Bittersweet

If only I had a nickel for every time I'd heard someone say, "I wish you would know what the good old days are while you're still living them."
I've been trying to appreciate the moments I'm living while they're happening. And I'm realizing that any good days are going to be bittersweet. I was just out on a late night adventure with my friends. I went with someone I'll name "Rebecca" for the sake of anonymity to pick up "Claire" from the airport. Her plane arrived at midnight, and we had to drive through the heart of downtown to get there. It was a lot of  fun to catch up with "Rebecca," who I haven't had the chance to spend much time with recently. "Claire" was also fun to catch up with, as I'd missed her while she was away.
As the night came to a close, it occurred to me that this would be one of the last outings of this sort I'd have with my friends. Senior year is almost over, and next fall we're all spreading our wings and flying to very different locations. I may not see many of my closest friends more than during the summers when we're home, or even until it's time for a high school reunion. How could people so essential to my life become strangers almost overnight?
On the flipside, I will soon be heading off to college. Dorm life, independence, and a thousand other wonderful things are soon going to fill my life. All of these sacrifices, the friendships which will fade away or grow weaker, will make way for new things. I am so incredibly excited for these new things, but my heart breaks to think of losing any of the people I currently hold in my heart.
Bittersweet. That's what this is. I'm torn between the good and the bad in an exhausting battle. For better or for worse, things are changing. And with change comes a thousand mixed feelings I can't control.

Unimportant Rant

Okay, this rant I'm about to go on will be completely irrelevant to your lives. Nor will it have a lovely flow or intricately woven sentences. I've recently rewatched a couple of Harry Potter movies, and I've been left feeling quite emotional, so I'm going to get this out even though it's far less important than the social issues I've written about before now. Just warning you.
So I've been trying so very hard to grasp Dumbledore's logic in sending Harry to live with the Dursleys, and I just don't get it. I mean, yeah yeah love magic Lily's blood etc. But since Petunia didn't love Harry, because only her sister did, that magic can't be nearly as strong as Lily's  magic. Could this second hand love blood stuff really have been more powerful than whatever defensive charms an Auror or a member of the Order of the Phoenix could have conjured up? Then the second reason is that Harry would have gotten a big ego if he'd grown up knowing he was famous. HOWEVER, what about Remus Lupin?
Think about it for a moment. Lupin is already a social outcast because of his status, which would have helped Harry to feel less full of himself. Plus, Lupin was best friends with James. Like, I bet when he heard that Lily was pregnant he and Sirius would talk about being "uncles." Sirius would be the cool and irresponsible one who let Harry ride on his motorcycle and Lupin would be the down-to-Earth uncle that Harry could come talk to in times of distress when he didn't feel comfortable talking to his parents. Of course, after everything fell to crap when Lily and James died and Sirius went to Azkaban, this wouldn't have been possible. But couldn't Lupin have raised his best friend's kid as his own? Even without meeting Harry until he was 13, Remus became like a father figure to the boy. This would have been so perfect!

Sure, Lupin is a werewolf, which could have offered a few safety issues, but McGonagall could have babysat Harry once a month. (Let's be real: She felt a very strong maternal protectiveness over the boy, even if she rarely directly acknowledged it. She was against the idea of Harry going with the Dursleys from the beginning, and she made it her personal mission during Harry's fifth and sixth year to help him with his career goals. But I digress.)
So that was a waste of your time. And mine. But hopefully someone out there agrees with me. Next time I blog, I'll try to get back to the pressing issues in our society.

BGMC

Some of you may be familiar with a children's church program called BGMC, an acronym for Boys and Girls Missionary Challenge. The leader of the program will pick a different country every session (whether it be weekly, monthly, etc.) and describe to the children what's going on in the country. From popular foods to social issues faced in the country, it's actually a pretty cool way to get kids interested in other cultures.

However, this lovely program has a surprisingly destructive caveat.

You see, the focus is mainly on problems faced in a particular country, and what missionaries are doing to solve these. Learning about feeding the hungry and helping impoverished children go to school is wonderful, don't get me wrong, but it warps perspectives. Only
seeing this side of things can cause a child to be oblivious to the similarities held among people groups around the world, and to view other cultures with negativity. Seeing children in Ethiopia who live in garbage dumps can make the people of the country seem primitive.


As someone who's grown up with BGMC, I can honestly say that if it weren't for this program, I probably wouldn't have decided to study Intercultural Studies in college. There are some amazing benefits of learning about the rest of the world, including knowing facts about countries your peers have never even heard of. And, to be perfectly honest, there is an amount of knowledge about cultural differences which can be incredibly useful to know when dealing with someone of said culture. However, it would not be beneficial to anybody to pretend that there aren't any problems with the aftereffects of not only BGMC, but also potential repercussions from other programs teaching about other cultures in schools, communities, and anywhere else.

My family recently began hosting foreign exchange students. First from Spain, then from Mexico. One of the things which surprised me was how normal these people were. Average teenagers like myself. They listened to some of the same music as I, and loved hanging out with friends and getting coffee and so many other entirely normal things. Sure, there were cultural differences to learn about, but one thing appears to be the same across national and geographic borders: human nature.
People value relationships everywhere. Though different people have different standards for how affection is expressed, the core feelings are the same. Love doesn't have to be expressed with bouquets and chocolates to be valid.

