I just wanted to stop by and share some flashbacks of previous Halloweens with my friends and family. I wish I was able to find the photos I had of us in my pre-teens (even teenage years), but this will do. Personally, I enjoyed dressing up the most on Halloween; I liked to dress up with my friends and my sister and o around the neighborhood to get all the candy we could get. Even though I don’t get to do any cool Halloween stuff anymore, I still enjoy the spoopy spirit it puts everyone in.
Have a fun and safe Halloween, everyone! 🍬
Halloween 1997: SimbaHalloween 1997: Princess MeganHalloween 1997: Sara, Megan, and IHalloween 1997: Trick o’ Treating.Halloween 1998.Halloween 1998: Angel Liz & Alien MeganHalloween 1998: This annoying boy seriously covered my face.Halloween 2003: Vampire Liz, Baby Megan, and Charlie the PoohHalloween 2015: Basic Black Cat Liz
Since my last installment of this series, a lot of great music has come out, and I mean a lot. I mean, I actually liked Demi Lovato’s Tell Me You Love Me album so much, I wrote an entire post about it.
Like every post related to music, you can follow my Spotify playlist containing these favorites, as well as the many other songs that I play on a daily basis.
Without further ado, here are my Top 5 favorites as of right now!
It wouldn’t be a music favorites post if I didn’t include my girl, Kelly! “Love So Soft” was released on September 27th, the same day her upcoming album, Meaning of Life was announced. This song is definitely a different sound from her previous work. There are noticeable back vocals, brass instruments, and a sass that wasn’t in her music for a long time. Her pop-rock anthem sound she’s known for isn’t on this song, yet this song is a banger for sure. Clarkson described this new album as “a grown-ass women record”; one she’s been wanting to make ever since she won American Idol 15 years ago (yes, let that sink in). Personally, I feel like this is the music she’s meant to sing. Maybe 13 years ago when “Since U Been Gone” as a major hit, Clarkson belonged in the pop-rock mainstream world. With a voice like Clarkson’s, she belongs in the same category where you find Adele and Sam Smith. I feel like this upcoming album is going to show us how music is really made.
Fifth Harmony’s self-titled album was released a little over a month ago, and since then I’ve been listening to some of my favorites non-stop. Particularly, my favorite out of the album is “Lonely Night”. It’s a typical song you will find on a Fifth Harmony album, but the harmonies on this song slay. No shade to Fifth Harmony as a fivesome, but the harmonies between these four ladies blend extremely well. Their voice ranges are so similar to one another that you are able to have these women harmonize without hearing that one distinct voice. I believe Camila Cabello has a very different voice from a lot of singers in the industry, so again no shade. Back to the song: it’s sassy, the chorus is something you don’t expect from a Fifth Harmony song, and it’s just catchy as hell.
At first, this song wasn’t a favorite; it definitely had to grow on me. After a while, it became my instant favorite off of their second installment of Future Friends. The chorus is definitely one that will get stuck in your head (I’m currently singing it as I write this), and the music video to this song will make you dance. Again, Scott & Mitch are making such great music outside of Pentatonix; some of which you don’t get to hear in mainstream music anymore. It definitely gives you a taste of what’s currently in music, and what used to be…
… Hey baby! I’ve never been in love! But I wanna be, I wanna be, so hurry up!
I don’t know if I ever mentioned this song on TNTH before, but this is notoriously my favorite song of all time because this song comes back into my life at different points in my life. This song was on Kelly Clarkson’s album, My December, and she once said that this song was written at the lowest time in her life, particularly writing this on the bathroom floor at a venue in Irvine, California during her Breakaway Tour. Since 2007, I identified with this song and it relates to a lot of moments in my life. This time, though, the song came back into my life because I stumbled upon it on Spotify under Kelly Clarkson’s artist profile, and every time I listen to this song, I end up harmonizing with it. The song is spooky enough as it is with its somber lyrics and minor chord guitar playing. Harmonizing with it just makes it ghostly.
Okay, so this song was released on the same day Fifth Harmony was released, and at first, I thought was song was completely mediocre and something that Fifth Harmony was notoriously known for: being sexy women talking about having sex. After a while, the song grew on me because it’s kind of one of those songs where the lyrics are so simplistic, you just remember them. So I can’t lie, I sing this song at the top of my lungs whenever it plays. Also, I can’t help but yell “I GOT THAT PUMPS IN THE BUMP AND YOU KNOW YOU WANNA TRY IT” whenever Dinah Jane sings it with perfect pronunciation.
