To save you the hassle of reading it again, in my last blog I stated that most everyone has self esteem issues and therefore this is regarded as "normal" and not to be given much concern.

WTF???

A problem is a problem, and the more people have it the greater the need for it to be adressed. Going, "oh, everyone has that," is not good enough at all. WHY does everyone have that? WTF is WRONG with society that all our young people and a fair porportion of the adults believe that they are inadequate?

Besides, low self esteem IS fairly serious. As most everyone should know (if the generalization that all teens are like that is true, 80%+ of the population should know what I mean here), having low self esteem is crippling. If you truly believe you cannot do something, chances are you will feck it up (placebo effect!) because you expect yourself to. If you believe yourself to be inferior, you will act that way and slowly people will begin to treat you like that, too, since they'll think that since YOU do it, it MUST be OK. (my sources for both are one self help book on how to raise your self esteem my mum got me from the library because she thought my LSE was unhealthy, and my own personal experience. Just so you know I'm not spouting BS)

As a teen - and therefore apparently by default someone with LSE (although tbqh I've thought [known?] I was inferior since I was at most 7) - I demand that such things be taken seriously. It's not helpful to society at all to keep on breeding slightly depressive, self-hating people and label them as fine because they're all like that. I mean, if EVERYONE was dying of terminal cancer, finding a cure would be top of everyones list of priorities. Why the double standards?

ARGH!!!! SOMETHING MUST BE DONE. NOW!!!!!
((thanks for reading and putting up with me being angry lmao))

Last night whilst I was having a 2am think (insomnia FTL) I realised that I find it almost impossible to talk about myself. I don't mean everyday things, but problems.

Example:
I was recently presented with a rare opportunity to discuss my recent issues. The person I was talking to asked me directly what had been going on and there was no way for me to get out of answering. In a way, I did want to talk about it. But... I just couldn't. I told a white lie; I said I'd had self esteem issues, which of course every teen has, and the person I was talking to bought it, dismissed it as nothing serious ("who doesn't?") and we veered off to other topics. I don't mean to slander the person I was talking to, who will doubtless recognise this convo; after all, I delibarately didn't tell you the extent of said self esteem issues or anything regarding other issues even though it was the perfect opportunity to do so, so it is entirely my own doing, de-dah-de-dah.

Well: why the hell not?
So, I had a good ol' 2.30 think about it (time rolls fast when you think on things) and discovered that:
1. I am worried that I will not be taken seriously if I talk about myself. I'm not saying my friends would make light of my issues or whatever, but in my mind they don't stand up at all compared to things going on in other people's lives.
2. I am worried that I will be taken too seriously. I don't want everyone to worry about me and feel they constantly have to ask me how I'm getting on.
3. I am worried that people will be mad with me for not telling them sooner.  People like to feel trusted; what if my lack of confiding in people until whenever I summon the courage to do so makes them feel I don't trust them?
4. I don't want people to know because I don't know how they'll react and more importantly I don't know how I'll react to their reaction and all in all it is just easier to get on with life without discussing these things.

At about 3.47 I told myself I worry far too much and eventually went to sleep. But anyways, the point of saying all this is a rather vain attempt at beginning to discuss myself. Despite all the above points, a problem shared is a problem halved, and it would be kind of nice to just loosen up and TALK every once in a while, you know?
The last time I discussed myself via the internet (which I find easier- you don't have to watch your audiences reaction and they can think about it before they see you again) was when I posted a myspace blog called "we spend our lives with strangers". The next day (I think) Someone told me to drink OJ (which is an antidepressant) and when Someone Else heard, Someone Else said something like, "don't be silly you're not depressed- depression is a.. chemical disorder..."
they seemed to be floundering, so I interjected, "depression is a hormonal imbalance in the brain, I KNOW."
((Before you start:: no I do NOT have depression or any other such condition blah buh-blah blah quit reading too much into this damn you!))
Anyway, judging by the past experience people will at least care lmao

That's about it really. I look (apprehensively) forward to (potentially maybe) talking about myself (at somepoint, perhaps) in the forseeable future xP

I am going to try out a new method here: be very simple and very honest. You have been warned xP

YOU ARE PAYING FOR THIS:

BECAUSE you buy these:

...and many, many others.

