For New People

If you've just now found your way onto my blog, hi :) I tend to write about a lot of varied stuff, from "Cognitive Dissonance" to [Mormon] church stuff; memoirs and essays to ideas and opinions and sociological views of the gender differences. I haven't written in pretty much forever since mid-October because it's been crazy-busy and I've gone through a lot of "potential-blog-posting-experiences" (maybe I should write about that time I had a nervous breakdown at Bogus Basin during Christmas Break) which range from *perfectly normal* to *you could write a freaking book*. I'll try and possibly catch up on some of that later. Anyways, some of my early stuff on this blog is... well, kind of really opinionated (hence the blog name!)

Before you read some of my early posts, this is my disclaimer: For a few months back there I wasn't really a happy camper with the church, and was all fired up and ranting about all the some of the wrong reasons. Some of those posts and my views in them kind of take up the tone of bitterness, because I went through this stage where I was just picking church doctrine apart and trying to find things to argue about and disprove. (I think I'm out of that phase now but I'm still having a hard time with church for different reasons.) Now, I'm not saying that I am now completely disowning these views, but that looking back I find that some of them are just angst-fueled and, in a nutshell, childish and making me sound like a whiny teenager who has taken it upon herself to unveil the "inequalities of life". I don't want to delete them because, hmm, this is difficult to word. I still believe in some of the things I have previously written about, but not to the point I was at and I think some of the posts really aren't worth looking at. But I'll leave them up, and you can read some of them if you want even though some of them are really dumb.

Please keep in mind that while I am not apologizing for the views and opinions in some of my earlier posts, my views have changed a little and many of the posts are only emotionally-driven, so I do not want to engage in a "comment-war" about them. If you feel differently from them you can sure let me know, but please remember my views have changed to a certain extent and I don't really want to spend time arguing about these posts.

If you're new, here's four of some of my posts that are actually really worth reading:

Cognitive Dissonance Part I: Psychological phenomenons interest me and I spend much time reading up on them (Wikipedia is a very close friend of mine). Alongside that, I've come up close and personal to some psychological conditions either through myself or through personal or second-hand experiences with others. Plus, I love Les Misérables, the character Javert (along with *cough*RussellCrowe*coughcough*), and researching things. Bingo. Plus, I get pretty creative with the story narration. It makes a pretty interesting read. [Note: It says "Part I" because I was originally planning on writing another post about it. But meh. Not feelin' it. It probably won't happen. Très désolé.]

CPR and Life... Totally Random: This isn't really a big post. It's pretty good, though, if you want to see me talk about an abstract way of looking at CPR and the concept of hurting someone to essentially help them in the big picture. (I have to warn about a Star Trek [2012 movie] spoiler, though.)

Memoir: Okay, this was actually a Language Arts gosh darn essay assignment that I think I did pretty well on. If you wanna read about mah family and maybe get a little depressed gain insight into the experiences of losing a parent, this is actually a brilliantly excellent (excellently brilliant?) essay to read. I believe that the subject of death does not have to be depressing, it depends on the view of the reader. Go ahead and read!

Clothing Memories: I compare this post to the Memoir post above, but un peu différents. It was actually a submission to a website (wornstories.com) about the memories associated with an article of clothing. It's kind of personal, but really good. Highly recommended.

I Am Not a Boy: Now, okay, this one is kindaaaa politically-motivated. But not like all of my garbage beginner posts. In a good way. No matter your political agenda or personal beliefs, it's a pretty good read. Seriously. I don't really know how to explain it or put a summary, but if it's on this list, it's one I think you should read.

Sooo I'm hoping that by now there's going to be a change in the attitude or maybe a slight shift in views of future blog posts, starting now. I can usually find something interesting to write about or recycle one of my thought-provoking essays [hopefully] without offending anyone (I'm the kind of Language Arts student that mostly hides in the shadows but consumes books like chocolate and writes really good essays if I don't procrastinate and if I actually give a crap about the topic. All that added to a small-but-growing list of missing assignments, and you get a kid who is good enough to stand out but then again *not living up to her potential* AKA I'm super lazy. In other words, I'm that student that kind of intrigues LA teachers but I'm kind of weird and lazy so they don't really get into it with me.) (Just to be clear, I have loved/really liked every single Language Arts teacher I've had [CyrRiceFineThomasWelker] except for 7th grade.)