Yesterday while scrolling through Facebook, I stumbled upon a post that had pictures of various women chilling with their partners eating fast food at home and watching movies together with a caption that said: “NO THIS IS NOT A DATE.”
This has been a topic that comes up a lot because of the times we live in. I will say, dating nowadays isn’t the type of dating we’re used to seeing in movies and television shows, but there really isn’t no true definition of what a date should be. There isn’t a checklist of things to do in order for something to be a date. It’s whatever you and your partner are comfortable doing, and if you guys like to stay home and watch movies and eat, then that’s how you guys date. If you guys like to go out, then that’s how you date. There isn’t a right or wrong way to date, and no, I’m not some brainwashed cheap bitch who doesn’t know my own worth.
Money doesn’t buy love, it buys a good time.
But that’s not what this post is about.
In context, I’m a woman who lets the world know that going out isn’t the easiest thing for me to do. I get really panicky when I have no guidance or control, I get stressed when I have a lot on my plate, and most importantly, my social anxiety has gotten worse as the years gone by. If you were to ask me 10 years ago if staying at home with your partner eating dinner and watching movies was considered a date, I would’ve said no too. 10 years ago, I wasn’t dealing with the type of anxiety I deal with now. Now, I understand when some girls don’t go out on formal dates with their partner. I am a woman that cannot handle social gatherings that well. Even if I’m on a date with my partner, I feel exposed. I feel like people are staring at me and judging me and my partner across the room. I feel like I got to look the part, which then makes me uncomfortable in my skin. Yeah, it’s good to go out on “traditional” dates, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t consider stay-at-home dates the real thing as well. They’re “stay-at-home dates”.
I understand that dating a woman like me; a woman with social anxiety is not an easy task for anyone. It could be a burden, it could be tiring, and while you may be a socialite, your partner may be the complete opposite. Not all women that enjoy stay-at-home dates are anxiety-ridden; some women just like to stay home more often. I am talking about a specific type of women, the type of women who are deemed as insecure and weak, andthose who are so problematic, they can’t see the hurt their partner is doing to them. I’m not saying that there is this epidemic where these specific type of women get taken advantaged of, hell I’ve been there, but for fuck’s sake, letting your partner know about your mental health isn’t a sign of weakness, nor is it an invitation to be stepped all over on.
But women don’t see the complete picture sometimes. Listen, I am all for the “see your worth, women” movement, but by doing so is also downgrading a specific type of woman. By saying “stay-at-home dates are for brainwashed women who think it’s cool to let their partner do that for them” is saying that they aren’t women who see how much they are worth. Listen, there are more ways to determine if a person respects your worth or not, and eating food at home with some movies playing doesn’t say anything about my worth.
What it says, though, is that my partner takes into consideration how I am in social settings and what makes me the calmest and most comfortable. It says that I personally don’t like my partner to spend a ton of money on me because of my own financial situation. It says that if anything goes wrong, I am in the comfort of my partner’s home and I don’t have to worry if I get an anxiety attack in the middle of the city.
In the last 8 years, there hasn’t been a problem with what we consider “dates”.
All in all, stop trying to speak for women by degrading women. We, as people, have different preferences on everything in life. If traditional dating every weekend is how you define your self-worth in a relationship, then that’s you. If traditional dating isn’t something you define your self-worth in a relationship, then that’s you. Not all women are the same, and I think we established that when the body positive movement began.
But I digress.
Tell women that their worth is a self-defined concept. Whatever determines their self-worth is on them, not over a superficial concept of traditional dating.
I normally wouldn’t spontaneously write a post complaining about something so personal to me, especially when it’s anxiety-related. I personally am one of those people who find themselves hiding their anxiety-related issues because I feel like a burden to those around me. Anxiety is one of those difficult things to explain to people who don’t normally let anxiety get to them. Everyone deals with anxiety differently, but it doesn’t mean that there’s not a single person on this planet who hasn’t felt it before. Some people just don’t understand that others find it more difficult to cope with their anxiety. I am one of those people fighting every single day to overcome my anxiety issues.
