Making Change: Understand More, Fear Less.

This is a awesome guest post by an awesome girl who has awesome things to say.  It was originally a speech done at a Morning Meeting at our prep-school. I'll leave it at that because her the quality and honesty of her words need no introduction. Just read it and let your soul simmer and your heart flutter. And after that, consider how you too can go and make your little bit of positive change in the world. 

Good morning Taft, for those who do not know me, my name is Juste Simanauskaite. I am a junior and I came to Taft as a sophomore last year from my homeland Lithuania. During these two years in the United States, I have come to understand that everyone is capable of making a change. Now I am trying to become one of those people. I am attempting to make a change by fighting for gender equality. The story that I am about to tell you is very personal and important to me. By no means, am I trying to make you feel sorry or pity me; my goal today is to reveal the unfortunate reality that we all live in.

My life has truly been a rollercoaster. Going up and down every single day, experiencing the little joys and struggles of life. However, right before coming to Taft my rollercoaster shut down, the controls broke, and I was not sure whether they would ever go back on. I wish I could say that the situation that I have been through was only 1 of a kind; however, what I experienced is relatively common for the 21^st century. So what happened, you ask? Well, here is my story:

Three years ago, I was a completely different person. I was a 15-year-old girl, just like many of you here at Taft. September of 2012, I started a new high school in my hometown. I was extremely excited to meet new students, teachers, and jump right in into my high-school years. It was one of those feelings you get when you wait for something so much that you can’t even fall asleep, just like waiting for Santa on Christmas eve. However, the excitement was soon gone. The more the year went on, the more alone and isolated I felt. I saw all these socially and academically gifted people making new friends, having fun, and enjoying their time there. However, I was not like all those girls who could talk and flirt with boys for hours and hours. I thought I was not pretty enough, not funny enough, not skinny enough to do so; I felt that I was just not enough. However, that was the standard that a popular girl had to live up to, otherwise you would end up feeling just like me, unwanted, unnoticed and unheard. Up until December of that year, my insecurities and thoughts were slowly killing me from the inside. Every day at school reminded me of a nightmare. Nevertheless, no one knew because I smiled through all the pain and got used to the idea of being a nobody.

As if that was not enough, one day, my dad came home with a new purchase of which he was very proud. A brand new scale, with the fancy options to calculate body and muscle weight, water percentage, and what not. Of course, he wanted all of us to try it out: my mom, my little brother, and me. My mom made the first step and I followed. At that moment, as silly as it may seem, my heart and mind were torn apart. I found out that me, a 15-year old girl, weighed 15 pounds more than a forty-year old woman did. That was it. That final factor was the last trigger that influenced my unfortunate, stupid, and unwise decision, which has irreversibly altered my life.

A year later, I was already facing the doom and consequences of anorexia. After the “scale - incident,” I started out by challenging myself to change my eating habits and began exercising on a daily basis – or what I called it living a “healthier lifestyle.” I read all the articles and books that I could find about what was good for my body, when and what to eat, what to cross out of my diet. My head poured with ideas and thoughts of becoming healthy. First, I took out sweets, and junk food. This of course, most of you would agree, was not a bad thing; however, after a month or two this progressed into no bread, no fats, counting calories for every meal, and making every portion size as small as possible. Control, control, control, no cheating, and control – those words were always in my mind. I felt guilty for eating “too much,” I felt guilty for not exercising for one day, I felt guilty if I ate something after 6pm. Nevertheless, the worst was yet to come because I did not realize that my behavior was leading to a dangerous disease. I thought of this as a positive change: making myself healthy, feeling good about myself, becoming more confident about my body because I felt that this was the only way to be recognized and noticeable. Months passed, and I started seeing the changes – my waist was slimmer, my legs were skinnier, my collarbones started pointing out from my chest. I was proud of myself, I was proud that I finally was approaching the accepted standard of a girl that I wanted to become. What was even more flattering – were the compliments from my classmates, especially guys because they also noticed my shape change. “Juste, you look so good.” “Juste, have you been working out?” “Juste, would you like to go out for coffee sometime?” For the first time people recognized me, they wanted to talk, hang out, and spend more time with me. Therefore, after all of this feedback I saw no point in stopping; however, I did not realize what I was doing to myself until the damage was already done.

