Hi guys!
The most recent major event was that I got to sing in NATS regionals in Salt Lake City at the University of Utah! (Wow that is a BEAUTIFUL campus.) I sang classical and Emily sang both classical and musical theatre and while neither of us moved on in the competition Emily did great and so did I! Other highlights include spending time with Josh's family and stopping by East High once again. Go Wildcats.
It was a long and tiring weekend, but we had a restful day on MLK Day and now are back in school ready to go. Today I gave a speech on Bonnie and Clyde, which as many of you know I am practically a professional at doing so I SLAYED it. I feel so privileged to be in school right now and for the three years following the mission.
I LOVE getting to hear from my friends in the field. Reading about their missionary adventures and how much they love the Lord and get strength from Him is my favorite. My ward's missionaries also came and visited me this week and it made me SO HAPPY especially considering I was feeling pretty down that day, and I am loving my mission prep class and we're only two weeks in.
Speaking of missionaries, I have the BIGGEST news, guys! I finally have an appointment with my bishop to start talking about my mission papers! I will be meeting with him at 5:30 on Sunday. This is finally happening! It's quite honestly crazy to think that this is really happening now, but I am so ready to start this part of my life! Be praying for me!
Alright guys, we all know I overwrite so who knows if this is really going to happen. But I'm planning on this piece being short and sweet. I wasn't really planning on it, and I don't have much to say, but a post regarding my personal struggles/thoughts/life was requested, so I'm delivering!
I wasn't planning on writing what I'm about to say. This post was originally a quite dreary post about inaction.
It was something I had been contemplating lately, because of MLK Day, and all the lovely quotes I was seeing regarding the person who does nothing being even more bad than the person doing something bad, because the person doing nothing could be fighting bad with good if they only spoke up for what they really believe in. It's a beautifully true thing, but it really bothers me, because I can't place when it happened because I don't think it was always this way, but I am so terribly afraid of being seen. I'm afraid of being wrong, so I'm afraid of speaking up and risking that. I'm afraid of messing up and actually making something worse. And sometimes I don't even know what I think, so I choose silence because I don't want to say something I don't actually believe. But silence is so terrible, when it comes for fighting for what's right and true and good. I don't want to live my life not saying anything ever, but I want to be sure of what I'm doing when I do it, and the fact that I'm afraid of being seen doesn't help at all.
So due to all of those things, sometimes I feel like I'm sitting still and doing nothing. How tragic is that? That's what I was going to talk about. I was going to try to make it a little hopeful at the end, but how?
It was on Tuesday night that I had these new hopeful thoughts, when the missionaries came, and then when I went to mission prep. I guess it all comes down to confronting my other fear... which is really the fear of fear.
I'm terrified of fear; I don't like the feeling, and I'm afraid of it making me lose, it being able to get to me in some way. Being scared of fear can stop me from speaking up because I'm afraid of my fear of being seen. It can stop me from taking a risk and learning because I'm afraid of being wrong. The fear of fear is the real thing holding me back. I remember one time I was talking to Morgan, I don't even remember when or what we were talking about, but I told her that I never wanted anyone to feel afraid. She responded that it's okay for people to feel afraid as long as they step up and do the thing anyway. That's always been hard for me to grasp because of how much I hate fear and am always trying to solve problems that I can't fix. But the fears are not the real problems. The fear of fear is the real problem.
Who knows what got me to start feeling hopeful and thinking differently starting Tuesday night, really. I think it was definitely comfort from the Spirit of God, and learning about how to do His work, but I also got thinking about the idea that I am literally getting ready to dedicate a year and a half of my life to tell people about what I believe and serving the children of God. And it's not that it doesn't scare me. It's that I have such a need and desire to do it that no fear is even possible of getting in the way. Turning back crosses my mind all the time, but never seriously. Not as something I would actually do, but more as a concept. Like, I get scared, imagine backing out, and know that it is in no way realistic. It really isn't even an option for me at this point anymore. It is so much a part of my plan.
So it was comforting to realize I am speaking, I am saying what I need to say and what I think know other people need to hear. I'm trying to dedicate my whole life to that, really. I just really want to write. The mission really scares me, publishing a book really scares me, but the love I have for doing those two things makes me practically incapable of listening to those fears. It's an encouraging thought.
Today, family, friends, followers, and fans, I hope you remember that there is hope for you, no matter what you are afraid of and what seems to be standing in your way. If it hasn't already, eventually something so great will come along that you will be incapable of not being great, of not living your best life, of not saying what you need to say and standing up for the good. And as those opportunities come, while you're scared, you will realize just how capable you are and just what you can do. And that will give you hope for the future as well. If you can do it once, you can do it again, and while it may scare you every time you will be better at facing the fear.
I don't think the upcoming mission will take away my fear of being heard or being seen. I don't think anything ever will. But I do think that it will help me once again get used to facing my fear of fear, and being able to do the things I'm scared of, and I think it will help me get better at doing what scares me even though being scared may never go away.
The future is so bright. Don't be afraid of letting yourself see that.
Or rather, don't hold yourself back from being hopeful just because you're afraid of doing it.
Thanks and much love.
--Lizzo
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Disney Princess Series: Mulan
Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii.
I finished out last week sitting in on Basic's rehearsals for Little Shop of Horrors! They did a lot of choreography, a lot of singing, and I even got to see a rough run of the show! Highlights include getting to play the piano for them for a bit to help them rehearse, and running lines with Morgan. (And sharing my character ideas with her, because she can actually use them while I can only think about them. She is a fantastic Audrey.) It was excellent to get to see all of my people again. The show is going to be incredible! Go see them at Basic Academy at 6:00 on February 7, 8, and 9.
I was going to be coming back to Basic as a part of the panel of graduates to talk to the current seniors, but I have a singing competition this weekend. Sorry, guys.
Other than that, I'm back in Cedar City! It's a new semester! I'm still taking Jumpstart, and the only thing that has changed there is that I'm taking a new English class, intermediate writing this time. Other than that, I'm still taking voice lessons, I take contemporary math now, and later in the semester I will be taking the first EDGE class. I'll probably talk more about that when it actually happens. It seems that it will be a good semester... as long as I don't think too far into the future and overwhelm myself. On Monday we (the Dead-End Jobs Club, Emily and Josh and I) already watched Friends and ate brownies and it was only the first day. But it's nothing we can't do.
(Oh, and we started going back to the gym! Bless!)
At the institute I am taking a missionary preparation class! It seems like it's going to be really good and talk a lot about things that I haven't thought a lot about but definitely will want to know.
I'm currently trying to make an appointment with my bishop so I can start talking about my mission papers. I haven't been able to make that happen yet, but I'm going to try again soon. Can you guys believe this is actually real now? We've been talking about it as a definite thing for two years, and as a hypothetical thing for five years. This is really happening now.
If you guys will recall the post introducing the Disney Princess Series, Mulan was mentioned a number of times. I was really bothered by the fact that Mulan was viewed as the only option for what a strong princess could be. But guys, I love Mulan. Like, a lot. This post is her time to shine! We are constantly in awe of this heroine. It's not a big deal, but she SAVES CHINA.
Before she does that, though, she's just a normal girl in China. She's getting all dolled up to see the matchmaker. As far as relatability goes, Mulan doesn't feel out of reach. She's late, having a hard time remembering what she's supposed to have memorized, and apparently a slightly inelegant disaster. This will matter later. (Like when she SAVES CHINA.)
Well, it doesn't go well. Everything that could possibly go wrong does go wrong, and our princess is told she "will NEVER bring her family honor!" While I get the impression that everything Mulan had to do to please the matchmaker was forced on her, I don't think the idea of family honor was. Mulan loves her family. The love Mulan has in her heart is why we love her so much, really, because it's what drives her to do absolutely everything. The fact that she couldn't be enough for them destroyed her. She forgets that they love her for who she is, even if that's not who everyone else expects her to be. She's a different kind of beautiful than everyone else, and she fights through the judgment of others by trying to be true to herself.
And we totally get why Mulan loves her family. She has a caring mother, a wise father, and Grandma Fa is the crazy comedic Disney grandmother of our dreams. Mulan was raised with love in her heart which led her to bravery beyond words.
Things start to get even worse when they find out her father will be going to war again. There's no other men in the family to take his place. Mulan is pretty concerned about this, but the family insists that it's going to be fine, and that it will bring the family honor. She tries to let it go, but when she sees how unfit her father is for battle, she knows things really will not be okay.
Honestly, I'm blown away by how brave Mulan is. While watching her leave, you can see how afraid she is, but totally determined. Her love for her father doesn't even leave her with an option in her eyes. This is how Mulan TRULY brings her family honor. She doesn't even know it yet, but what she is best at is doing what is absolutely right rather than what people necessarily think is the best. Mulan is going to show everyone that this idea of honor doesn't have to look the same every time. So she GOES. And this could potentially be giving up everything for this, but it's worth it to her. So she goes.
(Mulan's awkwardness when trying to be a boy is so relatable somehow. I've never been in that situation but I just know that is how I would be.)
After Mulan gets to training with the guys, two things happen. The first is that it is made clear that this is going to be terrifying and near impossible for her. The second is that everyone's absolute JAM and ultimate motivational song is introduced. As the song goes on, Mulan and the guys train for the army, and things are going about as well as they did with the matchmaker. She's even SENT HOME. If that doesn't break your heart, nothing will.
But Mulan is the queen of determination. You will recall at the beginning of this powerful number that Shang, our military captain, orders everyone to try to retrieve an arrow atop a tall stake. No one is successful. As Mulan leaves, she tries one more time.
You can see the difficulty and pain in her face. But Mulan is not a quitter. She can't give up everything she was trying to do for her family that fast. She succeeds where none of the other men did. It mattered that much to her, and it probably didn't mean as much to anyone else. What a hero!
It's pretty safe to say that Mulan is good to stay in the army after that.
I can't imagine how strong Mulan had to have been in her time there. She doesn't seem super comfortable relating to the other guys. Maybe that's just because she's trying to be one, but I myself am like that too, so who knows. She intelligently kept her secret safe and became a valued part of the team, and a good friend to all of them.
In one fateful battle against the Huns, Mulan uses her wit to help win the battle. However, she is badly hurt, and her secret is revealed. This would typically cost her her life, but due to the friendship they developed, Shang spares her. Mulan is left heartbroken as she is removed from the army.
HOWEVER, Mulan finds out about Shan Yu's plans to attack the Imperial City, where the emperor is and where the army is headed. Does Mulan let her sorrow and her release from the army stop her? NO WAY! When something matters to her and there is work to do, our girl Mulan DOES it.
She goes to the city to warn Shang, but he won't listen to her, a person he used to trust so much. He wouldn't listen, even though it was the same mind that was behind everything else that "Ping" accomplished. Mulan drops some serious truth that resonates with the feminist in all of us: "You trusted Ping. Why is Mulan any different?"
Preach, girl.
And that wasn't to say that men and women AREN'T different, but rather to say that Mulan hasn't lost her value suddenly now that everyone knows she's not a man. It was ALWAYS Mulan, and the value was ALWAYS there.
Well, since Shang didn't listen to Mulan, the Huns take over the palace and have seized the emperor! Mulan is back on the team, because they desperately need her thinking skills. Mulan had an ability to plan.
I can't get over it. This girl is so BRAVE. She and her friends sneak their way into the palace and start taking things back over. Mulan makes her way to the roof, this girl who just got kicked out of the army, who wasn't even supposed to be there and risked everything, and started SINGLE-HANDEDLY fighting Shan Yu. To SAVE CHINA.
Ultimately, she knows that love is stronger than fear. The things that were important to her were too important to let fear take over. She had a job to do and she did it.
Shan Yu is defeated, thanks to our heroine who almost wasn't allowed to fight. Sometimes you just have to do what's right.
And then, the entirety of the Imperial City bows to her.
Mulan, our ordinary girl who could never seem to measure up, just wasn't being tested in the right places. She had intelligence and determination, but no one was looking close enough at what she had to offer. She went through all of those hard times, often feeling desperately alone, but kept on, and in the end is recognized by the emperor and all of the people of China.
Just watching Mulan react to the people's gratitude is beautiful. She can't believe this is happening to her. She is so ordinary and was just trying to do her job. She never thought it would end like this.