Today, I am writing this in hopes to let people who deal with this type of anxiety that it’s okay to talk about it. It needs to be talked about. I am also writing this to let the others know that these type of people exist in your world, they just hide it because they are afraid of your type of judgment.
As I mentioned way back then in my Social Anxiety post, I’ve had social anxiety for almost 10 years now. It’s one of those things I believe will never change, but it doesn’t mean that I let it ruin my life. Since I wrote that post, I’ve had help trying to cope with my social anxiety. Not only am I learning how to be comfortable in my own skin, but I also have Obie helping me find ways to cope and overcome social anxiety whenever it kicks in. But just when I thought I was becoming more fearless and braver, I found myself feeling those familiar emotions in a different way.
I found myself developing high-functioning school-related anxiety.
Credit: The Odyessy Online
Without being too repetitive of myself, I started grad school a year ago and since then, I’ve seen the ugly side of it. It’s constant reading, constant reading, constant critical thinking, and hours and hours spent doing all those things, especially when “final paper season” comes around. As the semesters went by, I started finding myself getting extremely anxious doing school work for my classes, even going as far as getting anxiety attacks the night before my class because I had to go to my class that following night. I began to cry myself to sleep because I was just so anxious having to go to my school and coming home late at night. I’ve had my family tell me countless times to talk to a professional about this newfound anxiety, but I can’t lie – I feel into the epidemic of not wanting to share my anxiety with someone else because I felt ashamed to seek help. To this day, I still do.
Prior to grad school, I never felt the type of anxiety I have for school as I do now. During my undergrad, I would have to wake up at 5:20 in the morning just to make it to school by 7. Never once was I nervous to travel in the dark on Autumn days; never once did I wake up feeling like there were bricks tied to my ankles. Now in grad school, I feel the constant anxiety bubbling up inside me whenever I have to travel across the island back to Brooklyn at 10 o’clock at night. I feel my heart beating against my chest whenever I have to wait at a bus stop for 30 minutes without anyone else waiting for it with me, especially after the time I encountered a drunk man at the bus stop one night who wouldn’t leave me alone and kept getting closer and closer to me. To this day I am scared shitless of standing at bus stops at night. Not once during undergrad did I feel like there weren’t other students and faculty members that understood what type of English student I am; I always felt welcomed in my undergrad English program. Not once did I ever feel a professor look at me and talk to me like I didn’t belong in that program. I now feel all of the above as a grad student.
My school-related anxiety is something I have to constantly fight with so that I am able to get what I need to be done. The work is unavoidable at this level. I have to get work done every single day to get myself ready for every upcoming class. I have to read entire books in a week to discuss it in class. I have to get up in front of my class and do class presentations knowing that my anxiety will be the reason I stumble on my words and stutter. I have to get shit done to earn my master’s degree, but some days are harder than others.
Today, I felt really good because I had an entire day to myself to relax. I had no lingering thoughts in the back of my head drilling me that I had work to do. After working on two very big projects this past week, I needed this day off. As a person who deals with high-functioning anxiety, I need to find ways to calm my mind before I let it get out of control. All I did today was sit back and watch videos that made me happy. Today, I realized that the way I felt today is the way I want to feel every single day. I’m mentally tired of the shit anxiety puts my mind through; I’m tired of letting it win. Most of all, I’m tired of people looking at me and my anxiety as “just another girl whining about grad school.”
But to be happy meant that I needed to admit to myself that I am dealing with such a high-functioning type of anxiety.
My anxiety matters. My anxiety is the reason why I am who I am today, and I work the way I work. I’m not proud of letting my high-functioning anxiety dictating my life; I’m ashamed, to say the least. What I do know, though, is that I’m strong enough to acknowledge that I am an anxious person, and instead of trying to erase it out of my life, I deal with it. I make sure I get all my work done days before it’s due so that the anxiety of doing things last-minute doesn’t ruin my week. I make sure that I leave for school earlier than I need to so that I am traveling to campus with people my age and not old men returning home to their wives during rush hour. I make sure I plan everything accordingly not because I’m disorganized, but because I need to keep my mind as clear and simple as possible in order to keep it stress-free.
But even after all of that, anxiety wears a thousand faces.