After a year of living under my “healthy” rules, I started feeling exhausted all the time, my body temperature was never higher than 96 degrees Fahrenheit, my blood pressure was also very low, and my periods were gone. My parents were concerned; however, every time they said I was not eating enough, I responded “I am, you just never see me eat” or “I ate soooo much at school, I’m not hungry” and by sooo much I usually meant 2 apples and a banana.

All of this became even worse. It took me a while until I understood that maybe feeling cold all the time, drinking 10 cups of hot tea during the day and not having the energy to stay up past 8pm was actually not a good thing. This affected my mood, my academics, and most importantly me! People around me started noticing that I was fading away, day by day there was less and less of me left, both physically and emotionally. However, I could not admit that something was wrong with me and I wanted to prove that everyone else was wrong by saying that. So I looked up the symptoms of anorexia, the disease that people were accusing me of because I wanted to prove them wrong. It turned out that my so called “healthy lifestyle” was not healthy at all, rather the complete opposite. I scrolled down through the symptoms for the disease: 1. Skipping meals, 2. frequently making excuses for not eating, 3. lying about weight loss or the amount of food eaten, 4, adopting an extremely limited diet including only a few certain “safe” foods, 5. cutting food into tiny pieces, 6. obsessively and repeatedly weighing oneself, 7.frequently checking in the mirror for flaws, 8. complaining about being fat, 9. wearing baggy clothing to hide small size, 10. excessive exercising, fatigue, and lack of emotion. I was shocked when I realized that I could identify myself with every single one of those symptoms. I felt as if someone was reading my mind. It took me a year to realize devastating effects of my attempt to be “socially acceptable.” But by then I was a 16-year old that had lost 40 pounds, completely damaged her health, and forgot what it meant to enjoy life. All the stress, anxiousness, starvation, self-discipline, and exhaustion.  All of that for what?

When I try to think of reasons why I had to change in this way, the only thing that I can come up with is that I was trying to fit in; I was trying to live up to the standard of a woman that would be attractive and noticed by others. Even though I managed to recover, I managed to understand my mistake, and I had the willpower to change once again, only this time, for the better; unfortunately, after going through all of this, I am truly concerned and devastated that I am not the only one.1 in 5 women in the world struggle with an eating disorder. That means that out of the 296 girls at Taft, 59 are likely to be affected by this disease. In addition, 53% of 12-year-old girls feel unhappy with their bodies, 78% of 17-year-old girls feel unhappy with theirs and 95% of people with eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25. What do all these numbers indicate? Probably the fact that my story is similar to many of those girls out there. The standards, however, are not only for body shapes, they are created for everything: social media, jobs, ethics, and much more! Therefore, the stories are endless. Women are raised to want to fill the social roles in which society needs them. And unless we talk and become aware of the issue, the outcomes are not going to be positive

            As you may have all heard, I was screening a movie here at Taft called “Miss Representation” just a couple of weeks ago. Right after it more than 30 students gathered and discussed the gender issues that we are facing today. Why is this so significant? Well, the more we talk and discuss, the more stories we share, the more aware we become of the current situation. Yes, you may think that Taft is like a bubble, isolated, and far away from the issues and problems of the world. However, I would like to argue that actually our bubble just represents a smaller model of the bigger world around us. I guess, I will only speak the truth when I say that the issue of stereotypical gender standards is present at Taft as well. Right now, I want everyone to just take a moment and think how could we all prevent those stories from happening, how can we as a community make a change? What will it take us to get rid of those social standards and how are they affecting each one of us personally? Just think. Today, my goal was to make you think and realize that we all together, women and men, make this environment a better place for all of us, we can stop the harm of unhealthy social standards, and we can make this change happen. That we can do by listening, admitting, and talking about the problem. My life may have been different if I had seen enough images in society accepting me for who I am. I now clearly see that the roller coasters we all ride in are controlled by us and influenced by others. I hope after hearing my story we will all be more kind to others and ourselves and embrace the words of Marie Curie “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”  

Find the video of her speech here: https://vimeo.com/155022762

Hey Look! Even MOAR IGCSE English Language Coursework!

RECURRING CHARACTERS.