Anyway, Mulan is offered a position in the government, and goes home to live a happy life with her family, plus a nice visit from Shang. Living the dream.
Now that we have highlighted all of Mulan's beauty throughout her story, let's go back to the beginning where she appeared to not be anything extraordinary. She really was just a normal person.
That normal person? Is the same one who SAVES CHINA.
Mulan is here to show us that you can be who you are, whoever you are, as ordinary as you may be, and still find a way to make an enormous difference in the world. There is a place for you.
Keep that in mind. I will too.
Thanks and much love.
--Lizzo
I finished out last week sitting in on Basic's rehearsals for Little Shop of Horrors! They did a lot of choreography, a lot of singing, and I even got to see a rough run of the show! Highlights include getting to play the piano for them for a bit to help them rehearse, and running lines with Morgan. (And sharing my character ideas with her, because she can actually use them while I can only think about them. She is a fantastic Audrey.) It was excellent to get to see all of my people again. The show is going to be incredible! Go see them at Basic Academy at 6:00 on February 7, 8, and 9.
I was going to be coming back to Basic as a part of the panel of graduates to talk to the current seniors, but I have a singing competition this weekend. Sorry, guys.
Other than that, I'm back in Cedar City! It's a new semester! I'm still taking Jumpstart, and the only thing that has changed there is that I'm taking a new English class, intermediate writing this time. Other than that, I'm still taking voice lessons, I take contemporary math now, and later in the semester I will be taking the first EDGE class. I'll probably talk more about that when it actually happens. It seems that it will be a good semester... as long as I don't think too far into the future and overwhelm myself. On Monday we (the Dead-End Jobs Club, Emily and Josh and I) already watched Friends and ate brownies and it was only the first day. But it's nothing we can't do.
(Oh, and we started going back to the gym! Bless!)
At the institute I am taking a missionary preparation class! It seems like it's going to be really good and talk a lot about things that I haven't thought a lot about but definitely will want to know.
I'm currently trying to make an appointment with my bishop so I can start talking about my mission papers. I haven't been able to make that happen yet, but I'm going to try again soon. Can you guys believe this is actually real now? We've been talking about it as a definite thing for two years, and as a hypothetical thing for five years. This is really happening now.
If you guys will recall the post introducing the Disney Princess Series, Mulan was mentioned a number of times. I was really bothered by the fact that Mulan was viewed as the only option for what a strong princess could be. But guys, I love Mulan. Like, a lot. This post is her time to shine! We are constantly in awe of this heroine. It's not a big deal, but she SAVES CHINA.
Before she does that, though, she's just a normal girl in China. She's getting all dolled up to see the matchmaker. As far as relatability goes, Mulan doesn't feel out of reach. She's late, having a hard time remembering what she's supposed to have memorized, and apparently a slightly inelegant disaster. This will matter later. (Like when she SAVES CHINA.)
Well, it doesn't go well. Everything that could possibly go wrong does go wrong, and our princess is told she "will NEVER bring her family honor!" While I get the impression that everything Mulan had to do to please the matchmaker was forced on her, I don't think the idea of family honor was. Mulan loves her family. The love Mulan has in her heart is why we love her so much, really, because it's what drives her to do absolutely everything. The fact that she couldn't be enough for them destroyed her. She forgets that they love her for who she is, even if that's not who everyone else expects her to be. She's a different kind of beautiful than everyone else, and she fights through the judgment of others by trying to be true to herself.
And we totally get why Mulan loves her family. She has a caring mother, a wise father, and Grandma Fa is the crazy comedic Disney grandmother of our dreams. Mulan was raised with love in her heart which led her to bravery beyond words.
Things start to get even worse when they find out her father will be going to war again. There's no other men in the family to take his place. Mulan is pretty concerned about this, but the family insists that it's going to be fine, and that it will bring the family honor. She tries to let it go, but when she sees how unfit her father is for battle, she knows things really will not be okay.
Honestly, I'm blown away by how brave Mulan is. While watching her leave, you can see how afraid she is, but totally determined. Her love for her father doesn't even leave her with an option in her eyes. This is how Mulan TRULY brings her family honor. She doesn't even know it yet, but what she is best at is doing what is absolutely right rather than what people necessarily think is the best. Mulan is going to show everyone that this idea of honor doesn't have to look the same every time. So she GOES. And this could potentially be giving up everything for this, but it's worth it to her. So she goes.
(Mulan's awkwardness when trying to be a boy is so relatable somehow. I've never been in that situation but I just know that is how I would be.)
After Mulan gets to training with the guys, two things happen. The first is that it is made clear that this is going to be terrifying and near impossible for her. The second is that everyone's absolute JAM and ultimate motivational song is introduced. As the song goes on, Mulan and the guys train for the army, and things are going about as well as they did with the matchmaker. She's even SENT HOME. If that doesn't break your heart, nothing will.
But Mulan is the queen of determination. You will recall at the beginning of this powerful number that Shang, our military captain, orders everyone to try to retrieve an arrow atop a tall stake. No one is successful. As Mulan leaves, she tries one more time.
You can see the difficulty and pain in her face. But Mulan is not a quitter. She can't give up everything she was trying to do for her family that fast. She succeeds where none of the other men did. It mattered that much to her, and it probably didn't mean as much to anyone else. What a hero!
It's pretty safe to say that Mulan is good to stay in the army after that.
I can't imagine how strong Mulan had to have been in her time there. She doesn't seem super comfortable relating to the other guys. Maybe that's just because she's trying to be one, but I myself am like that too, so who knows. She intelligently kept her secret safe and became a valued part of the team, and a good friend to all of them.
In one fateful battle against the Huns, Mulan uses her wit to help win the battle. However, she is badly hurt, and her secret is revealed. This would typically cost her her life, but due to the friendship they developed, Shang spares her. Mulan is left heartbroken as she is removed from the army.
HOWEVER, Mulan finds out about Shan Yu's plans to attack the Imperial City, where the emperor is and where the army is headed. Does Mulan let her sorrow and her release from the army stop her? NO WAY! When something matters to her and there is work to do, our girl Mulan DOES it.
She goes to the city to warn Shang, but he won't listen to her, a person he used to trust so much. He wouldn't listen, even though it was the same mind that was behind everything else that "Ping" accomplished. Mulan drops some serious truth that resonates with the feminist in all of us: "You trusted Ping. Why is Mulan any different?"
Preach, girl.
And that wasn't to say that men and women AREN'T different, but rather to say that Mulan hasn't lost her value suddenly now that everyone knows she's not a man. It was ALWAYS Mulan, and the value was ALWAYS there.
Well, since Shang didn't listen to Mulan, the Huns take over the palace and have seized the emperor! Mulan is back on the team, because they desperately need her thinking skills. Mulan had an ability to plan.
I can't get over it. This girl is so BRAVE. She and her friends sneak their way into the palace and start taking things back over. Mulan makes her way to the roof, this girl who just got kicked out of the army, who wasn't even supposed to be there and risked everything, and started SINGLE-HANDEDLY fighting Shan Yu. To SAVE CHINA.
Ultimately, she knows that love is stronger than fear. The things that were important to her were too important to let fear take over. She had a job to do and she did it.
Shan Yu is defeated, thanks to our heroine who almost wasn't allowed to fight. Sometimes you just have to do what's right.
And then, the entirety of the Imperial City bows to her.
Mulan, our ordinary girl who could never seem to measure up, just wasn't being tested in the right places. She had intelligence and determination, but no one was looking close enough at what she had to offer. She went through all of those hard times, often feeling desperately alone, but kept on, and in the end is recognized by the emperor and all of the people of China.
Just watching Mulan react to the people's gratitude is beautiful. She can't believe this is happening to her. She is so ordinary and was just trying to do her job. She never thought it would end like this.
Anyway, Mulan is offered a position in the government, and goes home to live a happy life with her family, plus a nice visit from Shang. Living the dream.
Now that we have highlighted all of Mulan's beauty throughout her story, let's go back to the beginning where she appeared to not be anything extraordinary. She really was just a normal person.
That normal person? Is the same one who SAVES CHINA.
Mulan is here to show us that you can be who you are, whoever you are, as ordinary as you may be, and still find a way to make an enormous difference in the world. There is a place for you.
Keep that in mind. I will too.
Thanks and much love.
--Lizzo
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Single Teenage Girl Writer and That One Guy
Hello all! Sorry for missing a post last week. Here's what's been going down.
We had a good Christmas with the WHOLE family here and did some Christmassy wintery stuff. It was fantastic. I've honestly seen more movies in the past week than I've probably seen in my entire life. (That's a major hyperbole, but for those of you that don't know I don't particularly like movies; I can never focus on them, and going to see movies in theaters makes me extremely anxious most of the time.) But they were all fantastic; The Man Who Invented Christmas (I mean, I can't just NOT enjoy a movie about Charles Dickens), The Last Jedi (I'm in love with Star Wars I'm in love with Star Wars I'm in love with Star Wars), and The Greatest Showman. (That one was more good than fantastic, but it was still a really good time, would watch again, the soundtrack is jammin', and it helped me heal my damaged relationship with Zac Efron. Also, who knew Hugh Jackman could dance that well?) And hey, before that I saw Wonder with Morgan and her mom and I was shocked at how much I liked that movie even though I was super anxious that night.
We've spent a lot of time chilling out. Like, a lot. I, a person who also doesn't watch a lot of TV, have also been reminded of the beauty of quality television. (The Friends truly are always there for me and Psych is the ultimate television program. Disney Channel throwbacks were enjoyed, but the Camp Rock films while comforting are noticeably less high-quality than the High School Musical films. It's beyond noticeable that they are not Kenny Ortega films.)
Oh yeah, and I got a biopsy. It was mildly stressful but now there's one more random thing in my life that I've done that I can overdramatize.
Anyway, here I am again relatively ill. However, I NEED to get better for tomorrow because I may go sit in on Basic's rehearsal for Little Shop of Horrors. Which I cannot do if I am ill. So PLEASE PRAY A LOT because I could jam out to Alan Menken by myself or I could jam out to Alan Menken with the most talented kids in the world.
It's a new year, new face, new makeup, new focus on writing and my life and happiness. I have been letting a lot of things get to me too much. When I get back to school, I'm reading more, writing more, working more, going on walks to my favorite places or just around, I'm making myself busy because when I'm not constantly going I'm losing my mind, and my current schedule is not making me as busy as I typically like to be, so I have to do it myself. Think of all the progress that can be made!
Anyway, today I am going to speak my TRUTH. My vulnerable single teenage girl truth. I, being a mature eighteen years old, am very wise. And I genuinely believe there are not enough people looking out for teenagers. Do adults just forget what it's like or something? Why do people treat children like they're not people? They're still people, just young underdeveloped people. They still have problems. Don't tell a teenager--scratch that, don't tell a person--that they don't have real problems. There's no such thing as a fake problem. If something is bothering you, that's a problem. No matter what it is. No one is looking out for the teenagers. No one is listening to the teenagers. No one is speaking to them. Teenagers need LOVE like any other human. They need to feel HEARD. If only there was someone writing for the teenagers. Like, speaking their truth for them or something. I wonder who could do that.
To get more specific about the teenage wisdom I want to share today, I was born a writer and a storyteller. I used to narrate life when I was super young, I would make up stories verbally or on paper, and I have been journaling since the beginning of time. Journaling is very therapeutic in that it is a way to think out loud privately; physically feeling and writing out your thoughts does it in a way nothing else can. It's also an excellent writing exercise, because if you write about your life, you don't have to worry about developing plot. The plot is already there. You can't get it wrong. All you have to do is find the most accurate and beautiful way to tell it, and I really like the opportunity to write a personal narrative and try to tell it to the best of my ability without an audience.
As a teenage girl who is very honest about herself and her feelings, I also know that just about every tragic story begins with, "So there was this guy."
Don't take that the wrong way, but most of my sad stories have to do with some guy I was tripping over, or someone else was tripping over, or a disaster of that sort. This is to the writer and journal-writer in your teenage girl heart. As a young girl first feeling an attraction for a boy, in middle school, people called me boy crazy, and I didn't really get it at the time because I am a WILDLY loyal person and I will stick with someone until they destroy me, and even a little bit after that sometimes. I've always defined "boy crazy" as just chasing after boys in general, and I was never really the type of person to jump from guy to guy. But now looking back on it, I know what they were talking about.
