FB Rant: My first time unfriending

I've unfriended people before, but they weren't the intentional, angry kind of unfriending. Previous occasions included more of filtering out people I knew from people I just automatically accepted because I was first getting used to Facebook when I entered high school.

This time was an emotional response to a status I highly disliked. A status that showed lack of respect for others, lack of understanding, lack of emotion, lack of soul. I never understood others for unfriending people who didn't align with their political views, but then this morning happened. And it happened like all social media does. Scrolling. I scrolled onto this person's status update. This unnamed human being saw someone's bumper sticker that read "Student loans shouldn't be a life sentence." And unnamed human being laughed, saying that nobody forces you to get student loans and that you choose to take out something you know whether or not you'll be able to pay it back. 

Right. Like the amazing catering manager from my college who was in her late 30s and just finished paying off her student loans. She had only gone to college. And two kick-butt attorneys who have had their own practice for minimum five years and have still not paid off their student loans. The President Barack Obama and his First Lady just finished paying off their student loans 8 years ago! Which according to another article I read, that means they were in their early 40s when they finished. 

Unnamed human being said he worked his way through UPS and didn't have to get loans. Well, whoop-di-doo. Good for you human. But that's your own story, you selfish SOB. I understand that it's an attempt to make an argument, but it's a weak one. Fortunately, you got a break in your own educational career.

Americans owe over $1.45 trillion in student loan debt, spread out among about 44 million borrowers. That’s about $620 billion more than the total U.S. credit card debt. In fact, the average Class of 2016 graduate has $37,172 in student loan debt, up six percent from last year. ~Student Loan Hero

If school counselors even encourage you to apply to college, they push you to get student loans. They don't even try to help look for types of scholarships.

So if you don't have a parents who support you, a wealthy background, and a school who financially advises you, and you're a bad test-taker. sorry you're out of luck? Unnamed human being said you didn't have to choose an expensive school.

There is the phrase beggars can't e choosers. But is this country a beggar's country. Did my family emigrate to the US because we knew it had no compassion and that people didn't rise to the top? No! The US is seen as the place of the underdog. 

But also, unnamed human being, who was US-raised, that's the US mentality. The US government itself is in a HUGE amount of debt. It's at $20,595,315,xxx,xxx.00 and counting. The US practically raised residents to be used to debt. They encourage debt. Saying it's for a better future. And if you try to say no when it could be better for your future, everyone looks at you crazy. I know. I tried to worked my butt off with five jobs and counting at college and wanted to work more but people "cared so much for me that they told me I should get a loan and focus on my studies." I guess I halfway agree with unnamed human being in the sense that there is a debtor's crisis in the US. But don't blame the people for what the institution has demanded. There is a problem but you're blaming the results rather than the issue. The issue is the system. Change the system rather than blabbing on with your dumb comments. 

I guess another reason why I hated this human's status even more, was because when you talk and see said person, this human being acts highly self-righteous and pretends to care about people and acts passionate about life. How can a person act so fake! 

Now now, Ivonne, this was one status. Breathe and do something productive to changed yourself for the better.

Photo by Alice Pasqual on Unsplash

Miss Manifestante...a blurb

Apparently my beautiful country Peru has gained momentum in its women's movement. The Miss Peru Pageant episode from this last Sunday has impacted the world in its powerful statements on the crimes against the women of my birth home.

The Miss Peru Pageant changed its script. When usually they go on stage and tell their body measurements, the courageous women Camila Canicoba, Luciana Fernandez, Almendra Marroquin, and the 20 other finalists spoke words of truth. Statistics that have been bubbling up inside the minds of every female in the country.

• 2,202 cases of femicide reported in the last nine years
• more than 25% of girls and teenagers are abused at school
• 81% of people who attack young girls are close to the family
• a girl dies every ten minutes due to sexual exploitation
• 65% of university women are assaulted by their ex-partners

And those are just five of the 23 finalists who presented their protest in El Theatro Municipal. They begun with this long list of information from the very beginning of the show right after their short intro dance.

"Statistics that impact, right? We don't want a country with more violence," said spokesperson Cristian Rivero. "This night isn't just a night about these 23 women. It's about all the women in our country who have a right and deserve respect. No more violence. This is the message we want to give in this Miss Peru and all of our Peru."

While I was hanging at the gym with my sister and my soulmate on Sunday morning and studying my ass off Sunday night, the other side of the pole was also kicking butt. Although I'm now slacking off and watching TV like a good American girl, at the very least my home country has inspired me to write again. But the thoughts that enter my mind include the acknowledgement that setting up the guts and procedure of how these powerful ladies were going to protest must have taken a lot of hard work. Whereas my dumb procrastination stops me from keeping consistent in my studies. 

Alas, the entire world can only keep stepping on stones of progression in freedom and equality. But Peru has made a bold statement as #2 in South America for their violence against women. Que orgullo por mi país. But this pride only endures from the acknowledgement of the statistics and stories heard. 

Family members and friends have suffered. I remember my mom and dad locking the door when male family members slept over the house because it is normal and expected that "81% of people who attack young girls are close to the family." My frustration might also peek through from the time when I got to visit Lima for a grant I wrote in college, and my family members were by my side at every step of my journey. I had wrapped my head around the idea that this would be a chance for self-discovery, emphasis on the "self." But my cousins understood that "more than 70% of the women in Peru are victims of street harassment." 