SEASON 1

Episodes 1-9

            It was my first year of high school.

I did not know that I would listen to even more Beatles songs. I did not that I would encounter Pet Sounds. I did not know that I would make it to both the top Maths and English groups. I did not know that The Catcher In The Rye would soon prevent me from frequenting the ‘Children’s Books’ section in the Maru-a-Pula School library. And I certainly did not know that holding a girl’s hand could feel so awesome.

            But that was the beauty of it all: I didn’t know.

                                    Episodes 10-11

            It was just about the end of my Form One year in high school when I was busy telling Sofia that we will not be in the same class next year. Unfortunately, as I was telling her, I could barely suppress a very odd and inappropriate urge to laugh. This was, of course, until I looked into her eyes and saw how the white classroom lights were reflecting off the Arab gems of her irises. Her eyes were brown, poignant, amber.

Thus I began to notice that yes, our little first-year-of-high-school romance was, in fact, a big deal and that yes, I was totally screwing it up with my incessant ambition. I think that it was our third month ‘anniversary.’ I do not remember. All I remember was that I had spent the better part of my break time waiting in the tuck shop line to buy her a Kit-Kat to commemorate us (again).

“Why?”

“Well, uhm, I was offered.”

To be fair, my initial reaction when my parents told me was the same reaction I gave then when I had been entering both Grades Three and Seven: “no.”  But somehow, the lustrous allure radiated by the words ‘grade skipper’ were too bright to ignore. So it became an uncontrollable craving, like later asking Sofia if she would mind giving me a snap of the Kit Kat I just gave to her. I do not remember if I actually did this or not.

Even so I hugged her and told her how much I loved her and she, I think, told me how much she loved me; and she was quite warm and soft and we both didn’t, I think, want to let go but we had to let go because we had Drama for our next period and break-time was suddenly over; and she didn’t want to be late while I didn’t really care whether I was on time or not; and also because the nature of life involves letting go and even the use of full stops.

Episode 12

Later, a few evenings later, I would be given the big, thick, threatening French book I was to use in class the next year. Once I had weighed it in my palms I felt hints of tears swelling up in two normally dry dams. This could not, I thought, be life. This could not be life.

SEASON 3

Episode 7             

Aabi died.

           

SEASON 4

Episodes 1-6

After some time, Sofia and I decided that no, grade skipping was certainly not enough to keep our love apart, and so we got back together again after a year of mutual loneliness.

Nobody had warned us about how bad it would turn out to be, or rather, no one had warned me about how bad it would turn out to be.

Well, one person sort of did.

Amrit Amar and I became best friends on the first day that I came to Form Three after Form One, and he pretty much hated anything involving people that did not involve computers. I was only a possible exception to this rule.

His dislike of Sofia stemmed from a lot of things that need not be mentioned. Needless to say my attempts to incite goodwill towards her were largely futile. He would not even acknowledge that she was beautiful, or at the very least pretty and/or cute.

The only thing that he did acknowledge about her was what he deemed to be a severe lack of intelligence, but Amrit pretty much deemed this a characteristic of most people in the world, myself included. While I did not share his sentiments about Sofia, I did in small part, kind of, maybe even, slightly have, agreed.

It was far too difficult for me to have an intelligent conversation with Sofia than it should’ve been. In fact, most of our conversations were about how perfect we were for each other for whatever simple and sweet reasons we could  possibly fathom and god forbid… whether I looked good in skinny jeans or not.

The answer is and was no. I do not and did not care what she said and says.

Though these things didn’t matter, I still loved her anyway, even if Amrit did think she was stupid. 

I mean, I was very sure she wasn’t.

Episode 7

Aabilwe Modise, at the age of fifteen, in her third year of high school at Maru-a-Pula School, became the victim of Darwin’s genetics and died of cancer. It was not Darwin’s fault, nor was it God’s, but it was useless attempting to blame the ‘cold unfeeling universe.’

I met Aabilwe in Creative Writing in my first year of high school, and chose to go into her and Amrit’s form class when I had decided to skip a grade. Aabi would take me outside the world of silly love poems- we even once started debating over whether Holden himself was a phony. We were, however, unable to finish our conversation- she had to go to soccer practice and I was never man enough to kick a ball after primary school.