I would write about him a lot and think about him obsessively and I wish I could go back to preteen Lizzo and tell myself that he isn't everything.
I still have the journals from back then and his name and stories are in there way too much. I want to let you young teenage girls know some things.
Please do write about him, because he is a part of your life and there is no reason you should pretend your feelings don't exist.
But I even remember writing about having some problems with who he was, and write about them as if it was my job to fix those things about him.
If you have a problem with who a guy is, that you used to really care about, you are not obligated to like him still just because you liked him then.
I think that's a good reason why you should try to control how much you let him consume your thoughts anyway, because if it does get to that point it's almost like he's a part of you and you may be afraid of letting that go, because it would feel like letting go a part of yourself, and a part of yourself that you previously really liked.
But he is a PART of your narrative. He is not the narrative itself.
I'm not entirely certain what did it, but when I was thirteen I kind of came to my senses and thought, "What the heck am I doing?"
I dropped the guy. My friends became a really important part of my life, and I had really good friends that I started appreciating more, and it makes me so happy to think about those eighth grade friends because I have always had an unconscious appreciation for female relationships and I love having my closest friends be my fellow girls. I read more. I wrote more and developed a lot of stories, most of which didn't stick but it exercised that part of my mind. I LOVED being in choir. I started thinking about my future at Basic, and that year the mission age changed, so for the first time in my life that became a possibility for me.
I became a more diverse person once he was gone. I'm not saying he has to be gone for everyone. He had to be gone for me. But the well-balanced life is the ideal life. So many bad periods of my life were because I was too focused on one thing, and that one thing was almost always one guy. This is youth! Youth is the time to figure out your own personal self, to try things so you can find out who you really are. Why focus on one thing when this is your time to really live and figure out where you want the rest of your life to be.
When you write, write about him. But write about so much more.
I got better at taking up writing about school, family, friends, choir, color guard, EVERYTHING that was happening instead of ONE THING that was happening. I wrote about a guy if there was a guy, but I wrote about everything else. I told my full story instead of just one part of it. I frequently even just write my random opinions and thoughts on things. Life is so much better when it is well-balanced. That has never not been true. Tell your story the way it is really happening.
Write about the way things feel. Write about the way it feels to run laps with the color guard, how it felt in your lungs and your legs and your heart and your smile. Write about the exact way you started and continued crying when your friends broke your heart. Write about the way the air feels on the choir's yearly trip to California. Write about the way your heart hurts when the sun hits the grass in a specific way in the morning and it feels exactly like the morning of a band competition, a moment you will never be able to go back to. Write about what made you cry in the shower. Write about what made you smile when you were just sitting at home with your family. Write about the moment you decided to take the risk. The moment you knew exactly what you needed to do about a given situation. And heck, write about how it felt when your eyes locked with his and you were just sitting at a piano smiling like an idiot because you were all caught up in your feelings for a second.
Life is so interesting. Bask in all of it.
The moral of my story today is that he isn't everything and I wish my poor younger self knew that. When I let myself live outside of a box, I really live.
Thanks and much love.
--Lizzo
We had a good Christmas with the WHOLE family here and did some Christmassy wintery stuff. It was fantastic. I've honestly seen more movies in the past week than I've probably seen in my entire life. (That's a major hyperbole, but for those of you that don't know I don't particularly like movies; I can never focus on them, and going to see movies in theaters makes me extremely anxious most of the time.) But they were all fantastic; The Man Who Invented Christmas (I mean, I can't just NOT enjoy a movie about Charles Dickens), The Last Jedi (I'm in love with Star Wars I'm in love with Star Wars I'm in love with Star Wars), and The Greatest Showman. (That one was more good than fantastic, but it was still a really good time, would watch again, the soundtrack is jammin', and it helped me heal my damaged relationship with Zac Efron. Also, who knew Hugh Jackman could dance that well?) And hey, before that I saw Wonder with Morgan and her mom and I was shocked at how much I liked that movie even though I was super anxious that night.
We've spent a lot of time chilling out. Like, a lot. I, a person who also doesn't watch a lot of TV, have also been reminded of the beauty of quality television. (The Friends truly are always there for me and Psych is the ultimate television program. Disney Channel throwbacks were enjoyed, but the Camp Rock films while comforting are noticeably less high-quality than the High School Musical films. It's beyond noticeable that they are not Kenny Ortega films.)
Oh yeah, and I got a biopsy. It was mildly stressful but now there's one more random thing in my life that I've done that I can overdramatize.
Anyway, here I am again relatively ill. However, I NEED to get better for tomorrow because I may go sit in on Basic's rehearsal for Little Shop of Horrors. Which I cannot do if I am ill. So PLEASE PRAY A LOT because I could jam out to Alan Menken by myself or I could jam out to Alan Menken with the most talented kids in the world.
It's a new year, new face, new makeup, new focus on writing and my life and happiness. I have been letting a lot of things get to me too much. When I get back to school, I'm reading more, writing more, working more, going on walks to my favorite places or just around, I'm making myself busy because when I'm not constantly going I'm losing my mind, and my current schedule is not making me as busy as I typically like to be, so I have to do it myself. Think of all the progress that can be made!
Anyway, today I am going to speak my TRUTH. My vulnerable single teenage girl truth. I, being a mature eighteen years old, am very wise. And I genuinely believe there are not enough people looking out for teenagers. Do adults just forget what it's like or something? Why do people treat children like they're not people? They're still people, just young underdeveloped people. They still have problems. Don't tell a teenager--scratch that, don't tell a person--that they don't have real problems. There's no such thing as a fake problem. If something is bothering you, that's a problem. No matter what it is. No one is looking out for the teenagers. No one is listening to the teenagers. No one is speaking to them. Teenagers need LOVE like any other human. They need to feel HEARD. If only there was someone writing for the teenagers. Like, speaking their truth for them or something. I wonder who could do that.
To get more specific about the teenage wisdom I want to share today, I was born a writer and a storyteller. I used to narrate life when I was super young, I would make up stories verbally or on paper, and I have been journaling since the beginning of time. Journaling is very therapeutic in that it is a way to think out loud privately; physically feeling and writing out your thoughts does it in a way nothing else can. It's also an excellent writing exercise, because if you write about your life, you don't have to worry about developing plot. The plot is already there. You can't get it wrong. All you have to do is find the most accurate and beautiful way to tell it, and I really like the opportunity to write a personal narrative and try to tell it to the best of my ability without an audience.
As a teenage girl who is very honest about herself and her feelings, I also know that just about every tragic story begins with, "So there was this guy."
Don't take that the wrong way, but most of my sad stories have to do with some guy I was tripping over, or someone else was tripping over, or a disaster of that sort. This is to the writer and journal-writer in your teenage girl heart. As a young girl first feeling an attraction for a boy, in middle school, people called me boy crazy, and I didn't really get it at the time because I am a WILDLY loyal person and I will stick with someone until they destroy me, and even a little bit after that sometimes. I've always defined "boy crazy" as just chasing after boys in general, and I was never really the type of person to jump from guy to guy. But now looking back on it, I know what they were talking about.
I would write about him a lot and think about him obsessively and I wish I could go back to preteen Lizzo and tell myself that he isn't everything.
I still have the journals from back then and his name and stories are in there way too much. I want to let you young teenage girls know some things.
Please do write about him, because he is a part of your life and there is no reason you should pretend your feelings don't exist.
But I even remember writing about having some problems with who he was, and write about them as if it was my job to fix those things about him.
If you have a problem with who a guy is, that you used to really care about, you are not obligated to like him still just because you liked him then.
I think that's a good reason why you should try to control how much you let him consume your thoughts anyway, because if it does get to that point it's almost like he's a part of you and you may be afraid of letting that go, because it would feel like letting go a part of yourself, and a part of yourself that you previously really liked.
But he is a PART of your narrative. He is not the narrative itself.
I'm not entirely certain what did it, but when I was thirteen I kind of came to my senses and thought, "What the heck am I doing?"
I dropped the guy. My friends became a really important part of my life, and I had really good friends that I started appreciating more, and it makes me so happy to think about those eighth grade friends because I have always had an unconscious appreciation for female relationships and I love having my closest friends be my fellow girls. I read more. I wrote more and developed a lot of stories, most of which didn't stick but it exercised that part of my mind. I LOVED being in choir. I started thinking about my future at Basic, and that year the mission age changed, so for the first time in my life that became a possibility for me.
I became a more diverse person once he was gone. I'm not saying he has to be gone for everyone. He had to be gone for me. But the well-balanced life is the ideal life. So many bad periods of my life were because I was too focused on one thing, and that one thing was almost always one guy. This is youth! Youth is the time to figure out your own personal self, to try things so you can find out who you really are. Why focus on one thing when this is your time to really live and figure out where you want the rest of your life to be.
When you write, write about him. But write about so much more.
I got better at taking up writing about school, family, friends, choir, color guard, EVERYTHING that was happening instead of ONE THING that was happening. I wrote about a guy if there was a guy, but I wrote about everything else. I told my full story instead of just one part of it. I frequently even just write my random opinions and thoughts on things. Life is so much better when it is well-balanced. That has never not been true. Tell your story the way it is really happening.
Write about the way things feel. Write about the way it feels to run laps with the color guard, how it felt in your lungs and your legs and your heart and your smile. Write about the exact way you started and continued crying when your friends broke your heart. Write about the way the air feels on the choir's yearly trip to California. Write about the way your heart hurts when the sun hits the grass in a specific way in the morning and it feels exactly like the morning of a band competition, a moment you will never be able to go back to. Write about what made you cry in the shower. Write about what made you smile when you were just sitting at home with your family. Write about the moment you decided to take the risk. The moment you knew exactly what you needed to do about a given situation. And heck, write about how it felt when your eyes locked with his and you were just sitting at a piano smiling like an idiot because you were all caught up in your feelings for a second.
Life is so interesting. Bask in all of it.
The moral of my story today is that he isn't everything and I wish my poor younger self knew that. When I let myself live outside of a box, I really live.
Thanks and much love.
--Lizzo
Saturday, December 23, 2017
Disney Princess Series: Pocahontas
Helloooooooooo.
I mean, I wanted to write a post once a week, and I guess I have time to do that, but even still I wasn't planning on really doing this today, but I'm in a super writer mood right now and I need to write SOMETHING. Which has been hard lately because, as many of you already know, I finished Story 2's second draft, so it is on hold until after the mission, and finished Story 1's FINAL draft, so it is on hold until I get started actually working toward publication. Yay for middle grade literature!
I haven't been doing much the past week because I have been pretty sick the past few days. I have gotten to see the choir sing quite a few times and do stuff with my mom and see Jacob's dance show and go out with Morgan and stuff like that. Plus Emily and Josh just came into town for Christmas so we're super hyped! I went in to see the chamber singers (but in all actuality I came because my Alto Illuminati sister Alex was going to be there) yesterday and then Morgan said she was going to try on Little Shop of Horrors costumes (Just in case I haven't bragged about this to you guys yet, she's playing Audrey) so I was like "CAN I COME" and so I got to do that with her and talk to her and Mr. Calkins about the show and Morgan's costumes for 5ever, and I got to help Morgan sing a little bit (Bless her and her patient soul) and talk to her and after that I was on a character high so I tried writing some verse or whatever but nothing was coming out so here I am, writing a blog post I probably don't even feel good enough for but I need to express some sort of creativity somewhere. AH.
(To be so honest sorry if my writing isn't even coherent right now. We're gonna blame it on the illness, whether or not that's actually what it is.)
Okay, so today we're adding another installment to the Disney Princess Series. And this is honestly immensely fitting, because in history this semester we were learning about Pocahontas, and a lot of it was kind of based on a comparison to the Disney film, and how inaccurate that movie is. Which made me irrationally angry.
And I guess what they were saying was legitimate, because a lot of them didn't know the true story of Pocahontas. But even still, I was getting a little tired of the Disney hate.
When I watch Pocahontas, I'm not doing it to get a history lesson. I'm doing it because I love Disney and Alan Menken and Disney Princess. If you've graduated high school and you don't know the true story of Pocahontas, I'm not blaming you, but I do think your history teachers were pretty bad. They don't have to explain the entire story to you, but they should probably say, "Yeah, so if you've seen the Disney movie, none of that was real. They weren't in love and she didn't save him, she actually ends up living with the colonists and moving to London and it's a lot more complicated than all of that." I know that people probably have more of a problem with this because it's a thing that really happened, as opposed to all the other fairy tales they've modified, but I'm still okay with watching a Disney film just to enjoy a Disney film, whether it's based on true events or not.
