THOUGHTS OF A 20-SOMETHING

The first night, when we arrived, we decided to walk along the beach, and it was amazing, there were crabs EVERYWHERE. Just zipping past us with every step we took. It was kind of scary actually, because it was night and we couldn't really see very well. But we could see tones of holes in the ground where the crabs would come out of! Then we headed off to a beach bar, the famous "Jam Rock", where there was a live band playing reggae music, the BEST jams!!! "Don't worry, about a thing, cause every little thing, is gonna be alright!" It was so amazing... we also watched the stars on the beach, just a perfect first night. 

Our hostel was really cool, one of the highlights of Langkawi. We met awesome travelers, most of them travelling on their own which are the most interesting people you can meet. Also the guy that was in charge of the hostel brought us to a store on our last day and helped us cook a Malaysian meal, which he called "survival cooking"... Still not sure what he meant by that. But it was delicious! Shrimp curry. Beer was super cheap at the hostel, the common room was super chill, though sometimes weird animal noises and bugs would show up haha but it's part of the experience.

We did island hopping, which was beautiful... the water was SO BLUE! And the scenery was magnificent! One of the islands was full of monkeys, I took so many pictures and videos of them, one of them drinking out of a soda can! I will see if I can post that one. We also took a cable car up a mountain where we could see the whole west coast of the island, that was amazing! I actually took a nap on the beach and that was sooo nice... Just the sounds of the waves hitting the beach, I couldn't believe I was there.. It was perfect... I remember us saying at some point, "I would have never imagined myself here, in Langkawi, one year ago." It was so true. It was so unreal being there.

Our last night the reggae band from the first night came and played at our hostel. That was the funnest night I think. We sang and danced (I have very embarrassing videos that will never be shared on the internet...), and we even convinced the owner of the hostel who was probably in his 60's to join us to a bar afterwards! Such a good time. Langkawi has my heart. I recommend it for anyone looking for places in Asia to travel. It was just perfect. Not too touristy. It had only one main strip where all the shops and restaurants were, it was wonderful.

When it happens, I usually just ignore it completely, but it always makes me feel super uncomfortable, kind of freaked out and disgusted.

“But… It was just a compliment? Jeez, don’t get so worked up!”

This is what some people will say in response to people like me who get pissed off when getting cat-called.  Are you freaking kidding me? A compliment? You must not know what a compliment is. Let me help you with that, you dumb, dumb person.

Compliment:

 “A polite expression of praise or admiration.”

Can you find the key word here? POLITE.

Polite:

“Having or showing behavior that is respectful and considerate of other people.”

What are the key words here? RESPECTFUL and CONSIDERATE:

Considerate :

“Careful not to cause inconvenience or hurt to others. Showing careful thought. ”

If that doesn’t clarify anything for you, catcalling is extremely disrespectful. You are basically harassing someone. You are making someone else feel uncomfortable and unsafe.

And this is without mentioning how dumb people who catcall look while doing it. They are trying to look "cool" for their friends, and they act that way because society makes them feel like they have to objectify women to feel manly or seem manly. It's RIDICULOUS! They can't talk to women like regular people! And this is often because they fail to see women as regular people, which is a HUGE fucking problem. 

So the universe keeps going and going, there is no wall that ends the universe, there is no end to the universe… It is infinite. You know the molecules and atoms everywhere that make everything on earth what it is? -- like the skin on your arm or a piece of wood for example. To me, a molecule on your arm or on a piece of wood (or anything) is a universe in itself. And it expands, so it keeps going both ways. So our planet is like an atom in the molecule of the Milky Way, and we are just a tiny part of something bigger. And that thing that is bigger, is also a tiny part of something bigger, and it keeps going! In my head, it’s the only thing that makes sense. And it literally keeps going infinitely in both directions. Infinitly smaller and infinitly larger.

I tried to explain that as best as I could so hopefully you understand what I mean! I’m not a science genius; I only took science in high school and mostly forgot everything at this point. But now I kind of REALLY wish I decided to study science. Astronomy specifically. I am seriously obsessed with it lately, it is so mind blowing, and it gives me some weird feeling. Kind of like a sense of calm, like my life is so meaningless in a way, but so insanely awesome at the same time and that I am so lucky to be experiencing life, whatever this is, whatever we are. The fact that I can think of all of this amazes me and makes me want to learn everything about the universe. I started watching “Cosmos” on Netflix, I seriously urge everyone to watch the first episode! You will be amazed and want to watch the whole season. After writing this post, I am going to watch another episode.

Life is so crazy. I can’t even write this blog post properly because I can’t put into words how amazing it all is. I can’t put into words what is going on in my head. I just wanted to try my best to share my thoughts with you all.

