January 2012
“You choose what to think about. And you may not feel that way every day, but the truth is, that you choose what you think about. It’s one of the few things that you can choose and it is—it’s kind of the definition, I think, of being a person. It’s that you have this weird gift of consciousness and you get to choose how you direct that gift. Like, how you direct your ability to think about things. So, if you choose to think about the relative health of the romantic relationships of The Situation, you’re making that choice. MTV is not making that choice for you, The Situation is not making that choice for you, you are making that choice. If you choose to think about astrophysics, you are making that choice. Every second of your definitionally temporary consciousness, you are choosing how you spend something that will not last forever. You are choosing how you spend your life, and it will be spent. And that’s a very serious thing that you have to try to take pretty seriously, even though, of course, much of our lives—because consciousness is kind of a burden—needs to be spent turning that off, which is, you know, why God made television. But we have this responsibility to ourselves, to each other, but also to the people who came before us and the people who will come after us, to think consciously about what we’re thinking about. And that was, in some ways the beginning of The Fault in Our Stars for me, was trying to think about, what I should be thinking about. Trying to think how I should be orienting my life, what should I value, what should I prioritize. And I grew up—and so did most of you—I think, in a world that values a very specific kind of heroism. The kind where you jump on a grenade to save your buddy, or you die heroically because your family says that you can’t marry the girl you want to marry, and you’re fourteen and somehow you think that’s a deal breaker?—which is the plot of Romeo and Juliet, I ruined it for some of you, sorry; I should have prefaced that with a spoiler alert, but if you haven’t read Romeo and Juliet, that’s your fault—or in another of our great epics of heroism, The Odyssey—which I’m also about to spoil for you, but it’s a good reading experience, regardless. There’s this dude, his name’s Odysseus, he does some good warring, top-notch warring, and it takes him a long time to get home, because a bunch of stuff happens, and then he finally gets home and his wife has a bunch of suitors, and the correct response to that situation is to be like, ‘Hey! I was gone for a long time, and there’s no text messaging, you didn’t know I was okay, like of course there’s a bunch of suitors living here, that’s cool, but suitors it’s time to head on out and, you know, find someone else’s house to occupy.’ And instead, what happens is that the palace floors course with blood, and that is your happily-ever-after ending. And Augustus Waters in this novel really buys into that idea of heroism, that idea that the best lives are lived on the biggest possible stage, and that the best lives are lived with an eye toward the grand heroic gesture, whether it be sacrificial or otherwise. That, like, the good life, by definition, is the big life. Well, I’m here to tell you that even the biggest lives are temporary, including the life of Odysseus, including the life of Romeo and Juliet, because, you know, we’re temporary. And if that’s the only way that we orient our lives, if that’s the only thing that we value, we’re doing ourselves, I think, a great disservice. So, I wanted to write The Fault in Our Stars because I wanted to write a story that was about the kind of small heroism that almost all of us are going to have to choose; very few of us will have the opportunity to jump on a grenade and save many, many people. The vast majority of us will have to find tiny ways to take care of ourselves and each other in the best ways that we can figure out how to do. And that’s really what The Fault in Our Stars is about, ultimately. It’s about these two kids and their parents trying to figure out how to take good care of each other and trying to figure out how to leave the best possible world for those who will come after, and also live a life that honors those who have come before.”
—John Green, on The Fault in Our Stars at the Tour de Nerdfighting Event in Austin, Texas (21 January 2012)
“To protest a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, Virginia State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) on Monday attached an amendment that would require men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication.”
—
Huff Po (via rachelfershleiser)
This is the most beautiful thing. Can we send her flowers?
(via jaimealyse)
I will actually send her flowers like for real, I am on 1800 flowers RIGHT NOW because this is truly beautiful and probably actually a bit necessary?
(via homoviper)
oh man, let’s, she deserves them
(via partysoft)
oh my god what a wonderful person
(via brogigayo)
Metro Government Considers Temporary Occupy Permit to Allow Camping - WFPL →
wfpl.org
From the Article:
Louisville Metro Government will likely approve a new permit that continues to allow Occupy Louisville demonstrators to remain at Founder’s Square for another three months.