That's what you need to keep in mind when you read the following. We're aware that we're not talking about real events; we are talking about the fictional character Pocahontas and not the real person.
I first saw Pocahontas either senior year or junior year, I can't remember which. It was honestly a shame that I hadn't seen it, because I'm really big Disney fan and almost a bigger Alan Menken fan and I absolutely love the Disney Princesses, but I hadn't seen that film, and I knew that was a necessity. My mom had told me that she was super disappointed when it came out because it was like they didn't even try, and I know what she's talking about. The animation is pretty low-quality, and not because it's older. Beauty and the Beast came out in 1991 and is an animation masterpiece. Pocahontas came out four years later and is way worse. Definitely not up to Disney's standard at the time. But I still liked it. I think (even for being low-quality) it was a pretty movie and I think Pocahontas is an even prettier character.
That was the initial main reason I liked the film. I think Pocahontas is beautiful.
Maybe because according to the blessed personality blog post by Oh My Disney, Pocahontas is identified as INFJ, which is the personality of your favorite stereotypical teen blogger. She is quiet yet bold and totally wise. In my own opinion, this is the best kind of person to be. I've found it's important not to talk unless you have something to say, because if you just talk to talk, people stop listening really fast, so when something actually is important no one is listening. Pocahontas is smart.
I was honestly in love with Pocahontas within the first few minutes of seeing her because she is so fun. Her ability to be so carefree due to her connection with the world and nature is the most admirable thing to me. Maybe it's because I've never been able to be that relaxed a day in my life, but Pocahontas is genuinely here for a good time. She's not here for uptight guys like Kocoum. (They actually spell movie Kocoum's name different from real Kocoom, which is pretty weird.) But because she has love for her family and the people she still feels pressured into marrying him.
The answer to all your problems is following your heart, sis!
After that conflict is established, we meet the mediocre John Smith. However, Pocahontas is down to listen to him even though the other Natives are not. This is a plus to Pocahontas's quiet nature; she is willing to listen to others. She's so thoughtful and kind! However, she quickly realizes that John is not as quick to listen as she is. And she tells. Him. Off.
In a pretty kind way, but also super straightforward. Hold on, we gotta quote this directly. How utterly powerful are these lyrics?
"You think I'm an ignorant savage
And you've been so many places I guess it must be so
But still I cannot see if the savage one is me.
How can there be so much that you don't know?
You don't know."
Thank you for the wise words, Stephen Schwartz.
As Lisa Cimorelli would put it, Pocahontas hits him over the head with the frying pan of truth. She says that she understands what he's saying, but he won't take any time to realize that she's not the only one that needs to be educated. She willingly learns about his version of the world but he will not learn about hers. Truth and honesty is such a powerful thing, people! I can't say it enough.
And once she tells him this, John is suddenly willing to listen, and thanks to the honesty of Pocahontas he is able to see the beauty in her world.
Between this point and the end, there is a lot of falling in love and a lot of angst between the English and the Natives. What we're going to care about now is Pocahontas's boldness and her ability to stay true to herself, shown in three different examples.
The first example is when Kocoum catches Pocahontas and John totally making out and he gets super mad, right? That one random English guy, Thomas, sees Kocoum and John fighting and so he shoots Kocoum. And KILLS HIM.
Which, even after everything, makes Pocahontas totally mad. It's not that she wants to marry Kocoum, it's that she still cared about his well-being and hates violence and is, I don't know, a good person.
Fun fact: Morgan hates Romeo and Juliet. (Which is something I simply can't get behind, but that's okay.) One of the many reasons she hates it is how quickly she thinks Juliet gets over the fact that Romeo killed her cousin, Tybalt. Pocahontas doesn't do that. Kocoum is one of her people, and his death isn't just fine. She's pretty upset for a minute. She's not throwing that away for anyone.
The second example occurs as things start to go downhill from there super fast. The English and the Natives are both super mad at each other and about to viciously attack one another, including the Natives preparing to kill John. But our dear friend Pocahontas runs to the rescue and throws herself over John and doesn't let him die. She saves the day! She's the example of peace.
Imagine that. Imagine standing up for your enemy in front of all of your people. Imagine doing so against your father. Imagine potentially risking your life for someone you care about. How brave and awesome is Pocahontas?
The third example is after everything neatly wraps itself up. In short, John Smith and the other English people are going back to England. Pocahontas has a choice.
But honestly, was it ever really a choice?
Because yeah, Pocahontas loved John Smith enough to teach him what she knew and be his friend and save him from a violent death.
But she loved where she lived and who she lived with way more.
Her life pretty drastically changed in a short period of time, but something good that happened to her wasn't enough for her to let go of everything beautiful she already had. She doesn't go with him. She loves where she is. I don't know, I just find it so powerful that she doesn't go. And it was probably a little tragic, but leaving her home would've been disastrously painful. She stays where she wants to be.
Pocahontas always does what she wants. She follows her heart.
As should you.
Thanks and much love.
--Lizzo
I mean, I wanted to write a post once a week, and I guess I have time to do that, but even still I wasn't planning on really doing this today, but I'm in a super writer mood right now and I need to write SOMETHING. Which has been hard lately because, as many of you already know, I finished Story 2's second draft, so it is on hold until after the mission, and finished Story 1's FINAL draft, so it is on hold until I get started actually working toward publication. Yay for middle grade literature!
I haven't been doing much the past week because I have been pretty sick the past few days. I have gotten to see the choir sing quite a few times and do stuff with my mom and see Jacob's dance show and go out with Morgan and stuff like that. Plus Emily and Josh just came into town for Christmas so we're super hyped! I went in to see the chamber singers (but in all actuality I came because my Alto Illuminati sister Alex was going to be there) yesterday and then Morgan said she was going to try on Little Shop of Horrors costumes (Just in case I haven't bragged about this to you guys yet, she's playing Audrey) so I was like "CAN I COME" and so I got to do that with her and talk to her and Mr. Calkins about the show and Morgan's costumes for 5ever, and I got to help Morgan sing a little bit (Bless her and her patient soul) and talk to her and after that I was on a character high so I tried writing some verse or whatever but nothing was coming out so here I am, writing a blog post I probably don't even feel good enough for but I need to express some sort of creativity somewhere. AH.
(To be so honest sorry if my writing isn't even coherent right now. We're gonna blame it on the illness, whether or not that's actually what it is.)
Okay, so today we're adding another installment to the Disney Princess Series. And this is honestly immensely fitting, because in history this semester we were learning about Pocahontas, and a lot of it was kind of based on a comparison to the Disney film, and how inaccurate that movie is. Which made me irrationally angry.
And I guess what they were saying was legitimate, because a lot of them didn't know the true story of Pocahontas. But even still, I was getting a little tired of the Disney hate.
When I watch Pocahontas, I'm not doing it to get a history lesson. I'm doing it because I love Disney and Alan Menken and Disney Princess. If you've graduated high school and you don't know the true story of Pocahontas, I'm not blaming you, but I do think your history teachers were pretty bad. They don't have to explain the entire story to you, but they should probably say, "Yeah, so if you've seen the Disney movie, none of that was real. They weren't in love and she didn't save him, she actually ends up living with the colonists and moving to London and it's a lot more complicated than all of that." I know that people probably have more of a problem with this because it's a thing that really happened, as opposed to all the other fairy tales they've modified, but I'm still okay with watching a Disney film just to enjoy a Disney film, whether it's based on true events or not.
That's what you need to keep in mind when you read the following. We're aware that we're not talking about real events; we are talking about the fictional character Pocahontas and not the real person.
I first saw Pocahontas either senior year or junior year, I can't remember which. It was honestly a shame that I hadn't seen it, because I'm really big Disney fan and almost a bigger Alan Menken fan and I absolutely love the Disney Princesses, but I hadn't seen that film, and I knew that was a necessity. My mom had told me that she was super disappointed when it came out because it was like they didn't even try, and I know what she's talking about. The animation is pretty low-quality, and not because it's older. Beauty and the Beast came out in 1991 and is an animation masterpiece. Pocahontas came out four years later and is way worse. Definitely not up to Disney's standard at the time. But I still liked it. I think (even for being low-quality) it was a pretty movie and I think Pocahontas is an even prettier character.
That was the initial main reason I liked the film. I think Pocahontas is beautiful.
Maybe because according to the blessed personality blog post by Oh My Disney, Pocahontas is identified as INFJ, which is the personality of your favorite stereotypical teen blogger. She is quiet yet bold and totally wise. In my own opinion, this is the best kind of person to be. I've found it's important not to talk unless you have something to say, because if you just talk to talk, people stop listening really fast, so when something actually is important no one is listening. Pocahontas is smart.
I was honestly in love with Pocahontas within the first few minutes of seeing her because she is so fun. Her ability to be so carefree due to her connection with the world and nature is the most admirable thing to me. Maybe it's because I've never been able to be that relaxed a day in my life, but Pocahontas is genuinely here for a good time. She's not here for uptight guys like Kocoum. (They actually spell movie Kocoum's name different from real Kocoom, which is pretty weird.) But because she has love for her family and the people she still feels pressured into marrying him.
The answer to all your problems is following your heart, sis!
After that conflict is established, we meet the mediocre John Smith. However, Pocahontas is down to listen to him even though the other Natives are not. This is a plus to Pocahontas's quiet nature; she is willing to listen to others. She's so thoughtful and kind! However, she quickly realizes that John is not as quick to listen as she is. And she tells. Him. Off.
In a pretty kind way, but also super straightforward. Hold on, we gotta quote this directly. How utterly powerful are these lyrics?
"You think I'm an ignorant savage
And you've been so many places I guess it must be so
But still I cannot see if the savage one is me.
How can there be so much that you don't know?
You don't know."
Thank you for the wise words, Stephen Schwartz.
As Lisa Cimorelli would put it, Pocahontas hits him over the head with the frying pan of truth. She says that she understands what he's saying, but he won't take any time to realize that she's not the only one that needs to be educated. She willingly learns about his version of the world but he will not learn about hers. Truth and honesty is such a powerful thing, people! I can't say it enough.
And once she tells him this, John is suddenly willing to listen, and thanks to the honesty of Pocahontas he is able to see the beauty in her world.
Between this point and the end, there is a lot of falling in love and a lot of angst between the English and the Natives. What we're going to care about now is Pocahontas's boldness and her ability to stay true to herself, shown in three different examples.
The first example is when Kocoum catches Pocahontas and John totally making out and he gets super mad, right? That one random English guy, Thomas, sees Kocoum and John fighting and so he shoots Kocoum. And KILLS HIM.
Which, even after everything, makes Pocahontas totally mad. It's not that she wants to marry Kocoum, it's that she still cared about his well-being and hates violence and is, I don't know, a good person.
Fun fact: Morgan hates Romeo and Juliet. (Which is something I simply can't get behind, but that's okay.) One of the many reasons she hates it is how quickly she thinks Juliet gets over the fact that Romeo killed her cousin, Tybalt. Pocahontas doesn't do that. Kocoum is one of her people, and his death isn't just fine. She's pretty upset for a minute. She's not throwing that away for anyone.
The second example occurs as things start to go downhill from there super fast. The English and the Natives are both super mad at each other and about to viciously attack one another, including the Natives preparing to kill John. But our dear friend Pocahontas runs to the rescue and throws herself over John and doesn't let him die. She saves the day! She's the example of peace.
Imagine that. Imagine standing up for your enemy in front of all of your people. Imagine doing so against your father. Imagine potentially risking your life for someone you care about. How brave and awesome is Pocahontas?
The third example is after everything neatly wraps itself up. In short, John Smith and the other English people are going back to England. Pocahontas has a choice.
But honestly, was it ever really a choice?
Because yeah, Pocahontas loved John Smith enough to teach him what she knew and be his friend and save him from a violent death.
But she loved where she lived and who she lived with way more.