Okay. That went off on a slight tangent (probably due to the fact that it's 12:56 am and caffeine is fighting sleeping medication. "Sleep? Who needs sleep? I don't!" That's not what my doctor thinks) My little dog has been alternating between trying to sleep and giving me pitiful little glances letting me know that he wishes I wouldn't keep him up and that I would go to sleep ("seriously, even though you sleep pretty much all day and it's not like you have a busy life"). I'd better go :-)

Happy reading, 

Kelsey

Introduction

So, this is my first blog post. Not exactly sure what to put on this one, but I have plenty ideas for future posts. I think the main reason why I made this blog is that I want to join the ranks of LDS apologists, feminists, liberals, etc. and see if there's anyone out there who agrees with my theories and ideas. Or I just feel like whining over the unfair aspects of my life and the world. Probably a little of both. Do I have legitimate reason to address these issues, or am I just being a whiny, rebellious teen who thinks too much? I don't know. I'll let that be for you to decide. But what interests me the most is the mentality of some of the members of the church, especially the ones with the black-and-white thinking. Everything is black and white with absolutely no gray. It is either right or wrong. Obeying or sinning. What they don't realize is that you're just as much of a hypocrite if you're following the letter of the law but destroying the spirit of the law in doing so.

Many members of the church assume there are straightforward and clear guidelines for EVERYTHING. But that's not true. These "guidelines" were assumed to be written in stone by the Church leaders, but really they just began as unwritten cultural rules that became so widespread that now everyone just assumes that they're church doctrine. For example: "[...]Young women should avoid short shorts and short skirts" ( pg. 7, For the Strength of Youth 2011 edition). How many times in my life have I heard the "if your dress or skirt is 2 inches above the knee, it's too short" or even "your knees have to be covered"? I don't remember there being an official church publication telling us the exact length our dresses or skirts have to be (now, I may be wrong here, so feel free to correct me), so I'm assuming this is a cultural thing that, again, has become so widespread that it has began to be accepted as an official standard of appropriate dress. And what about cultural shaming that can be very common in LDS families and communities? And the unhealthy messages of human sexuality that can be accidentally-or-not-so-accidentally sent to the children and youth of the church, again partially leading back to the whole "modesty" idea.

Okay, I have to stop myself before I go off on the whole "modesty" tangent, and how it's doing the opposite of the desired effect of preventing sexualization (is that even a word?) of the females of the church by their clothing choices, and how it's being taught in Young Women's and Primary in an extremely unhealthy way, how our self-worth and access to the Spirit is not dependent on whether we wear a shirt with sleeves or not, etc. But trust me, I'm going to have a lot more on that later. I've done probably waaay too much research on this topic. Hopefully I'll be able to drag myself away from this topic to maybe focus on other topics :)

Another interesting reason I like to address is the judgmentality (that's a word, right?) of church members. Oh man, this probably isn't sounding good to those of you reading this. I'm not trying to say that a lot of the members of the church are judging people outrightly by their lifestyle, clothing, personal choices, etc. but that it's much more subtle, almost in a way of not judging at all, but it's still there. Is this making any sense? I have a problem of just kind of rambling like this, because the idea sounds perfectly right in my head, but I can't seem to get it out in words the right way.

I've read a lot of very interesting and thought-provoking articles from other blogs, which I'd like to post, but since I'm new to this whole blogging thing I'm not sure about copyright and author citation and all that stuff *sigh*. For now I'll probably just post links to them, because since I have no idea what I'm doing I figure that's the best way not to get sued or something like that. I'd better get to sorting out this website, so over and out.
-Kelsey