The city is working out the details this week, said Jim Mims, director of Codes and Regulations.
This is the sort of thing that blossoms from taking a conservative city to court!
I’m glad to hear it! Especially since Occupy Pittsburgh has been in the courts for the past few weeks trying to maintain a hold of their campsite.
Also: ordered Paper Towns, by John Green.
After hearing all the hoopla for The Fault in Our Stars in the Nerdfighter community here, I decided to start somewhere earlier in the Green canon.
Thank you, Amazon. I shall see you in a few days, Book.
In other words, Senior Thesis, I challenge you to a duel for my interest.
Reactivated Fanfiction.net account! →
fanfiction.net
So…basically I’m going crazy, and have come out of my hiatus of writing/publishing fanfiction. Here’s the link to my profile. Tell your friends. Read. Review.
Hunger Games, y’all. Three chapters up, and I’m working on the fourth/fifth. (I divide them up after I write for a couple days.)
Hunger Games Fic: Part Five.
My stylist’s name is Valencia. A top-heavy woman with bouncing brown curls piled high around her head, the makeup she applies makes her eyes seem to appear out of clusters of stars. Her skin is the loveliest shade of ivory I’ve ever seen on someone. So many people back home have been burned or maimed in the factories that almost noone is scar-less.
“Although most boys figure out how to bring themselves to orgasm by age thirteen, half of girls don’t have their first orgasms until their late teens, twenties, or beyond. Teenage girls widely agree that they get the message loud and clear that masturbation is something boys do, but girls don’t, can’t, or shouldn’t. The cultural focus on intercourse tells young women to expect they’ll begin to experience sexual pleasure once they have sex with a man (whether or not they’re even interested in sex with men). Nearly all teen boys, on the other hand, experience sexual pleasure long before they get their hands—or other body parts—into a partner’s pants. Despite the massive advances in women’s equality, young women’s sexuality is stuck in a surprising paradox. Young women are sold provocative clothes but aren’t taught where to find their own clitoris. Many girls give their boyfriends oral sex, but are too uncomfortable with their own bodies to allow the guys to return the favor. It’s still a radical act to say that women need and deserve access to information about their own sexual pleasure—not just about the risks and negative consequences of sex.”
—Dorian Solot, I Love Female Orgasm: An Extraordinary Orgasm Guide. (via wewantrevolutiongirlstylenow)
Have been up for 14 hours... Must be up for the next 12.
Caffeine, you are my best friend.
Also- Hayley and I are hypothetically engaged. To be hypothetically married.
Truth.
We’re awesome.
I’d put up a picture of us, but I haven’t Hayley’s permission, and seeing as it’s 6.26 and 32 seconds AM, I’m not going to text and ask.
So instead, here you go! I totally found in through google image search…
CLEARLY, I’m the one with pigtails, since Hayley’s got mad curly hair…
Although I’m pretty sure she’d never be caught dead in a belly shirt… Or with a lollipop.
You heard it there first. I am hypothetically engaged to thespiders. This is an artistic rendering of our engagement photo. It was taken outside of Hogwarts, thus the magically curtailed shirt caused by a backfiring trim spell (I had a stray thread, okay?!)
Also, we were lucky enough to run into Firenze, who gave me a lollipop in solemn commemoration of the joyous—though human—event. Notice how swirly it is, like the “vast heavens that teem and spin above us”.
Or something like that. Horseboy is a little out there.
Could be doing homework.
Just lurking around thehungergames tag and writing more fanfiction.
Is it weird that I feel more creative than I have in months.
Hunger Games Fanfiction! Part Four.
[I had a choice of whether to finish my homework, or do this. Guess which I chose?]
A rectangle of mottled light plays across my bed. The train has been moving westward all afternoon and into the night, and the trees that grow in stretches alongside the track fascinate me. I hold out my hand, and watch the shadows of leaves against moonlight speckle my fingers. I’d never seen a tree before we began speeding toward the Capitol.