Her life pretty drastically changed in a short period of time, but something good that happened to her wasn't enough for her to let go of everything beautiful she already had. She doesn't go with him. She loves where she is. I don't know, I just find it so powerful that she doesn't go. And it was probably a little tragic, but leaving her home would've been disastrously painful. She stays where she wants to be.
Pocahontas always does what she wants. She follows her heart.
As should you.
Thanks and much love.
--Lizzo
Thursday, December 14, 2017
"It's Quiet Uptown": A Hamilfanfic
Okay guys let's talk for a lil bit before we get started.
I've been wanting to do some sort of blog content, whether it be an actual post or a video, every week, so this post would have originally been scheduled for Thanksgiving week. However, you guys would be getting enough general content that week because I was at home and doing stuff with family and friends that week, so I decided against that. Then after that I only had two weeks of school left, and I figured it was better to just let myself sprint to the finish and get all of that done. Finishing school has been CRAZY. But hey, I got it all done, plus I got to work a lot, so that's good too.
While we're still kind of talking about school, a miracle happened.
This semester my English class is intro to academic writing, and it's been killing me. I won't lie, it scares me pretty freaking badly sometimes when I think about how one of my least favorite classes is my major. But I also think that makes a lot of sense, because I still love English and I can't see myself studying anything else, but it's also really discouraging to get to your new school and realize you know nothing about the thing that you were finally able to make yourself known for. (For all the family and high school friends still supporting the dream--YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST.)
Anyway, I've had to write three papers for that class and it's been rough going. The first was a sort of persuasive essay, the second a personal narrative, the third a group project rhetorical analysis. How my future looked and how I felt about it was pretty much weighing on that second paper, considering my desire to sell narratives to the public. On the first paper I got an 85. My professor then graded the third one next and me and my group got a 70. See? It definitely hasn't been easy. On Friday I got the grade for the second paper, the one that mattered the most for me. I couldn't even make myself look at it until Monday.
Guys. I got an A-.
Can you believe this?! I really might have a chance. Seeing that grade was yet another moment in my life where nothing felt impossible.
Guys. I am capable of writing narratives.
An A-. Oh my gosh.
I'm still stuck on it. I don't even know how to quite express to you guys how exciting that is for me. I am so happy, and it's looking like not all hope is lost for me.
My favorite thing is writing the missionaries and hearing from them. I've also officially come to the point where I can start my papers in a month. Lance (choir fam) and Mr. Calkins have already placed predictions of where I will labor. Prayers would be appreciated.
Why is it now that the time has come that people are telling me how hard a mission is, that there's no way to truly know what will happen? Guys. I know. I know because I try imagining what it will be like and I feel my body try to go there and it feels that it is so close to being there but still can't yet grasp it as a reality because I don't know what that reality is like. I know because I imagine life after the mission but I know that those scenarios are in no way accurate because I don't even know who I'll be after the mission. I know that nothing that I'm studying right now can prepare me entirely for what I will face out wherever, but I also know that Heavenly Father will bless me in the field because I'm trying.
People always tell me stuff will be hard, stuff I already know is hard, and stuff I want, and it's never harder than I imagine it will be. They told me being in chamber singers would be hard. They told me being in Fame would be hard. Both of those things were exactly as hard as I thought they would be, not always in the ways I thought they would be, but they were still as hard as I thought they would be, and I was ready for that because I knew that and I still wanted that and so I was willing to learn how to do those things. Now people are telling me a mission is hard and I'm so aware of that and I'm willing to go through that because I really want to do this and I'm willing to learn how as I go. What are people going to tell me next? That writing is hard? That building a career is hard? Marriage is hard? Having children is hard? Being famous is hard? I already know it's hard. Everything I want is hard. But I still want it and difficulty is not going to stop me.
You people reading this right now. When all of those things happen in the future, and people start telling me that it's hard, you will have witnessed this, and you will know that I am aware that getting what I want is difficult, but just because I am wildly hopeful and ambitious doesn't mean that I think it will be easy. I know life is hard, but I still want everything, and I don't see why I shouldn't get it. You heard it here first.
Anyway, I'm back in Henderson for a month, and I'm living for all these Christmas things. I went to the choir concert at Basic on Tuesday and got to listen to no lie the most BEAUTIFUL Christmas music I've heard in a minute, plus I got to sing the "Hallelujah" chorus with them all on the stage and that's really where home feels like. I was greeted on the stage after by almost everyone in my Henderson/Basic fam. It was honestly really great and I'm happy to be spending the month with you all.
Anyway, the purpose of today's post is to share a narrative with you all. (Friendly reminder about my stellar personal narrative grade, so that must make me good at this. I still can't get over it.) If you keep up with the blog's YouTube then you probably saw me and Jacob's cover of Hamilton's "It's Quiet Uptown". This narrative is a story I wrote based on that song. The date I have on the original copy is October 26, 2016. I wrote it in my imaginative writing class. We were told that day to just take out a piece of paper and write whatever we wanted. There were no requirements for that day's assignment. Well, it was difficult for me to come up with an idea in some ways, but at the same time it wasn't. Because that day I couldn't stop thinking about this song, and I kept painting a little story in my head of the song. But I didn't want to write something based off of that song. I wanted to write something else, maybe something that was mine. But I couldn't get the story out of my head. So eventually I let myself go for it. I tried being subtle at first, but then I just let myself write it as if it was about what it actually was about: Alexander Hamilton losing everything he had in a short period of time, as told by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
I only wrote two pages. I didn't even get to the part where he asks Eliza for forgiveness, and when he gets that forgiveness. And I haven't been able to bring myself to finish it. If you guys really want me to finish after you read this, let me know. If you're satisfied (*cringes at accidental Hamilton joke*) with how it is now, that's cool too. But I think that's why it feels a little incomplete, because it kind of is. This was never edited, but it wasn't effortless either. I guess you could say it's "got a lot of brains but no polish."
Enjoy. Thanks and much love.
--Lizzo
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He never would've imagined in all his life that he'd be living in the rich part of town. A year ago he would've been happy about that. A year ago everything was fine. He had some respect. His wife loved him. His son was alive.
The rain poured down onto the flowers. He watched the water roll off the leaves. He was drenched at this point. He'd been out here for nearly three hours. He didn't care. He liked the silence.
No, that wasn't true. He hated the silence. He missed arguing with his enemies. He missed the chaotic meetings. He missed his wife saying his name. He especially missed his son.
Yes, he hated the silence. But the silence in solitude was preferred to the muttering he heard in the street: "Poor man, lost everything he had at once. Doesn't have an ounce of respect. His wife won't even look at him. His son died only a week or so ago."
He was tired of listening to his own thoughts. He stood up, started heading toward the gate.
There she was. He looked in the window and saw his wife sitting in front of the fire. Her face was stained with tears, but she wasn't crying anymore. She stared at the ground blankly. He wanted to go comfort her; he wanted to do something that would take all her sorrows away. But he knew that no matter what he said, she wouldn't listen. Nothing he could do would be enough.
If things were different, he would have asked her to accompany him. Instead, he desperately gazed through the window a few seconds more, sighed, then walked out the gate.
He had a few moments of quiet before he hit town, the closest to peace he could get. Then he started seeing people filling the streets. He looked down. Maybe they wouldn't notice he was there.
But soon enough the people started talking. "Yep, that's him. Cheated on his wife and wrote about it for the entire world to see. Ruined his own life in just a few weeks. Did you hear about his son?"
He passed stranger after stranger, people who didn't even know him but knew his story. Tirelessly, unfeeling, his feet walked on, down the streets, unconscious of any destination. People glance at him as he passes. There is a quiet hum over the streets. Unlike his old home, the city is not very loud. His son would think it peaceful.
He glances at every tree. His son would love the way the green leaves shine against the gray sky. He looks in every shop window. His son would love the bright lights and colors. His son would love him, too. His son would be the only person that still loved him, if only he were alive.
I've been wanting to do some sort of blog content, whether it be an actual post or a video, every week, so this post would have originally been scheduled for Thanksgiving week. However, you guys would be getting enough general content that week because I was at home and doing stuff with family and friends that week, so I decided against that. Then after that I only had two weeks of school left, and I figured it was better to just let myself sprint to the finish and get all of that done. Finishing school has been CRAZY. But hey, I got it all done, plus I got to work a lot, so that's good too.
While we're still kind of talking about school, a miracle happened.
This semester my English class is intro to academic writing, and it's been killing me. I won't lie, it scares me pretty freaking badly sometimes when I think about how one of my least favorite classes is my major. But I also think that makes a lot of sense, because I still love English and I can't see myself studying anything else, but it's also really discouraging to get to your new school and realize you know nothing about the thing that you were finally able to make yourself known for. (For all the family and high school friends still supporting the dream--YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST.)
Anyway, I've had to write three papers for that class and it's been rough going. The first was a sort of persuasive essay, the second a personal narrative, the third a group project rhetorical analysis. How my future looked and how I felt about it was pretty much weighing on that second paper, considering my desire to sell narratives to the public. On the first paper I got an 85. My professor then graded the third one next and me and my group got a 70. See? It definitely hasn't been easy. On Friday I got the grade for the second paper, the one that mattered the most for me. I couldn't even make myself look at it until Monday.
Guys. I got an A-.
Can you believe this?! I really might have a chance. Seeing that grade was yet another moment in my life where nothing felt impossible.
Guys. I am capable of writing narratives.
An A-. Oh my gosh.
I'm still stuck on it. I don't even know how to quite express to you guys how exciting that is for me. I am so happy, and it's looking like not all hope is lost for me.
My favorite thing is writing the missionaries and hearing from them. I've also officially come to the point where I can start my papers in a month. Lance (choir fam) and Mr. Calkins have already placed predictions of where I will labor. Prayers would be appreciated.
Why is it now that the time has come that people are telling me how hard a mission is, that there's no way to truly know what will happen? Guys. I know. I know because I try imagining what it will be like and I feel my body try to go there and it feels that it is so close to being there but still can't yet grasp it as a reality because I don't know what that reality is like. I know because I imagine life after the mission but I know that those scenarios are in no way accurate because I don't even know who I'll be after the mission. I know that nothing that I'm studying right now can prepare me entirely for what I will face out wherever, but I also know that Heavenly Father will bless me in the field because I'm trying.
People always tell me stuff will be hard, stuff I already know is hard, and stuff I want, and it's never harder than I imagine it will be. They told me being in chamber singers would be hard. They told me being in Fame would be hard. Both of those things were exactly as hard as I thought they would be, not always in the ways I thought they would be, but they were still as hard as I thought they would be, and I was ready for that because I knew that and I still wanted that and so I was willing to learn how to do those things. Now people are telling me a mission is hard and I'm so aware of that and I'm willing to go through that because I really want to do this and I'm willing to learn how as I go. What are people going to tell me next? That writing is hard? That building a career is hard? Marriage is hard? Having children is hard? Being famous is hard? I already know it's hard. Everything I want is hard. But I still want it and difficulty is not going to stop me.
You people reading this right now. When all of those things happen in the future, and people start telling me that it's hard, you will have witnessed this, and you will know that I am aware that getting what I want is difficult, but just because I am wildly hopeful and ambitious doesn't mean that I think it will be easy. I know life is hard, but I still want everything, and I don't see why I shouldn't get it. You heard it here first.
Anyway, I'm back in Henderson for a month, and I'm living for all these Christmas things. I went to the choir concert at Basic on Tuesday and got to listen to no lie the most BEAUTIFUL Christmas music I've heard in a minute, plus I got to sing the "Hallelujah" chorus with them all on the stage and that's really where home feels like. I was greeted on the stage after by almost everyone in my Henderson/Basic fam. It was honestly really great and I'm happy to be spending the month with you all.