I know it’s something that won’t be going away until I finish grad school this upcoming Spring. I know that the work only gets harder from here. But I am coping, and I’m finding ways to not let this high-functioning anxiety get the best of me. For a year, it practically ruined my life. I let my anxiety for school open other doors, creating more opportunities for anxiety to take over me. For a year, I masked this anxiety under every little thing besides what it actually was, because I was too afraid to speak up. But I’m tired of letting it do that. I want to live a life where, yes, high-functioning anxiety will always be present in my life, but I also want to be happy for the things I can control. It’s not easy, but I know I can make it through.
Yes, I totally sang the Degrassi theme song while typing that.
All in all, anxiety matters. Acknowledge it, then fuck that bitch up.
I know my life is basically nothing but books and papers at the moment, but I wanted to stop by the blog and express this thought I’ve had on my mind for the last couple of weeks. So yes, this is going to be grad-school related.
I make it loud and clear on how much I identify as a writer. I am a writer, and I’ve been one for the last ten years. I started to take writing seriously when I was in high-school, and since then, I’ve been working on ways that I can make writing a legitimate career. Being a writer was what made me major in English both during undergrad and now in grad. I know I’m not perfect at it, but I’m learning as I go.
As an undergrad English major, you don’t get to see a complete picture of what you get yourself into. I believed at the time, the Undergraduate English Program was one of the strongest programs at my college. Entering the program again as a graduate student made me see otherwise.
Hence, the title of this post.
I am mentally tired of being a writer in an environment where it favors its readers. There’s nothing wrong being a reader, but why are the readers celebrated and the writers aren’t? As a graduate student, the MA English program at my college allows you to pick from two different concentrations: Literature, and Rhetoric/Writing Composition. Of course, I chose the latter, because I am studying to be a writer. Possibly being one of 12 students in that concentration, I am surrounded by readers in the Literature concentration. Readers who get a diverse selection of genres to read and study. If one reader is a Shakespeare lover, they have a class for that. If one reader likes 19-Century Literature, there’s a class for that. If one reader is a Multicultural Literature wizard, there are multiple classes for that.
If you’re a writer who likes to write for digital media, nothing. If you’re a writer who wants to write for business, nothing. If you are a writer interested in creative non-fiction writing, there is a class for that, but there are no professors qualified to teach it.
If you’re looking to learn how to teach writing because you’re studying to become an English teacher, then that’s right up your alley.
You’re probably asking yourself “then why did you choose to go there in the first place, Liz?” I’m not going to say I was tricked into the program, but let me ask you this: who offers a concentration with specific requirements in a graduate program that doesn’t offer any courses for that specific concentration?
My point exactly.
Being a writer in an environment where they don’t care about your needs or requirements is mind-boggling. Being a writer around other peers who are readers and don’t see your importance in the program is discouraging. Being a writer in an institution where there aren’t no qualified faculty to teach writing is limiting to its students.
Writers are just as important as the readers in the program. it’s unfair to cater to one demographic of your program when there’s two. It’s unfair that the writers in your program feel like they literally have to fight to get respect in the program. I will be the first to admit I am NOT a reader, and I honestly believe there’s more to English than literature. Yeah, it’s an important factor to the subject, and writers do need to read to become better writers, but how are you teaching me how to be a writer in the outside world? Am I going to be writing book summaries for the rest of my life? Am I going to be writing theses and essays about books as a career? You’re teaching your writers to write better, but you’re not teaching us how to become better writers. You’re teaching us how to write for your literature classes.
Many of you may not agree with what I have to say. Many of you will see this and say “Liz, you’re not right.” I’ve been told I wasn’t right by other readers. Writers? You guys know what I’m talking about.
How many of you writers are actually doing something with writing? How many of you are sitting at home, reading this, confused because you don’t know how to take your writing skills and put them out into the real world? How many of you are discouraged because you had faculty tell you that writing isn’t going to get you far in life, “you should just teach it?” I’ve felt all of these things in just the last two months alone.
Take your writers seriously, English world. Keep your writers wanting to write. Their passion, their words, and their voices matter too in your world.
Most importantly, your readers need something to read.
We live in a world where we want to believe that the world accepts the gray areas in life. While we try to create those acceptable gray areas in certain environments and issues, sometimes it just isn’t enough. There are people who are still confused about the fact that there’s more than one gender, more sexual orientations than the ones abbreviated in the LGBTQ community name.