Then when I visited La Catolica and walked past Kennedy Park in Lima, small protests were sparking the fire for the movement #NiUnaMenos that were inspired by President Fujimori's forced sterilizations in a province in Cusco. 

These protests from the women of Peru and their male allies are powerful and will play a part in the change of the country. When feminism is taught in schools, professors usually mention the four waves of feminism. And while I do think these phases need to include a more global perspective or specify where these phases apply, the steps included in these waves do show a sort of parallelism to Peru. 

A first wave of suffrage applied to the women in London at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Then the second "phase began with protests against the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City in 1968 and 1969" (Four Waves of Feminism). Similar to that, el voto femenino in Peru began in 1956 and this Miss Peru Pageant might be starting its second wave of feminism in the country. 

We're still a long way away. I know of someone who recently was fired from her job in Peru because she became married and pregnant. However, the strong, intelligent women of Peru are making a stand and we're on our way to a more modern, equal home.

Us Babies

Us, the undersigned in this large-scale resistance, place the pressure on those who strike against what we believe to be basic human rights. We are a generation more connected than any other and place empathy on a pedestal. Thus emotions are on a surge. What we hold to be reason may not be so to the opposing side but it's difficult to show us past pieces of evidences due to our short time on this earth. Not an excuse. But how can you get angry at us protesting against the current president and not the previous when we had not yet learned to hold the leafs of a newspaper? Why in the world would we know something? Same as how you plead time for understanding the BLM movement, I ask your conservative generation to understand our ignorance and give us time. Our passion will take us far. We may not have protested before, but we're protesting now. Don't be so quick with judgement.

Thank you for your rapt attention.

Sincerely,

millenials

If I'm Being Honest

Truth: I don't know everything and I sometimes feel like I don't know anything.
Lie: The heart is always right.
Sometimes our heads are pulling our thoughts one way but then our hearts pull our actions the other way.  I have to apologize to many for acting on my heart when logic shows that people feel differently about different things.
Pause.
I get too big-pictured.
Let me make this clear.
I hate the idea of a wall and Trump is like the AntiChrist to me, or at least a version of Hitler. But. there is always a good and a bad to people and if we want to make something good happen where both sides are happy, or at least content and acknowledge that both sides are wrong, then we have to communicate.
I have to stop crying every time someone mentions...his...name. However, a very dear friend of mine has provided me a goal.
Pause. Getting too big-pictured again.
My friend shares media from the left and right and argues for both. She picks and chooses and says her mind. She's the most accepting woman I've met and cares for immigrant families. Yet, she shares videos explaining the logic of why excess immigration is bad.
Pause. I'm not explaining very clearly.
But the goal is...to stop beign such a baby and listen and communicate with both sides. Stop being so scared of not being liked.
I'm choosing to dislike a person but I have to at least give clear reasoning why.

This bullshit right here

Executive order no.5
 You know, just some thoughts.
People say to remember 9/11 but the same people tell us to forget slavery.
Bigotry is hatred of those practicing a different religion from one's own...?
Syria was a victim of terrorism, not a facilitator.
undue hardship is life, man.
These executive orders are so vaguely colorful, I had no clue what half of them meant. 

Write Goddamn It!

💡 1.29.17
To those who have experienced writer's block, I commend you. I just watched a movie and thought it would give me inspiration because the main character was a writer but laziness has just washed all over me. My body is neck deep in unresolved thoughts conflicting around in my tiny brain. I'm an on again off again blogger for an international student magazine my friend started and yet my last article I wrote for them was last published November 3rd. Yet one of my next articles I am supposed to write and turn in soon is on Writer's Block...my pitch, with no solution.
Thoughts? Ideas?
I'm going to publish this as it is now. And go from there. Wish me luck.

Things in My Room

💭 1.29.17

Next to the fake bird I got from my cousin's quinceñera, I have a succulent plant that's halfway dead and halfway content with my love that I binge give every once in a blue moon. Right in front of that life is a present from ex-coworkers who blessed me with a few seeds of something with only instructions of how to fall in love again with Christ. Then there was the empty tissue box that I threw away a second ago because de-cluttering is good for the soul. My lavender-vanilla sleep lotion that my mom got me for Christmas. My newly bought office supplies. My "breath of fresh air"toner water that I bought weeks ago at the LUSH store in ...St. Matthews'? OR maybe Oxmoor...
Hair products, rainbow candles that drip red and blue tears. My stack of 'thank you' cards that I haven't yet sent to all my loved ones in college. Memories of professors and old friends, new lovers and a saintly grandmother who watches me from her heavenly home. Green tea pills that are supposed to help me lose weight yet only burden me with more things to remember and I forget. Christmas presents, Winnie the Pooh chap stick, incense sticks, books and journals. Clothes in my closet and shoes on a rack. A couple bottles of mike's hard leftover from New Year's and it's January 29th. A bed. A mini money bank. This laptop. A purse. Contacts. A trashcan. Laundry used and cleaned.White, pearl earrings.
Face masks and make up remover wipes.
A painting my soul friend gave me this last Friday as a late Christmas present.
A yoga mat and jump rope.
A rock collection.
A room of one's own.