Now listen to me. Just listen. YOU ARE GOING TO STOP FUNDING MONEYGRUBBING GOOD FOR NOTHING BASTARDS WHO TORTURE ANIMALS LIKE THIS. Aren't you? If not, why not? Are you REALLY trying to tell me that your VANITY is worth more than an animal's WELLBEING?
Honestly- if you are reading this you are almost certainly my friend, and therefore a good person, because I don't get on well with shitty people. But even good people can do some seriosly fucked up things. And I am telling you what you are doing and I am telling you: STOP IT NOW. THIS IS WRONG. THERE IS NO WAY YOU CAN JUSTIFY IT.
The only argument that goes halfway to justifying cosmetic animal testing is that they are of lesser intelligence, and therefore worth. Guess what? Infants and retarded adults are of the same intelligence as these animals. You think we should treat them like this? You sick freak!

For information on what they do to animals and how it causes them pain: http://www.idausa.org/facts/costesting.html

Look at the above pictures again for a minute. THIS IS YOUR FAULT. Do you want this to happen? Do you want animals to be blinded, force-fed, killed, etc etc etc? Is your face worth that much? 
Remember, beauty is more than skin deep. And a face beatified by cruel cosmetics hides one helluvan ugly inside.

For a full list of ethical and unethical companies look here: http://search.caringconsumer.com/
And remember children, if a company is owned by another, check the parent company. For example, Body Shop stuff isn't tested, but you buy body shop and your money turns into loreal profits which in turn pay someone to *points at the above images*. So watch out for that kind of thing, kay?

FINALLY: I might well have offended you here. Well listen, right? In a choice between offending you and saving lives, I choose saving lives every time. Besides, look what you pay for. Ugh! Quit funding this and join the cool kids and hell, I'll write a whole new blog all about how awesome you are. I mean it, too.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully changing makeup brands, and hopefully not hating me too much =]

I apologise if this doesn't flow so great. I'm not really in a normal state of mind at the moment.

All I have to say is, if you ever go to get an abortion, please, PLEASE, for the love of small, parasitic children, do not get it this way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilation_and_evacuation

Essentially, what they do it they give you anaesthetic, shove some forceps up you and literally rip your baby to pieces, while it is still alive and fully conscious (if unborn babies can be conscious. I doubt this, but in late-term abortsons especially, the thing can sure as hell feel) before removing the pieces from your unfeeling uterus and...

well. They either chuck 'em, incinerate 'em, or...

Sell the pieces of your dismembered child to medical research facilities.

I think you can see why I'm not in a regular state of mind by now. The idea of allowing this to happen to something that is 50% you, that has been living inside of you for weeks, is just so sickening.

Anyway. They pay good prices for the bits of your mutilated baby. Assuming, that is, that the kid was very late term, and therefore big enough and developed enough for the pieces to be of any use. Exactly what they use it for I am not sure... tissue and development research mostly, although exactly what they involve I know not.

I, by the way, am still pro-choice. Just not THIS choice.

Thank you for reading, and, hopefully, not letting some unfeeling asshole rip up any babies you may not want in future. I appreciate it on their behalf =]

A blog about the darker times. Don't start reading things into this; I am perfectly fine and happy and all. I just like to think a lot, and if you think ALOT, and I mean really a very great deal, you are bound to come up against these things.

Sometimes I wonder why anybody bothers.
It's all such a lot of hassle, don't you think?
Living I mean. We are born. We go to school. We get qualifications. We start work. We hopefully meet somone nice and maybe start a family. We get old. We retire. We die.
It sounds like an awful lot of hassle, doesn't it? And to what end? What is the point to it all? But of course, there isn't one.
I am sorry to burst your bubble, but think about it. The strongest instinct in all living creatures is the need to reproduce. We are born to live to give birth to keep the life alive. That is what we exist for. To reproduce.
Step back. What's the point to that? If everything died tomorrow, would it matter? Really though, would it make even the slightest diffrence in the Grand Scheme of Things? 
Of course not. If we were all dead there would be no one to mourn our passing. Our non-existence would effect none but ourselves, and we would be too dead to care.
So... ultimately there is no meaning to life. That's a cheerful thought, makes one feel very worthwhile.
Think about what you must go through in life. All the hours spent in school or shopping or sleeping or eating or socializing or worrying or thinking. All for nothing.