One thing I feel like that’s still very black and white is the whole concept of masculine and feminine and what really defines these two terms. I’ve started realizing this when I cut my hair really short a couple of weeks ago. I mean this is off-topic, but I cut my hair because I did some really bad chemical damage over the summer, and I’m in the process of letting it grow out healthy. I’ve had all different lengths of hair in my life, whether it’s been really long down my back, or chin length — I’m not afraid of the big chop. This time has felt different though. Lately, I’ve been feeling like I’m not “womanly” enough because of it. On top of that, I don’t dress “girly”, so whenever I go out and see the long-haired women with girly outfits and a full face of makeup on, it does make me feel like less of a woman.
But does that really define femininity? Is femininity defined by vanity?
It’s easy to fall down the rabbit hole of insecurity when people look at you differently when you don’t fit that certain look. People don’t seem to compliment those with short hair, the opposite sex don’t really pay any mind to the girls who aren’t “girly”, and girls who don’t wear a full face of makeup every day are not considered “that pretty.” It’s a disgusting perspective on women; that they have to be delicate and girly to be considered a feminine woman, and those who aren’t are “manly” or considered “tomboys”. The type of women who seem to be celebrated is those who fit into that stereotype of femininity while the others are simply looked over.
There’s nothing wrong being a woman with long hair who’s style is girly and wears makeup. If that’s your prerogative, that’s you and there’s nothing wrong about it. What’s wrong about this entire thing is the social acceptance of being that type of woman. It’s pretty much the same thing with men: a masculine man is usually defined as one who is fit, athletic, tall, and dominant. Every man that doesn’t appear like that is usually called punks, pussies, or even gay. There’s a downside to both sides of the spectrum: attractiveness and self-esteem stems from being the role that you were “assigned” in life.
Although I identify as a cisgender woman (cisgender meaning that I identify with the sex and gender I was assigned to), I don’t think I’ll ever find myself being your typical girly or feminine like a cisgender woman. I won’t learn how to contour, conceal, highlight, do whatever to my face with makeup, I won’t choose dresses or skirts as my clothing of choice, and I don’t think I’ll ever grow out my hair to my ass. I don’t think my taste in my own look would ever fall under that umbrella of femininity, but it doesn’t mean that I’m not a feminine woman. We are in 2017, there are literally lists of people’s styles and preferences regarding sex and gender. People come in all different shapes and sizes, as well as different lifestyles and preferences. Masculinity and Femininity, to me, are very old-fashioned. While some people still use the term to describe their preferences in style, it still shouldn’t be something used to describe people as a whole.
To me, femininity is a spectrum of all different types of girls and women. We are more than just frilly pinks and glitter. We are more than just long, luscious locks. We are more than the booming makeup trends that determine your beauty. We’re versatile. We’re both girly and grunge. We’re both long and short hair. We wear makeup some days and bare face on the other. We’re confident, sexy, and beautiful in our own unique way.
Regarding posts in October, TNTH is going on a little hiatus for the month. Writing two posts a week is going to be a little bit intense in the next month due to school. I won’t be completely gone; every now and then I’ll randomly write a post for the blog, but it wouldn’t be on schedule. It will literally be a random post I publish that was written like 3 hours before only because I needed to write whatever was on my mind.
The last scheduled post that will be going up on TNTH is publishing this Saturday, October 7th.
Until then, thank you for supporting TNTH and understanding how crazy life can get through school semesters. One more semester, Liz… ONE MORE SEMESTER.
Have a great Spooktober, and I’ll see you on the next post!
This is the official 100th post of TNTH! It hasn’t even been a year since TNTH first launched; it’s crazy how time (and posts) flies.
Without making this too cheesy, I just wanted to thank everyone who stops by to read anything that’s posted on this blog. You’re not obligated to do so, but I guess there’s something on this little blog site that you wanted to read, and I thank you for even taking an interest in it. I’ve learned a lot about myself in these 100 posts. Like anything in life, you have your ups and downs, and I know that TNTH has seen some days being on hiatus or there were posts that were just written just to fit the schedule. Whatever the case was, I always come back to TNTH. TNTH has opened a new world of writing for me that I want to pursue in the future; it showed me what kind of writing I wanted to do and how to do it.
