hell would you want to expose yourself to so much bodily harm? Is it really worth it just to achieve a slightly darker complexion? You might as well just hold up a welcome sign and invite the skin cancer into your body for tea and crumpets.

Okay so yeah, your prom is coming up and you really don’t want every single vein in your arms to be so visible through your tissue-paper-thin translucent skin. Sure, go tanning. It’s your life, do what you want. At least this time you have an excuse for wanting to tan. Well a semi-excuse anyways. But what I find difficult to understand are the girls who claim that going tanning “feels good” and is “like so relaxing omg”. Seriously. You’re seriously going to lower your life expectancy just for 10 minutes of “relaxation”? Honey, I’m sure it is absolute heaven to have heat waves cover the entirety of your body for a fraction of an hour, but do realize that you’re subjecting yourself to many upcoming years of wrinkly skin and freckles to come.

If you choose to tackle your pale probs in a different manner, you might choose to opt for a nice little spray tan instead of fake baking. This would thus result in an overall splotchy skin tone resembling something similar to orange colored camouflage. Have fun making chocolate for Willy Wonka you complexion confused oompa loompa. 

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Strange Emergency

One of the scariest things in life is driving on the road alongside beginning Driver’s Ed students.  I’m not sure what’s more terrifying: the fact that there are puny, squeaky-voiced little children unsuccessfully attempting to maneuver their vehicles less than 24 inches away your own, or the fact that their senile driving instructors are usually more concerned with catching a couple more minutes of shut-eye than keeping their croc-clad feet on the emergency brake. What’s more, the babies driving these cars, more often than not, can’t seem to tell the difference between a stop sign and an interstate exit, let alone stay on their side of the road.

But even with all its many faults, Driver’s Ed is sill a necessary part of society. We obviously have to drill some sense of education into the minds (and steering wheels) of young drivers before they can be let loose onto the asphalt streets of society. With that said, I truly believe that the Driving Education program should aim to teach children everything they really need to know about driving on our roads, which is something they haven’t really been doing recently. The basics just aren’t sufficient enough for the issues associated with driving for today’s adolescence- they should be prepared for any situation that comes their way. Sure, it’s clearly important to know that green means go and that cars can only go one way on a One Way street. But basic driving knowledge is easy to master with practice, and won’t get you anywhere if you don’t have additional knowledge about other aspects of the road.

Driver’s Ed teachers have all (hopefully) driven in the real world. They know how absolutely senseless most of the other drivers on the road are, and have all encountered their share of road trauma. But do they teach their students what to do in times of strange emergency? No. So what’s going to happen when a young driver gets flipped the bird by a stranger with road rage? Or trapped in a car with a rabid raccoon? What will the poor drivers do when they find themselves stuck inside a Volkswagen beetle straddling the Grand Canyon? They’re not going to have the slightest clue about how to proceed, dammit! Nobody ever prepared them for a situation like this. If only there was a course or some class they could attend to better their driving education… Oh wait there is. Or at least, there’s supposed to be.

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The Classiest Sassiest Woman

My all-time favorite woman in history is Marilyn Monroe. Mar is totally my home girl. I can feel you all judging me in cyberspace. You’re all thinking “She had all the women in history to choose from and she picked a sex icon?!” Yes. Yes I did. I picked Marilyn because she was a role model and leader for millions of women across the world. She was made out to be the sex symbol of her time, but she really stood for so much more than just that.

Most importantly, Mar taught women that it was okay to be themselves. She wore a size 14 and totally rocked that shit. You’re surprised. I know you are. You’re amazed because a size 14 is considered morbidly obese in today’s society. And a size 14 has always, and will probably continue to be, considered obese. But Marilyn Monroe was the exception to the rule. She expressed to women that it was completely okay to be curvaceous and to have a figure, and furthermore, that women should flaunt their curves. It was this very self-confidence in her body, as well as her body itself, that brought Marilyn to fame.

Being the first Playboy was probably Marilyn’s biggest achievement. But her cover shoot was nothing like today’s issues. Partially covered in black silk, Marilyn once again presented herself in full elegance, while still being the epitome of absolute sexiness. She posed the perfect balance of sophistication and playfulness, setting the standard high for wannabe stars everywhere. Mar grew up in a series of foster homes, and quickly rose in the ranks to become a model, actress, and singer. How many people are gifted enough to be so talented in multiple fields, especially with so throughout little financial support? And not only was she a triple-threat, but also a revolutionary ideal.

Marilyn Monroe was the complete embodiment of feminism and the concept of being a woman. In an era where women were still considered subservient to men, Mar provided a whole new perspective. She was married and divorced three times, and had multiple affairs throughout her life. For the first time in the media, A woman was playing the men, as opposed to the other way around. How utterly fantastic is that?! It was something that was totally unheard of. The fact that women could be just as daring, bold, and sneaky as men was empowering for the female gender. Suddenly it was okay for girls to show some skin and be themselves. Women could do whatever they wanted, dammit.

If women have any confidence nowadays, it’s all thanks to the revolution that Marilyn started. Today’s women, while independent, could still learn a thing or two about chic from her. If you can think of another woman figure in history who has done so much for the self confidence of women everywhere, I’ll gladly give you credit and let her have the top woman spot in history. But you can’t. And so Marilyn Monroe is, and will forever be, the classiest, sassiest, woman in history.

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Cape Cod Water

In my AP Language and Composition class we recently watched the movie Miss Representation, a documentary about how today’s media sets up women for failure in business and politics by presenting them as weaker and less able than men. I really think that this is a very important movie that everyone should watch, especially for anyone out there who still thinks that women are inferior to women. The documentary is extremely informative, and while it provides plenty of facts and figures, some of them don’t seem altogether too realistic.

One statistic I was hesitant to accept from the film was that “About 25% of girls will experience teen dating violence [sometime in their lives]”. For me that figure seemed a little high, even though I know that teen dating violence is unfortunately a relatively common occurrence in today’s society. If you look at the situation objectively, it doesn’t really seem likely that 1 in 4 high school girls would be getting hurt by her boyfriend. This might be because I go to a high school where these things aren’t common, or because the specific group of friends I’m exposed to aren’t involved in abusive relationships. But this could also be a high statistic because of the simple fact that the data has been over-exaggerated and skewed.

After doing some research on the figures presented in Miss Representation, I found out more about the data collected on teen dating violence. The research for this statistic was done mainly by Jay G. Silverman, an author who has written about domestic violence and its influence on family life. Although he is obviously qualified  and has a degree in his research, there are many places where I think potential was evident for inflated data.

What I found was that there was a few surveys done by Silverman, the latest one completed by 2186 high-school girls in the Massachusetts area in 1999. First off, these records were outdated by 12 years when the documentary was premiered, and obviously a lot could have changed in that time (whether that be an increase or decrease in teen dating abuse cases). In addition, a sample of only two thousand students is not representative sample of the entire country. Not only is it a small number, but also all the girls participating in the study were from the same area, which could play a role in the findings. Maybe the girls in Massachusetts are just more attracted to the same douchebags who will end up being abusive. There might just be something in the Cape Cod water.

In all seriousness though, I think the term “dating violence” should really be defined here. Obviously hitting and punching is considered violence, but what about hugs that are too tight, or rougher make-out sessions? I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s all in the way that the survey questions are posed. Overall, while the results of the studies done on teen dating violence could be an accurate representation of American females, chances are high that they might be exaggerated to catch the attention of the viewers in documentaries and other reports.

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