The Fundamental.

i hate everything. please let me die.

I’m not allowed to have feelings.

jennyatsdcc:

tavidan:

shameglobe:

fyeah-hetalia:

You know what show had the biggest plot twist ever? 

I had absolutely no clue Blue was a girl

meaning my entire childhood was spent shipping two female dogs

I had a lesbian dog otp at the age of 5 omfg

Magenta is a boy

what the fuck

blue’s clues took assigned gender colors and told society to suck it

Screw never having time for anything anymore. I’m painting tonight. 

Here, have a rant.

I’d just like to take a moment to talk about bras. 

Yes, bras. 

Some see them as dirty, some see them as necessary, some see them as a sign of female oppression. 

But I’m not here to talk about that. 

Most of us U.S. women wear bras.

But guys, bra sizes are all wrong. 

Victoria’s Secret lies to you. A lot of stores do. They give you a size that will get you into one of their bras in order to make a sale.

I’ll admit, I’ve never actually been measured in a store. 

But I guess, until recently, I’d also never questioned the idea that my chest and boobs might not align with the sizing system and common size ranges that stores have so conveniently socialized us into. 

I’m going to say this now: I’m a pretty skinny person, and my boobs aren’t that big.

But when you’re a small woman wearing a bra sized at 32D, that took you HOURS to find and purchase after searching SEVERAL different stores, and it’s STILL TOO SMALL to hold your breasts fully, there’s something wrong.

They define it for us. They say the band measurement is the number of inches around your chest, just under your breasts. And that your cup size is based on the difference in inches between the band measurement, and the number of inches around the fullest part of your bust. 

This is an outdated system that I didn’t understand for a long time. And in that time, I wore a whole lot of bras that were a lot of different sizes. They were all wrong. 

Band size is relative to bust size. I can’t articulate why this is in the most eloquent of ways, but women are simply different, and a simple subtraction formula for every woman doesn’t really work. 

I remember one of my first bras was a 34A. I believe that was my freshman year of high school. Looking back on it, there’s no way my scrawny 14-year-old self was 34 whole inches around the chest. 

As I got older and my breasts grew a little bit bigger, I started buying 34Bs. Eventually, I was at a 34C. 

34C seems to be one of most common sizes worn by U.S. women. Any store that sells bras undoubtedly has plenty of 34C’s in stock. 

I wore bras in 34C for about 3 years until quite recently. Though my bras made my chest feel a little stuffy, rode up my back a bit, and gave me back pain, I didn’t pay any mind. It didn’t seem like a big deal, and I just thought that’s how bras worked.

“And besides,” I thought, “I have average-sized boobs, so I must be one of these really common sizes that they have all over every store.”

Late 2012, I found a little community on reddit called ABraThatFits. 

Basically, after reading up on what they had to say, I realized that all of my bra choices ever were all wrong. 

Bras that fit well are supposed to sit flat between your breasts at the center gore. The band is supposed to go straight across your back, and not ride up or constrict. Loose fat should be a minimum—that shoulder/armpit fat at the top and side of your boob is, in fact, displaced breast tissue. Your bra straps shouldn’t be falling and you shouldn’t have to adjust them to the smallest setting. Most importantly, well-fitting bras should be fairly comfortable. 

I’ve had a combination of many of these problems over the years, mainly: the center gore was always slightly hovering above my chest, my straps were always at their tightest setting, the band was riding way up my back, and sideboob was ignored. 

ABraThatFits identifies solutions to these problems. The raised center gore and the extra breast tissue meant I needed a bigger cup size. The band riding up and the tight straps meant I needed a much smaller band size. 

I didn’t take a very daring approach, and took this to mean I was a 32D. One band size smaller, and one cup size bigger.

I went out and tried on a couple of of 32Ds, and they fit me much better than the bras I’d been wearing for years.

Weeks later, I’d been feeling like it was still somewhat off and a little bit small. And then I realized my mistake: cup size is relative to the band size. If you go down a band size, you have bring it up a cup. 