Basically, Aabi was the reason why it became routine for me to think thoughts such as this…

“I don’t believe that’s the roar of God out there,

it’s probably just the wind or crickets, who don’t

burn so bright and distant; screaming in the dark.

Sound doesn’t travel through vacuums anyway so

it’s funny

that I can still hear you

whispering through my phone.”

…But that was from a love poem that wasn’t even for her. I didn’t know why, but the words just felt appropriate. Maybe it was because, today, I still stupidly tried to call her phone a year after I knew she had died.

I still wished her goodnight as, in the dark, I collided into my pillow.

Episodes 8-9

Of course Sofia and I had broken up once again and of course it was far too painful to describe.

(I spent most of the school holiday helping Amrit build a robot hand (no joke) and watching Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and nearly crying at the bits that reminded me of her. I was miserable. On the plus side, I also started liking another girl called Aria.)

  

Episode 10

Much to the contrary of this narrative, I had reached a point in my life where it was very clear to me that I am not the protagonist of this world…perhaps even of my own life.

The former was not so distressing to realize. It was a fairly obvious conclusion to come to ever since I had picked up my first book. The latter, I thought, was far more concerning; that in my own life I may not be my own most important person.

But was it really such a shock to me that Sofia was more interested in another guy now? Or would that question make room for some character development? I didn’t know.

I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I do not know.

Though I guessed that I would just have to keep writing about all of it anyways; even if it so happened that I was only Nick Carraway and everyone else would get to be Gatsby and everybody else would get to be Daisy. Fair enough. I was never one for drowning or not drowning in my expensive pool in my expensive house; nor was I ever one for running around with men I do and do not love because they do or do not have money.

All I wanted, all I needed... was just a happy ending.

That was all.

And I would have liked to live one out and not just to have written one.

That’s what I would have liked the most-

A happy ending.

Episode 11

                                                                                                                                        

But those were the thoughts that I had surrendered the moment I had first kissed Aria.

I did not feel the need to write a lot about Aria because I had thought I had grown up. I had learned that to like or love someone doesn’t mean that you have to be a total Hopeless Romantic about it.

 You just have to go ahead and do it and hope that they won’t like or love another person far too soon after you break up…

And that’s pretty much all there is to it.

Amrit, much to my joy, had deemed my new relationship to be far more suitable than the old one. Thus him violently and viciously condemning Sofia to make me feel better did not make me feel worse anymore. It only made me feel bittersweet.

I had decided not to make a big deal out of Aria and I because that was the problem last time- I had tried very hard to novelize my life and I had somehow ended up as a minor character. It also helped that I was suddenly old enough to try asking Aria how she felt before or instead of trying to poeticize everything on my blog.

Though I admitted to myself that old habits die hard- I often found it nice to imagine that those times when I kissed Aria were my happy endings, the ones that I spent so much time dreaming of.

I also liked that I thought, by that logic, I may be able to live and die a few more times tomorrow.

Episode 12

A Day.

(Word of advice. Do not mix first dates and The Beach Boys. It accentuates everything.)

This I wrote after.

Tawanda W.T Mulalu was a firm advocate for the gathering of information, and therefore decided that some time on Google really wouldn't hurt. So yes, quite literally Tawanda found himself on Wikihow looking at how to handle himself the next day. In his mind, Tawanda seriously thought that he could easily mess himself up and show himself as the nervous wreck he actually was, or thought he was. Apparently, self-deception plays an integral role in the social interactions of human beings in... Does it matter? Tomorrow was going to be strenuous and he needed someway to deal with it. And the joys of internet information gathering could easily do so. Even after the extended 'research' period Tawanda had spent the time conducting, Tawanda decided he need a back-up, a fail-safe in case he was hopelessly boring tomorrow. 

A piece of paper and a pen. Not only would it create a writing opportunity and some point, he could easily say: "Let's play noughts and crosses!" to save him from awkward silence. If that happened, he could at least hear the sweet scribbling of a pen: sweet. He listened to music as he slept, and enjoyed the darkness of the night.

*

Morning. The boy woke up with a urgent sense that something important was happening today. He opened his eyes and raised his abdomen from the soft cushioning of sleep, and struggled to wipe the dream off his face. This important event, what was happening? Why was it urgent? Debate again?