And this is leaving out the whole “time” stuff. Do you understand our time on this planet? Do you understand that the time of your life on this planet, is literally NOTHING compared to the time of the universe. Our human life is like a blink of the eye in our planet’s perspective. Let’s fit the entire universe’s time since the “Big Bang” in one year’s calendar. So the “Big Bang” is January 1st at 12:00am sharp and the present time is December 31st at 12:00am sharp. Human existence only appeared in the last hour of December 31st. This includes cave men, all the kings we’ve learned about, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, this includes everything in our history books, everything we know, the pyramids in Egypt, all human existenece. And it all only happens December 31st at 11:00pm. And our present life, which only lasts roughly a century, is at the last 100th of a millisecond of the last day of the year.

This is kind of difficult to understand, and they explain it much better in “Cosmos” on Netflix. So watch it and you will see what I am saying.

Anyways all of this trippy stuff makes me realize how useless and dumb it is to be mad about little things, or let things get to me in life. Also how I spend so much time doing things that I don’t even want to do, and achieve things that society expects me to achieve, when in the end, it’s all kind of just an illusion. Society doesn’t matter. I am alive in this fantastic universe. By the way I swear I don’t do drugs and I am not high while writing this lol. Can anyone relate to what I am saying? This shit is so messed up, in such a fantastic mysterious wonderful way.

Stepping outside of your comfort zone allows you to learn more about yourself, grow as a person and it’s honestly super liberating once you start doing it regularly. Think about it, it’s the people who aren’t afraid of making a fool out of themselves that are the people who are the most memorable in life! Stepping outside of your comfort zone can be hard, but if you never do it, your life will most likely be pretty boring. People complain a lot about this, “Ugghh my life sucks… Why doesn’t anything exciting happen to me? Why aren’t I enjoying life as much as this person or that person?”

Let me tell you why! Because you don’t do anything out of the ordinary or that you feel uncomfortable doing! You don’t take opportunities that are presented to you because you are too scared! You care too much what others think of you, and don’t want people to think your weird! But let me tell you a secret… being weird is actually the equivalent of being awesome. This is not a joke, I am serious!

Here’s a list of things I’ve done in the past year that I had to step outside of my comfort zone to do, and that I am pretty proud of :

-          Stood up for myself

-          Voiced my opinion on social media and in real life

-          Attended parties where I only knew 1 person

-          Frosh guide for the school’s student body – by myself, not knowing anybody

-          Frosh guide next year for my faculty – without any close friends

-          Hosted a couple parties

-          Became Director of translation for my student council for year 2014-2015

-          Moved out of my parent’s house, into a house with 4 girls, all of whom I didn’t know

-          Decided to go on exchange for one semester studying in Hong Kong!

Now, after taking all of those steps, which weren’t the easiest to do, I guess you could say that now I am pretty comfortable stepping outside of my comfort zone, if that makes any sense! But I am so glad I was able to do those things. Because of it, I met so many new people, which some are now very good friends of mine, made plenty of new memories, built my confidence, pushed myself, and I have absolutely zero regrets! I still have some work to do, sometimes I’m still afraid of what others will think of me, or I have a hard time being myself around new people, but it is something I work on every day and I have made so much progress from last year.

If you can do one small thing, even if it’s just going to a different bar than the one you usually go to, or if its standing up for yourself or for a friend. Trust me, once you start doing little things like that, it will become easier and easier to continue stepping outside of your comfort zone. You will grow as a person, become more confident and simply feel more alive! It’s amazing!

Trust me, making the decision to go to Hong Kong for a semester wasn’t an easy one, it is probably the most adventurous thing I’ve ever done. Going to the other side of the planet, all by myself and where the culture is extremely different, I think it’s the most I’ve ever stepped outside of my comfort zone, and as much as it was scary, I am SO happy! I am super excited, and proud of myself for doing this, I can’t wait! But if it weren’t for all of the other smaller steps I took, this probably would have been too scary for me.

Feminism;

1-      The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities;

2-      The theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes

Pretty simple to understand right? So no, feminists don’t hate men, or want women to take over the universe, or think men should bend down and kiss women's feet. All feminists want is equal treatment between the sexes. This doesn’t only include the injustices that women face, but the injustices that men face as well. Most feminists also vouch for equal rights for gay people, minorities, people with disabilities, etc. Basically, we want equal rights for everyone. But the term feminism and feminist is specific to equal rights for the two sexes.

I don’t feel like ranting too much about this subject because it would take too long and I wouldn’t even know where to start because I have so much to say and it is something that I feel strongly about. All I wanted to share is the meaning of being a feminist. People need to stop thinking being a “feminist” is something negative. Some of you might be thinking that women and men ARE treated equally. Well I am really sorry to tell you that you are very, but very wrong, and you need to educate yourself quite a bit more.

I have posted a picture below that has some sickening facts; which is only a sample of one area of the world’s problems. This will give you a little reality check, and if you are a real human being with a heart, it should make you angry!

Now you might be thinking, “Oh well yeah, other parts of the world… duh there’s a bunch of problems there” But you know what? Sexism exists in all other parts of the world as well, but in different forms. Like I said, I don’t feel like starting to rant too much, but there will definitely be a post discussing this in more detail, along with my specific opinions at some point.