Anyway, the purpose of today's post is to share a narrative with you all. (Friendly reminder about my stellar personal narrative grade, so that must make me good at this. I still can't get over it.) If you keep up with the blog's YouTube then you probably saw me and Jacob's cover of Hamilton's "It's Quiet Uptown". This narrative is a story I wrote based on that song. The date I have on the original copy is October 26, 2016. I wrote it in my imaginative writing class. We were told that day to just take out a piece of paper and write whatever we wanted. There were no requirements for that day's assignment. Well, it was difficult for me to come up with an idea in some ways, but at the same time it wasn't. Because that day I couldn't stop thinking about this song, and I kept painting a little story in my head of the song. But I didn't want to write something based off of that song. I wanted to write something else, maybe something that was mine. But I couldn't get the story out of my head. So eventually I let myself go for it. I tried being subtle at first, but then I just let myself write it as if it was about what it actually was about: Alexander Hamilton losing everything he had in a short period of time, as told by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
I only wrote two pages. I didn't even get to the part where he asks Eliza for forgiveness, and when he gets that forgiveness. And I haven't been able to bring myself to finish it. If you guys really want me to finish after you read this, let me know. If you're satisfied (*cringes at accidental Hamilton joke*) with how it is now, that's cool too. But I think that's why it feels a little incomplete, because it kind of is. This was never edited, but it wasn't effortless either. I guess you could say it's "got a lot of brains but no polish."
Enjoy. Thanks and much love.
--Lizzo
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He never would've imagined in all his life that he'd be living in the rich part of town. A year ago he would've been happy about that. A year ago everything was fine. He had some respect. His wife loved him. His son was alive.
The rain poured down onto the flowers. He watched the water roll off the leaves. He was drenched at this point. He'd been out here for nearly three hours. He didn't care. He liked the silence.
No, that wasn't true. He hated the silence. He missed arguing with his enemies. He missed the chaotic meetings. He missed his wife saying his name. He especially missed his son.
Yes, he hated the silence. But the silence in solitude was preferred to the muttering he heard in the street: "Poor man, lost everything he had at once. Doesn't have an ounce of respect. His wife won't even look at him. His son died only a week or so ago."
He was tired of listening to his own thoughts. He stood up, started heading toward the gate.
There she was. He looked in the window and saw his wife sitting in front of the fire. Her face was stained with tears, but she wasn't crying anymore. She stared at the ground blankly. He wanted to go comfort her; he wanted to do something that would take all her sorrows away. But he knew that no matter what he said, she wouldn't listen. Nothing he could do would be enough.
If things were different, he would have asked her to accompany him. Instead, he desperately gazed through the window a few seconds more, sighed, then walked out the gate.
He had a few moments of quiet before he hit town, the closest to peace he could get. Then he started seeing people filling the streets. He looked down. Maybe they wouldn't notice he was there.
But soon enough the people started talking. "Yep, that's him. Cheated on his wife and wrote about it for the entire world to see. Ruined his own life in just a few weeks. Did you hear about his son?"
He passed stranger after stranger, people who didn't even know him but knew his story. Tirelessly, unfeeling, his feet walked on, down the streets, unconscious of any destination. People glance at him as he passes. There is a quiet hum over the streets. Unlike his old home, the city is not very loud. His son would think it peaceful.
He glances at every tree. His son would love the way the green leaves shine against the gray sky. He looks in every shop window. His son would love the bright lights and colors. His son would love him, too. His son would be the only person that still loved him, if only he were alive.
Friday, November 10, 2017
Disney Princess Series: Jasmine
Hello all!
To be honest, there's not much to say in the form of an update. I've just been living the college dream. Part of me loves Jumpstart, part of me is just tryna graduate. (But I'm DEFINITELY GLAD I am doing this instead of literally anything else for general education.) I've been overwhelmingly aware of my upcoming mission, and I think about it just about every day. It's a beautiful thing. I have sadly been neglecting writing the missionaries for some time at this point, but I'm starting to get my life together. I've been thinking of lots of cool new ideas for blog content! Most of them probably won't be up for quite awhile for however many reasons, but I am really happy about all the developments. There is also hardly a moment where some writer thought isn't on my mind. There is so much that needs to be done, but what I forget is that I do have the time to do it, and I need to trust that Heavenly Father will help me out every step of the way. No need to stress.
Other than that, I spend my time in the Dead-End Jobs Club; featuring your favorite writer, Elizabeth Day; your favorite artist, Joshua Dimond; and your favorite musician, Emily Dimond. I really promise I wasn't planning on going to college with my siblings but heck I am LOVING IT.
Alright, today we are here to talk about another of our beloved princesses. Forgive me for any and all bias on this one, but she's my favorite, like, ever. In my favorite movie ever, with my favorite "Disney prince" ever, by my favorite composer ever. So yeah. Jasmine is my favorite.
Aladdin has been my favorite movie for a minute. Something about homeless boys in vests accompanied by Alan Menken that originally came out in 1992 really gets me. I think Jasmine became my favorite when I realized that we were pretty much exactly the same. We both are lowkey romantics. We're pretty fierce when you mess with what's important to us. We believe in love! And we have the biggest most beautiful eyes you've ever seen. (Not to brag or anything, but, I mean.)
(We both love Aladdin a lot.)
I don't even know if I can accurately state it, but she's the princess that I relate to the most.
When we meet Jasmine, she's just had her tiger attack one of her suitors. (Another thing we lowkey have in common: we're a lil crazy.) She tells her upset father one of the things I love about her the most: when she marries, she wants it to be because she loves someone.
It's not that she didn't want to be obedient. It's that she wanted to obey the law when it was good. She wanted to stand up for what was right. She wanted to genuinely mean what she was doing, not just do it. As I said before, she believed in love! And she knew that some things are so important that they can't have a deadline; when something isn't right, it isn't right.
It's actually quite interesting that this post comes at this time because I am pretty upset about some recent articles I have been seeing regarding the 2019 Aladdin film. The big deal that they're making is that they are making some much-needed improvements to Jasmine's character. Um, what? She wasn't enough for you the first time? The problem I see very often with the feminist movement is that people expect too much of women... and these expectations and judgments are usually coming from other women. They judge a woman for not being ENOUGH of a feminist, for not being empowered enough, for not challenging the system enough. Even to other women, women aren't enough. That's the real problem. If we can't support each other, what do we really expect? Are we really so bothered that Jasmine relied on a man as well as herself? Are we bothered that she didn't try to use her royalty for good enough? I'm going to counter those questions real fast.
Jasmine runs away to have a chance at being her own person. She is literally empowering herself right now by doing this, because she's never really gotten a chance to make decisions like that; she's giving that chance to herself. She is in absolute awe at what the world outside of the palace is like, and runs into Aladdin trying to help a child get an apple. (A naïve act, but that's part of what makes it so beautiful, plus it is a display of pure kindness, which is quite honestly never wasted.) She's quick-witted, as we find out while Aladdin tries to get her out of her bad situation that follows, her going along with the story he's weaving almost flawlessly. Don't be concerned about helplessness. It is okay to need help when you don't know what to do. That is not helplessness.
In a small yet truly iconic moment that once again displays Jasmine's fast mind, Aladdin takes Jasmine back to his, if I may, "penthouse in the sky", doing his cool little pole vault stunt to jump from one building to the next. Not expecting Jasmine to observe him (How can you not love observant and intelligent minds?) and figure it out quickly, he starts preparing another way across, only to find Jasmine has already crossed in the same way he did, saying, "I'm a fast learner." She's a risk-taker. Aladdin finds this totally attractive, as do all of us.
After spending a totally cute evening with Aladdin, our favorite street rat is taken away to the palace. Jasmine tries to stop them by revealing that she is the princess, but it was under Jafar's orders, so away Aladdin goes. (I'm trying to figure out whether or not the sultan's advisor really would have more say than the princess. I am genuinely stumped.)
Aladdin's capture wasn't for lack of trying on Jasmine's part, and not just because of that scene. When she goes back to the palace, she immediately questions Jafar on what happened to Aladdin, and doesn't try to hide her disapproval. Our girl is all about standing for what is right. However, she is told Aladdin is dead, and this devastates her. At that point, what can she do? She thinks it's over. She couldn't have known that Jafar is a LYING SNEAKY SNAKE.
After our hero (Aladdin) finds Genie in the Cave of Wonders and wishes to be a prince so Princess Jasmine will love him (This is what we call dramatic irony; we know that Jasmine already loves him even though he is not a prince), Jasmine meets Ali and is not impressed by how impressive he is trying to be. Jasmine is ultimately just very smart. She doesn't buy into flattery, and she continuously shows. She values genuineness.
Ali returns at her balcony and is not winning any points with Jasmine, once again because he's trying to win points. It's once he tries being quite simply himself that Jasmine starts becoming willing to listen. She adorably shows her amazement in the world when she agrees to go out with him once upon seeing his magic carpet. And it's a great night with him, and she knows that she genuinely loves him. However, he lies yet again and says that Ali was pretending to be Aladdin, not the other way around, once Jasmine calls him out. People that love honestly always know.
After saying that she won't marry Jafar, and then shortly after seducing him to help Aladdin win the fight against evil (In both cases always using her powers for good instead of evil), she finally gets an apology from Aladdin, which she accepts. However, she is very sad, because she does really love him but the law is still the law. Luckily, that is not the end: Jasmine gets the conclusion she REALLY wanted, to CHOOSE the right thing at the right time for the right reason.
To me, Jasmine has everything that I want to be. She's wildly intelligent and beautiful, breaking that age-old stereotype real fast. She wants love, but she wants it to be her love. She wants to be obedient, but she wants to obey what is good. She is aware of her capabilities and unafraid to test them. She started feeling trapped, but learned over time that it wasn't that she could be anything she wanted to be, but that she could be everything she wanted to be.
So can you, family, friends, followers, and fans. Thank you for the endless support. Thinking of you reading my words makes me feel not like I can do anything, but like I can do everything.
I love you.
--Lizzo
To be honest, there's not much to say in the form of an update. I've just been living the college dream. Part of me loves Jumpstart, part of me is just tryna graduate. (But I'm DEFINITELY GLAD I am doing this instead of literally anything else for general education.) I've been overwhelmingly aware of my upcoming mission, and I think about it just about every day. It's a beautiful thing. I have sadly been neglecting writing the missionaries for some time at this point, but I'm starting to get my life together. I've been thinking of lots of cool new ideas for blog content! Most of them probably won't be up for quite awhile for however many reasons, but I am really happy about all the developments. There is also hardly a moment where some writer thought isn't on my mind. There is so much that needs to be done, but what I forget is that I do have the time to do it, and I need to trust that Heavenly Father will help me out every step of the way. No need to stress.
Other than that, I spend my time in the Dead-End Jobs Club; featuring your favorite writer, Elizabeth Day; your favorite artist, Joshua Dimond; and your favorite musician, Emily Dimond. I really promise I wasn't planning on going to college with my siblings but heck I am LOVING IT.
Alright, today we are here to talk about another of our beloved princesses. Forgive me for any and all bias on this one, but she's my favorite, like, ever. In my favorite movie ever, with my favorite "Disney prince" ever, by my favorite composer ever. So yeah. Jasmine is my favorite.
Aladdin has been my favorite movie for a minute. Something about homeless boys in vests accompanied by Alan Menken that originally came out in 1992 really gets me. I think Jasmine became my favorite when I realized that we were pretty much exactly the same. We both are lowkey romantics. We're pretty fierce when you mess with what's important to us. We believe in love! And we have the biggest most beautiful eyes you've ever seen. (Not to brag or anything, but, I mean.)
(We both love Aladdin a lot.)
I don't even know if I can accurately state it, but she's the princess that I relate to the most.
When we meet Jasmine, she's just had her tiger attack one of her suitors. (Another thing we lowkey have in common: we're a lil crazy.) She tells her upset father one of the things I love about her the most: when she marries, she wants it to be because she loves someone.
It's not that she didn't want to be obedient. It's that she wanted to obey the law when it was good. She wanted to stand up for what was right. She wanted to genuinely mean what she was doing, not just do it. As I said before, she believed in love! And she knew that some things are so important that they can't have a deadline; when something isn't right, it isn't right.
It's actually quite interesting that this post comes at this time because I am pretty upset about some recent articles I have been seeing regarding the 2019 Aladdin film. The big deal that they're making is that they are making some much-needed improvements to Jasmine's character. Um, what? She wasn't enough for you the first time? The problem I see very often with the feminist movement is that people expect too much of women... and these expectations and judgments are usually coming from other women. They judge a woman for not being ENOUGH of a feminist, for not being empowered enough, for not challenging the system enough. Even to other women, women aren't enough. That's the real problem. If we can't support each other, what do we really expect? Are we really so bothered that Jasmine relied on a man as well as herself? Are we bothered that she didn't try to use her royalty for good enough? I'm going to counter those questions real fast.