It doesn’t sound like it makes sense, but I promise, and so do many other women, that it does. 

This should’ve had me at a 32DD.

I haven’t had time to go to the store since I made that discovery, but I’m glad I didn’t.

I’ve been having back pain lately. So I took another measurement of my band size just a few minutes before I started writing this. This time, I took a slightly different approach to accommodate my arched posture, and I measured 29 inches. 

This means my band size is only 30 fucking inches. To think, as a tiny freshman girl, I was wearing a fucking 34 inch bra and destroying my back in the process. 

Going down another band size means going up a cup size. So I guess I’m a 30DDD/30F now, guise. 

And it’s actually not that uncommon. Really.

I highly encourage bra-wearers that are reading this right now to check out the resources on /r/ABraThatFits, or to Google this subject and try to find accurate measurement systems, or even just to go off of this shit that I just wrote, because you might be surprised with what you find.

I’m just upset because now I have another several hours of bra shopping ahead of me. 

Anonymous asked: I feel like you have matured as I read through your posts. You should become a writer. I really like what you write and .. ~~Also, follow your dreams~~

Hey, thanks.

I’m glad there’s been some progression in my writing style since I first started. Unless you mean you’re reading them from newest to oldest and therefore I’ve regressed, in which case… D:

And I guess I’ve briefly thought about going into writing (as I have with probably every job out there), but I just don’t think the personal manner in which I write would make the cut. 

I’ve tried writing stories before, and they’re all bad unless they’re short and abstract and they’ve actually happened to me. 

I don’t even know what my dreams are, but I do appreciate you sending this.

Sometimes I wonder if this blog even reaches anybody aside from like four people, so messages like these make me all warm and fuzzy inside. 

Alas, it’s past 2 am, and despite all of my lower limbs aching like the young old woman I am, I really should try to sleep. Goodnight, anon. 

In with the outro and out with the old.

I’m about to get sentimental here. Then again, when on this blog haven’t I gotten sentimental?

Back in the day, I would to listen to this song when I felt hopeless. 

I think one year it racked up over 1,000 plays on my iTunes. 

That same year, for the first time in my life, I failed a class, got D’s in a few others, and my high school GPA essentially plummeted. 

I remember days when I simply felt like I couldn’t do any homework at all, and I would literally weep at the thought of how fucking pitiful I was for it.

I thought I was an immature, stupid kid. And yet the one thing that would have fixed everything, just doing my school work, never got done. I was so far down and I couldn’t get myself to pick myself up. 

And this might sound lame, but… Listening to this song and taking in each word. It really felt like the only empathy I ever received. 

I never liked to discuss my problems with anyone, aside for, at the time, one person, who made me feel like shit, and that it was my fault that I fell into this hole. 

That I was just a lazy fucker who needed to stop whining and do it.

And I was convinced of that. And it really didn’t help. At all. 

I framed myself as this loser who couldn’t do anything and would never accomplish anything of value. 

When I would listen to this song, I actually felt like I had a friend who understood these feelings, telling me it was possible to move on.

And maybe it didn’t actually help me do my work or pass my classes or anything. But for a small period of my life, it made keep going.

I haven’t listened to it in a while.

But damn, how differently I think of it now. 

Congrats, Nate. And fun. 

Nothing particularly bad is supposed to happen this week. Actually, a lot of theoretically interesting and eventful things will be going down. Yet, I’m dreading it all already. Is this laziness, or introversion? 

Ode to my alarm.

I think I’ll take a short break from studying (because I was totally studying for finals just now, really, I promise) to dedicate a blog post to the song that got me through this semester.

Fall semester 2012, I faced the challenge of finally taking almost solely major- and minor-related courses, meaning not as many blow-off classes as semesters past. 

And even though some were 100-level classes, by god that did not mean they were easy. 

In one class, for the entire first half of the semester, it was required that we read one thirty-page textbook chapter per night, with a quiz almost every class meeting. For the second half of the semester, we had to read one ten- to forty-page scholarly article per night, and write two-page papers on each and every one of them. Fifteen weeks of class, two lectures a week. I’m not even going to bother with that math.