At times I think all these thoughts, and I become lethargic. When you think how there's no point in doing anything, you cannot find it in yourself to do anything. That would probably be boring if I hadn't been busy thinking about things. It got to the point where I had to find a purpose. I am not somone who can just live for the sake of it, I need a reason, a direction, an objective, a goal. Trouble was that I had skillfully depressed myself thinking about the lack of any point, and then I was asking myself to find one. It seems like a kind of retarded thing to do, I guess. But I wasnt looking for the Meaning of ALL Life, I was looking for a reason I could give myself for existing.
So anyway, purpose. If we exist primarily to create life, then I would go one better. I would exist to make life better, enjoyable even. I have talked about this before a while ago, about how I attempt to improve things or at least not make them any worse xP
The last two paragraphs I added so you don't start worrying about me. I find it impossible to talk about things like this without making people think I'm getting all emo; really Im not. I'm FINE. I just have a bad habit of thinking too much haha :D

Thanks for reading, and cheer up. It's not that bad y'know =]

This is sort of an ethical one. It's also a Becki-talks-about-TV blog. Enjoy =]

The basic storyline of this series was that these aliens, the 456, came to earth and demanded the gov. gave them 10% of the world's children or they 456 would kill everyone. Not so huge in itself. But then it started getting fucked up. The 456 hooked the kids up to themselves and took them as drugs. The government went all utilitarian and decided to give the 456 the world's bottom 10% of kids; the ones, they said, who were destined for a life of teenage pregnancies and jail. Who would miss those kids?

So, with only 3 people left in torchwood (owen and tosh died at the end of series two) and the government trying to stop them because they knew torchwood would object to trading kids as drugs, torchwood set out to stop things. At the end of episode 4 Ianto was killed by the 456; at the time this didn't bother me tooo much because Own had died before during series two but they'd brought him back to life with this resurrection glove (k, getting too sci-fi, I know I know)- basically I thought they'd figure a way to bring him back. They didnt.

With Torchwood now looking more like the "Gwen and Jack show", the last episode was one of the most depressing things I ever saw. Literally 20 minutes of the show was devoted to footage of soldiers forcibly taking struggling kids away from screaming and tearful parents- this struck a nerve with me particularly because that kind of shit really happens. Soldiers taking kids I mean. In the Rwnadan genocide, for instance, screwed up things like that happened all the time. It's a war, no one misses missing kids.

Anyway. This guy Frobisher, who worked for the gov, got told he would give his kids to the soldiers willingly for "innoculation" (the pretext they gave for taking the kids). Frobisher didn't like that, hell no. He took a gun and killed his wife, his two childeren, and finally himself. I liked him for that. I know that sounds fucked up too but, really, that's what I would have done. Well, near enough. I'd have told the wife and together we'd have gone and asked the kids if they would rather be taken away from us and have horrible things done to them or die. Whatever they answered, we'd roll with that.

Eventually Jack figured a way to kill the 456, but it involved blowing up his own grandson. Betcha can't guess what he did. Sooo the 456 exploded and the 10% of kids were saved...

But this made no sense. The gov made the tank for the 456 to live in without being threatened at all. From this ending it seemed that, if they hadn't done that, everything would've been OK. So that made no sense but yeah...

I don't think there'll be anymore torchwood now. At the end Jack buggered off to find a new life for himself, seeing as how he'd fucked up his earth one pretty nicely, and Gwen was 6 months pregnant. I can't see her running round risking her life for world security with a family behind her. So yah...

That's all I have to say. Just felt like breaking that down for y'all who don't watch it lol

Last night at 1.05am, I was awoken by Daisy (my phone), who seemed to be trying to vibrate herself off my bedside cabinet. I grabbed it before it fell and looked at the caller ID; just some random number, and besides it's late, so I reject it. Then I see that they'd called before at 12.05am (I slept through that one) and had left a message. Curious, I decided to check it out.

The first thing I heard was a tolling bell, and I knew straight off that Something Was Not Right. Next, the sound of someone breathing in and out, in that heavy, nasal way horror movie killers have of breathing. There was a kind of whispery noise, a deep sigh in my ear, and then a sort of scraping, sliding noise, like something (a body, said my overimaginative mind) being dragged across ground. The bell tolled again, and again. Another deep sighing breath.
All this took 5 seconds.
By this point I was freaking out like all hell. I didn't know who was calling me or why, but I was 150% certain that it was some wierdo hell-bent on scaring the crap out of me, who had somehow got hold of my number. And if they had my number, what's to say they didn't know more? Like, say, where I lived. And they'd called twice, in the middle of the goddam night.
I ripped the phone away from my ear and pressed hang up. All this did was clear the number "1" from the screen- you press that to listen to your messages you see.
Another toll of the bell. Another deep breath.
I stabbed the hang up button again and this time it hung up. By then I was really, really freaking out. I expected the voice belonging to the breathing to say something like, "the bell tolls for you!" in a freaky voice and cause me to have a heart attack. I figured it was one of those stupid prank calls you get, where your friend calls them and they call you and claim you're their long lost kid or something whilst your friend wets themself laughing at your reaction.
But in the middle of the night? Who the fuck is awake enough, and mean enough, to want to scare me at 1am on Friday morning when I have to go to work in 7.5 hours?