Jasmine runs away to have a chance at being her own person. She is literally empowering herself right now by doing this, because she's never really gotten a chance to make decisions like that; she's giving that chance to herself. She is in absolute awe at what the world outside of the palace is like, and runs into Aladdin trying to help a child get an apple. (A naïve act, but that's part of what makes it so beautiful, plus it is a display of pure kindness, which is quite honestly never wasted.) She's quick-witted, as we find out while Aladdin tries to get her out of her bad situation that follows, her going along with the story he's weaving almost flawlessly. Don't be concerned about helplessness. It is okay to need help when you don't know what to do. That is not helplessness.
In a small yet truly iconic moment that once again displays Jasmine's fast mind, Aladdin takes Jasmine back to his, if I may, "penthouse in the sky", doing his cool little pole vault stunt to jump from one building to the next. Not expecting Jasmine to observe him (How can you not love observant and intelligent minds?) and figure it out quickly, he starts preparing another way across, only to find Jasmine has already crossed in the same way he did, saying, "I'm a fast learner." She's a risk-taker. Aladdin finds this totally attractive, as do all of us.
After spending a totally cute evening with Aladdin, our favorite street rat is taken away to the palace. Jasmine tries to stop them by revealing that she is the princess, but it was under Jafar's orders, so away Aladdin goes. (I'm trying to figure out whether or not the sultan's advisor really would have more say than the princess. I am genuinely stumped.)
Aladdin's capture wasn't for lack of trying on Jasmine's part, and not just because of that scene. When she goes back to the palace, she immediately questions Jafar on what happened to Aladdin, and doesn't try to hide her disapproval. Our girl is all about standing for what is right. However, she is told Aladdin is dead, and this devastates her. At that point, what can she do? She thinks it's over. She couldn't have known that Jafar is a LYING SNEAKY SNAKE.
After our hero (Aladdin) finds Genie in the Cave of Wonders and wishes to be a prince so Princess Jasmine will love him (This is what we call dramatic irony; we know that Jasmine already loves him even though he is not a prince), Jasmine meets Ali and is not impressed by how impressive he is trying to be. Jasmine is ultimately just very smart. She doesn't buy into flattery, and she continuously shows. She values genuineness.
Ali returns at her balcony and is not winning any points with Jasmine, once again because he's trying to win points. It's once he tries being quite simply himself that Jasmine starts becoming willing to listen. She adorably shows her amazement in the world when she agrees to go out with him once upon seeing his magic carpet. And it's a great night with him, and she knows that she genuinely loves him. However, he lies yet again and says that Ali was pretending to be Aladdin, not the other way around, once Jasmine calls him out. People that love honestly always know.
After saying that she won't marry Jafar, and then shortly after seducing him to help Aladdin win the fight against evil (In both cases always using her powers for good instead of evil), she finally gets an apology from Aladdin, which she accepts. However, she is very sad, because she does really love him but the law is still the law. Luckily, that is not the end: Jasmine gets the conclusion she REALLY wanted, to CHOOSE the right thing at the right time for the right reason.
To me, Jasmine has everything that I want to be. She's wildly intelligent and beautiful, breaking that age-old stereotype real fast. She wants love, but she wants it to be her love. She wants to be obedient, but she wants to obey what is good. She is aware of her capabilities and unafraid to test them. She started feeling trapped, but learned over time that it wasn't that she could be anything she wanted to be, but that she could be everything she wanted to be.
So can you, family, friends, followers, and fans. Thank you for the endless support. Thinking of you reading my words makes me feel not like I can do anything, but like I can do everything.
I love you.
--Lizzo
Monday, September 25, 2017
A Love Letter Regarding Vulnerability
Hello family, friends, followers, and fans! Let's have a quick update before we get to the point.
For starters, it is SO COLD here. It feels like winter in Vegas. Lately it's been quite literally freezing at night. It'll warm up for about a week, and then I think it's going to get colder again. This is absolutely wild; it's impossible to get warm. However, it's lowkey super beautiful and it has me very nostalgic for things like marching band, caroling, Christmas with the fam, and pretty much everything else that ever happened when it was cold.
I'm both taking a small number of classes and a large number of classes, thanks to Jumpstart.
Before I get too much into Jumpstart because I could literally say SO MUCH about Jumpstart, I'll talk about my classes that AREN'T Jumpstart.
My institute class this semester is Teachings of the Book of Mormon and it's literally the best. We just study the truths of the Book of Mormon using various scriptures and words from the living prophets. There's a different topic for each day and the talks are always super helpful to things I've been wondering about personally. This is definitely the class for me this semester.
I'm taking voice lessons! Sadly my lessons are only half an hour long because I don't have enough credits to take an hour-long class, but at least I still get to learn how to sing! My professor is amazing. It's lowkey super discouraging, because I could get away with thinking I was a good singer in high school... and now I can't. But I'm getting more and more okay with that every day and I'm honestly seeing myself improve. I really want to be a good singer because singing is something that's mattered to me a lot for a long time, and this is definitely a new adventure in that manner. I decided to compete in NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing), which I wasn't originally going to do. Haha, I should know better by now. I always end up doing the things I don't think I'm going to do. I can't say it loud enough, people. If you want to do it, please just go ahead and do it.
Alright, now I'll go ahead and talk about Jumpstart. For those of you that don't know what it is yet, it's a class that meets for three hours every day, and over the course of the year I will complete all of my general classes. (With the exception of math.) My particular class has an emphasis in stage and screen; the other one has an emphasis in national parks. The classes I'm taking are basically biology, physics, theatre, philosophy, history, communication, academic writing (I will have another English class next semester), and... integrated workflow solutions? (I'm getting credit for that, but I'm pretty sure no one thinks that's a real class.)This stage and screen track is super awesome because we talk A LOT about movies and plays in pretty much every class. For example, my English teacher used film trailers to explain thesis statements. We went to see Raiders of the Lost Ark accompanied by the Utah Symphony Orchestra and had assignments for various classes all based around that event-- for example, my theatre assignment was to write a reaction of viewing a recorded performance versus viewing a live performance, while my physics assignment was to observe and take notes on the way the instruments made sounds and how the hall affected the sound while the orchestra was warming up. Two professors give their lectures every day. Some days I know what class I will have, and some days I don't. On Friday I had theatre and English. Today I had physics and philosophy. I know I'll have philosophy again tomorrow, but I don't know the other class I'll have. The thing is, though, any of the professors can come to class any day even if they're not teaching. They all sit in the back of the room, and any of them can speak at any time, whether it's to ask a question or contribute to the thought or show how it relates to what they teach, or anything. For example, this is a real thing that happened today during our philosophy lecture, when we were talking about John Locke's perception of self and his idea of the soul and why it is not the same as self:
Philosophy professor: Is God just swapping out souls while you sleep?
Biology professor: Is that all sleep IS???
English professor: They're NEVER going to sleep; stop doing this!!!
(Stuff like that happens a lot in philosophy.)
Yeah, so it's a pretty good class, as good as any other. Some days we discuss Romeo and Juliet. (Which we were required to see at the Utah Shakespeare Festival for class. The best.) Some days we learn the structure of the human ear. (You can't have all perfect days.) Some days we're learning about the human reproductive system (something about cloning was in there somewhere too) with Phineas and Ferb references. Some days you're doing experiments about light. (Another painful day.) Some days we're learning about the different forms of comedy and watching clips from various TV shows, movies, and plays for examples. Some days we're editing sound into a clip from The Birds. Some days we're looking at a labeled picture of a human eye and I'm wondering why one of those words is irrationally jumping out at me.
(It was the freaking iris.)
So yes. School is going fantastic.
I've also just started making today an SUU Bucket List. It's a list of things to do while I'm at college whether they be unique to Cedar City or SUU. So be following me to see all of the stuff I do, because I'm super excited. Most of the stuff is stuff recommended from the ACES, some I got from Emily, Josh, and Paige (who has never been formally introduced on the blog but is as old a family friend as any), and some I just made up by myself. If you ever lived in Cedar City or went to SUU, feel free to suggest!
It's interesting that today's topic is what it is just because of what happened last night. I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep, and just thinking. And one of the thoughts I fell upon was when we found out that our guard coach, Trina, would be leaving Basic. I was absolutely devastated even though I wouldn't be there next year. And how comforted I was when the new coach, Tracy, came in and worked with us on technique. I could finally be at rest with the idea because she was really good and I knew my friends were going to be okay. I went back to think about the day I learned that Trina would be leaving and how upset I was, and how I was even more upset than I realized, until in choir we started learning our senior song ("On Top of the World" by Imagine Dragons) that day, the one we would sing at my graduation, and it was one of the songs I had always associated with color guard, and the news from earlier that morning was still heavy in my heart and I had cried and cried and cried and cried that day during class, and I couldn't stop crying and Becca hugged me after class and asked what was wrong I couldn't stop saying, "Trina's gone. Trina's gone." And that was such a heartbreaking day for me.
I was thinking about that memory last night. And before I was even aware of what was happening I was sobbing again, uncontrollably, shaking. From a memory of a sad day, I was crying as if it was happening right then.
It's not particularly new to me. I've been told many times that I am an emotional person. And it's true. One word that was used in particular once was that the emotion I am led by is vulnerability; to translate, I am led by emotion in general, completely unguarded. That was pretty hurtful the first time I heard it (which pretty much just proves the point), but the more I thought about it it was true. And it doesn't have to be hurtful. For a long time I didn't know that. But I've really come to terms with it, and it doesn't only not need to be hurtful, but it can be good.
I am addressing myself in this post, but it is something everyone needs to hear. In fact, while I will get relatively specific, if you ever need to fill your name in where mine is, go ahead. This is something you should be comfortable with.
I love you all.
Dear Elizabeth,
You have to very opposing talents. One of them is a talent of objectivity, and the other is a talent of subjectivity.
Your objective talent is your ability to attach and detach yourself from an emotion. You can clearly remember what anger from HOWEVER many years ago felt like. You can remember what you thought and how it made you feel about a specific situation. You can remember exactly why you cried or exactly why you smiled. And you can make yourself feel that again. But then when you're done feeling it, you can take it away again as if the emotion had never been there. You've viewed this talent as a writing gift, because it come in very handy that way. If you want to write about a specific kind of anger but you don't feel it anymore, you just call upon the memory of that specific kind of anger and you feel as if you still possess it. Then when you're done writing whatever you need to get done, you dismiss the anger, and it's not yours anymore.
Your other talent is a lot more general and honestly a lot more who you are. Your subjectivity talent. You are SO GUIDED by what you FEEL than by anything else. That's why you're terrible at forming arguments. You don't usually have a strong amount of reasons for anything; you just go with the way you feel, and that's what's correct to you. It applies to literally everything. Like, you have this weird way of knowing when you're reading a book and there's a typical love triangle WHO the protagonist is going to choose because you can feel it. You don't always need reasons; you can literally just feel it.
The latter talent has bothered you a lot because you seem to be the only one feeling sometimes. And you, funny as this is, don't particularly like standing out in ordinary situations. You're expressing your love for something and everyone disregards it. You're talking about a story you wrote and it's so real to you and no one else is even CAPABLE of caring as much as you do, and you know that, but you're still so discouraged because it is your heart and soul. You're saying that it hurts you to remember the production that turned your life around and you are told that "it's just a show". You're crying on the floor of a hotel hallway because there's been a crisis while you guys are on your choir trip and you're referred to as "a sensitive one". You're talking about how you are emotion-led and someone says they wouldn't say that about you, the way people tell you you're not fat when you call yourself fat as if you had just called yourself ugly.
Since you have both of those gifts, there are times in life when one takes over more than the other. And so in times where the objectivity takes over, you are simply LIVING. You're finally not the emotional one. And once you're aware of that, you get a little out of control. And you try SO HARD to not care about ANYTHING, even though caring and being honest about that is who you are. And once you do it for long enough, the whole "not caring" act starts to destroy you a little bit. Because that's just not who you are, Liz. It's just not.
Sometimes those periods of trying to be objective are good for you for that reason. Because when you're vulnerable, you can start to get down on yourself about that and equate that with being lesser. And once you try being objective about absolutely everything you realize that you can't do that, and you don't feel good about yourself, and you realize that you were fine just feeling, and you go back to just letting yourself do you, but this time you're more okay with it.