The other classes… My Parisian literature class… Don’t even get me started on that one.

Anyway, I’m not writing to complain. I’m writing to celebrate and to motivate myself. 

At the beginning of the semester, I haphazardly chose tones for my cell phone alarm to wake me up for school every morning. And quite frequently, I would end up with this New Pornographers song as my alarm tone. 

I always liked it, you know, it has a pretty catchy melody. Reminds me of traveling. 

One night, I’d stayed up late working on a French paper and got virtually nowhere, distracted by random internet lurking and mentally planning extravagant study abroad trips that will likely never happen. I went to bed at 5am, and woke up an hour later to this song. And it hit me. 

Traveling.

I need to write this paper so I can travel. 

Even if it only puts me a tiny bit closer. A letter grade higher. One additional scholarship. 

So I got out of bed, and wrote my little francophile heart out for the next several hours. 

And since then, I’ve made a point to wake up to this song every morning that I expect to have a lot of work to do in little time, that I’m otherwise unmotivated to complete. 

I’m writing this now, because this last stretch of exams, needless to say, is crucial. Most of my grades are borderline, and if I can get an A instead of B, why settle? Well, sometimes my body doesn’t like to cooperate with logical reasoning. And that’s where the motivation comes in. 

Every inch of me wants to see other places. Being reminded of my plans puts the work back into perspective. And nothing is boring anymore. Everything matters. 

It’s odd and idealistic and somewhat romantic, but my work gets done.

Here’s to my hard work this semester, and to what will hopefully be a successful week of finals, and to looking out upon the harbour.

Anonymous asked: I just read every post on here. Some of the posts made me really sad, because I wish you were happy and satisfied with your progress in life. I'm not yet either, but for me that should be fine. Not for you. You treat everyone the same no matter what; you always have. You're always selfless, and I wish other people were like you. I feel like you understand how the world should be, and you're not satisfied with it rather than not being satisfied with yourself. I hope it turns out how you'd like it

Hi, thanks for reading. It means a lot. I suppose the reason I might project discontent is that I started this blog as a means of healing myself. That might sound entirely counterproductive seeing as many of my posts stress negative feelings, but I honestly can say that, in the short time that I’ve had this blog, so much has happened in my life and I do feel as if I’m growing. But lately, I’ve almost exclusively posted here when things go wrong, when I urgently need my blog for healing, rather than documenting my progress with all that is going right. You have a point, I should focus on the positives, too. 

As for selflessness, I’m not so sure about that. This blog is a selfish act in itself. I blog for me, and I guess if someone else finds amusement in it or is moved by reading it, then that’s just a bonus. 

But I assume you’re someone who I know well, going by your choice of words. And I guess there are limits to how much I can gauge my personality, despite how often my blog attempts to do so. So, thank you. 

Though, I’m just as confused about the state of the world as the next person. But I suppose a little bit more love, respect, and learning could do everyone some good. I think that’s all I really want for the world. Safety, nurture, progression. 

And thank you, again. I hope all turns out to your liking, as well. 

Fifth grade math

I wouldn’t let you finish your math before I could finish mine.

Fifth grade math class—you made it a challenge.

Sometimes I would wonder if you struggled as much as I did.

But you always kept your cool. I was the competitive one.

In seventh grade you moved away.

On your last day we played gameboy together.

I’m not sure I ever saw you since.

It’s strange to only just find out today, and to think this happened two years ago.

I received no notice. To think, a web search.

I found out about your death. From a web search.

I’m really sorry this happened to you, and I wish I wasn’t saying goodbye via a lousy blog entry.

You were a good kid.

You were one of the few people who was legitimately friendly to me back then.

Rest in peace. 

Anonymous asked: Hey, you know something? You are gorgeous! I also love your eyes. Plus you have a hot body :P so work it, girlfriend!

Thanks, anon! I don’t know who you are, but you’re gorgeous, too. 

Life changes when you’re a preteen. 

I guess this is a pretty odd opening sentence, considering I am nineteen years of age and a college student. 