In celebration of 100 posts on TNTH, here are some posts that I had fun writing and posting on TNTH:
I just wanted to wish Happy Birthday to some important people in my life; it just so happens that their birthdays all fall in like a three-day time span.
Anyway, Happy Birthday to my closest college friend, Tori! (She’s the other bitch in the picture and by bitch I mean dog.) Her birthday was on Thursday, and even though she’s considered a Virgo-Libra cusp (cusp meaning the day of the month where some horoscopes consider that day to be the prior zodiac sign, or the next one), she’s definitely a Virgo. Besides being an English Teacher in Pennsylvania, her true talents shine through in art. Tori showcases her art on her Instagram, as well as her YouTube page currently under construction under the same name, StrangeBird Illustration. I hope you guys show her some love on her platforms and tell her Liz sent you! 😉
Happy Birthday to my older sister, Megan! Her birthday is actually tomorrow, so here’s an early birthday post! Being a younger sister, my older sister didn’t like me a lot when we were younger. We have some pretty crazy stories about our childhood we always talk about like how she threw a full soda bottle at me while I was using the bathroom, but I guess I grew on her as the years passed. Megan is my best friend; she knows everything that goes on with me whether it’s good or bad, and I’ve come to really value her as we grow older. Being each other’s only sibling, we definitely look out for each other and speak about any issues that affect us both. It’s personally been a rough year for the both of us, but whenever we get together it’s just non-stop jokes and laughter. I love you Meg, have a great birthday!
Happy Birthday to my mother! My mother’s birthday is also tomorrow, so it’s pretty cool that both my sister and mother share the same birthday. You don’t hear that happening often! I mean, what can I say about this woman? She’s taught me almost everything I know and follow as a woman myself. She’s confident, outspoken, and strong, and I strive to be everything that she is because even if things are going on with her personally, she continues to be the unbelievable funny person she is. Thank you for being an amazing mother to me and Megan; continue being the 29-year-old woman you will forever be! ❤
Happy Birthday to all the September babies out there! Go and flaunt your birthday selves! Here’s my gift to you all:
I wanted to come on the blog to inform you about Hurricane Maria and how you can help those who are and have been affected by the storm, particularly those in Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico, although a hotspot for vacationers, financially aren’t capable to repair the damage Hurricane Maria caused. As a Category 4 hurricane, Maria is the first hurricane to directly hit the island in 100 years. The island, as a whole, does not have power, which means simple survival tasks like eating and drinking clean water are slim. Because of the financial issue Puerto Rico has, there’s a possibility that the island will not have power for 6 months. It’s scary and life-altering, especially those who don’t have anywhere to go in the time of reconstruction of the island.
Most of my Puerto Rican family live on the island and have lived to see both Hurricane Irma and Maria hit them full force in a time span of two weeks. It’s absolutely heartbreaking to see and hear that the beautiful island it once was is now completely destroyed.
As Americans, we need to acknowledge that Puerto Ricans are also Americans. Please do not ignore them just because it’s not one of the 50 states. Treat this tragedy as you did when Hurricane Harvey hit Texas and when Hurricane Irma hit Florida. Puerto Rico needs the most help they need, and it’s only right to help give back and spread awareness about this.
If you or anyone you know has family or friends who live in Puerto Rico, share this post. Below are a couple of phone numbers to call if you are trying to check on anyone who is in Puerto Rico, as well as a Refinery 29 article of all the organizations and donation pages to help the Caribbean Islands get through this hard time. Below is just the couple of donors that help Puerto Rico specifically:
Puerto Rico Check-In Phone Numbers:
202-778-0710
787-777-0940
877-976-2400
Organizations & Donation Pages for Help/Hurricane Relief in Puerto Rico*:
The local nonprofit ConPRmetidos is raising money for relief to communities in Puerto Rico impacted by the hurricane.
The first lady of Puerto Rico Beatriz Rosselló and a group of companies created Unidos por Puerto Rico to help the victims of the storm.
The Hispanic Federation is raising funds to help with emergency relief in Puerto Rico.
The Puerto Rican women’s health organization Taller Salud has created a relief fund for families on the island.
*These listed above all come from the Refinery 29 article; there are more options to donate and help the other islands affected by Hurricane Maria and the ones listed above are just a few of the many pages you can visit to help and donate.
In times of need, we all need to come together. Simple as that.
Letters From Liz. 