On Generalizations, Being Half Asian, and Living Where I Live

The truth is that every nationality comes with it's stereotypes
and generalizations, and so does every ethnicity (the word race is never OK, unless you are referring to the fact that we are a human race collectively). But, it's completely and totally wrong.
We should never generalize human beings, we're all so different with the thousands of thoughts that run through our heads every day, the types of things we love, and our varied pasts. Can you imagine how boring it would be if we were all the same? 

Living in Latin America and being Asian is a f-king challenge, truth be told. First of all, if you're Asian people assume you're automatically from China. Which 1. I am not and 2. I'm just half Asian anyways. I don't find it amusing when I'm walking by myself and some guy thinks it's perfectly fine to say "Hola China". Honestly? It bugs my beyond words. I also hate it when I used to go to class in college and have to deal with people asking me if I'm Chinese. COME ON. I mean, I know some people are not being mean about it but I can't help it, it will forever be a pet peeve of mine. It's not like I think there's something wrong with being Chinese, it's just that I'm not, and I don't even define myself by my ethnicity or even my nationality. 

I'm actually half Filipino half Costa Rican, how many of those do you know? There aren't that many of us and I currently don't feel either Costa Rican or Filipino. Throw rocks at me if you will, but I hate nationalism. I think it just causes problems, but that is just my personal opinion and if you think otherwise I totally respect that. Just because you were born in some country doesn't mean you're from there. Other than it being annoying there is also a serious issue with being Asian in a Latin American Country, racism. I'm pretty sure I've faced it a bunch of times and college wasn't an exception. I had a teacher (total bitch) who hated me for no specific reason and I'll forever assume that it was because I was the only Asian kid in the class. I tried to be nice to her but then I stopped. She even made me cry once. What she had for me wasn't normal hate, it was pretty passionate and obvious. I should have reported her but I didn't, so add that to my list of regrets. The truth is that I've actually had it good. My dad has told me some stories that would make your hair stand on end. At least when it comes to racism, the world has progressed, it's still there though.

The other thing about being half Asian is that I feel like I don't belong anywhere. I guess a lot of people have that problem, but mine is really an issue for me. I used to feel awful about it but I've come to accept it and try to think of it as a sort of blessing. 

If I could, I would invent a culture for people who don't belong anywhere. Who never will and never have.They would only belong there, with all the other people who don't belong anywhere. It would be a diverse country, with diverse food and emotions so strong that no one would be able to write them down. Everyone knows that the people who feel like they don't belong anywhere are too sensitive. There would be lots of mingling parties and awkward conversations, because people who don't belong anywhere are usually painfully shy like me.

Why I Believe In Feminism

People roll their eyes when I start ranting about feminism,
but I'm actually really passionate about it. I guess I started getting into it when I took a general psychology class in college. The professor was a feminist and our final projects had to do with feminism tied in with psychology. The ironic thing is I hated that class and didn't really like the professor but still, I was intrigued. I ended up taking a philosophical seminary about feminism a couple of semesters later and I loved it. We read some De Beauvoir and some Latin American feminist authors, discussed current events pertaining to what we read and wrote essays full of opinions. I ended up writing my final essay on love, from a feminist point of view, of course (I'll save that for another post). Anyways, thanks to all that reading and all that discussion I started questioning a lot of social conventions that are still present nowadays. 

Moving on, first of all I'd like to address some of the main myths that sadly still surround feminism:

1. All feminists think that women are better than men.
Nope. Something you should know is that there are different types of feminism and therefore feminists. I won't get into what they believe in or how many there are, but suffice it to say that the one I believe in strives for equality for everyone,this ideology doesn't look for someone to be better than someone else because of their sex.

2. All feminists are lesbians or straight and single because no one wants them.
I'm not going to go into depth here, because really? The truth is that we don't live in the 50's anymore and just to make things clear, I do have a boyfriend and a lot of feminists also have boyfriends/husbands/girlfriends. 

3. If you're a feminist you can't be girly.
Come on. I think Zooey Deschanel couldn't have summed it up better when she said: "I’m just being myself. There is not an ounce of me that believes any of that crap that they say. We can’t be feminine and be feminists and be successful? I want to be a f–king feminist and wear a f–king Peter Pan collar. So f–king what?". I feel exactly the same. Let's just say I own close to 90 dresses.

So, why do I believe in feminism? I believe in it because I believe in equality. I think women are just as good as men and that we have a right to make decisions about our bodies. I don't think that rape is okay and I also don't think it's ok that when women go out men think it's perfectly normal to shout inappropriate things at them about their appearance. Objectifying someone is never acceptable and women have to deal with that all the time. People tend to think that we don't need feminism anymore because nowadays women can vote, go to school and work, but we still need it desperately. We're going to need it until women get paid just as well as men for the same job, until abortion is legal in every country (the truth is it HAPPENS either legally or illegally and thousands of women die every day because it's not done safely), and until every country punishes rape properly. 

I believe in feminism because I don't think it's right that toys for little girls have to do with housework and cooking, that ads on TV are so sexist that when they're supposed to be for women they advertise things like rice cookers. Yes, the world has come a long way, but when it comes to equality despite your sex, there's still a very long way to go.