But the other day, I had a thought: I don’t look like pretty girls.

Now, this isn’t to say that I think I’m ugly.

Actually, let me say this now.

I don’t, but I used to. 

When I was in sixth grade, there was a boy in my class. He was one of those troublemaker boys that I didn’t pay any mind to.

Until one day in class my teacher had me work in a group with him. I was one of the harder-working students that received some of the highest marks, and he was a slacker who probably had some of the lowest. 

I was trying to explain to the group some of the main ideas of the book we were reading, and he wasn’t paying any attention. Instead, he was goofing off with one of his friends who was working in another group next to ours.

I thought this was distracting, so I tried to get him to pay attention to the work by saying something like, “Hey, we’ve got an assignment to finish.”

He just turned and looked me square in the face and said, “Hey, shut up. You’re ugly.”

And then he laughed and turned back to his friend. 

I’ll admit, when I was eleven, I probably did look a little bit awkward. Middle school found me in the midst of a growth spurt. I think I went from being several inches under five feet tall to five foot two in a matter of three years. I was growing out of my school uniforms quarterly, and from the lack of money to keep buying clothes, and the trouble it was to find uniforms in-stores midway through the year, the hems of my pants always cut off well above my ankles. Not to mention my acne-covered face, poor posture (partially attributed to my scoliosis), and my long, wiry blonde hair. 

But never before had I thought I was ugly. It actually never really crossed my mind. I never thought I was disadvantaged in any way, monetarily or otherwise. I always had the notion that I was pretty, and I was growing into a beautiful young woman.

The immediate effects of this boy’s comment were virtually nonexistent. I scowled and laughed a sarcastic laugh, and returned to my book work. 

But later that day, at home, I couldn’t stop thinking about that line: “Shut up. You’re ugly.”

And the echo of taunting laughter.

Day after day.

The weight of the remark only grew with time.

At first, I brushed it off. But eventually, I started to see my reflection in the mirror and compare it to the other girls at school. 

They had smooth hair, clean faces, no vision problems, clothes that actually fit them. And they all had similar faces. 

I didn’t look like them, and as more time passed, this idea began to upset me. 

I was convinced that I was ugly.

But I never said anything about it. 

I remained civil to the boy, mostly because I was shy and didn’t feel any conflict was worth the trouble. I don’t think he even remembered saying that to me.

But the reverberations in my mind eventually became so heavy that the thought broke me down to tears one morning as my mom woke me up to go to school.

It crippled me; I could not and would not leave my bed.

Mother Otap wanted to know what was wrong, and eventually she pried it out of me, as any mother would.

“Who would say such a thing to you?” she said, petting my head as tears started to well up in her eyes, “You’re beautiful.”

Well, kids are cruel.

I wouldn’t actually admit who it was. I didn’t want any trouble. Plus, I was stubborn, and ashamed. I didn’t want my mom marching up to the school with a complaint about a situation from weeks ago.

The incident died away, blew over in the minds of everyone concerned.

Other than in mine, of course. It became a part of my being.

Honestly, I have not seen myself in the same way that I have since before this happened.

Though, one thing I can be grateful for is that it ignited the evolution of my self-consciousness into honest self-reflection. 

And no, I do not think I am ugly anymore.

It’s taken years upon years of mental work, but I’m fine now. 

Some days are better than others, but overall, I’ve come to terms with the body I’ve been given.

And either way, I think development of the self, hobbies, personality, and intelligence, are far more note-worthy than mere beauty.

But recently, I’ve been thinking that I really don’t look like pretty girls.

I don’t look how American pretty girls are supposed to look.

Girls in photos: the way they smile, and how their heads are shaped, their eyes, and the even proportions of their bodies.

I have a normal, healthy, female body, but something of its essence is different. 

But who isn’t different?

Nobody is the same. Identical twins aren’t even the same.

So my little sixth grade buddy, I’m “ugly”?

I am ugly… Compared to what?

I am a distinct human being. I should like how I look.

And, fuck it. I do.