It was a late morning and it was warm and sunny. The rays of the sun travelled through the windows.

And then-

Oh yes, the boy thought.  That. 

He lifted himself up from the bed, with a mixture of dread and rush. The dread as a result of his usual anxious paranoia. The rush, the usual happy sensation felt when he was confronted with such situations. It was why he revelled in public speaking and even, oddly enough exam taking. Tawanda, occasionally actually enjoyed taking an exam.  Actually more than occasionally, he honestly found his Science and Maths exams…fun.

But this pre-exam feeling would not necessarily end with a pen and paper, and if it did, that would actually be really bad, considering how ludicrous the 'fail-safe' he concocted in his mind was. Either way, he took a bath and savagely scrubbed himself, he combed his hair, though not for the full hour the Fashionista suggested he so for, and he brushed his teeth more than once. He would be clean he decided. 

*

This I wrote as I pulled out a piece of paper at Milky Way and kept myself busy as I waited.

Astounding rushing and bustling of heat expansion; energy fuelled peoples revering in the thermos of consumerism. Tawanda W.T Mulalu sits still, rather uncomfortable as the only particle held frigidly motionless by the cold of nervousness and jitters. The smell of freshly cooked meant emanates into the confines of the ice-cream joint with its multi-coloured chairs. Red, purple, orange. Tawanda meanwhile felt purple, an interesting mellow colour that revealed much but little. He was writing. It was a perfect way to pass the time as he waited. What was the first thing he had to again? Yes, smile.

The great Fashionista in all her wisdom had told him to not

(1)    Cross his arms

(2)    Whistle

She had noted that these are two habits of his in uncomfortable situations. She also told him that if they went to Exclusive Books (Tawanda mentioned this because he absolutely knew that he wanted to end up at Exclusive Books but was a bit worried because he thought he might just get lost in the books and actually forget everything around him. Which would have been bad. Really bad. ) that he should offer to buy her one of those “cute” bookmark “thingies”  for her. Though, the Fashionista warned:

“When she says no, she means no brah.”

Tawanda decided to heed such advice. The way the Fashionista’s warning was outputted was serious. Therefore he would not take such advice lightly.

*

This, I also wrote after.

Poor Tawanda shook in surprised convulsion as he heard her voice from behind him. A surprise hello. She laughed, and he quickly turned to face her. What was the first thing he was supposed to again? Oh god, is this actually happening? She looked pretty, so he was pretty sure he smiled at some point, but oh what else? Dipstick, tell her she looks pretty. Oh yeah, that. He then told her. Though quickly, it wasn't the sort of thing he wanted to let linger. Ice-cream, he suggested.

And what followed, were extended conversations about vanilla vs. chocolate, music (Justin Bieber, One Direction, Kanye West, alternative rock, and 80/90s RnB and Hip Hop) , a few movies (500 Days of Summer), and at some point the show 'The Big Bang Theory' (in which Tawanda had attempted to explain a joke  he didn't even remember quite properly using the pen he brought and the receipt in which he drew the worst rending of y = tanx known to math. Also, its probably a good idea to not attempt to explain maths that she'll probably not need until two years later. To be fair, at least  he didn't get into Calculus). 

She had to leave, so Tawanda tried to see if Exclusive Books was still open. It wasn't. Musica was, so he decided to see what discount CDs he could get. He settled on 'The Very Best of The Beach Boys. In retrospect this was both a good and bad idea. 

Tawanda then saw Thapelo and Sedia chilling, he greeted them and Thapelo looked happy with The Beach Boys CD. 

*

Alright. Tawanda was now home listening to The Beach Boys. But then his little mind then mused something.

It was good,  and no one had to play noughts and crosses.

But, Tawanda W.T Mulalu, as the sky darkens and the day meets the night and you must fall asleep again...

What do you do now?

*

Well you know, I could certainly read. There's this wonderful college textbook called 'Understanding Poetry' that I'm skimming through right now... Wait a second... OR, I could totally do the normal thing and send a text like normal real people do. 

I know, I'm a genius.

You really can't go wrong once you learn a fact about yourself and the world around you.