And so I did what I am very good at doing, as most people who know me know; I got scared. My heart was beating so fast and so hard that I could physically feel it beating, like a fist trapped inside of me trying to uncurl its fingers again and again and again.

I am 15 years old; this is a good age because you are neither adult nor child, and so can act like either one as you will. At this point I did what I would have done had I been 5 years old again and seeing venemous pythins in the towel rail; I went and woke up my mum. It took me about 5 minutes to come to this decision, largely because today is my mum's birthday. I figured it would have been pretty mean of me to wake her up today, of all days. But I did, because it was that or sit tight for 6 hours waiting for some psychopath to call me again/burst through the window and kill me to death.

So anyway. My poor old mum was very good natured, she got me a glass of water and made me calm down and all, and then she got my phone and listened to the whole message. It went on just as I described it above for over a minute. There was another after that, pretty much the same, that they must'v left when I rejected the call upon waking up. She then said to turn silly Daisy off and go back to bed, both of which I did, having by then returned to the more adult side of 15 and begun to feel like a bit of a fool for getting so worked up over a stupid phone call.

SOOO anyway, that is what happened. That is but one question answered though, what I want to know now is WHO and WHY?
The only people I ever give my number to are my friends. So I am kind of forced to come to the conclusion that someone has either passed it on or delibarately done this. The only person who has my number who isn't my friend used to be, but why she'd decide to be a bitch again now (we haven't had any contact in over a year) of all times is beyond me.

SO. If you are the culprit, or if you passed my number on, please let me know. I'm not going to be mad, I swear, I'm a very forgiving person (which is largely why only one person out of all I ever gave my number to is no longer someone I wish to know). I just want to know who did it and, if possible, why. If you did it for laughs then there you go, I bet you found my description of recieving the calls hilarious. Now own up. You owe me.

Thanks for reading and/or attempting to help me track the psycho xD

I looked at the little calendar thing that tells me when I have posted blogs, and realised I need to slow down a little.

So... the opportunity to slow things down has presented itself; for the next two weeks I will be off on Work Experince.

I'm going to work in the Liberal Democrat MEP office in Durham - my mum's best friend from uni happens to be in politics =P

But anyway, this means I will not have time to blog so much, so although I might well talk about my first day on monday, other than that things should be pretty quiet for a while.

Bye for now XP

I know quite a few people of my own age or younger (I'm 15 if it helps) who have at some point in life been drunk. This should probably be quite worrying... we aren't meant to be able to touch the stuff yet, never mind get drunk. But it isn't, not really. I mean, these things happen all the time. It's nothing new.

I personally am not a huge fan of alcohol. I mean, some stuff is quite nice, but then again things like red wine burn the carp out of your throat and you don't really get much to compensate other than a weird warm feeling, which lasts anywhere from 5 minutes to hours depending on how much you drink. Betcha can't guess which end of the scale I'm on xP
(Disclaimer: all alcohol consumed by Yours Truly was legally done ie at home under adult supervision or at church when we went with school, hence wine burning)
But once you go past a few drinks things get really crap. This is all based on observation rather than experience btw: people start getting really happy, laughing at nothing and staggering around making friends for life with strangers. People fall over a lot or puke on themselves. People's emotions go insane and they become hysterical; either crying or laughing or both. People lose control of their rational minds and start behaving in a ridiculous manner and/or do things they will regret.
Some malicious individuals will put things into others' drinks, sometimes relatively harmless, often with criminal intent. And then you wake up the next morning with the headache from hell. If you keep drinking regularly, you could well end up with liver damage.

Not to sound like Scrooge or anything, but is all that really worth the warm happy feeling?

Not in my opinon. I don't ever want to get drunk- I mean the idea of being so euphorically happy as to be utterly unaware of my own actions is not an idea that appeals to me at all. Anyway, Im kinda wary of drink anyway because I reckon my liver's already pretty screwed; when I was about 2 I dislocated my wrist and was fed around half a bottle of calpol (the max. dose at that age is 5ml I think) by a scary woman with red lipstick and matching hair who wouldnt stop smiling even as she rammed my wrist bones back into correct position. So for me, risking further liver damage would probably result in serious health conditions, death etc etc etc. Yeah, I'm probably a killjoy. Yeah, I shouldn't knock it till I've tried it. Well, I don't need to try it to know how it works. Do I need to have been hit to know that being hit is a Bad Thing? No. This kinda falls into the same category.

So, my dear reader... please comment your thoughts, drunken experiences etc etc

Thanks for reading =]