Song of the Week: All I Want-Kodaline

This song is one of my favorites because:

1. It's so simple but so beautiful in 

a completely melancholic way

2. It's perfect. The lyrics, the music, everything.

3. The music video is so cute and yes, it's made me cry haha.

Why Being A Cancer Survivor Is Hard

Once upon a time, I used to be bald and bloated because of steroids and chemo. I wore hats all the time and spent a lot of time in the hospital. I met a lot of kids who probably aren't alive anymore. I was 10 when they diagnosed me with ALL. This year I'm going to turn 21 and it's also the year I'm officially considered a cancer survivor. 

My story goes something like this:
My dad went on a backpacking trip through Central America with a friend and when he came back he had chicken pox. I was in the 4th or 5th grade I think. I got chicken pox and so did my sister but the difference was that I almost died. In the end, my organs weren't working properly and I was in critical condition at the national children's hospital. The doctors told my parents to tell me goodbye because I was dying, but miraculously I survived. When I got home a giant teddy bear was waiting for me because I'd asked for one (I still have it!), and my parents decided to take me on a trip. I chose Disney World. I still wasn't 100% OK and had anemia, so I was getting regular blood tests and check-ups all the time. I had the time of my life in Disney World but had strange bruises all over and weird fevers while we were there. When we got back home I had another blood test and that's when I found out I had cancer, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia to be exact.

They have no idea what causes cancer exactly, but in my case at least I think it was partly genetic, because my great aunt died of leukemia when she was a child. My parents still have some theories about it which include some new telephone cables or something like that, that were being set up around where we lived when I was sick. But, moving on, I was being treated here but I didn't respond like the doctor's wanted me to. So, the second part of my cancer story started, we packed some things and left for CA as soon as we could and that was where I spent the rest of my life as a cancer kid.

I actually did amazingly well while I was in CA. It wasn't all unicorns and butterflies, but I barely had to have blood transfusions and I didn't really spend that much time at the hospital compared to others. Of course, chemo sucks a lot. My veins were all burned and useless, I didn't have hair and I was nauseated and weak a lot of the time. I had extra chemo pumped into my system, because of the resistance I'd had but I did pretty OK.  My main doctor (Dr.Torno) was amazing and I loved most of the nurses. The clinic had free books and stuffed animals and was completely different from here. Also, I didn't miss a single grade in school, although I basically skipped 6th grade since I was too sick to go at that time. I had an awesome time in middle school and graduated from 8th grade while I was in CA. As soon as I finished treatment we came back here.

I was miserable in high school because I missed my old life and because I had expectations about everything that didn't come true. I've now come to realize how utterly idiotic that was, but at the time I was just some moody emo music loving kid. It's been a while now, and I'm someone completely different, physically and emotionally. I started growing out my hair and I haven't stopped since. It's up to my waist already and I'm not planning on cutting it anytime soon. Chemo made me appreciate my hair like you have no idea. So to all those people that moan about bad hair days, embrace them, they're way better than being bald. I also don't look like a puffer fish anymore. I have some health problems because of the chemo and the steroids but it's nothing too serious and I'm lucky. LUCKY. Do you have any idea how much of a burden being lucky is?

That is why it's so hard to be a cancer survivor. Everyone says you're a walking and talking miracle and you know it's kind of true. Somehow, for some reason, you beat all the odds. So, what does that mean? Why did YOU get to live and not all those other kids? What is so damn special about you that you're breathing right now? Survivor's guilt will eat at you every day no matter what you do. You start to think that there must be a reason why you're still alive but you haven't found it yet and that is really hard. People expect you to become a doctor because doctors saved your life, but unfortunately you're not cut out for that. So, you think of something else you'd like to do that might help people, but there's nothing you like, and you end up choosing a major that you ultimately drop out of because you hate it after a year and a half. Then, you realize you haven't been doing anything for anybody and that there's no reason why you're still here, so you start to panic and hate yourself. You go on this one month life changing trip to Nicaragua where you volunteer at a girls' home and you fall in love with actually making a difference and with the people you're working with. You feel useful for once in your life but it's not enough because it's over now and the pressure to be something is still there and it'll never go away because somehow you're still alive and all the other ones aren't. So yeah, that's why.

Book Review: Going Bovine-Libba Bray

I'd had this book on my To Read List since forever.

I finally downloaded it on my Kindle a couple of days ago

and proceeded to devour it in about 36 hours (or less I can't remember). It took me a while to get hooked but then I couldn't stop reading. At first I found myself hating the main character
but then I warmed up to him. 

So, basically the book is about an angry and friendless 16-year-old named Cameron who somehow gets mad cow disease (hence the title Going Bovine). Cameron likes  to smoke weed and pretty much hates everything else. He has a twin sister who's the opposite of him: popular and "perfect", and his parents don't have a stable marriage. It all starts like your typical YA book but Bray ends up masterfully weaving a modern Alice in Wonderlandish tale that is well worth the read. Suffice it to say, the plot involves a dwarf, a talking gnome, an angel with pink hair and snow globes. If that doesn't catch your attention then I don't know what will.

Notable Quotes:

"I just don't think happiness is a sustainable state. You can't have it all the time. That much happiness makes people unhappy. And they start looking for trouble. They start looking for the next think that's going to make them happy, a happiness fix"

"The only thing that makes sense in this world is the random"

"What does all that matter if we cannot stop the one injustice of life: everything within us is born to live, and yet, we die. And what we love can be taken from us in the blink of an eye"

"You exist. The question is, did you live?"

"Who but the mad would choose to keep on living? In the end, aren't we all just a little crazy?"