You once felt physically sick just thinking about the fact that people assumed that because you were going to continue performing you would be giving up writing. Your mom pointed out to you that that was because you are so emotion-driven. The idea that something you're feeling could just be thrown away as if it never mattered is absolutely foreign to you. You feel something, and it lasts for a long time. Maybe that's where the objectivity comes in. Even once you're done feeling the thing, you don't throw it out; you save it to be written about some other time.
Your vulnerability is good because it's honest. You are incapable of lying to people even in joking because what is simply is for you. Everything is as true as you can make it. Your vulnerability is good because it allows you to talk about emotional issues with people. You're not afraid of emotions, so you're willing to try someone else's on. This vulnerability even goes hand in hand with the objectivity, because you take their emotion and feel it as your own, and while you are never able to understand another person, you give it your best shot, and then you give that emotion back to them, and it helps them feel understood, because at least now you know. Your vulnerability is good because it allows forgiveness. You've only been capable of hating people you loved first, because you only hate when you feel betrayed. And once you do hate you know that that is hell for you, and you feel anger and you cry irrationally and then your emotional heart somehow finds a way to heal again and you ask for forgiveness and you give forgiveness and you form love again, and that is something that can only happen through vulnerability; if you weren't vulnerable, those hard feelings would stay forever and there would be no recovering. There are things you used to get wildly angry about, which is also due to your vulnerability, but now instead of getting angry, you just get sad. You just cry. And I honestly think that's better, because your sorrow will not hurt somebody else.
Of course you still have your weak moments, where you're insecure about the way you feel and you wonder why you of all people had to be this way. That's part of your vulnerability. You were born to feel the pain that comes with it, just like you were born to feel the joy. You make your own life exciting because you just let yourself go where your heart takes you. This is something beautiful about you. You don't need to be ashamed of it. It's not incorrect. It's actually good.
I love you a lot.
--Lizzo
For starters, it is SO COLD here. It feels like winter in Vegas. Lately it's been quite literally freezing at night. It'll warm up for about a week, and then I think it's going to get colder again. This is absolutely wild; it's impossible to get warm. However, it's lowkey super beautiful and it has me very nostalgic for things like marching band, caroling, Christmas with the fam, and pretty much everything else that ever happened when it was cold.
I'm both taking a small number of classes and a large number of classes, thanks to Jumpstart.
Before I get too much into Jumpstart because I could literally say SO MUCH about Jumpstart, I'll talk about my classes that AREN'T Jumpstart.
My institute class this semester is Teachings of the Book of Mormon and it's literally the best. We just study the truths of the Book of Mormon using various scriptures and words from the living prophets. There's a different topic for each day and the talks are always super helpful to things I've been wondering about personally. This is definitely the class for me this semester.
I'm taking voice lessons! Sadly my lessons are only half an hour long because I don't have enough credits to take an hour-long class, but at least I still get to learn how to sing! My professor is amazing. It's lowkey super discouraging, because I could get away with thinking I was a good singer in high school... and now I can't. But I'm getting more and more okay with that every day and I'm honestly seeing myself improve. I really want to be a good singer because singing is something that's mattered to me a lot for a long time, and this is definitely a new adventure in that manner. I decided to compete in NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing), which I wasn't originally going to do. Haha, I should know better by now. I always end up doing the things I don't think I'm going to do. I can't say it loud enough, people. If you want to do it, please just go ahead and do it.
Alright, now I'll go ahead and talk about Jumpstart. For those of you that don't know what it is yet, it's a class that meets for three hours every day, and over the course of the year I will complete all of my general classes. (With the exception of math.) My particular class has an emphasis in stage and screen; the other one has an emphasis in national parks. The classes I'm taking are basically biology, physics, theatre, philosophy, history, communication, academic writing (I will have another English class next semester), and... integrated workflow solutions? (I'm getting credit for that, but I'm pretty sure no one thinks that's a real class.)This stage and screen track is super awesome because we talk A LOT about movies and plays in pretty much every class. For example, my English teacher used film trailers to explain thesis statements. We went to see Raiders of the Lost Ark accompanied by the Utah Symphony Orchestra and had assignments for various classes all based around that event-- for example, my theatre assignment was to write a reaction of viewing a recorded performance versus viewing a live performance, while my physics assignment was to observe and take notes on the way the instruments made sounds and how the hall affected the sound while the orchestra was warming up. Two professors give their lectures every day. Some days I know what class I will have, and some days I don't. On Friday I had theatre and English. Today I had physics and philosophy. I know I'll have philosophy again tomorrow, but I don't know the other class I'll have. The thing is, though, any of the professors can come to class any day even if they're not teaching. They all sit in the back of the room, and any of them can speak at any time, whether it's to ask a question or contribute to the thought or show how it relates to what they teach, or anything. For example, this is a real thing that happened today during our philosophy lecture, when we were talking about John Locke's perception of self and his idea of the soul and why it is not the same as self:
Philosophy professor: Is God just swapping out souls while you sleep?
Biology professor: Is that all sleep IS???
English professor: They're NEVER going to sleep; stop doing this!!!
(Stuff like that happens a lot in philosophy.)
Yeah, so it's a pretty good class, as good as any other. Some days we discuss Romeo and Juliet. (Which we were required to see at the Utah Shakespeare Festival for class. The best.) Some days we learn the structure of the human ear. (You can't have all perfect days.) Some days we're learning about the human reproductive system (something about cloning was in there somewhere too) with Phineas and Ferb references. Some days you're doing experiments about light. (Another painful day.) Some days we're learning about the different forms of comedy and watching clips from various TV shows, movies, and plays for examples. Some days we're editing sound into a clip from The Birds. Some days we're looking at a labeled picture of a human eye and I'm wondering why one of those words is irrationally jumping out at me.
(It was the freaking iris.)
So yes. School is going fantastic.
I've also just started making today an SUU Bucket List. It's a list of things to do while I'm at college whether they be unique to Cedar City or SUU. So be following me to see all of the stuff I do, because I'm super excited. Most of the stuff is stuff recommended from the ACES, some I got from Emily, Josh, and Paige (who has never been formally introduced on the blog but is as old a family friend as any), and some I just made up by myself. If you ever lived in Cedar City or went to SUU, feel free to suggest!
It's interesting that today's topic is what it is just because of what happened last night. I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep, and just thinking. And one of the thoughts I fell upon was when we found out that our guard coach, Trina, would be leaving Basic. I was absolutely devastated even though I wouldn't be there next year. And how comforted I was when the new coach, Tracy, came in and worked with us on technique. I could finally be at rest with the idea because she was really good and I knew my friends were going to be okay. I went back to think about the day I learned that Trina would be leaving and how upset I was, and how I was even more upset than I realized, until in choir we started learning our senior song ("On Top of the World" by Imagine Dragons) that day, the one we would sing at my graduation, and it was one of the songs I had always associated with color guard, and the news from earlier that morning was still heavy in my heart and I had cried and cried and cried and cried that day during class, and I couldn't stop crying and Becca hugged me after class and asked what was wrong I couldn't stop saying, "Trina's gone. Trina's gone." And that was such a heartbreaking day for me.
I was thinking about that memory last night. And before I was even aware of what was happening I was sobbing again, uncontrollably, shaking. From a memory of a sad day, I was crying as if it was happening right then.
It's not particularly new to me. I've been told many times that I am an emotional person. And it's true. One word that was used in particular once was that the emotion I am led by is vulnerability; to translate, I am led by emotion in general, completely unguarded. That was pretty hurtful the first time I heard it (which pretty much just proves the point), but the more I thought about it it was true. And it doesn't have to be hurtful. For a long time I didn't know that. But I've really come to terms with it, and it doesn't only not need to be hurtful, but it can be good.
I am addressing myself in this post, but it is something everyone needs to hear. In fact, while I will get relatively specific, if you ever need to fill your name in where mine is, go ahead. This is something you should be comfortable with.
I love you all.
Dear Elizabeth,
You have to very opposing talents. One of them is a talent of objectivity, and the other is a talent of subjectivity.
Your objective talent is your ability to attach and detach yourself from an emotion. You can clearly remember what anger from HOWEVER many years ago felt like. You can remember what you thought and how it made you feel about a specific situation. You can remember exactly why you cried or exactly why you smiled. And you can make yourself feel that again. But then when you're done feeling it, you can take it away again as if the emotion had never been there. You've viewed this talent as a writing gift, because it come in very handy that way. If you want to write about a specific kind of anger but you don't feel it anymore, you just call upon the memory of that specific kind of anger and you feel as if you still possess it. Then when you're done writing whatever you need to get done, you dismiss the anger, and it's not yours anymore.
Your other talent is a lot more general and honestly a lot more who you are. Your subjectivity talent. You are SO GUIDED by what you FEEL than by anything else. That's why you're terrible at forming arguments. You don't usually have a strong amount of reasons for anything; you just go with the way you feel, and that's what's correct to you. It applies to literally everything. Like, you have this weird way of knowing when you're reading a book and there's a typical love triangle WHO the protagonist is going to choose because you can feel it. You don't always need reasons; you can literally just feel it.
The latter talent has bothered you a lot because you seem to be the only one feeling sometimes. And you, funny as this is, don't particularly like standing out in ordinary situations. You're expressing your love for something and everyone disregards it. You're talking about a story you wrote and it's so real to you and no one else is even CAPABLE of caring as much as you do, and you know that, but you're still so discouraged because it is your heart and soul. You're saying that it hurts you to remember the production that turned your life around and you are told that "it's just a show". You're crying on the floor of a hotel hallway because there's been a crisis while you guys are on your choir trip and you're referred to as "a sensitive one". You're talking about how you are emotion-led and someone says they wouldn't say that about you, the way people tell you you're not fat when you call yourself fat as if you had just called yourself ugly.
Since you have both of those gifts, there are times in life when one takes over more than the other. And so in times where the objectivity takes over, you are simply LIVING. You're finally not the emotional one. And once you're aware of that, you get a little out of control. And you try SO HARD to not care about ANYTHING, even though caring and being honest about that is who you are. And once you do it for long enough, the whole "not caring" act starts to destroy you a little bit. Because that's just not who you are, Liz. It's just not.
Sometimes those periods of trying to be objective are good for you for that reason. Because when you're vulnerable, you can start to get down on yourself about that and equate that with being lesser. And once you try being objective about absolutely everything you realize that you can't do that, and you don't feel good about yourself, and you realize that you were fine just feeling, and you go back to just letting yourself do you, but this time you're more okay with it.
You once felt physically sick just thinking about the fact that people assumed that because you were going to continue performing you would be giving up writing. Your mom pointed out to you that that was because you are so emotion-driven. The idea that something you're feeling could just be thrown away as if it never mattered is absolutely foreign to you. You feel something, and it lasts for a long time. Maybe that's where the objectivity comes in. Even once you're done feeling the thing, you don't throw it out; you save it to be written about some other time.
Your vulnerability is good because it's honest. You are incapable of lying to people even in joking because what is simply is for you. Everything is as true as you can make it. Your vulnerability is good because it allows you to talk about emotional issues with people. You're not afraid of emotions, so you're willing to try someone else's on. This vulnerability even goes hand in hand with the objectivity, because you take their emotion and feel it as your own, and while you are never able to understand another person, you give it your best shot, and then you give that emotion back to them, and it helps them feel understood, because at least now you know. Your vulnerability is good because it allows forgiveness. You've only been capable of hating people you loved first, because you only hate when you feel betrayed. And once you do hate you know that that is hell for you, and you feel anger and you cry irrationally and then your emotional heart somehow finds a way to heal again and you ask for forgiveness and you give forgiveness and you form love again, and that is something that can only happen through vulnerability; if you weren't vulnerable, those hard feelings would stay forever and there would be no recovering. There are things you used to get wildly angry about, which is also due to your vulnerability, but now instead of getting angry, you just get sad. You just cry. And I honestly think that's better, because your sorrow will not hurt somebody else.
Of course you still have your weak moments, where you're insecure about the way you feel and you wonder why you of all people had to be this way. That's part of your vulnerability. You were born to feel the pain that comes with it, just like you were born to feel the joy. You make your own life exciting because you just let yourself go where your heart takes you. This is something beautiful about you. You don't need to be ashamed of it. It's not incorrect. It's actually good.
I love you a lot.
--Lizzo
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