Teenagers experience the emotions of growing up all around the world. Insecurities as their bodies change, the beginnings of understanding physical attraction, worry about belonging and being accepted. Competing with each other in games and giggling about who you find attractive are things which are not unique to typical western, first-world culture. It's important that when teaching children about cultural differences, we also teach them about the similarities. We are all human beings, and there are things which have connected us since the beginning of time. Growing up in a different environment with different resources and expectations can change a lot, but not everything.

I think that what doesn't change is more important than what does.

Maternity Leave

First, I'd like to start off by clarifying that this is not a pregnancy announcement. Actually, I'd like to rant a bit about how ridiculous the American system for maternity/paternity leave is.
According to a recent survey done by the United Nation's labor agency, only three out of the 185 countries it has data for do not supply cash benefits to women during maternity leave. One of these exceptions is the United States. In fact, the US is doing worse than Bangladesh, China, Iran, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Writer Claire Zillman for Fortune, a daily online newspaper written by and for Fortune 500 companies, says that women, "have the right to 12 weeks of leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. But that leave isn’t paid. And the law only applies to employees who have worked for at least 12 months at a company with at least 50 employees."
So, if she hasn't worked at a company for more than a year, or if she works with a small business, a new mother isn't entitled to anything. Even if she is allowed the twelve weeks, she probably isn't going to get paid. This means that in families where the budget is tight, a newborn is likely separated from its mother during the day before reaching three months of age because momma had to head back to work. There are dozens of research endeavors led by hundreds of psychologists which suggest that babies need as much time bonding with both parents as possible. If a new mother decides to neglect finances for the good of her child's growth, it can often send the family into poverty. Zillman writes, "The Department of Labor survey found that about 15% of employees who were not paid or received partial pay while on leave turned to public assistance for help."
If you think that's bad (and I really hope you do) here's what's going on with paternity leave. According to Forbes writer Ana Swanson, 81 out of 185 countries extend some sort of paid leave for fathers. The US is not one of these.
Clearly, there are a lot of issues going on here. There needs to be greater assistance for new parents who are simply trying to raise their children. And for those who consider such an idea unfeasible, here's a little infographic to help explain just how far behind the "land of the free" is:

Today's Thought: Growing Up

I'm eighteen. This means I can vote, join the armed forces and die for this country, but I can't go out and have cocktails with my friends. This means adults think I need to grow up and take on responsibility one minute, but the next I'm asking to spend time with friends and my parents are concerned that I'll be too tired for church the next morning. There is a constant pull from both sides, alternately trying to coddle me and to help me mature.

In a nutshell: Growing up doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

The real question, which I'm sure everyone my age must ask at one point, is how to deal with the confusion and double standards, and somehow make it to the other side as a responsible adult. That is absolutely, completely terrifying.  There, I said it! When I talk to people my age in true moments of sincerity, they all agree that the process of transitioning from child to adult is the cause of panic attacks, sleepless nights, and tear-stained cheeks. Yet for some reason, admitting this seems to carry a bit of a taboo. We all feel it, and we know that many others feel the same way thanks to the world wide web, but it feels very distant. Our friends don't experience these things. Anonymous tweets and tumblr posts, sure, but not the people we see every morning in World Geography who always ace their tests and turn in their homework.

So much attention goes to social media for giving teens unrealistic expectations of how others live their lives, giving us rose-colored glasses to view glamorized versions of people, but perhaps the masks we put on for others do even more damage. We know that most people don't post their deepest problems on social media, so even if it feels like they have perfect lives we know in the backs of our minds this isn't actually true. When we see someone frequently in person, and they tell us the ups and the downs of their week, it feels vastly more authentic. We don't want to believe that these friends who have such a real relationship with us are hiding important aspects of their lives, even if we've done the same to them.

All too often have I faced the reality that I'm entering a time in my life which I'm entirely unprepared for. A significant portion of each day is spent worrying that I'll screw up. I won't be able to reach my dreams, and I'll end up struggling to make ends meet with an oppressive job which I only took to make rent. I don't want to be on my deathbed, realizing that I did nothing worth doing in my life. I wasted what little time I had on this earth doing something or other that didn't even matter.

What really bothers me, if you'll forgive me for switching topics rather ungracefully, is when adults listen to these complaints, then go off on a rant about how much harder life will become as we get older. That's the whole point! I, for one, am stressing so hard about college applications and using scholarships to avoid student loans because of how much these things will affect my future. I realize that everything I do now has a consequence, either positive or negative. I'm trying to explore new ideas and pastimes, trying to expand my personality and discover myself, but I'm afraid of unintentionally doing something that could block a relationship or career in the future. I absolutely know that life will get harder from here on out, and I often find myself sacrificing my happiness to make the next leg of my life as easy as possible.

I suppose there wasn't a specific point to my thought for the day. No hard-hitting question to end on. The real point is making myself heard, in one way or another.